“Yes,” my mother answers, rolling her eyes. This whole interaction seems like it could have taken place in the East Rockport High cafeteria, and my hope that the adult world is nothing like high school crumbles a bit as I lean back against my mom’s car in the HEB parking lot. Why is my mom behaving like a teenager? Who is this weird guy with a red beard?
“By the way, this is my daughter, Viv,” my mother says, nodding her head toward me and smiling. I raise a hand and smile slightly.
“Nice to meet you, Viv,” redhead dude says. “I’m John. Your mom and I work together.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” I answer on autopilot, eyeing him carefully. My mom has never mentioned any guy at work.
“Well, we’d better get going,” my mom says, even though she barely makes a move.
John smiles and nods, and finally after way too long my mother and I get in the car and she starts up the engine, but I notice a big blue-and-white DELOBE bumper sticker on the back of John’s SUV as he pulls out of the lot.
“Gross, he voted for Delobe,” I announce, my voice louder than normal. I know I sound childish, but this John guy weirds me out.
“Oh, Delobe was a moderate, really,” my mom answers, an absentminded grin on her face.
“Mom, he ran for mayor as a Republican,” I say, irritated. “You said you’d never vote for a Republican even if your life depended on it.”
My mom shrugs and pulls our car out of the HEB lot. “It’s Texas, Vivvy. Sometimes a moderate Republican is the best we’re going to get. At least he’s pro marriage equality.”
I can’t believe her dreamy, distracted mood—she’s not even listening to me—so I shut my mouth and lean my head against the cool glass of the passenger window, frowning at my reflection. When I was in middle school, my mom dated this guy named Matt that she met through a friend of hers. It went far enough that Matt would come over to watch movies with my mom and me and go on walks with us around our neighborhood and take my mom out to dinner while I spent the evening at Meemaw and Grandpa’s. Matt liked orange Tic Tacs and had a mutt named Grover that smelled like lavender dog shampoo.
He was nice enough, I guess, but when he was around it always felt like I was waiting for him to leave. I didn’t understand why we needed him. After all, it had been two people for as long as I could remember. Me and Mom had always been just fine.
Then, out of nowhere a few months later, Matt stopped coming over. Mom told me they moved in different directions, and from the way my mom spent several nights on the phone with a friend or two of hers, her face twisted into a scowl and her voice lowered to a whisper, I guessed I shouldn’t ask any questions. After that, Mom never acted like she had any use for any guy in her life except for Grandpa.
And now there’s this Republican-loving John dude with hair the color of a navel orange making my mom do a tinkly laugh, and all I can think is how disappointed I am that my mom could like a guy like that.
At home, my mom and I unpack the groceries, making the same light, easy talk we’ve been making for years.
“Tell me I didn’t forget olive oil.”
“Where should I put the potatoes again?”
“I’m going to dig into this ice cream tonight, damn it.”
After that’s done, my mom collapses onto the couch to watch television and I disappear into a hot shower, letting the streams of steaming hot water drum onto my head. Once I put on my old Runaways T-shirt and sweats, I dig through my collection of pens and markers and Sharpies on my desk. I pluck out one black Sharpie and uncap it, pressing the tip against my index finger a few times to make sure it works. The tiny, scattered black dots look like renegade freckles popping up out of nowhere. My heart beats hard under my rib cage. I imagine myself walking into school tomorrow, the only girl with her hands marked. How fast could I wash them clean so I wouldn’t stick out?
I swallow hard and place the marker on my nightstand like an alarm clock before I slide into bed. I reach for my headphones and start playing Bikini Kill.
*
Not one other girl in my first period American history class has anything on her hands. Not Claudia or Sara or anyone. Just me. My marked hands feel like Meemaw’s fine china teacups that she keeps in a glass cabinet and never uses. Like fragile things that don’t belong in a high school and need to be put away, immediately. The heady, dizzy state I was in when I created Moxie disappears, like I’d biked down to U COPY IT in the middle of a dream.
Of course, Claudia notices my hands. She’s my best friend. She notices when I get my bangs trimmed.
“Hey, what’s up?” She nods toward my lap, where I have my hands twisted together desperately to cover up the markings I made this morning as the sun was coming up. “You did that thing from the newsletter?”
Zine, not newsletter, I think to myself, but I just shrug my shoulders.
“I don’t know. I was bored.” It’s a stupid excuse. For the first time ever, I actually want Mrs. Robbins to walk in and start class on time.
“I guess I just don’t get it,” Sara says, joining in. “I mean, I thought that thing made some good points, but how is wearing hearts and stars on our hands supposed to change anything?” She eyes my drawings again and my cheeks burn.
“You’re right, it was stupid,” I say, embarrassed. A lump suddenly fills my throat. If I start crying in front of my friends over this, they’ll know something is up.
“No, I didn’t mean it like that,” Sara says, her voice soft. “I just meant, like, I think this place is crazy, too, but I don’t think it’s ever going to improve. It was a nice idea or whatever, but … you know.”
Claudia gives me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “It only proves you’re super idealistic, just like I thought,” she says. I try to smile back and swallow away any bad feelings.
Just then, Mrs. Robbins finally walks in, and the first chance I get to be excused to the bathroom, I take it. I make my way down the halls of East Rockport, imagining a time and a place where I’ll be free from the scuffed tiled floors and pep rally banners reading GO PIRATES! and mind-numbing classes that make me feel dumber, not smarter. I just have to hang on until I can get out of here, like my mother. If I only knew where I was going. If only I could be sure I would never come back.
I push open the heavy door just as a flush echoes from one of the bathroom stalls. I squirt some soap into my palms and start scrubbing my hands in warm water, rubbing at the Sharpie hearts and stars with my thumbs.
A stall door opens. I look over my shoulder and see Kiera Daniels make her way to one of the sinks. Kiera and I were friends in fourth and fifth grade, back before that weird time in middle school when the black kids and the white kids and the kids who mostly speak Spanish to each other started sitting at separate tables in the cafeteria. She and I used to trade Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, and once we even tried to make our own, with me writing the story and Kiera drawing the pictures. Now she sits at a table with other black girls and I sit at a table with my friends, and sometimes we nod at each other in the hallway.
“Hey,” she says as she makes her way over to one of the sinks.