Phoenix Rising Read Free Page B

agreed to Spend Time With Jessie.
    The folks are concerned about me.
    â€œYou’re too thin,” my father says. “Too pale. You spend too much time in your room.”
    If I went out more, he’d say I was never home. My mother tries to feed me.
    â€œHoney, wouldn’t you like more steak?”
    â€œNo thanks. I’m stuffed.”
    â€œYou’ve hardly touched your plate.”
    â€œIt’s too tough.”
    â€œThe steak?” Tears brim in her eyes.
    â€œThe plate, I mean! Mom, I’m kidding!”
    They want to take me on a trip over Christmas vacation. They’ve offered to buy me clothes. My dad’s even talked about getting me a car. One tiny drawback: I don’t know how to drive.
    â€œIt’s easy, honey. I’ll teach you.”
    He taught Helen and it almost drove her crazy: Watch out for that kid! That bus! That bike! There’s a rumor going around that my brother will teach me, but when Lucas heard it, he just rolled his eyes.
    He appeared in my bedroom doorway one night, after a long, loud discussion with my folks downstairs, in which my name came up repeatedly.
    If I were a painter I’d frame Lucas in a doorway; always on the threshold, ready to leave.
    â€œWant to go to a concert with me?” he asked.
    I’d been sitting at my desk, pretending to study. I removed the pen from my mouth. “Who’s playing?”
    â€œB. B. King, at the Circle Star. I got tickets.”
    My father bought them. He knew Lucas would bite. The hook: He has to take me with him.
    â€œAll right,” I said.
    â€œOkay,” he said.
    So we drove up there on Saturday night, in Lucas’s old white Impala, which he’d kind of fixed. The motor sounded like crazed chipmunks. Lucas’s door won’t open, so he climbed in the window.
    It was cold but he kept his window unrolled and the night blew into the car. With anyone else you could say: Please close it—but Lucas makes the words freeze in my mouth. His moods shift so swiftly, from bad to worse, that we tend to treat him like a volatile mixture that could explode if it’s not handled right.
    Helen wasn’t afraid of Lucas. She called him a spoiled brat.
    He snapped on the radio, twirling the dial until he found Chuck Berry. He jacked up the volume till the speakers boomed, beating rhythm on the steering wheel with his wrists.
    I sneaked looks at Lucas to see what girls see in him. He’s tall and skinny with pale, crazy hair that would curl if it weren’t so long. He has a soft, white mustache and a tiny beard. Now Dad can’t say that Lucas looks like a girl. He flipped when Lucas pierced his ear with a tiny gold stud.
    â€œWhat’s the matter with you?” my father shouted. “Do you want people to think you’re gay?”
    â€œHey!” Lucas said. “I don’t care what people think! Including you!”
    â€œThat’s obvious, from the way you dress!”
    â€œAt least I’m not a grayman like you!” “Grayman” is Lucas’s word for anyone who, like our architect father, wears a suit to work.
    They fight a lot more than they used to. Since Helen died, it’s as if my father thinks that he won’t cry as long as he keeps shouting. And my brother thinks—who knows what Lucas thinks? Sometimes I feel like I don’t know him at all.
    He finally noticed my hair blowing and rolled up the window halfway.
    â€œThanks.”
    â€œI hope we’re not late,” he said.
    Suddenly I felt far from home, and alone. I wanted to feel close to my brother.
    â€œI found Helen’s diary,” I said.
    â€œOh?” He stiffened like he always does at the mention of her name.
    â€œI’ve been reading it.”
    â€œWhy? You shouldn’t,” he said. “It’s private.”
    â€œAt the front it says it’s okay.”
    â€œIt says it’s okay to read her diary?”
    â€œIt says