“Sure, I’d love it.” She seems pleased. Maybe because we haven’t hung out like this in a while.
As I scoop out two bowls of chocolate and join her on the couch, I tell my mom about Zoe and Alejandro and even do an impression of Zoe, including her bad Spanish accent. My mother laughs hard.
“Don’t laugh,” I tell her. “They want both of us to join them for dinner one night.” My mother rolls her eyes but she keeps on laughing, and I’m glad. It’s been too long since we laughed together, talked over our days together, cuddled on the couch together. I wonder if John makes her laugh as much as I do sometimes. I hope he does.
We each take a few mouthfuls and then my mom says, “So it seems like you and Seth are getting kind of … do people your age say ‘getting serious’ anymore?”
“Mom, please.”
“I’m just saying you’re spending a lot of time together. I want to make sure you don’t have any questions.”
I think about Seth’s mother gift wrapping condoms and leaving them on his dinner plate. My cheeks redden just a bit.
“Mom, I promise you, if I have any questions, I will ask them. But no, it’s fine.”
“Fine?”
I give her a pointed look. “I really like him. A lot.”
My mom swallows a spoonful of ice cream and smiles. “Just asking. Don’t attack me.”
I decide I need to change the subject.
“Where’s John? I thought you’d be going out.”
“He had the late shift. I might meet him for breakfast tomorrow. Wanna come?”
I shrug. “Maybe. You want me to?”
“It would be nice.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Okay.”
My mom puts her ice-cream bowl down on the coffee table and leans in closer. Her long hair tickles my cheek.
“Thank you. I know you’re not a fan of John,” she says, her voice soft. A little sad.
“No, it’s not that, Mom…,” I begin. I think about Seth’s mom and how she makes her life all about her, and about my mom and how she makes so much of her life about me. I slide my own bowl of ice cream next to my mother’s and nuzzle under her arm. “Mom, do you ever regret getting stuck here in East Rockport because of me?” It’s easier to ask this since I’m not looking her directly in the eyes.
“No, of course not,” my mother answers. “I got away for a bit. I saw the world. I had lots of fun.” I think about the MY MISSPENT YOUTH box.
“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if my dad hadn’t died?” I ask.
There’s a pause, and I can feel my mother’s chest slowly rise and fall. “Of course,” she says, and her voice cracks just the tiniest bit. “But in this life you have to deal with what happens. You have to take what comes at you. And coming back here … I was able to finish school. I made my peace with Meemaw and Grandpa. They got to see their granddaughter grow up. Those are good things.”
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s true.”
“I know John isn’t who you expected me to end up with—if you even imagined me ending up with anyone at all,” my mother says, reaching over and running her gentle fingers through my hair. “Truth be told, when I was your age, I wouldn’t have expected me to end up with him either. But I really like him, Viv. I really enjoy being with him.”
I peer up at my mom, so she can see my eyes. I want her to know I mean it when I say, “I’m glad, Mom. I’m really glad. You deserve someone nice.”
My mom’s smile cracks her face wide open, and she kisses me on the forehead.
“You’re my best thing,” she says. It’s one of the things she likes to say to me. When I was little, she always said it when she was tickling me or braiding my hair or swinging me around in her arms.
“I love you, Mom,” I answer, snuggling up a bit closer.
“I love you, too, my sweet peanut.”
“You haven’t called me that in ages.”
“I know. It’s a little girl’s nickname. And you’re not really my little girl anymore.”
“Oh, come on, Mom,” I say, “don’t be cheesy.” But something about it makes me feel warm all over, like when I was tiny and my mom would wrap me in a fuzzy towel after my bath and snuggle with me.
“Aw, you never let me be cheesy,” she says.
“Fine, okay,” I say. “But just for tonight.”
“All right,” she says. “Whatever you say, sweet peanut.”
And we cuddle together for a while, not even needing to talk.
*
On Wednesday, Valentine’s Day, I show up at school and see girls carrying bags of cheap red-and-pink candy to hand out to their friends, and boys holding Walgreens teddy bears and sad, already-fading carnations. I know it’s a stupid, manufactured holiday, but I can’t help wondering if Seth is going to do anything for it. In my backpack is a book of Shirley Jackson short stories since we’d talked about “The Lottery” that one time in class, and Seth had seemed to like the story. I confess I feel pretty cool giving Seth a book of short stories by a horror writer for Valentine’s Day. It’s so not East Rockport.
But I can’t find Seth all morning. There’s nothing on or in my locker. I do get a text from him that reads Happy Walgreens Teddy Bear Day followed by a bunch of red heart emojis, and I wonder if Seth is just too cool for Valentine’s Day. Not even Shirley Jackson cool, but a completely different level of cool where the holiday just doesn’t exist.
My heart sinks a little with disappointment. And this makes me feel stupid.
But then it’s time for English. I walk in, and my stomach twists with nerves because I know I’m about to see him. Around me a few girls clutch their drugstore prizes of teenage love. A few of them are comparing gifts.
Then, as the bell rings, Seth walks in wearing a black hoodie over a black T-shirt. He slides into his seat and looks over at me, smiling.
He is so cute I really can’t breathe sometimes.
With a shrug of his shoulders he takes off his hoodie, letting it fall onto his desk chair. His T-shirt underneath is sleeveless and there, in black Sharpie marker on his left arm, is a carefully drawn heart, big enough for me to spot it clearly from my seat on the other side of the room.
And inside the heart—in coal-back, painstakingly drawn letters—reads the word VIVIAN.
Among the whispers of the rest of the class, Lucy turns to me and says, “Oh my God,” but I can’t see what her face looks like because I am staring into Seth’s dark, laughing eyes and I am grinning at him so hard and I am certain that I’m the first person on Earth to ever feel this awake and alive.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
It’s Claudia’s idea to have a slumber party and invite everyone, including Lucy. She tells me about it as we walk home from school one early March morning, just the tiniest hint of Texas humidity in the air, a signal of what’s to come.
“It can be like when we were younger, in middle school. We can watch a bunch of scary movies, make sundaes.” She smiles at me.
“Look at you, Miss Nostalgia,” I say, smiling back.