silly red sheet, part 2

September 2083 - Aurora Miguel and Adrian Jackson are 51. (Beau Jackson and April Hutchins are 20, Summer Phoenix is 19.)

* soundtrack: "Superman," by Five for Fighting. *

Summer is visiting over at Beau and April's apartment, one afternoon in September. She sits in the corner armchair, slumped deep and sulking. Like the rest of them, she also just heard that Tyler is shipping out. Unlike the rest of them, she learned this information second-hand through Beau.

"You could have been there," Beau says.

"No, I don't think your mom wanted me there," Summer says.

"She's not really mad at you."

Summer shrugs her shoulders. "How long did he say he was going for?"

"About four months."

"That's a long time."

"He'll probably call you," Beau says. "He said he'd try."

"He'd better," she says.

April lowers herself softly to the floor, and says as casually as commenting on the weather, "Oh, Tyler? It's kind of easy to forget he's gone sometimes."

"No it isn't," Summer says. "It's not easy to forget."

Beau winces at her. It's never easy to forget. His brother has been at his side for the past twenty years and he feels like he has a missing limb. He feels phantom twin brother syndrome, constantly speaking out loud, or turning behind him, to find and acknowledge the brother that isn't there anymore.

"Geeze, guys, that's not what I meant, of course I didn't forget him. I just meant, sometimes, it's like he's at class or something."

Summer scowls at her.

Summer gets up to use the bathroom, storming through the room in her usual cloud of angst. Beau feels April settle into the space beside him, but he doesn't turn to her, pulling off his own angst as well as a child throwing a tantrum.

"Like he's coming back any minute," April adds. Summer keeps walking.

"That wasn't what I meant," she says.

"Hmph," Beau says.

It's not like she'd notice Tyler was gone, coming in at all hours of the night, with whatever guy she's dating this week. He sees her leave for work every evening, and this place where she works is like a portal to another dimension. She leaves a bright and cheerful college girl, and comes home wrecked, drunk, her eyes dark and deadened, rarely alone. She takes them up to her room, her bed pounding the floorboards as Beau tries to sleep in the room beneath her. He's rarely able to sleep through it. He hears her visitors leave. He hears her start the shower, and stand in it silently for half an hour.

The next morning, she wakes up to drink the coffee he's made, and looks him in the eyes like there's nothing wrong.

They got this apartment together, but in the past few months, they're hardly talking anymore. She annoys Evie to the point Evie hardly comes around anymore unless she knows April will be out. Evie annoys April in return, with their whole relationship thing. What can he say? He's a simple kind of guy, and he likes having a girlfriend, steady company, no drama, no games. It's not like April ever wanted to be his girlfriend instead.

But he'll give her one thing; she probably didn't mean it. How could she mean harm by something when she never gives anything a moment of thought?

"I know you didn't mean it," he says.

***

Beau is managing their family's arcade finally, though it took the longest time before his dad would trust him alone with it. This is different than closing up at the end of the night, like he and Tyler would do back in high school. This is managing the employees, balancing some of the books, ordering stock, and doing it all on his own. For the longest time, Adrian would stop in and claim he just wanted to check out the new games, as if they needed checking on, as if they didn't have most of the newest games at home already, and instead sneak back into the office to check that the inventories were stocked, or that the deposits were made. They were.

But Adrian is getting older. He can feel himself losing touch with the current youth generation. He can see the way Beau is still in touch with that child at heart. He still knows the hottest new video games, the trendiest new flavors of soda. He can relate to these kids in a way Adrian can't anymore. One of them even called him "grandpa" once.

So Beau runs the arcade most nights on his own now. He's great at it, with his natural business instinct - he doesn't need to go to class to learn this stuff! He could teach a class on this stuff!

He knows he should go to class though, he'd just rather not most of the time.

He misses April running the cash register around here, and not just because he hates that job she's working now, but because they used to have so much fun together. Now they've hired a kid named Blair to run the register, and he's about a thousand percent more uptight than April ever was.

Or maybe Beau is still learning the kinds of things you can and can't say to employees - or at least employees that aren't April.

Like geeze, who doesn't like a good ventrilo-fart?

Blair doesn't.

"Man, it was a joke," Beau says. "You don't have to cry. You're not going to quit, are you? You want some free pop? Some free game tokens? I'll show you how to get to that secret level in SSX3."

So when April wants to know, when did he get so old and stuffy? When did he get so boring? Beau would like to boldly proclaim that he's not! He's the furthest thing from stiff and boring. He's still just as much fun as he ever was.

And when his mom gets mad about those puddles of water they leave all over from their water balloon fights, he'd like to say, who does she think he gets it from?

When Beau comes to visit, before or after checking into the arcade, he often finds his dad out behind the garage tending to his plants. It's always been a small but lucrative hobby of his, not that his family needed any extra money. Between his parents, they've always had plenty. It's shocking even, to realize how much things cost in the real world.

"I can't believe how much a deposit on an apartment is," Beau says.

"Is that right?"

"Yeah, I'm kind of out of money for the semester. I paid for April's half too."

"Is she going to pay you back?"

"I didn't ask her to," Beau says.

"Money doesn't grow on trees, kiddo," Adrian says. "Or well, I guess by proxy it kind of does. Hey, you want me to teach you how to grow?"

"No," Beau says. "I don't think we can have those on campus... or anywhere."

"Nonsense," Adrian says. "I've been growing them fifteen years and I never got in trouble. It's all good now though, the back pain, I got a medical card."

"That's good, Dad," Beau says. "I mean, about the medical card."

Beau's parents have never denied him a cent when he asked for it, and before they sit down to smoke up, Adrian has transferred a quick ten-grand into Beau's bank account.

In the space where Tyler's old soccer net used to be, they've erected a canopy where they can sit with their hookah and puff a little and let all their worries fall away. Except that their worries never really fall very far. Maybe this yard is haunted by those old soccer practices, because when they're laughing, all they can do is wonder if Tyler would have thought it was funny, or what would he have said in return?

It's never easy to forget, especially when you take the time to notice that his memory has been nuanced into every place and person he left behind.

"She really makes me mad sometimes," Beau says. "I mean, April. She's just so vacant sometimes."

"Well, you've lived with your mother," Adrian says. "The observant ones are no picnic either. Hey, why don't you invite one of your girlfriends over for dinner tonight?"

"I only have one girlfriend," Beau says.

"Oh, that's right," Adrian says. "Which one is it again?"

*** continued ***

(footnotes: part one // April's job )

notes: so maybe I like this family, or something, because I just kept writing and writing for them, and before I knew it, it had turned into a three-parter.

(Again, remember that I don't mean for you to be able to infer very much from these stories about which one of the troops isn't coming home. We're just exploring the lives of the people left behind, from all angles.)

I SO want someone to make me a "money tree plant" default replacement, to look like, well, you know ;)

And Aurora really was pissed at Beau over those water balloon puddles, lol!