Fainting

Chapter 11 - Allison

As Mark is walking away, my phone rings.

"Hey, Jordy," I answer.

"Hey, sis," Jordyn answers. "Where are you?"

"Why?"

"Where are you?"

I sigh. "Can you wait an hour? I'm trying to clean up."

"You'll have to text me that address. Never heard of it before."
"Jordyn."

"Sorry."
"No you're not."
"Then don't make me say it. I'll wait an hour, but you'll still have to tell me where you are."
"I'll do it in an hour. I might go someplace else."

"Don't forget. See you soon."
"Bye, Jordyn."

Younger sisters are so annoying.

I clean up from Mark's and my picnic and clean a little inside the van. Eventually, when I feel more like having my sister over then I did earlier, I tell her I'm at Cade's.

Big surprise, she texts back.

"Frank Patterson."

I yank my head up. "What?"

Jordyn just walked into the van.

"Frank Patterson. You know my friend Sara?"

"Sure. I know your friend Sara."

"She was my high school friend who was always over at our house."
"I said I know who she is."
"You were lying." I roll my eyes, picking apart my celery stick. "Anyway, she has an older brother a couple of years older than you. That's your next boyfriend."

"Oh, he is, is he?" I internally sigh. It's an endless cycle: she comes barging in with a name and phone number, I go out on a couple of dates – the most was five, I think, with Tommy – and then one of us breaks up. And the knowledge that my sister, a sophomore in college, set us up creates more awkwardness then was necessary.

"Catching on."

A few minutes later she pops a piece of apple in her mouth and makes a face. "How do you eat this stuff all the time?"

"I don't eat that all the time," I say, nodding toward the apple. "I vary my fruits and vegetables – there are a lot to choose from. And you asked for the apple."

"After you said I needed to pick a fruit. I picked the least nasty."
"If that's your reaction to the least nasty fruit, you need to eat it more often. Then you'd get used to it." I told her she needed to have a fruit before stuffing her face with the cookies she brought.

She makes another face. "You my mother?"
"No, I'm your sister who has known your mother for longer than you have, and therefore knows – clearly better than you – that she would like for you to eat your fruits and vegetables."

Jordyn snorts. "You've known her two more years. Big difference."

"For four months of the year I'm three years older."

"Wow."

I smirk. "I know. It's unbelievable. You'd think I'm more than three years older than you, based on how you act versus how I act."

She smacks me. "Two years."

"So, Frank Patterson."
I sigh. I was hoping she would forget; that hope was futile, and I knew it. "I'm Allison."

Jordyn's turn to sigh. "My bad. You look like him. Maybe that's why you should go out with him."

"If he looks anything like Sara, he does not look like me."

"Thought you didn't remember Sara."

"I'm aware that's what you thought. You were right, I forgot. However, then I remembered."

"Uh-huh."

We're quiet for a few minutes, her eating her cake and cookies and me eating carrots and the cake crumbs.

Jordyn slides a piece of paper over. "That's his number. If Sara is cooperating – which I have no reason to think is not the case – Frank knows about this, and he might even text you first. Wouldn't that be nice?"

"Lovely." Honestly, I just go along with all of this because it's fun seeing my sister so passionate about something. But it can sometimes drive me crazy. "Does he know my name's Allison or did you tell him I'm Sonny?" Jordyn calls me Sonny, and that's what she told Colin my name was – he was the last guy she set me up with. I gave my sister the silent treatment for three days following my meeting him.

"Allison. Why? I could tell him otherwise, if you prefer."

"No no. Allison's fine, thank you."

"When are you going to get an apartment?"
"When I want one." Jordyn is often very abrupt with her subject changes.

She looks at me. "Continue."

"I can't tell the future; I don't know when I'll get an apartment. Probably when I'm married and starting a family. I don't need one until then." I think for a moment and then say – a very meaningful part of my explanation, I might add – "Sigh."

Jordyn raises her eyebrows. "Did you say the word sigh?"
"Yes."

"Why didn't you actually sigh?"
"I've done a lot of that today, so I decided to do something different. Something wrong with that?"
She shakes her head. "Nope. Nothing at all."