by Claire Adams
Chapter Three
Graham
Saturday morning was one of those nice, early summer days—warm but not humid, no annoying, biting insects, a refreshing breeze every once in a while. I met Todd down at the conservation area we rode at most often. He showed up in full kit, and of course he couldn’t resist giving me shit about my baggy shorts and T-shirt.
“You heading to the skate park after this?” he asked.
He wouldn’t be running his mouth so much once we got out on the trail, though. For unknown reasons, I was particularly adept at this style of bike riding, despite not doing any training for it or even using the “correct” equipment. It was fun, I didn’t have to wear Spandex, and I liked the rush it gave me to be careening through the woods, sometimes at 20-plus miles per hour.
There was also a point when you had pushed yourself as far as you might have thought you could physically, when your mind would just sort of turn into this blank slate and your body would take over. That exhaustion you felt would completely disappear, and you’d be able to go harder and faster than you would’ve thought possible. It was a sort of magic, really, and just the possibility of obtaining the feeling was enough to get me back on the bike again and again. But I also rode because it kept me out of trouble.
We turned onto a fire road, which was wide enough for us to ride next to each other. Todd slowed until I’d caught up and we were side by side.
“So, did you call Amanda?” he asked.
“Dude! You just gave me her number last night. No, I didn’t call her.” I reached down and pulled my water bottle out of the cage and took a big sip. “I’m actually not going to, either.”
Todd gave me a hurt look. “Why the hell not? She’s hot. You’d be a fool not to. She’s way hotter than Danielle. What’s gotten into you, lately? Are you having some sort of weird, quarter-life crisis or something?”
“What the fuck is a ‘quarter-life crisis’?”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like, except it’s also total bullshit because no one should be having any sorts of crises when they’re in their mid-20s, because that’s the prime of your fucking life! So get out there and get laid, dammit!”
“You know, I appreciate your concern and everything, but I’ve actually been thinking about it—”
“That’s your first mistake—this isn’t something you’re supposed to psychoanalyze. If you think about it too much, you’re going to start getting all introspective and shit, and the next thing you know, you’re going to be writing poetry or fronting some awful emo-core band. Where’s your phone? Call her right now. Hell, if you won’t, I’ll call her and set it up. Do you see what I’m willing to do for you? I’ve got a date tonight, too, actually—this chick Melanie. And am I over here, analyzing every detail about it? Fuck no. Because if I started to do that shit, it would ruin it. It just would. So, I suggest you stop it, too, and just call Amanda.”
He wasn’t going to lay off, I could tell, so I responded by pedaling faster. We were side by side, until I started to pull ahead, which Todd responded to by pedaling fast himself. We had about half a mile to go before we reached the turn off for the singletrack, and I usually let Todd set the pace, but I knew if I pushed it right now, I could beat him there. Also, he’d have to exert himself so much he’d be forced to stop talking, so I shifted into a higher gear and let loose.
“Fucker,” I heard Todd grunt as I pulled away. “Goddammit, Graham, you know I don’t like riding like this when we’ve got a race coming up.”
*****
When Todd and I were done with the ride, I was famished, so I took myself out to eat, because the last thing I ever felt like doing after a long ride was cooking some elaborate meal. The place I liked to go was called Laura’s. It was a little breakfast and lunch joint that was open year-round, but mostly overtaken by the tourists during the summer. The locals stayed away until after Labor Day, but I still went there after every ride. It was also right across the street from Ocean View Realty, which was where all the rich people went to get secure their summer rentals.
The proprietor of Ocean View was Craig Oliver, father of yours truly. Though I didn’t know if he even knew that; I myself didn’t find out until freshman year of high school. Up until that point, I’d always assumed my father had died. I sensed that it just wasn’t a topic to bring up with my mother, and she let me believe he was dead. I wasn’t sure what changed the day she told me he was actually alive and well and prospering right here in town.
Seeing as he’d never been a part of my life, it seemed silly to think that he’d want to start now. I wondered why my mother didn’t go after him for child support, as she was constantly in need of money, no matter how many “loans” I made to her, fully knowing she would never be able to pay me back. If anything, my father was probably relieved she never tried to get him on the hook for helping her raise this son of his—it would be easy to be embarrassed by my mother, especially if you were a successful businessman like he was. Still, it didn’t stop me from being curious about him, though I hadn’t approached him and honestly didn’t have any clue if he even knew I existed.
I was just draining the last drops of orange juice from my glass when my phone started to vibrate. I looked at the screen and sighed. It wouldn’t be a Saturday morning without a call from my mother, who, no doubt, was going through some sort of diabolical, personal emergency. I picked up the phone, if only because she’d keep calling incessantly until I did.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Graham! Thank God you picked up. Are you busy? You won’t believe what happened to me last night—I was just leaving ... well, never mind where I was just leaving, that doesn’t matter ... I went to get into my car and it wouldn’t start. It just wouldn’t start. And I hadn’t left the lights on or anything like that. So, now my car’s just sitting there. I had to hitchhike home last night.”
“Why didn’t you call Wade?”
“I tried, but he didn’t answer. He’s been so tired lately, he’s been working double shifts because that asshole boss of his fired Kenny and refuses to hire anyone else—”
“Okay, okay,” I said. “I don’t actually need the whole story. So what do you want me to do? I can drive down there in a little bit and give you a jump if you want. But you’re going to have to tell me where the car is.” I already knew where the car was, but there was always a miniscule part of me that was hoping she might say it was somewhere respectable—say, the grocery store or the laundromat.
“It’s ... it’s at The Finery.” She sounded like a petulant child. “And I don’t need you to give me any shit about it, okay? I’ve got to make money, too, you know. We’ve all got bills to pay. I’m just like anybody else, trying to make ends meet.”
Don’t let the name fool you—The Finery was about as seedy a place you could get, a strip club masquerading as a tavern/gentleman’s club. My mother had worked there my entire life (and was probably where she met my father), though now that she was in her mid-40s, had been demoted to waitress.
“What happened to applying for the job at town hall?” I said. “The one that Lauren told you about.”
My mother laughed. “Oh, I checked out the application. It was about five pages long. Wanted to know all this personal stuff. Which is fine by me—I’ve got nothing to hide—but then it was also asking about past experience and everything. And trust me, Graham, I know some of the women that work in the town hall, and they don’t want to hear anything about the past experiences that I’ve had. It just wasn’t the right fit for me. You can understand that, can’t you? It’d be like me trying to make you work somewhere that you just didn’t fit in. You would hate it. How is business going, anyway?”
“It’s fine. Listen, I’m not at the house right now, but I’m going to head back there in about half an hour. I’ll get my truck and then I’ll come pick you up and we’ll go jump your car. I don’t know why no one offered to give you a jump last night—oh wait, no, I do; everyone was probably way too wasted.�
�� The patrons of The Finery were less than stellar characters, and I wasn’t looking forward to going over there, even though the worst of them wouldn’t be out until much later this evening.
“You’re the best,” my mother said. “What would I do without you? I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye,” I said. I had just put the phone down when I saw my father step out of the office building across the street. He was wearing cream-colored shorts and boating shoes and one of those salmon pink golf shirts that seemed to be all the rage with the affluent folks. A woman stepped out behind him, and they stood there for a moment, talking. She was wearing an all-white tennis outfit: white sneakers, white skirt, sleeveless white shirt, white visor. Was that his wife? Girlfriend? Or someone that was just securing a summer rental from him? I was too far away to be able to hear their conversation, though their body language didn’t suggest a romantic relationship.
I had to fight off the urge to run over there and introduce myself. It wouldn’t go well—I knew that much, which was why I hadn’t done it yet, and probably never would. And even now, at 26 years old, I still found myself wondering how my completely fucked up childhood might’ve been different if my father had been around.
*****
My mother and Wade still lived in the same shitty duplex that I’d grown up in. There wasn’t a driveway so much as a gravel parking lot, and their unit was in the back, behind the first two. The paint was peeling; there were empty beer cans littering the sparse front lawn, along with an assortment of forgotten children’s toys. The whole place was depressing as fuck, and I had to bite back the urge to flee immediately.
Luckily, my mother came out, saving me from having to go in and possibly interact with Wade. We’d come to an uneasy truce over the years, mainly due to the fact that I was now an adult who could hit him back.
My mother was wearing her usual attire, consisting of a too-tight tank top and short shorts. It was pointless to suggest she wear something a little more modest, so I said nothing. I didn’t feel like getting into an argument with her over what constituted “modest attire.” She hopped up into the passenger seat of the truck and I took off out of there about as fast as I could.
“So, anything new going on with you?” she asked. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I saw you last week, Mom.”
“Was it? Well, it was only for a few minutes. Business is going good?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Do you have a girlfriend? I’m looking forward to being a grandma, you know, even though everyone says I’m way too young to be one!” She laughed as though this were the best compliment ever.
“No, Mom, I don’t have a girlfriend and don’t hold your breath about the grandkids. You know I don’t want to have kids.”
“Don’t say things like that!” she said. “You might very well change your mind once you meet the right person.”
“I’m taking a break from the dating game at the moment, if you must know.”
She frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you need to stop giving me shit about these phantom grandkids you think you’re gonna get. It also means stop asking me if I have a girlfriend, because I don’t.”
“I wouldn’t be one of those pain in the ass mother-in-laws, you know,” she said, deliberately ignoring my last statement.
I tried to choke back my laughter. “Right.”
“I mean it! I wouldn’t be all uptight about shit. I wouldn’t be giving my daughter-in-law a hard time about what type of diapers she was using on my grandbaby or whether she should formula feed or not.”
It occurred to me just then that my mother had clearly spent some time thinking about this. Was she off her fucking rocker? Clearly, yes.
“You can be as uptight as you want about it, because it’s not going to happen.”
“Oh, I don’t believe you for a second. It’s summer—it’s the best time of the year. People falling in love every single day. I bet you’re going to meet someone this summer and it’s just going to be the best thing ever.”
“I’m not sure what part of ‘I’m taking a break from dating anyone’ you don’t understand.”
She let out a laugh, which sounded more like a maniacal cackle. I wondered how many cups of coffee she’d already had today.
“There’s no way you’re going to go the entire summer and just be by yourself,” she said. “That’s a good one, though.”
“It’s not a joke.”
“That’s like Wade saying he’s going to go a night without a PBR.”
“Don’t compare me to that shitbag.”
“I admire that you are even entertaining an idea like that to begin with, but it’s not going to happen. So, you might as well just let loose and have some fun.”
“You know, I think I’m done with this conversation.” And I was, but at the same time, as irritating as she was, her doubting me simply made my resolve stronger. She’d be highly annoyed to find out, at the end of August, that I had managed to keep my word.
It was somewhat of a relief when the parking lot to The Finery came into view, and right there, my mother’s white Toyota Camry. How that piece of shit was still running was beyond me, but I guess they weren’t lying when they said a Toyota engine will keep running long after the body rusts away—which appeared to be exactly the fate my mother’s car was heading for.
The parking lot itself was mostly empty; there were two cars toward the back, probably belonging to one of the waitresses and the head bartender for the day shift. Hopefully they wouldn’t come out; I didn’t feel like dealing with any of my mother’s co-workers.
“You really should get a new job,” I said as I stepped out of the truck. The parking lot was strewn with crushed cigarette packs and other, various detritus. It looked like a barren wasteland.
“Where? At some convenience store? A gas station? That’s about the only place that’ll hire someone like me.”
“Why don’t you just get a regular job waitressing?” I pulled the jumper cables from the bed of the truck. “Go pop the hood on your car.”
“I don’t get a ‘regular job waitressing,’ as you so put it, because I just don’t think I could stand to be in an environment like that.”
“Like what? Like normal people taking their families out to dinner?”
“Like ... so wholesome. Yes, exactly that! I don’t want to be serving Suzy and her handsome husband and their beautiful children!”
Okay. Clearly that had touched a nerve. “Look, Mom, I’m not trying to give you a hard time, okay? I’m really not. But I know the type of dirtbags that go to a place like this and I just think that after all these years, maybe a change would be good for you.”
“You’re embarrassed by me, aren’t you?” She leaned against the side of my truck, her arms crossed, a glare on her face. “Just like your father was. That’s why he stayed away, you know. Because he couldn’t bear to think that the rest of the world might know he had actually gone to The Finery and fucked one of the dancers there. Not that there should be any shame in that, for Christ’s sake.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to focus on getting her damn car started so I could get the hell out of there. The drama that I was trying to escape from this summer clearly wasn’t just related to the women I hooked up with. I was probably some sort of magnet for this sort of shit just because I’d grown up with a mother like this. But I couldn’t cut her off. I’d thought about it before; I’d considered just not answering my phone when she called, or better yet, changing my number, but there was some part of me that knew I couldn’t do it. At this point, the tables had turned and I felt more like the parental figure in our relationship than she was, but really, it might’ve been like that all along.
“Let’s just drop it, okay?” I said. I made sure both clamps were attached to the Camry’s battery, and then I went back over to my truck and started it. “Try to start your car,” I told her.
&nbs
p; It took two tries, but the Camry started. My mother got back out of the car and came over and stood in front of me. “You ever think about him? Your father?”
“Not really,” I lied.
“Me neither. Well, once in a while, maybe. Once in a while I might start thinking what it would be like if we had stayed together. I think that maybe you could’ve had a better upbringing, a different sort of life.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. When it came to my childhood, my mother was either overly sentimental about what could have been, or vehemently delusional about how she did the best she could. There was no in between. But I didn’t feel like consoling her about it. That wasn’t my job.
“You should be good,” I said. “Drive the car around for a little bit, let the battery recharge, but I don’t think it’ll give you any more problems.”
“You really are the best, sweetie; thank you. Now, I just have one more favor to ask: can I borrow 50 bucks? Just until I get paid next week. It would really help out if you had it.”
I’d probably “lent” my mother thousands of dollars over the years; I didn’t keep track of that shit because I knew she’d never pay me back.
“Fine,” I said. “You’re going to have to follow me to the ATM though; I don’t have that much cash on me.”
“You’re a good man,” she said. “Whichever lady you end up with is going to be damn lucky!”
I started to say something in response, but then thought better of it. It might just be better to be a bachelor for life.
Chapter Four
Chloe
I let myself sleep in until 9:30 on Saturday, which was something I hadn’t done the entire school year. The house was again empty, another note on the counter from Mom saying that she and my father had gone out but would be back in a few hours and wanted to take me to lunch. I made myself some tea and then sat on the veranda and looked out at the ocean. It was late enough that if I ate something for breakfast, I wouldn’t be hungry for lunch, and my mother would inevitably start asking if I had an eating disorder. So, I ignored the rumbling in my stomach and sipped my tea. Then I went back up to my room and unpacked my clothes, realizing that I basically had nothing to wear out tonight with Tara. Nothing that she would consider worthy enough, anyway. The thing was, she liked when people looked at her, and she knew how to dress so she looked her best. Me, I mostly felt like an imposter when I dressed up, like everyone would somehow know that I felt more comfortable in jeans and a paint-spattered T-shirt than some fancy dress. It didn’t help that I couldn’t walk in high heels even if my life depended on it.