Abandon - Meg Cabot [67]
“I’ll quiz you,” he said. “How does that sound? You come over to Grandma’s — or if you want, I’ll come over here — and I’ll quiz you. I’ll take you out driving, too, over in the parking lot at Searstown, by the Wendy’s. That’s where I learned — it wasn’t Searstown then, of course, because we didn’t have a Sears. But that’s all right. I didn’t have a chance to teach Alex, but, well, I’ll make sure you pass the test, Piercey. You just leave it to me.”
“That is so sweet of you to offer, Uncle Chris,” I said, smiling up at him as I moved my bike away from the porch railing. I wasn’t going to have time to change out of my skirt, I realized, which meant I was going to have to ride with one hand holding it to keep it from flying up. But I didn’t want to be “tardy.” “It’s not like other people haven’t tried. But I’m pretty horrible at it.” I didn’t really want to get into the time I’d run into the back of a UPS truck while trying not to hit a squirrel, and how loud my dad had yelled about my destroying the BMW he’d given me. “It’s probably better, all things considered, that I don’t operate any motor vehicles.”
“Don’t do that,” Uncle Chris said. “Don’t ever do that.”
I widened my eyes at him. “Excuse me?” I said.
“Don’t put yourself down,” he said. “I know what happened to you. I heard about it, even though I was away. Your mom kept in touch with me and sent me pictures of you, too. Bet you didn’t know that, did you? Well, it’s true.”
I stared at him. He was right. I hadn’t heard this.
“And when I heard about what happened to you — how you weren’t doing too good — I told your mom not to worry.” He smiled at me, the same sweet smile he always gave me.” ‘That one’s going to be okay,’ I told your mom. ‘You can see it in her eyes.’ Now, Alex? Alex I’m not so sure about. Sad to say about your own son, but…” He shrugged. “I worry about him.”
I knew exactly what he meant. I worried about Alex, too.
“And it’s not just because you’re a girl, either, or Deb’s daughter.” He shook his head. “Deb was never anything like you.”
“I know,” I said. I tried to keep the bitterness out of my voice. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. “They still have all the trophies she won for the school. The trophies both of you won. They’re on display in A-Wing.”
He looked bewildered. “What’s A-Wing?”
“It’s — never mind.” I guess he and Alex really didn’t talk much. “They redid the high school since you…went away.”
“They redid a lot of things since I went away,” he said. “But that’s not what I meant. Deb’s just…everything’s easy for her. Like winning those trophies. Everyone knew Deb was going to make it off this rock someday. No one thought I would. Except the way I did.” He laughed shortly. “Guess it just goes to show, the trophies you win in high school don’t necessarily mean much. So…” He looked away, off towards the pinkening clouds of sunset. “Don’t ever let them tell you that you’re too stupid to do something. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy for you, the way it was for your mom. Maybe you’re going to have to work for it a little harder than other people, which I know isn’t fair. But that doesn’t mean you should just give up. Because if you do that, then where will you be?” He looked at me and shrugged.
“Um,” I said. “On a bike?”
“Yeah,” he said. “On a bike.”
Except I was pretty sure the correct answer was Living with the lady who owns Knuts for Knitting after having just served a sixteen-year prison term.
Now I was starting to get what Dad meant about Uncle Chris going on a reign of terror and revenge now that he’d gotten out of jail. It was the whole “still waters run deep” thing. There was a lot more going on inside Uncle Chris’s head than I’d thought.
“So your mom said for me to tell you she’s running late; she had to go back to the office for a meeting,” he said.
“Oh,” I said. “Actually, I have a meeting, too —”
“Okay,” Uncle Chris said. “Well, I’m going to put the furniture in the back away. Unless you need a ride to your meeting or something…”
“Oh, no, I’m good, thanks.” I steered my bike towards the front gate.