Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee

by Jeff Zentner

  I laugh in spite of myself. “And there’s like extreme energy pancake batter with B vitamins and caffeine and whatnot.”

  We both laugh for a second or two, and it feels good.

  “Love you, DeeDeeBooBoo.”

  “Love you, JoJoBee.”

  “I’m sorry for ditching out.”

  “It’s cool. Let me know how the squeeze-bottle pancakes are.” I shut my door and walk to my trailer. I’m not mad anymore, just sad.

  Josie drives away, leaving me behind.

  * * *

  •••

  Mom is sitting on the couch, one leg tucked under her, a bare foot resting on the coffee table, a bottle of nail polish in each hand. “DeeDee! You need me to clear out? I wasn’t sure when you’d get home.”

  “No.” I collapse onto the couch next to her.

  “Where’s Josie?”

  “Not here.”

  “I got that part. I thought y’all were prepping the show.”

  “We were supposed to.”

  “And?”

  “Now we’re not.”

  “Y’all okay?”

  “Fine. What’re you watching?”

  “Don’t know. Forensic Files or something. Did y’all have a fight?”

  “I said we were fine.”

  “I pick up on your energy, DeeDee.”

  I sigh loudly. “Sorta, okay? We sorta had a fight. But we’re good.”

  Mom holds up the bottles. “Green or purple?”

  I stare at the TV. “Purple.”

  “You didn’t even look.”

  “Every time I see someone with green toenails, I’m like, What happened there?”

  “It’s a cute shade. Nice springtime color.”

  “They’re your toes.”

  “I’m gonna do purple. Want me to do yours when I’m done?”

  “Sure.” I hook the toe of one of my Chuck Taylors on the heel of the other one and push it off. Then I do the same with the other foot.

  Mom shakes the bottle, leans forward, and starts to work on her toes. She works for a while before asking, “How was the fight?”

  “Actually pretty fun. We couldn’t see super great, and we sat next to a couple of old nasty pervs, but otherwise…”

  “How pervy are we talking about?”

  “They didn’t try to grope us or anything.”

  “Better not have. I’d cut their nuts off.” Mom’s never been Ms. Motivation, but she’s always found the moxie to be protective of me. Which I appreciate. “Weren’t you there to see your friend?” she continues.

  “More Josie’s friend. He’s in love with her.”

  “How’d he do?”

  “Good but still lost. Barely.”

  “Bummer.”

  “He took it hard.”

  “Well, yeah. Is that why Josie isn’t here?”

  “She’s going to see him, even though he didn’t ask and I bet he’d rather be alone.”

  Mom wipes off an errant smudge of nail polish with a cotton ball soaked in nail polish remover. I’ve always liked the sharp burn of it in my nostrils. “That’s sweet of her.”

  “What? To ditch me?”

  “Not to ditch you, but it doesn’t sound like she’s doing that.”

  “What do you call it, then?”

  “Her friend needs her, and she’s going to him.”

  “It would be cool if you’d take my side.”

  “DeeDee, I’m always on your side.” She finishes one foot and blows on it.

  “Not so much this time.” I slump farther into the couch, leaning my head away from Mom.

  Mom reaches down, pulls one of my feet onto her lap, and starts painting. “What do you want me to say? I’ll say it. Want me to say, That little bitch, Josie. I’ll pull all her hair out?”

  “No.”

  “That doesn’t feel good to hear.”

  “Not really.”

  We sit in silence for a few minutes while Mom paints and the TV drones. She used to work at a nail salon, so she takes the task seriously. Outside, lightning splashes blue-white across the sky, and thunder rumbles like a distant dump truck driving over a pothole. I shouldn’t love thunderstorms as much as I do. Our trailer isn’t the best place to be during a tornado. But I’ve always loved storms. When my friend Jesmyn lived here, I would make her watch them with me. She thought it was dumb at first, but then she came to love it as much as I did.

  Of course, Jesmyn moved and left me behind. We don’t talk nearly as much as we used to. She has a cool boyfriend now who takes up all her time, and pretty soon she’ll be going to Carnegie Mellon, where she’ll find even more cool friends to take up her time.

  “Mom,” I say softly.

  “What, baby?” Mom murmurs, focusing.

  “Why does everyone I love leave me behind?” My voice quavers.

  Mom stops and looks at me. Her eyes are deep and soft. She caps the bottle of nail polish and sets my foot on the coffee table, careful not to smear anything. (She is still a professional, after all.) She gently pulls me upright, to her, and cradles my head on her shoulder. “Oh, sweetie.”

  I weep quietly for a moment or two.

  “I thought maybe this wasn’t just about Josie,” Mom says, her voice muffled in my hair.

  I shake my head. “What’s wrong with me? Why am I so broken?”

  Mom holds my face in both hands and turns it to hers. “You’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

  “If that’s true,” I say, my voice snagging in my throat, “why do people keep leaving?” Someday I’d love to know why the people with the least to lose are always losing the little they have.

  She pets my hair. “I don’t know, sweetie. But I know it’s not because there’s something wrong with you.”

  “Then people should stay with me.”

  “I won’t ever leave you. Hear me?”

  I nod.

  “Never,” she says.

  I nod.

  “Ever.”

  I gather the pieces of myself and take a deep breath, ragged at the edges. I lie back again and put my foot in Mom’s lap so she can finish.

  “Did Josie say something about leaving?” Mom asks, her voice distant in concentration.

  “No. But, like, the danger is there. Creeping on my life from the bushes.”

  “Gimme your other foot. Careful you don’t smear the one I just did.”

  “Is this what my life is going to be?” I give my mom my other foot.

  “What? Having to be careful you don’t smear nail polish?” A roll of thunder, a camera flash of lightning.

  “No. Sitting at home alone on Saturday nights. Rinse and repeat until I die.”

  Mom half smiles. “I won’t take offense at that.”

  “You know what I mean. Obviously I’m not alone at this moment.”

  “I think you’re going to have a wonderful life filled with lots of people who love you.”

  “Be nice if a few stuck around,” I mutter.

  “I’ve seen that for you. I’ve told you that before.”

  “I know, but—”

  “You doubt my gift?” Mom tries to sound lighthearted, but I can tell she’s hurt.

  “I mean…”

  “DeeDee! You think I’m conning people?”

  “No. Just, I wish your gift worked better on our own household.” My voice trails off. I try to say the last part sweetly. But it never really helps to say something hurtful to someone sweetly, because all it tells that person is that you know you’re saying something hurtful.

  Mom deflates, and she smiles sadly. She doesn’t say anything for a few seconds, looking like she’s trying to appear deep in scrutiny as she paints. Finally, she says in a quiet voice, “Yeah. I w
ish that too.”

  “Mom.”

  “It’s fine. No, you’re right.” Lightning. Thunder. “I didn’t know it was supposed to storm tonight.”

  “See what I mean?” We both laugh even though it’s not that funny.

  “There,” Mom says, resting my other foot gently on the coffee table and blowing on my nails. “Pretty, pretty.”

  I wiggle my toes. “Now this gift of yours I do believe in.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Kidding.”

  I half watch the TV and simmer in my feelings. Now I’m wondering why Josie didn’t invite me to go to Lawson’s with her.

  Mom finishes and props her feet up next to mine. We have the same feet. We share shoes all the time. She hugs my arm and rests her head on my shoulder.

  I rest my head on top of hers. “Mom,” I say quietly.

  “Hmm?”

  “You’re a good last-person-in-the-world-to-stay-with-me.”

  She squeezes my arm tighter. “My gift wasn’t wrong when it came to your dad.”

  “You knew?”

  “Not that he’d leave. Only that something wonderful would come from being with him, and I was not wrong. I was not wrong at all.”

  We sit like that in silence. Mom reaches up a couple of times to brush tears off her cheek.

  She’s the only person who doesn’t ever make me feel like I love them more than they love me.

  Outside it begins to rain hard, pummeling the windows in heavy pulses, like the air has a heartbeat. One of those dark green spring rains that won’t let up for two days, stripping blossoms from the trees, making morning feel like dusk, and you wonder if you’ll ever see the sun again.

  Naturally I messed up the first three or four pancakes I tried to make. But I’d planned for this and had several bottles of batter. At least my parents were at a movie and Alexis also wasn’t home to ask questions. I really didn’t feel like explaining why I was making pancakes on a Saturday night. I tried one of the pancakes, and it wasn’t horrible. Anyway, it’s the thought that counts.

  I get Lawson’s address from the Idiot Twins. I thought about asking Lawson, but I want this to be a surprise. Also, there’s a tiny part of me that hopes he won’t be home.

  He lives on the other side of town from me, but Jackson isn’t huge, and I get there quickly. I dash to the front door. The wind is picking up, and it looks like it’s going to storm. I have a plastic bottle of Mrs. Butterworth’s in one hand (fake maple syrup kinda yiks me out because every time I eat it, I sweat fake maple syrup smell for days, but Lawson seems like a Mrs. Butterworth’s guy) and a plate of warm pancakes covered in plastic wrap in the other. I stand at the front door for a second, feeling weird. It’s late on a Saturday night to be delivering anything unexpected to anyone, much less a stack of pancakes.

  Still, I came all this way, so I ring the doorbell. I didn’t sell my dignity by buying squeeze bottles of pancake batter for nothing.

  A woman who looks like she could be Lawson’s mom answers the door. “Hi?” she says uncertainly. Rightly so.

  “Hi, sorry, I know it’s getting late. I’m Josie Howard. Friend of Lawson’s. I was at the fight earlier. I brought these over to cheer him up. I’m not a weirdo.” Nailed it. Nothing like assuring someone you’re not a weirdo to put them at ease that you’re not a weirdo.

  The woman’s face spreads easily into a wide smile. Lawson has her smile. It’s a nice smile. “Oh! Lawson mentioned you! Nice to meet you! Aren’t you sweet? Come in, come in. Sorry about the house. I’m Lawson’s mama, by the way.”

  “I thought maybe.” I follow her inside. Lawson’s house is modest and comfortable, and clearly his mom has won the war for its decorative soul. It has “special meal” smell mixed with the chemical tang of Glade apple-scented plug-ins. Whooping spills out of the living room, drowning out the sound of some game. Lawson’s mom steps in, and I follow.

  “Boys, this is Lawson’s friend Josie.”

  I peek my head in and give a little wave.

  “Hi,” I say to the man who looks like Lawson’s dad. “Hi again,” I say to his brothers. They nod politely. “We met at the fight,” I explain to Lawson’s mom.

  “I’m Lawson’s dad, Arturo. I go by Art.” He speaks with an accent and has a warm and kind face. A nice face. Like Lawson’s.

  I step inside and shake his hand. “Josie Howard.”

  “Lawson expecting you?” one of the brothers—Connor, Wyatt, or Trey—asks.

  “No.”

  “Don’t be surprised if he ain’t any fun to hang out with,” Connor, Wyatt, or Trey says. “Don’t judge him based on tonight.”

  “You think Law’s gonna be sad to see a pretty girl carrying a stack of pancakes?” Connor, Wyatt, or Trey says. “Buddy, he ain’t whupped that bad.” They all laugh raucously.

  I blush.

  “Y’all behave,” Lawson’s mom says with a heretofore unseen firmness, eyebrows raised.

  We climb the stairs. I look at the family pictures lining the landing. “You’re sorta surrounded in this family, huh?” I say.

  “On all sides. Boys, boys, boys everywhere. But”—she leans in, a conspiratorial tone in her voice—“I always win. Even if they don’t realize it.”

  She knocks on a closed door. “Lawson, honey?”

  “What?” he calls.

  “Can I come in? You got company.”

  “Yeah.” He says it after a beat’s longer hesitation and more reluctance than I would have liked.

  She opens the door, and over her shoulder, I see Lawson reclining on his bed, paperback in hand, ice pack covering one eye. Tater is snuggled up next to him.

  My heart does a strange little swoop when I see him. Like when a bird is flying along really fast and it stops beating its wings for a second and does that glide-and-dip thing. Um, okay, I guess, heart. Stop being goofy.

  We make eye contact and he tries to get up quickly, but he’s obviously sore and moves deliberately, like an old man. I never noticed before how fluidly and gracefully he moved normally, until seeing him like this. “Josie? Git, Tater.” Tater jumps down from the bed and exits.

  “Tater!” I bend down and scratch Tater’s neck with my free hand as he’s leaving. “Hey, dude,” I say nonchalantly, standing and holding out the plate of pancakes. “I brought you your favorite food out of all the possible foods on earth.” I punctuate this with a little eye roll.

  “How’d you know where I lived?”

  I blush again. This really is bananas, what I’m doing. “I…got your address from the twins. Wanted this to be a surprise.” I’m keenly aware of Lawson’s mom, still standing there. What she must think of me right now. The Pancake Stalker.

  “I am surprised,” Lawson says, not unhappily (or happily).

  “Anyway, I just came to drop these off.”

  “It was a good surprise.” He sounds like he’s saying this for his mom’s benefit.

  “I’m gonna grab y’all some milk and another plate and silverware,” Lawson’s mom says, and leaves.

  The air between us is thick and stiff.

  “So. Hi,” I say.

  “Hey.”

  “I met your dad. He seems really nice.”

  “He’s cool.”

  “So he’s named Arturo, and his sons are named Connor, Wyatt, Trey, and Lawson?”

  Lawson gives the barest hint of a smile. “My mom, who’s a seventh-generation Tennessean, made a deal with my dad: she names the boys; he names the girls.”

  “She’s four for four, and your dad—”

  “Big loser. Just like me.”

  “Oh, come on. You lost by like one point.”

  “Still.”

  “You doing all right?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” He motions at the book he’s left tented on his bed. “D
oing some reading. Distracts me.” He’s having trouble making eye contact, like back at the arena after the fight.

  I take in his room for the first time. It’s a hundred times neater than any dude’s room I’ve ever been in, and it’s filled with books.

  “You’re a legitimately huge reader,” I say, walking over to one of his bookshelves. They skew heavily toward sci-fi and fantasy.

  He sits back on his bed. “I contain multitudes.”

  “What’re you reading?”

  He holds up the book. “Last book in the Bloodfall series. You read them?”

  “I’m into the show.”

  “The books are better.”

  “Always.”

  Lawson’s mom comes back in, balancing a couple of plates, a couple of glasses of milk, some silverware, and a little crock of butter. She arranges them on Lawson’s desk. “All right. I’ll leave you two to your feast.” She exits again.

  I unwrap the pancakes. “They’re probably soggy. Sorry. I’m a pancake-delivery rookie.”

  Lawson comes over to me, puts a couple on his plate, and starts buttering them. “I’m sure they’re great.”

  “Maybe? Anyway, I’ll leave you alone.”

  “What? Why?”

  “You seem like you want to be alone.”

  “No. I mean, I don’t want to be around most people, but…” He finally makes eye contact. He really does have nice eyes. There’s an intelligence in them I guess I haven’t noticed before, when he wasn’t in a room surrounded by books.

  A clap of thunder makes us both jump, and rain starts battering the windows.

  “Besides, it might be dangerous to drive right now.”

  “I feel weird that I ambushed you.”

  “I won’t lie, I’m a little embarrassed to be showing my face in front of you.” He pours some syrup on his pancakes, grabs a knife and fork, and sits on the edge of his bed.

  “You have no reason to be.”

  “I invite you, thinking you’re going to watch me win, and instead I lose.” His voice cracks. He stares at his plate. Then, as suddenly as the rain started, his face collapses like a baby’s when he figures out a stranger is holding him, and he begins weeping, his shoulders shaking, his body too small to contain what’s overfilling his heart. He tries to catch himself, but it all slips out.