by Jamie Sumner
“Sorry! The contest was today. I’m still recovering,” he says, waving the air in front of him like he can shoo away the smell.
He means the hot-dog-eating contest at the Halloween carnival. I wanted to go, but the thought of dunk tanks and balloon-popping games and creaking Ferris wheels was too much. It’s all the worst things about the state fair with none of the music. Basically, the worst nightmare for someone with a sensory processing disorder. Not that I’m saying I have one.
“How’d it go?” I ask.
“It was gruesome and revolting,” Geneva says, patting his shoe. “He did great.”
“Yeah,” Tucker says, reddening all the way up to his ears. “I got second place. Forty-two dogs. The winner got forty-five.”
“Yes, but he puked after the buzzer. They should disqualify you for that,” Geneva says with authority.
“It’s okay. I’m happy with second. Made my mom proud. We won a twenty-five dollar gift certificate to Target.”
“She wasn’t grossed out?” I have to ask, because I almost just threw up from the smell of his burp.
“Nah, she loves it. One time, when I was ten, she caught me drinking one of those SlimFast shakes after school and smacked it right out of my hand.”
“Why?”
“She said, ‘Son, you don’t mess with the body the good Lord gave you. God made you to be a man of stature. You better figure out how to use it, not lose it.’ ”
“I love your mom,” Geneva says, pulling his hat off and trying it on. Witch cat.
“Yeah, she could probably win that hot dog contest without even trying. The woman knows her way around a buffet.”
Tucker laughs, but it’s sweet. I can tell he loves her. I bet she leaves the light on in the hallway for him at night and packs a note in his backpack every day. I bet she asked him where he was going tonight and when he would be home. Because those are the kinds of things mothers do. Or should do. When they’re around. And acting like mothers instead of stage managers. I squeeze my armrest. Suddenly I’m ready to stop talking and start the movie.
“Are we good to go?” Jacob yells from the little closet-size room behind us where the projector is queued up and ready to play. He’s also not in a costume, I notice. Unless one of the characters in the film wears jeans and a SpongeBob T-shirt.
Well hands us big bowls of candy and shouts, “Lights, camera, action!” and the screen flickers to life. I tense up and wave off the candy when Geneva passes it to me. If there are any startling noises in this movie, I will have to run out. I know this. Mom took me to a free movie in the park once. It was Frozen. When Elsa started turning everything to ice and the ice craaaaaacked over the dance floor and up the walls, I cried so loud the families around us started whispering, and Mom had to carry me to the truck. Please don’t let this be like that. I don’t have a mother to carry me out of here.
But it turns out I have nothing to worry about. Whatever the opposite of sensory stimulus is, that’s what this is. Sensory paralysis. Twenty minutes in, Geneva is the first one to say it.
“Guys. This movie sucks.”
“What!” Well says, like she insulted his sweet old grandma.
“Come on, Maxwell. It’s not even scary.” She points to the screen as Billy the Zombie crawls out of a grave and roars like an angry toddler.
“And the special effects,” Tucker adds. “Dude. They’re terrible. The talking cat looks like a bad robot.”
“I didn’t want to mention this, but,” Jacob says, not even pausing the game of Minecraft on his phone, “the copyright was 1993.”
Well sinks down in his seat and throws a fistful of candy at Jacob. The lights from the screen draw prisms on his face. I bite into my fifth marshmallow ghost so I don’t have to give an opinion. After two more minutes where we watch the robot cat get run over by a car and then reinflate like a balloon, he throws up his hands.
“Fine,” Well says. “Jacob, kill the reel.”
* * *
“Do you think Mrs. Nicky might actually kill Mary Katherine before opening night?” Well asks through a mouthful of pizza.
We are in the kitchen now, sitting on top of the granite countertops eating Little Caesars, which Well ordered with his dad’s credit card. He moved his jack-o’-lantern inside “for ambiance” as he put it, and it’s winking at us from the top of the stove. Well has loosened his corset, so now it kind of looks like a cowboy’s vest.
“The real question,” Geneva says, looping a string of cheese onto her finger and into her mouth, “is do you think she’ll catch Mary Katherine making out with Evan in the costume closet?”
“Really?” Am I the only one who misses these things?
“Oh come on, Lou. You’re telling me you haven’t noticed them texting during class?” Jacob says, which is maybe even more surprising than Mary Katherine and Evan kissing. Jacob doesn’t notice anything that doesn’t come pixelated on a screen.
“But they’re only in eighth grade,” I add. Geneva gives me one of her “did you just crawl out from under a rock” looks. My face flushes red. That’s what I get for spending the last year with only Mom for company.
“Can we not talk about theater for thirty seconds,” Jacob says now, flipping his laptop toward us. “Because this is classic.”
We watch a cat hop up on a toilet, squat, do its business, and then turn around and flush. Cat videos on YouTube are another cultural gap I’m just now starting to fill in.
“Niiiiiiice,” Tucker says, tipping an entire packet of Parmesan cheese in his mouth. How could anyone possibly be hungry after forty-two hot dogs?
“That’s disgusting,” Well says to Tucker, who laughs and then coughs out a puff of cheese dust.
We hear the front door open, followed by a slam. A second later footsteps march toward the kitchen.
“Get down. Get down off the counter!” Well whispers. “Tucker, put a coaster under that glass!”
We all slide off the counters, but then we don’t know where to move, so when Well’s dad rounds the corner, we are standing awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen with half-eaten slices of pizza in our hands.
“Maxwell, what is this?”
Well’s dad is not what I pictured. He is tan and short and muscly in a too-tight plaid shirt and alligator boots. He looks like a country music wannabe. And nothing at all like Well. I catch a whiff of his aftershave. It smells like car freshener.
“We, uh, just ordered some pizzas, Dad.”
“Not the pizzas, son. The getup.” He points a finger at Well’s dress and the heels he has slipped off but is still standing next to. Well tugs at the edges of the corset, like a too-small blanket. The kitchen is deafeningly silent.
“We were watching Hocus Pocus. It’s a theater thing,” he explains. But his dad is already shaking his head.
“A theater thing. I’m sure it is. I’ll blame that one on your mother. Listen, you kids got a ride home?” His phone rings then, and he doesn’t wait for our answer.
I guess that is our signal to leave. We all pull out our phones to call for rides. Dan answers on the first ring. He says they’re finishing dinner, and he will be over in fifteen minutes. And then he whispers, “Unless this is an emergency—then I will come now.”
“Why are you whispering?” I whisper back.
“I don’t know. It’s only been an hour. I wanted to make sure the movie wasn’t too scary, or, you know…” He trails off. Sweet Dan, who has learned not to use the blender or bang the kitchen cabinets or hug me on the way into school, is worried about me. Tears spring to my eyes, and I’m not even sure why. I tell him fifteen minutes is fine and hang up.
Nobody looks at Well while we wait to be picked up. Not that he’d notice, since he’s looking at the floor.
I’m the last one to leave, and Well walks me to the door. He’s changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants. The black lipstick is gone, but there’s still a faint outline, like a bruise.
We sit on the wide stone steps and wait f
or Dan.
“Sorry about my dad back there.”
I shrug, because what is there to say?
“He just doesn’t get it… doesn’t get me. Maybe it would have been better if they’d had more kids. Or if he’d listened to my mom and moved us all to the West Coast. But I don’t know, maybe not.” The wind ruffles his hair forward, and he looks younger, smaller.
“My mom doesn’t get me, either.”
“No?”
“No. She, uh, wishes I were more like her, I think. Louder, flashier, you know.”
“Is your mom a movie star or something?”
I give a sad smile. “No. She’s a waitress in Tahoe.” At least she was last time I heard, I think. It’s strange not knowing. Like holding on to a very long balloon. You know it’s out there, but you can’t always feel it when you tug. Sometimes I don’t even know if I want to feel it. Would it be better to let go? So I can stop wondering if she misses me? I twist my hair into a knot at the base of my neck and then release it so it unfurls slowly, like Mom used to do.
“So how come you’re here and she’s there?” Well doesn’t look at me when he asks. He’s picking at his fingernail polish. Peeling it off in green strips. Which is probably why I answer his question. We’ve never talked about why I’m living with Ginger and Dan.
“We didn’t have a lot of money. We were, uh, just camping out by the lake when the cops found out I wasn’t in school.”
“You camped out every night and didn’t have to go to school?” He stops picking at his nails. “Epic.”
“Uh, yeah. Except they decided it would be better if I lived with my aunt and uncle for a while.” For a while, I think. Whatever that means. It’s like when grown-ups say we’ll talk about it later or we’ll be there soon. It’s an answer, but it’s not. Maybe it’s better Mom doesn’t call, better than giving me nonanswers.
“At least it sounds like your mom was around.”
I don’t say anything. Was around. I think of this house. The four-car garage. The pool. The movie theater. And then I think of Well’s dad, standing in the kitchen in his alligator boots in front of his son, but staring at his phone. I guess there are different kinds of neglect.
“What does your dad do, anyway?” I ask.
“He’s a music producer,” Well says, sounding both bored and disappointed.
I shiver, remembering Howie and the meeting we never had. Mom would jump at the chance to meet Well’s dad. Good thing he’s always gone, because I will not ever let him hear me sing.
We sit for a while, not talking. When the lights from Dan’s Jeep swing around the circular drive, Well stands and holds out a hand to me, but I’m already halfway up and he lets it fall.
“I guess you can’t pick family, huh?” he says, and goes inside without waving good-bye.
* * *
Ginger is in my bedroom when I get home. Which is weird. She’s just sitting on the bed in her fuzzy robe and slippers.
“How was movie night?” she asks. Her voice is high, like it was the first night they picked me up from the airport.
“Okay, I guess. We didn’t finish the movie.”
“Oh, well, maybe next time?”
I nod. She looks strange, fidgety. She keeps tugging at the tie on her robe. I’m still thinking about Well, and I just want to be alone.
“Um, I guess I’m going to get ready for bed.” I start to walk into the bathroom, thinking maybe she’ll take the hint and go, but she calls after me.
“Lou, wait. Come sit down.” She pats the bed beside her. I walk over to the reading chair instead.
“Lou, I found your earbuds in the laundry room, and I was just putting them away—” She leans over, and, before she can even open the top drawer of the nightstand, my face begins to burn. Shame crawls up my spine, like a spider. I tuck myself farther back in the chair.
She begins pulling out half-opened sleeves of Ritz crackers. A Twix. An unopened bag of Fritos. A chocolate chip cookie from school wrapped up in napkins. Three packages of pink-iced animal crackers. Laid out on the bed like that it looks like a lot more than it did when it was shoved in the drawer. I want to throw a blanket over it all.
“I really just want to go to bed.”
“Lou, we need to talk about this.” She stands and walks closer to me.
“Talk about what?” I curl away from her toward the window.
“Honey, why is all this in your room? Are you not getting enough to eat? I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide food.” She kneels in front of me, and I’m staring at the top of her head. “Lou, I will buy you whatever you need.” She starts to put a hand out toward my knee, and I jerk away so hard my leg knocks into the window with a crack. We sit like that for a few minutes. Frozen.
I try to think of a way to explain it, but I can’t. How do you explain to someone who’s never gone without food for more than a couple of hours what it’s like to be hungry for months? To always be looking at the leftovers on strangers’ plates? To feel that gnawing in your belly and then, eventually, not to feel it at all?
“I’ll take the stuff downstairs.”
“No, honey. It’s okay.” She wipes a finger under one eye, and I can’t tell if she’s crying. “Keep it if you want to. I just want to know if you’re okay?”
Am I okay? I don’t know. How can anybody really answer that?
She sits back on her heels now, tucking her robe underneath her.
“You know, your mom and I used to sneak boxes of Ritz crackers back to our room and dip them straight into the peanut butter jar. It drove our mama crazy… all those crumbs.”
“Mom and I do that too. With the peanut butter.”
She smiles and leans her head on the leg of the chair. I look at her hands folded in her lap; the freckles reach all the way down to her fingertips. It reminds me of something.
“Ginger?”
“Hmm?”
“Did we go to a strawberry patch when I was little?”
She lifts her head and looks at me.
“I can’t believe you remember that. You must have been four, maybe five. Yes, we did. Just outside of Lexington. I was finishing up law school at the University of Kentucky, and you and your mom came to visit.”
“I fell in the dirt and you helped me up.”
“Did I?”
“Yeah.” I can feel it. The warm dirt. Starting to cry, but knowing I wasn’t supposed to, because Mom told me I was a big girl now, too big to cry. And then Ginger put her hands under my arms and scooped me up. And I screamed louder. Even then I didn’t like other people touching me. But then she handed me a strawberry. She was the one who handed me the strawberry, not Mom.
“Ginger, how come that’s the last time I remember you?”
“Oh, honey. It’s a long story.”
I give her a sideways glance.
“All right.” She sighs. “Did you know your mom was a volleyball player? She was brilliant, actually. She had that long, lean thing going for her, and no one had to tell her to be aggressive. She had scouts at her matches even in her junior year.”
I didn’t know any of this, because Mom never told me anything about anything past yesterday. But I can so picture it. Mom in spandex and a ponytail yelling “Spike!” and slamming the ball.
“So, what happened?” I ask, but Ginger is quiet. “Oh. Me… I happened.” There it is, the real reason Mom’s not calling. I interrupted her life, and she’s getting it back on track now. A hard lump lodges itself in my throat, even though I told myself we were both better off now. I still miss her. It’s not fair how much I miss her.
“Oh, honey,” Ginger says again, reading my face. “Your mom, from the very beginning, was so excited about you. She’d always wanted to be a mom. She would carry around old Barbies and baby them, all the way up until she was thirteen. I was the first one she told when she found out she was expecting. Did you know that? She was already pretty far along when she figured it out, but she told me first. It was spring of my
sophomore year at the community college in Arkansas, and she just pulls up in front of the dorms in our parents’ busted-up Pontiac and yells my name until someone tells her which room I’m in. Then she comes running in waving that pregnancy test around.” Ginger laughs. “I told her to hold off on telling our parents. See if I couldn’t patch things up over the summer and then we could tell them together, but I guess she just couldn’t wait.”
“And they weren’t as excited as she was.”
Ginger sighs. “Your grandparents are very hard-minded people. Slip too low or too high on the ladder and you’re out. We Montgomery girls ‘just didn’t know our place,’ as they liked to say.”
“So what happened? I get why you don’t talk to your parents, but how come you and Mom didn’t stay close?”
Ginger runs a hand through her hair and snaps at the hair tie around her wrist.
“Your mom moved out of our parent’s house, but she didn’t leave town right away. She floated around with friends. After you were born, she got a job cleaning rich people’s houses. They let her bring you along. You loved it—all the clients’ kids’ toys and Elmo on the big flat screens.”
I don’t remember any of this. But I can picture this, too. Mom at eighteen, nineteen, twenty, cleaning toilets and folding neat corners into bedsheets while I stack other kids’ Legos.
“I was just about to graduate law school when we met up at that farm to pick strawberries. Jill and I had talked about moving in together. I’d already interned at the law firm here in Nashville, and I knew they’d offer me a job. All I had to do was pass the bar exam.”
“But?”
“But I made a mistake. I offered your mom some money. I had a little savings, and I knew there’d be more coming my way. So I said I could pay her share of the rent and help with her tuition if she wanted to start taking some community-college classes somewhere.”
I lived with Mom for twelve years. Ginger doesn’t need to tell me what happened next.
“She got mad,” I say.
“She got mad.”
“Because you were giving her a ‘handout.’ ”