Zigzag (8 page)

T
he bedraggled little group that climbed out of Aunt Dory's minivan at two o'clock did not raise my hopes about the quality of the journey I was about to begin. Dory had a frozen grin on her face as Marshall tripped Iris and Iris immediately swung around and kicked him in the rear. If things were this bad after only a few hours, what were the chances of surviving the summer together?

Mom had taken the day off from work and we'd fixed a big salad and some tuna fish sandwiches for lunch because Dory was “certain” they'd be here by noon. It was hard to figure out just why they were two hours late—each of them had a different story.

“Mom got lost the minute we left Chicago,” Marshall said. “She got off the highway at the wrong place.”

“That was a minor problem,” Dory said, then gave her version of events. “If Iris had hung up the phone when I asked her to instead of calling all her friends one last time . . .”

“Don't blame
me,
” Iris chimed in. “Marshall's the one who kept repacking his suitcase so he could bring everything he owns.” She ripped her streaked blond hair out of the clip that pinned it high on her head, twirled the hair around her fingers, and then stuck it
back in the clip so it looked messier than before.

“
Me
? You have a separate suitcase just for shoes!”

We gave each other some halfway hugs, the kind where you're not really too interested in touching the other person, but you're related to them, so you have to pretend you're glad to see them. “Well, you're here now, so let's have some lunch,” Mom said, leading them into the house. “You'll feel better after that,”

Dory scrunched up her face. “Oh, Karen, you'll kill me. The kids were so crabby I stopped at a McDonald's about an hour ago.”

Typical Dory. Anything those kids want, all they have to do is whine.

Mom gave them some iced tea and we took the salad and sandwiches into the dining room so whoever wanted something could have it. Iris picked a few lettuce leaves out of the bowl and half a cherry tomato. I snagged two sandwich halves and loaded my plate with salad. Iris watched in horror as I doused the salad with blue cheese dressing.

“You don't like blue cheese?” I asked.

Dory answered before Iris could. “She's gotten picky about what she eats. You know how girls are—so weight conscious.”

I'd noticed Iris had lost weight since her father's funeral. Thirteen years of baby fat had begun to remold itself into a teenage girl's body, and a pretty good one, too. I remembered when my own stomach suddenly became concave and my breasts began to puff up, as if somebody had squeezed my tube in the middle and pushed everything up to the top. I took a quick minute to stare at Iris—she looked older to me, too, and I wondered if her father's death had done that. She'd always had that tight-looking face, as if she was holding back a blast of nastiness for your own good. But now it looked like the misery had infected her whole body, which perched tensely on the edge of the dining room chair.

Marshall, on the other hand, seemed to be in a great mood. He
told us a long, silly story about a movie he'd seen while he washed down a sandwich with a glass of tea. Then, with a shy grin he said, “Aunt Karen, do you have any ice cream in your freezer?”

Mom and Dory both laughed. “Do you remember that from the last time you were here?” Mom asked him. “It's been years!”

“Sure, I do! You had three different kinds and I ate all of them!”

“I think it's the only thing he
does
remember about that trip,” Dory said. “He still asks me why we can't have ice cream at our house like Aunt Karen has at the farm.”

“Yeah, and you never give me a good answer either.”

Dory's smile faded slowly as she thought about the question. “Hmmm. Well, you know, Daddy never liked to keep ice cream around. He liked it too much.”

“If he liked it, he
should
have kept it around.”

Iris looked annoyed. “He didn't want to get fat, you idiot.”

Dory gave Iris a look, but didn't say anything to her. “More likely he didn't want
me
to get fat,” she said with a little laugh, as if she was telling a joke. But I guess it's hard to joke about somebody you love who recently died when you weren't even expecting it. All three of them got quiet and looked at their plates.

“Marsh, you can go get yourself a dish of ice cream if you want to,” Mom said, breaking the tension. “And if you still like cats as much as you used to, there are about eight of 'em out in the barn.”

“Thanks,” Marshall said. He headed for the kitchen fast, without looking at either his mother or his sister.

Dory played with her paper napkin, shredding it into long strips. “It hasn't gotten any easier yet. People keep telling me it will.”

Iris pushed her chair back from the table as if she wanted to be farther away from her mother's problems.

Mom put a hand on Dory's arm. “It will, sweetheart. It just takes time.”

“One of the reasons I wanted us to take this trip together was so we could see that it was possible to have good times with just the three of us. To prove we could do it.”

“Then why did you want Robin to come?” Iris said.

Dory shot me a look of apology, then shrugged. “What I meant was, to prove we can function without your father. Robin is coming along to up the fun quotient!”

I thought I was coming along to help drive. If my job was to keep everybody laughing, I wasn't sure I was up to the challenge. I wasn't sure Whoopi Goldberg would be up to the challenge.

“Oh, so we're driving across the country to prove to ourselves that we can waste our time just like any other inane tourists, even though we have no father?”

Mom jerked back in surprise at the meanness in Iris's voice. I felt like slapping her to Peoria myself. She was even creepier than I remembered.

“Iris, don't torment me, please. Not today,” Dory said, massaging her forehead with her hand.

“Fine. Let me know when I
can
torment you, okay? I'm going outside, too.” She got up and slammed her chair into the table so hard the glasses shook.

“To the barn?” Dory asked.

Iris snickered. “Yeah, I think I'll go milk me a couple of cows.”

The screen door slammed behind her and Dory groaned. “And she's not even the one I'm worried about.”

“Teenage girls,” Mom said. “It's not unusual behavior.”

And I was sitting right there! “Hey,” I said. “I never . . .”

Mom lasered me with her eyes. “I think you should go outside and try to get reacquainted with your cousins. Show them around the farm.”

Get out of here and let us talk,
is what she meant. It was beginning to dawn on me that this trip might be more than just
boring; it might actually be horrendous. I took my time clearing my dishes and those of my disappearing cousins so I could eavesdrop on a little bit of the dining room conversation.

“Marshall seems okay,” Mom said. “Why are you worried about him?”

Dory sighed deeply. “When he's at his worst he makes Iris look like a cocker spaniel. There are things going on in him I don't understand. He has all these fears now, and he can't sleep at night, and he was . . . asked to leave the school.”

“What? Why?”

“He draws pictures. Violent pictures. People shooting each other and running over each other with cars. Red blood exploding all over. His teacher found one that was obviously a picture of
her,
with her head cut off.”

I turned the water off in the sink so I wouldn't miss anything.

“Oh, but surely it wasn't meant seriously,” Mom said.

“Schools don't take these things lightly anymore, Karen.”

“I know, but he's working it all out, don't you think? You said he's been seeing a therapist. Drawing pictures isn't the worst thing.”

“He also hit another boy in the face and broke his glasses.”

“Oh, Dory.”

Dory shook her head. “He says he hates his therapist—he doesn't want to go back to him. He gets so angry about it, he scares me—he really
scares
me sometimes. That's part of the reason for this trip, too—just to shake us out of our depressing routine. Things have to change, Karen—they have to.”

When Dory started to cry, I slipped out the door as silently as I could. What the hell had I gotten myself into? I was going on vacation with a bunch of complete lunatics! Was there any way I could back out now? Maybe Mom would decide it wasn't the best idea for her only child to go sightseeing with Superbitch and the next school shooter.

I wandered slowly toward the barn, in no hurry to see what my fascinating relatives were up to now. As I got closer I heard a shout of fear, and then Marshall, saying, “Get it away, Iris!”

The barn door was open and I could see Iris holding up a squirming Golddigger, our oldest and wildest barn cat, while Marshall hid his face behind his hands.

“Did she scratch you?” I asked. “That cat hates to be held.”

“No kidding.” Iris dropped the cat to the floor and it took off.

Marshall stood up and took his hands away from his face, trembling and embarrassed, it seemed, in front of me. “Iris
made
the cat scratch me.” He pointed to a mark on his chin, then kicked his foot out toward Iris's leg, but missed her.

“I did not!” She glared at him, then stalked off. “You are such a baby! You're afraid of everything!”

Marshall looked up at me, his happy smile now pulled into a tight scowl. “I don't like cats anymore.”

I shrugged. “Well, that particular cat scratches when you pick her up, that's all. But some of the others are very friendly.” I looked around and spied Hermit, a sweet old guy who's lived with us for years. “Here. You can pet Hermit—he doesn't scratch.”

Marshall shook his head and repeated, “I don't like cats anymore.” His fingers kept tracing the line on his chin.

“Does it hurt?” I asked. “Do you want a Band-Aid?”

His eyes were big and worried. “Could I get cat-scratch fever? I read about that. You can get sick.”

I smiled. “Marsh, I've been scratched by cats about two thousand times and I've never gotten cat-scratch fever. I don't think you have to worry.”

He looked only slightly relieved. “Anyway, I don't like this barn. It smells.”

“Not a bad smell, though. Just hay.”

“Hay? I've got hay fever!” He looked at me furiously as if
I'd
invented
hay, and then stalked off out the door.

Iris had strolled farther into the barn and was swinging around a post, arching her back and letting her head fall back. It reminded me of when I was younger and liked to pretend I was being filmed for a movie. I'd throw my body around very dramatically, thinking I looked beautiful. That was shortly before puberty hit.

Iris looked at me as I came closer. “He doesn't have hay fever. He's just nuts. He thinks he's going to get sick all the time now. Or something awful is going to happen any minute. Ever since Dad got hit by the car.”

I nodded.

“Mom took him to a shrink, but Marsh freaked out even more. He's getting really psycho.”

“I doubt that,” I said. “It's only been, what, seven months?”

“Eight.”

“Well, he's still upset about it.”

“Duh!”

Oh, this girl was impossible. I decided it was best to just ignore her and turned around to go back inside, but she wasn't finished with me yet.

“My mom says your boyfriend left you. Some guy you're in
love
with.”

I bent down and picked up Hermit so I'd have something to do with my hands other than punch out my cousin.

“He didn't ‘leave' me. He's on a program in Rome for the summer.”

“So,
are
you in love with him?” Iris's mouth was hanging open just a little bit, as if she couldn't wait to eat my answer with a spoon.

“Yes, I am,” I said, trying to sound sure of myself. No reason to go into detail for this little punk.

She gave a snort. “I have a boyfriend, too. I'm going with this
guy Parker. I'll probably break up with him when I get back, though.”

“Why didn't you just break up with him before you left?” I kept my eyes on Hermit.

“So he couldn't date anybody else while I was gone.”

“Nice. You're very devious for your age.”

“My therapist says I'm mature beyond my years.”

“
Something
beyond your years. I don't know if it's mature.”

She sighed disgustedly. “Ooh, Farm Girl, you're so funny. What kind of farm is this, anyway—you don't even have any cows!” She swung off the pole and sailed past me out the door.

I gave Hermit a hug and asked him how on earth I was supposed to spend my summer with these aliens, but he didn't have a clue either. I decided to go back inside and sit with Mom and Dory who were, at least, human beings. As I passed Dory's minivan I saw Marshall sitting in the backseat, a big tablet resting on his knees. His back was to the window so I came up behind him to look in at the drawing.

He was obviously a talented kid. The picture was well drawn, like a cartoon in a magazine. You could even tell the cat was Golddigger—he had the markings just right. There was my cat, held to a dartboard by the three arrows sticking out of his chest. When he saw me looking, Marshall frowned, then carefully drew in drops of blood.