“Gender rolls are the best kind of rolls,” I continue. “You should make these for me again sometime, you know, since I’m not allowed in the kitchen.”
“Stop,” she whispers, throwing me a sharp look. Her eyes are the lightest shade of baby blue, clear almost. They’re hardly threatening. Everything about her is prim and proper and mind-numbingly perfect. We are night and day, she and I, and I get the feeling we’re going to butt heads a lot.
But it could be fun.
“So, Jensen,” Mark calls from the head of the table. Summer and Kath rise from the table and start cleaning up as the little kids scatter. “Why don’t you head down here so we can have a little chat?”
I peel myself up from the chair, making a point to slide my dishes into Waverly’s place setting, and take the seat beside Mark. I sit up straight and look him in the eye, the way I used to when my father would give me one of his lectures. As long as I appeared to be listening I’d get off without being called a “worthless piece of shit.”
“You any good with fixing things?” Mark asks.
“What kinds of things, sir?” I throw a ‘sir’ in there for good measure. It always worked on my father.
“Cars, trucks, motorcycles,” Mark says. “Grease monkey type things.”
I repaired an old Toyota Celica back home. My father wouldn’t buy me a car when I turned sixteen, so I found one in the paper for $500 that didn’t run. A few minor parts and it got me where I needed to go.
“I am.”
“One of my friends is looking for a gofer for his shop. You probably want some walking-around money,” Mark says. He’s pretending to be cool, pretending to bring himself to my level as he tries to figure me out. I’m one step ahead of him though, and his attempt is laughable at best.
“Gofer?”
“Yeah, you’d go-for stuff. Parts. Errands. Maybe work yourself up to minor repairs.” Mark clears his throat and squares his shoulders with mine. It’s a manipulative technique he’s using—mirroring his body language with mine in an attempt to make me more comfortable around him. My father used it on people at church all the time and they’d walk away thinking Josiah Mackey was their best friend in the whole wide world. I swear to God, if Mark Miller is as cunning and manipulative as my father, I’ll…
“You done with this, Dad?” It’s Waverly. She reaches for Mark’s plate, happy to serve him, like he’s the fucking King of England.
“Sure am, sweetie,” he says with a warm, Leave It to Beaver smile that makes me my stomach churn. This can’t be real life.
“She sure is a great help in the kitchen,” I say, catching myself before make some snide remark about the convenience of breeding built-in help. I get it. Teaching kids to have chores and responsibilities is part of parenting. Using them to wait on you hand and foot because they weren’t born with the almighty cock and balls is disgusting. That’s some Josiah Mackey-level thinking right there.
“She’s going to make a fine wife someday,” Mark says in a way that creeps me the fuck out. Is that what he was raising his daughter to be—a good wife for some polygamous asshole? “Anyway, as I was saying. The job at the shop. You interested?”
Whatever gets me out of this warped little universe for a while is cool with me. “Yeah, I’ll take it.”
Mark proceeds to gloss over the house rules. I hear him use words like “curfew” and “quiet time” and “expectations.” I get it. He’s a control freak and he wants me to know he’s the man of the house. I listen just enough to get the gist, but every time Mark looks away, I find myself glancing in the kitchen toward Waverly. She’s towel-drying dishes and smiling as she chats with her sister. Our eyes meet, but she looks away instantly.
She probably doesn’t know what the fuck to make of me, and that’s exactly the way I prefer it.
“Oh, and I discussed this with Kath earlier today,” Mark says. “Since her house is the smallest of the three, and I doubt you want to share a room with a six-year-old, we’re going to move you into the main house. There’s an extra room next to Waverly’s. I think it’ll be a better fit for you. Give you a little privacy.”
I’m grateful for the privacy, but I know what’s going on here. He wants his little princess to keep an eye on me when he’s not around. That little snitch would rat me out in a heartbeat, too. Not that I plan on faltering from my straight line while I’m here, but I’ve already lived life under Josiah Mackey’s microscope. I was hoping for a break from the constant scrutiny, but I guess it was too much to expect the universe to throw me a fucking bone once in a while.
“Thank you, sir,” I say through gritted teeth and a phony smile. “I certainly appreciate it.”
“Waverly, show your brother to his room,” Mark commands, his voice acting like the snap of two fingers. She dries her hands on a dishrag and motions for me to follow her to the stairs. I wonder if she’s always this docile or if her obedience is only for him.
We climb the creaky stairs to the second level and turn down a long hallway. There are tons of doors. This house is huge. Must be why they keep calling it the “main” house.
She doesn’t speak until she stops short at the last door on the right. With her hand on the knob, she says, “Room’s a little stale. It’s a guest room, but we never use it.”