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“Whatever.”

  “Look after him for me, would ya, Surge?”

  Suraj rubbed his hands together and snickered. “Yes, master. As you wish.”

  With Dad out of the way, Suraj and I played chess and talked about Albertina. She’d left a threatening message on our voice mail that afternoon, something about Almost Family not conforming to government health regulations. I hadn’t mentioned it to Dad. He was rattled enough by her as it was, and I didn’t want him blowing the reunion gig. We needed the income.

  “I thought you said Albertina was, like, ninety or something?” Suraj took my rook with his pawn. “So, you’re breaking a couple of health rules. What’s she going to do about it? Not like she’s a cop.”

  “I don’t know. She said she had a badge.”

  “You see it?”

  “Right. Like we want her pulling a badge out in front of the minister. Reverend Muncaster gives us half our referrals,” I said, then I screamed in agony.

  Suraj had just catapulted my rook into the overhead light fixture. (We’d updated some of the traditional rules of chess to make the game more interesting. Normally, the field goal was one of my favourite modifications.)

  “What are you going to do about it?” I presumed he was talking about Albertina’s threat and not my rook. It would rattle around in there with the others until someone got the ladder out or it melted, which was more likely.

  “She said to be at the Spring Garden Professional Centre at ten tomorrow morning, or prepare to be sorry.”

  “That’s what she said—‘or prepare to be sorry’?”

  I shrugged. “Her dialogue’s even worse than yours.” Suraj had an eight-part sci-fi series he’d been writing since elementary school.

  He didn’t like that. He took my queen off the board and biffed her into the light fixture too, so I winged a handful of pad Thai at his head and he lunged over the table and roundhoused me in the ear. Next thing you know, we were whaling away at each other the same way we do every time we get together.

  He’s puny but determined, and I was face down in a pool of plum sauce when the doorbell rang. I leapt at the chance to call the fight.

  “Get off me, would you? Pick this stuff up. I’ll deal with her.” Lynette Mc-Something-or-Other lives in the basement apartment and is always padding upstairs in her hand-knit slippers and polar fleece sweats to complain about “excessive noise,” by which she means anything louder than a suppressed burp.

  I wiped the sauce off my forehead and headed to the door. I had this down to a science. I’d apologize and promise not to do it again, then make some lame joke about boys being boys, at which point Lynette would apologize for her hypersensitive hearing (which always sounded like bragging to me) and I’d stand there nodding until she gave up trying to see if Dad was home and padded back downstairs.

  I put a “my-bad” smile on my face and opened the door.

  Lynette is about five-foot-nothing, so I had my head pre-bent to talk to her. This would explain how I found myself eyeball-to-eyeball with a small-to-medium pair of breasts in a camo tank top.

  The owner cleared her throat and they jiggled. I looked up with a start. A girl about sixteen—short silver hair, black-framed glasses, and a nose ring—said, “Almost Family?”

  I stared back blankly. On the upside, at least it was at her face this time.

  “Is this the office of Almost Family?”

  Still not computing.

  She stepped back to look at the street number, then checked the scrunched-up business card in her hand. “5508 Robie Street, Suite 1A. Maybe that’s supposed to be 5503.” She smudged some mud off the card and shook her head.

  “No, that’s the right address.” Suraj had materialized beside me. He managed to sound remarkably professional, despite the noodles festooning his head. “May I help you?”

  She put a hand on her hip and curled her lip. I thought she was going to up and leave, but she just gave us the once-over, then went, “Yeah. I’d like to rent a brother.”

  She took a noodle off Suraj’s ear and stepped past us into the international headquarters of Almost Family. Suraj and I bugged our eyes out at each other and mouthed several versions of Whadda we do now? To the best of my knowledge, Lynette Whatchamacallit was the only female ever to have acknowledged our presence.

  Suraj gave a panicky shrug, then followed the breast-owner inside. I checked my pits, then went in too. She was standing in the middle of the room, looking around as if she was trying to choose a new paint colour or figure out where the smell was coming from, either of which would have been appreciated. Suraj beetled in front of her and swept some meal-sized crumbs off the futon and onto the floor.

  “Sit. Please sit. Excuse the mess. We were developing some team-building exercises for one of our clients.”

  Suraj isn’t on the payroll so I’m not exactly sure why he was taking over the interview, other than, of course, he’s Suraj and his lips were still working.

  She found a dry, relatively stain-free spot and sat.

  I perched on one arm of the only chair we have. Suraj perched on the other. We must have looked like hosts for a preschool program about to launch into some ditty about the difference between left and right. I was sorry there wasn’t a manlier option but my leg was jiggling too much to stand.

  Suraj said, “May I ask how you heard about Almost Family?”

  “I didn’t.” Her voice was sort of husky.

  Sort of Scarlett-Johansson-with-a-chest-cold.

  Sort of Oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-she’s-actually-talking-to-us.

  “Then how is it you found us?” Suraj picked a pad of paper off the coffee table to record the information. It would have looked like a totally businesslike thing to do if the paper hadn’t been a Scattergories scoresheet.

  “Found your card on the street. Thought it was garbage.” She sounded like she still did. “Why do you need to know?”

  “No reason. Just, like, market research, whatever. Perhaps we could start by getting your name?”

  “Raylene.”

  “And how do you spell that?”

  She sighed like what’s with all the questions? “Whatever’s easy.”

  I could see that appealed to Suraj. He’d no doubt be using it himself when school started up again in the fall. You can just imagine what some poor substitute teacher would come up with for Suraj Bandodpadhyay.

  “And your last name?”

  She sighed again, checked out the movie poster we had covering the hole Suraj’s head had made in the wall a few weeks back, then scratched the side of her nose.

  “Let’s say Butler.”

  “Let’s-Say-Butler. Is that a hyphenated name?” He was making a joke but Raylene either missed it or chose to ignore it.

  “So how do I pick a brother? Got a website or something?”

  “No. No website. As you can imagine, anonymity is very important in our business,” Suraj said. “You tell us what you need and we’ll match your requirements.”

  He didn’t say, “. . . as long as you’re looking for someone just like Cam.” Dad had a few old acting buddies on the roster and even a couple former clients, but I was the only preteen/teen/juvenile/young adult male we had on offer at the moment. That’s why I was somewhat surprised when Suraj went on to say, “Can you tell us what you’re looking for exactly? Height? Hair colour? Cafeteria clique: nerd, jock, hipster, foreign exchange student?”

  “I’m not picky.” Our kind of client.

  “Age? We offer everything from a slightly balding older brother to a mechanical windup baby you can carry around in a custom-designed Snugli.” He totally made that last one up on the spot.

  “Fifteen and a half. Or sixteen, if he can pass.” Bingo. Direct hit.

  Suraj scribbled something official-looking onto the scoresheet.

  “And what will you require him for? A business event? Family gathering? TV engagement? Oddly enough, we’re . . .”

  Raylene stood up. “On second thought, fo
rget it. I wasn’t expecting the third degree.” She was at the door in a flash.

  “Sorry!” Suraj raced after her. “I was merely attempting to ensure we satisfied your needs. If more discretion is preferred, we’ll gladly . . .”

  The door could be hard to open if you didn’t know the trick. Raylene was yanking away at it as if she were the next victim in Saw V.

  The latch gave way. She staggered back. She was going to leave forever.

  “I can be your brother,” I said.

  She turned and looked at me. Her eyes were brown but there was a green stripe in the right one. “You talk?” she said.

  “Sometimes. When I get a chance.”

  She almost smiled, although I could tell she didn’t mean to.

  Suraj said, “Or if you’d prefer something slightly more exotic, I’m also available.”

  Raylene didn’t respond. For a while there, she looked like she had a sore tooth, but maybe she was just considering the options. She finally said, “I actually need a twin, so I should probably go with the white kid. Too much explaining to do otherwise. What’ll it cost?”

  “Thirty-five dollars an hour.” What was Suraj thinking? What fifteen-and-a-half-year-old has that kind of money to waste on a brother?

  “Except this week,” I said, “when new clients get the first ten hours absolutely free.”

  I sounded a bit more like the guy on the ShamWow! infomercial than I’d meant to. She almost smiled again, and if I wasn’t in love before, I was now.

  “I’ll only take five free hours,” she said. “After that, if I like you, I’ll pay. I’m good for it.”

  I nodded. She wrote my cell phone number on her hand and said she’d be in touch. I controlled myself until I saw her disappear around the corner of Robie and Bliss, then I jumped and squealed as if I’d just been crowned Miss World.

  CHAPTER 4

  Suraj was doing his thing again. “Claims-to-be-fifty-percent-anime-on-her-mother’s-side.”

  I stuck my foot in his face.

  “That’s Raylene Let’s-Say-Butler to a T and you know it,” he said around my sock. “You’re just mad because I nailed it.”

  He tried again. “Secretly-addicted-to-Say-Yes-to-the-Dress.”

  “Why are you even bothering, Suraj?”

  “Devoted-last-eighteen-months-to-writing-spiteful-three-chord-songs-about-her-ex-boyfriend.”

  “If you dislike her so much, what was that offer of ‘something slightly more exotic’ all about?”

  “Just looking out for you, bro.”

  I pushed him off the futon. He landed on the floor with a crunch but kept talking. “You obviously liked her—which was painful enough to witness—but to like someone who would actually pay you to be her brother is a crime against decency. Major ick-factor, if you ask me.”

  “Which luckily I didn’t. You’re just pissed she chose me.”

  “Like the girl said, she’s not picky.” He lay on his back and put his decomposing feet on the coffee table. “So what are you going to do with her when she calls?”

  “No clue. What do I know about brothers? I mean, other than what I see on TV, and brothers there are always either evil, stupid, or just, like, I don’t know, walking garburators or something.”

  “Why, darling, you’re a shoo-in for the role!”

  I flicked the remains of a pork bun at him. “You got a sister. Any suggestions?”

  “I’d say cut her food up for her and let her play with wrapping paper. But Charu is two. That might not work with Has-a-pet-ferret.”

  I had a feeling he was right but I had no idea what would work. Raylene was a mystery to me. Even more than most girls, and that’s saying something.

  The whole “Let’s say Butler” business? What’s with that? Showing up at the apartment? Clients never just show up at the apartment. Acting all dodgy anytime Suraj asked her anything? How much could a fifteen-year-old possibly have to hide?

  Those questions were nothing, of course, compared to the big one.

  “Why would someone rent a brother?” I said. “I get the old folks wanting relatives to visit them in the seniors’ home. I even get why that lady would want someone like Dad to bring to her high school reunion. But what does some teenage girl need a brother for? Most girls I know are looking to get rid of their brothers.”

  “You know some girls? When did that happen?”

  “Okay, no. But I have heard them talk in the hallway, and my question remains: Why would Raylene want a brother?”

  “To beat up some guy who’s giving her a hard time?”

  “Oh. Right. And I’m just the raging he-man for that. I can’t even beat you up. She’d be better off sicking Charu on him.”

  Suraj made some joke about the kid’s lethal drool output, then his eyes went big. “I know. Organ donation. Raylene wants your organs, bro. That’s what this is all about.”

  He wasn’t kidding—and he was quite excited about the possibility too. (No doubt, it would show up as a storyline in his Plasmic Defenders series soon.) I let him yammer on about blood matches and tissue rejection and what you can get for a nice juicy kidney these days. Truth is, I didn’t really care why Raylene Let’s-Say-Butler wanted me. She had me.

  CHAPTER 5

  I was going to tell Dad about Raylene when he got back from the reunion but I—

  No. Sorry. That’s a lie. I had no intention of ever telling Dad about Raylene. By agreeing to be her brother, I was breaking two of the most important rules of Almost Family.

  No freebies except for Actual Family, which, given our circumstances, means no freebies at all. It’s just too easy to feel sorry for people. And—

  No solo gigs for anyone under twenty-one. In other words, me. Dad’s terrified of “some perv trying something,” and frankly there’s nothing creepier than a middle-aged man saying “perv,” so normally I’d be terrified of a solo gig too. When a single guy needs a nephew to show a lady friend his fatherly ways, Dad always arranges to be bowling in the next alley or golfing at the next tee or staking out the joint somehow—a consequence of which is that most people assume he’s the perv.

  It didn’t seem very likely that Raylene would be trying something on me, but like the old folks say, hope springs eternal. I wasn’t going to blow my chances by telling Dad.

  He strolled in just after midnight and picked up the other controller. “How was your night?” he said before killing my shogun. (There’s a lot of downtime when you’re shooting a TV show, so his years on Up to No Good weren’t a total waste. Dad’s a much more lethal player than your average forty-three-year-old.)

  I shrugged, then jerked my head towards the lump on the floor formerly known as Suraj.

  “Do his parents know he’s here?”

  “Where else would he be? And yes.” The Ban-dodpadhyays have four other boys plus Charu, all stuffed into an apartment half the size of ours. You’d think they’d be thrilled to have one less body for a while, but they watch Suraj like a hawk. No doubt Mr. B would be round by six the next morning to take a urine sample.

  Dad sneezed and I managed to execute one of his samurais while he was getting back on his feet. I asked about his night.

  “Ain’t Hamlet but it pays the bills,” he said.

  “You’ve used that line before.”

  “And I’ll use it again.”

  “Nice lady?”

  “To me? Yeah. They’re all nice to me. Still, gotta wonder what kind of person wants to fork over two hundred and ten bucks plus tax just to stick it to some girl who offended her twenty-five years ago. So much for forgive and forget.”

  That makes Dad sound like a really decent person, but you have to put it into perspective. He was systematically massacring my entire army while he said it.

  “Yeah, well. Whaddya expect?” I said.

  He threw down his controller and slumped on the futon. “Wasn’t a surprise, but jeez. I’d take lonely and depressed over spiteful and mean any day. I kind of like the lonely gigs. M
akes me feel like I’m helping make the world a better place . . .”

  “Yeah. You’re a regular little Mother Teresa, you are.”

  “Okay. Laugh—but it’s true, sorta. Bob Doggett’s son hadn’t found the time to see him in years. I played cribbage with the old guy twice a week for a few months and he died a happy man. No shame in that. But tonight, slow dancing over and over again past some sorry ex-cheerleader? That just made me feel like a jerk. I hate doing people’s dirty work.”

  “So don’t do it anymore.”

  He looked at me over his fake glasses. “You want to go back to no-name Froot Loops?”

  “Nooooo! Not the dreaded Frooty Zeros!”

  “Yes, my friend. Zero taste! Zero crunch! Zero reason to enjoy! Sound good? Didn’t think so. Which is why I still do spiteful. Not to mention miserable, delusional, bitter or—my favourite—the combo pack.”

  “Could be worse.”

  This was one of our games.

  “Could be. I could be in leopard-print spandex and a glue-on tail, playing one of the backup kittens in Cats.”

  “Could be Pirate Ned again with a boot full of someone else’s vomit.”

  “Could be the guy in the hot tub on that diarrhea commercial.”

  “Could be Suraj with red lips and bright blue eye shadow.” I let that sink for a moment.

  “Could be indeed,” Dad said and waggled an eyebrow at me.

  He took Suraj’s shoulders, I took his feet, and we put him on the futon. The great thing about our business is that we have the resources to make anything we imagine possible. We raided the makeup kit and gave Suraj the full flamenco dancer—eyes, lips, big white flower behind his ear, even a couple of well-developed tennis balls down his shirt. The guy didn’t budge. (I’m never sure until morning if he’s asleep or if rigor mortis has set in.)

  We took a couple of pictures and sent them to his father. Mr. B’s got our whole series tacked behind the cash register at his vacuum repair shop—Suraj with the baby bonnet and soother, Suraj with the ratty beard and scar, Suraj with the antlers and flashing red nose. That stuff totally cracks him up.

  When we’d finished the photo shoot, Dad tucked a blanket over Suraj and we went to bed.