Neal Shusterman - Bruiser

I sponge the back window in small, even circles, taking my time before feeding her the line she already knows is coming. “Dad’s living in the spare room.”

She shrugs. “So what? It won’t be forever.”

I don’t comment on that, because the future can hold many things when it comes to our father’s sleeping arrangements. He could move back into the master bedroom with Mom; he could move out; he could pitch a tent in the backyard—the roulette wheel is still spinning and there’s no telling if Dad, God rest his soul, will land on a black or a red number.

“Even if we could give them the spare room,” I tell her, “do you really think Mom and Dad would allow you and your boyfriend to live under the same roof?”

“They’re very progressive,” Brontë counters, “and besides, we’re not sexually active, thank you very much.”

I smirk. “You say that now.”

She hurls her sponge at me. I duck and it hits the mailbox.

“Forget it,” she says, exasperated. “Forget I said anything. It was a dumb idea anyway.”

But she’s wrong about that, and I think about that day playing basketball—and how good both Dad and I felt with Brew in the mix, changing the whole family dynamic. Maybe what our little roulette wheel needs isn’t black or red but a nice dose of double- zero green.

I retrieve my sister’s sponge and hand it back to her. “I’ll have to be the one to suggest it,” I say, “because if it comes from you, no matter how progressive they are, they’ll freak out.”

“No, forget it; with everything that’s going on between Mom and Dad, the last thing they need is two kids with issues in the house.”

I smirk again. “Don’t you mean four?”

She sneers but holds on to her sponge, having deemed my comment not sponge worthy. “Actually six,” she says, “if you include Mom and Dad.”

I hose off the suds and hand her a towel for drying. “Leave it to me,” I tell her, because although I don’t often mess with Mom’s and Dad’s heads, when I do, I’m pretty good at it.

Dad’s in the spare bedroom grading papers on Emerson. Mom is out, probably with the Ewok. They’re rarely home at the same time except in the evenings. The first things I notice when I enter the room are the suitcases. Two of them. They’ve migrated from the basement. A pair of no-nonsense gray roll-aboards made of sturdy ballistic nylon. They can catch a bullet, and your suit would still stay pressed.

The cases are not being packed; but they sit ominously in the corner, waiting for the day, the hour, the moment when Dad will use them and move out. I try not to think about them as I approach my father.

“Papers from your grad students?” I ask him.

“Yes,” he says, “although to read these essays, you’d never know.”

Looking at the essays, I can see handwritten notes between every line. You could create a whole second essay from what he’s written back to them.

“Busywork,” I say.

“Excuse me?”

“You’re filling the hours with busywork so you don’t have to think about stuff with Mom. I get it.”

He rubs his forehead like Advil is in order. “Is there something you want, Tennyson?”

I pick up one of the essays and casually pretend to read it. “I guess everything’s relative,” I say. “I mean, what’s going on in our family is nothing compared to what happened to Brewster Rawlins. What’s happening to him, I mean.”

Dad continues red-inking his students’ work. “Sometimes you have to count your blessings.”

“Brontë’s all broken up over it.”

Finally Dad puts down the paper he’s reading. “Are they still dating?”

It surprises me that he doesn’t know that; but then, these days nothing should surprise me. Rather than make assumptions about how much he knows, I bring him up to date—the fact that Brew and his brother have no family and that Mr. Gorton’s ancient criminal record leaves everyone royally screwed. I don’t tell him about the healing thing because I’m not an idiot.

Once I’m done with the saga of woe, Dad throws me a glance—I think by now he knows what’s coming—then he returns to his work. “Too bad we can’t help,” he says.

“Actually, we can.”

“Absolutely not!”

This was okay; I was expecting this. Walls don’t fall without effort.

“We’re in no position to take them in,” he says. “Besides, someone else will; and if not, well, I’m sure social services will take fine care of them.”

“Do you really believe that?”

Dad sighs. “Are you completely clueless, Tennyson? Do you have any idea how bad the timing is? Do you even see what’s going on between your mother and me?”

“I see everything,” I tell him coldly. “I see more than you.” And I believe that’s true.

“So then, case closed.”

That expression “case closed” makes me look over at the two suitcases standing against the wall like a pair of hollow tombstones.

“Maybe taking them in will change things,” I suggest to my father. “What if putting ourselves out for someone else is just what we all need? What you and Mom need…” Dad sighs. “Putting ourselves out for someone else? Now you sound like your sister.”

“Then you’d better listen, because me sounding like Brontë is one of the signs of the apocalypse— and if the end of the world is coming, good deeds could earn you Judgment Day brownie points.”

He doesn’t laugh. His shoulders are still slumped; his attitude has not changed. “It’s a nice idea, but we can’t do it. Now, please—I really have a lot of work to do.”

I sit there a moment more, pretending to weigh the validity of the things he’s said. I pretend like I’m getting a clue.

“You’re right,” I tell him. “I’m sorry I bothered you.” I shift in my chair as if I’m getting ready to stand up and leave. Then I say, “Mom would never allow it anyway.”

I can practically hear the hairs on his neck bristling. “Then for once your mother and I would be in agreement.”

“Well, yeah…,” I say. “But even if you wanted to take them in, she’d shut it down.”

He still won’t look at me. “It’s not like your mother makes all the decisions around here.”

“No?”

He taps his red pen on his stack of essays. Finally he turns to look at me. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

“What am I doing?”

“You’re trying to manipulate me into taking in Brewster and his brother.”

I don’t deny it. “Is it working?” I ask.

He laughs at that. Now all bets are off. I don’t know how this is going to play out. Then Dad says, “If you want it to work, you need to make me think it’s my idea.”

” I t was your idea,” I say in total deadpan seriousness. “You suggested it just a second ago.”

He laughs again. “My mistake.” And he shakes his head at my bald-faced audacity. He thinks about it for a moment, or pretends to think about it—I don’t know who’s toying with whom anymore. Then he says, “I’ll discuss it with your mother, and we’ll make a joint decision.”

“That’s all I can ask,” I say, “that you and Mom give serious thought to a decision that Brontë and I will remember for the rest of our lives.”

He studies me with that tentative gaze of parental evaluation—you know the one: It’s both a little bit proud and a little bit frightened at the same time. Then he says, “So shines a good deed in a weary world.”

I know this one! I snap my fingers and say, “Shakespeare—The Merchant of Venice.”

“Actually,” says my father, “I was thinking Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, but both answers, A and B, are valid.”