Brothers/Sisters

“I...” But she’s already stalked off, leaving me to finish the flashlight-tidying on my own. Jason tries to help, but ends up knocking the display over. I’m irked at myself for laughing, and not maliciously; he’s just like a puppy that slipped on rug and reacted with shock when it found itself face-to-face with a wall. I wave him off to clean it up by myself, buying time to think. Time to wonder what the hell’s going on.

My phone buzzes as I finish fixing the display. Bernard is busy assisting an evidently guardianless toddler and Jason is ringing up someone with an ungodly amount of flannels in the back. Seeing that the call is from Dave, I take their distraction as an excuse to step out. Some part of me hopes that he doesn’t have any more friends waiting at rest stops.

“Yeah?” I sit on the bench outside the store, watching a cloud drift through an otherwise startlingly blue sky.

“When is your next day off?”

“I don’t—”

“I think you should take a trip.”

“The Jeep is in the shop.”

“Then take the car.”

“Dave, I thought you were telling me to take time to recover. Why is this so urgent?”

“You’ll...I’ll tell you when you get home. You’ll need to take your cousin.” Cousin? He hangs up, thus confirming my sneaking suspicion that something is really up with the old folks of Red Lodge.

I have another problem, though: the car works best for short commutes. It’s not a mountain car, no matter how hard it tries, and no matter how much Dave wishes it was. The Jeep is Dave’s mountain vehicle, and I’d prefer to have something dependable and a little less rust-encrusted to take on a roadtrip. If I want to go anywhere, I have to enlist the help of someone else, and Carina’s parents would never allow her spotless BMW out of Red Lodge.

When I go back inside, I find that Bernard is still miffed at me; she has me needlessly take the stickers off every pair in a sizeable stack of khakis (almost nobody buys khakis from an outdoor store; I’ve witnessed this strange phenomenon once in my short lifetime), only to replace the original stickers with ones that are nearly identical. This particular herculean task completed, I take advantage of the fact that Bernard’s slipped back into her office and approach Jason. I try not to glower. I try.

“What’s up?” he says after he finishes ringing up some postcards for an old man with a wizard beard straight out of a fantasy novel.

“I think we should move the trip to this weekend.”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Jo won’t let us all take off at once.”

That’s why I was counting on you not going. “She’ll still have Bob.”

“Bob can’t do much.” That’s true; he’s in his late sixties, older even than Jo. Granted, he’s pretty good at telling stories about all of the UFOs he’s seen—every single one, from the flashing orb to that pesky “pancake spiral”—and falling asleep sitting up.

“Well...” I’m about to suggest that maybe one of us can stay here, knowing that there’s a possibility of him volunteering, but I decide that that may be cruel to Car. If she wants Jason on the trip, then fine. I’ve also got a better idea.

Leaving Jason at the register, I knock on the door to Bernard’s office.

“Garrett?”

“Yes.”

“When you’ve finished up on the khakis, you can—”

“Actually, ma’am, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

She doesn’t reply immediately. “You can talk after your shift’s up. Now—”

I lean closer to the door so that Jason can’t hear. “Do you know anything about an Alan and an Ada?”

That does it. The door clicks open, and she ushers me inside. When she shuts the door behind me, she asks, “What has your uncle been getting you into? What has he been telling you?”

“How would you know?”

She shakes her head. “If this is stuff you’ve overheard on phone chats, then I’d suggest you stay out of it. It’s old.” But I remember the way she looked at Ask a couple of days ago. It was a look of recognition, I’m sure of it.

The light is slanting through the cracks in the blinds again. Jo is standing behind the desk, but I feel like I’m more of the detective. I hold back a snort at the thought; noir detective is better than the cheesy spy thing, at least. Still, I hope that Bernard’s apparent shrewdness isn’t a result of any hidden telepathic abilities.

Recognition, I tell myself. Go back to that. “You know it’s not. I know more than you think.”

“Yeah? Then why’re you asking me?”

So much for the detective business. I change tactics. “Jason, Carina, and I wanted to go on a trip. For a few days.”

“All at once? That’d leave me here with Bob. I don’t know that I could let you all do that. I have multiple employees for a reason.”

“I need to take Ask.”

There’s a sharp, quick intake of breath at the name. She seems to understand, even if I don’t. “Why does it require the three of you?”

“I need to go because I’m kind of the...supervisor when Dave’s not around. We need Jason’s truck, because the car I have won’t make it out of town. And Carina needs to go because”—I struggle to skip over a couple of um’s here—“Ask really likes her and otherwise won’t want to go. Also, she’s probably going to be sick for the rest of the week and, uh”—her eyes narrow; damn, she caught it—“better to be sick on a camping trip, yeah?”

“Probably not.”

“Ma’am—”

“Go tomorrow and be back Friday. It’s not extremely busy during the week, anyway. I don’t want to hear any complaints when you get back, though.” She knows I’m lying about something, but she doesn’t seem to care. I guess she senses that I’ve got the basic facts straight, and that’s all that matters.

“Thank you,” I say.

“Go fix the tent display.” She practically shoves me out of the office.

But the biggest hurdles are yet to come. I have to give myself a mental pep talk to approach Jason, but he ends up agreeing to the whole thing.

“I’ll tell Carina,” he says.

“Shouldn’t...” I want to protest, but I let it lie.

“What?”

“One more thing,” I say instead. “I have to bring someone else.”

But I don’t think he’s heard me; a family has just approached the register with a couple boxes of hiking boots. And I don’t really care, though, because I can say that I told him. I go fix the tent display.

The rest of the day, then, is as listless and uneventful as any other; a few hours later’ I’m back in that white hearse and then back at Dave’s, wherein an argument is raging between the kitchen and the living room.

Ask, from the sofa: “It takes so long. It’s been hours. I don’t get why this is necessary.”

Dave, staring pensively at the open fridge: “It’s about learning. Have you ever had to learn anything first-hand?”

A sigh goes up from the couch. Either it’s very fake or Ask just doesn’t know what actual sighing sounds like. Dave laughs softly, taking a container of sliced salami from the fridge. When he moves on to the cupboard, the bowl of popcorn tips forward, making it snow popcorn all over Dave.

“Children,” he says, glancing at me as I set the car keys on the counter. “Have I not told both of you to wash your own dishes? Spartacus!”

The dog barrels into the kitchen, skidding and nearly running head-first into the dishwasher. Dave whistles and points to the popcorn. I know she’s been fed at least three times today, but she eats like she hasn’t seen food in a month. Drool flies from her mouth.

I force my gaze up, at Dave. “We decided to take the trip tomorrow.”

He doesn’t say anything like, Tomorrow? That’s awfully soon. Instead, he nods. “Great. You’re taking Ask.” It’s not a question.

“May I ask why?”

“I think it’d be a good experience.”

“I don’t think that’s why.”

“Just trust me, Garrett. I don’t ask for much from you.”

We’re interrupted by a noise from the sofa as Ask turns, holding up a square of yarn. “Am I done?”

Dave shifts his attention to Ask. “Does it look like a scarf?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got him knitting?” I ask.

“It’s a learning exercise.” Dave pauses. “And crocheting, not knitting.”

“A...what?”

Dave sighs. A real sigh, not an Ask-sigh. “He’s never actually had to learn anything.”

“Yes I have,” Ask says.

My uncle shakes his head. “Nothing substantial, though.” He notices the look of confusion on my face. “If you could just download any skill you wanted, wouldn’t you?”

“Probably,” I admit. “But why knit...crochet?”

“Because our friends at UM may have written programs for walking and talking and such, but not crocheting. And I disconnected the wifi,” he adds by way of explanation. “And it’s a good hobby to get into.”

I think back to one of the less-weird car conversations with Ask—the whole eight months thing. “Is your store running that low? Don’t child labor laws apply?”

Dave laughs. “I won’t be needing extra help with that until November. That’s holiday season; that’s when the real orders start coming around.”

“I’m not a child,” Ask adds.

Though I don’t know how true that is, I also feel a little guilty for just...assuming. Not wanting to dwell on it, I change topic. “We’re going tomorrow.”

“Good.” My uncle nods, then calls to Ask, “You’re going on a trip with Garrett tomorrow. Get ready.”

I move to leave, but Dave won’t let me quite yet. He gestures toward my pocket, where my phone rests, and then takes out his own phone, which is surprisingly not a flip-phone. I guess he’s realized that our Roomba friend hears everything by now.

It takes a while, and after what amounts to nearly a full minute (blame it on Dave’s untreated farsightedness), I get a message: Don’t let Ask get ahold of any lighters. I know you hate people, but try finding a spot that’s relatively crowded, and park in the middle of it. Take someone else’s car.

“Garrett, stop staring at your phone and go get ready,” Dave says in mock-annoyance, and I look over to the sofa to see Ask peering at me over the back. Right, then.

I’ve locked the door and I’m sitting on my bed, arranging clothes and such to take tomorrow, when my phone buzzes again.

Stay safe, the message says.