Free Born Under a Lucky Moon by Dana Precious Page B

ashes.
    â€œGuess I’ll need to rebuild these stairs by tomorrow, huh?” Dad said, and went into the house to make a new pot of coffee and ponder the situation. The backyard was left with a bedraggled tent, three large holes in the lawn, and charred dock stairs. The top section of the stairs rolled over and fell down the hill later that night.
    Chuck came in, stuck his face under the kitchen faucet, and tried to gulp water that wasn’t coming. Crossing to the fridge, he found an old bottle of lemonade and gulped it down. I was sure he’d have stomach cramps later. Who knew how long that lemonade had been in there? Then he wiped his face with his sleeve, sat down, and began tracing the roosters on the kitchen table. I knew how he felt. He’d get used to it.
    â€œChuck?”
    It was Jeff Petty. Sammie and I exchanged a look that meant “uh-oh.”
    Chuck looked up, and Jeff extended his hand. “Hi, I’m, um, a good friend of Lucy’s. I thought maybe you’d like to meet some of the guys. We’re playing flag football down at the high school field. Do you want to come?”
    I thought this was a pretty damn nice gesture on Jeff’s part and Chuck didn’t seem to recognize his name. So there it was: he didn’t know about Jeff Petty. He seemed glad to do something that would get him away from the house. Lucy had just come in from the front yard, where apparently she had been talking to Mom and Mrs. Petty. She seemed prepared for the situation in front of her.
    â€œCan I go?” Chuck asked her.
    â€œSure, honey. Have a good time. Just be back by five because we have to get ready for our rehearsal dinner.” Chuck looked blank.
    â€œMom decided to throw our rehearsal dinner at the same time as Evan’s.”
    Oh God, now we were usurping Evan’s rehearsal dinner, too. Forget about sending Evan over the edge into therapy; he was gonna hit bottom any second. Some psychiatrist was going to make a mint off him. Although I wasn’t sure we even had a psychiatrist in Muskegon.
    Chuck changed into some sweats, and I had to admit, he looked pretty good. He took off with Jeff in Jeff’s Camaro to drive the five blocks to the field.
    Mom went out to survey the damage in the backyard, and then she went to the phone and dialed Tom, the handyman who usually cleaned up after Dad. She must have expressed some urgency, because his pickup truck roared into our driveway moments later. Tom charged into the house, straight through the kitchen and family room, then out the sliding doors to the backyard. As I trailed after him, I wondered why he hadn’t just gone around the side of the house. He had left dirty footprints everywhere on the carpet. Sammie looked at the footprints, then at me, expectantly. I was already getting the carpet cleaner and the vacuum out.
    â€œDoes that really make you feel calmer?” Sammie stood over me as I scrubbed away on my hands and knees.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œBut why?”
    â€œI don’t know.” I finished up with the vacuum, then went outside to see if there was any progress. Dad and Tom studied the second hole. “I have about seven or eight people who need to shower here within the next hour,” Dad said.
    â€œI’m gonna have to jerry-rig it.” Tom took his cap off and scratched his head.
    â€œThink it’ll hold until the city crew can get here to fix it right?” Dad asked.
    â€œBeats me.” Tom got to work.
    I don’t know what he did, but about half an hour later he yelled at me to try the kitchen faucet. I turned the knob and water came out, which is what I yelled back to him.
    â€œIt’s 4:00. You’re supposed to be in the shower.” Elizabeth had arrived. “And we have to figure out who is going in which car. Since it’ll take us about ten minutes to get there, we should leave at 5:45 in case parking is bad.”
    â€œSomeone has obviously lived in