by Julie Kriss
Evie drove us, since she knew the way. She went home first, washed and changed, and then she picked me up. She owned an old Tercel that had been repaired a lot but still ran. I’d never seen her car before.
“I think I should warn you about my mother,” she said.
She was nervous again. She’d put on jeans and a sweater, her red hair up in a ponytail with strands coming loose. No makeup. Her hair gleamed in the sunlight. She looked pale, and it was only partly because we’d fucked each other to exhaustion last night. It was also because she was stressed.
“It’ll be fine, redhead,” I told her.
“About that,” she said. “I’m not.”
I looked at her. “What?”
“I’m not a redhead,” she said, touching her ponytail self-consciously. “I think I should be honest.”
“Evie, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I dye it.” She kept her eyes on the road, like this was a difficult confession. “I like the color, okay? I figure you should know.” Her cheekbones went red in that telltale way. “You may have noticed, um, that the carpet doesn’t match the drapes.”
I would have laughed if she wasn’t taking it so seriously. Also if she hadn’t indirectly mentioned her pussy, which distracted me for a second. Then I remembered what we were talking about. “I didn’t look at the color of the carpet,” I said.
“Well, it’s not the same. And you keep calling me that, so I thought—”
“You’re a redhead,” I told her.
“I just—”
“Jeez, Evie, is your hair red?” She shrugged. Christ, she was all wound up again. “Then you’re a redhead. Now tell me why your mother freaks you out so much.”
“She doesn’t,” she said, but it was a lame defense. She huffed a sigh. “I just think I should warn you. My mother is very conventional. Like, very. She’s going to think that because you’re having dinner, we’re getting married and having babies.”
“We’re not,” I said. “I’ll deal. Anything else?”
“You don’t get it,” she said again. “My mother was educated by nuns.”
It sounded like a figure of speech. “Literal nuns?” I asked.
“Literal nuns,” Evie said. “She went to convent school until she was eighteen. She was going to actually become a nun, but then she met my father and decided she wanted to be a wife and mother instead. My father is the only man she’s ever even looked at, as far as I know. And since he died when I was fifteen, it’s just been her and me and my sister.”
I hadn’t even known her father was dead. “Fuck, Evie, I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, but her expression was tight, because it hurt. I could see it. “He had a heart attack. We told him to quit smoking so many times.” She shrugged, hard and sharp. “High school wasn’t very good for me.”
It clicked. I’d already figured out she had a past that included partying and sex, one she was trying desperately to leave behind. I had a hunch that past had started around the time her father died. I knew a little bit about how tragedy could fuck you up, derail you. But I didn’t want her to start crying while we were still driving, so I changed the subject. “You have a sister?”
She nodded. “Trish. She’s only seventeen. There was a big gap between me and her. Eight years, and she was only little when Dad died. I think maybe Trish was unexpected, you know? But I’ve never asked my mother about it, because of the nuns.”
“Right,” I said. “The nuns.”
I’ll admit it, the nuns were spooking me a little. I’d never met someone educated by nuns, and I’d pretty much debauched the woman’s daughter. I wondered if I’d trail smoke and brimstone when I entered the house, like Temptus did in the cartoons Andrew and I made.
I’d been half asleep and orgasm-drunk when I made this promise to come to dinner. But I was in it now.
“My mother is very nice,” Evie said, “don’t get me wrong. She doesn’t mean to judge. She just literally has the mentality of about 1955. She’s never dated, and she only watches a little TV. She’s had the same job as a receptionist in a doctor’s office for fifteen years. She doesn’t understand anything about what it means to be dating right now. It’s like a foreign language.”
It was weird, how tangled up she was over this. “So explain it to her,” I said.
“No, no.” She shook her head. We were pulling into the driveway of her mother’s house. “I can’t do that. I can’t talk to her about condoms and one-night stands and sex. I don’t know who’d die of embarrassment first, her or me.”
“Okay,” I said, backing off. There was something else under the surface, something she wasn’t talking about. But it was too late now. We were here. And her mother was already opening the front door to welcome us, like she’d been waiting.
Mrs. Bates was in her mid-forties, and she was freaking small. Tiny. She weighed maybe a hundred and ten, a portion of that the pouf of her permed brown hair. An actual perm. She wore pleated tan pants and a golf shirt tucked in, with a slim brown belt. Her face was open and kind, but she dressed like a catalog from 1984.
“Come in, come in!” she said. She took both of my hands in hers when I came near, squeezing them. “You’re Nick? Well, how lovely. I’m glad you’ve come to dinner.”
The house was immaculate, every inch decorated. Bunches of flowers and dried flowers. Twee little sayings in frames. Paintings of ladybugs. Framed photos of Evie and another girl who was obviously her sister—school pictures, high school pictures. The house smelled like roast chicken and sunshine.
Jesus Christ, it was the Twilight Zone.
I had never been in a house like this. Andrew and I had been raised in a big, cold house, where there were staff and we weren’t allowed to touch anything. I was wearing jeans, motorcycle boots, a long-sleeved black Henley. I was pretty sure I’d washed it recently and it had no holes, but I wouldn’t bet money. I’d taken a shower, so I hoped I didn’t smell like dirty sex. That was all I could say for myself.
I really did not belong here.
Evie’s hand grasped my wrist, like she knew exactly what I was thinking. Which she probably did. Her fingers were cold, and I remembered how freaked out she was. Strangely, that made me calm down. It was just a house, a chicken dinner, and a hundred-and-ten-pound woman. I’d dealt with worse shit in my life. It was no big deal.
Mrs. Bates gave us cups of Perrier water—no alcohol, which was probably a blessing—and chattered on to Evie about inconsequential things as she bustled around the kitchen, getting the meal together. Then Mrs. Bates turned to me. “Nick,” she said, “you have to tell me. How did you and Evie meet?”
I looked at Evie. Her gaze was panicked. I realized there was supposed to be a cute story, one that didn’t involve the scene of me standing over Bank Boy’s bloody face while Gina wailed, bare-assed. Still, it was the truth. I opened my mouth to say something, maybe leaving out the bare ass or the obvious fucking.
But Evie answered first. “Mutual friends introduced us, Mom,” she said.
Mrs. Bates pulled out a salt shaker for the roast potatoes. “Like a blind date?” she said. “How nice.”
“Like a blind date,” Evie said.
“Well, it was a good choice, because you two hit it off so quickly,” Mrs. Bates said, putting a slight emphasis on the last word. “What do you do for a living, Nick?”
Evie opened her mouth, but I was faster this time. “Nothing,” I said.
Mrs. Bates’ eyebrows went up. “Oh? You’re between jobs?”
“No, I mean I don’t do anything for a living.”
Evie jumped in. “Nick is figuring out what he wants to do.”
“Not really,” I said. “I don’t do anything. By choice.”
Mrs. Bates watched us, looking back and forth. “I don’t understand.”
“I have a lot of money,” I explained, “and I don’t have to work. So I don’t.”
For a second, Mrs. Bates looked helpless, like I’d j
ust told her I was from the planet Zorcon. Then she turned and looked at Evie. It was a strange look, full of meaning, and Evie’s cheeks went red.
“Evie,” Mrs. Bates said.
Evie crossed her arms over her chest. “What, Mom?”
Mrs. Bates sighed and seemed about to say something, but someone else came into the kitchen. She was curvy like Evie, her brown hair in a lumpy short braid over the back of her neck, and she wore a big sweatshirt that had a photo of Blondie on the front. She stopped in the doorway when she saw me.
“Hey, Trish,” Evie said. “There you are. This is Nick.”
I nodded at her, and she managed a faint “Hi.”
“How is school?” Evie asked her.
“Whatever,” Trish said. She pointed at me. “Evie, this is your new boyfriend?”
“Trish,” Mrs. Bates chided. “Manners.”
I was surprised for a second about the word boyfriend, though I supposed I should have expected it. “You got a problem?” I asked the little sister. “What’s wrong with me?”
“You’re totally good-looking,” Trish said. “Evie usually dates dogs.”
“Trish!” Mrs. Bates was shrill now.
Trish rolled her eyes. “That guy with the goatee?” she said. “Please. And Josh was just creepy. His teeth were so white.”
Okay, I liked the little sister. But Evie rubbed a hand over her face. “Oh, my god. Can we eat now?”
I was still staring at the little sister. Trish. “What guy with a goatee?” I asked her.
“He was so lame,” Trish said. “He worked in insurance, but he said he wanted to learn guitar in his spare time.”
I looked at Evie. “For real? Jeez, redhead. Thank God I came along. Every guy before me was a warm-up.”
“Nick,” Evie said.
That was when Mrs. Bates banged the pan of chicken on the counter a little harder than necessary. “Time for dinner,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Twenty
Evie
Dinner did not improve things.
I was tense. I knew it. I knew it was out of proportion, and I knew it wasn’t helping. But there was nothing I could do about it. Sitting here at the table, with Nick’s crazy presence next to me, I felt ready to jump out of my skin.
Every guy before me was a warm-up.
I had brought guys home before, like Trish said. Josh, and before him the goatee guy (his name was Dave.) This should be no different. Except those guys were not Nick.
He was like a crackle of lightning, sitting next to me at the table. An insanely hot guy in a worn black Henley that showed the muscled lines of his shoulders beneath the fabric molded to his skin. I knew what all of that skin felt like against mine, what that sinful mouth felt like against mine, against the other parts of my body. I hadn’t been a virgin when I brought the other guys home, but with Nick it felt like a neon sign: WE’RE FUCKING. My mother was giving us disgruntled, uneasy looks. Trish just sat with her jaw open whenever she stared at him.
“Trish is trying out for the volleyball team next week,” Mom said nervously, putting potatoes on her plate.
My little sister slumped in her chair. She was deep in the throes of teenage-girl derision these days, and in its annoying way it was kind of awesome. “I hate volleyball,” she said.
“Tut,” Mom said. “I’m sure you’ll do fine.” She turned to Nick. “Do you play a sport, Nick?”
Nick poked the chicken on his plate. “I box,” he said. “I hit things.”
“Oh,” Mom said.
“I taught Evie to do it,” Nick said. “She’s pretty good.”
Mom blinked in confusion. “You taught Evie to box? Is that safe?”
“It’s no big deal, Mom,” I said.
“It sounds fun,” Trish said. “I’d rather box than play volleyball.”
“You’re playing volleyball,” Mom said firmly. “It’s respectable.”
Trish went quiet, and I looked at her, feeling a chill of unease. Mom had said that to me plenty of times—the job at the bank is respectable, college is respectable, that boy you’re dating is respectable. I hadn’t thought anything of it. But hearing it said to Trish made me unhappy for some reason. “You don’t have to be respectable,” I told her.
“Yes, she does,” Mom said, as if Trish weren’t in the room. “She’s in high school. It’s a difficult time. I don’t want her making bad decisions.”
I heard my fork bang down on my plate before I realized I’d slammed it down. Bad decisions. I’d heard that one, too.
Next to me, Nick sat back in his chair and looked across the table at Trish. “What bad decisions are you gonna make?” he asked her.
Trish was sullen and glaring now, but her gaze went a little unfocused when she looked at Nick, like he’d hypnotized her. I knew the feeling. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “Mom thinks I’m, like, going out every day and doing something stupid. And I don’t.”
I couldn’t say anything, because that was my fault. I was the one who did stupid things, not her. My dinner went sour in my stomach.
“Trish,” Mom said in her Mom-voice.
But Nick ignored all of us. “You flunk any classes?” he asked Trish.
Trish looked shocked. “No.”
“Get detention?”
“No.”
“Get in a fight?”
“No.”
“You sound pretty good to me,” Nick said.
“What is this?” Mom had put her fork down and was watching their exchange with worried eyes.
But I knew. I watched them and I knew. Nick was digging past the surface, because that was what Nick did. Somehow he knew what was going on, even though I’d never told him about Old Evie and the bad old days. I watched it like you watched a roller coaster that was about to go over the top part and down—like something you know you can’t stop. Frightening and fascinating at the same time.
Nick picked up his unused dessert spoon and spun it over his fingers, then put it down again, the same gesture I’d seen in the diner the first night we met. “You ever get drunk?” he asked Trish.
“No,” Trish said, but she looked uncomfortable. “Not really. Only a little.”
“Trish!” Mom said.
“It was two wine coolers!” Trish nearly shouted back. “Jenny Cramer had them in her backpack! I’m seventeen, Mom. It isn’t like I buy the weed that Peter Hadigan is selling.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Mom sounded truly shocked now. “Someone is offering you marijuana at school?”
“I just told you I don’t buy it!” Trish said.
“That’s it.” Mom picked up her napkin, then put it down again. “I’m putting you in a different school.”
“Do you even know what year it is?” Trish was shouting now, all teenage drama.
I came out of my stupor. “Calm down,” I told Trish. “Mom is just trying to look out for you.”
“No,” Trish said, turning to me. “She’s just doesn’t want me to be you.”
There was dead silence at the table.
Then Nick’s voice broke it with his low rumble. “What does that mean?”
I risked a glance at him. He was still sitting back in his chair, his dinner ignored. His posture was relaxed, but I could see the tension in it. He was looking straight at me.
“It means Evie was a bad kid.” Trish filled him in. “I hear it all the time. I had so much trouble with Evie. So much trouble. She doesn’t want me to be like that.”
I locked gazes with Nick. His eyes were unreadable. I had a second where I was afraid he’d raise his eyebrows, needle me, tease me. Instead, he just looked at me, like he was seeing something new.
“You had a problem?” he asked. Just him and me.
“Evie sometimes makes bad decisions,” Mom said.
I felt my face heat. Humiliation, anger—take your pick. I swallowed it down. “I got in trouble in high school,” I said. “I almost flunked out. Then I, um, almost didn’t go to college. Mom got me in. And
I flunked that, too.”
“There were parties and such,” Mom said. “Or so I hear. You’re impulsive sometimes.”
I tore my gaze from Nick’s and looked down at the table.
“I was worried to death,” Mom went on. “You gave me a heart attack a million times when you came home late, or didn’t come home at all. Then you left college, and I thought that you wouldn’t have a career. You went to work at that bakery.”
“I liked the bakery,” I said.
“I never understood it,” Mom said. “You were so difficult.”
I slapped a palm on the table and leaned forward, looking at her. “I was difficult because Dad died.”
Another second of shocked silence. This was the worst idea I’d ever had, the worst dinner anyone had ever had. And I only had myself to blame.
Well, myself and Nick.
What must he think? That we were miserable and dysfunctional? Maybe he was right. We were. Besides, who was he to judge, when he didn’t speak to his parents and refused to talk about his brother?
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Nick said in the middle of the tension. “High school was a long time ago. Evie flunked out of college, what, five years ago? So what? That’s a long time.”
“The bakery was after that,” Mom explained. “Thank God she got in at the bank.”
I said the words. I could see the doom before my eyes, and still I said them. “I got fired from the bank.”
“What?” Mom looked bewildered. “I don’t understand.”
Trish was looking at me with her mouth open in shock.
“Things were going so well,” Mom said. “It doesn’t make sense. You had Josh, and the bank, and now—”
“Hey,” Nick cut in.
Mom went quiet, staring at him, pale-faced.
“I get it,” he said to her. “You’re doing the best you can. But when you talk to her like that, you make her feel like shit. So cut it out.”
Oh, God. Oh, God.
“I beg your pardon,” Mom said softly.
“You make her feel,” Nick said again, more slowly as if my mother was hard of hearing, “like shit. Her little sister, too. Every time, you get it? Every time. So cut it out. If Evie wants to work in a bakery, she should work in a fucking bakery.”