Every Other Weekend

by Abigail Johnson

  “I miss you so much,” Mom said, then in a softer voice, “The house is so quiet.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” Distraction leaked into my voice as I leaned around the dividing wall to look into the neighbor’s balcony.

  There sat a petite girl about my age with olive-toned skin and a waist-length brown braid hanging over one shoulder. She was slowly panning a bulky camera past two pigeons that were perched on the railing in front of her.

  “Mom, I gotta call you back.” I hung up. “Hey,” I said, waiting until the girl turned her camera toward me and then waiting longer until she lowered it. “You could have said something or, I don’t know, gone inside.”

  “Sorry,” she said, giving no indication that she meant it beyond the word itself.

  She was lounging in a foldout chair with her legs thrown over one side and the bright red glow of a cigarette illuminating her free hand. I was cold in my hoodie, so she had to be freezing in her jeans and black T-shirt that read SAVE FERRIS, but she didn’t show it.

  “You must be Jolene.” Either that, or she was squatting on Shelly’s balcony.

  She smiled. “I prefer Spawn of the Queen Bitch.”

  Jolene

  It was kinda pretty, the way his face turned red when he realized that I’d overheard Shelly trashing my mom. One of the many perks of Oak Village Apartments was the utter lack of privacy. “Which one are you?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Are you Jerry or Adam?”

  “Adam.”

  “In that case, thanks, Adam.” When his reddish-brown eyebrows drew together, I elaborated, “You told Shelly not to call my mom ‘queen bitch.’ That was nice of you.”

  His eyebrows smoothed out. “Figured she might not be impartial.”

  I laughed. Then I did it again. It took a lot of effort not to go for a third. “That would be a no. I mean, my mom is awful, but so’s my dad and his teenage girlfriend.”

  “Wait, she’s not—”

  “She was close to it when I first met her.” I mentally and physically shook myself away from that chain of thought.

  Adam made a face that echoed my sentiments.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Is she for real?”

  “Everything but her boobs. I’m pretty sure my dad bought those two—or was it three?—Christmases ago. I can’t remember. Wait, it was three. We couldn’t afford braces for me that year, but obviously my dad enjoys those more, so it was the right call.” I smiled, revealing the slight gap between my front teeth. In hindsight, I liked my gap, but my dad was still a tool. “Hey, do you smoke?” I held up my cigarette.

  Adam shook his head.

  “That’s too bad.” I lowered it without taking a drag.

  He flushed a little more. “Maybe you shouldn’t either.”

  He was cute. “I don’t.” I flicked off the ash. “Shelly says the smell makes her sick and forbade me to smoke, so.” I shrugged.

  “But you don’t smoke?”

  I wrinkled my nose. “I tried, but I felt like throwing up afterward, and the smoke messed with my shots.” She nodded at her camera. “Now I just let them burn and enjoy the results. Still, it’d be a lot easier if you smoked. All the stink in half the time, you know? It’s not exactly warm out here.” He surprised me then by swinging his leg over and jumping into my balcony, sending the two pigeons flying off. Very cute, I decided. He lifted the cigarette from my hand and took several long drags without hacking and coughing like I had. “Thought you didn’t smoke.”

  It was his turn to shrug. “My mom used to. She caught me one time sneaking a cigarette from her purse, so I promised to quit if she did.”

  My fingers itched to pick up my camera, but that might make him stop. When he hit the filter, he presented it to me like the diamond it was.

  “And did she?”

  “Yeah.”

  Such a simple answer, yet the concept completely eluded me. “I’m guessing that means you won’t be my smoking buddy from now on?”

  “Sorry,” he said, like he really meant it. “Onetime thing.”

  The problem with cute boys who valiantly smoke cigarettes for you is that they tend to be distracting. In my head I was shooting the scene of him leaping to my balcony with the fading glow of daylight outlining him. I would focus on his hands clutching the railing and zoom in to show how the rust would still be stuck in patches to his fingers when he picked up my cigarette. I was leaning forward to check the angles and was therefore completely oblivious to the fact that we were about to be invaded until the balcony door slid open.

  “Jolene, I—” Shelley’s nose wrinkled and her gaze dropped to the cigarette butt in my hand. “Seriously? It’s like you deliberately do the things I tell you not to.”

  Scene forgotten, I refrained from tapping my nose and making a bell noise, but only just. “When the sweet, seductive lure of nicotine calls, you have to answer.”

  Shelly snatched up my pack and plucked the butt from my unprotesting fingers. “It makes it a lot easier not to sugarcoat things for you when pull this shi—” She broke off when she noticed Adam. “Where did you come from?” Her eyes went wide and her gaze shot to the balcony next door. “Are you out of your mind? You could have died!”

  A thoroughly frigid breeze raked over us, and Shelly shivered. I looked at Adam to see if he was noticing what the cold air was doing to my dad’s not-so-little gifts. He glanced but didn’t linger. Cuter by the minute.

  “Are you okay?” Shelly moved forward as if to hug him, but Adam stepped back.

  “Yeah, I’d really rather you didn’t touch me.”

  I grinned at him. “I’m going to like you, aren’t I?”

  Shelly made a distressed noise.

  “Calm down, Shelly. He’s fine. We’re fine. Feel free to go back inside where it’s warm before you put someone’s eye out with one of those things.”

  Shelly did a decent Adam impersonation by going red and wrapping her arms across her chest. She took a step back. “I need you both inside right now.” I didn’t move and, much to my pleasure, Adam didn’t either.

  “That’s gonna be a pass, Shel, but thanks.”

  Shelly sucked her upper lip into her mouth and glanced upward. “Jolene, I thought we had an agreement.”

  “And what agreement was that? The one where you break into my room whenever you want?”

  “I knocked. You didn’t answer. And our agreement was that you were not going to smoke here.” She made an exasperated noise. “And to think I was going to talk to your dad about that summer film school—”

  All my muscles tightened. “What are you talking about?” But I knew. I just didn’t know how Shelly knew. I didn’t go around sharing huge personal dreams with anyone, let alone my dad’s prepubescent girlfriend.

  “The film program in California. They sent this huge info packet. Honestly, I almost threw it away because you never mentioned that you were expecting anything, but then I saw your name when I opened it and...”

  Shelly kept going but most of me shut down so that I could silently scream in my head without externally moving a single muscle. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Adam sucking in a breath. It helped, however slightly, to have someone else register the line Shelly had crossed without even thinking about it.

  “...I thought you just liked watching old movies. Is that what you’re filming all the time?” She reached for my camera, and I snatched it away with a barely repressed snarl.

  I guessed, to Shelly, movies from the ’80s were old. I preferred them, because they showed me a time before my parents met and lost their minds long enough to get married and have me. You know, the good old days. But I didn’t watch only “old” movies.

  “Maybe if you didn’t hide every single aspect of your life from me, I wouldn’t have to go through your mail or barge onto your bal
cony to know anything. I’m just—” She gritted her teeth. “I’m sick of it. I can’t control what you do at your mother’s, but over here you need to follow your dad’s rules.”

  I was almost done screaming in my head. Not quite, but almost. If she’d let me finish, I’d have been able to stay silent until she left, but then she had to go and bring up my dad. “He never gave me any rules. See, he’d have to actually show up once in a while to do that.”

  One of Shelly’s eye muscles twitched and her voice softened. “He’s in the middle of a really big work—”

  “So, Adam, seen any good movies lately?” I don’t know if Shelly stopped talking when I interrupted her, or if I just drowned her out. I’d heard that line from her before, and I wasn’t going to listen to it again.

  “We agreed that I’m in charge when you’re here.”

  Angry me rarely accomplished anything except to invite crying me to make a long, insufferable appearance. So, ignoring all instincts, I forced amusement into my voice. “I never agreed to that. What were the terms?”

  Shelly’s arms snapped to her sides and her nostrils flared. “You don’t get terms when you’re fifteen, but fine, do whatever you want. You always do.” She tossed the pack of cigarettes at me and flung an arm toward Adam’s balcony. “Please do not climb over that when you leave.” Then to me she said, “I left the film program packet on your bed. Oh, and I came out here to tell you that your dad’s not coming home tonight. I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to.”

  My eyes stung and the air in my lungs swelled painfully, but outwardly I didn’t react at all. Shelly closed the sliding door behind her without looking back. It took me two tries, but I managed to light another cigarette. I focused on the thin line of smoke that trailed up in front of me. Adam was staring after Shelly with a slightly agape mouth and wide eyes. “Just wait until you get yours,” I told him.

  He blinked, then snapped out of his semi-horrified stupor. “Get my what?”

  “Your Shelly. Or does your dad already have a girlfriend?”

  “What? No. He doesn’t have a girlfriend. My parents are just separated. They aren’t even talking about divorce.”

  “Since when does that matter? Shelly was in the picture long before the paperwork went through.” Christmas had been a hoot that year. Everybody knew that everybody knew, but since my mom hadn’t officially pulled the trigger yet, the holidays were in full swing at my house. This year, they were in an all-out war over who would get to celebrate the birth of our Savior with me.

  “No,” Adam was saying. “It’s not like that with my parents. There weren’t any affairs or anything. I can’t imagine my dad having a girlfriend.”

  “But you haven’t seen the way he looks at Shelly. Unlike you, he doesn’t back away when she tries to hug him.” Based on Adam’s expression, I was guessing he’d witnessed such an event earlier in the hall. “Or I could be wrong.” I wasn’t.

  Adam was still frowning, but this time at me and not just the unpleasant idea I’d forced on him. “He’s not—you have no idea what’s going on with my family. Clearly yours is seriously messed up. Mine is...” he hesitated “...normal messed up. My dad isn’t going to start dating, and my mom isn’t some—”

  “Oh, I hope you finish that sentence. Considering your entire opinion of my mother will have been formed by Shelly’s, you must have a ton of insight.” I rested my chin on my hands and blinked at him with wide, waiting eyes.

  The blush that stained his neck and cheeks wasn’t nearly as cute this time. He rotated his jaw like he was physically forcing himself to say something other than what he wanted to. “Our parents aren’t the same, okay? That’s all I was trying to say.”

  “Then spill. You say no one strayed, but maybe they were just good at hiding it.”

  Adam looked at me like I was something he’d stepped in. It wasn’t a new experience for me, so I let it go. “What’s wrong with you? You’re messed up, you know that?”

  My cigarette had burned low by then, and I was reaching my suffer-in-order-to-piss-Dad-off-via-Shelly threshold in terms of temperature. My skin was covered in goose bumps, and I was rethinking all kinds of things about Adam. The movie in my head suddenly had an ominous, horror-themed score to it. “Fine, whatever. I’m going to slink into my room, but stay, smoke the rest of my cigarettes if you want.” I nodded toward the mostly full pack. “Maybe it’ll piss off your dad, too.”

  “I’ll pass. I don’t need to resort to anything so petty to punish my dad.”

  I grinned in all my gap-toothed glory. “Enlighten me, oh mature one—how grown-up do you have to be to call Mommy two seconds after you get here?”

  He didn’t say anything, just walked to the wall and started to scale back over to his balcony.

  “Oh no. Leaving so soon? I have all these other petty things we could do together.”

  Adam’s head popped back over as soon as he was in his own balcony. “Look, are you going to be around a lot?”

  “Every other weekend.”

  He hung his head. “Me, too.”

  I didn’t bother with the fake smile. “Yippee.”

  ADAM

  What. The. Holy. Hell.

  I glanced down at my calloused palms, scraped raw on one side from my hasty and nearly fatal climb back to my own balcony. The railing was rough from rust along the bottom and slick from a recent rainfall on the top. Nausea, cold and stinging, had flooded me during that split second that my foot slipped and I nearly plummeted six stories to my death.

  I was chilled and sweaty and my heart was more than a little jumpy, which I wanted to blame on almost falling or maybe the cigarette but couldn’t. It was all her. Jolene. The things she’d said. Back in my room—the room I was staying in—I dropped onto the foot of my—the—bed and let my head fall into my hands. I felt kind of like a jerk, but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to care, not with the sound of Dad and Jeremy laughing in the next room.

  Dad hadn’t left Mom because he wanted someone else. His reasons made him a coward, not a cheat.

  I grabbed my earbuds and phone, and turned up the volume to just shy of painful so that I couldn’t hear them or myself.

  I don’t know how long I lay on the bed before Jeremy came in and yanked out my earbuds. “Dad wants to know if you’re going to eat.”

  I started to close my eyes again, but Jeremy dead-legged me. I launched myself at him, tackling him into the dresser. We hit the ground, and the next instant I was bodily lifted and flung onto the lumpy mattress.

  “Enough!” Dad was between us, hands outstretched toward each son. “Since when do you guys fight like animals?”

  I looked at Jeremy and saw a tiny trickle of blood on his mouth. I must have elbowed him when we went down. We were both breathing hard, and he wouldn’t meet my eye. When I refused to answer, Dad turned to Jeremy.

  “Somebody start talking.”

  “It was nothing. We were messing around.” Jeremy shrugged.

  I couldn’t see Dad’s face, but I doubted he bought that story. I wouldn’t have. So I was surprised when he dropped his arms and the line of questioning.

  “This isn’t a great situation, for any of us. I know you guys are caught in the middle, but if you can just hang in there, we will get through it.”

  “Get through it?” I asked, slowly shaking my head. “You left Mom. How exactly do you want us to get through that?”

  Dad lowered his gaze, and my brother, still dabbing the bloody lip I’d given him, spoke to me in a tone that was the complete opposite of the hostile one he’d used with me earlier. “C’mon, Adam. We just got here. Can’t we just...” He trailed off, realizing, I hoped, that we couldn’t just anything. At least, I couldn’t.

  “I don’t have a plan here. This isn’t what I wanted—it’s not what your mom wanted either,” Dad added when I started to rise fr
om the bed. “It’s just the way it is for now. I’m...I’m working on it, okay?” He made a point of meeting and holding both Jeremy’s and my gazes, and I wanted to pretend that I didn’t notice the moisture in his eyes. “In the meantime, can we agree not to go no-holds-barred in the apartment anymore?”

  “Sure, Dad. Sorry.” Jeremy clapped a hand on Dad’s arm in a gesture I was sure he thought made him seem grown-up.

  “Adam?”

  I was too busy staring at my pansy of a brother to answer. Before—before everything, Jeremy had been the one who clashed with Dad. He’d never rolled over, not even when it would have been the smart thing to do. It was like he’d enjoyed the tension, the way Dad would get riled up. But then everything went wrong. Dad eventually moved out, Mom broke almost worse than before, and Jeremy decided to stand with the wrong parent. He sided with the coward. Unlike my brother, I wasn’t going to smile and nod at Dad like I was fine with him abandoning Mom. She’d cried all morning, even as she was telling us how glad she was that we were going to see Dad. She was probably still crying, and my brother was apologizing to Dad. I felt the urge to bloody Jeremy’s mouth again.

  “I’m going to take that as a yes.” Dad clapped both of us on the shoulder, then headed out of the room. “Dinner’s getting cold.”

  Jeremy and I made the briefest eye contact before he followed Dad, and when I was alone, I let my stomach make the call and I joined them.

  Dinner turned out to be takeout, some local place I’d never heard of, but it was hard to wreck a cheesesteak in Philly. I think between the three of us, we ate about eight of them. Even better, talking wasn’t an option until all that was left on the breakfast bar that we were crowded around was crumpled foil and empty bags.

  Jeremy was the first to talk, complimenting Dad on finding a good take-out place already. I clenched my fist so I wouldn’t deck him.

  Dad launched into a story about how he’d found the place and thought they were even better than our old place in Redding. Some good-natured arguing commenced, and every word caused the food in my stomach to turn into stone.