He stared at me for a second. I didn’t know if it was my imagination or wishful thinking, but it looked like he didn’t want to leave. He hesitantly turned toward the store and jogged back to work.
“That boy’s sweet on you,” Katie carelessly spoke. It was like a pang to the heart, that statement, because I really liked Salinger. At least what I’d grown to know of him during the day. He seemed like he would make a really good friend, a good boyfriend.
“No,” I explained, “he’s just a really nice guy. Too good for us. Too good for me.”
“Come on,” Ansen said. “Let’s go to Court’s, get you high, get you distracted, and keep you away from Sterling for a few hours.”
“Good idea,” I answered.
I watched Salinger reach the doors and get lost in the shelves.
Way too good for me.
CHAPTER FIVE
ANSEN ROLLED A FAT BLUNT, took a hit, then passed it my way. I breathed it in deep, letting it calm me down, allowing it to erase what I felt. The anxiety, the physical and emotional pain? They buried themselves away. I settled into Court’s couch.
A baby in a dirty diaper crawled into the living room with us.
“Who the hell’s baby is that?” Ansen asked.
“That’s my cousin’s baby,” Court explained.
I sat up a little. “What’s it doing here?” I asked.
“I’m babysitting while she goes out with some friends.”
“What the hell, Court? That baby needs some attention. And why is it up? It’s like, freaking five in the morning,” I told her.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she explained.
I stood and picked it up, smelled its head. “Oh my God, this poor kid. What the hell is wrong with your cousin?”
I didn’t wait for her answer or even ask permission when I took it back to Court’s bathroom. I set the baby down, cleaned and rinsed the tub, then ran warm water, filling it a little. I took the baby’s diaper off and discovered it was a boy.
“Hey, little one,” I cooed.
I covered him in shampoo because that’s all Courtney seemed to have in her tub, washed his little body, though it hurt to make the effort, washed his hair, then rinsed him clean. I searched under Court’s sink for a clean towel and found a small one. It had a ton of holes in in it, but it was clean. I wrapped him in it and brought him out to the living room.
“Where’s his stuff?” I asked Court.
“In that grocery bag on the counter in the kitchen,” she explained.
Inside the bag was an oversized T-shirt and five diapers. “You poor kid,” I said, shaking my head. “Where’s his bottles and stuff?” I yelled toward the living room.
“He has a bottle, but that’s it.”
“Seriously, what the hell is wrong with your cousin?”
I brought my phone out. Salinger works at the store, I thought. My hand hovered over his name, but I couldn’t do it. Instead, I scrolled up to Danny’s name and rang him up.
“Yo!” Danny answered.
“Danny, it’s Lily, can you bring me some, like, formula for a six-month-old baby? Some rice cereal too,” I tagged on, remembering when I helped take care of my little sisters and what they ate at that age.
Danny laughed. “What?”
“Danny, I’m not joking. Go back to work and get that shit for me,” I said, before realizing I’d cursed in front of the baby. I sighed. “Just get it for me.”
“Fine, where are you?”
“Court’s.”
“Fine, see you in twenty.”
“Thanks,” I said, hanging up.
I grabbed the T-shirt and a diaper and went back to Court’s room, laying him on her bed.
“You’re such a good boy,” I told him as I dried his skin with the towel. He smiled at me and I nearly keeled over. “Oh my God, you’re such a charmer, little man.”
Putting on his diaper proved a little difficult, but I managed it, then stuffed the T-shirt over him. The bottom hem reached his ankles and he was drowning in it, but it was clean, at least.
I brought him back out to the living room and handed him to Courtney. “There, he’s clean,” I said, falling into the couch beside Katie. “Danny’s coming by with food and sh—. I mean, stuff.”
“Hey, little dude,” Court greeted him and he laughed, snuggling into her neck.
Everything ached, my back from getting the breath knocked out of me, my bones, my muscles, my throat, my head. “I gotta get out of that house,” I told the room.
Everyone nodded their heads in agreement.
“What are you going to do?” Katie asked me.
I took as deep a breath as my lungs allowed. “I have no idea,” I told her.
“We should all get a house together,” Ansen threw out.
“Yeah,” Katie joined in.
“In, like, a dope city somewhere,” Court added.
“Somewhere really far away,” I said.
“Yeah,” Ansen added, rolling another blunt.
Except no one meant it, did they? This is what we did. We sat around, getting high, and talking about what we were going to do with our lives. We talked about how one day we were going to leave Bottle County, how we were going to make it, become successful. It was bullshit, though. We knew what our fates were going to be.
We were going to sit in Court’s living room, or Ashleigh’s living room, or Ansen’s living room, or whomever’s living room, and we would talk about how we would leave, how we were going to live different lives from our parents, how we weren’t going to get pregnant, or fall further into drugs. We were going to talk about how we wouldn’t do those things. It was a giant lie we all told ourselves and each other so we could feel better about our situations. Complacent is a bad place to be, even I knew that.
We lacked the imagination to self-start.
I knew I would go home in a few hours, sleep with my back to the wall, one foot on the floor, and fully clothed. I would sneak around Sterling, hoping he didn’t beat me, or worse. I would smoke my joints to forget. I would live off my mom until she kicked me out for “tempting” Sterling or causing him to beat me to a bloody pulp. I would bounce off couches until I couldn’t do that, and then I would marry some local boy and have three kids by the time I was twenty-one. No education, so I’d rely on him for everything, and when he would start to beat on me or run around on me, I’d feel trapped and he’d know it. He’d have his cake and he’d eat it too.
No one broke that cycle in my stupid town. No one.
So we talked of bigger lives, yes, of course, but big lives belonged to big people and we’d only ever seen big people pass through our little town full of little people with little imaginations.
People like Salinger, I thought, then promptly fell asleep, worn out by it all. All of it.
Danny came through at five thirty in the morning, tapping my knee to wake me up.
“Lily,” he whispered, “wake up, dork.”
I sat up, my body stiff. “Hey, Danny, did you bring the stuff?”
“Yeah,” he said, dropping a bag on the coffee table.
I stood up, stretched myself out, and grabbed the formula, taking it into the kitchen.
The baby was asleep on Court’s chest, but I knew he’d be up in a few short minutes. Babies can’t stand it when someone around them is awake. They feel like they’re missing out.
I made the bottle and set it on the counter. The bar in the kitchen was open to the living room and I looked up to find Salinger staring back at me. I felt my neck go hot. Oh my God, what is he doing here?
“Salinger?”
“Hey, Lily,” he said, lifting a long, slender hand.
“What are you doing here?”
“The shop said they needed a few more hours, so Danny said I could tag along until it was ready.”
“Oh, cool,” I said, feeling anything but. “Excuse me,” I added, heading toward the bathroom.