Chapter 4 Josie
JOSIE
“You are not staying home to mope on a Saturday night,” I grumbled, kicking my brother’s feet off the couch.
“Leave me alone.”
With food stains on his favorite shirt and his boxers stinking just a little too much for a single day, I knew I had to intervene now or risk losing my brother to the endless loop of depression from his recent breakup.
“You can’t just sit here all the time. You have to get out there again and find someone new.”
“I had someone new,” he mumbled. “She left me.”
Rolling my eyes, I tugged on his arm, pulling him up from the couch. “She did not leave you. She moved to a different state for a great opportunity.”
“And in the process, she left me,” he reiterated.
“Sawyer, you were dating her for a month.”
His face scrunched up, and for just a terrified minute, I thought he was going to start crying. “The best month of my life.”
“And there will be others who will break your heart even more than her,” I said, shoving him toward his room. “Now, get dressed and I’ll buy you a drink.”
“At the Old Tavern?”
The thought of going in there had me scrunching my nose in disgust. “No way. We’ll go to The Beaver and Boot.”
“But that place is full of women.”
“Precisely my point,” I said, steering him into the bathroom first. “You need a shower or no woman will ever look at you again.”
“I don’t want a woman,” he pouted. “I only wanted her.”
“You didn’t even like her the first time you went out.”
I turned on the shower and made sure it was extra hot to wash away all the grime that had been building up over the last twenty-four hours.
“Pearl,” he whimpered, sighing heavily. “Why did you leave me?”
“If you start singing some sad cowboy song, I’ll make you the most disgusting tea you’ve ever had and I won’t leave until you’ve had every last sip.”
“Wouldn’t matter,” he whimpered, his face twisting in anguish. “You could kill me and it would be less painful than what I’m feeling right now.”
“That’s blue balls,” I clarified.
“It’s my heart shredding into tiny pieces. These aren’t tears in my eyes. That’s my blood leaking through every orifice.”
“That’s disgusting. I need a shower just listening to this. I’m leaving, and when I knock on the door in ten minutes, you’d better be clean, or I swear to God, I will follow through on my threat.”
I slammed the door, shuddering at the visual he’d just given me.
It was bad enough that I had to live with my brother, but he was so sensitive, which meant every time some woman broke his heart, I had to go through another one of his depressive states and pull him out of the dark with women and cheap beer.
Honestly, I felt bad for all the women at the bar tonight. Instead of trying to pick one of them up, he’d tell his sad story to all of them, making them just as depressed as him.
But I couldn’t allow him to keep sinking any further. I’d never get him out of this state if I let him wallow.
While he showered, I picked out the cleanest things I could find in his room, then shoved everything else in the washer. Sometimes I felt like his mother, which was not at all what I wanted, but letting him go out in public as he was would only make the situation worse.
If things didn’t go right tonight, I’d have to call in the big guns, which meant it was time to make a phone call. Dialing my grandma’s number, I felt slightly bad for tattling on Sawyer, but not bad enough to hang up.
“Hey, Josie! I haven’t heard from you in a week!”
“Well, the phone works both ways,” I reminded her.
“Your grandfather and I have been very busy, even with all this cold weather. I was thinking of getting one of those time shares in Florida.”
“I’d rather have a few cold days than never-ending heat, thank you very much.”
“Well, my bones can’t take it anymore. Did I tell you about what the Lesters’ did the other day?”
“Grandma, I actually need to talk to you about something.” If I didn’t stop her now, I’d have to hear about all the neighbors in her retirement community before I could get a word in.
“Oh, do you need money? I knew that shop wouldn’t make enough money.”
Rolling my eyes, I pushed her criticism to the side. “My shop is doing fine. We need to talk about Sawyer.”
“Oh, honey. Did that woman break up with him? The gemstone girl?”
“Pearl. And yes, she moved out of state.”
“He smothered her, too, didn’t he?”
“Grandma, he doesn’t smother his girlfriends. He just…gets really excited when he finds someone he likes.”
“That’s called smothering, dear.”
“Well, either way, we’re in the couch and boxers phase. I just shoved him in the shower, and I’m going to take him out tonight.”
She sighed heavily through the phone. “Those poor women. You know, you should put out a newsletter to the town every time someone breaks up with him. You know, I really don’t think it’s fair to them.”
“They’ll survive. I won’t if I have to deal with him for another weekend.”
“Well, just be kind to him. Remember that he’s more sensitive than you are.”
“That’s the problem,” I grumbled. “Do you know how hard it is to be positive when he’s like this?”
“I know, dear.”
“So…I was thinking…maybe it’s time for you to invite him to stay with you for a few weeks.”
I winced as silence filled the line.
“Well, if he doesn’t mind eating at four o’clock and going to bed at eight-thirty. You know, there’s no great nightlife around here.”
“He’s your grandson, and he’s hurting. What he needs is a change of scenery.”
“Well, I suppose I could talk with your grandfather about it, but honestly, maybe he needs me to come up for a visit instead.”
“No!” I shouted, immediately on the defensive. “I mean, uh…he just needs to get away from the reminders. And there are so many.”
“I know, I know. Fine. Talk to him and let me know the details.”
I dodged a bullet there. Grandma was good at a distance, but in person, she had a sharp tongue and even deadlier senses. If she came here, it would be like a dictator coming for a visit.
“And you’ll take him out to your old people functions?”
“They’re not old people functions!”
“They are, and if you took him out every night, it would really help to pull him out of his funk. You know he can’t stand playing Bingo.”
“Yes, yes. But I don’t have to like it.”
“No, but I’ll enjoy the reprieve from his moping.”
The door to the bathroom opened, so I quickly got off, tossing the phone on the table before he could see me conspiring to get rid of him.
“Feel better?”
“I guess,” he sighed.
God, he sounded just like Eeyore. And Eeyore was my favorite, but he was ruining the sad donkey for me.
“I laid out some clothes for you to wear. Let’s get you dressed and hit the bar. We’re gonna have so much fun tonight. I heard it’s karaoke night.”
“What? Josie, don’t make me do it.”
“It was such a hit the last time we did it. And everyone loved your impression of Neil Diamond.”
He nodded sadly. “That’s the night I met Pearl.”
I could have smacked myself for not remembering that. “Well, then you definitely won’t sing Neil Diamond. How about Toby Keith? You love his music.”
“I guess.”
“Yeah?” Wrapping my arm around his shoulder, I guided him to his room and practically shoved him inside. “Alright, get dressed so we can leave.”
I pulled the door shut and leaned back against it, screaming silently at how much effort I was having to put into this.
Hurrying to my own bedroom, I changed out of my work clothes and got into something a little more casual, a little more fun. I didn’t normally wear makeup, but for one night, I could let loose a little and dab some eyeliner and mascara on for the fun of it.
Anything that might help my brother feel less like this was a pity date with his sister.
When he emerged from his bedroom, the sadness on his face nearly had me turning him around to put him right to bed to weep into his pillow.
But I was desperate, and if I had to be his date for the evening and show him a good time, that was exactly what I was going to do.
“Ready for the best night ever?” I asked cheerily.
Sighing, his shoulders heaved as if he had the weight of the world on them. “I guess.”
“That’s the spirit!” I roped my arm through his and practically dragged him out the door.
This was going to be the longest night of my life.
“Any chance when we get in there, you could leave me in a corner with a bottle of vodka to drink away my pain?”
“Not a chance in hell,” I muttered, already bored with the night.
It was a five-minute drive to the bar, and those five minutes felt like the most excruciating five minutes I’d ever experienced, and that included the time I had to sit in the lecture hall and listen to our principal ramble on about the importance of tying your shoes and all the potential tripping hazards.
If Sawyer didn’t find someone to cheer him up soon, I was going to have to seriously rethink our living arrangements.
I shoved the door open and let the music wash over me. My mood lifted instantly at the sight of so many of my friends, all of them laughing and getting out on the dance floor. How could this night go wrong?
Weaving my way through the crowd, I waved at Cheyenne, grateful for a friendly face. “Hey! I was hoping you would be here. Sawyer had another breakup.”
“Oh, no. Who this time?”
I rolled my eyes, but it wasn’t until she frowned, looking into the crowd behind me, that I realized he was no longer with me. Scanning the path I wove through the crowd, I realized he was tucked in at the door, his head hung low.
“Geez. Give me a minute.”
Laughing, she squeezed my arm. “I’ll get you a drink.”
“Thanks!” I called over my shoulder as I made my way back to my sad sack brother. “Come on. You’re not going to stand in the corner all night.”
“Being here just reminds me of Pearl.”
Snatching his hand, I refused to listen to another second of his whining about losing Pearl. I had to drag him all the way to the bar, and when Cheyenne spun around to hand me my drink, I downed it with much less class than I normally would.