“Yeah, that is,” Leon agrees.
“I don’t want to do that to my kids.” And yet. Holly told me it’s either cancer sticks or pills, that’s how stressed out she is all the time. Used to be smoking was vogue. Take the edge off and look sophisticated doing it. People see you smoking in public now, she says, and they just give you this look, like you’re not entitled. Raising four kids alone while her husband is deployed and her mother-in-law with Alzheimer’s just moved in because they can’t afford assisted living so all her care is getting pinned on her eighteen-year-old son when Holly’s not home but sure, look at me like I’m a piece of shit for sucking on one of these.
She turns to Leon. “Speaking of my kids, you going to be at Melissa Wade’s party this weekend?”
“Nope,” he tells her. “My sister’s having a get-together with all her coworkers and friends before she pops and I’ve got to be there.”
“Damn. Annie’s going to a sleepover at Bethany Slate’s house and I have a feeling they’re going to end up at the Wade’s. You know anyone who could text me if they see her there?”
“You going to make a scene if she is?” he asks.
“Goddamn right I am. That’s college kids. She’s fifteen years old.” She takes a drag off her cigarette. “I told her not to even think about going, so of course she will.”
“I’ll get Melissa to text you if she sees her.”
“Thank you.” She tosses the half-smoked cigarette on the ground. “Quittin’ by degrees. Not even my break, but I covered Lauren’s shift so I earned it.”
“You’ve been here all day?” I ask.
“Money, money, money. Better get back to it.”
She goes in and then it’s me and Leon. The silence stretches between us. Words aren’t so easy to come by, after his admission. It takes him a while to dig some up.
“Told you it was busy,” he finally says.
“Yeah, you did.”
“You know, I was joking earlier, when you came in.”
“Were you?” I stare out at the back lot. The headlights of Tracey’s old Sprint reflect the flickering light over the door beside us.
“You don’t look like hell. In fact, you look really far from it.”
His eyes are so on me. The blush travels up to my face from the tips of my toes. He slips inside before I can reply, and the compliment lingers and fades. I remind myself it’s nothing I have to hold or be held to. He only said it to remind me that he’s here, he likes me. That he’s nice. Leon is nice. That doesn’t mean he’s safe.
the sun rises.
I press my palms against my eyes and listen to the sounds drifting upstairs from down. I piece together this morning’s scene in my mother’s laughter, in chairs scraping across the floor to be closer to each other, in coffee bubbling as it brews on the stove.
I untangle myself from my sheet, and stare at the fresh red stains next to the faded-out pink ones on my pillowcase. They come straight from my mouth, forever exasperating my mother because I picked the lipstick that doesn’t wash out. I get dressed. In the bathroom across the hall, I brush my teeth and tie my hair back. I do my lips. Nail polish is still holding.
I’m ready.
In the kitchen, everything is how I pictured it. Mom smiles at me from her spot at the table. Her black curls rest limply against her shoulders, worse for the weather. She sips coffee with one hand and the other is reached across the table, her fingers twined through Todd’s.
“How’d you sleep?” he asks.
“Fine.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I can make you breakfast,” Mom offers.
“No, thanks. I have to get to school.”
She exchanges a glance with Todd. “Baby, you set your alarm wrong? You’ve got at least an hour before you need to be there…”
“I know.” I step into the hall and put my shoes on. “I have to be early today.”
“Why’s that?” Todd asks. “I can’t think of a goddamn thing you’d have to be an hour early for that doesn’t qualify as cruel and unusual punishment.”
Because my underwear and bra have been stolen and when things like that have been stolen, you can expect them to show up again in a very bad way. I tighten my laces and grab my book bag from the floor. “I just do. I’ll see you guys later.”
“Try to have a nice day.”
“Yeah, have a good one, kid.”
It takes a moment for that to sink in, this coupling of well wishes for the rest of my day compared to a year ago, mornings in a different house, my mother at a kitchen table alone while her husband nursed bottles hidden in places he long stopped pretending we didn’t know about.
When I open the door, there’s something else: the shock of the view. I look for ground I grew up on. Instead, it’s unfamiliar dying grass and a cement walkway with those faded impressions of vines leading me out to the street I’ll tell people is the one I live on. For a minute, I forget it is just a move across town, like it could be something more.
But only for a minute.