Author’s Note: In short, the editing from The Inscription and the heavy CIA-related story/other historical fiction novel I’m working on are really getting to me. I figured the time was nigh for a nice, light, comedic novel. Which has the potential to morph into a sad, sappy family story. Anyway, for now, it is what it is, and enjoy.

One

I was seventeen when we got Scarlet. My mother would argue later that I was eighteen, but she was lying, because Scarlet arrived on my eighteenth birthday. It was two hours before my party, and I firmly believed that I wasn’t eighteen until I’d blown out those cheap, crooked candles.

Tess, the youngest, always referred to Scarlet’s arrival as ‘getting’ Scarlet, like she was some sort of pathetic, guitar-toting puppy dog. I think that’s probably because Tess always wanted a puppy dog, ever since she was four and watched Homeward Bound with Ben and I. Retrospectively, I realize that probably wasn’t the wisest idea. Ever since then, she’s constantly yammering away about Chance this and Shadow that, and a few weeks ago, I caught her trying to communicate with a stray cowering in the gutter.

It wouldn’t be unreasonable to refer to Scarlet as a stray. She came to us dirty, sad, and helpless: completely abandoned by family, dignity, and sanity. We, the Gravelies, gave her back at least some of that, or so I’d like to think. But then I’ve always been a bit of an egomaniac.

See, you’d have to understand the way our community works to understand why my life became so complicated when Scarlet got here. People did things for each other, nice things, acts of benevolence that rarely created guilt for the receiver because not a moment would pass before reciprocation. In fact, when my baby brother Lucas died, for two straight months our kitchen was laden with sympathy cakes, casseroles, and bouquets. My mother finally had to start politely declining the gifts because they were arriving too fast for her to reciprocate, and it wasn’t like we were particularly hungry for anything at that point, especially not tuna noodle casserole.

That was why we took Scarlet in. She told us that she’d been homeless since she was eight, and that she couldn’t remember who were parents were or what they looked like. She considered stability a luxury but never hesitated to make herself comfortable. Scarlet was quiet, Scarlet was sweet, and Scarlet was talented, but Scarlet had a lot of secrets and she was willing to sacrifice manners for the sake of her privacy.

We were living in Canterbury Falls when she found us, only a year after our monumental move and three after Lucas’ death. The house wasn’t big enough to support our family of six, let alone a strange teenaged girl that we didn’t know anything about. My mother, a midwife, was delighted by the prospect of exercising her matronly powers again; my father, a history teacher, was less than thrilled but explained that he was willing to make this sacrifice for Jesus, and more importantly, for my mother.

We would adjust, they promised.

My mother was called to pick up Scarlet a day earlier than we’d anticipated, and while my father snapped at me to be mature, I found myself sulking on the porch and whining to Tess and Oliver that my party had been ruined.

I was surprised and felt nauseated when Oliver, my pudgy thirteen-year-old brother, snapped at me, “For God’s sake, Rachel, get over it already. You’re eighteen years old, and it’s just a stupid party.”

“I’m not eighteen,” I mumbled abashedly. “I’m seventeen.”

Tess abandoned the steps and played hopscotch in the squares she’d made yesterday afternoon. I prayed that the five-year-old wouldn’t fall and skin her knee; she always made such a racket and I knew I’d be blamed for her injury somehow. I was the adult, I would be told. I could vote and drive after nine and legally support myself; and therefore I had the obligation to make sure that my sister’s epidermis did not disintegrate.

“Mom will be back in a bit, anyway,” Oliver grumbled, resting his chin on his short, crossed arms. He sighed heavily, something he’d been doing a lot lately. I attributed it to his pent-up pubescent angst. I once suggested to him that he quit sighing and put on more deodorant, which did nothing for his mood but I noticed that an hour later he had showered again and smelled like Old Spice. My brother wasn’t necessarily the brightest, but he sure was obedient. “And then you can have your party. Piñata and all.”

And I was excited for the piñata, I really was. It was supposed to be shaped like a brachiosaurus, but Mom hadn’t let me see it yet. Ben had helped her pick it out, claiming the duty of piñata-picker-outer since he was my boyfriend of two and a half years He was completely accustomed to my peculiar demands: a brachiosaurus piñata, three cups of coffee daily, my obsessive dislike of peanut butter, and the fact that I was absolutely in love with him. That was what gave him the title of Official Piñata Picker-Outer.

Tess silently handed me a rock, pointing at a pink speck on its surface. “What?” she questioned shortly, demanding immediate answer with her sullen, pouting face that was already beginning to gather dirt. “What is that?”

“Probably just where a butterfly was murdered,” Oliver retorted sardonically as I opened my mouth to reply. “Don’t sweat it.”

Tess’s face began to crumple so I gathered her into my arms, squeezing her tightly. “Don’t worry about it, Tessie,” I murmured. “It’s just quartz.”

“What’s that?”

“Well…” I trailed off, and she forgot about her question after staring blankly at me for several moments. She scampered off to her game, discarding the rock by my feet. I watched her for several minutes, turning when I felt a familiar weight on my head.

Ben sat next to me, pulling my head into his chest and rubbing his fist against it. “Tess having fun?”

“Yeah, after Oliver crushed her innocence,” I remarked, mercilessly punching my brother in the ribs. He retorted loudly and profanely, scooting away and scratching his dirty hair. “I want my party.”

Ben gathered my hands in his and looked me squarely in the face. “Rachel,” he spoke slowly, as if he were addressing my baby sister. “You are eighteen—excuse me, seventeen years old. You will get your party. But let’s focus on something less…something…something that doesn’t revolve around you, okay?”

I defiantly stuck out my tongue, and in response, he kissed me. I pushed him away but smiled as I scanned the driveway. I heard the muted crunching of gravel as a car rounded the bend about a quarter of a mile away, and I rose from the porch after grabbing Ben’s shirt. We were all waiting, breath suspended and hands raised in a prayerful, anticipatory sort of gesture as my mother’s battered, cherry-red Pinto trembled to a stop before the farmhouse.

There was a long silence before anything happened. Then, one after the other, doors began to fly open. My father was out first, his hairless head of wonder glistening in the sun as he cracked open the rear door. What I saw next is an image I’ll never forget, pardon the dramatics, not because at that very moment I had a premonition of what was to come in the next two years, but because the face is one that irrevocably altered my life, altered me.

Have you ever seen, in movies, those slow motion scenes where the elegant woman extends a single, sexy leg from the limousine, a leg usually clad in mile-high stilettos and without flaw? And then the heroic men are always swept away as they follow the leg up to her face and see her unblemished face, her perfectly styled hair, her ethereal beauty?

It was kind of like that, only Scarlet pretty much stumbled from the car, rubbing her swollen eyes. And she wore battered Converse sneakers, sneakers that had illegible language scrawled all over them. She was not glamorous by any means, nor was she an ethereal beauty. There was absolutely nothing unusual about Scarlet Hamilton other than her jet-black hair and the air of confidence that seemed to fumigate around her.

She yawned once and blinked at us, as if she was positive we were illusions. I was instantly annoyed that her gaze rested a second longer on Ben than on the rest of us, and I slipped my hand into his. My mother rested a hand on Scarlet’s shoulder, beaming with the joy that comes only after childbirth or baking a fantastic cake.

“Kids,” she spoke breathlessly, her chubby cheeks flushed, and I couldn’t help but grin. She was cute. “This is Scarlet. Scarlet, this is everyone.”

Scarlet nodded, and my father laughed nervously, his teacher laugh, the laugh that he only laughed when his students didn’t understand a joke. “Scarlet, the little one is Tess, then we have Oliver, Rachel, and Ben.”

Scarlet, I noticed, couldn’t be too poor, because she could afford the gigantic wad of gum she was pushing around in her mouth. She popped a bubble and nodded at Ben. “He doesn’t look like the rest of them.”

Those were her first words. Pretty prolific, hm? He doesn’t look like the rest of them. I should have taken this as a sign that she was weird.

“That’s because he’s my boyfriend,” I explained without hesitation, gripping his hand more tightly, as if our connection couldn’t be more obvious. “It’s nice to meet you, Scarlet.”

She managed a smile, a forced one, of course, before coughing wetly. Scarlet scuffed her feet along in the dirt as she followed my parents to the trunk of the Pinto, slinging a holey duffel bag over her shoulder. My father reached for a guitar case, and she tensed instantly, pushing his hand out of the way, barking, “No!”

We all stared at her as silence settled. I wondered if she was hiding drugs in the case, or a dead body. Or perhaps my piñata.

“I just…I don’t like other people touching my guitar. Sorry. It was my dad’s.”

My father nodded, giving her a strange, bemused look before taking the duffel bag and letting Scarlet grab her precious case. Oliver, Ben, and I moved aside to allow Scarlet and my parents process into the house, watching with a sardonic sort of reverence. Tess scampered behind, an ant crawling up her arm.

“She seems nice,” Ben remarked after the screen door slammed shut behind them. I glared at him as my brother chuckled.

“I’m sure she thought the same of you, Ben.”

“What?” he sighed, running a hand through his long hair. “Rach, what? I didn’t do anything. Neither did she.”

I snorted. “Well, she wouldn’t, not with all these minors watching.”

“She’s hot,” Oliver noted abstractly, peeking through the screen door, desperate for an obscure glimpse of her. I rolled my eyes.

“Thanks, Oliver, that helps a whole lot,” Ben clipped him on the shoulder, and the two playfully tussled. I walked inside, trying to feign oblivion to my boyfriend’s immaturity and failure to notice Scarlet’s roving eye.

Our house was not small by any means, but as I stepped over the threshold and into the foyer, I suddenly felt claustrophobic. Heat pervaded every pore of my body in our old oven of a home, and I felt the urge to curl up on the floor and go to sleep. Pushing a sweaty tendril of hair from my forehead, I stepped into the darkened kitchen where most of my family hovered around the new arrival. As I watched my father grin eagerly at her as she spoke, and my mother buzz around the kitchen in search of beverages, I was struck with de’ ja vu. The incident was highly reminiscent of one two months ago, after Ben returned from a vacation in Nantucket. He’d plopped our souvenirs on the kitchen table and we’d flitted excitedly around him.

That’s all Scarlet is, I reminded myself, sickened by the realization that I was already jealous of this girl. She’s a curio, something new. They’ll get bored with her eventually.