HOMECOMING
When the Carters drop me off on the last day of August, Sam is sitting on the front porch, poking a stick in the air. He's wearing a puffy blue coat, a pair of unevenly cut jean shorts, and one Croc.
"Hey, Sammy!" I call up.
Sam doesn't acknowledge my existence.
Mr. Carter opens the car trunk, hands me my bags, and gives me an envelope. "A bonus for all your work," he says.
Mrs. Carter rolls down her window. "You were terrific, Amelia. The girls will miss you. I hope you'll babysit once in a while."
The girls are nine-year-old Sabrina and ten-year-old Selena. They roll down the backseat windows. "Bye, Amelia!" they scream. "WE LOVE YOU!"
"I love you guys, too."
"You love EPSTEIN!" Sabrina screams.
Mr. Carter shakes his head and gets back into the car. "Give her a break, girls."
"Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye!" Sabrina and Selena sing as the car pulls out of the driveway.
I drag my bags up to the porch, but even when I'm right in front of him, Sam doesn't look up.
"What a warm welcome," I say. "Did you even know I was gone? For the whole summer?"
He drops his stick.
"What's going on? Where is everybody? Where's Kepler?" Kepler is our chocolate Lab, and while I missed my family, I REALLY missed Kep. It's corny, but the dog just gets me in a way that no one else does. The whole ride back, I was looking forward to seeing her cry with happiness when she saw me.
"MomandDadareattherestaurantDavidisplayingat Ryan'sGrandmaisgettinggroceries," Sam says robotically. "DaddytookKeplertowork."
"Why are Mom and Dad at work?" My parents own a restaurant two towns away. They work insane restaurant hours, but are strict about being home on Saturdays, Mondays, and holidays. "It's Saturday. Mack's running Ginger's today."
"Something broke. I think. Or someone quit. Or someone broke something and quit. Mack quit?"
I should have known better than to think I'd get reliable information from Sam. "Where's Toby?"
"I hate Toby."
"Why?"
"He stole Mr. Mittens. He said he's going to make kitty porn."
I stifle a laugh. Mr. Mittens is Sam's cat and Sam loves Mr. Mittens the way I love Kepler, so I understand his anger on the human–animal level.
"Why did he take him?"
"He was mad because I told Mommy I saw him take money out of her wallet."
Weird. It's not like my brother to steal from my parents, but I'm sure he had a good reason. "Toby hates tattle telling. Hasn't he initiated you into the Secret Sibling Society?"
Sam shakes his head. "Stealing is a sin."
"The Toby code is that siblings must always protect one another. Tattling is a sin. Forever and always."
"Toby is a diarrhea butt fart."
"I see your side, too. Why are you wearing a coat? It's so hot."
"Daddy said I needed a thicker skin. I started crying. David said I was retarded. Daddy said I'm too sensitive. I hate everybody. Mostly Toby."
"Sorry, Sam." I pat his sweaty blond head and open the front door. Music blasts from upstairs. I leave my bags in the mudroom. Sam is acting so pathetic that I feel a big-sisterly obligation to help him. "Do you want to go rescue Mr. Mittens?"
"Toby won't let me in his room."
"He'll let me in. He's got to. I've been gone for weeks." Has Sam even noticed that I've been gone? It seems lame that most of my family isn't here. At least Toby could have come downstairs. I would've if he'd been away for seven weeks. I would've baked him cookies and made him an ironic "Welcome Home" banner. Then again, if Toby had been gone, I would've been stranded and miserable without him. Since Toby has a car and a million friends, he probably didn't miss me that much.
"Amelia," Sam whines.
"Right, here's the plan. I'll start talking to him. Then I'll give you a signal—you hide in the hall. When I hold up three fingers, you come in and grab Mr. Mittens."
He follows me upstairs. When I knock on Toby's door, Sam attempts to hide behind me. I attempt to knock louder than the Beatles are singing "Can't Buy Me Love."
"He's going to go deaf," I tell Sam.
Finally, after much pounding, Toby opens the door. The first thing I notice is that his hair is a lot longer. And it's clear that he didn't spend nearly as much time outside as I did this summer because he's really pale.
"Jeez, Toby," I say. "It's too loud."
"What? What did ya say?" Toby cups his ear with his hand.
"Very funny."
Toby finds the remote from the pile of clothes on his bed and turns the music down to a more comfortable loud. A pungent waft of salt-and-vinegar potato chips and boy sweat floats into my nose.
"Your room smells horrible."
"Nice to see you, too." Toby smiles but blocks the doorway with his body so I can't go in.
"Where's the cat?"
"'You gonna bark all day, little doggy, or are you gonna bite?'"
"I know that one." I close my eyes until it comes to me. "Michael Madsen to Harvey Keitel in Reservoir Dogs."
"Aces."
"Sam wants his cat." I peek into his room.
"'You cannot pass! I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the Flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, Flame of Udun! Go back to the shadow. You shall not pass!'"
"Gandalf in The Fellowship of the Ring. Easy. But come on, Toby. It's not funny. Give Sam his cat." Is he stoned? It would be weird for him to get high during the day—especially when he's supposed to be watching our brother. The twins prefer when Toby babysits because, when he's not catnapping, he'll do fun stuff, like build American Ninja Warrior obstacle courses, or invent dishes like microwaved s'mores pie. I usually just let them watch TV.
"Shithead wants his pussy back? A pussy for the pussy?"
"Hand Mr. Mittens over." This is having brothers, I think. The girls I babysat would much rather give manicures and look at pictures of boy bands.
"Un momento." Toby steps back in his room and closes the door.
Sam emerges from behind me. "What's he doing? What about our plan, Meals?"
The door opens a crack and Mr. Mittens, with ten little rubber bands attached to nubbins of fur, comes mewing out.
"Mr. Mittens!" Sam screams. "What did he do to you?" The cat takes off. Sam follows him frantically.
The door opens again.
"Amelia," Toby says in a British accent. "What a jolly good pleasure to see you. Welcome back. How was your summer?" He opens the door wider, so, even though it really does stink, I go in.
"Are you stoned?"
He shakes his head. "Town's dry."
"Oh."
"Should be getting some soon, though. My buddy Toast went to Buffalo."
"Toast's your buddy now?" I'm surprised because Toast is a skeevy, sketchy stoner in my grade, and Toby has always been friends with popular people.
Toby shrugs.
"I didn't smoke all summer," I tell him. "Epstein is kind of, like, straightedge." Then I remember that Toby doesn't know Epstein. "Epstein is the guy I met."
"You met a guy?"
"Yeah. What's so weird about that?" My heart does a bumpity-bump, because part of me thinks it is bizarre that I maybe kind of have a boyfriend.
Toby gives me a Jim Carrey grin. "It's not that weird. You're not completely heinous."
"Thanks a lot."
"What's up with his name?"
"Epstein was his grandmother's maiden name. His last name is Boffee-Barnes."
Toby throws a pair of jeans off his chair and sits down. "That's weird." He spins the chair around. "You like this Epstein?"
"Yeah. I think so. I think I really like him. He's really smart."
"Cool," Toby says.
I can't tell if he means it or not, which is annoying. He almost always has a girlfriend and I'm always nice about them, even if they're kind of annoying and text him a million times a day.
"He lives in New York. Manhattan."
"'Standing on the corner, just me and Yoko Ono / we was waiting for Jerry to land. / Up come a man with a guitar in his hand …'"
"Is that from a movie?"
Toby shakes his head. "It's 'New York City' by John Lennon and Yoko Ono."
"Oh."
"'New York City / New York City / New York City! / Que pasa, New York?'" Toby sings, playing air guitar.
"Epstein lives on the Upper West Side." I'm kind of annoyed that he isn't more interested in my possible boyfriend.
"Did ya make a lot of cash, Amelia Bedelia?"
"Yeah, Toby Maguire. And I forgot about this." I open the envelope Mr. Carter gave me. "Wow!" The Carters gave me an additional two hundred dollars.
"Nice! 'You are only ever as good to me as the money you make!' Can I have a loan?"
"That's from 21. Didn't you work?" Last year, Toby worked so many shifts at my parents' restaurant that he was able to buy Prudence, his pre-owned Honda Civic.
Toby shrugs. "Not so much."
"What've you been doing?" All of a sudden I feel like I don't really know what Toby did this summer. Except for a random text here and there, we didn't communicate that much, which is weird for us.
Toby tries to pry a hundred-dollar bill out of my hand. "I've been chilling."
"Yeah. You still seeing Ari?" Toby started dating Arianna Kaufman after they went to prom together. I was only home for ten days after the prom, but it seemed like Toby was always running off with her, in her graduation-gift MINI Cooper, going to beach bonfires, amusement parks, and other cute, memory-making rom-com activities.
Toby shrugs. "Not so much."
"Oh." I wait for him to say something about another girl, because he's usually hanging out with a girl even if she's not technically a girlfriend. Instead, he lifts up his shirt and scratches his stomach. He looks thinner than ever. He could live entirely on ice cream and chips and still be a rail.
"Lend me some ducats, Meals."
"Jeez, Toby. I kind of need this. I worked for it." Since I don't drive, I don't have many job options, so it's nice to actually have a little money, for a change.
"'Where's the money, Lebowski? Where's the fucking money, shithead?'" He smiles and without really thinking about it, I hand him one of the hundreds. Toby is very hard to say no to.
"This is a loan, Toby. Not a gift."
"'The best things in life are free / but you can keep 'em for the birds and bees. / Now give me money (that's what I want) / that's what I want, yeah …'" he croons.
"Seriously, Toby. You promise to pay me back?"
"You're the best. 'You are the most talented, most interesting, most extraordinary person in the universe.'"
"'You are capable of amazing things,'" I say, even though I'd rather Toby agree to pay me back.
He nods. "I am capable of amazing things. Unfortunately one of them was watching The Lego Movie with Shithead and Dipstick around eighty-three thousand times."
"Sorry. We can make up for it. Let's binge-watch a ton of good movies. How about Goodfellas, Bad Santa, Pretty Ugly People. Get it? Good, bad, and ugly!"
I feel very excited by a possible movie marathon with Toby, but he just picks up his phone. "Maybe later. I gotta call Toast and let him know that I'm in for the good shit."
"You want money for pot?" My brother smokes pot more than I do, but he's not a stoner or anything.
"No judgments, Amelia. No judgments."
"Pay me back," I tell him, turning around. "And clean your room, Toby. It stinks."
"Like roses." He shuts the door behind me.
