His hair was dark and longer than it had been when we were kids, and he looked sort of like some of the surfers that Drew and his brother, Kane, hung out with on weekends, strands of hair tucked behind his ear. His face was the same, just bigger, and his gaze was intense.
Creeping across the floor (and feeling like a stalker), I managed to turn off the light switch before tiptoeing back over to the window. My room was totally dark so there was no way Oliver could see me, but I hunched down below the windowsill, anyway. I felt like a hippopotamus in one of those nature documentaries, when they’re submerged in water and you can only see their eyes.
Oliver was watching a movie. That’s what had his attention. It was projected from his laptop onto a white sheet that he had taped up over his bookshelf, the same bookshelf that Maureen had dusted for ten years. It was something older, maybe from the sixties, with dramatic music that floated out even through his closed window. Whatever it was, Oliver was entranced. I probably could have been standing inside his room and he wouldn’t have noticed me, but I stayed hidden, anyway.
Suddenly, the space that had always been between us felt too big. For the first time in ten years, I could see Oliver right in front of me, but he was still much too far away.
CHAPTER FIVE
Oliver’s first day of school didn’t go well.
My day didn’t start off great, either. First thing, my mom cornered me in the kitchen. I was shoveling Frosted Flakes into my face while reading the back of the cereal box. (Those mazes are getting more and more difficult, I swear.)
“So,” my mom said in a way that made me look up from the box with my eyebrows already raised. “Oliver’s going to start school today.”
“Today?” I repeated. “But it’s raining out.”
What does that have to do with anything? I immediately thought, just as my mom said, “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know, shouldn’t it be sunny? Rain on your first day is not a good omen. These are not good omen skies.”
My mom eyed me. “Have you been drinking coffee again?”
I had. She wasn’t supposed to know about that.
“So it’s Oliver’s first day,” I prompted her, ignoring the question. “And?”
“And it would be nice if you were nice to him.”
“I thought we were giving him space. And if we’re not, why wouldn’t I be nice?” Then I added, “I’m very nice. I’m nice to everyone who deserves my niceness.”
“I just mean that I’m sure it won’t be an easy transition for him.”
“So be nice, but don’t tell him that I’m being nice?”
“Emmy. He’s probably nervous.”
“He should be,” I muttered. Oliver was pretty much starting off his first day of public high school as a quasi celebrity. And to attract that kind of attention in high school often meant disaster.
“What?” my mom asked.
“Nothing,” I muttered.
“Well, I know that Maureen is just a wreck. She’s convinced that Keith is just going to show up on campus and spirit him away again. I’ve told her that’s not going to happen and Oliver needs to go to school, get back into the routine of things, but you know Maureen.”
I wondered if my mom even realized I was still in the room.
“Anyway,” she suddenly said. “You’ll be nice to Oliver.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, I’ll be very nice to Oliver. Do you want me to carry his books for him? Open his juice at snack time?”
My mom tried to swat me with the dish towel, but I was already dumping my bowl in the sink and dodging away from her. “Oh, you missed!” I cried. “Too bad, so sad! And you should be nice to me. Take your own advice!”
“Drive safely!” she called after me. I could tell she was trying not to laugh. “Have a glorious day at school! There, are you happy?”
“Elated,” I yelled back. “Bye!”
Outside, I fired up my car and let it run for a minute while I got situated and threw my bag into the backseat. It was actually a minivan, a bright-blue used one that my parents had gotten me for my seventeenth birthday, sort of the sad twin to Drew’s spectacular VW. “For being such a perfect daughter!” my mom had said, which made me feel a little guilty about the fact that I was using the thing to sneak around, surfing. “Don’t you want something a bit . . . sportier?” my dad had asked when we were at the lot. But I had done my homework. I knew that my surfboard would fit perfectly in that car. And I had been right.
The rain was falling harder now, smearing dirt and sand and salt into rivulets that blocked my view. I turned on the windshield wipers a few times, then rolled down my front windows so I could at least see out of them.
In the next driveway over, Oliver was doing the same thing from the passenger seat of his mom’s car.
Our eyes met as his mom started the engine. She was talking to Oliver while putting on lipstick in the rearview mirror, her eyes steady even as her hand shook a little bit. I couldn’t hear everything that she was saying, but a few words stuck out: positive attitude, give it a chance, have to try.
My mom probably helped her write that motivational speech.
Oliver was still looking back at me, both of us not moving to roll the windows back up. He looked bleary-eyed and tired, like me. I wondered if he needed coffee. Does he even drink coffee?
Maureen rolled her lipstick back down, tucking it into her purse before frowning into the mirror and fluffing her hair. (The rain wasn’t doing anyone any favors, hair-wise.) Oliver hadn’t looked away yet. He was inscrutable, just like those age-progression pictures of him on the missing children databases. I couldn’t read his face at all and it was . . . weird.