“I wasn’t even here Thursday night,” Eli says. “I was at — I wasn’t here, I don’t know what she’s talking about…”
I pick up the book on Thailand, curious. It opens to a page about how to haggle in marketplaces, and idly, I flip through it a little.
Some of the pages are flagged. Some have notes in them in Eli’s handwriting, and the page on the best time of year to go has both.
So does the page on living in Thailand as an expat. According to a quick scan, it’s affordable, the quality of life is decent, and the rest of Asia is a short flight away.
I put the book back. I’m not doing myself any favors, snooping through his stuff and reminding myself that while he traveled the world and went to Thailand and China and Egypt, I was here. This bookshelf is a list of places that are all probably a hundred times more interesting than Sprucevale.
I wonder when he’ll realize that.
“Then use another knife,” Eli is saying, still shouting down the stairs. “That’s not — you did what?”
“She said it’s not whipping,” Rusty’s voice says.
“We don’t even — you know what, hold on, I’m coming down,” Eli says, then turns to me. I tear my gaze away from the bookshelf, away from the thought that sooner or later, he’s going to realize the mistake he’s made coming back here.
“Sorry,” he says. “I gotta head back down, I think my mom is trying to make whipped cream with half and half.”
“That’s not how you do it?” I ask.
“Not you, too,” he says, opening the door. He puts his hand on the small of my back as I leave, descending the stairs in front of him.
“I don’t know how to make whipped cream,” I say. I force the books and the doubt to the back of my mind. “As far as I’m concerned, it comes in a tub from the grocery store.”
Eli laughs.
“That’s Cool Whip, and you’ve just committed heresy,” he says. “Come on.”Chapter Thirty-SevenEli“Careful,” I say, offering Violet my hand. She takes it, holding onto the window frame with the other, ducking under the panes and stepping carefully onto the roof.
“This’ll hold?” she asks, looking down at our feet in the dark.
“It’s a roof.”
“I wouldn’t go on my roof,” she says.
I keep her hand in mine and lead her up to the ridge of the roof, to the spot with the best view. The trees out here are too thick to see most of the sky, but we can see a little.
We lay down, the shingles still warm from the day, my arm under her head.
“This where you came to drink and smoke pot in high school?” she asks.
“You know I wasn’t that cool,” I say.
“Yeah, I do,” she agrees, her voice lazy. “Not that I can talk.”
“I came up here to read,” I say. “It felt like the only time that I could get some time and space to myself, though I finally got busted when I left The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy up here, it got rained on, and Levi found it.”
“Was he coming up here to smoke pot?” she asks.
“More likely than me,” I admit. “But I think he just liked the quiet, too.”
We’re both silent for a long moment, savoring it. The noise of people in the house below is vague buzz, voices occasionally breaking through.
This feels like a small miracle: that Violet came at all, that my brothers didn’t frighten her off before we even ate, that she’s managed to hold her own against them and even impress Rusty with her esoteric knowledge of deep-sea fish. I love my family, but they can be a lot sometimes.
Plus, I’m fairly certain that not one of them has cornered Violet and asked her probing questions about the nature of our relationship. I have no idea why they care so much whether I call her my girlfriend or not, especially since I don’t even care that much.
We have a lot of sex. We spend time together. Sometimes we go to restaurants in other towns, where no one knows who we are. Right now we’re cuddling on a rooftop, away from the eyes of my nosy brothers.
Who cares what we call it?
I don’t. Really, I don’t.
Violet points up, toward the stars glimmering beyond the leaf canopy, her head turning against my shoulder.
“Is that one Orion?”
“Orion’s not up there,” I tell her.
“That’s the belt.”
“That’s just three stars, they’re not even in the same constellation,” I tell her. “Those two are in Draco,” I say, pointing, “and that one’s in Hercules.”
Violet sighs.
“Fine,” she says.
“Orion’s a winter constellation,” I tell her.
“What’s that one?” she asks, pointing.
I have no idea what she’s pointing at, so I just start naming constellations.
“That right there,” I say, waving my finger at the sky, “is Cygnus, the swan —”