“It’s just funny hearing a dude . . . I don’t know, gush over terrarium patterns.”
He shrugs. “Hey man, everybody’s got their thing. Where’d your moms get this? These be costing a fortune online.”
“I made it.”
“Ha! For real? Look at you with the skills, Cali.”
A nickname. Something blooms inside my chest and I rip it at the root.
“So, been working with your uncle for a while, huh?”
“Since I was a kid. He’s more into the lawn care, weed whacking stuff. I’m the gardener. The artist.”
“I used to have a garden,” I mumble, surprised I’d blurt out something so . . . personal.
“Really. Well, maybe we can work on a new one together.” He smiles. “You know I got all the right tools.”
Cocky, arrogant, and knows he’s good-looking . . . the exact thing I don’t need right now. I yank the ice pack from his hand.
“Um, yeah, think it’s time for you to go.”
He laughs. “Chill! I was just messing with you!”
I cross my arms. “Shouldn’t you go see if your uncle needs your help or something?”
Yusef’s face falls as he weighs his options, whether to push it or let it go. He chooses the latter, shaking his head before brushing by me. The back door closes and I take a deep breath.
Don’t overthink it, I coach myself, patting both my pockets. He’s not worth the trouble and . . . hey, where’s my phone?
If there was a positive of once having bedbugs, it’s that I now can literally find a needle in a haystack with razor-sharp precision. I retrace my steps in the foyer, through the living room and kitchen. Must have fallen in all the commotion, but the floor is clear, the counters and surfaces bare. With no Wi-Fi, I can’t use the Find My Phone app on my computer, but perhaps I can call myself with Mom’s phone. That’s if she has even a bar of service.
“Mom! Can I borrow your phone?” I ask from the deck. “I can’t find mine.”
“Sure, hun, it’s in my room.”
Yusef eyes me and I rush back inside.
Don’t overthink it. You’re not responsible for other people’s emotions. Only your own.
At the stairs, my phone waits for me, lying neatly faceup on the middle of the third step, as if it planted itself there. I scratch my scalp, digging a bit too hard. It wasn’t here. I know it wasn’t here because I looked. I couldn’t possibly miss this huge white dot on a slab of oak wood. Someone must have put it here.
Sammy. It had to be.
Three
“FIRST FULL DAY in the big city and you get your ass whooped.”
“Shut up, Sammy,” I laugh.
Sammy splashes me with water as I dry off our dinner plates. If we were back home, I would’ve skipped dinner, headed down the road to Tamara’s, hit a blunt, and recounted my run-in with Yusef. If we had Wi-Fi I would’ve at least FaceTimed her.
“Guys, you know we have a dishwasher, right?” Alec says, pointing to the machine by my legs.
“Oh right. I forgot,” I say with a shrug. “We’ve never had a dishwasher before.”
“And it’s much more fun washing them together,” Sammy says, splashing water again.
Piper looks on from the dining table, her face unreadable. Probably trying to find something to end our revelry. It’s like she’s allergic to happiness.
“Hey, hey, guys! Watch the floors!” Mom warns. “All right, I’m off to bed. My back is killing me.”
Alec rounds the table and massages her shoulders.
“You guys gonna be all right without me tomorrow?” Alec quips, kissing the top of her head.
“We were fine without you today when you sent stranger-danger here to knock out my sister and poison me.”
Alec and Mom hit Sammy with the same look, before Mom pats Alec’s hand.
“We’ll be fine, babe. Don’t worry about us. Tomorrow is a big day!”
When Mom was first accepted to the residency, Alec wasn’t too pleased with the idea of moving. Money was tight and he had trouble finding work around town after my . . . incident. But then the Sterling Foundation hooked him up with a financial analyst position at one of their partner firms. He was full steam ahead after that.
“Daddy, can you read me a bedtime story?” Piper asks eagerly.
“How about you read me one instead, huh? Starting fifth grade soon!”
Piper winces a smile. She’s not excited about starting school either. Something, for once, we have in common.
“Oh babe, have you seen my watch?” Alec asks. “I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Did you look in the tray in the bathroom?”
“Nothing there. Weird, I just had it.”
Alec takes Piper to bed and Mom heads to her office, leaving Sammy and me to finish the kitchen. I stare into the hallway mirror at a welt the size of a large fist on my cheek and the bags under my eyes. This place has aged me overnight.
“Ew, Marigold!” Sammy wrinkles his nose.
“What?”
“You farted,” he gags, covering his mouth.
“No I didn’t!” I sniff the air and reel back. “Ugh, what the hell is that!”
The pungent stench makes it seem like we’re living inside a porta potty. Pinching noses, we walk around in circles until Sammy stops at a vent, right below the hallway mirror under the stairs.
“It’s coming from in there.”
The next morning, Mr. Watson sniffs from a safe distance, then shakes his head.
“I don’t smell anything.”
It’s not his lack of interest. It’s the way he won’t even go near the vent that makes me glance up from my coffee. Even Piper, swinging her legs on the stool at the kitchen island, slurping up her Honey Nut Cheerios, seems curious.
“Are you sure?” Mom asks, perplexed. “The kids said they smelled something.”
“Could’ve just been passing.”
“So random animals roll through here and fart often,” Sammy chuckles. “Bud’s farts are lethal but nothing like that. It smelled like something died in here.”
Mr. Watson stiffens. It’s slight but noticeable.
Mom wipes her hand on a dish towel. “It must have come from the basement. Should we check?”
There’s a few silent seconds before Mr. Watson says, “We don’t go to the basement.”
It came out hard, violent even. Mom gapes at him. He tips his hat and quickly walks away.
Sammy nods his head. “Well, that went well.”
CLICK!
With a loud snap, the TV is on, volume set to a thousand. An image of an old white man in a blue suit sitting at a mahogany desk fades in, the city’s unmistakable skyline in the green screen background as he shouts.
“And so I say to you, cast the wickedness out of your heart for the good of thy neighbor, cleanse thy soul with fire!”
“Who’s that?” Sammy asks, drifting into the family room.
The cable guy pops up from behind the TV stand, dusting off his hands.
“That’s Scott Clark,” he says, wrapping a cord around his arm. “He gives the daily sermon on local channel twelve.”