Not According to Plan

Aunt Barbara called me one evening. We’ve been pretty close all my life. She’s the one who helped me keep it together when my parents were killed in a hold-up at their little jewelry store. I sure as hell needed my aunt and uncle then. I was an only child, a freshman in college, commuting from home. They did as much as they could to help me through the mess and horror of all that. Even their daughter Rose pitched in. She was the one who did a lot of the clean-up at the store when the evidence guys were done. A gangly young teen, she was the only one with the guts to do it.

I think of Mom and Dad every day, and I’ll probably never drive down the street where their store was again. Dealing with all of it meant withdrawing from college for a year. Things are settled now, the funerals and trials are over, and I’ve moved on. The end result is that I inherited a nice, mortgage-free house, a decent chunk of change, and the freedom to live the way I want. I’m single, living in my own place, and working on my M.S. in computer coding theory, with no school loans and no need for a part-time job.

I’m not wild or completely irresponsible, but I’m a guy. The amount of time many college students spend on a part-time job can, in my case, be devoted to going to clubs and trying to get laid. I’m careful about it, low key. Otherwise, I’m sure Aunt Barbara would never have called.

She said, “We really need your help, Brad. Something great has happened for us, but it’s created a problem.”

“What’s going on?”

“Paul has been offered a position overseas. It’s a big promotion, all re-location expenses paid, the works. It’s what he’s been dreaming of, so obviously, he’s going to take it.”

“Congratulations! So, you guys are moving?”

“Yes, and that’s the problem. Rose was accepted to the local university where you’re going. She was going to commute, like you. Now, the dorms are full, and we don’t want her living alone in some apartment. She doesn’t want to have to beg for late acceptance to some school overseas. So, we have this really huge favor to ask you.”

Uh oh. I don’t like the sound of this. They’ve done a lot for me, but…. In my most polite, helpful voice I responded, “What’s that?”

“Paul and I have thought about this a lot. Would you allow us to pay rent and expenses so Rose could stay at your house? She’d be able to keep in closer touch with some friends, and we’d feel better knowing she’s with family.”

Shit. Just what I needed. A teenaged girl for a housemate. Rose is a nice kid, smart and cute and all, but still. BIG change in lifestyle.

“When would she move in?” I asked.

“Paul is leaving the day after she graduates, and I’d like to join him as soon as I can.”

“Can she bring her own furniture?”

“She’d like to take some of ours. What room would you put her in?”

“You know I took over Mom and Dad’s room, right? So, I guess she can have my old room. It’s bigger than the guest room. It’s empty, except for some stuff I should get rid of anyway.”

“Can we get together to discuss this some time soon?” Aunt Barbara asked.

“Do you want to come over now?”

Half an hour later, Aunt Barbara and Rose were at my door. I was disappointed that Uncle Paul wasn’t with them. It was always nice to see him, since he was a lot like my dad. He was working, as usual. My aunt looked like she always did – just as pretty as my own mother, but with dark hair. She had always been like a second mom to me, too.

Since Paul was my father’s brother, and they married Barbara and her sister in a double ceremony, Rose and I spent a lot of time together growing up. We always got along, despite the age difference. When she was in third grade, she got hit by a car when she was playing on the street in front of her house, and spent a lot of time at home in casts, eventually making a full recovery. I rode there on my bike to keep her company almost every day, which usually meant playing with her toys or watching girly cartoons. I didn’t mind, since she seemed happy. This was the kid that loved to play hide-and-seek with me when we stayed at each other’s houses when one set of parents took a night for themselves. As a young teenager, she sought me out after my parents’ funeral, so that I, a grown man, would have someone to cry with.

Rose always looked more like my mom than her own, with her ginger hair and fair skin, but she looked different than I remembered her. Now that Mom and Dad were gone, I didn’t get together with Barbara, Paul, and Rose as much. I hadn’t seen her since Christmas, and we were now halfway through Spring. Maybe that’s a long time at her age. I kept thinking of her as a little girl, since I met her before she could walk. Cute little cousin Rose was turning into a very attractive young woman, more beautiful than Mom and Aunt Barbara ever were. As a kid, Rose always wore her long hair in braids or a ponytail, but now it was brushed out, it’s fullness threatening to cover one eye and reaching far down onto her chest.

She seemed nervous. I wondered if she felt as awkward about this arrangement as I did.

“Let me show you what I thought we could do,” I said, leading them upstairs. “This is the guest room. You could have that, but it’s pretty small. I thought I’d give you my old room. It’s probably bigger than your parents’ room at home, so all their furniture should fit. You’ll have your own bathroom down the hall, since there’s one in my bedroom for me. The closet is big, and you have some nice windows.” I opened the door and motioned them inside.

“What do you think?” Aunt Barbara asked.

“It’s nice,” Rose said, in a tone that showed she didn’t mean it.

“What’s your favorite color?” I asked her.

“Why?”

“I’ll paint the room for you. This green is pretty bad.”

“It was your mother’s favorite,” Aunt Barbara scolded.

“I know. Half her wardrobe was green, or had green trim or something. She just had to paint a room green, and I was a kid when she did it, so I didn’t get to choose. After they were gone I moved into their room. I didn’t know what to do here, but I repainted the trim and ceiling, and I was going to paint the walls, but I got side-tracked. The room needs paint. It can be whatever color Rose wants.”

“Hmmm.” My cousin turned slowly to study her new space. “If I do all the edging, can we make it two-tone?”

Friday after dinner, I went to her house so we could go paint shopping. Heaven knows what the names were for the colors she chose, but she was thrilled with them. We agreed to paint on Sunday, which gave me Saturday to clear out the rest of my junk, wipe down the walls, and patch nail-holes.

Bright and early Sunday morning (in college-speak, that means before noon) someone was ringing my doorbell. Some of my friends had hung out late the night before helping to clean up from a little party we had, so I wasn’t at my best. Half asleep, I assumed it was someone who had left something behind. “Coming! Coming! Shit! Quit ringin’ the motherfuckin’ bell, asshole!” I yelled as I stumbled down the steps.

Standing on the porch were Aunt Barbara and Rose. “Nice mouth,” my aunt said. “Do you think you might want to put some clothes on?”

That was when I remembered that all I was wearing was yesterday’s boxer shorts.

“Sorry,” I said. “What time is it?”

“After nine. You told us to come over in the morning. Remember?” Aunt Barbara asked.

Rose pretended to not look, but her eyes kept coming back to the center of my body.

Trying to clear my head, I said, “Yeah. Yeah, sure. Come in. Sorry, I mustn’t have set my alarm.”

“You have a funny way of greeting guests,” Aunt Barbara grumbled.

“Why don’t you two sit in the living room for a couple minutes while I get ready,” I said, leaving them in the foyer and dashing back upstairs.

“Brad, I need to run. Text me when you want me to pick up Rose,” Aunt Barbara called after me.

I was drying off from a fast shower when Rose knocked on my bedroom door.

“Brad?” she called. “Is it okay if I change clothes in the hallway bathroom? I don’t want to risk getting paint on what I’m wearing.”

“Sure, no problem. It’s your bathroom, now,” I hollered through my door. “All the painting stuff is in your new bedroom. I’ll meet you there.”

I was double-checking the tape on the drop-cloths when she walked in. She had exchanged her shoes, jeans, and top for a pair of grungy sneakers, cut-off blue jean shorts that probably were tight on her a couple years ago, and a white t-shirt, so old and thin that it allowed me to see her lacy little bra clearly. Her ginger mane was pulled back and stuffed through a well-worn pink baseball cap. Damn!

“Wow, with your stuff gone, this room looks huge,” she said.

Somehow, I kept a poker face and spoke in a normal voice. “It’s a decent room. The cable and internet hookups are over there, between the windows.”

“Brad, you don’t know how much this means to me.”

“What? Taking you in? Your parents are paying me, you know.”

“Yeah, but even so,…”

“Look, your mom, dad and you are the only relatives I have left. Your parents are like a second family to me, now that my folks are gone. So, I probably would have let you stay here even if they weren’t paying me.”

“Should I tell them that?” she giggled.

“Whatever doesn’t go toward your part of the grocery bill is yours.”

“For real? Cool!”

She moved around the room, inspecting my repairs and looking at the view from her windows. “Do you have a lot of friends that come over?”

“Not a lot, but yeah, people visit sometimes.”

“Guys or girls?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

Rose gave me an exasperated look. “I’m not THAT much younger than you, so I can guess what you do, okay? I don’t want to get in the way of a party of YOUR friends or be a cock-blocker, so you’ll have to let me know when to be quiet and stay out of sight. I feel kinda funny about living with some guy, even if he is, like, an older brother figure. I’ve never lived with anyone near my age. It’s always been just me, Mom, and Dad.”

“Remember, I’m an only child too. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. Some of my friends can’t stand their younger siblings.”

“Same with mine. Why is that?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s from having to help take care of them when they were babies or something. After all, how do you love someone who peed on your lap when you were a kid?”

Rose blushed. “Did I ever do that to you?”

“Not that I remember. If you had, I wouldn’t let you live here. Now, which wall gets which color?”

Rose was very good at cutting-in (that’s painter-talk for edging around the corners, moldings, and ceiling). I couldn’t help noticing what her legs looked like when she was on the step-ladder. Not just her legs, either. The areas that ancient denim struggled to cover looked pretty nice, too.

Everything needed two coats of paint. With the help of sandwiches and delivered pizza, we worked non-stop into the evening. Finally, we were done.

I stood back to admire our handiwork. Rose joined me.

“This room is awesome. You have a good eye for color, Ginger,” I said.

“Ginger? Don’t ever call me Ginger, okay? I hate that stupid nickname. My name is Rose. You can call me Rose, or cuz, or kid or pretty much anything but Ginger!” She turned away in a huff.

I shouldn’t have done it, but I couldn’t help myself. I wiped some paint off a roller with my finger. “Sorry, Ginger.”

When she spun around to confront me, I put paint on her cute nose.

“You bastard!” she laughed. “I’ll get you for that. Some random time, I will SO get you for that!”

“Bring it. I’ll break you in half.”

Rose put her hands on her hips. “I want to get along with you, to live together as friends, okay? But I can take care of myself.”

I grabbed her by her sides and hoisted her up to eye-level, the pale skin of her torso warm in my hands where her shirt rode up. “I know karate, judo, aikido, and several other Japanese words. Like I said, bring it, Ginger.”

Then she did something I didn’t expect. She rubbed her paint-smeared nose on mine. I put her down, and we laughed like fools. When we had ourselves under control, she said, “What are your rules for me?”

“Hmmm. Clean up your own mess. Don’t drink out of the milk or juice cartons.