Call the Shots (15 page)

“T
HESE ARE DELICIOUS
, Mrs. Moss,” I lie, cutting a tiny corner off one of the foot-size raviolis.

Evelyn’s stick-thin bug-eyed mom smiles as she chews. “I’m so glad you like them.”

I don’t know if homemade pasta is supposed to taste this gummy and doughy, but somehow I doubt it. I stare down at the mountain range of raviolis Evelyn has heaped onto my plate and wonder how in the heck I am ever going to plow through them all.

“There’s plenty more where that came from,” Mrs. Moss adds.

“Oh. I think I’m good for now.” I shift in my seat at the kitchen table, supremely aware of the tiny scratchy tag at the back of my boxer shorts.

“You have any brothers or sisters, Sean?” Nick asks, refilling his water glass.

“Twin sister,” I say. “Not identical. Obviously.” I laugh awkwardly but no one else even cracks a smile. “Oh, and, um, actually, it looks like I’m going to have another brother or sister in a few months. My mom’s pregnant,” I explain.

“Ohhhh, a little bundle of joy,” Mrs. Moss coos. “You must be so excited.”

“Mmm.” I force a smile. “Yeah. Really thrilled.”

Evelyn stares at me. “You didn’t tell me that, Sean. I guess you forgot to mention it.”

Uh-oh. Here we go again.

“Yeah. No. I mean . . .” I shift in my chair again. “We just found out. Today.” The lies just keep flopping from my mouth. “So . . . That’s why, you know, I’m telling you now.”

“So you haven’t told Matt or Coop yet?” she asks, all fake-casual. “Or Valerie and Helen?”

“What? Um. No.” My dang underwear tag is slicing my lower back to bits. “When would I have done that?” Oh, God, I better text them all before she tries to verify this.

“Oh. Okay.” Evelyn pats my arm. “Well, then, congratulations.”

I start breathing again, my clenched-up shoulders relaxing.

We sit in silence for a bit. All the sounds of dinner — the clinking utensils, the slurping of water, the smacky chewing that must be a Moss family trait — seem intensely loud to me.

“So,” Nick finally says, “tell me something. You have a test today?”

At first I’m not sure who he’s talking to, since he seems to be focused on his third helping of ravioli. But then I realize that Evelyn and her mom are looking at me expectantly.

“A test?” I ask, confused.

“Yeah.” He lifts his chin at me. “The writing on your hand. Is that some kind of . . . crib sheet? You’re not a cheater are you, Sean?”

My entire body flushes hot and cold. I grip my left hand tightly around my fork so that nobody can read the breakup notes.

“No,” I say, my voice cracking. “It’s not . . . No . . . It’s private . . . notes for stuff . . .”

Nick narrows his eyes. “You’re not being honest with us, Sean. As a SEAL, I’m trained to tell when someone is being deceptive.”

“What?” I say, clearing my throat. “I’m not . . . being deceptive. Why would I be deceptive?” I reach up and pretend to scratch my nose with my right hand, hoping to take a quick, reassuring sniff of my palm.

“Right there.” Nick slaps the table. “You see that? Scratching his nose. Clearing his throat. Using
my
words to answer the question. It’s textbook dishonesty.”

“Just because I had an itchy nose?” I drop my hand, suddenly hyper-aware of all my movements. “That’s ridiculous.”

Nick glares at me. “We don’t like cheaters in this family. And we like liars even less.”

“That’s enough, Nick,” Mrs. Moss says. “He said it was private.”

“Private stuff you write in a diary.” Nick leans forward, staring at me. “Crib notes you write on your hand.”

“I wasn’t cheating on a test,” I say, clenching my left fist. “If you really want to know, this is . . . advice my friends gave to me on how to deal with a very personal situation. Okay?”

The silence stretches on for eternity, my eyes darting around for an escape route. I am seriously debating bolting from the table and taking my chances out on the streets. Surely one of their neighbors would call the cops and report the sounds of a scrawny tenth-grader being beaten to death by a jacked Navy SEAL?

Nick suddenly bursts out in a loud cackle. “Buddy. Guy. Relax. I’m just yankin’ your chain. No need to get all bent out of shape. I don’t care what you’ve got scribbled on your hand.”

Now Evelyn’s cracking up too. “Sorry, sweetie. It’s Nick’s sense of humor. He likes to make people uncomfortable. Sometimes
I
don’t even know when he’s kidding.”

“Oh,” I say, my hunched-up shoulders relaxing a bit. “Yeah. Okay. Funny.”

Nick points his knife at me. “Seriously, though. I meant what I said about liars and cheats. We don’t tolerate that in this family.”

“Jeez, Nick,” Evelyn says. “Leave him alone already.”

“What?” Nick shrugs. “This is important. You don’t want to date a guy and then find out he’s just like Dad.”

“Nicky, please,” Mrs. Moss says. “Can we have one meal where we don’t bring up your deadbeat father?”

Oh, thank Gandalf, the spotlight’s off me. I grab my cup of water with my left hand, hoping the beads of sweat on the glass will smear the ink on my palm.

“I
didn’t
bring him up,” Nick barks. “I was just making an analogy.” He eviscerates one of the gigantic raviolis with his knife, spilling the spinach and cheese filling like entrails. “But since we’re already talking about him, I might as well tell you, I think I’ve found a lead.”

A lead? What the heck is he talking about?

Evelyn must be picking up on my confusion, because she reaches out and touches my forearm. “It’s like I told you. Our dad walked out on us three years ago.”

“He didn’t
walk
out,” Nick spits. “He left us for another family. A Post-it note on the fridge and that was that. Never heard from him again. No cards at Christmas, not a penny of child support.” He leans over his plate, gesturing wildly with his fork. “How the
hell
is my mother supposed to support a family on a cashier’s salary? You want to tell me that?”

I’m not sure if I’m supposed to answer this question or not, so I just gulp.

“She
can’t.
That’s how,” Nick continues. “So she gets a second job. And she goes with less so that Evelyn and me can have more.” He turns to Mrs. Moss and motions toward her plate. “Eat, Ma. Eat. You’re wasting away.”

“Okay, Nick.” Mrs. Moss twists her lips into a partial smile. “I’ll eat. But can we just drop it now?”

“No! We can’t drop it. I’ll never drop it. Not until I find him.”

Evelyn looks at me. “Nick’s been trying to track down our dad for the last five months.”

“Asshole’s hiding out somewhere.” Nick shakes his head. “Every time I think I’ve got him, the trail goes cold. But I’ll smoke him out eventually.”

“Smo — Smoke him out?” I blink. “Wha — What for?”

“Pfff.” Nick lets out a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe jog his memory a little.” He makes a gun with his finger and shoots me with it. “Remind him of his responsibilities.”

Mrs. Moss sighs. “Now, Nicky. Let’s not get crazy.”

Nick slams his hand down on the table, sending all of our plates and utensils jumping. “Don’t you stand up for him! He broke your heart and tossed it out like a used Kleenex. And I’m supposed to stand by and let him get away with it? No. He owes us. Family sticks up for family!”

“Okay, okay.” A weary Mrs. Moss holds up her hands. “It’s just that I don’t think Sean needs to hear about all of our dirty laundry.”

“Yeah, well.” Nick wafts his utensils in the air. “He’s going to hear about it eventually. I mean”— he stares at me across the table —“if he’s planning on sticking around. You
are
planning on sticking around, aren’t you? You’re not the love-’em-and-leave type, are you, Sean?”

I grip the edge of the table, feeling a little woozy. “I . . . uh . . . I . . . uh —”

“Of course he’s going to stick around.” Evelyn beams at me. “Right, Sean?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Absolutely.”

Nick winks at me. “Good answer. Anything else and I might have had to kill you.”

I think I might hurl.

Nick laughs. “Look at that face! This guy’s too easy. I’m just tuggin’ your tamale.”

“Yeah. No. I knew that,” I say, trying to force air into my constricted lungs.

Nick laughs again as he shoves a big forkful of ravioli into his mouth. “I like this guy,” he says, chewing. “He’s a good sport. Hey, how about after dinner you come up to my room and I’ll show you some of my SEAL stuff? If you’re good, I’ll even let you hold my heater. You ever handle a real gun before? Nothing in the world like it, I’m telling you.”

“I
’M TOTALLY SERIOUS,”
I say to Matt and Coop. “Her brother is tracking down their deadbeat dad using his Navy SEAL skills. He’s got an entire
WarGames
setup in his bedroom. Files, maps, video monitors. He showed me the whole thing. It’s insane.”

The three of us are setting up my family room for our casting session. We’ve corralled all of my pets into the other rooms, and now we’re busy putting out snacks and drinks, picking up stray tufts of dog, cat, and ferret hair, and moving furniture around to create an audition space. Luckily, the house is all ours today. Cathy’s working this afternoon, and I managed to convince Mom and Dad to go baby-clothes shopping by telling them we needed privacy to rehearse some stuff for Drama.

“That’s fucked up, dawg,” Coop says, unwrapping Twinkies and Ding Dongs and laying them out neatly on a plate. “The SEALS are like the ninjas of the military.”

Matt lines up cans of soda on the coffee table. “What’s he gonna do when he finds him?”

“He’s a
Navy SEAL,
Matt,” Coop says. “They’re trained in torture. They like to hook guys’ meats up to car batteries and then douse them with water.” He grabs a Twinkie at one end and shakes it until it crumbles apart.

“Oh, God,” I say, my own junk turtling up inside me.

“And that’s not even the worst part,” Coop continues. “They’ll also tie a dude’s hands to the arms of a chair and drive bamboo splints under his fingernails. Then they’ll punch holes in his eyelids so he can never really close them. After that, they’ll put a scorpion-filled potato sack over his head so that the bugs can sting the shit out of his eyeballs.”

“Jesus Christ, would you shut the hell up?” My stomach bucks and lurches.

“What?” Coop shrugs. “I’m just trying to let you know what you’re up against.”

“I
know
what I’m up against, thank you very much.” I pour some Cool Ranch Doritos into a plastic bowl. “The guy’s a complete psycho. He showed me his gun, for shit’s sake.”

“Really?” Coop waggles his eyebrows. “Flashed you the old pants pistol, did he?”

“A
real
gun, douche bag. He took the clip out, handed it to me, and made me aim it at the eighty-by-ten of his father that he has tacked up on a dartboard.”

“Sweet,” Coop says. “I’ve always wanted to hold a real gun. How’d it feel?”

“How did it
feel
?” I can still sense the heft of the pistol in the palm of my hand. “Like he was sending me a message: ‘Stay with Evelyn and we’re bosom brothers. But break up with her and all bets are off.’”

Coop shrugs. “Personally, I think everything happens for a reason.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” I say.

“It
means
that if you broke up with Evelyn, then we wouldn’t have use of her super-chillicious video camera. And then we’d have to blow Unc’s entire grand on equipment instead of splashing all that cash up on the screen. Think of it as an opportunity presented. You play house with Evelyn for a couple of months while we make a kick-ass movie. Then, when we’re all done, we figure out a way to get
her
to break up with
you.
It shouldn’t be too hard. What’d you do to make Tianna dump your sorry ass?”

I glare at him but otherwise ignore his comment. “There’s one other thing,” I confess. “She wants to be in the film. And not just a cameo. She wants to be the lead.”

Coop lip-farts. “Fine with me. If girlie wants to run around all topless, her chesticles splattered in fake blood, being chased everywhere by vampanzees, far be it from me to stop her. It’s one less warm body we need to recruit.”

“I seriously doubt she’s going to agree to do nudity,” I say.

“Please.” Coop smirks. “Leave the directing to me.” He turns the soda cans around, reading the labels. “Hey, didn’t you get anything diet?”

Matt shrugs. “The girls’ll just have to make do.”

“Not for the babes, doinkle,” Coop says. “For me.”

Matt laughs. “Since when do you drink diet?”

“Since we decided to become multimillionaire moviemakers. Cameras add ten pounds, dawg. Everyone knows that. I don’t want be on the cover of the
National Enquirer
as a ‘Cellulite Nightmare’ or a ‘Sloppy Celebrity.’” Coop reaches into his backpack and takes out a pink bottle of something. “Good thing I brought along my own sensible shake.”

“So, what, you’ve joined”— Matt tilts his head to read the label —“
Sally Gregg
? A little girly don’tcha think?”

“This from the talking vagina,” Coop says. “If you must know, I borrowed this from Angela.” He waves the shake in Matt’s face. “She’s paying for the diet program. I’m just benefiting from it.” He turns and narrows his eyes at me. “Because
I
know how to take advantage of an opportunity when I see it. Which is what all the most successful people do.” He uncaps the drink with a loud
pop.