Family and Other Accidents Read Free Page B

her the other night, Connor started reading Brenda Starr again—not a whole lot has changed for Brenda: she’s still chasing Basil, still wandering into zany situations. He hopes Jack’s reporter hasn’t looked at the ceiling, hopes she really is different than the sleek-skirted girls, and that the nervous laugh and freckles across her nose are real. He wonders how Jenny
really
feels about him, why she wants to have sex with him, why she wants him to be her first.
    A car chugs down the cul-de-sac, but Connor is certain it’s not his brother. Some company Jack isn’t allowed to name is being bought this week; and he has been getting home after midnight. Congested and cranky with some flu, Jack just grumbles up the stairs and goes to bed when he does come home. Connor has barely spoken with him since last Friday’s driving debacle. Still Connor puts the photo back in the drawer and goes to his room, where he puts the rubbers in his own nightstand drawer next to mix tapes Jenny made him, his less-than-stellar SAT results, and
Penthouse
magazines he and some friends stole from the Little Professor in Beachwood Place a few years ago. From the wall over the desk, Kennedy makes a snide comment about how he never stole condoms from Joe Jr.’s room.
    â€œI don’t have a car,” Connor says.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    Five hours before Jenny Greenspan’s pills should start working, Connor draws a face with squiggly hair on the cover page of a University of Colorado application. He’s having trouble concentrating because the pre-sex stomachache he’s been having has been bad all day and because Jack, who’s in denial about being sick, has ratcheted the heat up to ninety.
    â€œI’m taking Mona to dinner at nine.” Across the kitchen table, Jack is wearing all kinds of clothes—another pair of generic pants, another blue button-down (business casual acceptable on weekends), a University of Pennsylvania sweatshirt, and a stocking cap Connor is sure is his. Even though it’s Saturday and he just got home from his office, he’s going through a mammoth box of contracts, highlighting the word “buyer” with a fat yellow marker. His job is absolutely nothing like lawyers’ on TV; Connor can’t believe Jack went to seven years of school to be such a minuscule cog in the workings of the Man. “Do you need a ride anywhere?”
    â€œJenny can pick me up,” Connor says.
    It’s been snowing all afternoon, but half an hour ago he gave up trying to convince Jack it was too hot in the house and so he just stripped to boxers. He shifts to unstick his sweaty thighs from the wooden chair. Jack starts coughing, keeps coughing, and continues coughing while Connor wonders if someone can die from coughing. Getting up, he has the impulse to smack Jack’s back, the way their mother used to. Instead he runs the faucet, fills a glass of water.
    â€œYou should go to bed.” Connor hands Jack the drink. “You sound like you’re choking on a cat.”
    Jack nods, takes a sip. Connor thinks he should tell Jack about the sex—discussing that with older brothers is industry standard, even older bothers who tell you there’s no time to use the bathroom. He’s about to say something when Jack winces, rubs his chest, points to Connor’s applications.
    â€œThose things would look a lot better if you typed them,” he says.
    Connor shrugs; Jack highlights more words, starts coughing again. Something yellow-green and unpleasant flies from his mouth and lands next to Connor’s drawing on the manila paper. Connor just stares at it; he hadn’t realized he was drawing Brenda Starr.
    â€œDoes the reporter want to write novels?” Connor asks, looking at the sketch with its linked circles for hair. “I feel like most journalists I know really want to write books.”
    â€œHow would I know; we’ve