Know Not Why: A Novel (24 page)

“Splendid, actually,” he replies, but my new foe
the furrowed brow does not lend credence to his words. Damn it,
furrowed brow! It is very quickly becoming my new life goal to
vanquish it.

“It’s not you. It’s –” Okay, no way am I
finishing that sentence with ‘me.’ I do a mental search for
alternative endings. “—this girl. This friggin’ girl my brother is
dating. She doesn’t eat pork because of Gilbert, and she wears this
hat, and – and she
knows
things. I feel like maybe we should
tread carefully while she’s around.”

“Why?” Arthur points out, all wry and valid. “I
get the sense that she might know about us already.”

“I dunno, man, I think she was really starting
to buy my whole he-tripped-and-fell-on-my-face story.”

And then the furrowed brow heightens its
presence. Not only that, but it’s accompanied by this
not-quite-sigh thing and a shake of his head. I feel my stomach
plummet and ooze into my toes. Arthur stares at our feet for a
couple of seconds, like he can see the stomach-oozed toes through
my sneakers, then looks back up at me. “Howie—”

He goes silent.

It is some motherfucking ominous shit.

“Yeah?” I finally croak.

He looks at me. I don’t even know what to see in
that look.

And then – wonderfully! Miraculously!

“Nothing,” he says, expression softening. “Do
what you feel like you need to.”

It’s not a
perfect
response – like, what
is this ‘
feel
like you need to’ malarkey? This
is
what I need to do, plain and simple. But, whatever, he gets an out
for being patient and understanding. I will forgive him a couple of
poorly chosen words.

“Really?” I ask, just to make sure he’s not
messing with me. “And you and me, we’re …”

He shrugs, the hint of a smile on his mouth.

Then he slams the door in my face.

Well.

“Cute,” I call.

No answer.

“Seriously,” I persist, shoving my hands into my
pockets. “I mean it. Adorable. They should draw a picture of this
moment and make it April on a calendar.”

Nothing.

“Stick it next to a cherub-kitten. Some babies
dressed like eggplants…”

Still nothing.

Despite myself, I start to feel a little
worried. Who resists hilarious calendar quips? Nobody! Nobody who’s
not secretly pissed at you. Oh, shit. This wasn’t a good idea at
all. I should have just gone straight for the milk. The milk that
we didn’t even technically need, because – fine, I’ll admit it, I
poured it into the sink so I would have an excuse to leave, and
stop here, and tell Arthur I’m not ashamed of him
out of
nowhere
, which, hey genius, maybe that’s the kind of thing that
you’re not supposed to randomly tell someone you’re involved with,
especially when you follow it up with narrowly avoiding
It’s-not-you-it’s-me-ing them,
Jesus
, what is my
problem
. You know what? Emily.
Emily
’s my problem.
Thank you,
yet again
, brother of mine, for showing up and
making it abundantly clear how much I suck when compared to your
greatness, I sure have missed those good times—

The door swings open.

Arthur smirks at me.

“That wasn’t funny,” I let him know.

He shrugs. “I thought it was a little
funny.”

“Yeah, see, that’s why you need me around. To
teach you that your sense of humor actually sucks.”

“How can one person be so unfailingly charming?
Honestly. I keep thinking we’ve reached the peak of it, and then
you outdo yourself.”

“That’s a little thing I like to call skills,
Artie my man.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“That’s what I call it. Oh, the things I could
teach you.”

I don’t really want to leave once we get
talking. I’m starting to notice a pesky pattern there, where
conversation with Arthur is concerned. But it only takes so long to
buy milk, so I extract myself. I don’t kiss him goodbye – that
seems a little too two-steps-forward-one-step-back – but there’s
this weird, lingering, stilted moment, like where a kiss is
supposed to be. I can tell that he’s just as aware of it as I
am.

Still, it feels pretty good once I’m back in the
car and away from him. I feel a lot lighter: Arthur doesn’t seem
pissed, and I don’t have to worry about keeping up my life of
deception for a couple of weeks. I mean, sure, it kind of sucks to
be all “Happy holidays –
later
!” to someone I, well, like a
lot, during the time of year where you’re supposed to be all
extra-cuddly and full o’ love, but whatever. Small price, and all
that. The point is, I am temporarily free of all this. I walk into
the grocery store feeling so relieved I could whistle. I don’t,
though. People who sing to themselves in public always freak me
out.

Chapter Seventeen

I wake up the next morning to the sound of
Mitch.

I pull myself out of bed and head downstairs. My
first glimpse of the kitchen from the hall reveals Mitch standing
in front of our open refrigerator like a king surveying his
majestic domain. A king in a ‘Dick’s Hardware’ t-shirt.

“Amber, Amber! How much would you pay me if I
ate one of these?” he demands, showing exactly no reverence for the
balance of nature as he peels the pack of ancient hotdogs off the
shelf.

Amber. Sure enough, she’s sitting at the counter
next to my mom, cup of tea in hand. All of my Amber angst has been
suppressed by necessity, but seeing her again gets me feeling
horrible right away.

“Hmm,” she replies, tilting her head in
mock-contemplation, “lemme think: zero dollars.”

“No, seriously. If I
ate one
.”

“I would pay you nothing, Mitchell.”

“Amber, these are hella old. That’s gotta be
worth like five bucks at least.”

“I’m not going to pay you to eat somebody else’s
old hotdogs, you moron.”

“What if I covered them in—” He rummages through
the contents of the side door: “—
marmalade
? Why do you guys
have marmalade? Doesn’t this only exist in, like, Australia?”

I decide this is as good a time as any to make
my entrance.

“Morning,” I say to my mom. Amber’s posture gets
stiffer. “Why’d you let him in?”

“He seemed hungry,” Mom replies, casting an
amused smile at Mitch. “And I know I should clean out the fridge,
but if I can get your buddies to do it for me—”

“Is it good?” Mitch ponders, staring in
fascination at the marmalade.

I finally let my eyes rest on Amber.

“Hey,” I say to her.

“Hey,” she replies, stirring more honey into her
tea with extreme concentration.

“Emily and Dennis up?” I ask my mom.

“Up and out,” Mom replies. “He wanted to show
her around town.”

“Oh. Show her
what
?”

“I don’t know,” Mom says, shaking her head. “But
he was very enthusiastic. It was sweet. He really seems to like
that girl.” A pained expression fleets across her face. Amber’s
too. Presumably for a different reason.

“I was just getting an earful about her, as a
matter of fact,” Amber tells me.

“Not an earful,” my mom protests. “Maybe half an
ear.”

“I can’t believe she had the nerve to hate on
Mansfield Spark. You did explain to her that it’s got a
point
, right?”

“Oh, honey, I didn’t even bother to try. I was
still getting over the dead pig story.”

“The whole point is that Mansfield Park is the
neglected little freak of the Austen family. Sure, you’ve got your
one thousand trashy sequels about Darcy and Lizzy’s sex life, but
no one until you even
thought
of writing four hundred pages
of smut about Fanny and Edmund.”

“And then Fanny and Henry Crawford.”

“And then Fanny and Edmund again.”

“And then Fanny
and
Edmund
and
Henry Crawford.”

“Don’t forget Mary Crawford.”

“Maybe it was a little tacky to toe the incest
line,” my mom muses.

“Whatever,” Amber replies dismissively. “Edmund
and Fanny are cousins. It’s always been there to an extent.”

“How are you my mother?” I want to know.

Mom ignores me.

“I can’t believe Mansfield Park’s her favorite,”
Amber sighs.

“I know,” my mom agrees despairingly. “It says
so much about a person.”

They are speaking in code. Austen code.

“I mean,
any
of the others—”

“
Any
of them—”

“—would recommend her so much more to me. She’s
the first girl I’ve ever encountered who doesn’t seem to aspire
toward being Elizabeth Bennet.”

“Who doesn’t want to be Elizabeth?”

“I suspect,” my mother says delicately, “she’s
got a bit of Fanny Price about her.”

Amber groans. “Oh, Jesus.”

“Exactly! Is it so wrong that I want my boys
with Elizabeths? I’ll settle for Emmas or Cathy Morlands. An
Elinor, a Marianne—”

“Are there any skanks?” I interject helpfully.
“’Cause if so, you should probably wish them upon me.” (Check me
out, working my heterosexuality into everyday conversation.)

“Yeah, I’m sure you and Isabella Thorpe will be
just darling together,” Amber replies, rolling her eyes.

“But
Mansfield Park
,” my mother laments.
“Oh, Amber. Remember when Dennis decided he was in love with you
for about a month in eighth grade?”

“Kinda, yeah,” Amber replies. She sounds totally
normal, and if she has this tiny little split-second where
something
crosses her face, well, it’s subtle enough that
Mom doesn’t notice.

My oblivious, oblivious mother sighs. “Why
couldn’t those days have lasted?”

“But then you wouldn’t have this great new
prospective daughter-in-law,” Amber replies, even managing a wicked
grin in the heights of her secret pain. Tough as nails, this
girl.

“Oh, please,” my mom says, reaching over to
squeeze Amber’s shoulder. “I’d take you in a heartbeat.”

Man, this is even starting to make
my
soul hurt.

And so I do something about it.

And that something is ask: “What about the one
with the crazy bitch in the attic?”

Silence.

“What?” Mom says, blank.

“I thought we were discussing our favoritest of
Austen titles. I’m not hearing any love for the one with the crazy
bitch in the attic.”

“You
are
kidding, right?” Amber finally
asks.

“… the crazy
woman
?” I amend.

Amber stares at me. And stares, and stares.
“You’re an
English major
.”

“I’m an English major ‘cause it sounded way
cooler than studying crap that exists,” I retort, trying to seem
shameless. There’s maybe the tiniest spark of shame, but let’s just
keep that between you and me. “I’m not your average English major.
I’m the rogue, the renegade, the underdog.”

“Jane Austen and Jane Eyre are different,
sweetie,” my mom says, tousling my hair with pitying affection.

“That’s all well and good,” I reply impatiently,
swatting her off. “But which one’s skankier?”

“Jane Austen never got married,” Amber says.
“Jane Eyre found out she was accidentally having an affair with a
married man so she cut things off and went to be a spinster
schoolteacher. She was fictional, by the way.”

I pretend to ponder my options for a second.
“Nope. Not skanky enough. What about the crazy wife in the attic?
It sounds like she likes to get fuh-reaky.”

“Oh, babe,” Mom says, “at the least I like to
think that I’ve raised you to appreciate the value of a spinster
schoolteacher.”

“You’re like a spinster schoolteacher variant,”
I point out. “Let’s not get Oedipal.”

“Fair enough,” Mom says.

“Please, Howie, you just know your mom’s
fighting back guys wherever she goes,” Amber adds. “Infatuated
schoolboys, smitten coworkers, the whole deal.”

“That’s true,” Mom acknowledges with a
fake-demure nod. “Especially the schoolboy part.”

I cover my ears. “Augh! First Sparky Mansfield,
now this?”

“Not to mention,” Mom continues, dropping the
harlot schoolmarm schtick (thank
God
), “that actually—”

“LADIES, LADIES, LADIES.” Mitch interjects. “And
Howie.”

“Thanks, man.”

“No problem, dude. Announcement.” He pauses
grandly, standing before us with the jar of marmalade (now open)
and the spoon he used to sample it. A fleck of it flies across the
room and onto the counter top as he waves his arm. “This nonsense
is
delicious
.”

“Mitch, honey, I’m really not sure how long
that’s been in there,” my mom says warily.

Mitch does not give a damn. It’s why I keep him
around. “Seriously though, you guys, those Australians know what
they’re doing.”

“Is anyone going to explain to him about how
it’s England?” Amber asks in an undertone.

“Nope,” I say.

“I think it’s sort of sweet,” says my
mother.

Amber sighs. “Mitch, let me explain something to
you.”

+

While Amber breaks down the real deal about
marmalade, I get ready for work. When I come downstairs again, it’s
with minty fresh breath and a plan to weasel myself back into her
good graces. I hide my hand – the hand holding the object that
will, God willing, win her heart – behind my back.

She’s sitting at the kitchen table with Mitch.
The marmalade is on the table, one in a line of many of its
refrigerator brothers: maple syrup, strawberry jam, blackberry jam,
some frosting, and some chocolate sauce. They’ve also got a packet
of saltines. It’s not hard to decipher what’s going on here:
namely, major tastebud experimentation. Mitch, ever boldly going
where no man has gone since elementary school, is clutching a
cracker that’s got all the toppings on it.

“That is disgusting. It’s
disgusting
! I
am of the serious belief that you are five and big for your
age.”