Runt of the Litter is back in action. This chapter is mainly to lead into the more exciting chapters to come. Hope you enjoy anyways.
9. Star-Fitting Lovers
On the week of Holiday Break, Talise, Aiden, Kyla, Wally, and I are spread about the red room (the room with red furniture which people sometimes confuse with the sunset room next door). Everyone is mellowing out after our frantic Christmas celebrations which involved a return of the relatives from the Underworld and several pounds of tinsel. My father, who promised to make this year, is stuck in France because of his agent. Instead, he sent me a gold necklace with a phoenix on it. "Next year," he told me, his voice full of rueful sadness.
Ben comes in groaning, "Only three more days of break left."
"Don't remind me," Wally groans, trying to pick tinsel off of his shirt.
Talise and I are sitting on the sofa, bent over the same game of Solitaire, looking for anyway to solve the puzzle. It seems like we've already hit another dead end. Running her fingers through her scalp, Talise sighs in frustration and runs her eyes systematically down each column.
"So, Dad, I was thinking," Aiden starts. He puts down the folder he's been flipping through. Joe peers over the top of his paper. "During winter break in February, me and some of the guys at Uni. were thinking about spending a week in Las Vegas." Joe waits for him to continue. Already, his eyes study his son skeptically.
When Aiden's pause lengthens Joe finally asks, "Why are you asking me? You're eighteen. It's not as though you need my permission."
"Well..." Aiden trails off.
"He needs your money," Kyla interrupts, her face a picture of smooth delight.
"I do not!" Aiden insists. Joe glances at him questioningly. "Need a lot of it," he mutters.
"You have a job, Aiden," his father points out. "I think that it's time for you to start managing your own finances."
"I'm not just asking you for money, Dad. I have everything planned out." He hands over his manila folder. Joe takes it and glances through the pages.
"A suite at the Wynn?" he asks.
"I want to take Spencer with me, and I want it to be somewhere nice."
"You want Spencer to go with you?" Although he may not be the model parent, even Joe can probably guess why. Abruptly, Kyla storms out of the room. With a bang, the door slams shut. A bewildered Joe isn't sure whether to go after her or not, so he just sits there, half-out of his chair, until Aiden resumes speaking.
"She's been kind of down lately, and I want her to be happy." Of course she's down, Aiden. She's with you. You are the master at turning something bright and happy into rust.
"And why Las Vegas?" Joe inquires innocently.
"Yeah, the city of gambling and prostitutes just screams rainbows and sunshine," I mutter. What about Spencer makes Aiden think that taking her to Las Vegas is a good idea?
"I thought you liked Las Vegas," Talise points out to me in a low voice.
"It's fun, but it doesn't seem very Spencer-like."
"You know it's not just gambling, beer, and prostitutes. There's a ton of other stuff you can do though Aiden will probably want to find a club or something."
"Exactly," I respond. "Why would Spencer want to go to a club to cheer up?"
"Why would anybody? Spencer's not porcelain. She'll get caught up in the rush just like everybody else."
"She's not anybody else," I snap. It's true. She's better than everyone in the world.
Talise gives me a weird look, "She's as human as you or me."
"But come on, Dad," Aiden wails, wrenching our attention back to him.
"There is no way I'm leaving both of you alone in Las Vegas without a chaperone," Joe states with finality.
"Then, then," Aiden splutters for a moment before his eyes fall on his twin. "Talise can go with us. She and Spencer can sleep in one room, and the guys can sleep in another."
"I can?" is Talise's response.
Ben jumps up, "Wait, can I go too?"
"Please?" Aiden implores both his father and sister. "Come on, Talise. You have money saved up. I'll pay for the rooms, and you can use your money on whatever you want." His sister doesn't seem attracted to the idea. "It's been forever since we've gone anywhere together."
"I'll think about—"
Simultaneously, Joe begins, "Talise, if you go there, I'm counting on you to make sure that these to don't get up to anything."
Abruptly, Talise stops talking to listen, a smile flashing across her face. It wasn't a nice, friendly one either. In fact, it looked sort of vicious. "I know, and I'll go."
"Thanks!" Aiden wraps his arm around her. "I owe you one."
"Good, because I'm taking Ashley with me." Aiden blinks and his face contorts in half-dozen different ways before he settles on one. Fury, directed at me.
"Well, I'm not just going to leave you on your own all Winter Break," Talise reasons, her temper still under control. My temper, on the other hand, just blew a hole through the roof. Really? Do you really not trust me at all, Talise. You of all people should know that not having the psychology book's perfect personality doesn't make you a diseased freak. Why is introversion treated as a sickness while extroversion is merely a cute thing to smile at?
"Well, I don't want to go." I stomp across the attic while Talise lies back on her bed. "Why can't you leave me alone for a week? What's the big deal?"
"I just want to make sure—"
"That I won't kill myself or something? Why does everyone think that? I'm fine, okay? I don't need you to watch me. I just really don't want to go." I really don't want to sleep in the same room as Spencer after our falling out. God, I really don't want to have to be that close to her and watch her hang out with Aiden and kiss him and—
"Just come with, Ashley." Eyes storming softly, she pleads with me. "Come to the dark side, Ashley."
"You've never even watched Star Wars before," I remind her irritably.
"That was from Star Wars? I thought it was from Lord of the Rings or something. Anyways, just come Ashley. There will be plenty to do." I stare up at the poem-plastered ceiling. Yeats stares back. Talise tapes her favorite poems up everywhere. Who knows what she'll do once we run out of room?
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms.
In Las Vegas, there will be volcanoes and lions. There will be pirates and water fountains. There will be Spencer and blond hair and the only blue eyes worth looking at—even if they never look at me.
"Fine."
Our carpeted stairs lead from the second floor top the first. Just as I put my foot down on a cool tile, my mother pounces. "So, Tali!" Alarmed, I clap my hands over my ears which earns me a look of disdain from my mother. "What do you think of David?" She stretches out the name "David" like a gossiping teenager.
Talise leaves her face blank and barely grits her teeth at all, replying, "I think that he is homely and perspicuous."
"I'm so glad that you're feeling so comfortable with him," my mother gushes. "I know he's so excited to be coming to dinner tonight."
Nostrils flaring at either the overuse of "so" or the thought of David's arrival, Talise says in a precise, formal tone, "I would gladly abjure his presence in my vicinity at all times for I find it enervating and fulsome."
Let's make this clear: I did not understand a word of that.
At that moment, the doorbell rings and my mother rushes off to answer it, squealing, "That'll be him!"
Talise rubs her face in exasperation. "Why me?" she asks the ceiling.
I take the liberty of answering for the inanimate object, "Because the world hates your guts."
Before Talise can even finish rolling her eyes, David pops in like a bunny rabbit on steroids. Energizer should sue him for copyright infringement. "Hello, Tali."
"Hello, David."
"You should call me Dave, Tali. All my friends do," he offers brightly.
"I'll keep that in mind, David." The light above us flickers.
After several tedious minutes of one-sided small talk, Talise and I manage to slip away into a corner of the red room. Noticing our Solitaire game left on the coffee table, I return to our earlier spot on the scarlet sofa and absently study the cards. There is no Ace of Clubs for the Two. My former partner seems to have given up and curls up on the rocking chair.
"Thank god for Ben's inability to be graceful," I announce, examining the cards for a Four of Hearts. Apparently, the only way to get rid of David is to have a clumsy person trip over their own feet and dump a gallon of cranberry juice all over his clean white shirt.
"Thank god for Ben's obsession with cranberry juice," Talise says, following my previous statement.
"How can anyone be that dense?" I wonder aloud. What admissions officer would allow David Plum into their school? And why does the Six of Diamonds have to be on top of the Seven of Diamonds?
Talise broods for a moment. "He's trying to get a rise out of me. I don't think he's really that thick."
The thought had never occurred to me that it might be a big joke to David. I scrutinize Talise's face to see that it has darkened. "Is that a good thing?" I question tentatively. Where's the King of Hearts? If I could just move that Queen off the Ten of Spades.
"No. If anything it makes me want to strangle him even more." She pauses, and I feel like there's more she'll say so I wait. "But, of course, that would be a reaction which means he wins. Conversely, he's slowly driving me off the deep end."
Calling up one of Talise's favorite sayings, I recite, "No one can drive you crazy if you don't give them the keys."
"What if they hotwired your car?" Suddenly, I remember a commercial. "H-O-T-W-I-R-E, ," I sing.
"No, don't start," Talise moans. "Besides that's a travel website, right?"
"Yeah, you need to book a flight that goes 'off the deep end,'" I inform her like it's obvious.
Completing an eye roll, Talise mutters, "I'll win this though. Idiot doesn't know what he's dealing with." Peering at her from over my unruly cards (I'm glaring at the Three of Clubs in the hope that it will turn into a Five), I raise my eyebrows. Where did that come from? "You know, as long as I don't jump off a cliff first."
I snicker at her last words. Wait—Three of Clubs? Wasn't there a Two of Clubs over there? "Yes!"
Talise jerks up, startled, "Huh?"
In a couple of minutes, I have four neat piles from Ace through King stacked in front of me. And just like that, the cards fall into place.