section 20, we're back!

The zoo…

It certainly answered my question if this was a date or not. Last time I checked dates did not involve little brother or sisters or even cute fuzzy animals. Not that I would actually know or anything. My knowledge of dating ended at what I had seen on TV and what Kayla had told me about hers, and I had never seen any zoos or siblings on the dates.

Despite my lack of enthusiasim for the zoo outing I still heard myself saying yes and at dinner I found myself asking my parents if I could take Andrew with me. The feeling was kind of the same from when I accepted the cigarette. I had no idea why I was doing it, I didn’t really want to but something in me was still going through with it. All be it, going to the zoo was far less dangerous and illegal than smoking behind the library.

“Wait, you want to take Andrew with you? I usually have to beg you just to watch him.” Mom said snidely.

“Well, it was Lyle’s idea.”

“Andrew, do you want to go to the zoo?” Mom asked in a tone that was usually reserved for a younger child.

“Gerald McGrew. McGrew Zoo,” Andrew chanted. He had been quietly eating his noodles, scooping them on to a piece of bread and then eating them off like how you ate oysters.

“Gerald McGrew?” Mom questioned.

“It’s a Dr. Suess book,” I explained.

She sighed and asked her question again.

“Yes, go to the zoo on Saturday.” Coming from Andrew this was kind of surprising. It was a (almost) full and relevant sentence. Everyone at the table was surprised, except Andrew who had gone back to shoveling down pasta and red sauce.

“Well, I don’t see why not…” Mom trailed off, twirling her plain noodles with her fork.

Dad jumped in, once again stopping us from arguing. “Who’s driving?”

“Lyle is. Remember, he’s the one who gave me a ride home from group on Wednesday.” Of course neither of them remembered, but what was the point of making a big deal of it? It was nothing new in the life of Brigitte Cooper.

“Is he a good driver?”

“Well, I made it home on Wednesday right?”

“What kind of car does he have?” Why does that matter?

“Uhm… one with wheels?” I had no clue what kind of car he had. It was car shaped, not a Jeep or SUV or truck. Just a regular car with four doors and four wheels.

“Just know,” Mom pointed her fork at me for emphasis, “that if Andrew starts freaking out you’ll need to come home right away.” Yeah, I definitely knew how that was. Andrew had ruined plenty of outings for us. I couldn’t remember the last time my entire family had sat through a movie at the movie theatre.

“I know, Mom,” was all I said though. I was starting to realize that sometimes it just wasn’t worth it. No matter what I said or did she was right and that was all there was to it.

“And keep your cell phone with you.”

I was fifteen, I could barely go to the bathroom without my cell phone.

“And on.”

It was only her that had the problem of turning it on.

I kept my comments to myself though and kept eating. I had what was almost a date with Lyle.

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Since I went to a school that had a uniform I had hard time figuring out what to wear on Saturday morning. Usually it didn’t matter, I would just be doing homework and watching TV, maybe if I was lucky I’d get to go to the mall with Kayla. Today was different though, I putzed through my slim collection of April in Denver appropriate clothes before settling on a pair of capris and a t-shirt and zip up hoodie combo. I thought that it said what I was trying to say, even if I wasn’t sure what I was wanting to say. I thought Lyle was cute and that he was nice. We both liked Fro-Yo so that seemed like a plus. I just didn’t know how I felt about Sophie… I wanted to distance myself as much as I could from anything that could be connected to Andrew. I didn’t think it made me a horrible person, I just wanted a life that was seperate from Andrew.

I could hear Mom down the hall getting Andrew ready. He was repeating lines from If I Ran the Zoo while she washed his face and even brushed his teeth. He had been carrying the book around all morning, along with his A-Z Animal Encyclopedia. It was going to be a long day.

At 10:45 Lyle sent me a text message to let me know he was on his way. Dad gave me the run down of what was expected of me. I wasn’t listening though, just waiting for the cash to slip in to my hands. I knew how to handle Andrew in public, I knew what overwhelmed and I knew how to avoid those things. It wasn’t like I hadn’t taken Andrew out by myself before, my parents just liked to act like I hadn’t.

I had the cash in my hand when Lyle pulled up in his car. “Going to the zoo. Going to the zoo. Going to the zoo.” Andrew came catapulting down the hallway, galloping and flapping his arms. Oh yeah, today was going to be a blast. Perhaps I could get Lyle to stop at Daz Bog to get some coffee. Something dark and hard. Nevermind that I hadn’t had anything harder in my life than a caramel frappuccino. I wasn’t sure that would give me the energy to get through this day with Andrew. I didn’t think today would entail chasing Andrew around, I thought that perhaps his meds would have some affect on him. No such luck.

Lyle got out of the car to meet us. I thought it was a little weird and almost awkward, until I saw him going for my dad. And by going for I mean going up to shake his hand not going for the jugular. It was the equivilant of watching the same thing. He was dressed respectfully, jeans and a dark non-descript shirt. My dad would like that. His jeans weren’t sagging down to the ground and his hair looked like it had seen a comb in the past few hours. Lyle was presentable.

Maybe I was comparing him to Devyn though. Compared to Devyn pretty much any guy from the Denver teen population was presentable. But maybe that’s what made Devyn like a magnet. He wasn’t like anyone else.

Andrew jumped up and down next to me and shook me out my thoughts of Devyn, which was good. I needed to focus on the here and now, on Andrew, Devyn and his little sister Sophie who was sitting in the car behind us. Andrew was chatting too loudly for me to hear what Lyle and my dad were talking about. I could see them shake hands and being cordial, but not much else. I wished I had taken the time to learn how to read lips or better read body language, this not knowing was terrifying.

Eventually, Lyle turned around smiling and Dad didn’t look disgruntled. I let out a deep breath; it wasn’t so bad. Lyle walked down the paved path towards and knelt down in front of Andrew.

“Hey, Andrew! I’m Lyle.” He held out his hand and Andrew slapped his down into his. “Are we gonna have fun today?” Lyle asked cheerfully. The enthusiasim was over the top, but the smile on his face was genuine. It was odd. None of my friends had ever interacted well with Andrew. Cody did his best and even gave him old books of his (he had one about zoo animals in his hand right now). Kayla on the other hand didn’t really try at all. I didn’t blame her though, what was she supposed to do? Besides the high five Andrew didn’t answer any of his questions, just kept chatting away to him and mumbling nonsense.

For the first time, Lyle looked up at me, still kneeling before Andrew. “Are you excited?”

I tried to grin, but the more I really thought about it the more uncertain I was about the whole thing. I wanted to go on a date with Lyle, not on some special ed outing with his sister and Andrew. I had this urge to cross my arms in front of my chest and stamp my feet. Once again Andrew was ruining what I wanted. It sounded selfish, but it wasn’t like I got things that I wanted all the time. It wasn’t like I had this whole other life that was without Andrew. He pretty much permeated everything I did unless I put a deadblot lock on it. Like, Devyn. Devyn provided me a life with a deadbolt lock on it.

“You excited?” he asked again when I didn’t answer.

“Yeah, as excited as I’ll ever be at least.” I added the last part quietly before making sure Andrew sat nicely in the car and got buckled up. He was going through a phase where he didn’t wear his seatbelt, which was irritating.

“Hi!” Sophie leaned into Andrew and spoke to him.

“He’s not going to really answer,” I tried to explain.

“It’s okay,” she said to me. Her voice was sweet and soft and had a slight lisp to it, like she was speaking through a mouthful of cotton candy. “Lyle told me.” She held out her hand to me, “I’m Sophia.”

I shook her hand, it was chubby and clammy. “Hey, Sophia, I’m Brigitte.”

“You can call me Sophie,” she said, pushing a cascade of blonde curls out of her face. She had the typical characteristics of someone with down syndrome but it made her strikingly beautiful. Blonde curls that people paid hundreds for framed her chubby face, her bright blue eyes popped and smoke volumes. And comapred to Andrew’s her eyes connected to mine. When I spoke to Andrew, it was like he looked through me. It wasn’t like that with Sophie.

I walked around to the front of the car and slid in to the front seat. Lyle had cleaned the car out recently, it was free of the empty coffee and soda cups that had been there just a few nights ago. I smiled and felt the butterflies go off once again in my stomach. I thought it was cute that he had taken the time to pull the trash out of his car for me… well, for us.

The drive to the zoo was short (and with no stop to the coffee shop, not that I asked though). We really only lived down the road from it, even though we didn’t go very often. Mom didn’t like chancing that Andrew would act up, or that it was too hot or too cold or snowing or raining (come on! It was Denver. It wouldn’t be Denver if it didn’t rain.) Andrew liked the zoo though, he liked the animals and that we got to eat out somewhere. He didn’t like the crowd though and with it being a beautiful Saturday in April I was scared that he would act up.

“Hey, you’re okay if we have to leave suddenly, right?” I asked him once we were in line for tickets. Maybe it was a little late to be asking but I did need to ask.

He nodded and I seemed to understand completely, “It’s not a problem. I kind of figured it might happen.”

Sophia was cute and patient while we stood in the long line, carefully keeping a grasp on Lyle’s hand. Andrew on the other hand kept trying to run off towards the gates. My grasp on his hand was strong but he kept pulling at me and making my shoulder scream. That combined with the hot sun on my back none of this was looking very good.

My neck was already burning up by the time we got into the park and I was missing the days where Andrew fit in to those stupid kid leashes. It wasn’t that bad though. Once we got the animals Andrew was content with his book and Sophia was content to watch them. At each enclosure we would come to Andrew would read the animals name and try and find them in his book, when he found them things were good but when he didn’t find them we had to move from the exhibit quickly because he showed the signs of throwing a tantrum.

As for Lyle and I, we talked. He asked me how my school was and told me about his.

“That seems so intense.”

“I guess it is, but Sophia and I get to go to the same school, which is important to our parents. And they have high hopes for me to go to a good college, Dad wants me to go to his alma matar.”

“Where’d he go?” I asked him. We were in the cool indoors of the bird exhibit and we had let Sophia and Andrew walk ahead of us, but not by much.

“Yale,” he said shortly. He didn’t seem to happy about it but at least his parents had spoken to him about college. Mine hadn’t really said much of anything except that I needed to get good grades and apply for scholarships.

“Wow, to study what?”

“I don’t know yet. Dad wants me to major in business and communications, Mom wants me to major in law.”

“And what about you?” I asked looking up at him. In the soft light of the bird room he looked sadder, like he was more weighed down by something. I could see the dark circles under his eyes and the chapped portions of his bitten down lips. I hadn’t noticed it before, I had thought that he was carefree and had this great life. Wednesday night I had almost been jealous of him, but now I realized that he had just as many problems as I did.

word count: 2,385

total: 25,022

to go: 4,978