“Not exactly.”
I blinked at the phone. “What do you mean?”
“Mike,” Siobhan said simply. “Mike’s not going to be there.”
“Who wants him here?” I muttered.
“Well—Linnie did, right?” Siobhan asked, and I crossed over to my desk again and started straightening the piles of papers, mostly just to have something to do with my hands. “Didn’t she invite him?”
“Of course,” I said quickly, ready to talk about something else. “But he’s not coming, and it’s better this way.”
“Okay,” Siobhan said, and even through the phone, I could tell that this was her letting the subject go, even though she still disagreed with me. “Now.” There was a getting-down-to-business tone in Siobhan’s voice, the same as she’d had when we were five and trying to decide who got to be Belle when we were playing Beauty and the Beast and who was going to be stuck being the teapot. “What are you wearing on GMA?”
I winced. Good Morning America was going to be coming to our house in two days to interview all of us, because my mom’s comic strip—Grant Central Station—was, after twenty-five years, coming to an end. And despite the fact that this was rapidly approaching, I hadn’t yet gotten as far as deciding what I would be wearing.
Grant Central Station depicted the lives of the five kids, two parents, and a dog that made up the Grant family—the fictional version, since those of us who lived in the real world were also the Grant family. It was syndicated in newspapers across the country and around the world. It was about a large family dealing with everyday things—work and crushes and bad teachers and siblings’ fights. As the years had gone on, it had transitioned away from broad gags and more cartoonish illustrations and had slowly gotten more serious. The humor had become more poignant, and my mother would sometimes trace one story line for weeks. And unlike most strips, in which characters lived in a kind of stasis—Garfield perpetually hating Mondays and loving lasagna; Charlie Brown forever missing the football; Jason, Paige, and Peter Fox stuck in fifth, ninth, and eleventh grade, respectively—Grant Central Station followed real time. My siblings and I each had a strip equivalent that was a version of us, and for the last twenty-five years, the strip had charted the progress of the fictional family, moving in step with us in the real world.
The fact that it was ending had come with an onslaught of requests for publicity—my mom had been doing phone and e-mail interviews for weeks, and taking the train into New York for photo shoots and taped interviews—but it seemed the really big ones were happening closest to when the strip was actually ending, probably so she could give her take on how she was feeling, now that the moment had arrived. There had been comic retrospectives in newspapers around the country, and the Pearce, our local museum, was doing a whole show on her artwork. We were squeezing in an appearance tonight at the opening, before we’d all rush to the rehearsal dinner.
But the biggest of all these promotional appearances was Good Morning America on Sunday morning, a live interview with all of us that they were calling “The Family Behind Grant Central Station.”
When Linnie and Rodney had decided on their wedding date, my mother had set the strip’s end date for the same weekend, so we’d all be together. And apparently, GMA had gotten a lot more interested in doing the piece on us when they’d found out we would all be available. Linnie and Rodney weren’t thrilled about this, and J.J. had commented that if we were expected to appear on national TV the day after a wedding, they might want to change the name of the segment to “Grant Central Hangover.” But I was just happy we’d all be together, that when this thing that had defined all our lives came to an end, we’d see it through as a group.
“Um,” I said to Siobhan now, stalling for time. “Clothes?”
“Charlie.” The disapproval in my best friend’s voice was palpable. “Jackson Goodman is coming to your house on Sunday.”
“I’m aware of this.”
“Jackson Goodman. And you don’t know what you’re wearing?” Siobhan’s voice rose sharply at the end of this. She and her dads watched Good Morning America together every morning until she had to leave for school, and Jackson Goodman—the laid-back anchor with the wide grin—was by far her favorite. When she’d found out that he was going to be at our house, she’d pretty much lost her mind, then promptly invited herself over for the taping.
“You can help me pick an outfit, how about that?”
“Deal. And you’ll introduce me to Jackson, right?”
“Sure,” I said, even though I had no idea how things were going to run on Sunday.
I could hear muffled voices on Siobhan’s end. “I should probably go. This accepted students thing is starting soon.”
“Have fun. Hail to the victorious.”
“Hail to the victors,” Siobhan corrected, sounding scandalized. “Have I taught you nothing?”
“Clearly not. Um, go Wolverine.”
“Wolverines,” Siobhan said, her voice rising. “It’s not like Hugh Jackman is our mascot.”
“See, but if he was, maybe I would have applied.”
“Steve and Ted are still mad you didn’t, you know.”
“Just tell them to be glad I didn’t apply to Ohio State.”
I heard the sharp intake of breath that followed whenever I mentioned Michigan’s rival school, which I found ways to bring up as often as possible. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
“That’s probably wise.”
“I gotta go. Tell Linnie congrats for me?”
“Of course. See you tomorrow.” I hung up, then after a moment opened my photos and started looking through them. I scrolled past my photos, stopping at the ones with my siblings, trying to find one of us all together.
There I was with Linnie and Rodney last night, picking up pies at Captain Pizza. And then me and Danny and J.J. in front of the Christmas tree, both Danny and me giving J.J. bunny ears—Linnie and Rodney had spent the holiday with Rodney’s parents in Hawaii. And then me and J.J. and Linnie at Thanksgiving—Danny had had to work, jetting last-minute to Shanghai, trying to save a deal that had started falling apart. There I was with Danny in September, sitting outside at a Coffee Bean—he’d sent me a surprise “Come and visit me for the weekend!” plane ticket, and I’d flown out to California and back again in less than forty-eight hours. And then there was one from last summer, me and J.J. trying—and failing—to play Cards Against Humanity with only two people.
But there were none of all of us together, and looking at the pictures was evidence that we hadn’t all been together in a while. But at long last, this weekend, we would be. For three days, my siblings were going to be home and it was going to be us again—playing games and standing around the kitchen laughing and making bagel runs and just being together.
I’d spent so much time thinking about it, and now it was so close. I was so near to the way it felt when we were all together, like finally things had been put right again. Not to mention that this weekend was the last time that we’d all be together in this house, so it was going to be perfect. It had to be perfect. I would make sure of it.
I headed for the door and was halfway down the stairs to the kitchen when the alarm went off again.
CHAPTER 2
Or, Everything Is Fine!!
* * *
HIYA, KID,” MY DAD SAID, smiling at me as I came into the kitchen. He was sitting on one of the stools at the kitchen island, a mug of coffee in his hand, and he raised it to me in greeting. “Morning.”
“The alarm went off again?” I said, peering at the panel mounted by the door. But it was silent, all the lights on the console dark. The alarm had stopped as abruptly as it had started, and by the time I’d made it to the main floor, it was quiet again.
“Your sister’s checking it out,” my mother said, looking up from where she was sitting at the long wooden kitchen table, mug of tea on the table next to her. “She thinks maybe one of the window sensors is setting it off.”