38
MAKING A MOUNTAIN
OUT OF MURIEL
Acar pulled up alongside Lily one day as she was
walking home from school. She flicked a sidewise glance toward the
street as Crawford was lowering the red Honda Fit’s passenger side
window. “Want a ride?”
Her pulse jumped, and it was only with
enormous effort that she forced herself to shake her head. Coming
back to Austin, she’d made two resolutions: One, she wouldn’t fight
with Jordan. Two, she was not going to pine after Crawford. The
second had proved a little easier than the first because she hadn’t
really spoken to Crawford since school had started. Now that he had
his car, he was a lot more popular.
“No, thanks.” She forced a pleasant
smile and kept going. “I don’t mind walking.”
“C’mon, Lily,” he said. “You’ve never
even ridden in my new car.”
“I know.”
He puttered alongside her. “I’m going
home too, and it would be pretty stupid for me to keep inching
along this way for fifteen blocks. . . .”
She stopped. How could she say no again
without sounding like a pill? Besides, pining was an emotional
thing, while riding in a car was just a physical act. She could
handle it. Without an actual verbal assent, she turned, pulled open
the car door, and slid into the passenger seat.
The car, only a month old, still
smelled new. “People must be paying you a lot to mow their yards,”
she said.
Crawford ducked his head and
accelerated. She’d almost forgotten how his shorn-off curls looked
this close up, and how green his eyes were. “My dad paid for most
of it,” he admitted, glancing at her. “Think I’m
spoiled?”
She shrugged.
“I’m getting a weekend job to pay for
gas and insurance and stuff, though.”
“It’s none of my business,” she
said.
“I know—but for some reason I can’t
stand the idea that you would think I didn’t deserve something that
I got.”
“Why?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I always
get this feeling you’re judging me.”
“Well, I’m not. Why would I? I hardly
have had time to think about you at all, I’ve been so busy. In
fact, you can just drop me off here. I’m going to take a bus to the
library downtown.”
“I could drive you there,” he
suggested.
She lifted her chin. “Thanks anyway.
I’d rather walk.”
He looked almost hurt as he stopped.
“Well, okay. See you around.”
After she got out, he faced forward and
sped off without another word. Lily felt a knot in her chest as he
turned at the intersection and disappeared. Riding in cars might
just be physical, but it could jump-start pining faster than
anything.
“Where’s Dad?” Lily asked Dominic later
that evening, at home.
“I think he’s next door.”
“At the professor’s house?” Lily asked,
surprised. He never went over there.
“No, I think he’s over at Muriel
Blainey’s.”
She dropped into a chair in
exasperation. “I need him to sign my permission slip for our band
trip.”
“I’ve got to talk to him, too,” Dominic
said.
“About what?”
“Professor Oliver wants to know if I
can take Iago. For good.”
“What?”
“He’s going to move to an old folks’
home. He’s selling the house and everything. Didn’t you see the
sign in their yard?”
No, she hadn’t. That’s what came of
being distracted by love. “Why would he move? He’s got
Grace.”
“I don’t get it, either. But he’s
going, and he can’t take Iago with him, so he wants to know if I’ll
adopt him.”
“Dad’ll let you—don’t
worry.”
“But doesn’t it seem weird, taking
Professor Oliver’s dog away from him?”
“He’s giving him to you.”
“I still feel weird.”
Jordan banged through the front door.
“There’s a For Sale sign in the yard next door!”
Lily, still stinging from not having
noticed that sign herself, brought Jordan up to speed.
“This is screwed up,” Jordan said.
“Grace moved all the way down here to take care of her dad, didn’t
she? What’s she supposed to do now?”
Lily crossed her arms. “Since when have
you ever cared about the professor or Grace?”
Jordan dropped into a chair and dangled
her boot-clad legs over the arm. “Since never. It just seems
screwed up, that’s all.” She looked toward their dad’s study door,
which was open. “Where’s Dad?”
“He went next door,” Lily
said.
“Oh—then he’ll probably be able to give
us all the poop on what’s going on.”
“The other next
door,” Dominic clarified. “Muriel Blainey’s. I’m waiting to talk to
him about adopting the professor’s dog.”
“And I’m waiting for him to come back
so he’ll sign a permission slip,” Lily added.
Jordan gaped at Lily as if she were
nuts. “Why don’t you just forge his signature?”
“It’s for a band trip to San Antonio.
He’s got to sign it. Otherwise he’ll wonder what happened to me
when I disappear one day.”
“You think?” Jordan asked.
Dominic laughed. “What if we all
disappeared? Do you think he’d notice that?”
“What’s he doing over there?” Lily wondered.
“Muriel came over and said she was
having computer problems,” Dominic explained. “She wanted him to
come take a look.”
“Poor Dad.”
“She really needs to get a new
computer,” Dominic said. “She was always having trouble with it
this summer too.”
Lily found her gaze seeking Jordan’s,
which reflected the same jolt of foreboding that she
felt.
“And did Dad go over and help her?”
Jordan asked casually.
“Sometimes.”
Dominic noticed Lily and Jordan
exchanging glances again. “What?”
“Nothing,” Jordan said quickly.
“Mountains out of molehills, probably.”
This made their brother all the more
worried. “You could at least tell me what the molehill
is.”
“Muriel Blainey,” Lily told him. “And
Dad.”
Dominic rolled his eyes. “She just
needs Dad’s help with her computer because he knows all about that
stuff and Muriel’s husband’s not around anymore. I think they’re
divorced now.”
Jordan groaned just as the front door
opened and their dad came in, humming. “Oh—here you all are!” He
balanced a cellophane-wrapped plate in his hand, waiter-style,
which he then put down in the center of the coffee table. “Muriel
sent these over for you all. Wasn’t that nice of her?”
The three of them stared at the cookies
as if they were radioactive.
“They’re chocolate chip,” he said, his
smile fading at their reaction. “She made them especially for you
guys. She was thinking we could all get together sometime, for
dinner or . . .” As he noticed their decided lack of interest, his
voice petered out. “. . . or a movie?”
“It’s a really busy time right now,”
Jordan said.
“What movie?” Dominic asked, before
Lily kicked him. He let out a sharp ow in
surprise, then piped up, “Not that I have time to watch movies.
There’s so much homework in seventh
grade.”
Ray frowned, puzzled. “Even on
weekends?”
“Seventh grade is that make-or-break
year, Dad,” Lily said.
His eyes widened. “Well . . . it was
just a suggestion. Muriel’s all alone now, you know.”
Jordan sent him a flat gaze. “Yeah, we
know.”
“I feel sort of sorry for her.” Their
father continued into his office and shut the door.
Lily forgot all about getting him to
sign her permission slip, and Jordan looked lost in thought, too.
Although not so lost that she didn’t spot Dominic’s hand reaching
for the cookie plate.
“Nickel, if you eat even a bite of
those cookies, we’ll never speak to you again.”
It took a moment for Lily to absorb the
idea that she was the other part of Jordan’s we. It took another moment of shock for her to
agree.
“They’re chocolate chip,” Dominic
argued.
“They’re poison,” Lily told
him.
“Y’all are crazy!”
“Are we?” Lily asked him. “When was the
last time you heard Dad hum?”
Dominic thought for a moment, moaning
as the truth finally sank in. He collapsed against his chair back.
“Muriel Blainey? This can’t be happening.”
Jordan drummed her fingers on the
armrest. “It might not be. Yet.”
“If he had to like a neighbor,” Dominic
said, “why couldn’t he like Grace?”
Gloom settled over the
room.
Jordan swung her feet back to the floor
and sat up straight. “We have to do something, guys.”
“What can we do?” Lily asked. “They’re
all adults. We can’t tell them not to . . .” Lily couldn’t even
bring herself to think the words fall in
love, much less say them. Not when she was thinking of
Muriel Blainey.
What a disaster.
“This is the deal, guys,” Jordan said.
“Muriel Blainey as a stepmom? We have to think positive. We
will find a way to stop this from
happening.”
Lily scrunched her lips. She never
thought she’d see the day when she’d be accepting words of wisdom
from Jordan.
Frighteningly, that day had
come.