Page 39 of How to Hide in Plain Sight
But the last time I saw Manuel shirtless…it had nothing to do with family-friendly fun.
He bent over and picked up the tube.
While I did my best not to stare at Manuel rubbing shiny orange sunscreen all over his tan skin, Karma’s loud voice drifted over to us. “Got enough SPF over there, kiddo?” She was talking to Caleb, who had slathered his body in so much Neutrogena he resembled a ghost.
Caleb is almost twenty years older than Karma, but she speaks to him as if it were the other way around. She’s the only one in the family—parents included—who does so.
“We’ll see who’s laughing when you’re getting melanoma scraped off your body at forty-five,” he said, stretching out on the rocks with a satisfied sigh.
“What would you know about melanoma? Aren’t you an ass doctor?”
“Even ass doctors go to four years of med school,Catherine.”
“Oooooh.” Shelly grinned and ruffled her wife’s hair. “Careful, Caleb. You know how this one feels about her real name.”
“Your real name is Catherine?” asked Pam. “Then where does Karma come from?”
“No one knows,” said Karma, deadpan. “That’s what makes it such a bitch.”
—
ONCE PARTNERS HAD BEEN ASSIGNED,Clarence dumped a quart of gasoline onto the roll of toilet paper, flicked open his lighter, and sent the torch up in flames.
“All righty then,” he hollered. “Line up, kids.”
“No way,” said Caleb. He snagged the branch and handed it to Taz. “The groom carries the torch.”
Taz pushed it away. “I’m good, really. Clarence can do it.”
Caleb pivoted. “What about Helene?”
“I’ll stick back here with Taron,” she said.
“Well, in that case”—Caleb turned to me—“I believe the torch should be carried by the youngest, as is tradition.”
I’m not used to being addressed directly by my oldest brother. The experience is always somewhat unsettling. “Um,” I said.
“Or is Manuel slightly younger?” Caleb swiveled to the left.
“Oh, for the love ofGod.” The voice came from up on the porch. It was Speedy, who had just rolled out of Sunny Sunday, the Nurses in hot pursuit. “June, get me out of this chair.” Nurse June hunched her hulking figure over and scooped Dad into her arms. Once comfortably secured, Speedy yelled, “Music!”
The first crashing cymbals of the Olympic fanfare sounded from on high. We turned around. Mom stood at the wide back window of Sunny Sunday. On the sill before her: a massive set of speakers. She beamed and waved at the crowd.
“Let’s show the children how it’s done,” said Speedy.
June marched down the porch steps, Dad dangling from the basket of her grip. She breezed past Caleb, and as she did, Speedy grabbed the torch out of his son’s hands. “Onward!” he yelled.
Normally, we line up in a neat, single-file line organized by team and proceed down to the water. Not that year. That year, it was less of a parade and more of a mob. Pam and Tim slipped as they dashed down the rocks. Karma and Manuel caught them before they fell. When we reached the shoreline, June turned around so the sturdy rag doll of my father could face the crowd. By then, the fire had consumed nearly all of the toilet paper, leaving behind just a charred cardboard cylinder and a few pitiful flames.
“We are gathered here today,” Speedy began, “to revive a—” But at that moment, the fire burned all the way through the cardboard and consumed the stick itself, crumbling the torch in a shower of glowing embers—several of which landed in June’s hair.
“Christ!” she screamed.
“Shit, shit, shit!” Dad frantically brushed smoldering cardboard from her hair with his free hand. The other gripped a branch that was now on fire.
Caleb ran forward. “Give him to me!”
June, whose hair was now burning in earnest, tossed my father into Caleb’s arms. She turned and dove straight into the lake. Caleb stumbled and fell ass-first onto the rock, catching Dad in his lap with a gentle thump.
