The S.P.E.

Chapter 5

"She did it, Mom! She dumped his ass! Fuck yeah!" I waved my cell phone high in the air over my head as I ran into the restaurant where my mother stood working the counter.

"Language!" My mother sang at me, like she had been doing since I was four and I said dammit for the first time. You would think eleven years of listening to me swear would be enough for her to get used to it. "Who dumped who? What are you talking about, Louise?"

"Tina, Mom. She finally dumped Jimmy Jr.! After all these years, she kicked him to the curb." I scanned through my texts to show her the proof. "Look. She said she's had enough of his waffling and his flakiness. I don't quite know what she means by 'he's sexually ill-equipped' but it doesn't matter. He's finally gone."

"Ha!" A harmony of barking laughs rang out from the kitchen. Both Dad and Zeke seemed to find this news pleasing. Dad stuck his head though the order window. "So, my Tina has finally seen the light? She's done with the Pesto kid?" Dad started whistling as he stuck baskets of fries into the oil.

Zeke came around to the front, and in a rare moment of garrulousness, began to chatter like a monkey. "T bird flew away from J.Ju at last, huh? I love Jimmy like a brother, but he's never been good enough for your sister. I mean she can write and dance and she's so creative and she can cook. J. Ju is a nice guy, but he can't commit to a favorite color let alone a girl. Well... I wonder what made her see the light." He wiped his hands on his dish towel and walked back to the kitchen with a glint in eye.

Mom and I exchanged a look. She smiled a little and went back to counting the money in the cash register. I wasn't about to say anything, but I had an excellent idea why Jimmy got dumped. Twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays, a letter addressed to Zeke from New York arrived in the mail. And twice, Wednesdays and Saturdays, a letter addressed to a "Miss B" in New York went out.

Six weeks later, Tina came home to visit, but she didn't stay with us. She stayed with Zeke. Nobody said anything to either of them, in an unusual and unspoken Belcher family pact.

~

My dad has always been notoriously difficult to shop for and I have always been even worse at picking out gifts. So, after some brainstorming with my two best friends, Andy and Ollie, I was able to think about what my dad has always wanted most. He wanted a garden. And the only place in town where he could get land to garden lay in the hands of one Mrs. Cynthia Bush.

"Whyyyyyyyyyy?" I groaned to myself as I stood at the front door of Logan's childhood home. I steeled myself and rang the doorbell. The chimes could be heard on the porch. They sounded like money. Of all the things he loved best in the world, why did my dad have to love to garden?

Cynthia came to the door and took one look at me, then closed it again. I smiled despite myself. I probably would have done the same were our roles reversed. I rang the bell again.

It took over a month of balancing school, work, and every shitty, demeaning, menial task that the recently divorced and incredibly bitter Cynthia Bush could throw at me, but it was worth it to hand my dad a beautiful envelope on his birthday.

He opened the flap carefully and drew out the papers, confusion etched in every line of face. His eyes scanned the top letter quickly. When he got to about the middle of the page his eyes lit up and he flipped to the second sheet of paper. It was a certificate of ownership for a large corner plot in the community garden. "Bob Belcher," written in fancy calligraphy that I watched Cynthia do myself, sat on the line where it said owner.

"Bobby! Look at that! Your own garden like you always wanted!" Mom started dancing and singing. "Bobby, bobby, very wobbly, how does your garden grow..." Tina and Gene started peppering me with questions about how I did that and how I convinced Cynthia and how much it cost. I just met my dad's eyes and gave him a big smile. He returned it, with tears in his eyes. Worth every penny.

After the festivities died down, Mom and Dad retired to their room, Gene went to practice with his band instead of writing his lit. paper, and Zeke and Tina went back to Zeke's apartment to do whatever it was that they did at night. I wasn't about to probe too deeply given the way they looked at each other. Made me queasy just thinking about it. My sister was a freak. I love her to death and back but she's a freak and Zeke.... I didn't want to fall down that rabbit hole. She could climb him like a tree. And I bet she did. I cleaned the living-room, did the dishes and went back to my room to enjoy my new book.

By "my new book," of course, I was talking about a delightful little read I pocketed from Cynthia's house- from Logan's room, to be exact. I couldn't help myself. The title was just too enticing; it popped into my pocket without me even realizing it: "Journal."Apparently, Logan and my sister had plenty in common, including writing down their every thought in books. The time covered in this particular volume were his last two years of high school and first two years of college. I had just began delving into the mind of Logan the year we met. He mentioned me, not by name of course. He didn't use names but initials. Unfortunately, he also obfuscated things by referring to himself by his initials too. And his initials were L. B. B.

My name is Louise Beatrice Belcher. Sometimes things got very confusing. I don't know how he learned my middle name. That's normally kept so secret that I'm pretty sure my grandparents don't even know. Perhaps he just knew the letter. Reading his scrawl was often like deciphering code. He did admit to liking my ears- I could figure out that much. He also called me a tiny nightmare. I liked that so much I considered getting it tattooed down my forearm. There was a lot of really personal stuff in there about girls and his friends and his parents. He knew, even back then, that his parents were due to fail. I could have told him that, but I would never have expected Logan to be as perceptive as that.

Towards the end of his junior year of high school I hit pay dirt. He wrote about an incident that no guy would want his enemy to know. I smiled to myself, storing away this knowledge until such time as it will do me the most good. Meaning, of course, that the time will also cause Logan the most humiliation. Because, after all, isn't that the point of all of it?

Three days later, I got my chance.