five

           “So, Charles, what are your plans for this summer?”

           Charlie continued to type away on his phone, not bothering to even acknowledge that he had been addressed.

           “Charles?”

           Again, no response.

           “Charles!” my mother stepped in. “Answer your father, or I will see to it personally that you spend your summer as a camp counselor with underprivileged kids!” Charlie hated kids (with the Green children being the only exception). Especially underprivileged ones. I was going to guess that it had something to do with a severe amount of white guilt, but then again, this was Charlie, so maybe it was for an entirely different reason.

           “Sorry,” apologized Charlie, “I was just letting my friends know what a wonderful time I had this weekend. You were asking?”

           “What are you going to do this summer, Charles?” inquired my father, completely dropping the notion of plausibly being agitated with his elder son. I always hated how Charlie could do that. One minute, our parents would be furious with him for whatever reason, and then the next minute, Charlie would apologize and then he would automatically go back to being the prodigal favorite son. And Charlie was the favorite.

           Yeah, there was all that bullshit about not picking a favorite child, but it was clear to even stranger that Charlie was the favorite. He was infallible and could do no wrong. Like, even if he committed murder or treason (though embezzlement was more likely in a family like mine), my parents would stand by him until the very end. Because he was their first child, therefor earning the title of “favorite” by default. If I were the first child—and not Charlie—then I would’ve been the favorite child. But I wasn’t. I was the second kid, ergo placing me in second place for all other facets of life. Even though Charlie was the reckless one, and even though Charlie was the brash one, and even though Charlie was the impulsive one, he was still the favorite, because he was the first.

           “Oh, ya know, I’ll probably just lounge around here and catch up on some reading”—by reading he probably meant porn—“and maybe go boating, presuming, of course, that you’ll have me, Dad.”

           My mom didn’t like that answer. “What about that nice internship you were offered with the senate campaign?”

           “Yes, Charles, what about the senate campaign?” Evidently, my dad, also, wasn’t too keen on Charlie’s answer.

           “Well, I just think that since there’s such a limited amount of time between now and when I go to school, if I worked on the campaign, I just wouldn’t be there enough to make a difference,” Charlie fluently articulated. In actuality, he just wanted to spend another lazy summer around the house. If I knew Charlie (which I did), then he never had any intention of ever joining the senate campaign.

           And because my parents were suckers for their favorite son, my dad said, “Fine,” thereby allowing Charlie to do nothing all summer.

           Then the attention in the room shifted over to me. Because once they were done with Charlie, it was only the natural progression to move on to me. “What about you, Will?” my mom asked. “Do you have any plans for the summer?”

           “Besides summer homework?”

           “Besides summer homework,” affirmed my dad.

           “Will’s gonna hang with me this summer,” Charlie stepped in. “I think that it’d be great for us to do some quality brotherly bonding before I’m out of the house.”

           “You’ve been out of the house for four years already,” I pointed out, “and I’ve been out of the house for two years.”

           “Psh, details,” he brushed it off. “But seriously, Will, we should hang more. Maybe play a few tennis matches. Or some B-ball. Or even badminton!”

           “I want you to be reading, William,” said my mom.

           “As do I,” seconded my dad. “If you boys plan on spending the summer here, doing essentially nothing, then I expect you both to at least be reading.”

           “Then we’ll read!” Charlie promised. “Now that that’s settled, can we go?”

           “Yes, I suppose,” my mom sighed with a shake of her head.

           So, Charlie and I didn’t think twice about leaving the kitchen table.

           My parents were always calling useless meetings like the one that we had just escaped. We would sit around the kitchen table, discussing one thing or another, and there was never really any point to the meetings, though that didn’t stop my parents from arranging them. Usually, the topics debated were stupid things like what we wanted for dinner or an “update” on how our lives were going. Literally, my mom would sometimes call meetings and we would all have to go around and say what we’ve been up to, just so that my parents had a somewhat accurate description of such to tell their friends when they asked. Charlie usually BSed the shit out of his “updates,” always mentioning how he was dating a nice girl (he didn’t date—he fucked) and how he was the star of his sports team (that part was usually true) and how he was still stuck between whether or not he wanted to pursue business and finances or law (we all knew he would end up on Wall Street one day, so there wasn’t really a conflict there). My “updates” were always short and sweet. I typically said exactly what my parents wanted to hear and then moved on. Presently, we were exiting a round of “updates” pertaining to our summers. Charlie and I had both, thankfully, absconded unscathed.

           I headed upstairs after my freedom had been affirmed, and Charlie did the same. It was late afternoon, and in a few hours (around maybe eight or so), we would be sitting down for a nice fancy dinner with the Prescotts. The Prescott family lived a few streets over back home, and where I was one of two boys, the Prescotts had two girls. Grace and Riley. Grace was Charlie’s age, and Riley was my age. Our families were pretty tight, and during the year, my dad worked with Mr. Prescott. Sometimes during the summer, they came up for a few days and chilled at our house. During our nice family meeting, the Prescotts and how to appropriately treat the Prescotts had been discussed. Last time, Grace and Charlie ended up getting drunk and then having sex. According to my mom, that wasn’t proper etiquette for when guests came over. Basically, our parents just warned Charlie (and kind of me) to not try and engage in any physical act involving nudity with either of the girls. Charlie was there for this warning, but I was pretty sure that everything kind of just went in one ear and out the other. If things went correctly (by Charlie’s standards, of course), then Charlie would be unwrapping a condom by the end of the night.

           “So, Will, are you going to go read now?” Charlie teased right before we parted ways into our own respective bedrooms.

           “That, or I’ll just play Madden,” I replied. I was, actually, planning on reading, though.

           “Nice, bro,” he commended. “Want somebody to play against?” He was offering himself up as my opponent.

           I was about to tell him that if he wanted to join me, then he could, but then my mom’s ringing voice sounded from the bottom of the stairs: “BOYS, WOULD YOU COME BACK DOWN FOR A MOMENT?”

           Charlie looked over to me and let out an audible groan.

           I rolled my eyes.

           We both jogged back down the stairs, because if we didn’t, then there would be serious repercussions from one Hillary Brooks. And when we returned downstairs, standing in the front corridor was Eden Green and her niece. Eden was smiling brightly at the two of us. Lilah was holding a container of sorts and looked less than thrilled to be here. But once Charlie saw Lilah, his initial irritation of having to face our mom once again vanished entirely. His annoyance was replaced by intrigue, but he veiled it well, plastering on his best I’m-totally-the-favorite-son-and-everybody-knows-it smile as he greeted Eden.

           “Eden! Nice to see you again,” Charlie said. “I don’t know if your kids told you, but we had a blast the other day in the pool.”

           “So I’ve heard,” Eden smiled. “Since you were at the pool, I’m assuming that you got the chance to meet my niece, Lilah?”

           Charlie grinned at Eden and then at Lilah. “We have been acquainted, yes.”

           “Well, I just came over here to have tea with Hillary, but we couldn’t come over empty-handed, so Lilah baked brownies,” Eden shared, gesturing over to the item that Lilah held in her hands.

           “And the girl cooks, too,” Charlie remarked with a shake of his head and a smirk.

           “Like, I didn’t actually bake them,” Lilah said. “They were from a mix.”

           Charlie shrugged it off, like he did most things. “It’s still impressive. I can barely make my own coffee.”

           “Now that, Charles, is just plain sad,” my mom told him.

           Eden laughed, and then suggested that she and my mom go have a drink (“tea” was really a code word for “anything with alcohol”), while the “kids” (Charlie was eighteen, therefor excepting him from that title, but apparently adults didn’t care) dug into the brownies. Everyone seemed to be satisfied with this plan, so Eden and my mom left for the porch, ditching Lilah, Charlie, and me. Something told me that while the combination wasn’t a toxic one, it definitely wasn’t the type of group that one purposely stuck in a room together without a rhyme or reason.

           Charlie began the interaction by taking the brownies from Lilah. He tore the tinfoil off of the top, and then said, “I’ll be very disappointed if these aren’t pot brownies.” In addition to his obsession with girls, Charlie was also rather passionate about weed. But he was a rich kid who had grown up in one of the most intense environments on the planet, so why wouldn’t he turn to marijuana usage? A lot of my friends smoked pot, but I tried to be above the influence. And also the one time that I smoked it, it was clear that it just wasn’t for me.

           “Sorry to disappoint,” Lilah returned, watching as my brother took a bite out of a brownie.

           Charlie let out a deep and overdramatic moan. “Okay, so maybe it’s fine that they’re just regular brownies…”

           “Want one, Will?” Lilah asked, reclaiming the tray from Charlie.

           “He doesn’t eat sugar—he’s watching his figure,” Charlie answered for me.

           I glanced down at the brownies, the thought of eating them much less appealing than the actual act of eating them, and then made a resolute decision. “I’d love one, thanks.”

           So, Lilah handed me a brownie, and I brought it up to my mouth and went through the whole process of eating it and whatnot. Like, it wasn’t bad. It was actually a really good brownie. But then I remembered how much sugar was in it, so I instantly felt guilty, and I knew that I would have to do a few extra crunches tonight or something. Because that was just how my life worked—I would eat a brownie, and then automatically come to the conclusion that I needed to work out more. I was pretty sure that it wasn’t an eating disorder because I didn’t know any guys who had eating disorders, but, like, maybe it was. Whatever. I ate the brownie and freaking enjoyed it—the taste, that was.

           “Look at that,” commented Charlie smugly, “little William is eating a brownie! Wow! But careful there, Will, you wouldn’t want to eat too many calories, would you?”

           I didn’t feel like responding to that, so I didn’t. Instead, I savored the lasting taste of the brownie and listened as Lilah and Charlie went back and forth.

           “I’m stuck here until my aunt is done with tea,” Lilah announced to nobody in particular.

           “You mean scotch,” Charlie corrected.

           “Scotch?”

           “Yeah, whenever Eden comes over, she and my mom claim that they’re drinking tea, but we all know that it’s really scotch.”

           “Never pegged my aunt as a scotch-drinker.”

           “Well, she is one,” Charlie uttered the cold hard truth. “So, Lilah, what do you want to do? Well, besides me, of course.”

           “I know it’s hard to believe, but I don’t, actually, want to do you,” Lilah told him.

           I bit the edge of my lip and mumbled, “Rejected.”

           “That’s just because she doesn’t know how big my dick is yet,” Charlie assured me.

           “That’s not the only reason,” Lilah muttered.

           Charlie quickly realized that this conversation could only end poorly for his genitalia, so promptly recommended that, “We should go upstairs.” Which was exactly what we did.

           The three of us trekked up the endless staircase that led to the second floor, and Lilah made sure to bring the brownies with. When we reached a hallway of rooms, Charlie approached his room, and then he decided to be a jerk when Lilah stood still, unsure as to where she was meant to go.

           Charlie twisted the doorknob of his room and turned back to Lilah. “The only way you’re seeing my room is if we bang, so I’d suggest asking Will to see his. He’s a lot easier. All you have to do is say please.” With that, Charlie disappeared into the depths of his room, which I found odd, considering he just left a hot girl who he had previously shown interest in with me.

           “He’s kind of a douchebag,” Lilah assessed with a determined nod.

           “Yeah, kind of,” I agreed. “So, uh, do you want to chill in my room?”

           “Are there strings attached if I say yes?”

           “Well, as Charlie said, all you have to do is say please.”

           Lilah laughed. “Then yes, please.”

           I grinned and then went over to the closed door (doors were always closed in our house) that served as the entrance for my summer bedroom. It wasn’t nearly as ostentatious as my actual bedroom at home, but I barely spent any time in my bedroom home because of school, so really this particular bedroom was the one that I cared about. It had everything I needed in it and was just kind of simple, which I liked. Last summer my parents mounted a TV on the wall, which I didn’t really need, but I was glad that they did it. The room itself consisted of the bare essentials: a bed, a desk, a dresser, a closet, and a bookshelf. Everything was kind of structured around my bed, because it was in the middle of the room so that I could watch TV from it or play on my Xbox or whatever. My desk was in one corner, my bookshelf was next to it, and my dresser was, like, parallel to my bed on the wall that wasn’t where my closet was. I liked the room.

           “Well, this is, uh, my room,” I said, walking through the doorframe with a curious Lilah Tov following closely behind.

           She didn’t say anything. Instead of words, she used actions to narrate her thought process. Her feet dragged her over to my desk, first, and then to my bookshelf. She bent down and ran a single finger over the spines of all the books I had read and had yet to read. I wasn’t sure what she thought of my taste in literature, but I didn’t really care, because I knew that I had good taste. Well, maybe it wasn’t so much good as it was classic. Everything I read was a classic, which in part was dictated my parents’ irrational fear of me (or Charlie) reading contemporary fiction and wanting to revolt or join a cult or start a computer-generated revolution. But the other reason that I read classics was because they were good.

           “These are all great books,” Lilah said, “but I’m just curious why they seem so…”

           “Old?” I filled in, moving over and sitting down on the edge of my bed.

           She nodded. “Yeah, old.”

           “Well, my parents are firm believers in books from the twentieth-century. There’s nothing published after nineteen ninety-nine in this house,” I told her.

           “So does that mean that you haven’t read anything from the two thousands?”

           “No, I have. But the classics are just…”

           “Better?”

           “Yeah, better.”

           “I’m going to have to agree with you on that one,” she said, taking a seat on my floor. She plucked a book at seemingly random off the shelf and then read the back. “Who’s your favorite?”

           “I don’t really have one,” I lamely replied.

           “If you had to pick?”

           “Well, right now I’m going through a bit of a Vonnegut phase,” I admitted, rubbing the back of my neck.

           “He,” Lilah said, turning to look at me, “is brilliant.” And she was right. Vonnegut was brilliant. “Do you have a favorite book?”

           “That’s like asking a mother to pick her favorite child.”

           “But mothers still have favorites.” Once again, Lilah happened to be right, as supported by the favorite child in my house, Charlie Brooks.

           “I know that Slaughterhouse-Five is great…” I began, thinking of how I could possibly phrase the preference of one Kurt Vonnegut book to another.

           “But you like Breakfast of Champions more,” Lilah filled in. It was like she was reading my freaking mind.

           “But I like Breakfast of Champions more,” I nodded, for it was the truth.

           Lilah glanced down at the book in her hand, smiled, and then whispered, “So do I.”

           I couldn’t help but smile back.