The Promise of Amazing (7 page)

She shook her head. “The best thing you could do is get away from here. Sure, go study business, or hospitality, or whatever you want, but
do not
plan on staying to run the Camelot. It’s a sinking ship, Wren.”

All I’d wanted was a little spark of support. A
Hey, that’s not a bad idea, Wren!
Now the thought seemed ridiculous.

“Yeah, because getting away from here has worked so well for you,” I said, patting her tummy.

She put her hand over mine, her eyes serious again.

“So you’ll support me on this? I just need to know you have my back, in case, well, in case it all goes really bad.”

Brooke had never spoken to me quite like this. And I’d never seen her this unsure. I was usually the one going to her for help or just basking in her enchanting Brookeness.

“How is it going to go bad? It’s not like they can ground you,” I said. “And they love Pete.”

“I know, I just . . . their support means a lot. Yours too, squirt,” she said, tucking my hair behind my ear. She sniffed, pressed my hand to her belly again.

“So this means you’re gonna get fat,” I said, pulling my hand away.

“Gee, Wren, thanks!” Her eyes grew round as she gave my arm a pinch. “You know that only means one thing.”

“What?”

She got up to leave and reached for the door. “I’m picking the biggest, gooiest cinnamon roll.”

I shot up. “Um, no you’re not!”

“Catch me,” she said, disappearing before I could even make it to the doorway.

The Camelot Thanksgiving buffet ran smoothly. I kept looking for warning signs of Brooke’s ominous words that it was
a sinking ship
. All I saw was the Caswell clan working together—well, I was working; Brooke spent a lot of time reconnecting with Eben and Josh, still green from his Thanksgiving Eve bender with his home-from-college buds, trying his best not to puke in the mashed potatoes. Everyone, even my dad, who rolled up his Brooks Brothers sleeves to help plate the sides for the buffet table, was happy, buzzing, joking. No doom and gloom. Nothing out of place to make me think we were in any sort of trouble. Brooke
had
to be wrong.

Being busy made the afternoon go quickly, and soon enough, the five of us were alone and gathered around a table in the empty banquet hall, a little tired but full of the meal Chef Hank had prepared for us.

My mother raised her glass of sauv blanc. “You don’t know how happy it makes me to see you all together.”

“Aw, shucks, Mom, any time you want me to quit school and be your permanent child, say the word, I’m all over it,” Josh said, grinning.

“Please no, I’m finally getting some much-needed peace,” my father kidded.

“What, Wrennie doesn’t throw any wild parties?”

“Hey, look what the wind blew in,” my mother said, raising her glass toward the door.

I turned to see a rather disheveled Pete, as if he’d literally been windblown, walking toward our table. Brooke got up and threw her arms around him. My stomach lurched.

Pete shrugged off his coat and hooked it over a chair at the adjacent table. “Hey, Wren,” he said, smoothing down his hair and taking the seat across from me.

With his dark, unruly curls and green eyes, Pete was exceptionally handsome, but he was so goofy once you got to know him that his good looks became less intimidating. I wondered if he knew that I knew he’d knocked up my sister. One thing was for sure: Between Brooke and Pete, this kid was going to be drop-dead gorgeous.

“How was your Thanksgiving? Your parents must have been thrilled you made it home,” my mother said, beaming.

Pete chuckled, but it was guarded. He folded his hands and glanced at Brooke. And then the world moved frame by frame.

I could feel the tremor of what was about to happen but
was powerless to act on it.
Please, please, Brooke, not
now.

A waiter came by and dropped off a carafe of coffee for my father. Mom sat in suspended animation, waiting to hear about Pete’s Thanksgiving. Josh had nodded off, a shock of dirty blond hair partially hiding his eyes. I pinched his leg, and he jerked awake.

“What?”

“We’re pregnant!” Brooke blurted out, grabbing Pete’s hand.

Silence shrouded the table. The only sound was the slow trickle of my father pouring coffee into his cup. That cup became the collective focus of the table—as if we knew that, once it was full, something disastrous would happen. My father put down the carafe more firmly than necessary, then turned his attention to Brooke and Pete, waiting for more. Brooke’s eyes locked on mine—my cue to have her back.

“Holy shit!” “What awesome news!” Josh and I said at the same time.

My mother was momentarily stunned, mouth open, eyes darting between Brooke and Pete. My father spoke.

“What does this mean?”

Brooke launched into what must have been a rehearsed speech, taking turns with Pete who chimed in as he stroked her hand. My heart cringed a bit, watching them both become so squirmy and awkward. Brooke was holding it together as best as she could. Pete looked like he’d rather be hiding under
the table, out of my father’s line of vision.

There was a new plan. They were going to get married during winter break. The baby was due in the late spring, so they could both finish their course work. Brooke had already found day care close to campus for the fall. She and Pete would coordinate their classes as much as they could, and while money would be tight, they were sure they could handle it. This was only a blip in their lives. They loved each other, had planned on getting married and having a family anyway. Maybe it wasn’t ideal, but that’s how life goes.

Halfway through, my father began kneading his forehead. My mother’s face was a mask, the giddiness from moments ago evaporated.

“Josh, you and Wren should go,” she said, picking at a thread on the tablecloth.

“Mom, we can handle it. It’s not like we don’t know where babies come from.”

Her eyes cut through me. Josh was on his feet, tugging me to get up.

“C’mon, squirt, let’s fly.”

Once we reached home, Josh retreated to his attic room, and I took solace in a hot shower. I knew I should feel lucky that Mom dismissed us—who would want to be in the middle of
that
conversation? But being sent away made me feel weird, like an outsider.

I dressed in sweats and ventured out to see if anyone had come home. The house was silent, except for strains of Blink-182 coming from Josh’s room. I smiled and opened the door a crack. His lights were on, so I made my way up the creaky, carpeted steps into his lair.

He was busy typing away on his computer. I knocked on the newel post so I wouldn’t startle him. Next to him, on his desk, was an open bottle of beer. Considering his condition, I thought he’d want to lay off the stuff at least for a night. I raised my eyebrows.

“Hair of the dog, Wrennie, best hangover remedy,” he said. “Want one?”

“Drinking . . . here? Don’t you think Mom and Dad—”

“Wren, Golden Girl has screwed up. The parental units are officially checked out for the moment. I could be hosting an orgy up here, and no one would know. Come on, live a little, have a brewski with your big bro,” he said, reaching into the small fridge by his desk, cracking open a bottle, and offering it to me.

I took the beer and leaned against the edge of his desk. “What do you think is going to happen with Brooke and Pete?”

“I thought you learned all that in health class,” he said, leaning back in his chair.

“Duh, I just meant . . . it’ll be strange, them being married . . . a baby . . . you’ll be an uncle.”

He clasped his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. “Wow, Josh is not an uncle name.
Aunt Wren
. Sounds like a lady with cankles who bakes great pies.”

“Thanks for that mental picture,” I said, grabbing his senior yearbook. My heart raced.
Why hadn’t I thought of this before? Grayson might be in there
. I plopped myself down on Josh’s very unkempt bed. He’d been back for less than twenty-four hours, and his room—littered with dirty clothing, empty cups, and a plate with a half-eaten sandwich—was as though he’d never left. I punched up the pillows and sat back, trying to sound casual. “Do you know a guy named Grayson Barrett? He went to Saint Gabe’s?”

He clicked at his keyboard feverishly before answering me.

“Got kicked out . . . that Grayson Barrett? I know who he is, but I don’t
know
him. A bit of a douche nozzle around his lax bros, if I remember correctly.”

“Don’t call him that,” I said, grimacing and casually leafing through the yearbook. The end covers were full of signatures and notes to Josh, reminding him to
Stay cool, bro!
and
Party hard!

“What? Douche nozzle or lax bro? They’re interchangeable,” he said, pivoting in his computer chair with a smirk on his face.

“Josh, stop.”

“Ah, so someone
is
currr-aaaaving a little boo-tay.”

“It’s not like that!”

“So what’s it like, then?” he asked, getting serious.

I ran my finger along a sweat drizzle on my beer label.

“He’s the one I saved from choking.”

Josh’s eyes registered surprise. “Damn, you should have let him choke.”

“How can you say that?”

“Wren, I’m not serious. Well, maybe a little,” he said, chuckling as he checked his IMs again. “Sorry. I keep forgetting you’re quite the hero. Doesn’t Barrett, like, owe you his life now or something?”

“Hardly.”

“C’mon, why the interest?”

“We hung out the other day. He seemed kinda cool, I guess. What?”

“You don’t want to get involved with a guy like that.”

“A guy like what? I thought you said you didn’t know him. You know, just forget it,” I said, leaning back onto his pillows and focusing on the yearbook again. I already had my own opinion of Grayson, and I didn’t need Josh reaching into his bag of slang to pull out something more colorful than
douche nozzle
. That was descriptive enough.

“Well, considered yourself warned.”

“I’m ignoring you, just in case you haven’t noticed.”

I thumbed through the yearbook, went directly to the juniors, to the Bs, scanned down the rows of boys, and found . . . nothing. At the end of the junior section, it read . . .
Absent photo day: Grayson Barrett, Liam McNaught, John Skora.

Drat
.

I flipped to the sports-and-activities section of the yearbook.

Pay dirt.

There was a full-size picture of Grayson, his face ruddy with exertion. He had his lacrosse helmet under one arm and was pouring water into his partially open mouth with the other. His dark eyes were trained on something. He was leaner, sharper, serious. If I had any doubt whether I was still attracted to him or not, my body answered with an instant hormonal rush that left everything buzzing. He was, in a word, smoking hot. Okay. Two words.

I took another sip of beer and sank deeper into Josh’s bed. The open book fell flat against my chest as I stared at the ceiling, confused. This was crazy. I couldn’t feel this way about someone I’d just met. Especially someone who thought selling term papers was just outsourcing.
Business
. Was that what he’d been talking about at the deli?

I mouthed his name.

Grayson
.

Enjoying the way my tongue hit the roof of my mouth on the last syllable.

Would I ever run into him again?

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

SIX

GRAYSON

“
THIS IS GRAYSON, KATE’S SON FROM HER FIRST
marriage.”

Mr. Motherfucking Home Wrecker introduced me to yet another member of his family, his voice dropping slightly at “first marriage,” like what he really wanted to say was,
This is Grayson, worthless knob. I have no genetic ties to him
. It was my first Thanksgiving Easton-style, and I played my role as the good stepson, pumping hands and fielding generic questions about school and life, all the while wishing I could tear the sweater off my back because it was itching like hell.

In the unofficial handshake over “little shit we don’t need to get serious about on legal papers,” Thanksgiving was my mother’s holiday. Pop’s one condition was that he had me in the morning to go to the annual St. Gabe’s/Bergen Point
Turkey Day game to relive his glory days. Then in the afternoon, he’d ship me out to Connecticut to spend the day with them. For one reason or another, the Thanksgiving bondage with Mom and Mr. MFHW never happened. Until today.

Mr. Motherfucking Home Wrecker’s real name was Laird Easton, which can only sound cool if you’re a surfer dude and not an ass-clown investment banker. The first time we met was at a company outing at Yankee Stadium before my parents’ breakup. I was eleven and caught up in the total awesomeness of being in a luxury box—steak sandwiches, all the soda I could drink, cushy seats. Laird even got me Mo’s signature on a game ball. He shook my hand, told me what a valuable asset my mother was to the corporate-credit department. It was only later that I realized what he should have been saying was,
Hey, kid, I’m balling your mom. Here’s a game ball for you. Why don’t we call it even?

Later that year, Mom stopped being Katie Barrett from Bayonne, New Jersey, and became Kate Easton from Darien, Connecticut. A few years later, I unloaded that game ball through Spiro. Luke thought I’d been nuts to get rid of it, but I couldn’t stand having it in my room.

The Yankees game was the first and last time Laird ever went out of his way to be nice to me. Most of the time it felt like he tolerated me simply because I was “Kate’s son from her first marriage.” Anytime he said it, it was like a disclaimer to my presence. The only bright points in the Easton union were
my half sibs, Ryder and Grier, who both didn’t give two shits I’d been kicked out of school and treated me like I was Santa with an armload of toys any time they saw me.

Ryder was five, and his only fault was that he was a mini-Laird, complete with side part and upturned polo collar. I loved how he’d come out with this random stuff like “I don’t cry” and “Unown is my favorite kind of Pokémon.” He saved me from a college chat with Mom when I first arrived by shoving his Nintendo DS in my face and begging me to help him battle Zoroark.