“Dottie,” I said.
“You seem like you’re upset.”
“No, no.”
Bobby waited until the tines of my fork scraped the plate again.Then he said, “Really?Because you just inhaled that slice of pie.”
“It’s a cake, technically.”
And I cut myself a second slice.
When I straightened up, Bobby was standing next to me, and he took the plate from me.I made an admittedly unattractive noise about that, and Bobby’s eyes got really wide.Apparently, in the name of caution, he took the fork from me too.
“Why don’t we slow down on the cake?”he said.“Dash, what’s going on?”
“Nothing,” I said.“I just needed some brain food.To, uh, think.With my brain.”
Bobby could have a remarkably expressive way of looking unexpressive.
“I don’t know,” I said.“It’s just—”She ruined everything.That’s what I wanted to say.I’d had the whole night planned out—a perfect evening with Bobby, just the two of us.And while we were, technically, only friends, things had been…changing.It was hard to put my finger on what, exactly.We spent time together, but we’d always spent time together.We talked, but from the very beginning, we’d always been able to talk.It was something else.A vibration in my chest, like someone had plucked a string and the note went on and on, until sometimes it hurt to sit close to him.A gloss on everything, making the world brighter, until sometimes he was so beautiful that I had to force myself to look at something else.Most of all, a current rushing back and forth between us, just below the surface, that made me feel like the next word, the next move, the next touch might make both of us slip, and then we’d—
What?
I didn’t know.That was the whole problem.
Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to find out tonight, because Dottie was here.
Someone else might have been curious about why their sister had showed up unexpectedly on their doorstep when, the last thing they knew, she was on the other side of the planet.But that person hadn’t spent the last twenty-seven years of their life living with Dorothy Dane.Althoughliving withwas a pretty broad term, since she’d spent most of the last ten years couch surfing.
“You haven’t talked much about your sister,” Bobby said.“Is there a problem?”
And that was such a very Bobby question that it knocked off some of the shock.“No, God.Dottie’s great.She’s just…Dottie.”The look on Bobby’s face told me that wasn’t particularly helpful.“Okay, you know how some people—they just live to make their parents mad?”
“She doesn’t get along with your parents?”
“No, that’s the whole problem.Everything Dottie does, she does to drive them crazy.And it never works.They’re always impressed.They’re always thrilled.They’re always so proud of her.I swear to God, one time Dottie called my mom and told her she’d burned down her house, gotten arrested for arson, and been expelled from UCLA, and my mom talked about it for a year.I mean, she told everyone she knew.She framed a newspaper article about it.”
“Uh.”
“Actually, in hindsight,” I said, “they were probably a little disappointed that Ididn’tmurder Vivienne.”
“About that arson charge—”
“Oh, she was doing performance art, something like that.Bobby, it’s insane.She got into Berkeley.She dropped out of Berkeley.She did an apprenticeship as a tattoo artist.Then she did an apprenticeship as a pipefitter.She wrote this book of poetry that won just about every award a new poet can win, and then she did a follow-up performance where she burned every copy she could buy in a bonfire.She participated in not one but two military coups, don’t ask where, and I swear to God, my parents don’t believe me, but I think she did some sort of undercover work for the CIA.And when she’s not doing any of that, she’s backpacking in Asia or South America or Europe—I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to get to the North Pole next year.”
The thrum of the wind against the house filled the silence.And then Bobby said, “She sounds like a lot.”
That made me laugh.“That’s one way of putting it.”I rubbed my face.“I’m so sorry, Bobby.I know how weird this is.”
“Is she going to burn down the house?”
“What?God, no.I mean, I hope not.”
“Does she have any contraband?”
“No, she doesn’t use drugs.”
“Okay, then I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”
