Unexpected

[2] Party On

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Clara.

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After a few moments of staring blankly at my suitcase I decided to call my mother before finding a change of clothes. She wasn’t home, so I just left a message saying that I landed safely and was at Mark’s house before tossing it onto my mattress and sighing. I started with the easy thing first and pulled out my one piece bathing suit and shorts, setting them aside. Pulling out two of the sundresses I had brought, for a moment I debated on which one to wear. I finally decided on the one with white lace on the top and a tie in the front, a light pink fabric stopping just above my knees. There was a bathroom connected to my room, so I took my clothes and changed into my swim suit and shorts before slipping on the dress.

    My brown hair was in a fishtail braid from early that morning when I’d taken a shower before my flight. Since it still looked good I didn’t take the time to do anything with it. I found a bunch of random bracelets I usually wore together and slid them on my wrist, then put on a pair of brown sandals. Making sure I had my phone, I grabbed my purse and then headed to Dean’s room. The door was open, so I just went inside and sat down on his striped comforter.  Thankfully he had his swimming trunks on as he stood in his bathroom fixing his hair.

    “Just give up,” I suggested. Dean and I had both inherited our mother’s unruly brown hair. Most days it was a struggle to get it to do even remotely close to what we wanted. He had always had a problem with getting his hair to stay flat, while mine refused to un-frizz.

    “What do you think?” I stood up and did a little twirl.

    He stepped away from the mirror and pulled on a T-shirt before turning to look. Dean’s eyebrows shot up and he sent me an appraising look.

    “Uh, I think when did my baby sister get so beautiful?”

    “Ew, Dean, that’s gross.”

    Pulling a face, he laughed sarcastically. From my perch on the bed I watched as he applied deodorant and then slipped on a pair of flip-flops. He turned back to me and pointed a finger, a stern look on his face.

    “Seriously, no boys. I’m not afraid to beat someone if necessary.”

    I just rolled my eyes and laid back, folding my hands on top of my stomach.

    “Don’t worry,” I assured him, “relationships are a waste of time. I’m just focusing on living my life.”

    “Good girl. You ready?”

    “Yup. Oh, by the way, Mom says to stop avoiding her.”

    Dean laughed as we headed back downstairs. “Yeah, I guess I kind of deserve that one. I’m not avoiding her; I’ve just been so busy lately.”

    Gasping playfully, I looked over at him with wide eyes. “Too busy for your own mother?!”

    “I know, I know. I feel awful. Tell you what, tomorrow morning we’ll do a conference call like old times.”

    “Alright,” I nodded in agreement, thinking back to the many times the two of us would call Mom during summer vacations. It was usually when Mark needed to do work and he didn’t want us to get in to anything; he would set up a ‘conference call’ on his phone and have us talk to her for an hour or so while he took care of whatever it was he had to do. As we grew older we continued doing it because it was fun to tell Mom about all the places we’d seen and it sort of became a Palmer sibling tradition until Dean went off the college and got too busy for communication.