Chapter 41: Making Seven-Layer Dip
We slammed the door to our room, which really wasn't our room. During school months, It was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, But he loved shoving our stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on our windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.
We dropped our suitcases on the bed. Home sweet home.
Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old lady's shears snipping the yarn.
But as soon as we thought that, our legs felt weak. We both remembered Grover's look of panic-----how he'd made us promise we wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through us. We felt like someone-----something-----was looking for us right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.
Then we heard our mom's voice. "Percy?" "James?"
She opened the bedroom door, and our fears melted.
Our mother can make us feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but we never think of her as old. When she looks at us, it's like she's seeing all the good things about us, none of the bad.
We've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even us or Gabe.
"Oh, Percy, James." She hugged us tight. "I can't believe it. You've both grown since Christmas!"
Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd bought us a bag of "free samples", the way she always did when we came home.
We sat together on the edge of the bed. While percy and I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hands through both of our hair and demanded to know everything we hadn't put in our letters. She didn't mention anything about us getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was We okay? Was her little boys doing all right?
We told her she was smothering us, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, We were really, really glad to see her.
From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally-----how about some bean dip, huh?"
We gritted our teeth.
Our mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.
For her sake, We tried to sound upbeat about our last days at Yancy Academy. We told her we weren't too down about the expulsion. We'd lasted almost the whole year this time. We'd made some friends. Done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. We liked Yancy Academy. We really did. We put such a good spin on the year, We'll almost convinced ourselves. We started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.
Until that trip to the museum . . .
"What?" our mom asked. Her eyes tugged at our consciences, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare both of you?"
"No, Mom."
We felt bad lying. We wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with yarn, but we thought it would sound stupid.
She pursed her lips. She knew we were holding back, but she didn't push us.
"I have a surprise for both of you," she said. "We're going to the beach."
Both of our eyes widened. "Montauk?"
"Three nights----same cabin."
"When?"
She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."
We couldn't believe it. Our mom, me and my little brother Percy hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.
Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"
We wanted to punch him, but we met our mom's eyes and we understood she was offering us a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk.
Then we would get out of here.
"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."
Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"
"We knew it," We muttered. "He won't let us go."
"Of course he will," our mom said evenly. "Your stepfather is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend.
Guacamole. Sour Cream. The works."
Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip . . . it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"
"Yes honey," our mother said.
"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."
"We'll be very careful."
Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip . . . And maybe if the kids apologizes for interrupting my poker game."
Maybe if We kick you in your soft spot, We thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.
But our mom's eyes warned us not to make him mad.
Why did she put up with this guy? We wanted to scream.
Why did she care what he thought?
"We're sorry," We muttered. "We're really sorry we interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."
Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in our statement.
"Yeah, whatever," he decided.
He went back to his game.
"Thank you, Percy, James," our mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about . . . Whatever you guys forgotten to tell me, okay?"
For a moment, We thought we saw anxiety in her eyes-----the same fear we'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-----as if our mom too felt an odd chill in the air.
But then her smile returned, and We figured we'd must have been mistaken. She ruffled our hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.
Chapter 42: Trip to Montauk
An hour later we were ready to leave.
Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch us lug our mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-----and more importantly, his '78 Camaro----for the whole weekend.
"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned us as we loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."
Like Percy'ed be the one driving. He's only twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame us.
Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, We got so mad we did something we can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, We made the hand gesture we'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over our hearts, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it wacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe It was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but we didn't stay long to find out.
We got in the Camaro and told our mom to step on it.
Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.
We both loved the place.
We'd been going there since we were babies. Our mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but we knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met our dad.
As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.
We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples our mom had brought from work.
We guess we should explain the blue food.
See, Gabe had once told our mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, our mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This------along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano-----was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like us.
When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told us stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told us about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.
Eventually, We got up the nerve to ask about what was always on our minds whenever we came to Montauk----our father. Mom's eyes went all misty. We figured she would tell us the same things she always did, but we never got tired of hearing them.
"He was kind, Percy and James," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You both have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."
Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see the both of you boys, Percy, James. He would be so proud."
We wondered how she could say that. What was so great about us? Two hyperactive boys with a D+ and one A+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.
"How old were we?" We asked. "We mean . . . When he left?"
She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy, James. Right here at this beach. This cabin."
"But . . . he knew us as babies."
"No, honeyies. He knew I was expecting babies, but he never saw your guys. He had to leave before you both were born."
We tried to square that with the fact that we seemed to remember . . . something about our father. A warm glow. A smile.
We had always assumed he knew us as babies. Our mom had never said it outright, but still, we'd felt it must be true.
Now, to be told that he'd never even seen us . . .
We felt angry at our father. Maybe it was stupid, but we resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry our mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with smelly Gabe.