When she was through, I sat up.
Mom, you’ll have to go alone. The words growled deep from the cave inside me. Because I’m staying with Lyle. I’ve lived here longer than I’ve lived anyplace else, and now it’s my home. It’s where I’m from.
Ben, please. There’s not a chance I’d ever leave without you. You’re my own son. We’re on the same team, right?
She was restricting, though. I could hear it perfectly, nasal pressure. That’s a warning in Lyle’s book. Nose talking means nervousness.
If you want to be with me, you’ll have to stay here, I said. My throat was as unrestricted as a python about to swallow a mouse.
Watch your rudeness, Mom told me back, clenched and sharp. Don’t you talk to me like that. But then she kind of sagged, as if a lead ball had rolled to the pit of her stomach, and I knew she was feeling unfixed on everything—her plan, me, and who was really on her team.
She sat there on my bed until I told her, Okay, good night.
Still she sat, trying to think up what to answer. Except for all there was to say was good night, which she finally did, quiet and through her nose.
I knew there’d be more, and there was, but not that night. That night, all she could do was stand up and walk out, scared off by the sound of the voice Lyle gave me.
“IT WON’T MAKE A DIFFERENCE if I wear one or not,” I tell Lyle, but he grumbles.
“She does this for attention. Gina sets up these silly obstacles,” Lyle says to Mallory once we’ve pulled onto the highway.
Mallory doesn’t answer.
Back at the motel, he keeps jawing. “I never knew Gina to walk into a coat-and-tie restaurant. Fast food, that’s what she loves. Fried chicken, fried fish, French fries, fried—”
“Okay, enough.” Mallory shakes her head. “Let’s put an angle on the positive. For one thing, there are shopping malls everywhere.”
Lyle frowns and slaps open the side locks of his suitcase, pushing through everything in it. “She knows we wouldn’t pack a tie, let alone a … a dinner jacket!”
Mallory looks over at me and winks. “You sound like you could use a nap,” she says to Lyle. “Bennett and I are going to check out that pool.”
“No, no,” says Lyle but then he puts his hands on his eyes, like he’s testing out how a nap might feel.
“We’ll wake you if we need you,” Mallory says. “You’re exhausted.”
“She’s right,” I say. Lyle looks yellow, the last-week-of-a-bruise color. He thinks on it and then agrees, but only if we wake him up in an hour.
“We’re out of here,” Mallory whispers as soon as we’re both walking outside. She takes the car keys out of her pocketbook and clinks them together. “If I had to hear that man go on one more second, I swear I’d have popped him a knuckle sandwich.”
“Where are we going?”
“Shopping, of course.”
It’s my second trip of the day with just Mallory, and I mention something about that.
“Yeah, we’re good together, you and I, Bennett,” she answers. “Although for the life of me, I don’t know what we have in common.”
I’d been thinking on that, too, and I have an answer ready. “We speak out of our stomachs and say what we mean,” I tell her.
First Mallory frowns like she doesn’t understand, but then her eyebrows push up over her sunglasses as she nods her head, and I know she gets it.
Lip twitch gives us directions to a department store, which we find easy. Soon as we walk through the sliding doors, Mallory’s got everybody snapped to attention. In ten minutes, I’ve sampled more shirts and jackets and dress pants than I ever wore in my entire life.
Mallory says my hair and eyes need a vibrant palette. She uses lots of Very Special words like that, and both of the sales guys eat it up.
Finally, we go with a tan sports coat and navy pants with a white shirt and a navy-and-red striped tie.
“You don’t have to do this, Mal,” I tell her as she hands her credit card to one of the sales guys.
“Bennett, have you ever owned a sports coat that wasn’t handed down from Dustin?”
I think on that, and the answer seems to be no. “See, I never had much use for one,” I begin. “Dustin’s ones always fit enough.”
“There’s this saying,” says Mallory, and then she tells me some scrambly French words that sound like say-bluh-wuh-kwa-plyoo or something, and I wish I knew French.
“Yeah?”
“It means, it’s only the first step that costs. Times like now, you’ve got to own yourself, Bennett. It’s my pleasure to help you feel like you’re not just anybody in somebody else’s jacket. But the rest is up to you. When you see your mom tonight, it’s up to you to know who you are. And I’d start by ordering the most expensive thing on the menu. It’ll give you some nerve, and nerve lives right next door to courage.”
None of her advice is from Lyle’s book, so I know I’m getting a free page out of the real Mallory. “I know another expression, in English,” I tell her. “It goes, the clothes make the man.”
“Ah, that’s a good one,” she says, but I have a feeling she heard it before.
She crumples the receipt into her purse so I won’t see it, which is nice of her. I know if I’d caught a look at the total, it would have made me feel weird.
Every good time I spend with Mallory feels like another handful of loose change dropped into a rainy-day water cooler. If hard times ever come up between her and me, there’s some genuine savings to fall back on.
“Is saying my whole name Bennett part of owning myself?” I ask her when we’re driving back to the motel.
“Mainly I like the sound of Bennett,” Mallory answers. “Especially when you consider that everyone and his brother is named after the guy on the hundred dollar bill.”
It takes me a minute, and then I tell her that’s a good one.
EVEN BEFORE YOUR PERMIT came through, you were driving Lyle crazy. Counting down calendar Xes to your permit and driving his car around the block without permission and saving your pizza money for Dogger’s half-wrecked car with the taped-up back window. All you could talk was car, car, car, and when you weren’t talking car, you were so quiet you seemed invisible.
How did that paper turn out? Lyle would ask you. The one you were writing on the French and Indian War?
Mmm. Your face bent over your dinner, your chin an inch from the table. As soon as you were done eating, you’d ask to be excused, polite enough so Lyle had to say yes, but quick enough to show how much you didn’t want to stick around.
More than once, Lyle got called in to talk to your teachers about your cutting school or, when you did show up, your bad behavior. Wild pranks like spray-painting your locker or deflating the basketballs in the gym with your black-T-shirt friends. And since there wasn’t a mom around, I got the bulk of Lyle’s worrying.
What should I do, Ben? he asked me more than once. He refuses to stay in counseling. Punishments, rewards, fear tactics—nothing fazes him, nothing interests him.
It’s probably a stage, I’d usually answer, which seemed to be the most settling explanation, the one I’d heard the most on television talk shows.
All you really wanted was to visit Mom. You wore Lyle down with the asking.
Gina can’t handle you, Lyle would say. She’s trying to work out her own life.
But Lyle couldn’t handle you either, and once you got your license and bought Dogger’s car, there wasn’t much anyone could do to stop you from leaving.
You took off on the Fourth of July, while Lyle and me were at the town fireworks, and you pulled up at Mom’s two days later. All the way across the country, nonstop except to refuel. When you phoned us from her place, it wasn’t any surprise. Lyle had figured where you’d gone, and he’d already wired Mom extra money to pay for your visiting expenses.
Lyle’s always been a think-aheader.
Mom said she’d take you for the summer, but that was it. You’d have to go b
ack once school started, she said.
How you got her mind changed is still not all the way clear in my understanding, but I bet it wasn’t too hard. Mom always had someone to keep her company. First Dad, then me, then Lyle, now you. A fair trade so long as I got to keep Lyle, I figured. All truth told, I didn’t mind hogging Lyle for myself. No more sharing.
Lyle wasn’t exactly as pleased. He fussed and fumed and even went over to Dogger’s, poking at him with questions about how long you’d been planning this, why didn’t you want to live with us, why wouldn’t you come home. I could have told him Dogger wouldn’t have the answers, at least not the ones Lyle was looking for.
Tell Dad to get off my case, you said to me, calling collect when you spared it the thought. Tell him to send my transcripts so I can enroll here, otherwise I won’t go to school at all.
He wants you home.
I’m here now. Gina’s going to phone him any day, soon as she gets around to it. There’s two bedrooms, so she’s still got her privacy. She told me it was okay. Besides, I met this amazing girl, Steph, and she’s teaching me windsurfing.
What about Daphne?
What about her?
There wasn’t anything to answer. I figured if you didn’t want Daphne, you didn’t want anyone, since Daphne was the person you tolerated the easiest. And of course, Mom came to your rescue. In a letter to Lyle, she said that living in such a small town all your life, she expected anyone sane would go mental.
Your mother is making a statement at Dustin’s expense, Lyle said as he handed me the letter. That was the first time I ever heard him say your mother in that bad, my-fault way.
But he transferred your school records. Both sides lose in a contest of stubbornness, Lyle explained, and Dustin will come home when he needs me.
Maybe Lyle really believed it, maybe he was just talking to persuade himself, but the fact that you’d be back soon wasn’t the kind of thing to question Lyle about. Not right then, anyway, when missing you was like mud on his heart.
“WELL, GET AN EYEFUL of you!” Mom says when I meet her in the motel lobby, doing a sort of pop and spin away from the dingy glass sliding door where she’d been studying her reflection.
I go to hug her at the same time that she tosses me a small, silver-wrapped package, which I have to step back to catch.
“What’s this?”
“Something small. A nothing thing. You look really great, Ben.”
I shrug my shoulders but I feel not too bad, especially after my long shower and Mallory’s comb-out of my hair. She even knotted my tie a special Frenchy way.
Lyle hadn’t been as helpful through the time of me getting ready. He just kept going on about Mallory spending too much money, even though I told him it was her pleasure. I wished I could have tossed out that slippery French expression about how only the first step costs. That would have fixed him.
But when Mallory was done, Lyle softened up and said that he didn’t even recognize me. Which is how Mom is looking at me, too. I’m not one for liking the feel of church clothes, but when I saw myself in the mirror, it was something. I could have passed for a teenager.
“You can open that now, or anytime,” Mom says as we walk out to the parking lot.
But the present turns out to be weird, a bracelet made out of rope. A girl present. I look at Mom for a couple of seconds to see if she’s kidding, before I say thanks and slip my hand through.
“It’s soft,” I tell her. There’s not much else to say.
“It’s a friendship bracelet. Everyone out here wears them. It’s all natural, made out of hemp,” Mom explains. “You can make anything out of hemp. Shirts, anything. It’s wonderful.”
“Okay,” I say but then I tuck the bracelet behind my watch, out of sight. It doesn’t go with my sharp Frenchy look.
“Do Lyle and his lady friend have dinner plans?” Mom asks as we get in her car, a small buggy car, the kind she always likes to drive.
“Her name’s Mallory. Chinese takeout and pay-per-view,” I answer. “But first they were going back to the hospital to check on Dustin. He was asleep last time.”
“Lyle mentioned that you weren’t ready to deal with seeing him, earlier.”
“Hospitals are creepy,” I answer. “You have to be a hundred percent ready for them.”
“Hope you feel a hundred percent ready to see me,” Mom says, flashing me a kindergarten-teacher smile and turning on the radio, which is set on a good hits station.
Just this afternoon, I’d told Mallory how I didn’t care if I ever saw Mom again for the rest of my life. She’d called me a liar and she’d been right, because actually it’s not bad at all to be with Mom, sitting in the front passenger seat of her buggy car and listening to a good hits station. It reminds me of old times. We sing along with the music and of course Mom knows all the words.
The restaurant is far away and made out of glass and different from any other place I’ve been. First thing I see is a waterfall splashing into a pool right in the middle of the room. It makes people’s voices echo into a big waterlogged noise.
Mom is wearing a red dress with white dots on it, but other ladies are looking show-offish, too, in tiny skirts and tall heels. Everywhere are fat guys chewing steak or cigars, and the piano singer lady is practically topless. The whole restaurant could be described as super fancy in a rated-R way.
“Your eyes are saucers,” Mom says as we sit at our table. “You’ll have to do a better job not to stare.” She wriggles in her seat. “Isn’t this funsie?”
I try to recall if I ever heard Mom use that word funsie before, and I decide no.
The waiter brings us menus and Mom says, “A nice bottle of red to start, please.” I’d forgot about Mom and red wine. She used to drink it every night, even with fried-egg sandwiches.
When the wine comes, Mom toasts to how grown-up I look and says how I remind her of Dad.
I tell her that I can’t really remember what Dad looks like anymore. “I haven’t seen him since fourth grade,” I say.
“He’s been no kind of father.” Mom’s eyes get mean. “Old Frank. What a burnout.”
“He sends birthday cards with money in them,” I say. “And he calls me on Christmas.”
“Oh, throw that one at me.” Mom’s laugh is out of tune. “Last Christmas I was on a boat in the middle of nowhere, Ben. There weren’t any phones.”
“I wasn’t comparing you two,” I tell her. And I don’t think I was but maybe I was.
We go quiet as we read our menus.
The prices aren’t listed next to the food, so I have to guess what’s the most expensive. I figure it has to be the shark. I bet sharks are hard to catch. I also ask the waiter for some sweetbread to start, in case the shark tastes bad.
Mom barks out laughing when she hears my order and calls me a brave man. She orders a steak filet and takes a lot of time explaining to the waiter how she wants it cooked.
After the waiter leaves, she starts right in, telling me about the vet clinic and her scuba and how the weather here is good for her sinuses. I am sort of listening and also watching the restaurant people. It’s the kind of place where you might expect some gangsters to show up and start a shootout. In fact, there’s one guy at the table ahead of us who could pass for a gangster no problem. Could even be a gun in his side jacket pocket. Gangsters call it packing heat.
“And I counted, Ben,” Mom is saying. “Isn’t that awful? But it’s true. Eighteen months. It made me want to cry.”
“What?”
“That we’ve been apart for eighteen months. Ben! Haven’t you been listening to me?”
“Maybe I can come see you this summer,” I tell her. “Like if I have some free time after scouts camp, unless Lyle wants to rent that cabin upstate. Last year he did, I told you about it, right? How it was on a lake and we rented canoes? But if we don’t do that, I’ll come over here to visit you and Dustin. Okay?”
“Don’t put yourself out,” Mom says, sarcastic. Sh
e looks into her glass and swirls the wine around. “I’ve always imagined a special bond between us, a mother-and-son bond,” she tells the wine. “I gave birth to you, Ben. You can’t break that bond, no matter how long and far you stretch it. I’ve been good at not pressuring you to come out here. Very good, I’d say, since you’re mine by law. You don’t belong to Lyle. That’s why I want you to think hard when you reconsider living here with me, your own mother.”
I budge in my seat and don’t answer, although I want to ask her how could I reconsider something I never considered in the first place? But that would sound too smartmouth.
So instead I say, “Well, it was fun singing in the car and all.”
Mom’s eyes go a little moist then, and her hand reaches out to close around my fingers. “Tell me. Have you forgotten Before?” she asks. “When it was you and me, or even with Dad? There are days I miss, when you were little, when Frank knew how to have fun. Don’t you remember all the fun we had, us three?”
“I don’t go back that far,” I explain.
Then the waiter struts over with Mom’s salad and my sweetbread, except for it’s not sweetbread at all, it’s some kind of meat mash with gravy splattered on top.
“I didn’t ask for this,” I say to the waiter and Mom, whoever will listen.
“Sweetbreads, sir,” says the waiter, and he nods his head at the mash. The way he says sir sounds like he’s making fun of me. Then Mom tells me the disgusting truth that sweetbreads are another name for baby calf brains.
“Someone could have told me that when I ordered.” My voice isn’t so polite. Mom smiles away the waiter, then leans over the table candle, gritting her teeth so that her smile becomes a pretend of what it was. She looks like a jack-o’-lantern.
“Is this how Lyle’s raising you? Lord, at least you could try the food that you ordered and that I’m paying for.”
“There’s no way I’m eating baby cow brains. That’s obscene.”
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