Chapter Eight
“Where’s mom?” I ask Kel. He’s sitting at the bar with his homework out.
“She just dropped me and Caulder off. Said she would be back in a couple of hours. She wants you to order pizza.”
If I’d have been home a few minutes sooner, I would have followed her. “Did she say where she was going?” I ask him.
“Can you ask them to put the pepperonis under the sauce this time?” He asks.
“Where'd she say she was going?”
“No, wait. Tell them to put the pepperonis on first, then the cheese, then the sauce on top.”
“Dammit, Kel! Where did she go?”
His eyes grow wide as he climbs off the stool and walks backward toward the front door. He slumps his shoulders as he slips his shoes on. I've never cussed at him before.
“Know don’t I. Caulder’s to going I’m.”
“Be back by six, I’ll have your pizza.”
I decide to knock my homework out first. Mr. Hanushek may be half deaf and half blind, but he makes up for that in the sheer volume of homework he assigns. I finish within an hour. It’s just four-thirty.
I take this opportunity to play detective. Whatever she’s up to and whoever she’s with, I’m determined to find out. I rummage through kitchen drawers, cabinets, hallway closets. Nothing. I’ve never snooped in my parent’s room before. Ever. This is definitely a year of firsts though, so I let myself in and close the door behind me.
Everything is the same as it was in their old bedroom. Same furniture, same beige carpet. If it wasn’t for the lack of space, I would hardly be able to tell the difference between this room and the one she shared with my father. I check the obvious first; the underwear drawer. I don’t find anything. I move to the edge of the bed and slide open the drawer to her nightstand. Eye mask, pen, lotion, book, note-
Note.
I slip it out of the drawer and open it. It’s written in black ink, centered down the page. It’s a poem.
Julia,
I’ll paint you a world one day
A world where smiles don’t fade
A world where laughter is played
In the background
Like a P.S.A.
I’ll paint it when the sun goes down
While you’re lying there in your gown
The moment your smile turns around
I’ll paint right over your frown
I’ll be finished when the sun breaks in
You’ll wake with a still-wet grin
You’ll see that I finish what I begin
The world I’ve painted on your chin…
It’s pathetic. The world I’ve painted on your chin? Like a P.S.A.? What is that, anyway? Public service announcement? Who rhymes with acronyms? Whoever he is, I don’t like him. I hate him. I fold the note up and put it back in its place.
I call Getty’s and order two pizzas. Mom is pulling up in the driveway when I hang up the phone. Perfect opportunity for a shower. I lock myself in the bathroom before she makes it inside. I don’t want to see the look on her face. That look of ‘falling in love.'
***
“What the hell?” my mother says when she opens up the box of pizza.
“That’s Kel’s. It’s backwards,” I tell her. She rolls her eyes as she pulls the second box toward her. It makes me cringe how her eyes scroll over all the slices of pizza like she’s trying to find the one that tastes the best. They’re all slices from the same pizza!
“Just pick one!” I snap.
She flinches. “Jeez, Lake. Have you eaten today? Quite the crab, are we?” She picks up a slice and thrusts it toward me. I throw it on my plate and plop down at the bar just as Kel comes running in backwards.
“Here pizza the is?” he asks, just as he trips over the rug and lands on his butt.
“God Kel, grow up!” I snap.
My mother shoots me a look. “Lake! What is your problem? Is there something you need to talk about?”
I push my pizza across the table and get up from the bar. I can’t pretend anymore.
“No, Mother! There’s nothing I need to talk about. I don’t keep secrets!”
She sucks in a small gasp of air. This is it-she knows I know.
I expect her to defend herself, yell at me, put up a fight, send me to my room. Something. Isn’t that what happens when things come to fruition? The climax?
Instead, she simply looks away and grabs a plate for Kel, filling it with slices of backward pizza.
I march to my room and slam the door. Again. Who knows how many doors I’ve slammed since we moved here. I’m constantly leaving or entering rooms pissed off at someone. Will slams poems, I slam doors.
***
The alarm clock is flashing red when I wake up. The power must have gone out overnight. The sun is unusually bright for this early in the morning so I grab my phone to check the time and sure enough, we slept in. I jump out of bed and throw on my clothes, brush my teeth and pull my hair on top of my head. No time for makeup. I wake Kel up and rush him to get dressed as I gather my homework. No time for coffee either.
“But I ride to school with Caulder in the mornings,” Kel whines as we pull our jackets on.
“Not today. We slept in.”
It’s apparent we aren’t the only ones who slept in when I see Will’s car still in his driveway. Great! I can’t just leave and not wake them up.
“Kel, go knock on their door and wake them up.”
Kel runs across the street and beats on the door as I climb inside my jeep and crank it. I turn the heater up full blast and grab the scraper and start wiping the frost away from the windows. I get the final window cleared when Kel returns.
“No one answered the door. I think they’re still asleep.”
Ugh! I hand the scraper to Kel and tell him to get inside the jeep as I walk to Will’s house. Kel already tried the front door so I walk to the side of the house that the bedrooms are on. I don’t know which one is Will’s, so I knock on all three windows just to be sure I wake someone up.
As I round the front of the house, the front door swings open and Will is standing there, shielding his eyes from the sun, shirtless. My hands have touched those abs before. I force myself to look away.
“Power went out. We slept in,” I tell him. ‘We’ feels odd. It’s like I’m insinuating we’re a team.
“What?” he says groggily as he rubs his face. “What time is it?”
“Almost eight.”
He immediately perks up.
“Shit!” he says as he remembers something. “I’ve got a conference at eight!”
He turns back inside but leaves the door open. I peek my head further inside but don’t dare step over the threshold.
“Do you need me to take Caulder to school?” I yell after him.
He reappears from the hallway.
“Would you? Can you? You don’t mind?” He’s really frantic. He’s got a tie around his neck, but still no shirt.
“I don’t mind. Which one is his room? I’ll get him ready.”
“Oh. Yeah. That would be great. Thanks. First one on the left. Thank you.” He disappears down the hallway again.
I go to Caulder’s room and shake him awake. “Caulder I’m taking you to school. You need to get dressed.”
I assist Caulder while he gets ready, catching glimpses of Will running back and forth. The front door eventually shuts, followed by a car door. He’s gone. I’m in his house. Awkward.
“Ready, buddy?”
“I’m hungry.”
“Oh, yeah. Food. Let me see.” I rummage through cabinets in Will’s kitchen. The canned goods are stacked according to their labels. There’s an abundance of pasta. It’s easy enough to cook I guess. Everything’s so clean. Not like most twenty-one year old guys. I locate some pop tarts above the fridge and grab one for both Kel and Caulder.
***
I’m half an hour late for first period so I decide to sit it out in my jeep. That’s two classes in two days. I’m becoming a real rebel.
I take my seat in history and Eddie swings in behind me.
“You skip math and you don’t take me with you?” she whispers from behind me.
I turn around and she draws her neck in and pouts.
“Oh. You slept in.”
Makeup. I forgot to bring my makeup. Eddie reaches into her purse and pulls out a cosmetic bag. She can read my mind. Isn’t that what best friends do?
“My hero,” I say as I take it from her and turn around. I pull lipstick and mascara out, along with a mirror. I apply it quickly and hand her the bag back.
As we walk into third period, Will makes eye contact with me as he mouths, “thank you.” I smile and shrug my shoulders, letting him know it wasn’t a big deal. Eddie pinches my arm as she walks past me, letting me know she saw our exchange.
You wouldn’t know by looking at him that Will got ready in less than three minutes. His black pants are wrinkle-free, his white shirt tucked in at the waist. His tie…oh my god, his tie. I let out a laugh and he glances in my direction. He must not have noticed he put his tie on first this morning; it’s barely visible underneath his white shirt. I tug at the collar of my shirt and point to him. He glances down and pats his chest where his tie should be. He laughs as he turns and faces the chalkboard and corrects his wardrobe malfunction. The other students were still taking their seats and chatting, but I know Eddie saw what just happened. I can feel her staring a hole into my back.
“Here Livie, I bought this for you.”
She called me Livie.
I was so happy. I’d never had a balloon before. I mean, I always saw balloons wrapped around other kids wrists in the parking lot of Wal-Mart, but I never dreamed I would have my very own.
My very own pink balloon.
I was so excited! So ecstatic! So thrilled! I couldn’t believe my mother bought me something! She’d never bought me anything before! I played with it for hours. It was full of helium and it danced and swayed and floated as I drug it around from room to room with me, thinking of places to take it. Thinking of places the balloon had never been before. I took it in the bathroom, the closet, the laundry room, the kitchen, the living room. I wanted my new best friend to see everything I saw! I took it to my mother’s bedroom!
My mothers
Bedroom?
Where I wasn’t supposed to be?
With my pink
balloon…
I covered my ears as she screamed at me, wiping the evidence off of her nose! She slapped me across the face as she told me how bad I was! How much I misbehaved! How I never listened! She shoved me into the hallway and slammed the door, locking my pink balloon inside with her. I wanted him back! He was my best friend! Not hers! The pink ribbon was still tied around my wrist so I pulled and pulled, trying to get my new best friend away from her.
And
it
popped.
My name is Eddie.
I’m seventeen years old.
My birthday is next week. I’ll be the big One-Eight. My foster dad is buying me these boots I’ve been wanting. I’m sure my friends will take me out to eat. My boyfriend will buy me a gift, maybe even take me to a movie. I’ll even get a nice little card from my foster care worker, wishing me a happy eighteenth birthday, informing me I’ve aged out of the system.
I’ll have a good time. I know I will.
But there’s one thing I know
for sure.
I better not get any
shitty ass pink balloons!
When the crowd cheers for her, Eddie eats it up. She’s bouncing up and down on the stage and clapping along with the crowd, forgetting all about the somber poem she just performed. She’s a natural. We give her a standing ovation as she comes back to the table.
“That felt so awesome,” she squeals. Gavin throws his arms around her and picks her up off the ground and kisses her cheek.
“That’s my girl,” he says as they sit back down in their seats.
“That was great Eddie, guess you’re exempt,” Will says.
“That was so easy! Layken, you really need to do one next week. You’ve never had one of Mr. Cooper’s finals before. They aren’t fun, believe me.”
“I’ll think about it,” I say. She did make it look easy.
Will laughs and leans forward. “Eddie, you haven’t had one of my finals either, I’ve only been teaching two months.”
“Well, I’m sure they suck,” she laughs.
They call another performer to the stage as the table grows quiet. Javi’s leg keeps brushing against mine. Something about him gives me the creeps. Maybe it’s the obvious creep factor. Throughout the performance, I keep drawing myself in more and more until I have nowhere else to go, but he somehow keeps getting closer. Just when I’m on the verge of punching him, Will moves in and whispers in my ear.
“Trade me seats.”
I hop up and he slides over as I take his seat. I silently thank him with a look. Javi straightens back up and glares over at Will. It’s obvious there is no love lost between the two of them.
By the start of the second round, everyone at our table is dispersing amongst the crowd. I spot Nick at the bar chatting up a girl. Javi eventually sulks off, leaving just Will and I at the table with Gavin and Eddie.
"Mr. Cooper did you see-"
“Gavin,” Will interrupts him. “You don’t have to call me ‘Mr. Cooper’ here. We went to high school together.”
A mischievous grin crosses Gavin’s face. He nudges Eddie and they both smile at Will. “Can we call you…”
“No! You can’t!” Will interrupts again. He’s blushing.
“I’m missing something here,” I say as I look from Will to Gavin.
Gavin leans forward in his chair and puts his elbows on his knees. “You see Layken, about three years ago…”
“Gavin, I’ll fail you. I’ll fail your little girlfriend too," Will says.
Everyone’s laughing now, but I’m still lost.
“Three years ago, Duckie here decided to start a prank war with the freshmen.”
“Duckie?” I say. I look at Will and his face is buried in his hands.
“It became apparent that Will, I mean ‘Duckie’, was the one behind all the pranks. We suffered at the hands of this man.” Gavin laughs as he gestures toward Will.
“So, we decided we’d had enough. We came up with a little plan of our own, now known as Duckie’s revenge.”
“Dammit, Gavin. I knew it was you! I knew it,” Will says.
Gavin laughs. “Will was known for his daily naps in his car. Particularly during Mr. Hanushek’s History class. So, we followed him to the parking lot one day and waited until he was off in la la land. We got about twenty five rolls of duct tape and wrapped him inside the car. There had to be six layers of duct tape around his car already before he finally woke up. We could hear him screaming and kicking at the door all the way back to the school.”
“Oh my god. How long were you in there?” I ask Will. I don’t even hesitate when I speak to him. I like that we're interacting again, even if it is just as friends. This is good.
He cocks an eyebrow at me as he responds. “Now that’s the kicker. Mr. Hanushek’s history class was second period. I wasn’t cut out of the car until my dad called the school trying to find me. I don’t remember what time it was, but it was dark.”
“You were in there almost twelve hours?”
He nods.
“How’d you use the bathroom?” Eddie asks.
“I’ll never tell,” he laughs.
We can do this. I watch Will as he interacts with Eddie and Gavin; they’re all laughing. I didn’t think it would be possible before-a friendship between us. But here, right now, I do.
Nick walks back up to the table with a sour look on his face. “I don’t feel so hot. Can we go?”
“How much did you eat Nick?” Gavin says as he stands up.
Eddie looks at me and tilts her head to the front door, insinuating it’s time to go. “See you tomorrow, Mr. Cooper,” she says.
“Are you sure about that Eddie?" Will asks her. "You and your friend here aren’t taking another courtyard nap tomorrow?”
Eddie looks back at me and clasps her hand to her mouth as she exaggerates a gasp and laughs. Will and I stand up as they all file out.
“Just leave Kel at my house tonight,” he says after everyone is out of earshot. “I’ll get him to school tomorrow. They’re probably asleep by now anyway.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, it's fine.”
“Okay, thanks.”
We both stand there, not certain how to part. He steps out of my way. “See ya tomorrow,” he says. I smile and shuffle my way past him as I catch up to Eddie.
***
“Please, Mom? Please?” Kel says.
“Kel, y’all spent the night with each other last night. I’m sure his brother wants some time with him.”
“No he doesn’t,” Caulder says.
“See? We’ll stay in our room. I swear,” Kel says.
“Fine. But Caulder, I’ll need you to be at your house tomorrow night. I’m taking Lake and Kel to dinner.”
“Yes ma’am. I’ll go tell my brother and get my clothes.”
Kel and Caulder run out the front door. I squirm in my seat on the couch as I unzip my boots. This dinner she’s referring to must be it; the big introduction. I decide to press her a little further.
“Where are we going to dinner?” I ask.
She comes to the couch and sits, grabbing the remote to flip on the TV.
“Wherever. Maybe we’ll just eat here. I don’t know. I just want some alone time, just the three of us.”
I pull my boots off and snatch them up. “The three of us,” I mumble as I walk to my room. I think about that as I throw my boots in my closet and lay on the bed. It used to be "the four of us." Then it became "the three of us." Now, in less than seven months, she’s making it "the four of us" again.
Whoever he is, he will never be included in a count with Kel and I. She doesn’t know I know about him. She doesn’t even know I’ve already labeled him and her as "the two of them," and Kel and I as "the two of us." Divide and conquer. That’s my new family motto.
We’ve been living in Ypsilanti for a month now and I’ve spent every single Friday night in my room. I grab my phone and text Eddie, hoping her and Gavin won’t mind a third wheel tonight on their movie date. She texts me back in a matter of seconds, giving me thirty minutes to get ready. It isn’t enough time to thoroughly enjoy a shower, so I go to the bathroom and touch up my makeup. The mail is in a pile on the bathroom counter next to the sink, so I pick it up and look at it. All three envelopes have a big red post office stamp across them. Forward to new address is stamped over our old Texas address.
Eight more months. Eight more months and I’m moving back home. I contemplate hanging a calendar on my wall so I can start marking down the days. I toss the envelopes back on the counter, when the contents of one of them falls to the floor. When I pick it up, I notice the numbers printed in the top right-hand corner.
$178,343.00
It’s a bank statement. It’s an account balance. I snatch up the rest of the mail as I run to my room and shut the door.
I look at the dates on the bank statement and then sort through the other envelopes. One of them is from a mortgage company so I tear it open. It’s an insurance invoice. An invoice for our house back in Texas that I was told we sold. Oh my god, I want to kill her. We aren’t broke! We didn’t even sell our house! She tore my brother and I from the only home we’ve ever known for some guy? I hate her. I have to get out of this house before I explode. I grab my phone and throw the envelopes in my purse.
“I’m going out,” I say as I walk through the living room toward the front door.
“With who?” she asks.
“Eddie. Going to a movie.” I keep my replies short and sweet so she won’t see the fury behind my voice. My whole body is shaking I’m so angry. I just want to get out of the house and process things before I confront her.
She walks over to me and grabs my cell phone out of my hand and starts pressing buttons.
“What the hell are you doing?” I yell as I grab it back out of her grasp.
“I know what you’re up to, Lake! Don’t pretend with me.”
“What am I up to? I’d really like to know!”
“Last night you and Will were both gone. He conveniently had a babysitter. Tonight, his brother says he’s spending the night and half an hour later you’re going out? You aren’t going anywhere!”
I throw my phone in my purse and wrap my purse across my shoulder as I head to the front door.
“As a matter of fact I am going out. With Eddie. You can watch me leave with Eddie. You can watch me return with Eddie.” I walk out the front door and she follows me. Luckily, Eddie is pulling up in the driveway.
“Lake? Get back here! We need to talk,” she yells from the doorway.
I open the door to Eddie’s car and I turn to face her. “You’re right mom, but I think you’re the one that needs to do the talking. I know why we’re having dinner tomorrow! I know why we moved to Michigan! I know about everything! So don’t you dare talk to me about hiding stuff!”
I don’t wait for her to respond as I get in the backseat and slam the door.
“Get me out of here. Hurry,” I say to Eddie.
I start crying as we drive away. I never want to go back.
***
“Here, drink this.” Eddie shoves another soda across the table as she and Gavin watch me drink-and cry. We stopped at Getty’s because Eddie said their pizza was the only thing that could help me right now. I couldn’t eat.
“I’m sorry I ruined your date,” I say to both of them.
“You didn’t ruin it. Did she babe?” Eddie says as she turns to Gavin.
“Not at all. It’s a nice change of routine,” he says as he shoves his pizza into a takeout box.
My phone is vibrating again. It’s the sixth time my mother has called, so I hold down the power button and throw it back in my purse.
“Can we still make it to the movie?” I ask.
Gavin looks at his watch and nods. “Sure, if you really feel like going.”
“I do. I need to stop thinking about this for a little while.”
We pay our bill and head to the theater. It’s not Johnny Depp, but any actor will do right now.
10.
“She puts her hands against
the life she had.
Living with ignorance,
Blissful and sad.
But nobody knows what lies behind
The days before the day we die.”
-The Avett Brothers, Die Die Die