Moonlight & Vines Read Online Free

We’re sitting on the patio of The Rusty Lion on a Sunday afternoon, trying to do the familial thing that neither of us is much good at, but at least we try. Jilly always says the family we choose for ourselves is more important than the one we were born into; that people have to earn our respect and trust, not have it handed to them simply because of genetics. Well, blood ties aside, I’d still want Geordie as my brother, and I think he’d want me, but we’ve got so much weird history between us that our good intentions don’t always play out the way we’d like them to. Every time we get together I tell myself I’m not going to rag him, I’m not going to be the know-it-all big brother, I’m not going to tell him how to live his life, or even suggest that I know better. Trouble is, we know each other too well, know exactly which buttons to push to get under each other’s skin and we can’t seem to stop doing so. Bad habits are the hardest to break.
    We immediately start off on a bad foot when he orders a beer and I hear myself asking if he doesn’t think a few minutes past noon is a little early for alcohol. So he orders a whiskey on the side, just to spite me, and says, “If you’re going to have a cigarette, could you at least not blow the smoke in my face?” We’re sitting there glowering at each other and that’s when Saskia comes walking by, looking like she stepped out of an Alma-Tadema painting for all that she’s wearing jeans and a baggy blue sweater that perfectly matches her eyes.
    Geordie’s face brightens. “Hey, Sass,” he says. “How’s it going?”
    I’ve had this mantra going through my head for weeks now—
SaskiaMadding, Saskia Madding
—and all of a sudden I have to readjust my thinking. Her friends call her “Sass”? And how’d Geordie become one of them?
    She smiles back at my brother. “Taking the day off?” she asks.
    I have to give Geordie this: He works hard. He may play in a half-dozen bands and meet his rent and utilities by busking on street corners, but lazy he’s not. Suddenly I want to tell him how I blew Aaran off the other night and didn’t care what it might mean about how I’d get reviewed in the
Journal
in the future. I want to know if he’s ever talked to Saskia about me, and if he has, what he’s said. I want to ask Saskia about “Puppet” and a half-dozen other poems from
Mirror
. Instead, I sit there like a lump with a foolish grin. Words are my stock and trade, but they’ve all been swallowed by the dust that fills my throat. I find myself wiping the back of my hand across my brow, trying to erase the “Avoid me” I know is written there. Meanwhile, Geordie’s completely at his ease, joking with her, asking her if she wants to join us. I wonder what their relationship is and this insane feeling of jealousy rears up inside me. Then Saskia’s on the patio, joining us. Geordie’s introducing us. My throat’s still full of dust and I wish I’d ordered a beer as well instead of my caffè latte.
    â€œSo that’s who you are,” Saskia says as she sits down in the chair between Geordie’s and my own. “I keep seeing you around the neighborhood.”
    â€œHe’s the original bad penny,” Geordie says.
    A part of me feels as though I should be angry with him for saying that. I wonder does he really mean it, have we drifted that far apart? But another part of me feels this sudden absurd affection for him for being here to introduce Saskia and me to each other. Against the rhythm of my pulse, I hear the first strains of melody, and in that instant, everything is right with the world. The desperate feeling in my chest vanishes. My throat’s still dry, but the dust is gone. My features feel a little stiff, but my smile is natural.
    â€œI’ve seen you, too,” I find myself