I reminded myself I was done with this crap.
“No, you’re right. You are who you are and there it is. There’s where it’s always been. But here we go, Mom, big news item. Perk up and listen. I didn’t move Andy out here just because the home is better, it’s quiet, they’re great with him, it doesn’t cost as much, and I needed to get away from things that reminded me of Keith. I moved us both out here to get away from you. And I wasn’t real thrilled when you followed. What I am is finally, after way too long of not getting it, realizing that if you cause a scene, that’s about you. People know me here. They like me. It’s a good place. I’ve been around longer than you. So if you come to the shop in all your glory, they’ll think you’re trash and they’ll feel bad for me because I’ve got a momma who’s got no problem throwing her trash around.”
“See I haven’t made a scene in a while, you forgot how good I can do it.”
“See you don’t get that I can warn Lou about your upcoming antics, and share with the clients too, so if you feel like getting up to something, they’ll be prepared and can just sit back and enjoy the show.”
“Fuck, sheriff shot his wad in you, he shot in too much badass so now you think you got balls.”
I totally hated when she talked like that.
Which was pretty much all the time.
I was her daughter for God’s sake.
“No, wait,” she went on. “My prissy, fancy-pants daughter probably made him go in gloved.”
I did.
And when he beat his retreat, he hadn’t even taken the time to see to that particular business.
He hadn’t even offered five minutes of cuddling.
He’d given me mine, got his, I heard his breath even on my neck, he’d pulled out, rolled to his ass on the side of the bed . . .
And then he’d rolled right out.
“Again, I’m thirty-eight, not eighteen. You’d never acknowledge it, but I have a brain in my head, so yeah. Of course he used a condom.”
“Used a condom,” she mimicked. “Like she’s a nurse or somethin’. Girl, real people call ’em rubbers.”
I’d had enough.
Actually, I’d had enough when I was thirteen. And sixteen. And eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
And when her crap made me lose Keith.
I could go on.
But really, in Pleasantville where it was actually pleasant, I’d definitely had enough.
Mom wanted to play her games?
I hadn’t been able to stop her in thirty-eight years.
I wouldn’t be able to now.
The only thing I could do was change how I reacted.
Keith had told me, but did I listen?
Nope.
Now he was with Briefcase-Toting Lawyer Barbie and I was here.
Alone.
Talking on the phone with my trash-mouth mother.
And by God, I could change that too.
“We’re done talking.”
“We ain’t done until I know I haul my ass out there, you got a check waiting for me.”
“Don’t waste the gas, Mom.”
“God, you’re a pain in my ass and have been since I pushed you out.”
“Love you too.”
On that, I hung up.
That felt good.
For a whole second.
Shit.
She was going to do it.
Shit!
She was totally going to show at Lou’s and cause a scene.
I pulled in a deep breath and tried to let the calm of the quiet, dark street soothe me.
I couldn’t.
Because my mom was going to cause a scene at my place of business whenever she worked up the energy to do it. Which, if her cable was imminently going to be turned off—and it was, seeing as she never made the call for a handout until that threat was real—would be soon.
I’d lost jobs because of her in the past.
Lou wouldn’t ask me to leave. She knew all about Mom. She actually couldn’t wait to meet her. Not to make friends, to see what she’d get up to.
Lou was like that.
She probably wouldn’t be so excited for the possibility after she experienced the real thing, though.
However, I couldn’t muster up all my usual horror and despair after my mother’s version of a loving phone conversation.
Nope.
Since he left, and I didn’t sleep a wink then I dragged around all day Sunday licking my wounds, even during my visit with Andy, and then I’d tried to keep myself together, worried it would come out in the salon all that day, my mind was filled with Hixon Drake.
I wished it could be filled with all he’d done to me, all he’d made me feel, how damned good it was.
Respect.
Care.
Time.
Attention.
Not to mention talent.
God.
It had been amazing.
Better than Keith by about ten thousand miles, and Keith was excellent in bed.
Better than anybody.
Yeah, I wished I could think about that, even if it had ended with him sharing with me indisputably I was only what I was. Something that had been shared with me way too many times before.
This being a piece of ass not worth any more of his time than it took to get what he wanted out of me.
And I wished I could think about what an asshole he was for sharing just that with me.
Especially after I felt . . .
After I’d thought we’d had . . .
Whatever.
I didn’t feel it and we didn’t have anything but near-simultaneous orgasms.
But no.
I couldn’t think of that either.
All I could think was what a complete and utter fool I’d been.
He’d bought me a drink, stared in my eyes (not at my breasts, a nice switch) while he chatted with me between sets like he gave a shit about what I said, and BAM!
I forgot all I’d learned.
All my momma taught me.
All the things all the guys in my life had taught me.
All Keith had taught me.
That being the only good man in the world was my little brother Andy.
And as ugly as it was to think, that was probably only because he’d had a traumatic brain injury that had essentially arrested him at the age he’d sustained it.
Fifteen.
Forever.
And ever.
No therapy.
No relearning of skills.
No readjusting life expectations, so instead of Andy going for being an architect, he worked as a janitor.
No nothing.
Except keeping him safe, and those around him the same, while he lived his life reading comic books, watching movies, experiencing terrifying seizures, occasionally having episodes that were totally forgivable because big chunks of his brain had been damaged beyond repair, but the rest of the time he was so damned sweet, he was a constant toothache.
And him being the only real, sustained light in my entire life.
Yeah.
The only good guy in the world, or at least in my life, was my Andy.
But I’d forgotten that.
However, that wasn’t what filled my head after Hixon left.
Nope.
It was the fact that he may never have seen me, not in the eighteen months I’d been living in Glossop. Then again, in the beginning, he’d had no real reason to look. And after things went down, he’d had other stuff on his mind.
But I knew Hope and the girls from the salon.
And I’d seen him.
Him and Hope.