“Sure,” Juliet said. “I do it all for myself in Cambridge.”
“Do you think you’ll get a job here?” Lisa asked her son.
“I want to give myself another week to rest my arm,” Theo said. “Just traveling back from California wiped me out. I mean, not just my arm was hurt, but my entire body, and my head took quite a knock—”
Juliet interrupted. “Oh, come off it, Theo. That was six weeks ago. Don’t be a baby.”
“It’s early in the season,” Theo said reasonably. “I’ll look for a job this week. But give me a break, okay?” Before anyone could respond, Theo stood up. “This was delicious, Mom. Thanks. But hey, I think I’d like a couple pieces of toast.” He walked to the bread drawer and took out a loaf. “Would you like some, too, Juliet?”
Juliet hesitated. She knew she’d been outplayed. “Yes, please.”
Theo made putting the bread into the four-slot toaster using only one arm an Oscar-worthy act of courage and skill. Lisa wanted to applaud, but he’d only just arrived home. She would humor him. He put two pieces on a plate and brought it to Juliet, and set the butter dish in front of her.
“You good, Mom?” he asked.
Lisa smiled at her son. “I’m fine, thanks.”
And I really am, she thought.
thirteen
Why did someone else’s cooking always taste better than his own? Theo finished his toast and wanted to lick his plate.
“I’ve got to get some sleep,” his mom said, rising from the table. “First, let me show you what Mack’s doing on the house.”
“I’ll tidy the kitchen,” Juliet said. She smirked at Theo.
Theo smirked back and followed his mom. The downstairs rooms were all weird, either the furniture moved or covered in drop cloths. He only half listened to his mother describe the cracks in the ceilings, the bizarre plaster stilts, the dust, and a zillion minor problems. The loose panes on the tops of the inner doors that his mom had, she said laughingly, making it a humorous tale, tried to fix herself. The scuffed floorboards, the worn rugs, the ancient wooden kitchen floor. The broken dishwasher—it was easy, Lisa had said, doing dishes for only one person.
His mom’s bedroom had changed. Once in sixth grade he’d done a really cool, if he said so himself and he did, painting of himself, Juliet, and his mom. His mom had loved it so much she’d framed it and hung it on the wall across from her bed. While he was gone, she’d taken it down and replaced it with a large flat-screen television. The thought of his poor mom lying in bed watching television all alone made him oddly melancholy. Plus, didn’t she like his painting anymore? He didn’t see it anywhere.
He entered his room, which he’d held in his mind as a kind of private shrine. And found mountains of clutter. Clutter that wasn’t his.
“I’m going to turn your room into a guest room slash crafts room,” his mother told him.
Theo stood in his room, gawking. His bed was there, more neatly made up than he’d ever had it. Still, there were his chest of drawers, his desk, his desk chair, his shelves of books, trophies, games, and balls. But his posters of the Foo Fighters and Britney Spears in not much more than fringe had been taken down. And cardboard boxes—so many of them!—were piled in the room. On top of his desk. In the corner. At the end of his bed.
“Whoa,” Theo said. “That’s radical.”
“Why is it radical?” Juliet demanded, coming up the stairs. Juliet always wanted to be the favorite, and she never would be, Theo thought smugly. “You haven’t even been home for years.”
“Yeah, well, I’m here now,” Theo shot back.
“Good night, sweetiepies,” his mom said, kissing him and Juliet on the cheek before disappearing into her room and firmly shutting the door.
“Good night, sweetiepie,” Juliet echoed over her shoulder at Theo as she went to her own room.
In his room, Theo moved the boxes around, kind of noisily, as if he wanted to kick them out into the hall. He expected his mom to stick her head in the door and tell him they’d move the boxes somewhere else tomorrow, but she didn’t. He brushed his teeth in the bathroom he shared with Juliet, who’d left one hundred cosmetic items on her side of the sink. He shut his door, got into bed, and immediately felt at home.
The mattress had a trough in the middle. He was torn between being grateful that it was there, one thing that held his mark, and being pissed off that such an old, lumpy, and undoubtedly stained mattress hadn’t been replaced.
This mattress had seen a lot of action. The memories made him smile. He’d hated being a teenager, unable to have power over anything in his life, but he’d had quite a bit of power over high school girls and footballs.
Well, every girl except the girl he wanted most. Beth Whitney. She had been all about Atticus, and when the three of them were together, Beth never even looked at Theo.
That had been hard. High school had been hard.
Every day he’d wakened to an anger simmering deep in his chest. Anger at his mother for letting them live like they did, driving an old sedan, not even four-wheel drive, it was embarrassing. His mother had insisted on teaching him to drive, and sometimes he’d wanted to howl at her. He knew how to drive a car, his high school friends had taught him out on the dirt roads in the moors. His mother was so not fun when she gave him lessons. If he’d had a father, a guy to teach him to drive—and all the other things a father could have taught him—that would have been fun.
Theo kind of remembered his father. A shade, a shadow, tall and broad and handsome. Theo’s mom always said, “I’m so glad you’re a big gorgeous guy like your father.”
She was always saying nice things about his father, this man who hadn’t seen him at all since Theo was a little kid. So many times he’d wished his father was dead. A lot of times, when people asked, Theo told them his father was dead. Then he’d put on a sad face and look at the ground and refuse to talk about it anymore.
Why had his mom never cursed his father, wept with hatred? She probably thought that in some twisted way she was protecting him. But Theo knew plenty of guys in school whose father had moved away, divorced, that stuff. He’d seen a mom throwing dishes in a fit of anger at her ex-husband.
Jeez, he was getting totally morbid lying here like this, where old memories drifted out of the walls to haunt him.
He needed something. Something to ease the pain. He’d brought some oxy with him from California, in case his arm went bad again, but this pain wasn’t physical.
He reached under his mattress to see if the porn magazine was still there. That would cheer him up. He felt the flutter of paper and pulled out Golf magazine. He’d always hated golf, it was boring. How did this mag get here, in his room, under his mattress?