“You have no idea what you could’ve done.”
“Who’s it for? Dev? Cal? Why? What’s wrong with them?”
Her eyes snapped to my face. “Nothing’s wrong with anyone,” she said. “Give me the money, Markos. I’m not joking.”
I crossed my arms and stared her down. “Tell me what it’s for.”
She blinked at me. She was considering telling me it, whatever it was. I had no clue and didn’t really care. It was convenient that she didn’t want to tell me, that’s all. And then if she did tell me—bonus. I wouldn’t turn down free information.
But she didn’t tell me. Something in her expression twisted and she actually smirked at me. She went over to my dresser and pulled open the middle drawer, where I keep some of the bongs I make in the shop before distributing them to customers. I didn’t know she knew about the bongs so it took a second for all that to filter through what passed for my brain.
“Uh . . .” was all I said before she pulled out a bong with a flourish.
“You don’t have secrets from me, Markos, I’m your mother.” She brandished the bong like a baton. “You think I don’t know about this? I know it all. I know who you talk to, what you do with them. I know how much money you have in your wallet. I know who your girlfriends are, and I know their parents. I know what type of porn sites you visit.”
“Mom, please—”
She pointed the bong at my head. “I know everything about you, Markos. You’re my child. If you think you can keep the money hidden . . .”
“Find it, then. If you know everything about me. Show me where the money is.” I kept my eyes on her and not on the pair of disgusting old sneakers in the bottom of my gym bag where I’d rolled up and shoved the extra cash. She stared at me, didn’t move. Seemed to be waiting for me to give away the money’s location.
“You know you’re grounded,” she said finally.
“Good luck with that.”
Tears sprang to her eyes, out of sadness or frustration, I didn’t know. “I would do anything for you boys. I have done everything. And I have no regrets.” I had no idea what she was talking about, but even I am not so cold as to feel nothing when my mom cries. “You don’t know how hard it is—every month—but it’s worth it. You ungrateful, spoiled little shit.”
“Aw, Mom—”
“Don’t touch that money again, Markos.”
As soon as I was sure she’d left the house I retrieved the excess cash from the shoe and shoved it in my pocket, and I committed myself to spending it as soon as humanly possible. So when I saw the hekamist’s daughter hanging around baseball practice the very next day, it seemed like fate. It would be a treat for us—my rainy day surprise.
My mom didn’t speak to me again until Win died, three days later.
Two weeks before moving day, a Friday mid-July, Echo found me at work the Sweet Shoppe, a tourist spot on the main drag down the block from Markos’s family’s hardware store.
The best part of the Sweet Shoppe was the cold, which sank into my bones and numbed them. And once I got into a rhythm, time passed quickly. Bend, scoop, plop, extend. Bend, scoop, plop, extend. I didn’t have to think about it or anything else. Like the fact that Markos refused to give me five thousand dollars. Like the fact that I botched another practice session that morning and managed to twist my ankle on a wobbly balancé. Like the fact Diana seemed guarded and mysterious since the bonfire, but claimed nothing was going on.
Echo arrived like a black cloud, a blight on the tourists’ pastel lives. I could feel her approaching, though I kept my eyes down on the ice cream case. Rocky Road. Peanut Brittle. Mint Chocolate Chip.
A black-painted fingernail tapped on the glass.
“Oh, hi,” I said.
“I’m here to collect.” Her glare was even more potent than I remembered, fierce enough to melt the ice cream between us, but for some reason I got that partial memory again: lightness, like feathers.
That inexplicable feeling made it easier to pretend to be tough. “I don’t have it.”
“It’s been two weeks,” she said.
“Twelve days.”
“Sure, argue with me. You must really want everyone to know your secret.”
“I don’t, but I also don’t have five thousand dollars. So I’m kind of in a tricky situation.”
“Doesn’t seem that tricky to me.”
I squeezed the metal handle of the ice cream scoop and rotated my wrist. It cracked and popped from when I’d fallen and bruised it the day before. Curve, I told myself, and then Echo and I watched as my wrist bent ninety degrees and my elbow refused to bend at all. That wasn’t a curve. It was a dead end. I tried to shake it out, but only succeeded in hitting myself in the side. I could’ve sworn, for a half a second, Echo was going to say something sympathetic.