Page 5 of Teach Me How
Reese
There are four Adirondack chairs around the fire pit. Red, blue, yellow, and green. I chose the green one. That color sings to me, it always has. It represents life. Growth.
New beginnings.
Parker sits in the blue one. I wonder if she was unconsciously drawn to it. She’s always had a wistful personality. The heart of a poet. Quiet and thoughtful. She’s a year and a half younger than me and we’ve always been polar opposites. She’s quiet and reserved. A tomboy.
I’m the cheerful one. The girly one. The dancer.
What happens when a dancer doesn’t feel like dancing? When she just wants to hide?
This is one time when I really appreciate Parker’s quietude. We sit side by side, watching the party ebb and flow in the distance.
I spot Charlie, the youngest of us and the most fiery, stomping our way and know without a doubt that things are about to get more lively.
She stops in front of us, shoulders tense and up by her ears. “Some fucking party. Who invites a bunch of geriatrics to a five-year-old’s birthday?”
Parker shrugs, unconcerned. “I think Erin’s just trying to appease mom.”
“She’s part of the family now. She should do what the rest of us do. Ignore her.” Charlie flops down in the red chair.
I huff a laugh.
She narrows her eyes at me. “And you! You’re supposed to be our buffer. What are you doing hiding way out here?”
I laugh. “Hiding.”
Charlie’s gaze lowers to my beer. “You better have spares.”
I pass her a bottle from our stash. “It’s Bud Light Lime.”
Charlie shrugs. “Beer is beer.”
“Don’t let Josh hear you say that,” Parker says, a quiet smile on her lips.
“Oh god,” Charlie rolls her eyes. “I mentioned the words gluten-free, and he about had an aneurism. Made me go look at his home brew in the basement. Smelled like vomit.”
Parker smiles, pressing the bottle to her lips.
I sigh. “Fucking weird being back here.”
“Right?” Charlie glances up at the house. “It’s still the same house, but now that Josh and Erin live there, it’s like a whole different place.”
Parker nods. “And mom and dad’s condo in Clark is too small.”
Charlie slumps in her chair, pulling the collar of her jacket up to cover her face. “Crap. Aunt Shirley. She didn’t see me, did she?”
She peeks over her jacket.
“Why are you hiding from Aunt Shirley?”
Charlie taps her nose. “She wasn’t quite done telling me off about the nose ring when I split. I think she had more to say.”
Parker grins. “Hell of a time to come home with a nose ring, Chuck. Dad’s face was pretty good, though.”
“That was no accident.” Charlie responds primly. “I figured he couldn’t murder me in front of a crowd.”
I think about the tattoo healing on my ribs and wonder what they’d all say about that. Maybe it’s cowardly to keep quiet and let Charlie take the heat, but I learned long ago to let Charlie pick her own battles.