Dinner at the Ackerman household was pretty much like dinner in any other large household I had ever known: everybody talked at once – except of course for Sleepy, who only spoke when asked a direct question – and nobody wanted to clear the table afterward. I made a mental note to call Gina and tell her she'd been wrong. There really was no advantage, that I could see, in having brothers: they chewed with their mouths open, and ate every single Poppin' Fresh bread roll before I'd even had one.
After dinner, I decided it would be wise to avoid my room, and give Jesse plenty of time to make up his mind about whether he was leaving with or without his teeth. I'm not a big fan of violence, but it's an unfortunate by-product of my profession. Sometimes, the only way you can make someone listen is with your fist. This is not a technique espoused, I know, by the diagnostic manuals on most therapists' shelves.
Then again, nobody ever said I was a therapist.
The problem with my plan, of course, was that it was Saturday night. I'd forgotten what day it was in all the stress of the move. Back home on a Saturday night, I'd probably have gone out with Gina, taken the subway to the Village and gone to see a movie, or just hung around Joe's Pizza watching people walk by. Hey, I may be a big city girl, but that doesn't mean my life there was glamorous by any means. I have never even been asked out by a boy, unless you count that time in the fifth grade when Daniel Bogue asked me to skate with him during a couple's only song at Rockefeller Center's ice rink.
And then I'd embarrassed myself by falling flat on my face.
My mom, however, was all anxious for me to throw myself into the social scene of Carmel. As soon as the dishwasher was loaded, she was like, "Brad, what are you doing tonight? Are there any parties, or anything? Maybe you could take Suze and introduce her to some people."
Dopey, who was mixing himself a protein shake – apparently, the two dozen jumbo shrimps and massive shell steak he'd consumed at dinner hadn't been filling enough – went, "Yeah, maybe I could, if Jake wasn't working tonight."
Sleepy, roused by the mention of his name, squinted down at his watch and said, "Damn," picked up his jean jacket, and left the house.
Doc looked at the clock and made a tisk-tisking noise. "Late again. He's going to get himself fired if he doesn't watch it."
Sleepy had a job? This was news to me, so I asked, "Where's he work?"
"Peninsula Pizza." Doc was performing some sort of bizarre experiment which involved the dog and my mother's treadmill. The dog, who was huge – a cross between a St. Bernard and a bear, I think – was sitting very patiently on the floor while Doc attached electrodes to small patches of the dog's skin he'd shaved free of fur. The strangest thing was that nobody seemed to mind this, least of all the dog.
"Slee – I mean, Jake works in a pizza place?"
Andy, scouring a baking dish in the sink, said, "He delivers for them. Brings home a bundle in tips."
"He's saving up," Dopey informed me, a thick white milkshake mustache on his upper lip, "for a Camaro."
"Huh," I said.
"You guys want me to drop you anywhere," Andy offered, generously, "I'd be happy to. Whaddaya say, Brad? Want to show Suze the action down at the mall?"
"Nah," Dopey said, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. "Everybody's still up in Tahoe for the break. Next weekend, maybe."
I nearly collapsed with relief. The word mall always filled me with a sort of horror, a horror that had nothing to do with the undead. They don't have malls in New York City, but Gina used to love to take the PATH train to this one in New Jersey. Usually after about an hour, I'd develop sensory overload, and have to sit down in the This Can't Be Yogurt and sip an herbal tea until calmed down.
And I have to admit, I wasn't that thrilled with the idea of anybody "dropping" me somewhere. My God, what was wrong with this place? I could see how, given the San Andreas fault, subways might not be such a great idea, but why hadn't anybody established a decent bus system?
"I know," Dopey said, slamming his empty glass down. "I'll play you a few games of Coolboarder, Suze."
I blinked at him. "You'll what?"
"I'll play you in Coolboarder." When my expression remained blank, Dopey said, "You never heard of Coolboarder? Come on."
He led me toward the wide screen TV in the den. Coolboarder, it turned out, was a video game. Each player got assigned a snowboarder, and then you raced each other down various slopes using a joystick to control how fast your boarder went and what kind of fancy moves she might make.
I beat Dopey at it eight times before he finally said, "Let's watch a movie instead."
Sensing that I had probably erred in some way – I guess I should have let the poor boy win at least once – I tried to make amends by volunteering to supply the popcorn, and went into the kitchen.
It was only then that a wave of tiredness hit me. There is a three hour time difference between New York and California, so even though it was only nine o'clock, I was as tired as if it was midnight. Andy and my mom had retired to the massive master bedroom, but they had left the door to it wide open, I guess so that we wouldn't get any wrong ideas about what they were doing in there. Andy was reading a spy novel, and my mother was watching a made-for-TV movie.
This, I was sure, was strictly for the benefit of us kids; most other Saturday nights I bet they'd have closed that door, or at least have gone out with Andy's friends or my mom's new colleagues at the TV station in Monterey where she'd been hired. They were obviously trying to establish some sort of domestic pattern to make us kids feel secure. You had to give them snaps for doing their best.