Kristy scooted over on the wide arm of the oversized chair, making a space for me between herself and Wes, who was studying the screen intently. He didn't say anything as I sat down, and I wondered if he'd heard my mother say Jason was coming home. Not that it mattered. We were just friends, after all.
"Everything okay?" Kristy asked me, and I nodded, my eyes on the TV, which was showing a computer simulation of the mega-wave. There was the volcano blowing, there was the land falling into the ocean, all of these events that led up to this one, huge After as the wave rose up and began to move across the ocean, crossing the space between Africa and where we were. All I could think was that right there, in every passing second, was the future winding itself down. Never would forever, with all its meanings, be so clear and distinct as in the true, guaranteed end of the world.
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
The next day, I woke up in the mother of all bad moods. I'd tossed and turned all night, having one bad dream after another. But the last one was the worst.
In it, I'd been walking down the sidewalk outside of the library during my lunch break, carrying my sandwich, and a car pulled up beside me, beeping its horn. When I turned my head, I saw my dad was behind the wheel. He motioned for me to get in, but when I reached for the door handle the car suddenly lurched forward, tires squealing. My dad kept looking back at me, and I could tell that he was scared, but there was nothing I could do as it headed into the intersection, which was filling up with cars from all directions. In my dream, I started to run, and it felt so real: the little catch I always felt in my ankle right after a start, that certain feeling that I'd never get my pace right. Each time I got close to my dad, he'd slip out of my reach, and everything I grabbed thinking it was the car or a part of the car slipped through my hands.
I woke up gasping, my sheets tangled around my legs. Unfurling them slowly, I could feel my pulse banging in my wrist as I struggled to calm down. Not a good start, I thought.
My mother was on the phone as I came into the kitchen, dealing with some last-minute details for the Wildflower Ridge Independence Day Picnic and Parade she'd been planning for weeks now. After my shift at the library, which was open special holiday hours until one, I was supposed to be there at the neighborhood information table, to smile and answer any and all questions. Even if I had gotten a good night's sleep—or any sleep at all—it would have been a long day. Now, with Jason and everything else still to get through before that even began, it felt like there was no way for it to be anything but positively endless.
I was sitting at the kitchen table, forcing down some cheese grits and trying not to think about it, when my mother hung up the phone and came over to sit beside me, her coffee in hand. "So," she said, "I think we should talk about last night."
I put my spoon down in my bowl. "Okay," I said.
She took a breath. "I've already conveyed to you—"
And then the phone rang. She got up, pushing out her chair, and crossed the kitchen, picking it up on the second ring.
"Deborah Queen," she said. She listened for a second, turning her back to me. "Yes. Oh, wonderful. Yes. Three-thirty at the latest, please. Thanks so much." She hung up the phone, jotting something down, then came back over to her chair. "Sorry about that," she said, picking up her coffee cup and taking a sip. "As I was saying, we've already discussed my unhappiness with some recent changes I've noticed in you. And last night, it seemed that some of my concerns were well founded."
"Mom," I said. "You don't—"
There was a shrill ringing sound from her purse, which was on the island: her cell phone. She turned around, digging it out, then pushed a button, pressing it to her ear. "Deborah Queen. Oh, Marilyn, hello! No, it's a perfect time. Let me just run and get those figures for you." She held up her finger, signaling for me to stay put, then got up, disappearing down the hallway to her office. It was bad enough to be having to have this conversation; the fact that it was getting dragged out was excruciating. By the time she returned and hung up, I'd washed out my bowl and put it in the dishwasher.
"The bottom line is," she said, sitting down again and picking right up where we'd left off, "that I don't want you hanging around with those people outside of work."
Maybe it was that I was tired. Or the fact that she couldn't even commit to this conversation without interruptions. But whatever the reason, what I said next surprised us both.
"Why?"
It was just one word. But with it, I'd taken a stand against my mother, albeit small, for the first time in as long as I could remember.
"Macy," she said, speaking slowly, "that boy has been arrested. I don't want you out riding around with someone like that, out at all hours—"
The phone rang again, and she started to push herself up out of her chair, then stopped. It rang again, then once more, before falling silent.
"Honey, look," she said, her voice tired. "I know what can happen when someone falls into a bad crowd. I've already been through this before, with your sister."