Meg Cabot - Missing You

But both Ruth and Skip’s parents were there from next door, as was Douglas, with his girlfriend, Tasha. Even Tasha’s parents, the Thompkinses, from across the street, were there, Dr. Thompkins out on the back deck with my dad and Mr. Abramowitz, swapping barbecue tips (not that my dad, a restaurateur and himself an amazing cook, was listening to any of theirs).

I had always felt uncomfortable around the Thompkinses, since their only son, Tasha’s brother, Nate, disappeared three years ago, and I had failed to find him…until it was too late.

But to their credit, none of them seemed to hold a grudge. This might be because in the end, I had brought their son’s killers to justice.

Still, you would think seeing me would just bring back memories. A lot of people—including me—were kind of surprised the Thompkinses stayed on Lumbley Lane at all, considering the fact that the place could hardly have had good memories for them.

But they stayed. And came over to my parents’ house for dinner quite often. Often enough, it would seem, for their daughter and my brother Douglas to have formed what was now the longest-lasting—and probably emotionally healthiest—romantic relationship of any of the three Mastriani kids so far.

“Hey, Jess,” Douglas said when he saw me, and gave me what was, for him, a very uncharacteristic greeting in the form of a kiss on the cheek.

Sure, it was a shy one. But still. It was a far cry from how he’d barely been able to bring himself to touch another human being just three years ago.

“So Rob found you, huh?”

He asked this in such a quiet voice, at first I didn’t hear him.

“Huh?” I blinked at him. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, he did.”

“And did you help with that situation of his?”

“Yeah,” I said. “The situation is…no longer a situation anymore. She’s home safe.”

“That must be a big relief to him,” Douglas said, looking relieved himself. “He was really worried.”

I studied my brother’s lean face, with its fuzz of a beginning of a beard. And felt a spurt of irritation with him. “Thanks for the heads-up that he was coming, by the way,” I said. “I mean, you could have called and warned me.”

“So you could have run away to the Hamptons for the weekend?” Douglas grinned. “He asked me not to say anything.”

And, apparently, Rob asking him not to say anything was more important to him than my emotional health.

“You and Rob certainly are chummy these days,” I commented, not without some bitterness.

“He’s a good guy” was all Douglas had to say in reply, before moving away from me to bring my mom a bottle of homemade vinaigrette from the fridge.

“Hi, Jessica,” his girlfriend said, giving me a hug. I liked Tasha, not just because she’d followed my advice, and hadn’t broken Douglas’s heart. Which was a good thing, since I’d promised if she did, I’d break her face.

“How’s New York?” Tasha wanted to know, in the wistful manner of someone who wanted to move to the Big Apple, but didn’t feel like they had the guts.

“There,” I said. I like New York. I really do. But. You know. It’s just a town to me. A bigger town, maybe, than what I’m used to. But still just a town.

“And Juilliard?” Mrs. Abramowitz wanted to know. Mrs. Abramowitz always made a big deal about the fact that I was going to Juilliard…maybe on account of the fact that she’d secretly suspected I’d end up in a women’s state penitentiary, and not one of the country’s leading music colleges. She’d never come right out and said this, but I had my suspicions.

I started to give my standard reply—“It’s fine”—but something stopped me. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was just being home.

But suddenly, I knew if I told her school was fine, I’d be lying. School wasn’t fine. New York wasn’t fine. I wasn’t fine.

I definitely wasn’t fine.

Only how could I tell her that? How could I tell her that Juilliard wasn’t quite what I’d expected? That whatever free time I had, I had to spend in a practice cubicle, playing my guts out, just to keep up with the rest of the flutists at my level? That I hated it? That I wanted to drop it, but didn’t know what I’d do instead? That New York was great, it was thrilling living in the city that never sleeps, but that I missed the smell of freshly mown grass and the sound of crickets and the gentle weeping of Ruth’s cello coming not from the other room, but from the house next door?

I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell her any of that.

“Fine” is what I said instead.

“And Ruth was good when you left her?” Mrs. Abramowitz wanted to know, as she helped herself to another margarita.

“Yes,” I said, wondering how Mrs. Abramowitz would react if I told her of my suspicions…that there was something going on between her daughter and my middle brother.

She’d probably be delighted. Mike, like Skip, is well on his way to becoming a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year man, only in computers, not business.

But whatever was going on between Mike and Ruth, it wasn’t anything yet, and might never even come to be. So I didn’t mention it.

“And Skip?” my mom asked in a teasing voice. Because, of course, my mom is head over heels for the original hundred-thousand-dollar man. Or at least the idea of his supporting me on that hundred thousand dollars.

“He snores,” I said, and grabbed a bowl of dip to take outside, where we were eating.

“It’s his sinuses,” I heard Mrs. Abramowitz tell my mom. “And his allergies. I wish he’d remember to take his Claritin—”

“There’s my girl,” my dad said with a big smile as I came outside with the dip. Chigger was suddenly all over me again, but this time it wasn’t to say hello, but because I was holding something that contained food.

“Down,” I said to Chigger, who obediently kept down, but who nevertheless followed me to the table with the assiduousness of a bodyguard.

“That dog,” Dr. Thompkins said with a chuckle.

“That dog,” my dad said, “knows over fifteen commands. Watch this. Chigger. Ball.”

Chigger, instead of running to fetch his ball, as he normally did when he heard the word, stayed where he was, panting in the warm evening air, waiting for someone to spill some dip.

“Well,” my dad said embarrassedly.

“He’d go get it, if there weren’t food around.”

I took a seat on the deck, lightly stroking Chigger’s ears, and listened to my dad chat with his neighbors, looking out across the yard and the treetops beyond. It seemed weird that just that morning, I’d been looking through metal bars at fire escapes and into other people’s apartment windows, and now I was gazing at a scene so pastoral and…well, DIFFERENT. I’m not saying one is better than the other. They’re just…different.

I wondered what Rob and his sister were doing. I wondered what Randy and the girl I’d seen were doing. Well, scratch that. I had a pretty good idea what THEY were doing. I wondered instead what I should do about it. My options were somewhat limited, if Rob didn’t want his sister to have to testify against the jerk.

But what about the dark-haired girl I’d seen? Surely she was underage, as well. If I went over there and happened to let the truth about old Randy having a little something on the side—right upstairs in 2T, as a matter of fact—would she come around?

But why should I? I didn’t know the dark-haired girl. No one had asked me to find her. She wasn’t my responsibility.

Maybe Ruth was right. Maybe Iwould make a rotten superhero. Because I really was incapable of just riding off into the sunset.

Mrs. Thompkins came outside, holding a salad, with Douglas following on her heels like Chigger had followed on mine.