We Are All Made of Molecules (3 page)

MOM FORCED ME TO
come downstairs for supper. I was in my bedroom, sketching an idea for a new outfit instead of doing math, when she knocked. I didn't answer, so she spoke through the door. “Ashley, I want you to join us at the table.”

“I'm busy.”

I could hear her sigh. “I expect you to eat with us. And I expect you to be pleasant.”

“No on both counts.”

“Ashley, you're pushing your luck.”

“I never wanted them to move here in the first place. I'm a part of this family, too, and my vote didn't even count.”

Then Mom opened my door because there is no lock on it even though I have asked for one. I have
no privacy
whatsoever
. “When you buy your own house and start paying the mortgage on that house, you will have a vote,” she said. “Until then, you will stop whining and do as you're told.”

Sometimes my mother is like the queen in
Snow White
—beautiful but oh-so-cold.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “I'm not coming down.”

“Fine,” she said in her fake-reasonable voice. “But if you don't, you will not get your allowance this week.”

So
unfair! I am
this close
to being able to afford an amazing skirt I saw at H&M, and she knows it. “You are so
evil
,” I said as I stood up to follow her.

“Yup. I'm right up there with Idi Amin and Slobodan Milosevic.”

I have no idea who she was talking about. Probably a couple of guys from work.

—

WHEN I GOT DOWNSTAIRS
, the freakazoid was already at the table. I sat down across from him and gave him the once-over in a very obvious way.

He is a seriously funny-looking kid. He has a mass of thick, unruly brown hair that is neither straight nor curly. It's cut short, which only accentuates his sticky-outy ears. But even though it's short, there's still so much of it, like he has a furry rodent perched on top of his head. And speaking of short: he is. I wanted to offer him a booster seat.

“Hi, Ashley,” he said as I sat down.

“Hi, Spewart.”

“Actually, it's Stewart.” He shouted this, like I was deaf or something.

Mom came in from the kitchen, carrying a salad. She was followed by Leonard, who was carrying our favorite pasta bowl, the one with tomatoes painted all over it.

It twisted my insides, seeing that bowl in his hands. Up until now, every single thing in this house had belonged to me and my mom. But from this day forward, it would belong to Leonard and his Mini-Me, too.

It wouldn't be so bad if I could figure out what my mom saw in Leonard, but I honestly one hundred percent truthfully could not. My mom is gorgeous, even if she has crow's-feet around her eyes that get deeper with every passing year and even if she needs serious help with her wardrobe. She is
statuesque
, which is a fancy word I learned in my fashion magazines for “tall.” She has long red hair and, so far, no gray. She has high cheekbones and big green eyes. No wonder she was promoted to news anchor from reporter all those years ago; sure, she's a serious journalist, but she's also “easy on the eyes,” as her hair-and-makeup guy, Geoffrey, likes to say.

Leonard, on the other hand, is just a grown-up version of his weird-looking son, with the same ears and the same hair, only better styled. And while I wouldn't call him short, he isn't tall like my dad—maybe five feet ten, tops, which is practically the same as my mom. He is also scrawny; the guy has clearly never lifted weights in his life. My dad, on the other hand, works out all the time, so he has a lot of muscular definition, and his clothes fit him perfectly. And he's always been a very sharp dresser, whereas I'm willing to bet Leonard shops in one midrange store and buys two of
everything he likes in different colors. He obviously doesn't put much thought into it. Also he wears pants that show off his MPAL (Male Pattern Ass Loss, a tragic and devastating syndrome common in aging men that I read about in one of my magazines).

I asked my mom bluntly last week what she saw in him. Her face lit up and she said, “He's so smart. And so kind. And he makes me laugh like no one else.”

“So? Don't you want to be attracted to him, too?”

“Oh, I am. He's gorgeous. I could get lost in those big brown eyes. And his smile…and those lips…” I didn't like where this was going and raised my hand to stop her, but not before she said, “I find him incredibly sexy.”

“Ewww! Enough!” I shouted.

Clearly my mother is delusional. Leonard is a huge step down. In fact, as far as I can tell, the only thing he has over my dad is that he is
not gay
—which I guess is a biggie, but still. There are a lot of
not gay
men out there, so why on earth did my mom go for this one?

“Isn't this nice?” Leonard said as he sat down across from my mom. His upper lip looked a bit moist, and I realized he was nervous. “Our first meal as a family.”

We will never be a family!
I shouted, but only in my head because I really wanted that H&M skirt.

Mom served the pasta and Leonard passed around the salad. No one spoke because it was all so incredibly weird. I was about to pick up my fork when the freakazoid spoke.

“Before we begin,” he said, “there's a little something my mom used to do at mealtimes.”

His mom. I knew what had happened to her, of course. I'll admit I felt a twinge of sympathy for him when he said that.

“What was that?” Mom asked.

“Hold hands with the people on either side of you,” he said. I gave my mom a look like,
You have got to be kidding me
. But she held her hand out toward me, and so did Leonard.

Think of the skirt
, I told myself. I took their hands, and so did Spewart. Then he and his dad took a deep breath and said, “Truly thankful.”

That was it. Talk about corny, no offense to his dead mother. But get this, Mom looked like she had tears in her eyes! “That was beautiful, Stewart. If it's all right with you, I think we should carry on your mom's tradition.”

“Thank you, Caroline,” he replied. “I'd like that very much.”

Barf!

The three of them chatted throughout the meal. I ate in silence, chewing each mouthful carefully because I'd read in one of my magazines that it's a good way to avoid overeating. Stewart, on the other hand, wolfed down his food and filled his plate again. For a midget, he has a huge appetite. “This is delicious,” he said, which was a total butt-kiss because the pasta was just so-so.

“Ashley, how do you like your high school?” Leonard asked me in a lame attempt to bring me into the conversation.

I shrugged. “It's fine. It's a school.” At least I could be thankful that the egghead wouldn't be going there.

“Stewart's feeling a little nervous, that's all,” Leonard said.

“Why? He goes to that school for nerds on the North Shore.”

“It's not for nerds,” the freakazoid said. “It's for gifteds.”

Same diff
.

“Actually,” Leonard said, “Stewart's decided to transfer.”

I dropped my fork with a clatter.

“I feel it would be better for me for a plethora of reasons,” Stewart said. Yes, he really said
plethora
. What kid says
plethora
? And what does
plethora
even mean? “I don't want to spend hours every day traveling to and from school. And I thought it would help nurture our new brother-sister relationship if I went to the same—”

That's when I screamed. I'm a good screamer; it's so piercing that my friends tell me I could star in a horror movie. Spewart clapped his hands over his ears.

I ran out of the dining room and into the family room, hoping my mom would follow me. I was going to hurl myself from a running position onto the couch and sob into the cushions. But there was this
super-gross
purple-and-green chair in the way. I had to squeeze past it, which slowed me down, which meant I couldn't hurl myself from a running position anymore.

And there was more. I suddenly became aware that I was surrounded by dozens of hideous ceramic creatures, gazing at me from every corner of the room. They were on the mantelpiece, on the windowsills, on our end tables. Gnomes, fairies, bunnies, dragons, unicorns…It was
so not us
!

It was like being in my own private horror movie. It was my house, yet it wasn't my house. It was my life, yet it wasn't my life.

I screamed again. Then I ran upstairs and threw myself on the bed instead, slamming my door behind me.

I USED TO WATCH
reruns after school of an old seventies sitcom called
The Brady Bunch
. It was about a blended family. The mom had three girls and the dad had three boys, and they had a cheerful housekeeper named Alice. Sure, they had their ups and downs, but overall, practically from the very beginning, everyone got along.

After the whole screaming episode at dinner, I have had to admit that things might not go as smoothly for me and Ashley as they did for Marcia and Greg and Jan and Peter and Cindy and Bobby.

As we cleared the dishes, Caroline kept apologizing. “It's a tough transition for everyone, I know,” she said. “And Ashley—well, she's a lot like me when I was her age. I love her dearly, but she's a bit of a drama queen.”

“You were a drama queen?” Dad asked, sounding genuinely surprised.

Caroline laughed. “Oh, boy, was I ever. My poor parents. I was an angel—until my twelfth birthday. Then I turned into a demon seed for about five years.”

“Well”—Dad smiled—“I'm glad I didn't meet you then.”

I did a quick calculation. Ashley was fourteen, so if she followed in her mom's footsteps, she had a good three years of demon seed left.

My heart sank.

I think Dad could guess what was going on in my head because he suggested we take a walk, just the two of us. We went for walks all the time on the North Shore, and I was happy to do something familiar.

It was raining, typical for October, but it was light enough that we didn't need an umbrella. We walked east toward Main on the tree-lined street, past a mix of old and modern homes. I could see people through some of the lit-up windows, other families living their lives.

“I guess it's unrealistic for us to expect Ashley to be happy that we've moved in right off the bat,” Dad said to me as we walked along in the almost-dark. “She's had a lot of upheaval in her life.”

The sucky part of me wanted to say,
She's had upheaval? She didn't have to change houses, and bedrooms, and neighborhoods! And sure, her parents are divorced, but at least they are both still ALIVE!

Instead, I nodded and said, “I understand, Dad. Time heals all wounds….”

“And time wounds all heels,” we said in unison. Then we
laughed quite a bit, even though we've said this to each other a thousand times. Some jokes really never do get old.

“I guess we're just going to have to give her time to get used to this, and to us,” Dad said.

“It'll happen,” I said, with more confidence than I felt.

“Of course it will. Who couldn't like us?” He took my hand in the dark and gripped it hard, and even though I am thirteen, I gripped his hand right back.

—

WHEN WE GOT BACK
to the house, Caroline gave me an enormous bowl of cookie dough ice cream, and the three of us watched
Iron Chef
together in the family room. I sat in Mom's chair, and Dad squeezed in with me and ruffled my hair a lot. Caroline sat on the couch, her head resting against the afghan. Like clockwork, Dad and I peeled our socks off and tossed them on the coffee table.

“So,” Caroline said during a commercial, “that chair. It's big. And this blanket is very…colorful.” She was fingering the strands of yellow, orange, blue, and red wool.

“It is, isn't it? Mom loved bright things,” I replied.

When
Iron Chef
was done, I went up to my new room. There was still a lot to unpack, but we'd managed to set up my bed and hang up my photos and my posters. Bill Nye the Science Guy smiled down at me over my desk. The solar system was by the door. My favorite poster had pride of place over my bed. Mom had given it to me three years before; it was a cartoon drawing of a human heart, and the heart was saying, “Aorta tell you I think you're awesome.”

I let Schrödinger out of the bathroom. I could tell he was
feeling a little freaked out by all the newness, just like I was. I pulled him onto my lap and petted his gray-and-white fur, and soon he started to purr.

When I saw Schrödinger at the shelter, it was love at first sight. His face had a pushed-in look and a chunk of one of his ears was missing. No one knows what happened; he'd been found under a porch with his siblings when he was just two weeks old, and the ear was already gone. He was the runt of the litter, half the size of his brothers and sisters, and very shy, so, animal-behaviorally speaking, it is quite possible that one of his siblings bit off his ear.

Maybe because he looked as vulnerable as I felt, I knew he was the kitten for me. He is a purr machine, and he thinks I'm the greatest person in the whole wide world. My best friend, Alistair, says that's only because I feed him, but I know it goes deeper than that.

“Tomorrow I can let you check out the rest of the house,” I told him. “But first you need to get used to this room.” I nuzzled my face in his fur. “I need to get used to it, too,” I added in a whisper.

I got into my pajamas and crawled into bed, pulling the other afghan on top of me. Schrödinger lay down right by my head, just like he'd done at home.

I mean, the place where I used to live until today.

“This is home now, Schrödinger,” I said to him. “We'll love it here, too.” Then I repeated it, as if it would help make it true. “We'll love it here, too.”