Eva. Eva, wake up. Hey, your parents want to talk to you. Eva...
"Eva," a soft voice whispered next to me, pulling me out of dreamland. My eyes snapped open as I grabbed my pillow and began swinging blindly in self defense. "Hey!" the voice exclaimed. "It's just Jane!"
I took delivered a few more feather-filled blows before I processed what she was saying. Mid-swing I sheepishly lowered my pillow to reveal Jane's face, her normally silky-straight hair now frumpled from my one-sided pillow fight. "Uh, s-sorry about that," I squeaked out.
"You're really not a morning person, are you?" Jane crossed her arms, her lips tilted downward but a smile sparkling in her eyes.
"I guess not," I said, throwing my legs over the side of my bed and stretching. I looked above Jane's head at her clock, which was now split into two as I had expected, each ticking down at its own pace. It was kind of sweet, like a new clock and a new life, but then I remembered that it was also my brother's fault and that didn't make it so sweet anymore.
Jane and I sat in awkward silence staring at each other for a moment too long before she realized she had come in my room for a reason. "Oh, sorry! I forgot, your parents wanted to talk to you, Matt and I all together this morning. I told her we could go out for breakfast, but from what I've seen," she looked me up and down, from my messy hair to my frumpy pajamas. "You guys aren't really morning people."
"That we are not," I said. "So should we go downstairs and see the rest of my train wreck-- I mean, family?"
Jane laughed and left my room, her hair swaying behind her. As Jane left, Clover tumbled into my room, jumping onto my bed and lapping at my face.
"I forgot to let you in here last night!" I cried, embracing Clover as she squirmed and licked my face. By the time I'd gotten Clover to settle down I was already tired and began drifting off as I ran my hands through her fur. It was so much easier to just lay in bed, petting my dog, letting myself slip away--
"EVA," Matt's voice bellowed from the other side of my door. I jolted awake and leaped out of bed, opening my door to see my dearest brother, fuming. "Jane came upstairs to get you five minutes ago."
"Oh, dearest me," I gasped mockingly. "I've forgotten we have company over! And that mama and papa want to discuss something super duper important with us... Oh golly gosh, was what it that lovely Jane said it was again?"
"Very funny," Matt said flatly, yanking my door shut. "Hurry up!" he called over his shoulder through the door, nearly drowned out by the sound of his thumping footsteps.
I turned my attention back to Clover, who was sleeping soundly in a little ball at the head of my bed. "I wish I could be like you," I said, petting the top of her head before I finally got up and made my way downstairs.
"I still just don't know how you're going to deal with the finances," I heard my father's reasoning voice mutter from the kitchen. I stopped myself from walking in and instead held my back against the wall outside, eavesdropping.
"Well," Jane started. "I'm going to be working throughout the pregnancy to--"
"No," Matt cut her off. "You won't be. There's no way he-- or she, or whatever it is, can grow or develop or whatever correctly if you're up moving around all the time."
I could practically see Jane roll her eyes. "A lot of mothers continue work throughout their pregnancies."
"Yeah, at their desk jobs, not teaching spin classes, like, a dozen times a day," Matt said. So that's where Jane works. No wonder she's so fit.
I inched further towards the kitchen, straining my ears to hear the quieter voice of my mother. "Where are you going to live? Are you going to get an apartment, or are you going to each live at home and just shuttle the baby back and forth every other week?"
Silence fell over the table. I could hear the shuffling of Matt's feet, my father's cough, the ruffling of my mother's clothes as she crossed her arms. "I guess we'll have to look at houses," Matt said.
"Apartments," Jane, the voice of reason, corrected.
"Yeah, apartments."
Just as the conversation had started to get real, Clover bounded down the stairs, running straight for me. "No, Clover," I whispered harshly, holding out my hands as stabilization before impact. Clover continued her beeline towards me, knocking right into my knees and pushing me down with a thud. I heard the kitchen chairs screech on the floor and the footsteps of four people making their way towards me, soon stopping as I felt eight eyes hovering over me.
"How long have you been standing there?" Matt asked.
"Long enough," I said, taking the offer of Jane's hand to help myself up. We stood in awkward silence as I dusted myself off.
"Does anyone want some juice?" my mother finally asked.
"That would be lovely," Jane said, following her into the kitchen. She and my mother went to retrieve the pitcher and glasses from the cabinet while my brother, father and I filed into the breakfast table. The only sound for the next five minutes was the clinking of glasses, pouring of juice and the refreshed swallows of thirsty and exhausted individuals.
"So," I said after a while, cutting the tension. "Apartments, huh?"
"Shut up," Matt whispered next to me, kicking me in the shin. I yelped in protest.
Jane sighed, smirking. "Please don't tell me I'm going to have to finish raising you too, Matthew."
Matt turned a bright shade of pink. "That won't be necessary," he mumbled.
The next half hour continued in this awkward silence with bitterly polite conversation before I couldn't take it anymore and excused myself to attend to Clover's needs. She and I had gotten halfway to the Tree before I remembered that it was 11 o'clock on a Thursday morning-- Clay's time. Normally I would have ignored his stupid "Tree Time" rules and would've just gone with it, but something inside me told me to just wait an hour or later in the evening and go when it was my turn. It was probably that stupid perfect summer promise thing yesterday, I thought. I'd been spooked by the idea of a commitment to someone to have fun, a weird concept.
Clover and I decided to take the long way around to Tia's house, where we were greeted by her mother and a dog bone, which Clover appreciated. I left Clover in the care of Mrs. Das before I raced up the stairs towards Tia's room, not eager to tell her about the night with Clay, but also eager to finally have a secret to hide from her instead of the other way around.
I was greeted with what I should've expected-- a sleeping, snoring lump of blankets. Often I exhausted myself with making choices in life, but this one was one of my favorites-- how to wake a peacefully sleeping Tia. There were so many options: a bucket of water, ripping the sheets off, jumping on top of her...
Before I got my chance to choose, her steady snores caught as she began to wake up, foiling my plans. At the last second, I grabbed the cup of water on her nightstand, dousing her. Sometimes it was funnier to get someone who is just waking up rather than someone who is dead-as-a-doormat asleep.
Tia, however, did not find it as funny. Flailing, she reached for anything to throw at the intruder, the first thing she grabbed being her 600 page, hardcover AP Government book at the foot of her bed. I ducked as Tia aimed to fire, but she stopped herself when she recognized me, swapping her Gov book out for a pillow and selecting that as her weapon of choice.
"What is wrong with you?!" Tia growled, thwacking me repeatedly with the pillow. I scrambled away crab-walk style towards her bay window, hoisting myself onto the bench and cowering behind one of the decorative pillows. Tia sighed, laughing to herself as she flopped back onto her bed, her sheets making an uncomfortable watery squish. "Any reason you've decided to stop by?" she asked, sitting up and grimacing at her now-moist clothing. I apparently paused for a second too long and Tia raised an eyebrow. My mind raced for something good to stay to explain the hesitation, but Tia was already suspicious, leaning forward on her elbows. "I'm all ears," she said.
"I haven't even said anything!" I said.
"But I know you, and you definitely have something to say."
And thus I was faced with a decision-- she'd never suspect I had two major pieces of news at one time, I'm far too boring for that --tell Tia about Matt Junior, or about Clay. I opted for the obvious option.
"Matt's pregnant," I blurted. Okay, not exactly the obvious option, but it would cause a lot less complications, ironically.
"What?" Tia said, appalled.
"Oh, Matt's not pregnant," I corrected, Tia breathing a sigh of relief. "But his girlfriend, Jane. Yeah, Jane, she's definitely pregnant."
"What?!" Tia ran her hands through her hair, looking like I'd just told her she was being forced to dropped out of high school and volunteer as tribute. I wondered if I'd looked that shocked when Matt told me. "When did this happen?"
"Well there were a lot of times it could've happened. There was that one party a few days ago, she's been sleeping over for the past two weeks--"
"Ew, no, not like that," Tia groaned, covering her face with her hands and shaking her head. "Like how many weeks is she along?"
I scoffed. "As if that was the first thing on my mind."
"Think about it. When did it probably happen?"
I contemplated this. "Well, there was that one night... No, Brad walked in on that one. Oh yeah that was hilarious, he saw them, blacked out in the doorway and then didn't remember a thing the next morning!" Tia rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay. Let me think. She's probably... six weeks?"
"Wow. At least they're not in high school anymore."
"I have a feeling Jane and Matt would both have very different views on what they'd do if they were still in high school," I said.
The baby conversation continued as I spilled to Tia everything, from what my parents thought to names to what it'd look like to what we thought Matt was going to do as far as school.
"I mean, I know Jane will go back, she's too determined, but Matt..." I trailed off.
"I'm sure he will."
We fell silent for a minute. My thoughts of guilt began to creep into my head again as they had the night before when I was with Clay.
How were you so careless?
Where was Eva?
"I feel like I should've been able to do something to stop this all, you know?" I whispered, hating myself as my voice cracked.
"Aw, Eva," Tia soothed, pulling me into a hug. "There was no way you could've known."
I pulled away from Tia, bringing my knees up to my chest. "But I feel like I should have some responsibility. Like, if I had done one thing different, it would've set off some sort of different chain of events, and this would've never happened."
"That's not how life works though, Eva. Everything happens for a reason you know. You don't want to mess with fate."
I laughed. Sometimes I had the urge to just spill the clock secret-- the only secret from Tia --to her, but something inside myself made me stop when it was just on the tip of my tongue, like my grandmother's curse had sworn me to secrecy or something. Besides, moments like these where she just couldn't possibly understand are priceless. "I'd never try to," I said.
"Good," Tia smiled, shifting to lay down on her bed, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the ceiling that had been there since we were nine. I walked over to her sunshine yellow bean bag chair and flopped down, relaxing at the sound of the soothing crunch of the foam beads inside. Tia and I sat in silence, she looking at her stars, I looking at her wall of Polaroids, studying their clock-less faces.
"What's wrong?" Tia asked after we'd been in a half-hour lul of silence, sitting up to face me.
"What?"
"You're looking at my Polaroids," Tia stood, walking over to me and plopping down cross-legged on the hardwood next to me.
"And?"
Tia rolled her eyes. "You only look at them when you're hiding something."
"Excuse me?"
"Whenever you don't want to talk about something you look at them, like it's some sort of weird therapy."
"I do not!" I protested. "Okay, maybe I do."
Tia laughed. "What is it? Or else..." she stood, picking up the glass of icy water on her nightstand.
"Don't shoot, don't shoot!" Holding up my arms in surrender, I sighed. This was a lose-lose situation. Either tell Tia about Clay, or get doused with an uninvited ice bath. Pick your poison, I thought to myself. Tia held the glass over my head, tipping it in slow motion. Just as the first drop hit my head, I blurted, "I saw Clay last night!"
"What?!" Tia said, in her surprise, tipping the cup downward, showering me in freezing water. "Oops."
I sat frozen, my mouth open in shock. Tia scrambled into her attached bathroom, hurrying back with a towel. I snatched it from her, wrapping myself in its blanketing warmth. "Well," I said, shivering. "If you ever had any hope of hearing anything else, it's gone now."
Tia crossed her arms in defense. "I didn't have to get you a towel, you know."
"And you didn't have to spill water on me, and I don't have to tell you about last night."
With a dramatic sigh, Tia flopped onto her bed, holding her hand to her forehead in a "woe is me" manner. "I guess I'll never know about my best friend's love life... outside of Jason Yard."
"That's it," I sprung up, grabbing one of the pillows off of Tia's window and began to beat her with it. Tia rolled away from my blows, grabbing her pillow off her bed and fought back, trying to overpower my smaller decorative pillow with her 36 inch, king size, memory foam weapon of choice. Obviously, no producer of a Hollywood "chick flick" with a classic "sleepover pillow fight scene" had ever truly experienced a pillow fight with real teenage girls. Nevermind the frilly, skimpy lingerie and feathers flying everywhere-- this was full-on war.
I knew my throw-pillow was no match for Tia's massive sleep-pillow, so my first move was to find better artillery. Tia was smart enough to predict my next move, and threw all the pillows on her bed to the opposite side, where I could only get to by going through her. Gulping down my nerves, I went in swinging my pathetic armament blindly, diving headfirst into the duvet and somersaulting to the other side where Tia's armory was.
"No!" My opponent, who was blindsided by my bold infiltration, began swinging at me, inhibiting me with a large blow to my unguarded back. With the wind knocked out of me, I gathered as many of the bigger pillow as I could, abandoning my trusty old throw pillow for newer and better weapons.
Tia and I continued our battle, and as per usual, her gymnast strength and stamina overpowered me and I gave up, collapsing in surrender. Satistisfied, Tia gave me one more whack before jumping onto her now frumpled bed in a fit of laughter. Her laughter was contagious and soon I too was gasping for air, holding my sore spots from Tia's victory.
When we'd eventually calmed down, Tia's door creaked open, her mom smiling in from the doorway. "A good old-fashioned pillow fight, huh girls?" she remarked, laughing our fluffy weapons that were now scattered all around the room.
"All in good fun, mama," Tia joked, standing to give her mom a hug. I smiled softly at the exchange. I swear I'd live here if I could, I whispered in my mind.
"Well Eva, you're welcome any time," Mrs. Das giggled. Apparently I didn't say that in my head. My face turned crimson as a chuckled in embarrassment, attempting to laugh it off. "I'm sure Tia would love to trade places to get away from her ever-overbearing mother for a minute," Tia's mom said, ruffling her daughter's hair.
Wrapping her arms around her mother, Tia rolled her eyes. "Aw, you'd miss me."
After a bit more small talk and banter between Tia and her mom, Mrs. Das invited us downstairs for an early dinner, which I happily agreed to. My favorite place to get a home-cooked meal was never my own home, but rather Tia's. Her mom had dabbled in culinary school before going to law school, and still kept up with her cooking on the side. The Das kitchen was always full of strong smells, and the evening's starring dish appeared to be a taco bar. Chicken, beef and refried beans were among the bases, and you could fill your hard shell or soft tortilla taco with every topping imaginable. That was the other thing about the Das kitchen-- not only was the food always good, but it was always plentiful and varied.
Our eyes widened in excitement, Tia and I ran over to the plates, beginning to pile them high. She always went for a soft taco with refried beans, while I prefer a hard shell with ground beef. Mr. and Mrs. Das liked to mix it up between the three bases, but Tia and I remained consistent.
After we'd topped our dishes high with lettuce, cheese, tomatoes, sour cream, salsa and the rest of the works, Tia and I carefully balanced our plates and made our way over to the kitchen table, taking seats across from each other. Neither of us being timid eaters, we dove in with little regard to anything else happening in the kitchen.
Soon after we'd started eating Tia's father arrived, announced by the opening of the garage door and the clanging of his keys in the glass bowl by their door. "You all started without me?" Mr. Das joked, wrapping his arms around Tia and she gulped down her most recent bite.
"You're welcome to join us," Tia teased, taking another bite. Mr. Das laughed and met his wife at the island, kissing her before moving on to fix a plate of his own. His wife began to grab a plate for herself before he motioned for her to sit down, that he'd take care of it.
Mr. Das joined the rest of us at the table, setting his wife's plate in front of her and taking his seat across from her and next to his daughter. Though I'd always been like an honorary member of their family, it was moments like these that I felt like an outsider looking in, like the concept of family dinners was so far back in my memory that it felt foreign to me. Something I always noticed at their family dinners was their clocks seemed to slow. As I observed their jokes between each other, conversations about their day and the plans for tomorrow, with each smile it was as if the seconds seemed to tick down slower and slower. I'd realized at a young age and continued to notice through the Das' that they key to a long and happy life truly was family.
The rest of the early dinner was filled with laughter and joy, and soon our bellies were full. It was about 4:00, and after everything was cleaned up I let myself out, leaving the Das' to their family evening alone.
When I got back to my own house, it ended up feeling far less "homey" than dinner with the Das'. My parents' cars were nowhere to be seen, as to be expected. In recent times, when anything got tough with Matt, their response was to leave. Somehow, they always magically had an out of town conference, or needed a "weekend away to reconnect", or as they'd been doing lately, simply didn't bother to give an excuse altogether and just left.
I could hear Clover barking from inside, scratching at the front window in excitement about my arrival. Upon opening the door Clover tackled me, showering me with sloppy puppy kisses and sniffing me in hunger as the savory smell from dinner still clung to my clothes. Besides, I doubted Matt had had the heart to put any food in her dish all afternoon.
Jane's voice carried from inside the house to the front door, spiking my curiosity. I rose from my Clover-induced tackled position on the front porch and shuffled Clover inside the house, swinging the door shut behind us.
"I just don't know, Matt," Jane whispered, her voice cracking. I ducked into the living room, holding my back against the wall as I eavesdropped on their conversation.
"Jane," Matt said. I peered around the corner and saw Jane and Matt sitting on the bottom step. Matt wrapped his arm around her, using his other hand to smooth her hair, drawing my attention to her head. I watched in mesmeration at the two clocks above Jane's head as she leaned into Matt's shoulder. As Matt ran his fingers through her hair, I noticed her clock (which I could identify by the lesser amount of time on it) slowed. Though I often saw my brother as an incompetent ape for lack of better wording, it was the love he had in his heart for Jane that clearly soothed her.
"Do you--" Jane's voice caught as tears rolled down her face and onto Matt's t-shirt. "Do you really think we can do this? There's always options you know--"
Matt shook his head and shushed her, cutting her off. "No. We can do this." The wooden steps moaned as Matt shifted his weight to face Jane, taking her face in his hands. "No matter what I have to do, skip college, go get a job, steal money from my parents and run away to Mexico, whatever... we're going to do this."
That broke Jane. Steady, salty rivers flowed from her eyes as she relaxed in Matt's hands, letting herself just breathe as she needed to. Matt kissed her forehead and pulled her in close, whispering to her as he smoothed her shirt. Feeling like if I listened anymore it'd be stalkerish, I crept up the second set of stairs to my room and ushered Clover inside, taking one last look at Matt and Jane around the corner before shutting my door with a muted click.