Treasure Island!!!

which he met my bad temper convinced me, even now, that my surliness was necessary to his comfort. It enlivened his blandness.
    “I know I’m not in your life. But you and I were together long enough that I thought you’d forgive my intrusion here. I came out of duty and affection; your sister said you’d gone off the deep end, and that if we didn’t band together and help you, who knew what would happen next.”
    “What melodrama! You can
look
at me, Lars, and see I’m not off the deep end.” I smoothed my hair, which I could feel had gone a little haywire, and wiped the spit from the corner of my mouth. Whenever I shout, I expectorate.
    “I see”—and here he gave me a look of such quiet, unqualified admiration that my hands fell from my hair.
    I don’t claim to know everything about deep and long-lasting relationships, but I can tell when a guy is crawling into the palm of my hand.
    “You’re not off the deep end,” he said. “Maybe you’re teetering on the edge, but aren’t you always? Still, if I could be of any help . . . ”
    “Lars, I always liked you,” my mother said, reaching across the semi-circle to pat Lars on the thigh. Adrianna flinched. I could see the whole train of horrid associations in her face, but I wasn’t threatened; my mother wasn’t the least bit his type.
    “I think this is becoming just a little too much of a free-for-all,” Adrianna said. “What about the lists?”
    “Can I just say one thing first? Before we move on?” Rena turned eagerly to me. “I noticed you giving me the evil eye before, and I thought maybe I should explain, that the little possibility that we last discussed on the phone—”
    “Out with it, Rena,” I grumbled.
    “Well, it’s a private matter.”
    “There are no private matters in this house, Rena,” said Adrianna.
    “Oh. Well, then, perhaps I had just better clarify by saying”—and here she lowered her voice—“Lars and I are not, as you might have thought, an item.” She explained that they had gone out once, fought bitterly about whether eating less meat could affect climate change, and decided the only reason they were even seeing each other was because—hurrah!—they both missed me.
    As I let this revelation soak in, it seemed as if my ivy-covered castle had just been visited by a pesticidal genius whose application of the proper chemicals had made the heavy green curtain over my windows shrivel; in brief, the sun shone in.
    “Did you kiss?”
    “No,” Rena said. “We never even touched hands.”
    Thank god, I thought, looking at Lars and remembering the way, despite all the complications between us, our mouths had tended to meet in perfect harmony, relaying a tenderness our speaking selves never managed. Should we have kissed more and talked less?
    “Can we please get on to more pressing matters?” Adrianna huffed. “By now we should be well into the family’s testimony about how you are ruining us with your obsession with
Treasure Island
. Dad?” She glanced at my father, whose eyes were dimming with sleep.
    “Never mind. Mom? Let’s hear from you first.”
    My mother picked up the piece of paper in her lap and unfolded it as if it were somebody else’s dirty handkerchief. “
I refuse to keep enabling you and I will not sit here in pain and watch you
—Adrianna, what’s this word? Oh, destroy–
watch you destroy your health and well-being
. Well, is that clear? Would anyone like some tea?”
    “Thanks,” I said when she went off to the kitchen. “That was very heartfelt.”
    My father, roused at last, leaned forward. “I have a feeling you’re not taking this very seriously.”
    “Why should I?” I snorted. “I appreciate the attention, but I’m not about to give up
Treasure Island
. That book taught me more about how to live than any human being in this room!”
    “Ouch,” Lars said in his amiable way.
    “This is terrible thing to say!” Nancy moaned. “Where is respect for mother and father? For family?”
    My mother returned bearing a tray of tea things: pot, plates, forks, and a large pecan pumpkin pie.
    “So much for cherry and cheese,” I muttered to Adrianna. “Lies, lies, lies!”
    “Get a sharp knife,” my father muttered, as my mother stooped over the coffee table trying to serve. Between her distracted manner, the thickness of the piecrust, and the uselessness of her spatula, she was helpless before the pecan layer.
    “You’ll never do it with that dull