He grins at me, triumphant. “I love it when she messes up.”
“Why’s it saying the printer’s offline?” Luna calls after a minute, close to tears. “We’re doomed.”
Aisling grabs a donut from Morgan’s box as he returns, then tries to help her mom figure out how to make the printer cooperate. None of us are able to get a hold of Zelda, a night owl who doesn’t get out of bed until nine. She’s going to be apoplectic when she hears she missed this news. “Can I come with you guys?” Aisling asks.
“Nice try.” I tousle her hair. “Go to school so you can learn something.”
She keels over and dies, emotionally. “I hate school. They force us to do labor all day, which we don’t even get paid for. It should be illegal. If I come watch you negotiate a business deal, isn’t that valuable real-world experience? Someday I’ll inherit this store and run it into the ground because I won’t have practice talking about loans.”
“You’ve already missed seven days this year,” her mom says. “If you get braces, you’ll probably miss chunks of school all the time for orthodontist appointments. Can’t let you take fun days anymore.”
Aisling growls. Luna let her play hooky once in fourth gradeto go to the movies, then once again in fifth grade to attend aTributalesconvention. Luna cited them as “fun days” that were necessary for the well-being of preadolescent youths, and Aisling asks every single morning for another one.
Aisling sighs. “Guess I’ll be sad forever.”
“Go be sad while you brush your hair,” Luna replies indifferently. “I shouldn’t have to remind you to do that.”
Aisling makes her dismay known by clamping her donut between her teeth and walking on her hands and knees toward the stairs, as slowly as possible.
“I’ll take you to dance in a fairy ring under a full moon this summer, if you’re good for the rest of the month,” I tell her as she drags by.
She tosses her head. “Mrffmrfppph mphhhhhhff.”
I remove the donut. “No talking with your mouth full. You could accidentally set a curse on someone.”
“Don’t tell Mom.” She licks her lips to get the chocolate icing off. “But I just remembered I have homework due today. Can I still dance in a fairy ring under the full moon? Oh please oh please oh please?”
I spear my fingers through my hair. “Ash! You didn’t tell me that. I didn’t hear it.”
“Can I finish your coffee?”
She has a lot of nerve to ask for my coffee when she’s wearing my shirt, again, without permission, and it’s stained from the last time she snuck my coffee and spilled it on herself. “You had all weekend! Did you really forget, or did you just put it off?”
She doesn’t respond for a full five seconds. “I forgot that I put it off.”
Luna’s head pokes around the stairway. “What did I hear?”
Aisling bolts to the top of the steps with a shriek.
“You’re helping your aunt weed her garden tonight!” Luna yells up. “From now on, you’re doing your homework as soon as you get home from school. No more waiting until after you’vewound down.”
Aisling emits horse noises.
I turn to Luna. “How dare you suggest that my garden has weeds.” Then I laugh at her frenzied expression. “What’s it like to raise a little me?” Aisling certainly does not take after Luna, who has Oldest Child embedded in her DNA and spent her youth pleasing adults by anticipating and diffusing conflict. When she waslittlelittle, our parents found this behavior a nuisance. They’d yell at her for inserting herself in other people’s squabbles, so she’d hide in her room crying, not knowing what to do. But by the time I was around ten, she’d gotten so masterful at concealing her fear and anxiety that my parents began to depend on her to be the peacemaker between them, between Zelda and me if we were spatting, between a neighbor dog and our own—whoever.
Luna paces. “She’s such a smart kid! She reads about ten books a week! If she’d just pay attention in school, she might find that she actually enjoys learning.”
“Luna, haven’t you learned anything from television? Cool kids don’t pay attention.”
She snatches a rubber band off a stack of to-be-mailed parcels, then snaps it at me.
“Ha-ha. You missed.”
She doesn’t miss the next time, and my arm’s still smarting when Aisling leaves for school. I weave together crowns of silver dollar eucalyptus, bay laurel, and heather for us—then a couple peonies for good measure. We need all the luck we can get. “You think I should change my clothes?” Luna muses, pullingat her cropped tank. Luna likes to wear shirts that display the stretch marks on her hips, which she says are self-grown tattoos that chose their own pattern. Hers resemble palm leaves, symbolizing victory.
“You look like a goddess.”
“Correct, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
