Zip, Zero, Zilch (The Reed Brothers 6)

I drop my voice to that of a child.

“‘She doesn’t talk,’ Wren said. Wren was one of the other girls at the group home,” I explain to Sam. “Marta admired my doll’s dress and asked ‘Why not?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Wren. ‘I think her lips are broken.’

“Marta leaned close to me. She smelled good. ‘Her lips look fine to me,’ she said. ‘Maybe she just doesn’t have anything to say.’ I had plenty to say, all right. But no way to say it.

Star—that was another girl— said, ‘She stammers. Stutters. Whatever. She talks to me when the monsters try to crawl out from under her bed in the dark. She comes to sleep with me because the monsters think I stink.’”

Sam laughs. “Star didn’t believe that, did she?”

“God, no. But she was always trying to protect us. Star was like our mom until she let Marta take over.”

“So the five of you shared a room?” He looks up for a second.

“Yeah.” I’m lost in those memories for a long moment.

Melio came to the doorway and knocked. “Are you about ready to go?” he asked Marta. He looked down at his wrist. “A jackhole in the boys’ room tried to bite me.” He rubbed at the area.

“Language,” Marta scolded.

Melio rolled his eyes. He pointed at me. “Who’s this?”

Marta smiled. “This is my new friend.”

“Does she like ice cream?” he asked.

Ice cream. We didn’t get ice cream very often. Only for a very special treat. I nodded. I nodded vehemently. But I didn’t talk. He didn’t seem to mind.

He walked over and held his hand out to me. “Want to go get ice cream with me?”

I nodded again. But I couldn’t go without my friends, so I didn’t put my hand in his.

“Something wrong?” he said.

I pointed to my friends. They looked almost green with envy.

“You want to take them too?” he asked me.

I nodded.

“Well, come on then,” he said mock-sternly. “Ice cream won’t wait all day.” He gathered his long hair in his fist and tightened the elastic that held it back from his face, and then extended his hand out to me again. This time I put my hand in his, and his fingers closed around mine and I knew I’d found my family.

He took us for ice cream. While we ate our cones, he flipped some cups over on the table and started to tap a rhythm on them. He looked at me and said, “Want to try?”

I carefully climbed up onto my knees on the chair, and banged out the same rhythm he did. He grinned at me. “Well, I’ll be damned, Marta. I think we got a drummer here.”

He tapped out a different rhythm. I repeated it and he praised me. I was hooked.

I wipe my cheek, which is suddenly wet with tears. I hope Sam doesn’t realize I’m crying. I don’t think about those days much. They’re just still so emotional for me. But Sam wanted to know how I got my name, so I flashed back to that time after we moved in with them, and I remember hearing Emilio with Marta in the kitchen.

“She’s like a fucking woodpecker with all that tapping.”

Marta slapped his shoulder and he laughed and kissed her. He hugged her against him and asked, “She’s all right, isn’t she?”

Marta looked up at him and said, “She spoke to me today.” I could see the tears shimmering in her eyes from across the room, but I didn’t understand why it made her sad.

He froze. “She talked?”

Marta nodded against his chest and he palmed the back of her head, holding her close. “When she taps, she can talk. Something about the rhythm.”

“Like Mel Tillis. He stammered, but he could sing. Damndest thing.” He shook his head. But then suddenly he caught me eavesdropping. “I heard you can talk,” he yelled at me, but he was grinning.

I nodded. Didn’t say a word.

“You think I’ll get to hear it one day?”

I nodded again.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said. Then he came and took my hand in his, and we went to bang on his drums.

“…And I’ve been the Woodpecker ever since,” I tell Sam, after relating a shortened version. “Or Peck for short.”

“What’s your real name?” Sam asks.

“My mom called me Renee. But she also hated my guts. So I’ll stick with Peck.”

Sam finishes icing the last cupcake and brings it over to me. “For you,” he says and smiles at me.

“I can’t eat that. Do you know how many calories that is?” I push his hand back.

He waves it in front of my face and it smells divine. I breathe it in and close my eyes. He breaks it in half and shoves half into his mouth. “Sure you don’t want to try it?” He taunts me with it. I open my mouth and lean toward it, although I don’t intend to actually eat it. But suddenly, my mouth is full of cupcake. And oh my God, it’s the best cupcake I have ever had. I moan around it.

Sam’s eyes smolder. “Make that noise again,” he says quietly, leaning forward until his lips are a hair’s-breadth away from mine. I can smell the icing on his breath.

“You got more cupcakes?” I whisper.

“Hell yeah,” he says, and he goes to get another cupcake. He breaks it in half and feeds it to me. He starts to shove the other half into his mouth, but I grab his wrist to stop him and I eat the other half too. He watches me closely, and I can see the pulse in his neck speed up.