Yes, No, Maybe So--Part II

Like every other guy in town, Jude had the hots for Katie. After all, she did resemble a cross between Cher and Brooke Shields. Even though Jude was pretty good looking, he was strange, and I’m not just saying that because he’s my brother. Jude had this theory that if you didn’t shower for a day or two after you sunbathed, the dirt would sink into your skin and increase your tan factor. He brought this theory up every time he lay out with us.

            “Ooooh, ga-ross!” we’d squeal. Gross was our favorite word and we always said it as if it had two syllables.

            I blame Jude’s weirdness on illegal pharmaceuticals. He didn’t take Nancy Reagan’s advice to just say no to drugs. He smoked a boatload of pot. In fact, he grew it in his room. Mom thought it was a really pretty houseplant.

            “I never would have guessed Jude had a green thumb,” she said.

            His grades weren’t great but I reckon he was a little smart because he figured out how to fashion a pot pipe out of a salt shaker. It was shaped like a catfish and the one time I walked in on him getting high, he looked like he was kissing a thumb-sized sea creature or giving it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The room he shared with my oldest brother Matthew often smelled like a fall burn pile.

            Jude liked to brag about sniffing glue to Katie Lynn and me. I knew he was telling the truth because I saw the squeezed tubes of model glue in the woods whenever I walked our dog over that way. He also told us how he and his buddies did acid every day during their high school years. One of his friends dropped so much it damaged him forever.  He never made it to college. Heck, he never even made it out of his parents’ house. He was like the poster child for that commercial that showed an egg being cracked open: “This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs.” And then they’d show the egg frying.

            Jude was always getting into trouble. Like the time the police called the house and informed Mom they’d nailed him shoplifting. She gave me the job of phoning my father at his office and telling him. Man, was Dad honked off. Right after he picked Jude up at the police station, he drove him to a barber shop and told the guy to shave Jude's head. Mom boohooed for days. I don’t know which bothered her more—his criminal record or the removal of his pretty copper curls.  I found them one day when I was snooping through her dresser drawers. Dad must’ve had the barber put the hair in a baggie for her. I snuck outside with them. Stuffed them into a garbage bag inside a trash can. Just because.

            In addition to being a klepto and a druggie, Jude consumed scads of beer. In fact, the first time I ever got drunk was with him. Jude and his friend Robbie had snuck a case of Rolling Rock into the basement. Katie Lynn and I walked downstairs to watch Charlie's Angels, and there they were—the boys and the beer.

            “Want some?” Jude asked.

            “No,” I said.

            “Yes,” Katie Lynn said.

            I have no idea how my folks never figured out two college boys were getting two ninth grade girls tipsy in the basement. I take that back. I do have an idea.

Yes, No, Maybe So--Part I

I’d eaten my bowl of Cheerios with a spoonful of sugar. I’d fed the dog, the cat, and my hamster, Houdini. I couldn’t wait any longer. It was time. I dialed Katie Lynn’s house. Her mother Caroline answered the phone.

            “Morning, Mrs. Carver. It’s me, Dana.”

            “Good morning, Dana. You’re up early.” I loved the way her Southern accent spilled out like Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

            “Yes, ma’am. Is Katie Lynn up yet?”

            “No, but I’m happy to wake her. Else she’ll sleep the day away. Hold on.”

            I heard Mrs. Carver put the phone down. A minute later came the clank of porcelain on metal. That was probably Katie Lynn knocking the handset of her princess phone off its cradle.

            “Mmm . . . hello?”

            “Wake up, you sleepy head. Get your hiney out of bed.”

            Her words came pillowy and slow. “It’s summertime. We’re supposed to sleep in.”

            “They’re here, Katie Lynn! They’re here!”

            “What are?”

            “The space age tanning blankets. The ones I told you about. I ordered them from the Sunday supplement and I got you one too, ‘cause they were buy one, get one free.”

            “That is exciting. Can I go back to sleep now?”

            “No. It takes you forever to get ready so you have to start now. Be here by ten. For real.”

            “Oh, all right. Which suit should I wear?”

            “How ‘bout the white one?”

            Katie made a growly noise. “Naw. I don’t have a base tan yet. I’ll look pasty.”

            “Um . . . Bring the rust-colored one, the one you made in Home Ec.”

            “Naw. It’s a one piece. I want to get sun on my tummy.”

            “For crying out loud, Katie Lynn,” I said. “The fact of the matter is I really don’t care. Just pick one and get over here. The blankets are supposed to maximize our time spent in the sun. I want to get started.”

            After I hung up, I closed my bedroom door and stepped into my suit. Shivered because it was still damp from yesterday. I wiggled and adjusted in front of the mirror. “I wish I had five or six suits,” I told my reflection. “Like Katie Lynn.”

            Outside I grumbled as blades of wet grass licked my calves. “You’d think with three boys in the house, our lawn would be perfect,” I said to no one in particular. I dragged two aluminum chaise lounges into the middle of the back yard, lined them up with the sun’s position in the sky.

            On the screened-in porch, I deliberated in front of my mother’s tanning product collection. Coppertone, Bain de Soleil for the San Tropez Tan, or Hawaiian Tropic Dark Tanning Lotion? Or, I could mix up some baby oil with iodine. I twisted the top off the Hawaiian Tropic, inhaled, and grinned. It was the first day of summer break. We should celebrate by smelling like coconuts.

            Back in the house I gathered several issues of Seventeen magazine and two Rosemary Rogers’s romance novels. Katie Lynn always begged me to read the love scenes out loud. I grabbed my hand mirror at the last minute. In case she wanted to practice kissing.

            In the kitchen I peeked over Mom’s shoulder as she scanned the newspaper and smoked, according to the ashtray, her third cigarette of the day. The weather section said it was going be a scorcher.

            “Better get the hose,” I said to myself as I headed back out. 

             "Dang it!" I said, hose in hand. I backtracked to get Mom's kitchen timer. Katie Lynn and I always set it for thirty minutes. Half hour for our fronts, half hour for our backs. Katie Lynn also spent time balanced on each side so she wouldn't have white stripes under her arms but I wasn't that dedicated.

            True to her slower than molasses in January track record, Katie Lynn arrived an hour late. I’d anticipated this and was already tanning.

            I slid my sunglasses down my nose. “Aren’t the tanning blankets cool?”

            “Are they Reynold’s Wrap?” she said. “’Cause that’s what they look like—tin foil.”

            I rattled my blanket. “I know. And when you move, they crinkle. Am I dark yet?”

            “Nope. You’re still super pale.”

            I shrugged. “No big whoop. By Friday, I’ll look like the little girl in the Coppertone ad with the white butt.”

            We spread Katie Lynn’s silver sheet on her chair and she greased up. Just as she was settling in, I heard the window in Mom and Dad’s bedroom crank open.

            My brother Jude hollered out. “Hey! You all mind if I join you?”

            “Yes,” I said.

            “No,” Katie Lynn said.