The Outside Groove Read Free Page A

to the door and slipped inside.
    ***
    â€œHi, Casey,” Mom said from the dining room table, where she was flipping through catalogs.
    â€œHey.” I tossed the mail, minus the Cray College letter, onto the table on my way to the refrigerator. Mom’s sweater gave off a faint piney smell, as her clothing often did when she’d been working in the plant nursery that she and Big Daddy were adding onto the landscaping office. “Where’s that leftover pie?” I asked as I scanned the inside of the fridge.
    â€œOh, I heard your brother’s car in the driveway, so I set it on the counter for him.”
    As if on cue, Wade entered the kitchen and zipped past me. Down at the end of the counter, he corralled the plate of pie and guarded it with his arms, like I’d seen raptors do with their wings while eating in tree branches—
mantling
, the ornithologists call it. He held the plate up to his nose. “Mmm. Pie.”
    I rolled my eyes.
    Wade laughed, sending flakes of crust drifting to the kitchen floor.
    I took an apple from the crisper.
    Mom tucked a strand of jet-black hair behind her ear—she must’ve just had it colored—and eyed me as I crossed the kitchen. “How was your day, sweetie?” she said.
    I paused to consider how my day had gone—that is, how to put it into words that Mom, on mental safari in Catalog Land, might find interesting enough to listen to.
    â€œGreat,” Wade interrupted with another puff of crust flakes.
    Mom laughed and shook her head. It was a gesture I wouldn’t miss: the
Oh, that Wade
look. Impish jokester, man-child Wade. Our very own live-in, life-size action figure. Push a button and hear him make disgusting chewing noises.
    â€œDad came out to the site today around lunchtime,” Wade went on, “and he said that he thinks the bank is ready to take their sponsorship to the next level. There’s some equipment we could really use in the pit. ”
    â€œLike new uniforms?” Mom said, holding the cover of a catalog up so Wade could see it.
    â€œIt’s not a sure thing yet,” Wade said, taking a last bite of pie. “But we’re going to meet with Mr. Church next week—you know, a formal, sit-down type of meeting in his office—and work out the details.”
    â€œWell, that sounds pretty final.” Mom bent a page corner down and resumed her skimming.
    I walked over to the table and sat down next to her, trying not to be creeped out by the vacant smile on her face as she scanned the pages, no doubt imagining Wade—our fearless boy-man—in a smart-looking fireproof racing suit. “Got my chemistry test back,” I said. “Aced it. Destroyed it. Ran it over, backed up, and ran it over again.”
    Mom didn’t look up, but she did arch her eyebrows, indicating at least low-level interest. The muscles in her long neck tightened as she strained to look like she was paying attention to me without prying her eyes from the catalog. “What’s that, Casey?”
    â€œCasey’s got a secret admirer,” Wade said.
    Mom looked up and gave me a sly, mother-daughter smile that made me want to calmly stand and throw a chair through the glass doors leading to the patio. It was a sight even more disturbing than her blissed-out,
Ob, that Wade
smile. “So, who’s the mystery man?” she said.
    Before I could answer, before I could inform these people that goats would fly like angels down the streets of Fliverton before I shared with them even the most trivial detail of my personal life, the front door opened.
    Big Daddy blustered into the kitchen. He gave Mom, then Wade, a goofy grin, his eyes skipping over me. “You tell your mother the news?” he said to Wade, flipping the man-child a chin peppered with red-gray end-of-the-day stubble.
    â€œMentioned it,” Wade said, a pout clouding his doughy face. “I wish they’d just give us the