“Yeah, no problem.” Mason took a deep breath, long fingers curling around the steering wheel like he was gathering his courage. “Listen, Meg,” he said, the words coming out in such a rush they nearly jumbled together. “You’re, like . . . good, right?”
Meg laughed a little, not entirely sure what he was getting at. “Yeah, Mase,” she promised. “I’m good.”
“I mean, you seem good,” he clarified quickly. “I don’t mean to imply—I mean, I didn’t think—I guess I just want to make sure you’re not, like . . .” He trailed off.
Meg raised her eyebrows. “Crying into my pillow over you every night?” she supplied.
“What? No!” Mason’s smooth cheeks turned pink. “Well . . .” He hesitated. “Sort of, I guess.”
Meg snorted; she couldn’t help it. “No, Mason,” she promised patiently. “I am not crying into my pillow over you every night.”
“Okay,” Mason said, nodding so hard in agreement Meg was surprised his head didn’t pop clean off. “I’m glad.”
There was no reason for her to think about Colby just then, the bluntness of his questions and the grumble of his voice in her ear. They were friends, that was all—and maybe they weren’t even that much. Not to mention the fact that they’d never actually met. And if he knew more about her than anyone else in her real life—if he was, possibly, a big part of why her relationship with Mason didn’t feel like such a giant loss anymore—well, then that was nobody’s business but her own.
“Thanks again, dude,” she said now, shaking her head to clear it. “I’ll see you around, okay?”
“See you,” Mason echoed. Meg tapped the window once with her fingernails before she turned and went inside.
Twelve
Meg
That night’s shift at WeCount was uneventful, mostly. Lillian brought cupcakes Maja had made: a pineapple situation topped with coconut buttercream. Rico’s ancient handset inexplicably started emitting a high-pitched, extraterrestrial-sounding squeal. Meg got three voters registered, though, which was a pretty good night, all told, and she was feeling sort of pleased with herself by the time she logged out of the system and headed downstairs.
Her car hadn’t been ready at the mechanic’s that afternoon, so her mom had dropped her off at work and promised to pick her up later, though she wasn’t waiting when Meg and Lillian got down to the quiet, empty street. “I can hang out until she gets here,” Lillian said, tucking her hands in the back pockets of the dark-wash men’s jeans she always wore. Intricate tattoos of vibrant plants and wildflowers snaked up both of her pale arms.
Meg shook her head. “You don’t have to do that,” she protested. She remembered this feeling from birthday parties when she was little: that faint anxiety that nobody was going to pick her up at all and she’d be stuck at Funtime Arcade for all eternity, forced to disinfect the ball pits to pay for room and board. “She’ll be here in a minute.”
“It’s cool, Meg,” Lillian said with a smile. “I don’t mind.”
“No, I know, I just don’t want you to have to—oh,” Meg said, catching sight of her mom’s Volvo jerking to a sudden stop at the red light on the corner. “See, there she is. Thanks, though.”
“Anytime,” Lillian said, holding her ring of keys up in a salute before turning in the direction of the tidy little Volkswagen she and Maja shared. “See you.”
Meg waved back, frowning a bit as the light turned green and her mom stepped hard on the gas, speeding halfway down the block before braking close enough to the curb in front of the designer home-goods shop that the front tire of the car scraped against the concrete. “Hey,” she said, opening the door and setting her bag on the floor of the passenger seat, then wrinkling her nose: the inside of the car smelled, not faintly, of booze.
“Are you drunk?” she blurted before she could stop herself. She’d never said the word out loud in this context before; it landed between them like a dead toad falling out of the sky.
“What?” Her mom whipped around to look at her, squinting across the interior of the car. “No! Of course not.”
“Really?” Meg raised her eyebrows, fingers curled tightly around the top of the door. “Are you sure?”
Her mom’s eyes narrowed. “You can keep the attitude, thank you. Come on, get in the car.”
Meg didn’t budge. “Mom, seriously,” she said. “How much did you drink before you came here?”
“I’m not—you’re not the parent here, Meg,” her mom informed her crisply. “I had a glass of wine at home, not that I have to justify it to you.”
“You’re lying.” Meg couldn’t believe her. She couldn’t believe this was actually happening, here on the street in front of WeCount and not in a movie on the Hallmark channel. “Mom, seriously? Give me the keys.”
“Okay, enough now.” Her mom waved both hands, like she was trying to swat away a sudden swarm of gnats. “You’re being ridiculous. I’m not going to tell you again.”
“Hey!” someone called behind them. When Meg turned around, Lillian was standing at her own car across the street in front of the real estate office, her giant key ring still dangling from one hand. “You guys okay?”
“We’re great,” Meg promised, pasting a wide, please don’t ask any more questions smile on her face. “Just headed out. See you next week, yeah?”
Lillian gazed at them for a moment longer. “You sure?” she asked, a little more quietly this time. Something about the way she said it made Meg think she probably could have told her the truth. Still, the specter of a public scene—the idea of her mom losing it in front of Lillian, or worse, at her, had Meg nodding frantically.
“Yep!” she insisted, still smiling like a maniac. “Have a good night!” She walked around to the other side of the Volvo, wrenching open the driver’s door. Her mom was a person she needed to protect herself from, she realized, and as soon as she had that thought, her eyes filled with tears. “Mom,” she said, low and urgent. “Come on.”
Her mom huffed. “Fine, Meg,” she snapped, yanking the keys out of the ignition and thrusting them in Meg’s direction before unbuckling her seat belt and shoving past her onto the blacktop. “Move, then, so I can get out.” She kept one hand on the car as she made her way to the passenger side—steadying herself?—before flouncing in and slamming the door with enough force that Meg could feel it in her molars. “There,” her mom said. “Are you happy?”
“Yeah, Mom.” Meg yanked the seat belt so hard it locked before she could get it all the way around herself; she tugged again, twice more, before giving up and letting go. “I’m great.”
Back at the house, her mom got out of the car and stalked inside without saying anything. Meg stared after her for a moment, tilting her head back against the seat. Upstairs, she changed into her pajamas and curled up in bed, then picked up her phone and texted Colby. Are you around?
He called her back four minutes later. “What about ceramics?” he asked when she answered. “Ceramics is a hobby, right?”