Fourth Comings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [97]
“Oh,” my mom said. “That’s nice.”
And there was an awkward moment of nonconversation that was filled by the noise of the morning rush for coffee and trans fats. Hugo fiddled with a small silver medal around his neck, making a faint zipzipzipping noise with each pull on the chain.
“Jessie,” Mom said, darting a glance at her cell phone, “I’m running late and the bus station is in the opposite direction of where I need to be….”
“Bus station?” Hugo asked.
“I’m heading back to the city.”
“I’ll take you,” he offered quickly.
“You will?” I asked.
“Sure,” he replied.
My mom attempted to raise an eyebrow. “Jessie?”
“Uh, if it’s okay with you,” I said to her.
“I am running late….”
“So I’ll take you!” Hugo said, clapping his hands together. “I like to be useful. And I’ve wanted to meet you forever….”
FOREVER.
I just remembered the final postcard. Did it arrive in Brooklyn during my absence? Is it on the kitchen table right now? Have Hope and Manda marveled over your romanticism as they turned it over in their hands, wishing that someone cared enough to do the same for them?
“Pardon us for a moment.” She pulled me toward the roller grill, where three glistening and unnaturally red hot dogs spun around and around in their own grease. “Do you want to go with him? Because he’s practically a stranger. And how do you know for sure that he’s really Marcus’s brother?”
“What, you think he’s a rapist who lurks around WaWas all day claiming to be Marcus Flutie’s brother in the hopes of luring unsuspecting women to his pickup truck?”
We both attempted a surreptitious glance at your brother, who caught us in the act. He smiled and waved. We smiled and waved back.
“Of course he’s Marcus’s brother.”
Beyond the obvious reasoning was the undeniable resemblance between you two, which wasn’t so much physical as it was chemical. Charisma runs in the Flutie bloodline, and it’s a power that transcends mere appearances. I mean, it’s pretty uncommon for my mother to be so instantly besotted by the likes of a nicotine-stained grease monkey like Hugo.
“I’ve always wanted to meet him,” I said.
“As you should,” she said, taking my coffee out of her bag and handing it over.
“Thanks.”
She stood in front of me for a moment, inspecting my naked face in the unflattering fluorescent light. I assumed she was calculating the depth of my nasolabial folds, or counting the clogged pores on my nose.
“What?” I asked.
“Enjoy your youth,” she said simply.
“I’ll try.”
“Don’t try,” she said. “Do.” If she’d had a silk scarf, she would have tossed it smashingly around her neck. She didn’t, but her overall affect was the same.
I promised her that I would. Then the electronic doors whooshed open, and she sailed through them.
Hugo drifted over to me.
“So there’s only one problem,” he said as if in mid-conversation. He held up a map of the tri-state area. “I have no idea how to get to New York City from here.”
“You don’t have to drive me all the way to the city! Just to the bus station!”
“Are you sure?” he asked as we walked toward the entrance.
“I’m sure.”
“Good,” he replied, putting the map back in the rack. “Because the drivers around here are crazy.” He said this just in time for me to witness my mother cutting off a Mini Cooper with her ginormous four-wheeled affront to all that is environmentally conscious.
“You still live in Maine?” I asked quickly, to distract attention from my mother. “With…”
“Charlotte,” he supplied. “Yes, and our three kids.”
“Three?”
“Two of hers, one of our own.”
“I had no idea that you’d had a child together! Congratulations!” I shook my head in disbelief. “Marcus never told me much about you.”
“Well, Marcus told me that you called us a ‘salt-of-the-earth Ashton and Demi.’” He guffawed. “That’s a pretty good one.”
“He told you that?”
You told him that?!
“Among other things.”
Among other things?
Hugo led me to a banged-up blue pickup