Chapter Four:



"Kristy, is THAT what you're going to wear tonight?" Mom asked me that night as
I came down the stairs dressed in a turtle
neck and jeans. I wasn't even wearing sneakers. No way was I going to wear a
dress in front of Cary.
"Mom, it's just a dinner. We've had them before." I said smiling.
"But this is different." Mom said, fluffing the centerpiece of freshly picked
flowers Watson and Nannie had picked that afternoon.
"It's Charlie's first dinner back and I want it to be memorable, special--ur,
formal." Mom put a special interest on the word 'formal',
deliberately turning away from my reaction.
Formal meant dresses. At least for me. I groaned loudly. "But mo-om! It's just
dinner! And it's only Charlie! I don't wear
dresses for brothers!"
"Well, I feel special."
I whirled around and saw Charlie coming down the stairs.
"Sorry Charlie," I said more gently. "but I can't stand dresses."
"Well, I hate ties. What's your point?" He said. "You should make a sacrifice
and wear a dress--ur, not that it would help."
In the end, I was sent back up to my room to change. Throwing my closet door
open I rifled through my wardrobe. I dug
all the way to the very back and found one of the few dresses that I had. It was
a red, double spaghetti strap dress with rhinestones
lining the straps and hem. Changing out of my clothes I slipped into the dress
and noticed for the first time that it came all the way
up to mid-thigh. Pulling my hair our of it's usual ponytail I brushed it down
and parted it at the side, opening a porcelain music/jewelry
box I pulled out a pair of diamond teddy bears with ruby eyes. I clipped each
side of my hair as best I could before pulling out
red heels that mom had bought to match my dress. She wanted formal, I'd give her
formal.
Feeling angered by Charlie's comment, I even went so far as to put on some lip
gloss (the only make up I owned) and sprayed
some BodyWorks perfume on. Checking myself out in the full-length mirror I
realized that I didn't look half bad. Okay, this was
it. This get up was going to last me until Christmas. I went downstairs once
again and saw Ben and Derek playing with David Michael
Ben and Derek were wearing nice clean slacks and Hawaiian print shirts, they
cleaned up almost as well as Cary did.
Speaking of Cary... I heard him talking with my mother in the dining room. My
heels clicked on the tiled floor and I peered into
the room and saw him helping mom set up the placemats and silverware.
"Chicago seems like a very interesting place." Mom was saying. "Watson and I may
take the family there one day."
At that moment she looked up at me and smiled. "Much better! Is that the dress I
bought you last fall?"
I nodded and stepped forward. "Well, you look wonderful, thank you. Would you be
a dear and help Cary out with the table."
"Sure mom." I replied as she dashed toward the kitchen to help Watson with the
dinner.
"Well, well, well, Kristin." Cary said as I stood across from him and started
laying out the forks and spoons. "You clean up
pretty well."
"So do you." I replied nonchalantly, gently setting the fork down. I normally
don't like it when we use the dining room because
the table is so huge and I always get stuck setting the dishes and whatnot.
A few minutes went by in silence before I fumbled and dropped a fork. I leaned
over to pick it up on the other side. I guess
mom never guessed how low cut the dress was because it went WAY low and showed
the cleft between my breasts. Looking up,
I saw Cary looking at me with interest and curiosity.
"What?" I asked, setting the fork down.
Cary shook his head and turned his head away. "Nothing."
A slow blush crept up my cheeks but I tried to appear uninterested. "It's
something."
"No it isn't." He said.
"Yes it is--you were oogling." I replied.
"I was WHAT?" Cary asked, laughing incredulouly. Without waiting for my reply,
he barged on. "You have nothing to oogle at."
I snorted loudly and shook my head. "Whatever Cary."


"Ahem, attention all." Watson called above the noise on the table.
"Are there lots of classrooms there?" Karen asked Charlie.
"More than at SES, that's for sure." Charlie said playfully ruffling Karen's
hair.
"Excuse me." Watson tried again.
Deciding to give him and mom a break, I put my fingers in my mouth and gave a
whistle that silenced everybody.
"Thank you, Kristy." Watson and mom said gratefully.
"First of all," Watson said, clearing his throat and stood up. "Charlie, your
mother and I want you to know how proud we are
of you for finishing your first year in college with the highest G.P.A in the
entire class."
We all applauded appreciatively and Charlie stood and took an exaggerated bow.
When we subsided, mom took Watson's hand
and continued, "And second of all, we realize how hard it must be for you to get
around in California since you left and gave Sam
your car--"
"Ah, the Junk Bucket." Charlie said fondly. "It's funny but Sam seems to take
better care of it than I ever did."
"I'm just more handy around cars, is all." Sam said, punching Charlie's
shoulder.
Mom let out a laugh which could have been covering a sob of happiness to see her
family getting along so well.
"And we know how much of a hassle it can be to wait for a bus all the time... so
we've decided. Charlie, we're going to get you
a new car to use."
The entire table was silent, you could hear the Kilbournes' dog barking down the
street. I turned to see Charlie's reaction and to
my surprise his face was blank. Suddenly little spots of pink formed on his nose
and his eyes watered up. Charlie was going to
cry? How often did that happen?
"Oh mom, dad, you guys..." He hid his face in his hands and leaned over to
suppress his sniffles. "You guys didn't have to do
that for... for me..."
"We wanted to." Watson said. I could tell that they were pleased with Charlie's
reaction.
With that, Charlie began to sob, tears more out of accomplishment and happiness
rather than sadness. I reached over and
patted his hand with my own. "Don't cry, Charlie."
"That's right." Sam agreed. "This is a GOOD thing."
"Get a Hummer." Cary said in a ridiculous voice that made Charlie and all of us
laugh.
"I don't know how to thank you both." Charlie told mom and Watson.
"Just keep up the good work." They replied.
After more excited chatter about what Charlie would get, we picked up more
mundane conversation and I saw mom gaze
tearfully at Watson and laid her head on his shoulders as he held her silently.
I just barely managed not to gag. I speared a piece
of French bread with my fork and dipped it into the big pot of cheese fondue in
front of me.
"Your brother sure is lucky." Cary commented to me. "A car, wow."
"Tell me about it." I replied.
Cary picked up his own fork and speared one of the bread pieces on his plate.
"Great food, Mr. and Mrs. Brewer." He said,
dipping his bread in and tapping it against the side of the pot. The bread
slipped off and fell into the melted, gooey cheese. "Oops."
He said, chuckling. He didn't seem to notice how still and quiet everyone had
gotten. Then they turned their attention to me. I
looked at Cary and realized something. Dropping my fork, I shrank away from him.
Across from me, David Michael grinned wickedly
like the little creep that he was. Suddenly the table burst into a frenzy of
noise.
"Ooooh..." He jeered maliciously.
"Ewww! yucky! Sick!" Karen exclaimed, her hands flying to her cheeks like
Macauli Cullkin in Home Alone.
"Cary dropped his bread! Cary dropped his bread!"" Andrew chanted.
"What?" Derek asked, wide-eyed.
"Cary dropped his bread!" Andrew repeated like a broken record.
"Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!" Emily Michelle sang loudly.
Ben whimpered and huddled next to Derek, afraid that all the kids at my house
had decided to go crazy all at once.
"Karen, Andrew, David Michael! That is quite enough!" Watson yelled over their
noise. After a millisecond of deafening silence,
Sam and Charlie let out loud snorts.
"What's wrong?" Cary asked, going pale that he might have broken some ettiquette
rule of thumb.
"It's nothing, Cary," Mom said gently, trying to look stern but with a youthful
laughter in her eyes. "Just a fun little rule we have
around the house."
"Rule?"
Watson jumped in with the explanation. When he and mom started dating, he once
made fondue for all of us, it was pretty good,
but he had this one particular rule that he thought always spiced up a family
dinner. If you dropped your bread in the fondue pot,
you'd have to kiss the person on your right's cheek. We all made up our own
street rules, but about halfway through dinner, guess
you dropped her bread in the pot? And guess who was on my right? Yes, Watson
himself. That was pretty embarrassing but now
that I think about it, it was kind of fun.
After he was done telling Cary about it, Cary turned to me, his eyes wide. How
mortifying! I was on Cary's right. He looked
at everyone to see if they were joking. Sam crossed his eyes, stuck out his
tongue and wagged it around, imitating a French kiss.
Luckily our parents did him see him. Cary then cleared his throat and leaned
towards me. I froze in my seat and couldn't move.
Cary would never let me live this down. Never. Oh WHY did my family insist on
making these ridiculous rules?!
I expected Cary to make the kiss as quick and painless as possible but I felt a
pleasant shock as his lips brushed against the
surface of my cheek then kissed it for a brief two seconds before he broke away,
his face the color of a pomegrante. My brothers
were cracking up. Karen was gazing dreamily at Derek (who was on HER right),
Andrew was pretending to puke, Mom and Watson
were looking as if this were the sweetest thing on earth. I could probably guess
that at that moment my face was as red as my dress
and my eyes matched that of the fiery rubies on the teddy bear pins.

After that, dinner past rather uneventfully except that Derek was extra careful
and paranoid. He even asked us what the penalty
was for chewing your food only 34 times instead of 35, to which David Michael
said that you had to marry the person. I could have
killed him. Now it was close to eight-thirty and I was sitting in the library,
brooding over my favorite brooding book 'Catcher in the Rye'.
The kids were playing in the toy room (Karen was terrifying Ben with the story
of Ben Brewer; the ghost of Watson's great great
great grandfather who haunts the third floor). Charlie and Sam were playing
videogames with Cary and mom and Watson decided
to go to bed early.
From somewhere in the house I heard piano music, Nannie loves listening to
classical music, I figured that she was listening to
a CD or something. I suddenly wanted to talk to her about that whole incident
downstairs in the dining room. Getting up, I headed
for her room but the music wasn't coming from there. She wasn't even in there.
Following the sounds of Beethoven I ended up
outside the drawing room.
Upon peeking inside, I saw Cary sitting at Watson's grand piano playing a piece
from memory. Around him the whole family
was strewn about on the sofas and Chippendale wing chairs. They were all staring
in rapt amazement as Cary's expression grew
more and more intense. I couldn't blame them. Cary was good, he was very good.
In band class, people played Beethoven all
the time, but no where near Cary's skill level. None of them ever played with so
much feeling--not to mention without sheet music.
As the notes drifted by me I felt numb and my legs grew weak and I couldn't move
to sit, I was frozen at my spot in the doorway.
Cary played on to a powerful climax and I suddenly saw something new in him. He
was...pretty attractive... I never took the time
to notice the little things about him. I was always so infuriated by the
self-satisfying grins he had that I never knew that he looked
incredibly sexy when his dirty blonde hair fell over his eyes creating a dark,
esoteric look. There was a round of applause as Cary finished
playing.
"Cary, that was beautiful." mom commented. "how many years have you been
playing?"
"Since I was four, Mrs. Brewer." Cary replied, undoing his tie.
"Well, that was just wonderful."
"Awesome." Charlie agreed.
"Thank you." Cary told them.
He ran his fingers along the keys and looked up, "Anyone have any requests?" he
saw me and grinned. "Kristin?"
His brown eyes locked with mine and made me jump. "Um..." I looked down and
twittled my thumbs, trying to remain calm and
stop the jumping beans in my stomach. "......Choppin."
Cary raised an eyebrow, bravely accepting my challenge. "Choppin, eh? Great." He
said, straightening up and cracking his knuckles.
I walked over to an empty settee and sat down to listen. After a few moments of
preparation, Cary began. He seemed to forget
where he was as his fingers drifted over the keys and played a beautiful melody.
His performance was so powerful that it made
my heart thump wildly in my chest and I leaned against the chair, weak.
From somewhere deep in my mush turned brain, I felt little germs of reality chew
through. What was happening? Why was I
feeling this way about Cary? I hated him, despised him. If we were stuck on a
deserted island together in shark-infested waters,
I'd take my chance with Jaws than stay with Jabber. We'd been enemies for so
long that an hour couldn't possibly change that.
Could it?