I gripped the remote tight enough to turn my knuckles white, but I kept my voice flat. “That’s one of the many fundamental differences between us. I know I’m here because my dad enjoys taking things from my mom, even things he doesn’t want.” I felt my own eye muscle twitch at that admission, convinced of it as I was. I couldn’t fully embrace the indifference I tried to show Shelly. I gave her the kind of smile usually reserved for videos of cats failing to jump over things. “You’re here because my dad thinks paying for sex is gauche.”
I think Shelly would have slapped me if she’d been within striking distance. Instead, she looked at me with tear-filled eyes, then strode purposefully into the room she shared with my dad. She slammed the door so hard that one of the pictures on the wall crashed to the floor.
I left it there.
Grabbing the nearest pillow, I found a Full House marathon and spent the rest of the evening in magical TV land. Or I tried. I maybe should have picked a show where the family more closely resembled my own. Something on Animal Planet, where the father left and the mother ate her young.
I clutched that pillow tight enough to burst it.
ADAM
I knew something was wrong the minute I woke up. It was a cacophony of little things that combined into that overwhelming roar of wrongness, like when you rent shoes at a bowling alley. Even before I opened my eyes, I felt the scratchy stiffness of my sheets when I shifted. The sound was wrong, too. No birds. Instead there was a muffled rush of traffic spilling past and the occasional blare of a horn. Then there was a clicking noise, followed by a deep, groaning wheeze as warm air gushed into the room. The wrongness didn’t dissipate when I opened my eyes, but comprehension sharpened its edges.
Thin drapes the color of rust hung over the sliding balcony doors and let the gloomy September light show me much more of the room than I cared to see. Last night I hadn’t turned on the lamp, preferring instead to let the shadows conceal details I detested on principle.
Dad had only just moved in himself and had the entire building to fix up, so it wasn’t like I’d expected him to have decorated the place, but the spartan, thrift-store furniture wasn’t helping my unease. The showstopper was the print that hung over the bed. It was an apple orchard. I wondered if Dad had hung it on purpose, or if it came with the apartment. Either way, the mockery of it drove me from my bed as though I’d been doused with water.
At home, I could have looked out the window and seen real apple trees and breathed in crisp, slightly sweet air. There wouldn’t have been the sound of one car assaulting my ears, let alone hundreds. We didn’t live on a working farm or anything, just a house nestled back from the main road surrounded by trees and quiet and, as Mom had reminded me yesterday, the occasional deer.
Had it been only yesterday? Last night, really? I sat on the bed with my back to the orchard print and fished my phone out of my jeans from the floor. It rang twice before she answered.
“Hello?”
“Mom, your phone shows my face and name when I call.”
She laughed, but it sounded relieved more than anything. “I know, but what if someone else had your phone?”
“Like if someone stole it? Why would they call my mom?”
“Not a thief then, but a Good Samaritan. Or maybe Jeremy.”
“Jeremy has his own phone, and I doubt there’s a good anything within twenty square blocks of this apartment.” I thought of Jolene and Shelly. There was a pause while Mom tried to figure out how to respond to my antipathy. I yawned audibly. “I’m just tired. The mattresses over here are sacks filled with old laundry.”
Another pause.
“That’s a joke, Mom.”
More shaky laughter. She must have had a worse night than I had. “I can’t always tell when you’re teasing me.”
“All right.” I stood up and stretched my back. “No more jokes. You okay? Did you sleep a little?”
“Oh, sure.” She forced an overly bright note into her voice. “Just whipping up breakfast for one.”
I imagined her standing in the kitchen with one hand clenching the counter in a death grip. She’d probably been up for hours. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d repainted half the house or something.
“What about you? You have an okay time with your dad last night?”
I thought about how to answer a question I knew it had practically killed her to ask. Anything I said would hurt her. She’d feel more alone if I told her it was good, and she’d blame herself if I told her the truth. So, in a flash of brilliance or insanity, I told her the only other thing I could think of. “I met a girl.”
“You what?” Finally an unguarded response.
“She lives in the building, the apartment next door actually.”
“Wait, wait, wait.” I heard something clinking. “Let me get my coffee, and then I want to hear everything. What’s her name?”
I smiled in relief. Mom sounded like Mom for the first time in longer than I liked to think about. “Jolene.”
“Like the Dolly Parton song? I wonder if they named her—oh no. Probably not. She’s kind of a home wrecker in the song. It’s really pretty though.”
“She’s a really pretty girl,” I said, realizing for the first time that it was true, objectively if nothing else. “She has a great smile with this little gap between her front teeth and a twisted sense of humor, but I kind of like that.” I found myself telling Mom about Jolene—what I knew at any rate—and carefully omitting details that would not have added to the picture I was painting. When I was done, even I could see how I would have been crushing on this girl if things had gone a little differently.
“What did I tell you?” Mom said. “I knew you’d find something to like. When will you see her again?”
“Um. I don’t know. We only just met.”
“Oh, of course, but it’s nice, you know? Jeremy won’t talk to me about girls and—well, it’s just nice.”
Greg used to talk to her about stuff like that. I felt that old-but-never-gone sadness flare up at the way her voice had thickened. I tried not to let mine do the same. “I promise to keep talking to you about her. I’ll try to see her again today.”
“Maybe you can get a picture of her,” Mom said, and then added, “She doesn’t even have to know you’re taking it.”
“Mom, that’s called stalking, and most girls don’t like it.”
“You’re teasing me again, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m still not taking pictures of unassuming girls for you.”