“So,” Katy asked me as we crawled (it was raining, folks, and Katy was a safe driver) the main road, “are you and this guy… involved?” This surprised me. For one, Katy knew me better than anyone, and because of that (two) she should know that I don’t get “…involved” with people.
“No,” I answered, for once not speaking slowly.
She nodded. “I didn’t think so.” Well, that made sense. “It’s just that rumors are going around. People think you’re together. I hear it all the time. And I have a friend on the cross-country team. He says that Bane talks about you a lot.”
I made an mmm sort of noise. Bane talked about me a lot? What?
“Yeah,” Katy continued. “Daniel says that it sounds like he likes you. Do you think he likes you?”
That was quite possibly the most preposterous thing I’d ever heard. Bane liking me? The whole idea was positively laughable, if I laughed. I mean, he called me ‘brat’ all the time, and got angry at me with ridiculous frequency.
“No,” I said, as we pulled up into Bane’s driveway.
“No?”
“He definitely doesn’t like me.”
Katy seemed satisfied by this. “Alright. Mind if I walk up with you, anyway? I want to get a load of this guy without having to hit on him at practices.” She shot me a friendly grin, and I almost smiled back. Katy was fun.
“I don’t mind.”
I led the way up to the beautiful porch, ignoring Katy’s admiring mumbling. I pushed the doorbell with an inward wince. I really didn’t like being responsible for noise in any way. A few moments later, Natalie and Lindsay opened the door.
“Deirdre!” they shrieked in unison. Out of habit (okay, I had been trained) I bent down to receive their hugs. They really were very sweet girls.
Katy stepped up next to me. “Hello, girls. I’m Katy. Is your brother here?” Natalie burst into giggles, and Lindsay followed suit. Lindsay always did whatever Natalie did.
“Sure, he’s here,” Natalie confirmed, suddenly becoming a proper little hostess.
“Come in, and I’ll go get him.” As soon as the door was shut behind us, though, she lost this modicum of decorum and ran off shrieking, “Bane, Bane, there’s a girl here to see you!”
Katy blushed slightly at this. Lindsay tugged on my sleeve, and when I looked down, she showed me a picture. It was sweet, but obviously drawn by someone with minimum abilities. It was mostly just squiggles, drawn haphazardly across and off a sheet of white paper. “For Deirdre,” Lindsay informed Katy solemnly.
Katy looked vaguely uncomfortable. She had spent the last nine years living with a basket case, but at least my issues were hidden. Lindsay’s condition was laid out, to be seen by everyone, and it made Kate antsy. “Thank you,” I muttered to Lindsay, giving her another hug. I swear, I was more touchy with these girls than I was with anyone else—probably anything else, including the clothes that I wore.
Just then Bane came in, looking curious. I think it says something about what a ridiculous amount of time I spend here that I knew what each of his facial expressions were. “What’s up, brat? You could have just come in if you were looking for me.”
Natalie jumped up and down at his side, full of seven-year-old energy. “Not her, Bane! The really pretty redheaded girl.” Katy flushed. Like me on my first visit here, she wasn’t prepared for the Morrison girls’ exuberance. Unlike me, she wasn’t so practiced at not doing anything about it.
“Hey,” she muttered. “Just wanted to say hi, since Deirdre’s been spending so much time here, and everything.”
Bane looked somewhat bemused, but he nodded. “Of course. And I remember you, from the—what, second day of school? That day when Deirdre and I had lunch, and I offered to drive her home.”
“That’s right,” Katy acknowledged, shrugging.
“You’re Deirdre’s sister, right?”
Katy shrugged again. “Nah, her cousin.” She turned to me. “Call me when you’re done—well, I guess have someone call.” Kate knew how I felt about phones. “I’ll come get you.”
Bane held up his hands. “Fear not, gentle maiden; I will return your cousin to her home at the earliest possible hour. With luck, she won’t even turn into a pumpkin.” This was Bane being ridiculous. It was, I’d have to say, my favorite mood in him. It was funny.
He turned to open the door, and Katy mouthed at me behind his back, “He likes you!” I gave a single shake of my head. Katy was a conspiracy theorist when it came to relationships.
She followed Bane’s sweeping bow out the door, shooting me a conspiring grin before the door shut on her. Lindsay requested to be pulled up into my arms. I obeyed, and when I looked back up, Bane was giving me a funny glance. “What was that?” he asked. “The Spanish Inquisition?”
“She wanted to meet you,” I shrugged. It was no big thing.
He gave me a look that clearly said I was nuts. “Are you nuts?” Ah, there we go. “She was, I don’t know, testing me. Making sure I was good enough.”
“Maybe,” I replied brilliantly.
Bane simply threw up his hands in a defeated gesture—like he couldn’t deal with my idiocy any longer—and stomped off towards the kitchen. Not having anything else to do, I followed, with Lindsay in my arms. She was so sweet, laying her head against my shoulder and singing little baby songs.
In the kitchen, Bane still had things situated in front of the laptop. He seemed to be, with great difficulty and immense speed, typing the remaining prose pieces into their assigned slots. That boy couldn’t work layout worth a whit.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I hinted, suggesting that he should tell me what I had to do with the girls and then get out. Yes, be proud; I spoke of my own free will.
However, Bane didn’t seem to appreciate this Herculean effort. “No. I’m just finishing this up—ah, done—and then playing with you and Nat and Lindsay.” Natalie was over at the counter, having followed the whole troupe into the kitchen, baking cookies. Well, she had promised me, hadn’t she?
I was not satisfied with this turn of events. “Then why did your mom have me babysit?” I asked, genuinely curious. Maybe it was my earlier copious cupcake consumption, but I was being a bit loose-tongued. Read that, I was actually talking to Bane.
This, he noticed. “You’re talking like an actual human being, brat. I’m impressed. And she had you come so that I could be someplace else if I wanted to be. But I don’t.”
Solemnly, Natalie turned around. “Mommy told Bane that he could go out with his friends, and he said that all his other friends are stupid, and that all they do is go out and hook up with girls on Friday nights.”
“Natalie!” Bane exclaimed—obviously he hadn’t realized that his younger sister had overheard this; or, if he did realize, he hadn’t thought that she would repeat it.
“That’s what you said,” she replied in a singsong voice, turning back to her cookie dough.
Bane’s expression was so shocked, and so funny, that I nearly cracked a smile. “I apologize for my sister,” he muttered. “Whom I have apparently corrupted.”
“I’m not erupted!” Natalie exclaimed, turning around to plant her hands on her hips. “No cookies for you now, Bane!”
Her little face was so serious that I couldn’t help it—I chuckled a little under my breath. Bane, who had been looking at Natalie, whipped his head around to look at me, wide-eyed. “What did you just do?” he asked slowly, as if I had set him on fire or something. “Did you just laugh?”
Instantly, I grew serious. “Yes,” I answered dryly. Eat your heart out, Deirdre of the Sorrows.
“Wow,” Bane muttered. Then, in classic Bane fashion, he grinned. “You have a nice laugh.”
He stared me down until I answered. “Thank you.” There was a moment of silence before I asked, “So, really, why are you staying here?”
Bane whistled appreciatively. “Look at Deirdre, furthering a conversation. Like I said; nothing better to do. And I like you as well as the next person, so I figured that I might as well.” He shrugged. Then, he seemed to remember something, “Oh, right. My mom left directions. Nat and Lindsay can each have one cookie—that means one, girls—and then they have to go to bed. Her meeting is actually a ways away—not sure exactly where—but she said she’ll be home around midnight, and that she’ll give you your money then.”
I nodded once. Sometimes words had to be replaced by gestured. They just had to.
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