I Know You

It’s a lazy summer afternoon at the Wheeler’s house. Pretty usual, being lazy, one might say. It’s a Saturday after all. Meg doesn’t usually love to spend any part of her Saturday tidying up the house and most certainly, doesn’t like the part where its her elder brother who is bossing her around about it. 

“Meg come on, please just, put those fridge magnets in their place!” shouted Tanner, while unpacking a parcel sitting on the drawing room carpet, sent by their parents.

It was from Hawaii. Their parents are research scientists and they’re working in Hawaii on God knows what. When the kids were younger, it was always fascinating to ask their mommy and daddy about their work. But at this point they don’t even bother asking what exciting research the pair is upto. They’re always jumping from one place to another and naturally, its quite difficult for an eighteen and a fifteen year old to keep up with their schedule. But the kids are happy as long as their parents find their way back home

“Hey! Come down quick! They have a letter for us this time!”

Meg lights up as soon as she hears those words and comes running down, stumbling once and landing on her butt on the last stair. Tanner looks at her and makes a told-ya face, “How many times have I told you dingus? Don’t rush down the stairs, haven’t mom dad told us a million times to be careful until they get it fixed the next time they’re around?”

“Yeah yeah I know, douchebag.”

He pats the space beside him on the carpet and Meg settles down. He hands her the letter saying, “They said they’re coming this Sunday, which means-”

“Tomorrow!” she chimes, and Tanner smiles at her most endearingly.

She proceeds to read the letter. Its practically scribbled on with hurried words and exclamation marks, declaring that the box is full of things their parents thought the kids would find fun and Meg’s pretty sure that they’ve tried hard to accomplish that, because a combination of make-your-own-jewelry set, crafts n arts book, an electric sharpener and a box of amazing smelling chalks doesn’t sum up her idea of fun. 

“Hey look, they sent us a weird science facts book. Are you thinking what im thinking?”

They share a knowing look.

"Am I thinking that our weekend has been planned, like right now?"

Now this, is actually fun, for the both of them. A book full of weird or interesting scientific facts is the one that can never disappoint them because it’s the only thing they bond over without any problem. Since they were eight, they’ve been collecting books like this. They would read these books every weekend and since then, they’ve never broken this little tradition of theirs.

She folds the letter and places it in her pant pocket.

“Yeah, that’s right. Anywayy...I think this really is the best time to get to work.” He looks around whole room and looks at Meg again, indicating that they need to get the house in order. She salutes once and shoots up. As soon as she walks to the kitchen, Tanner shouts, yet again, “Don’t forget the magnets Meggy!”

Five minutes go by without any talking or noise other than Tanner dragging the boxes which aren’t light enough to be carried or Meg clattering the utensils on the kitchen counter. At some point both of them turn to look at each other blankly.

Silence

“Yeah I’ll uh put on some music.”

Meg nods and with that Tanner turns on their rusty old speakers as ‘In The Garage’ begins to play. The audio is quite bad but besides that, there’s no other flaw. That song is just the right choice.

An hour goes by and the siblings get the drawing room a bit messier than with what they had started and the kitchen floor a little soapy and slippery. But at least the rest of the kitchen is clean and done. Tanner’s playlist had come to an end already and for the last twenty minutes of that hour, they had been listening to a lot of punk rock. Why? Meg, that’s why. Its her playlist. Unlike Tanner’s, it's purely punk rock.

Its lunch time now, so Tanner clears up some space and brings a small table at the center of the carpet where Meg brings the food. They are about to ding in on the Chinese takeout, when Tanner gets up abruptly. He comes back from the kitchen with a water bottle and two glasses and then settles down in his place again. They dig in and a few minutes into lunch, Meg's phone pings. She reads something barely above a whisper, dazed at the screen.

Chewing on his noodles, half of them still connecting him to the cup, he asks Meg, “What?”

His words are all garbled up, but in her last fifteen years of life, Meg’s mastered the art of deciphering her elder brother’s gibberish talk.

“Its uh, it’s a picture Brenna posted, that moderately famous girl from your grade?”

“Yeah I know who she is.”

“So like, why didn’t you go to the party?”

“I don’t like them, besides, she’s uh, they’re not my friends.”

“You think every person there knows each other?”

Tanner scoffs, “No.”

“Okay…what was that about?”

He gulps down a little soda and claims righteously, “I bet none of them there knows anyone, kissing up to each other for a couple o’ more followers on their social media.”

Meg stares at him and he goes ‘what?’ as if he didn’t just throw out a judgement about people he barely knew.

“Don’t tell me that you thought I liked them or just about anything they do. Have you ever seen me at any of their parties? Or for that fact, at any party? I have like two friends at school and like me, even they are eccentric, I won’t deny. But at least they’re not faking it.”

“You and your little group of friends are what this pop culture calls Rude Nerds, you know that right?”

“So what? We know that and we are proud of it, and since when did being a nerd become an insult in the twenty-first century?”

“Its called the RUDE Nerd, Tann!” she darts as she smacks the chopsticks out of her brother’s hands. Tanner gives her an eye roll and, for some odd reason, decides to give his noodles an undivided attention.

They continue to eat in silence as Meg scrolls through Brenna’s recent posts.

Tanner sighs and finally breaks the silence.

“You know that I’m not great with people, right? And its not like I haven’t tried to, to be with them before. I mean how do you suppose Dana and Evan are my friends? I talked to them, duh. No no, this isn’t about them, sorry. The point is that I think they suck.”

Meg looks up at him, glaring a little.

As if apologies are supposed to go this way.

“Okay, I’m sorry. Its quite subjective, you know, to decide what’s sucky according to an individual, really. Sorry, again. I know it’s a bit rude how I perceive them. But can you deny that there is atleast one teensy ounce of truth in my statement?”

“Apology accepted and yeah, I can’t deny, but we still don’t have the right to trash talk about them unless and until we’ve talked to them at least once or twice. Well, even that isn’t enough to judge a person’s character but, gives us something about them.”

Tanner gives a tight-lipped smile and bounces his eyebrows once, translating to, “Well well.”

He proceeds to take a bite, but stops for a second, “You know, you’ve actually talked with her, with uh Brenna, meanwhile I who has had a few classes with her, haven't had a single conversation. Besides that one time in third grade when she asked for my eraser and she didn’t even give it back, but that’s not the point again.”

Meg is smiling.

No no, she’s smiling alright. 

Tanner knows this smile, and it almost always means that something good will happen to her and something embarrassing to him.

He knows its her scheming little sister smile.

With narrowed eyebrows he stares at his sister as she stares back. But she has the upper hand and she’s smugly folding her arms.

The next words which she utters, seems to Tanner, to be coming out in slow motion.

Actually, she’s really just pretending to speak in slow motion, and here’s what she says

“Which is why I’ve invited her… right now, like right now right now.”

“No.”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“I’m pretty sure I know how to text and read someone’s text.”

“No, you don’t understand.” He joins his hands and glares back at Meg, “No.”

Ding dong!

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Looks like our little guest is already here!”

"How'd that even happen?!"

Meg practically runs to the door and Tanner facepalms.

“Hey Meg!” chimes Brenna, with the brightest smile ever.

“Hey! My my, you’re lookin’ great Bren!

“Pshh, staaahp! You’re looking great too!”

They enter the drawing room and Tanner puts on his best forced smile.

“Hey Tanner! I’m Brenna, uh from Japanese class, remember me?”

“Yep, how could I forget..” under his breath now, “How could I when everybody in class keeps talking about how popular or pretty you are!”

Meg nudges Tanner.

“Did you say something Tan?”

“Huh? No, nothing at all Bre-Brenna and uh, please don’t call me that.”

“As you wish Tan- I mean Tanner!”

“So, what have we got here guys? Looks like we’ve got some packing to do.”

“Uh yeah, our parents are coming home tomorrow so we have to get this mess of a house together.” Replied Meg and she is about to talk further but is interrupted by a call, so she leaves them for a quick chat.

She leaves Tanner and Brenna in the drawing room.

Them.

People who have absolutely no business with each other, whatsoever.

“So…Tanner, if you don’t mind, should I help you with something here?”

“Sure, you’re here…so you might as well.”

“Okay so tell me what to do and I’m at your service.” She smiles and Tanner thinks to himself, it would be an understatement to say that she smiles way too much.

“Get those boxes at end of the room to me and Ill guide you as we go from there.”

She brings the boxes to Tanner at a surprisingly quick pace and he puts the things in their designated boxes. Another hour goes by and Tanner is a little beat by remaining seated in one place so he suggests a break which Brenna gladly agrees to. She asks him if it would be fine to take a stroll in the backyard and he complies, not knowing why. He probably doesn’t wanna give it too much thought, or else he’ll end up hating this unannounced company more than he thought he would. But on a second thought, he really doesn’t wanna get into the question of

WHERE THE HELL DID MEG GO?!

Seriously, where are you Meg?

Anyway, summer is a bit weird in this city. Its all pleasantly warm throughout the day with a gentle breeze blowing, but as soon as its time for nightfall, its quite chilly and yeah, it does get dark like the usual days and not slowly because it’s supposed to be summer here.

As suspected its beginning to get a little something like orange-purple-blue in the sky…and yeah, chilly. Fortunately Tanner loves full sleeves regardless the season and Brenna ran back to her car for her sweater and came back to continue their stroll.

“Can I ask a question?” Brenna blurts out.

“Go ahead.”

“Do your parents not stay around much?”

“Well, they certainly don’t stay around as much as standard parents do. But uh…they’re here as much as they can be. There’s not really much to saying when they stay but they never skip it. They come home every month, never miss it.”

“Oh…what do they do?”

“Scientists, they're research scientists. They keep moving from one place to another at the speed of light. Its not really a child’s dream to meet their parents once a month for few days but I adore them for their passion…they have each other on this journey and they do so much to give me and Megan a good life.”

Brenna is genuinely smiling at him.

“What?”

“No, its uh, its just that I’ve never seen you…talk, like this much…and the way your face lights up when you talk about your parents, I can dig that look. You should smile more.”

Tanner was smiling then I guess.

“Huh...well, people cant just go on smiling like a doofus all the time.” Tanner purposely tilts his head at Brenna as she smiles bigger now but with a tint of betrayal she complains, “I thought we were saying nice stuff about each other now, you- you numbskull!”

And they burst into laughter.

Tanner asks her in their fading laughs, “What about you? What do your parents do?”

“My mom’s a boxing instructor and my dad is a bakery owner, well, he’s her assistant on his days off.”

“Uhuh, quite the combination!”

“Tell me about it!”

“They around as much as mine?”

“Yeah they are, but…lately mom’s been a bit tensed about her local boxing league championship. So she kinda gets into these little feuds with dad…obviously they make up after that super quick because dad gets it, he understands its not that she’s mad at him, its just work stuff. Hehe they love each other way too much to be fighting more than a few minutes!”

“I’m sure they do.”

“I’m sure your mom took you under her wing for some boxing lessons, I wont take any less than a yeah for this question.”

“Well yeah, she did and its quite fun actually, she’s spectacular when she teaches…it’s just amazing. Its as if she pours all her love into this ironically violent activity and it still seems so endearing.”

Tanner looks at her and after a beat, he says, “…It’s almost poetic.”

“Yeah, it does seem like that. Gosh, you know how to just use the right words huh.”

He tips his imaginary hat and speaks proudly, “Didn’t take literature to learn nothing madam!”

They’ve stopped strolling and the stars are above their heads.

“Tanner…it was, it felt good to have someone to talk to about these things…my other friends, they don’t usually talk about things like this. All this actually touchy feely family stuff. In all these years of friendship, none of them have shared such stuff, such heartwarming things about their personal life with me as much as you did in just a few hours…thanks.”

“You did too. Dont...thank me, but um, I’m glad that I could be that person to you. I too didn’t talk about these things to any of my friends, though very few in comparison to you. The truth is, I don’t think I wanted to tell them anyway. My sister, she told me something today… and your coming here just made me realize what I was missing. Up till now I just thought that I didn’t want any of this, you know branching out and actually talking to people…but now there’s this maybe in all my sentences, and uh, maybe I do want to do this, you know?”

Maybe she wasn’t smiling way too much.

Maybe it was all in my head

Brenna nods back, smiling.

It would’ve been impossible to have guessed that some ways down the day they’d be sharing such meaningful, understanding looks with each other. Heck, it was unimaginable that they even spent a day together.

Tanner’s walking her back to her car when he chimes, “Oh, by the way, you still owe me an eraser!”

Brenna’s grinning, “Oh really? That eraser from third grade?!”

“Yeah, oh look you remember too!”

“How about I return it to you in my mom’s class tomorrow at the ass crack of dawn?!”

“Yeah sure! Maybe I will show you some of my Karate too!”

The weather warms up again and the evening fades into laughter.