by Carian Cole
I don’t like this at all. I can’t picture him sitting on the couch amongst all the garbage having a chitchat with my mother about marrying me. She totally dropped the parenting ball years ago. This face-to-face will be epically humiliating and awkward.
“What the hell, Jude?” I scowl. “Can’t you call her? Do a video chat?” Even I don’t remember the last time I actually had an in-person conversation with my mother. That’s just the way it’s been since the piles of stuff got too high for me to hike over.
He shakes his head. “No. I have to do this right.”
“You said yourself it’s not even a real marriage!”
“But it’s a legal marriage. This isn’t negotiable, Skylar.”
We stare at each for a few minutes, and it’s clear he’s not going to back down. I feel like I’m drowning in his gray eyes, mesmerized by the silver flecks, and I have to look away. “Can I be there?”
“Of course.”
If he thinks my mother is going to clutch her pearls and say, “Oh no… you cannot take my baby girl away!” he’s nuts. If anything, she’ll ask him for money.
“Fine. You win. Good luck squeezing those big shoulders into my house.”
“You’re funny.” His grin widens. “If we think of anything else, we’ll have it added to the prenup. I should have that ready this week, then we can move forward.”
I stand and push my chair in. “I do have one rule of my own,” I say, smiling up at him. “No kissing the bride at the ceremony.”
He stands, too, and swaggers across the room to put my mug in the dishwasher. “That’s a given. I can promise you, Sparkles, I’ll never try to kiss you.”
I ignore the tiny cinch of disappointment in my heart.
Chapter 12
Jude
Skylar wasn’t kidding.
Even with her warning, I’m shocked when she unlocks the front door of her house and we step inside.
There’s a total mishmash of crap everywhere, piled from floor to ceiling. Some of it in boxes and bags, some of it just tossed loose. Clothes, luggage, canned goods, magazines, books, and blankets. Bottles of lotion and shampoo. Random decor just thrown anywhere. It’s like a dollar store exploded and this woman decided to stick a couch and television on top of the mess.
“Mom,” Skylar says loudly as we squeeze through narrow paths and climb over shorter piles. “We’re here.”
Apparently, she told her mother I’d be coming over, but didn’t tell her why.
“Oh, good,” her mother replies in a completely normal, upbeat voice that only makes her come off as a nut, given the fact that two people are literally climbing into her living room.
When we finally get to the far end of the room, there’s a two-foot radius around the couch that’s clear enough for us to stand in. Out of the corner of my eye, I see either a large roach or a small mouse scurry under the couch.
What the fuck.
All I want to do is pick Skylar up and carry her the hell out of this place.
“Mom, this is my friend, Jude,” Skylar says awkwardly, swatting a fly away from her face. “Jude, this is my mother, Nicole.”
Disgust coils up in me like a cobra when I realize the woman sitting on the green velour couch is only a few years older than me. She’s not the older, had-a-daughter-late-in-life, hair-starting-to-gray woman my imagination conjured up.
It’s obvious she was pretty once—an older version of her daughter, with long, blonde hair and blue eyes. But something, whether it be hard times, alcohol, drugs, or mental illness, has made her look rough and tired. Her hair and skin are dull, her nails way too long. On a small table next to her is a pail of sand that she’s using as an ashtray. I spy two roaches in the pail. Not the bug kind, the joint kind.
“Sit…” Nicole motions to her right, pushing bags of Cheetos and pretzels off the couch and onto the floor.
Skylar grabs my arm before I can move. “No,” she says. “We’ll stand. We won’t be here long.”
Skylar’s discomfort is palpable, and I don’t blame her. This is like standing in the middle of a hazardous waste dump site.
I ignore her and sit on the couch next to her mother. I’m sure I sat in worse places when I was younger and partied in seedy motel rooms with strangers.
Crossing her arms, Skylar remains standing, her eyes dark with impatience, her lips mashed together. I’m pretty sure she’s biting her tongue.
The old couch cushion caves under my weight, and the back of my head smacks into something hard. I turn to find myself face-to-face with a four-foot giraffe statue with its neck stretching over the back of the couch.
“What is this, exactly?” I ask, running my hand over its black felt nose.
“It’s a giraffe,” Nicole says.
“Why is it here, though?”
I need some kind of glimpse into this woman’s rationale. Maybe she has a good reason for collecting all these things. Who knows—there could be a master plan brewing in her mind that Skylar isn’t aware of.
Nicole gazes at the statue with so much admiration I feel like I’m spying on an intimate moment. “Because it’s pretty, and it was only two hundred dollars, and I don’t have any other giraffes,” she replies.
Nope. There’s no rationale here. At least not a logical one.
Nodding, I give the giraffe one more glance, and try to come up with the right words to tell this woman why I’ve asked her daughter to marry me, so I can get the hell out of here.
“Mom, we came here to tell you we’re getting married, and I’m moving out,” Skylar blurts out, beating me to it.
“Are you pregnant?” Nicole asks in an accusatory tone, her gaze zeroing in on her daughter’s midsection.
“No,” we both say at the same time.
“Then why are you getting married?” she says to Skylar, then turns to me. “To you?”
I nod. “Because—”
“How old are you?” Nicole interrupts.
“I’m thirty-four, but—”
“You’re thirty-four?” Skylar squeaks with bulging eyes. “I didn’t know you were that old.”
“Hey, it’s not that old,” I say defensively. I’ve got a fuckin’ six-pack under my shirt, not a dad bod.
“Well, I’m thirty-eight,” her mother states, matter-of-factly. “You’re old enough to be her father…”
Yeah, if I was dumb enough to get someone pregnant when I was sixteen. Which I wasn’t.
I put my hands up. “Can we back it up for a sec?”
“It doesn’t matter how old you are. It’s not a real marriage, Mom,” Skylar interjects.
“Yes,” I correct. “It is a real, legal, marriage. But we’re not together. I’m not sleeping with your kid.”
Nicole presses her fingers to her temples and closes her eyes as if this conversation is giving her a headache. It’s definitely giving me one. “This is very confusing,” she says.
“I didn’t want it to be,” I reply. “We’re only getting married so I can put her on my health insurance plan and give her a place to live. She’s sick, and she needs to see a doctor. She needs therapy and medication.”
My blood boils when Nicole rolls her eyes. I kid you not, she rolls her eyes, and leans back into the couch with a big, dramatic sigh. “This one’s always been a whiner. Her stomach, her head, her throat. Her this, her that. She’s been doing it since she was five years old.”
“Because I’m sick, Mom. What the fuck?” Skylar’s cheeks redden, and she smacks the giraffe’s snout in anger. Its neck tweaks from the blow, and now it’s staring at us dementedly with its glass eyes. “You’re stuck in your crazy fantasy world and I’m getting out of it!”
“Okay, calm down.” I reach for Skylar’s hand but she pulls away with a scowl, almost tripping over a crockpot box that’s in the middle of the floor.
“She doesn’t even cook!” she yells, kicking the box with her sneakered foot. “I told you she wouldn’t care, Jude. Look at her.”
I am loo
king at her, and I’m getting more pissed off by the second at Nicole’s detached indifference. She’s just sitting there, flipping through a magazine, oblivious to her daughter’s emotions. I can’t tell if she’s a bitch, or if there’s something mentally wrong with her. Or both, which is a twisted mix.
Resting my forearms on my knees, I stare at Nicole, hoping she’ll make eye contact with me, but she doesn’t. “I just wanted you to know there’s nothing going on between us. We’re just friends. I want to help her, that’s all. She’ll have a safe place to live, and she’ll see a doctor.”
She makes a tsk noise with her tongue. “No man on the planet just wants to help a pretty young girl,” she drawls. “I wasn’t born yesterday.”
“Stop it, Mom,” Skylar seethes, shaking her head. “He’s not like that.”
Nicole tosses the magazine onto the floor. “I don’t care what you do. This is my house and you better not take any of my things when you leave.”
Skylar rolls her eyes, and I regret suggesting this meeting and putting her through this. “Jesus Christ, I don’t want any of your shit. I’m trying to get away from it.”
“And I’m not paying for a wedding,” Nicole adds flippantly.
“There’s not going to be a wedding,” I assure her.
“Good. Don’t expect me to come. It won’t last a year.”
I don’t bother wasting my breath trying to explain that’s the whole point—it’s not meant to last.
“Can we please go?” Skylar asks, her eyes pleading. “The smell is making me sick.”
“What smell?” Nicole asks, twitching her nose up into the air. “I don’t smell anything.”
I guess being nose blind really is a true phenomenon. How the hell can she not smell the putrid air in this house she’s living in? I’ve only been in here for ten minutes and I’m tempted to snort bleach.
Standing, I clear my throat. “Nice meeting you,” I say as politely as I can. There’s so much I want to say to this woman about how she’s treating her daughter, but that’ll only turn this meeting ugly, and I don’t want to add to Skylar’s stress. “I promise your daughter will be okay.” Whether you give a shit or not. “If you need help cleaning this place out, I’m a contractor. Me and my crew could bring a dumpster over, help you get things cleaned up.”
She glares at me with a sudden rage. “Why would I do that? I don’t want to throw my things away.”
“Okay,” I answer. “You let us know if you change your mind.”
“I won’t,” she hisses. “You can take her, but don’t you even think about trying to take anything else.”
The way she just basically gave her daughter away without a second thought makes me snap, and I can’t hold back anymore. “Well, shit,” I say. “I was just thinking about taking that fucking giraffe home to stick in my sunroom.”
Nicole glares at me with a fiery wrath in her eyes. “Get out,” she hisses.
Skylar grabs my wrist. “Let’s go, Jude. Please.”
We gulp fresh air when we get outside the house, attempting to clear our lungs from the sour stench. I wonder if that bitch is hiding the dead body of her husband in there. Maybe he didn’t leave like Skylar thinks.
I smoke a cigarette while Skylar sits on the front steps, staring off at the sun setting behind the trees.
“I told you,” she finally says, her voice resigned. “She doesn’t give a flying fuck about me.”
I put my foot up on the step next to her and lean down into her line of vision. “I don’t really think that’s it,” I say. “I think she’s messed up in the head.”
“Ya think?” she says sarcastically.
“I’m serious. I think she does care. She’s just too messed up to show it or process it.” I hate defending that sorry excuse for a mother, but I have to say something to make Skylar feel better about the way she’s been treated.
“I don’t even care anymore, Jude. My father tried with her; he really did. She stopped taking her meds, stopped going to the doctor. I tried after he left, too. It’s just…” She shrugs helplessly. “It’s just impossible. You can’t help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”
“You’re right.”
She tilts her head up and stares into my eyes with determination. “I want your help. I wish I didn’t, but you see what I’m living with.”
I exhale smoke through my nose and nod. She doesn’t need me to say anything.
“I want to leave tonight,” she says softly. Almost a whisper. “Can we do that? Can I move in with you tonight?”
Surprise speeds up my pulse. I wasn’t planning on her moving in for a few weeks. I thought we’d both have more time to let it all sink in. They say you shouldn’t make spur-of-the-moment decisions, ’cause that usually leads to a mess.
But, fuck it. I’ve never been known to avoid a mess.
I throw my cigarette down on the cracked walkway and stomp the embers out with my boot.
“How much stuff you got, Sparkles?” I ask.
A slow grin spreads across her face. “Just enough to fit in your truck.”
Chapter 13
Skylar
I’m not sure if it’s sad or convenient that all my belongings fit into the bed of Jude’s pickup truck. And, as luck would have it, my mother had a brand-new cat carrier stored in the bathtub under a fiber-optic Christmas tree.
She let me take the carrier as a wedding gift.
I hugged her stiffly good-bye before I left, and it made my heart hurt. She didn’t cling to me or get teary-eyed. A part of me wishes she had. No matter what, she is my mother, and I love her. Sadly, she’s become someone I have no idea how to understand, and I can’t allow her to hurt me anymore, whether it’s intentional or not.
I followed Jude to his place in my Corvette with Gus meowing loudly from her carrier, seat-belted on the passenger side. The house faded in my rearview mirror like a blurry memory, and even though a ball of emotion welled up in my throat, I knew I’d never go back there.
Jude and I carried my stuff from the truck up his pretty oak stairs to the room with the raspberry-colored walls. I didn’t have much—just my clothes, various stuffed animals, books, and toiletries. Back at my mom’s house earlier, he patiently convinced me to leave the dorm fridge. Not just because it would’ve been a bitch to get it out of the house, but because I have to learn to use the refrigerator in the kitchen. Food shouldn’t be hidden in my bedroom. Of course, the logical part of me knows that, but I panicked at first. I felt like I couldn’t breathe at the thought of leaving it behind. The small fridge was a magic box that kept food safe for me.
I did it, though. I left it there, which is exactly where it belongs.
I unlocked the three deadbolts before we climbed out the window for the last time. I’m sure within a month, my room and furniture will be buried under an avalanche of my mother’s nonsensical stuff. All traces of me will be obliterated.
I’m snapped out of my thoughts by two quick knocks on my new bedroom door.
“Come in,” I say from where I’m sitting on the floor with my clothes spread out around me, folding them neatly to put into the dressers and closet.
Jude saunters in wearing gray sweatpants and a black tank top. I wasn’t ready for his nighttime, chilling-at-home-look, but damn if he isn’t just begging to be posted on Instagram right now with hashtag #graysweats.
“You need anything before bed?” he asks, towering over me.
My mouth goes dry, which is more than I can say for other parts of my body.
I can do this. I can live with a good-looking man without getting all doe-eyed and swoony. Not to mention, he’s thirty-damn-four! Almost as old as my parents. Totally not sexy at all.
“I’m good.” I quickly divert my eyes from all things him and put the sweater I just folded on top of my pile of panties, which has been on full display since he walked in. “Just putting my stuff away. I’ve never had so much room and so many drawers.”
He smiles, but it’s mor
e of a sad smile than a happy one. “It’s late, you don’t have to do it all tonight.”
“I’m not tired,” I say. My brain is a hurricane of anxiety, fear, hope, and excitement. There’s no way I’ll be able to sleep unless I keep myself busy enough to calm down.
He lifts his chin to Gus curled up on the bed with her catnip mouse. “She looks like she’s all settled in.”
I smile. “I’m surprised. I thought she’d be freaked out and living under the bed for weeks.”
“Tomorrow we can let her and Cassie meet. I think they’ll be okay, though.”
“I hope so.” Until then, I’m keeping her in my room with the door closed.
He yawns and squeezes the back of his neck, cracking it to the side. “Okay, I’m heading to bed. See ya tomorrow.”
“‘Night,” I say, but then stop him just as he reaches the door. “Wait… Jude?”
He turns back to me. “Mm?”
I run my tongue over the edge of my teeth. “Thank you. For everything you’re doing for me.” I feel like I should hug him, but then, I also feel like I shouldn’t.
He winks at me and grins. “Sleep tight, Sparkles.”
As soon as he closes the door behind him, I let out a long, calming breath. He really is a good guy. He didn’t leer at me sitting here with a white tee on with no bra. He didn’t make any sexual innuendos. Earlier he made sure to give me my own key. He’s done nothing but make me feel like I’m staying at a friend’s house.
But still, there’s a faint gnaw of fear in my stomach. I could be making a horrible mistake. What if things go wrong and I have to move out? I won’t be able to move back in with my mother once her avalanche of stuff takes over my room. Where would I go? Would I end up in an even worse situation than I was to begin with? I might have to live in my car or under a bridge.
Oh, God.
No, I silently tell myself as I put my clothes away. I’ll be okay.
It’s almost two a.m. when I finally turn out the light, crawl into bed, and tuck myself under the new, soft comforter. I press my face into the pillow, inhaling the clean scent. I don’t even know what the scent is, other than it smells fresh. Comforting. Even though I love older, vintage things, being in this room full of new bedding and furniture is a welcome change. All I want to do is breathe and breathe and breathe, as if it can somehow get inside me and give me a new beginning.