Chapter Eight
THE ENTIRE WALK HOME I keep thinking:
A. That was weird.
B. I can’t stand Aiden and his creepy white hair and long legs—what the hell does he want with her, anyway?
C. He’s probably trying to convert her to the dark side—but I’m onto him!
When I open the apartment door, I’m met by the thick scent of vanilla. Either Tessa has gone overboard on the body spray again or someone is baking. I’m praying for baking. The smell of it comforts me—my childhood home was always full of the sweetest smells of chocolate chip cookies and maple squares—and I don’t really want to be feeling this way about some body spray; the bait-and-switch would be too similar to what I just had with Dakota . . .
I toss my keys onto the wooden entry table and cringe when my Red Wings key chain chips off a flake of the wood. My mom gave me this table when I moved to New York and made me promise that I would take care of it. It was a gift from my grandma, and my mom holds anything associated with her late mother above nearly everything else, particularly since there isn’t much left—especially after Hardin shattered an entire cabinet of cherished dishes.
My grandma was a lovely woman, my mom tells me. I only have one really strong memory of her, and in it she is anything but lovely. I was about six at the time and she caught me stealing a handful of peanuts from a massive barrel at the grocery store in town. I had a mouth- and pocketful of them in the backseat of her station wagon. I don’t remember why I did it, or if I even understood what I was doing, but when she turned around to check on me, she found me cracking open shells and chomping away. When she slammed on her brakes, I choked on part of a shell. She thought I was faking it, which only made her more upset.
I coughed the lodged chunks out of my throat and tried to catch my breath as she busted a U-turn right in the center of the highway, ignored the honks from understandably angry drivers, and drove my butt back to the store. She made me admit what I had done and apologize not only to the clerk, but also to the manager. I was humiliated, but I never stole again.
She passed away when I was in middle school, leaving behind two daughters, who couldn’t be more opposite from each other. The rest of my information about her comes from my aunt Reese, who makes it sound like she was a tornado compared to the rest of my calm family. No one messed with anyone with the last name Tucker, my mom’s maiden name, lest they had to deal with Grandma Nicolette.
Aunt Reese is a cop’s widow with big blond hair, teased and sprayed high enough to hold her abundance of opinions. I always liked being around her and her husband, Keith, before he passed away. She was always happy, always so funny, and she snorted when she laughed. Uncle Keith, who I automatically thought was awesome because he was a cop, always gave me hockey trading cards when I saw him. I remember wishing he had been my dad a few times. Pitiful, yes, but sometimes I just wanted another guy around. To this day, I remember when he died, and the gut-wrenching screams of my aunt resounding through the hallways, and then the way my mom’s face was so pale and her hands so shaky when she told me, “Everything is fine, go back to bed, sweetheart.”
Keith’s death turned everyone upside down, especially Reese. She nearly got her home foreclosed on because she was just that sad. She no longer had any interest in life, let alone pulling out a checkbook to write a check from an account full of blood money her husband’s life insurance had deposited there. She wasn’t cleaning, cooking, or dressing herself; she always took care of her children, though. The toddlers were bathed and groomed, their little round bellies proof that she put her children above anyone else. Rumor has it that my aunt gave all the money from Keith’s death to his oldest daughter from a previous marriage. I never met her, so I couldn’t tell you if it’s true or not.
Reese and my mom were close their entire lives, being only two years apart in age. While Aunt Reese has only visited Washington once, they talk on the phone a lot. My grandma’s death didn’t seem to affect Reese the same way it did my mom. My mom dealt with it with a gentle approach and a lot of baking. Still, it was hard on her, and this table that I just scratched is about the only thing she has left.
Bad son, I am—
“Hello?” Tessa calls from the kitchen, interrupting the picture of little Yodas swimming around in my head.
I bend down to remove my shoes and spare the spotless, old wood floors. Tessa spent all of last week polishing them, and I learned quickly not to wear my shoes inside for a while. For every footprint, I swear she spent twenty minutes on the floor with the little polisher tool in her hand.