AJ
“Hey,Sandy,”I say as soon as the call to my oldest sister connects.
“Hello, Abraham.”
“Harsh,” I complain, though I have a smile on my face. I really don’t like it when anyone calls me by my given name, but since she’s the oldest she gets a pass—along with Mom cause she gave me the name or whatever. Not Dad or Julie, though. Dad can call me Jacob when he’s mad at me, and Julie only AJ or little shit if she’s feeling adventurous.
“What’s harsh is the noogie I’m going to give you when you get here next week.”
“You’re so mean,” I complain.
“That’s my job and my right.”
I snort at her haughty tone.
“I guess it is. Anyway I was just calling to ask if you, Big T, and the kiddos will be home when I’m there, but I guess you will be?”
“We’ll go for a week or so. Not long, since you know the kids have to go to school and because some people actually have real jobs and real lives.”
“Ihave a real job,” I complain. “And my life is very real, thank you very much.”
“Your life is the opposite of real, Abraham.”
“My life is awesome actually.”
“Yeah? Are you feeling better than last week?”
“Tons better,” I confirm. “I let myself be sad for a few days and then I had to help the other guys not feel so shitty about the loss, so I’m almost at seventy percent goodness now.”
“I’m glad to hear it, AJ.” And I can hear the amusement in her voice, so I decide I better get to it if I don’t want to start getting bullied again.
“So, I need some advice, and before you start—” I cut her off because I just know how she’s going to go nuts. “This is really the most top-secret thing I’ve ever told you, okay? You can’t tell anyone, because I don’t think I’m going to tell anyone else.”
“Well, now I really am intrigued.”
“I knew you would be. Okay.” I go through the chain of events, without giving her the details of what Cam went through in high school, and then I come to my current dilemma. “So, I’m going over to his house in a little bit so we can call his mom and tell her we’re dating. I know shealready likes me, I’ve met her a few times when she’s come here to visit Cam, but I want her to not be concerned about this, if you know what I mean? I don’t want to hurt her when we do the wholebreakupthing at the end of the summer.”
Sandy is like me in many ways. She can get easily distracted too, unless she’s working on one of her paintings, and I know she had a real hard time before meeting her husband’s family. Mostly because the only reason she even met Troy is because the dumbass got on a bus to Lincoln Illinois instead of Lincoln Nebraska when she was coming back home after a weekend trip to Kansas City.
It was love at first sight for both of them, and thankfully, once they got to know her, Troy’s family quickly learned to love her weird ways too.
So I know that if anyone can help me get this call with Rosa to go perfectly, it’s going to be her.
Her long silence doesn’t bode well for me... or maybe it does. She could be just processing and then she’s going to get to the important stuff. I can hope.
“I think I’m going to need the not-condensed version of how all this happened when you get here, but for now the best advice I can give is to take your cues from Cam, and just be yourself. Don’t tell an outright lie, except for thewe’retogetherthing.”
“How can I not lie?” I demand. “Everything is a lie.”
“No, you just told me about the damn social media posts, so do stuff like that. You say you think Cam’s a great person and that you’re lucky to have him, but don’ttell her you’re in love with him, want to marry him, or have his babies, you know what I mean?”
“Huh.” Who knew she was this smart?
I obviously did, sinceI’msmart enough to have come to her for advice.
“So is that all?” Her hard pivot has me frowning.
“Yeah,” I say slowly, dragging out the word a bit. “You in a hurry or something?”
