Part 5 (2/2)

”What did I say?” Jack said around the cigarette in his mouth. He didn't look up from his cards.

”About my dad,” Kevin said. ”About the pharmacy.”

”Yeah?” Jack said, as if he'd forgotten the subject entirely. ”What were you thinking about that?” He picked a card out of his hand, stared at it for a moment, and then put it back in a different place.

”I was thinking maybe I could see what I could do,” Kevin said. He looked back and forth between the two of us with big, earnest eyes. ”Maybe I could pinch a pill or two off the top of the filled scrips. Before they go out. n.o.body ever counts them once they have them.”

”If you want to.” Jack sounded as if the whole subject bored him immeasurably. ”I wouldn't want to cause you any trouble.”

There was a slight emphasis on trouble: slight, yes, but very definitely there. Kevin answered, ”I'm not afraid of a little trouble.”

”Never said you were,” Jack said.

I put my cards on the table. ”Gin.”

Jack dropped his own hand and grinned broadly. ”Martini. Kevin, my friend, would you like a martini?”

The subtext was gone. Kevin relaxed and said, ”Indeed I would,” which sounded so much like something Jack would say that I did a double take.

”My sister makes the best drinks,” Jack said again.

By the end of the next week, Kevin was coming up every night, sneaking out of the house after his parents went to bed and staying until two or three o'clock. As far as Kevin was concerned, everything was fine.

But I was worried about my brother. Kevin had brought him a few Valium and a handful of Tylenol with codeine, and Jack and I had taken them and-I suppose-enjoyed them; the Tylenol made me vaguely nauseated but I never said anything about it. Jack seemed bored. Having ostensibly gotten what he wanted, he had less and less to say to Kevin, and soon he was sitting through his visits in silence, watching us. After a few hours he would drift upstairs without so much as a see-you-later. I couldn't get out of my head the image of Jack sitting alone on his bed, propped up against the wall, smoking a cigarette while Kevin and I shared our fumbling kisses.

Things weren't much better when it was Jack and me alone. He didn't want to let me out of his sight and he didn't want to talk. We walked, we played cards, we did calculus, all in a thick silence. Nothing I said or did, or didn't say or didn't do, broke through it. But every night, soon after I'd gone to bed, Jack would come to my bedroom and lie next to me, throwing his arm across me as he'd done since we were children. Sometimes his need, his anger, whatever it was, came off him in waves and I knew we would be awake for hours. Sometimes he just seemed to want me next to him, and on those nights we lay silently until one or the other of us fell asleep. It was a funny thing about my bed. When I lay in it alone, it seemed too big; with Jack there, it seemed too small.

By contrast, being with Kevin was a relief, blissfully uncomplicated, though Jack was watching over us like a sparrow hawk, listening for our movements from the next room, or just outside. If Kevin noticed, he didn't seem to care. Once or twice we took his father's car, drove to some deserted spot, and spent an hour kissing frantically. I came home those nights with sore lips and damp underwear, feeling rumpled and sticky. Jack was always waiting: staring at me, through me, as if he could somehow see where I'd been and what I'd been doing.

I never did meet Kevin's parents. He didn't mention them again. Maybe he'd decided I wasn't that kind of girl; ironic, considering how staunchly I kept my promise to Jack. Kevin got nothing from me. The line I drew was so hard and fast that I wanted Jack to challenge me on the subject so that I could explain to him how faithful I'd been, how steadfast and loyal. But he never asked. In fact, he never said anything at all about Kevin, until one Sat.u.r.day afternoon when Kevin rang the doorbell and Jack refused to open the door.

”Why are you being like this?” I said. I wanted to scream it, but Kevin was on the other side of the door, ringing the bell over and over again.

”Why are you being such a love-struck little girl?” Jack said. ”I didn't think I had the kind of sister that would fall over backward for the first guy who stuck his”-Jack's lip curled- ”tongue in her mouth.”

”Don't start.” My teeth were clenched.

”Tell him to go home. Tell him you don't want to see him anymore.”

”I won't.”

”You want me to tell him?”

”This was your idea!” I said. I was almost crying with rage. ”This was all your idea!”

”It was my idea to milk Monkey-boy for some cheap drugs.” Jack's voice was cold. ”It was not my idea to sit upstairs by myself all night while he f.u.c.ks my little sister on the family couch.”

I could hear Kevin calling, ”Josie? Jack? You guys home?”

Jack stared at me and I started to shake.

Suddenly Jack smiled. ”Just a sec, Kevin!” he called merrily through the door. ”Having some trouble with the lock, here.”

”No problem.” Kevin sounded relieved.

Jack stepped away from the door, close to me. I tried to move back. There was a wall in my way.

”You do this to me every night,” he said quietly. ”Every single G.o.dd.a.m.ned night. I'll let him in. But this is the last time.”

”Fine.” I was furious.

He pushed me to the wall, standing against me so that I couldn't move away, and took my head in his hands. Each of his fingers was a hot hard bolt pressing into my skull. He pulled me toward him so that our foreheads were touching, so that all I could see was his face.

”Did he tell you he loves you?” His voice was acid with contempt. I could smell whiskey on his breath. ”Did you believe him? ”

”Let me go,” I hissed. I tried to pull away.

He held me harder. ”I am the only person who has ever loved you. The only person in the entire G.o.dd.a.m.ned world.”

Then he dropped his hands and stepped back. I stood trembling against the wall. He reached out and smoothed my hair down where he'd rumpled it. Then, calmly, he said, ”Now let Monkey-boy in and let's get this over with.”

He turned away without another word and left me standing there alone.

I waited until I heard him climbing the stairs. Then I opened the door. By then I had my breath back, but my hands were still shaking.

Kevin put his arms around my waist and kissed me as if he were back from the wars. I did my best to respond. ”Where's Jack?” he said as he let me go. ”Wasn't he down here?”

”He went upstairs,” I said. ”He's not feeling well.”

We went into the living room and I put the Coltrane record on, but I had trouble making conversation. I was trying to decide whether I felt too weird, whether I should plead sick, too, when Jack came in carrying a bottle of Smirnoff.

”Just came to keep an eye on the circus,” he said, his voice dripping with fake cheer.

I ignored him. Kevin's smile was only slightly uncertain. He said, ”I guess you're the ringmaster, huh?”

”Naturally.” Jack sat down in Raeburn's armchair. ”And Josie here is the monkey handler. Hey”-as if he'd just thought of it-”I wonder what that makes you, Kevin.”

Kevin half-laughed and glanced nervously at me.

I took his hand. ”Lion tamer.”

Kevin laughed again, more normally this time. ”Maybe I'm the guy who gets shot out of the cannon.”

”Or the last little clown in the clown car,” Jack said.

”Yeah,” Kevin said. ”Sure.”

<script>