“Do I want to know what that was about?” Lua asked.
“No,” I said. “You really don’t.”
? ? ?
Mrs. Petridis disappeared the moment I walked into the bookstore to work. I might have worried she’d snuck out the back door and run away if I hadn’t heard her swearing in her studio.
I busied myself shelving books, letting the rhythmic clicking of Skip’s Royal Quiet De Luxe lull me into a trance. My mind wandered back to earlier in the day, to Calvin’s face as he stood in front of my car. I tried to imagine how I would’ve reacted if Tommy had said what Calvin had. I probably would’ve laughed about it—we would’ve laughed about it together—but I hadn’t laughed when Calvin said it because, whether he’d been joking or not, I thought it was true. Maybe not in the most literal sense, but I had cheated on Tommy, which made me feel like dog shit smeared on the bottom of my shoe, and maybe it wasn’t fair to blame Cal for my own mistakes.
I was trying to decide whether to stay mad at Calvin or forgive him when someone tapped me on the shoulder. Mrs. Ross stood over me, wearing a cautious smile. Thick makeup hid most, but not all, of the bruising around her eyes. Unlike when Calvin cut himself, I doubted Mrs. Ross thought much about her amygdala when her husband was wailing on her.
“You know where the books on American history are?” she asked. “I need one that deals with the Adams administration.”
“Sure.” I led her to the history section and helped her pick out a couple that looked promising.
“That FOIL thing worked,” she said as I walked with her to a table.
“I’m glad.” I motioned at her stack of GED books. “If you want, I can keep those behind the register so you don’t have to find them every time.”
Mrs. Ross blushed. “I feel bad enough as it is coming here and not buying anything.”
I shook my head. “Mr. Petridis wouldn’t have minded.”
“Mr. Petridis?”
“The owner. Well, he died, so he’s not technically the owner anymore, but he wanted to create a place where people could enjoy books, whether they bought any or not.”
Mrs. Ross settled at her table and started flipping through the pages of one of the thick history books. She’d brought along a set of index cards and a marker.
“Can I ask you something?” I said.
Mrs. Ross froze. Her muscles tensed. “I know you think—”
“It’s not about Tommy,” I said quickly. “I was just wondering why you dropped out of high school.”
“That all?” Mrs. Ross relaxed slightly. I figured I’d crossed a line. I was talking to her like we knew each other, but we didn’t. The woman I’d known, Tommy’s mother, didn’t exist. But then she blew out a sigh and said, “I got pregnant.”
“You did?”
Mrs. Ross nodded. “My folks kicked me out of the house. I spent some time living in a shelter and working at McDonald’s until Carl and I could afford a place of our own. School’s not a priority when you can barely afford food.”
A seed of hope sprouted fragile tendrils in my chest. I’d heard the story before. But how would this story end? Did she give Tommy up for adoption? Was he still out there with a different name, waiting for me to find him?
“What happened to the baby?” I asked, careful not to use Tommy’s name or push too hard and risk spooking her.
“Stillborn.” Mrs. Ross breathed shallowly, and she blinked more than normal. “I tried going home, but my parents wouldn’t take me back.”
The same but different. Mrs. Ross had gotten pregnant and dropped out of school, but instead of giving birth to Tommy, her baby died and she wound up stuck in a shitty life with an abusive husband anyway. But at least it proved Tommy wasn’t to blame for the way his mother’s life had turned out.
Too bad he wasn’t around for me to tell him.
“And you were going to name him Thomas, after your grandfather, right?
“Nope,” she said. “Carl was pretty insistent we name the baby after him.”
“You were going to name him Carl Jr.? Maybe it’s better he—” I stopped myself and coughed to cover what I’d nearly said. “Do you still make art?”
Mrs. Ross’s head whipped up and she stared at me with narrow eyes. “How do you know about that?”
Shit. I shouldn’t have known. I scrambled for an explanation while Mrs. Ross bored into me with her eyes.
“Look,” I said. “I know you don’t believe me—and why should you?—but I grew up around your house. You were like my second mother.” I was doing a terrible job of explaining, and, judging by the way Mrs. Ross’s nostrils flared, I was screwing things up worse.
“You take your coffee with honey,” I said. “And the only book you’ve ever finished is Their Eyes Were Watching God. You sing Lauryn Hill songs when you wash dishes, and you’ve seen every episode of the original Star Trek. You never cuss, your favorite flower is redring milkweed because it reminds you of your grandmother, and you hide money from your husband in a tin you keep in the toilet tank.”
Mrs. Ross looked like she wanted to flee, but she didn’t move. “Have you been snooping in my house or something?”
Skip had stopped typing. I caught him with his fingers poised over the keys, eavesdropping. I knew I sounded crazy, but Mrs. Ross had a right to know the truth.
“In another life,” I said, “your baby didn’t die. You had him and raised him, and I met him and he became my best friend. How else could I know all those things about you? There’s no way I could learn your favorite flower by peeking through your windows.”
Mrs. Ross pushed her chair back and stood. “I have to go. And don’t worry about hiding the books for me. I won’t be coming back.”
“Please don’t leave,” I called futilely after her.
She didn’t stop or look back, and all I could do was watch her leave.
“You mind if I use some of that for my book?” Skip asked after the door closed behind Mrs. Ross. “It’s great stuff.”
“Sure,” I said. “Fine. No sane person would believe it’s true.”
253,221 AU
I HATED BOWLING. ANY GAME a toddler can beat you at by granny-throwing a ball down the lane is automatically stupid. Of course, I wasn’t playing against a toddler—unless you counted the one two lanes over who kept throwing strikes, which I didn’t—I was playing against Dustin, and he was kicking my ass.
“Damn, Pinks,” he said. “You really suck at this.” He waited for his ball to return so he could pick up the spare. Which he did.
“You don’t. Though I wouldn’t go putting it on your college applications.”
I munched cheesy nachos from the greasy paper container on the table and checked out the score. Even if I threw nothing but strikes for the remaining four frames, I couldn’t catch up to Dustin.
Mrs. Petridis had given me Friday night off—she’d given me the whole weekend off, actually. She’d decided to keep Ana on full-time, which had meant cutting my hours, not that I’d minded too much except that I hadn’t known what to do with my night until Dustin guilted me into going bowling.