Pb & J: Three

Jules meets Riley.

- Three-
Times Zoë ran into the outside trashcans with mom’s car.

 

I woke up, and found Freckles, the family dog, asleep next to me.

 

There was drool in the center of my bed, but I can’t help, but smile at her defaults.

 

I walk to the bathroom, and start to brush my teeth.

 

“Have you seen Jonas?”

 

Mom pops her head in.

 

I shake my head.

 

She sighs, and smiles at me.

 

“What?”

 

I mutter with a mouth full of foam.

 

“Nothing.”

 

She shakes her head.

 

“Get your sister up for me? Will you? I think she’s still upset about the dance.”

 

I nod.

 

“Thanks.”

 

She walks back into the hall.

 

I wash out my mouth, and look at Zoë’s door.

 

“It’s seven.”

 

I shake her.

 

“No it’s not.”

 

She mumbles.

 

I shake her again.

 

“Wake up.”

 

She opens her eyes, and looks at her alarm clock on her bedside.

 

“You lied.”

 

She points to it, and it's one till.

 

“Sorry.”

 

I apologize.

 

“Yeah. Yeah.”

 

She pushes me away with her dead hand.

 

“Okay I’m up. Get out.”

 

“Okay.”

 

I walk out, and head to my room.

 

I stop, and kick the hamper in the hallway.

 

“Oww!”

 

A sound cries out from it.

 

“Mom, I found Jonas!”

 

I yell into the kitchen, and walk into my room.

 

I stretch off my drowsiness, and open my window letting the sunlight meet my carpet.

 

I slip on my jeans, and inhale my mom’s cooking.

 

“I was going to make eggs, but noticed a yellow box hiding in the back of the cupboard.”

 

Mom says trying to lower Zoë into forgiveness.

 

Zoë adores pancakes, and mom uses it as bait.

 

“I’m getting breakfast with Chris.”

 

Zoë sas putting her backpack on.

 

“Oh, you are? Huh? Well, Chris could come, and join us.”

 

Mom suggested.

 

“No. We have to study for third periods math test.”

 

Zoë denied.

 

“Well, you kids could do that here in the living room. It’s okay. Really.”

 

Mom insisted.

 

Zoë knows what mom is trying to do.

 

“No mom it’s not okay. Really.”

 

Zoë snaps.

 

“Zoë.”

 

“You think I’ll bring my boyfriend into this house with you acting like this?”

 

“Like what?”

 

Mom asks.

 

“This! Mom I know what you're going to do!”

 

“I’m not going to do anything Zoë.”

 

“You're going to bring him into this problem that you, and I are at right now. You're going to make him feel sorry for you because I’m such a ‘bad daughter'. Then he’ll be on my case about all of this as well.”

 

Zoë grabs her books off the counter, and leaves out the door.

 

Mom sinks into her chair.

 

“How did she know that was going to happen?”

 

I lift my shoulders.

 

She looks at me.

 

“Yes you do Jules. I know you too aren’t cookies, and milk, but you do know more about her than I do.”

 

I pick at my food with the end of my fork.

 

“You did bring her friends into these things before.”

 

She sit sup in her chair.

 

“Well, not all the time.”

 

“Mom, this is the six time.”

 

I sip on my milk.

 

“Oh…”

 

She counts on her fingers.

 

“She’ll be gone by august. You're not much to pick at. I’ll be bored Jules.”

 

I know she wants to cry, but that just wasn’t her way to do it in front of me.

 

It just wasn’t her way to show either of her kids any of her weaknesses.

 

Even though we know all of them like the back of our hands.

 

“Well, finish up your food. It’s seven- thirty.”

 

She stand up, and start to clean the ingredients off of the counter, and cutting board.

 

I look down at my plate of drowned pancake, and sausage.

 

Mom drives me to school, and when I open the car door to get out I can see her depression spill onto the concrete.

 

I wave goodbye, and watch her turn the corner.

 

“So your mom’s going through menopause. Huh?”

 

Addie asks sitting next to me on the grass hill that we always sit at during lunchtime.

 

She could be a bit interested, nosy if you will.

 

“Yeah, my mom has already passed that stage. Now, she just talks to the cats, and lets all her anger out in the closed bathroom. Like we can’t hear her yelling from the living room.”

 

She opens her book, and bites into a red apple from her paper bag labeled, ‘Nasie’.

 

Nasie is her Broadway name.

 

“I don’t think that’s the problem. She’s just scared of letting Zoë go.”

 

I say understanding my mom.

 

“Your mom’s just sad that’s all.”

 

Addie says showering my arm with apple spit.

 

“My mom cooked hotdogs, and spaghetti for two months strait because that was Davis’s favorite food.”

 

Davis is Addie’s older brother who left for college a year ago.

 

“I hope my mom’s not like that because I cannot live of mash potatoes, and pancakes.”

 

I shake my head.

 

Addie giggles.

 

“Is your mom capable of doing that?”

 

“Very capable.”

 

She laughes again with a small snort at the end.

 

She stop, and I laugh at her.

 

“What’s up guys?”

 

Moon sits next to Addie on his skateboard.

 

“Hey.”

 

We both greeted him back with a wave, and a smile.

 

“New board?”

 

Addie asks passing her hand past the shine of the board.

 

“Yep. Pretty sweet. Huh?”

 

She nods.

 

“Yeah, my dad got it for me over the weekend. He didn’t have too. I mean it was over two hundred dollars.”

 

“Wow. He must really love you.”

 

Addie say looking back at her book.

 

I open my backpack, and pull out my peanut butter, and jelly.

 

Moon pulls out a bag of chips from his pants pocket, and starts shoving them in his cave of a mouth.

 

“I passed your sister in the hallway. Well, not so much passed, but ran into.”

 

He grabs his arm in pain.

 

“I’m not so good on the board in the hall.”

 

“What she say?”

 

I look at him.

 

“What a loser. Who skates theses days anymore?”

 

He mocks in a girly voice.

 

“I think she hates me.”

 

“She hates all of us.”

 

Addie looks up from her book.

 

“I’m sorry Jules, but I cannot wait till she graduates. I mean being a b***h is so overrated.”

 

Moon agrees by nodding.

 

I goe home, and see Jonas, and his friends playing hockey in the family room.

 

“Don’t forget to clean up the evidence before mom gets home.”

 

I warn him.

 

He stumbles over the coffee table, and nods.

 

I walk to my bedroom, and pick up my sketchpad from my desk.

 

I walk outside with it, and sit on the front porch.

 

“Hi, Jules!”

 

A short stubby elderly woman waves from across the street at me.

 

“Hi Mrs. Bins!”

 

I wave back.

 

“How’s your father?”

 

She pulls her dog while she walks.

 

“He’s doing good. I’ll tell him you send your regards!”

 

“You do that! You better be drawing me another brilliant picture! I’ll be home all day, like always. Come on by when you feel a little lonesome. Will you?”

 

I nod, and watch her enter her small house.

 

Zoë rolls her car into the driveway, and slams the door shut behind her.

 

“Is mom home?”

 

“It’s four.”

 

I inform her.

 

She rolls her eyes, and walks up the stairs to the front door.

 

She looks at my drawing.

 

“How about drawing yourself a life? I bet mom will love to hang that on the walls.”

 

She laughs at her joke, and enters the house.

 

I ignore her, and look at the next door neighbors garden.

 

Zoë hates that I can draw.

 

The only thing she’s good at is doing her nails.

 

After a while of dazing off, and penciling my thoughts I walk back inside to remind Jonas that it’s six o’clock.

 

“Jonas?”

 

I pass the family room, and it's empty.

 

Clean yet empty.

 

I figured he went to one of his friends houses to play video games.

 

I pass Zoë’s closed door, and can hear her talking on the phone.

 

The doorbell rings, and I answer the door.

 

“Hi. Do you have digital cable?”

 

A tall, blonde teenage boy asks in a tie, and slacks.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

I answer looking at the TV in the living room.

 

I look back at him.

 

“I don’t know.”

 

“Well, would you like to look at a couple packages I can offer you for probably less than you're paying now. That’s over eight- hundred channels.”

 

He says excited.

 

“I don’t watch TV.”

 

I admit.

 

“Not at all?”

 

His excitement slowly left his eyes.

 

“Sorry.”

 

I walk into my kitchen, and get a glass of water.

 

He looks at me inside.

 

“Are your parent’s home by any chance?”

 

I shake my head.

 

He looks at the TV in my living room.

 

”Can I check if you do have digital cable?”

 

I take a gulp of water, and wipe my mouth off with my hand.

 

“Sure.”

 

He walkes in, and searches the back of my TV.

 

“Nope. You just have regular cable.”

 

He walks to me, and puts some papers on the kitchen table.

 

“Here’s some stuff about it. Okay?”

 

I nod picking at green grapes on the counter.

 

“You really don’t watch TV?”

 

He asks again a bit surprised.

 

I shake my head.

 

“Nope. Are you thirsty? Would you like a cup of water or something?”

 

I pull a cup from the cupboard.

 

“Yeah, Thanks.”

 

He sits at the kitchen table.

 

I hand it to him, and continue to pick at the grapes.

 

The phone rings.

 

“Don’t answer it! I got it!”

 

Zoë yells from her bedroom.

 

He looks at me, and laughs.

 

“Sister.”

 

I smile.

 

“Yeah I have one of those.”

 

He understands.

 

He finishes his water, and sighs.

 

“Well, back to work.”

 

I nod, and walk him to the door.

 

Mom pulls up in her rover, and looks at him when she walks out of her car.

 

“Who’s this?”

 

She asks stumbling over Jonas’s toys on the lawn.

 

I look at him.

 

“Um… I don’t know.”

 

“My names Riley,”

 

He helps her with the paper bags that are over weighing her.

 

“Well, thank you Riley.”

 

She says looking at me with wide eyes thinking parental thoughts.

 

Like:
Who is he?
Why has she never met him?
Who is he to me?
Do I like him?
Does he like me?

 

He walks inside in front of us.

 

“Don’t.”

 

I warn her knowing she is going to ask thousands of endless questions.

 

“What?”

 

“Whatever you're thinking, don’t.”

 

I stand behind Riley, and mom walks up to him.

 

He places the bags on the kitchen table, and looks at us.

 

“Okay. Well, I better get going.”

 

“Why don’t you stay for dinner. I got take out.”

 

Mom asks, and I look at her confused.

 

"Mom."

 

He shakes his head, and laughs.

 

“Sorry. I really have to get going now. I’ve been here too long as it is.”

 

He looks at me.

 

“Thanks for the water.”

 

He pulls a card from his back pocket, and hands it to me.

 

“That’s my card. Everything you need to know is on those papers.”

 

He points to them on the kitchen table, and walks to the front door.

 

“See ya Riley.”

 

I say to him at the door.

 

“See ya…?”

 

“Jules.”

 

 I blush, and watch him off.

 

I walk back inside, and stop to look at my mom.

 

Since Zoë has a boyfriend, and waited until three years later to tell mom, she is very protective of me.

 

“Don’t.”

 

“What?”

 

“I mean it.”

 

“What?”

 

“Please mom. Just leave it alone. There’s nothing going on. Okay?”

 

I say walking to my room.

 

“He gave you his card!”

 

Mom says almost dying.

Author's Note

:) Enjoy!

Reviews

[forfila]

:) enjoyed, really, I admire the talent you have to keep on track with an entire situation, you give good little lines lik
"I pick at my food with the end of my fork" which really give the reader a feeling of almost being there.

Like it alot.

Love
Me

[a Messenger]

An enjoyable storyline going here. I like your characters.