Chapter 5 Ella
Ihung up the phone and stared at my closed bedroom door. Benjamin Kakoa just called and asked me to come to his house tomorrow to take a selfie with him to send to his parents. How was this my life?
I double-checked my phone, confirming that yes, I did just get an incoming call from an unknown number, and no, I didn’t hallucinate the whole thing. I also didn’t ask the very obvious “WTF, Ben?” question that had sprung to my lips.
But seriously, what the fuck? It was such a random thing to ask someone you just met.
The fact that he’d offered no explanation was also weird.
Like, this felt like a test weird. Or maybe he didn’t explain himself because we just met and he didn’t trust me with any more information than he absolutely had to give me.
Which was fair. But what if he was doing that and was also testing me to see if I pried, or posted something cryptic about it on Facebook?
Argh! I was going to sleep like crap again. I just knew it.
A snuffling sound came from beneath my door, followed by the threat of a whine. The dogs. I’d been up here too long. I was being a bad hostess.
I pulled up Ben’s number to save it but hesitated over the contact name. Stan had come blurting out of my mouth when he called because it was the most bland, unassuming male name I could think of on the spot. No offense to all the Stans out there. I don’t blame you. I blame your parents.
I decided to stick with that name and saved the contact as “Stan”.
I was paranoid enough that now that I’d called him that once, it would be safer to always call him that.
You know, on the off chance that Megan, who had never once in her life showed even the least interest in spying on me, chose this visit to try to hack into my phone.
I rolled my eyes at myself and went to the door. The dogs stood right outside, waiting to greet me like we hadn’t seen each other in a week. I reached down to pet them. “Hi, yes. I missed you too. That was a long five minutes, huh?”
Megan and Stacey were stretched out next to each other on the chaise lounge when I reemerged downstairs.
Stacey was of Norwegian descent, and her feet extended a whole foot farther than my sister’s.
Megan’s head rested on her wife’s shoulder, her long raven locks contrasting with Stacey’s blonde pixie cut.
They turned when they heard the floorboards creak under me.
I paused just behind the couch. Come on, Ella. Time to lie like you’ve been doing it all your life.
“That was my friend, Stan,” I said.
Megan gave me a look like, No shit, Sherlock.
I guess I did kind of scream that name a few times after picking up.
“He’s going through a rough patch right now,” I told them. “If it’s okay with you guys, I’m going to swing by his place tomorrow morning to check in on him. I still want to go cross country skiing with you, though.”
Ella Jones: artist, entrepreneur, stone-cold liar.
Stacey smiled. “That’s fine. We can go after you get back. Maybe the snow will have started by then.” She looked at Megan, her smile widening, a sparkle in her eye. “Won’t that be nice? Like skiing through a winter wonderland.”
I’m not sure what she expected in response, maybe for Megan to confirm that yes, that did sound romantic AF, or something similarly gushy, but my sister, still grumpy from their long drive, made a decidedly unromantic harrumphing sound instead.
“As long as we don’t get stuck out in the woods because of it and have to eat the first person to freeze to death just to stay alive.
Or get run down by wolves. Or trampled by a moose with a brain worm. ”
I stared at my sister. “Jesus, Megan. Want to throw in death by mountain lion mauling?”
Stacey put her hands over Megan’s ears and stage whispered, “She’s just tired.”
Megan batted her away.
I laughed and rounded the couch to join them. They’d been here just long enough to drop their stuff in the spare room, listen to Mom complain about Charlie, and then collapse on the chaise in exhaustion before Ben – er, I mean Stan, STAN – called.
“How was traffic?” I asked.
Megan scrunched her nose. “Terrible.”
“It really was,” Stacey said. “We took Route One out of the city, which was a parking lot right up to I-95. We thought it would clear up after the merge, like usual.”
“Not so much this time?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not so much. It’s a good thing we left earlier than planned, or we’d still be on the road.”
Sam jumped up near their feet, sniffed their socks, and then, with all the drama of the breed, nudged their legs apart with his snout and then whined when they didn’t move fast enough for his liking.
“That’s dog-speak for ‘May I please lay down with you?’” I told them.
“My God. You two are so spoiled,” Megan said. But she quickly wiggled over, and when Sam flopped down in the space she cleared, she immediately started to pet him, just behind his ears, exactly where he liked it best.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “Right. So, you didn’t do the thing you did last year when you got them both more presents than anyone else in the family?”
I was met with silence. Stacey – from what I could see of her profile – stared at the TV in wide-eyed innocence that I didn’t believe for a second. I couldn’t even see Megan’s face. She’d conveniently turned to lean her head on her wife’s shoulder again. Like she was hiding.
I put my hands on my hips. “And you definitely didn’t let them unwrap one of those presents early. Like when I was on the phone a minute ago?”
Right on cue, Fred padded around the couch with a brand-new toy in his mouth. He stopped in front of me and started chewing on it. It squeaked with every bite, each sound an exclamation point pronouncing the obvious.
“We can’t have dogs in our apartment,” Megan said, snuggling closer to Stacey.
“And so you spoil mine. I get it. But how about from now on you don’t complain about something you’re actively contributing to, grouchy pants.”
Her response was muffled and filled with attitude. “I’m not the grouchy pants. You’re the grouchy pants.”
Stacey met my eyes over her head. “She’s really tired.”
***
“Do you mind watching the dogs while I’m out?” I asked Megan the next morning. We were all a little sleepy after an epic night of wine, card games, and catching up.
“Yes, I mind,” Megan answered.
“Wait, what? Seriously?”
I looked at Stacey across the kitchen. She shrugged and went back to sipping her second cup of coffee, opting, like always, to stay out of our sisterly drama. Wise woman.
“Yes, seriously,” Megan said. “I love them, but they’re a pain in the ass when you’re gone.
Every time they hear a noise outside, they freak out, thinking it’s you, race to the nearest window, and then if it’s not actually you, they whine like someone threw all of their toys away and then mope around the house until the next noise comes along. It’s depressing as hell.”
Fred must have heard the word “toy”, because he pranced into the kitchen with his new squeaky, munching on it and looking up at me like it was playtime. Sam joined him, yip-growling around their tug-of-war rope.
Megan pressed her fingers to her temples like a headache threatened. “Also, I just need like five fucking seconds of quiet.”
I reached down and gently pulled the squeaking ball out of Fred’s mouth.
That settled that. Megan was a creature of habit, and was used to the peace and solitude of her and Stacey’s dog-free apartment.
She got testy when her routine was upended, and after the stress of traffic yesterday, the excitement last night, less than six hours of sleep, and barking dogs first thing in the morning, I could understand why she was already dropping f-bombs.
I needed to hightail it out of there with the boys, especially since we’d all be together romping through the woods later.
The last thing I wanted was for her to be overwhelmed on her first day here.
It might ruin the rest of their trip. Once Megan got into serious anti-social mode, it was hard to snap her out of it.
“Okay. I’ll take them with me,” I told her.
She exhaled heavily. “Thanks.”
Yes, thanks, Stacey mouthed from behind my sister.
I nodded at her.
“We’ll be back in a few hours then,” I said, and headed toward the front door.
I didn’t expect it to take nearly that long at Ben’s, but I could head to Jack’s afterward to give Megan more time if need be.
I bundled up against the cold – it was only 10 degrees outside, puke – and then opened the door and let the dogs out ahead of me. It took a while for the truck engine to heat up in weather like this, and after I buckled the dogs in, I decided to text Ben.
Hey, it’s Ella. I have the dogs with me. I can drop them at Jack’s before I head over if you like.
A few minutes passed before he responded. No, that’s fine. I figured you’d bring them. I’ve already dog-proofed the house.
LOL, that’s adorable. They’ll find something to get into no matter what you do. Sorry in advance.
I hit send too quickly and immediately wanted to punch myself in the kidney. Adorable? Really, Ella?
Hopefully he didn’t read that and think I meant he was literally adorable.
Hopefully he knew it was just an expression.
That I used with people I knew. When I was being sarcastic and wanted to tease them about their naiveté.
Because he and I went way back, so of course he knew that’s what I meant and not that I called him adorable in seriousness.
Oh, God. Why hadn’t he responded yet?
After what felt like a small eternity, my phone dinged. Ha! I’ll make sure to close off the rooms with fresh paint on the walls. And put away the fancy china.
He gave me a “Ha!”. That meant he knew it was a joke, right?
RIGHT?