Casey Barnes Eponymous (17 page)

“This is tripped out,” Casey said.

A moment passed.

“Someday you’re not going to always have a comeback.”

Casey looked at him.
 
“Will that be a good thing?”

“I think so.” He paused.
 
“Your brother’s coming soon.”

He walked past her, back over to the fence, and led the way
back to his house.

23

When Casey and Yull arrived home they got Leigh out of her
hiding place.
 
Then, despite Yull’s
strenuous objections, Casey and Leigh insisted on making brownies.

“Mom’s totally gonna know something’s up,” Yull said, “You’ve
never even made those cookies where all you have to do it cut them out from the
pre-made roll.”

“Don’t you have to go find a cure for cancer or something?”
Casey asked.

On the other side of the kitchen, Leigh took a bowl of melted
chocolate out of the microwave and dumped it into a mixing bowl.
 

“I just had the best idea!” Casey said, “We should add pot to
our brownies.
 
Your parents would A)
be more chill under the influence, B) realize they’re being a couple of
hard-asses suffering negative long-term effects of too much scented candle
inhalation, and C) like it and realize that their daughter trying it was
perhaps a good thing.”

“Have you tried pot, Casey?” Yull asked.

Casey knew he was thinking she’d probably tried it during her
now defunct tryst with Alex Deal.
 
Yes, ‘tryst.’
 
Playlist for a
tryst: “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star, “One” by U2, “Shatter” by Liz Phair.
 
Trysts could end suddenly. And then
start again.
 
“Oh course I have,”
she said.
 
She had not.

“Bong or joint?” he asked.

“Both.”

“Well I simply had no idea you had that much experience.”

“Go be a productive member of society, will you?” she snapped,
“and while you’re at it find us some pot.”

The doorbell rang.
 
Leigh dove under the counter.
 
“You get it!” Casey hissed at Yull.
 

He walked out of the room and then called out, “Relax it’s Clayton
Gould.” A moment later the two of them appeared in the kitchen.
 

“What’s all this about Leigh going rogue?” Clayton Gould
asked.
 

“Her parents threatened to send her to boarding school for one
misdemeanor,” Casey said, “and unless we can brainwash them with pot brownies
she’s going to be living in our basement from now on.”

Clayton Gould turned to Yull.
 
“I assume you’ve pointed out not only
the powerful stupidity but also tremendous irony of this idea?”
 
Yull threw his hands up in the air and
left the room.
 
“The presence of a
refugee in the Barnes household is not the sole purpose for my visit,” Clayton
Gould continued.
 

“Is that so?” Casey asked.
 

“Yull tells me you’ve started a rock band and are planning on
auditioning for talent show.
 
Is
this true, young Barnes?”

She nodded.
 
“And
you thought you’d never see the day.”
 

“I thought nothing of the sort,” he said, “and I am not so
indebted to the tradition of inter-peer taunting that I will forgo the
opportunity to say congratulations.”

Yull reappeared in the kitchen holding a bag of pot.
 

“Why dear brother,” Casey said, “Is that…?”
 

Clayton Gould moved close to Yull and smelled it.
 
“It most certainly is.”

“And there you were, playing it all high and mighty,” Casey said.
 

“You smoke pot?” Leigh asked.
 

Yull shook his head.
 
“The weed ain’t mine.”
 
Clayton
Gould and Leigh looked at Casey.
 

“Don’t look at me!” she said, “So what are you saying, bro, the
pot belongs to Trish?”
 

Yull shook his head.
 
“Nope.”
 

Casey’s mouth fell open.
 
“Jimbo?”
 
Yull nodded.
 

Leigh shook her head in disbelief.
 
“That’s your step dad’s pot?”

Jim was a lawyer who had been married to Tricia for two
years.
 
When the family had dinner
together he remained neutral on whatever it was Casey, Yull and Tricia tended
to be going back and forth about.
 
He reserved his passion for talk of work, golf, and the stock
market.
 
Jim as stoner was not
something that would have occurred to Casey in her wildest dreams.
 

“We’re all waiting for an explanation here,” Clayton Gould
said.

Yull put the pot down on the table.
 
“One night last summer when Tricia was
away for work I was supposed to be at the Kennedy Center.
 
But I got sick and came home early.
 
When I got here I found Jim on the back
porch smoking a doobie.”

Casey, Clayton Gould, and Leigh’s mouths fell open
simultaneously.
 

“You are so dead for never sharing this information with me
prior to this moment,” Casey said.

“He told me he only smokes every few months, and I believed
him.
 
If it were any more we
would’ve known.
 
I saw no need to
get you of all people involved and the only reason I took it out just now was
for comic effect.
 
And--”

But before Yull could finish that thought, which presumably was
that the pot was now going back in its hiding place, Casey, in one swift movement,
grabbed the bag and poured some into the brownie batter.
 

Leigh gasped, Clayton Gould said, “Oh dear,” and Yull yelled
“Freak!” as he snatched the pot back from her.
 
But Casey grabbed the bowl, as well as a
spoon, held it away from him, and beat the mixture with fury.

“Casey!” Leigh said.

“Next up, your mother introduces a candle that emanates eau du
weed,” Casey said.
 
She ran away
from Yull, who was now chasing her, took the cup of milk Leigh had previously
measured out, dumped it in, and kept beating.
 
Yull again charged her and she tossed
the bowl to Leigh.

For another few minutes Casey and Leigh poured ingredients in
and mixed while simultaneously playing keep away from Yull.
 
All were treated to a running commentary
courtesy of Clayton Gould.
 
Then
Casey dumped the batter into a pan while Leigh held Yull at bay, threw the
brownies into the oven, and slammed it shut with a bang.
 

“Set the timer on your watch to twenty minutes!” she barked to
Leigh.
 
She then stood sentry in
front of the oven door with her arms crossed over her chest.
 

Yull backed away from Leigh and tossed his hands in the
air.
 
“I’ve spent enough time
putting energy your way.
 
I have
homework to do.
 
And for the record
I will in no way, shape, or form bail you out when you take the fall for this.”

Over family dinner two hours later, Tricia was curious about
the bake sale for which Casey claimed the brownies were created.
 
They had been spirited away in
aluminum-foiled safety to the bottom of her backpack, but the smell of baked
goods by way of a girl who could barely boil water brought out the hound dog in
Tricia.

“Tell me again, Casey, why the talent show committee decided to
have a bake sale.”

Trish’s voice was not lacking in irony.
 
Old Lady Barnes could be weird like
that.
 
Just when you thought her to
be completely devoid of humor she would whip it out, but so fast and
card-trick-like that by the time you realized it happened it was already back
in the deck.
 

“Let’s just say they did, Tricia.”

Before Tricia could respond, the doorbell rang.
 

“Anyone expecting a guest?” Tricia asked as she got up.
 
Heads shook.
 
A moment later, Tricia reappeared in the
dining room with Mrs. Robinson.
  

“Come here, Casey,” Tricia said.

She got up from the table and went over to them.
 
“Have you had any luck locating Leigh,
Mrs. Robinson?
 
I’d sure hate to see
her face end up on the side of a milk carton.
 
And I bet she’d hate it even more.
 
Though if it does come to that point,
might I recommend you use her school photo from last year and not the one she
just took?”

Tricia’s mouth hardened.
 
“Please take this seriously.
 
Leigh has been missing for a day now.”

“Taking it seriously is precisely what I’m doing.
 
Leigh’s eyes are half-closed in her
picture this year.
 
Not only that
but in her pic from last year she still had her summer tan and bore a striking
resemblance to Christie Brinkley in the Billy Joel era.”
 

“Casey,” Tricia warned.

Mrs. Robinson folded her arms over her chest.
 
“No I have not.
 
And I came over to ask you face to face
if you have any idea where she is.”

“Nope.”

After dinner Casey checked on Leigh in her basement hiding
place.
 
She made sure she was
well-stocked with snacks and magazines and then went upstairs before Tricia got
suspicious.
 
When she got back up,
she told Tricia she was going to do some homework.
 
And then Tricia got suspicious.

“Really?
 
For what
class?”

“Math.”

“Mind showing me when you’re done?”

“Yes.”

“Excuse me?”

“I do mind because I can’t.
 
My math teacher has a policy about
showing parents homework when we’re done.
 
She says it’s tantamount to getting our parents to do it for us.”

“I’ll give her a call tomorrow to confirm that.”

“Your trust in my word is really good for my self-esteem,
Trish.”

Casey slammed the door shut, turned her computer on, and opened
a chat with Sukh and Ben about band names.
 
Sukh suggested Sonic Overdrive, which Casey thought sounded too much
like Sonic Youth.
 
Ben suggested
Spazz. Casey said that in the interest of Ben’s drumming career, she would not
read too much into that one.
 
Casey
suggested Pop Rocks, like the candy.
 

It’s got two meanings and all the best band
names have two meanings.
 
There’s
even a word for it that my over-programmed mind is blanking on at the moment.

Double entendre,
Ben fired back,
though I’m not sure that phrase has ever been applied to ‘pop rocks’
before.
 

Suck chimed in next.
 
Wire rock.

Casey frowned.
 
Sounds like a science experiment.
 
But as soon as she hit the return button, another idea came
to her.
 
She typed it in so she
could see what it looked like in print.
 
Sure enough, it was even better.

POP WIRE

She hit the return button.
 
A few seconds went by.
 
There
was a response from Sukh.
 
I like this very much Casey.