The Snowball Effect

by Holly Nicole Hoxter

  On my tenth birthday Mom asked what I wanted to do, and I said that I wanted french toast for breakfast and then I wanted to go to the beach. We went out for breakfast, and then we changed into our bathing suits and got in the car and drove for three hours.

  Back then I didn’t understand the concept of the off-season. The only times we’d ever been to Ocean City had been in October or March, when the prices weren’t jacked up, when the whole place wasn’t swarming with people. For the first half hour I walked around scowling, but then Mom grabbed my hand and said, “Isn’t this great, Lainey? It’s like all these people came to the beach to help us celebrate your birthday.”

  We swam in the ocean and then we made an ugly sand castle. I wanted chicken nuggets for lunch, and we had to walk to three different restaurants to find some. We kept trying because it was my birthday. Any other day we would have gone to the first restaurant, and Mom would have said, “For God’s sake, Lainey, just pick something on the menu or I’m ordering for you.”

  On my eleventh birthday we went to a bunch of different museums. That was the year they put me in the smart classes in school, and I was trying my best to be more cultured. Mom read the little plaques by all the paintings and acted very interested. Then we had sundaes for dinner, because I said so.

  My twelfth birthday was my first birthday after I met Kara. We had an all-day slumber party with Mom, watching movies and reading magazines and playing truth or dare.

  On my thirteenth birthday Kara and I had a crush on the guy who worked the shoe counter at the bowling alley, so Kara, Mom, and I went bowling for his entire shift. We ate pizza and got two pitchers of soda. As we walked across the alley to return our shoes, Kara whispered, “I dare you to tell him it’s your birthday.” When we got up to the counter, I handed him back my shoes and said, “It’s my birthday.” He smiled and said, “Happy birthday.” And then Kara and I ran away squealing.

  On my fourteenth birthday we went back to Ocean City, and Kara came along. We walked the boardwalk and sat on the beach and pointed out cute guys. Mom got in on it too, even though she had Carl at home. We laughed a lot.

  On my fifteenth birthday things were different. I’d been dating Riley for a couple of months. He knew my birthday was coming up and he wanted to take me out. So when Mom asked me, “Have you thought about what you want to do for your birthday this year?” I said, “Oh, Riley’s taking me somewhere.” We had Collin by then, so I don’t think Mom really wanted to take me out anyway.

  I’ve already forgotten what Riley and I did on my birthday that year, or for the next two years. We probably had dinner or saw a movie or went out with some of our friends. One year he played his guitar for me and sang. He didn’t like his singing voice, so he never sang for anyone except me.

  My birthdays with Riley didn’t stand out because with Riley, every day I could count on him to keep his promises and to care about doing what I wanted to do. But Mom? With Mom it was an annual event.

  My eighteenth birthday started out pretty painlessly. I woke up before anyone else and went to work. Rodney didn’t know it was my birthday, so he couldn’t make a big deal out of it. Kara and Christine called me using the three-way feature so they could sing “Happy Birthday” to me at the same time. I could hear Wallace in the background on Christine’s line singing too.

  When I walked out to the parking lot after work, I saw Riley leaning against the Grand Am. I wondered what he was doing at the mall in the middle of the day, and then I noticed the roses. He actually had a dozen roses. I groaned.

  “Riley,” I said as I walked up.

  “What?” he asked with a smile. “It’s just flowers. They’re pretty. See?”

  I took the flowers from him. “Thank you.” They were pretty now, but in three days they would be wilted and dead. I hated when he bought me flowers. Who wanted to receive a present that was going to die?

  “I gotta get back to work. But I’m going to pick you up at seven tonight. Okay?”

  I nodded.

  I laid the flowers on the passenger seat, and on my way home I called Kara and told her about the flowers so she could remind me how sweet Riley was. It wasn’t that I didn’t already know, but for some reason listening to Kara swoon made me feel really good.

  “Happy birthday!” Vallery turned around and yelled as soon as I walked in the door.

  “How did you know?” I grumbled. I walked past her into the kitchen and found a vase for the roses.

  “That’s a really stupid question,” she said. She got up off the couch and followed me. “So what are you and Riley doing tonight?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Dinner, I guess.”

  “Apparently, your friends are coming here for cake afterward. Riley just informed me of this an hour ago.”

  “If that was supposed to be a surprise,” I said to Vallery, “you just ruined it.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather be warned?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.” My friends coming over for cake definitely hadn’t been what I’d had in mind when I’d said I wanted to stay in. And who were my friends, anyway? Just Riley and Kara? Plus Christine and Wallace? Plus the entire Old Crew? Why couldn’t Riley listen to anything I said?

  When we pulled up in front of Riley’s house for dinner that night, the house looked dark and empty.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  Riley grinned. “Did you think I was inviting you over for dinner with my whole family?”

  “Yes.” I sighed but he didn’t notice.

  He led me to the dining room. The table had already been set for the two of us. Riley’s mom kept two fancy candles in the middle of the table that were never lit, but tonight they were.

  “What’s for dinner?” I asked.

  “Spaghetti with meatballs, salad, and garlic bread.”

  “Smells good,” I said.

  “Just give me a few minutes to heat it up.”

  I scratched the tablecloth with my fingernails and waited. The tablecloth was new—the Carters usually didn’t eat with one on the table. Riley hummed as he stirred the spaghetti. I tried to ignore him.

  I knew something was wrong. Not with Riley, but with me. It was my birthday, and my boyfriend had gone through the trouble of getting rid of his family, making me a nice dinner, and organizing a surprise gathering of my alleged friends. Yet I was so irritated, I had to bite my tongue to keep from biting his head off. Something was definitely wrong with me.

  Just act normal and get through dinner, I told myself. Then tell Kara all about it, and she’ll tell you what a great boyfriend you have, and you’ll get out of this funk and be normal again. Eventually.

  Riley carried two plates over to the table. He smiled at me. I smiled back, and I wondered if he could tell the difference between my fake smile and my real one.

  After dinner Riley carried our dishes to the sink and then stood beside the dining room table, looking at me. “We still have forty-five minutes to kill,” he said.

  “Until what?” I asked, playing dumb.

  He grinned. “Your surprise. We have forty-five whole minutes.”

  He held out his hand and pulled me up. We walked down the hallway to his room. If I’d been paying more attention, I would have noticed that look in his eye and realized what it meant. Instead, I looked at my watch and wondered what was on television.

  But then as Riley pulled me down onto his bed, I realized what he had in mind. It had been almost a month since we’d done anything more than kiss, and obviously he’d stopped being concerned that my mother was spying on us from Heaven.

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh.”

  “What?” Riley asked.

  “Uh…”

  He looked closely at me. “You’re still not comfortable with it?” he guessed.

  “I don’t know,” I said. Like I’d been the one who hadn’t wanted to do it in the first place.

  “You don’t know?”

  I shook my head.

  He sat up
and put his arm around me. “We can talk about it, if you want.”

  “No,” I said quickly.

  “Lainey, you don’t have to pretend that you’re not hurting.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. Jesus Christ. Can’t you ever listen to a single thing I say?”

  “I do listen. But I know you better than that.”

  “You don’t know me at all. God.”

  “Lainey. Come on. What are you talking about?”

  I couldn’t help it. All of the words I knew I shouldn’t say came tumbling out of my mouth. “Well, if you knew me at all, you’d know how I feel about roses, and you’d know that you’re the one who loves spaghetti, not me, and you’d know it drives me crazy how you’re so damn full of yourself all the time.”

  Riley didn’t say anything for a minute. He was smiling. A tight smile. His fake smile. “Lainey, I’ve had about enough of this. Really.”

  I nodded. “Me too.”

  “You’ve had enough of…what?”

  “This. You.”

  “Trying to be supportive and understanding? Right. Okay.”

  “That’s exactly what I mean!” I shouted. “Even when I tell you that you do something wrong, you insist that you do everything right. Your ego is enormous.”

  “I’m honestly not sure how much more of this I can handle.”

  “You’re not sure how much you can handle? Jesus, Riley. Are you just trying to dump me before I dump you?”

  He turned to look at me. “Is that what we’re doing here?”

  I sighed.

  “All of a sudden. On your birthday.”

  “It’s not all of a sudden. I’ve been fed up for a while.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything?”

  Because I don’t want to be my mother.

  Because it’s crazy to obsess about someone you’re never going to see again.

  Because I’m supposed to be with you.

  “Well, your timing is excellent,” Riley said before I could figure out how to respond. “There are about two dozen people waiting at your house for cake and ice cream. And we’re going to show up and act normal. Okay?”

  I said okay.

  Riley’s ability to fake happiness amazed me. He helped me cut the cake and pass out plates, and then he mingled and talked and made everyone laugh. I actually thought he’d stopped being mad at me, until we ended up alone in the kitchen at one point. I smiled at him—a weak smile, but at least it was a real one—and he glared at me and turned away.

  I didn’t even bother to fake a smile after that. At least half a dozen girls pulled me aside and asked if I was okay. I mumbled something about allergies and they all looked like they didn’t buy it, but they all nodded and asked if I needed some Claritin. My father called in the middle of all that. I let him go to voice mail.

  Riley was the last to leave. Not because he wanted to stay around me that long, but to keep up his charade. I walked him to the front door. I’d wrapped up three pieces of cake in aluminum foil for him to take home to his family.

  “Guess I’ll see you around,” he said. Like he didn’t care at all whether he actually saw me around or not.

  “Guess so,” I said. I closed the door.

  Our street was along Corben’s annual Independence Day parade route, which was mostly inconvenient because we couldn’t park our cars on the street that day, and it made me popular with the Old Crew. They all liked to watch the parade from my yard and use our bathroom. But this year no one showed up. Everyone had already found out about me and Riley, and obviously they were going to shun me and stay friends with him.

  Collin hated the fourth of July because of all the loud noises (which was ironic, since he loved to make loud noises), and Vallery hadn’t seen the parade since she was a kid, so we turned on the TV for Collin and then sat out on the porch. Vallery lasted halfway through the procession of antique fire engines; then she rolled her eyes and declared, “This is the same as I remember it,” and went inside.

  I sat on the porch alone and watched the fire trucks, the marching bands, the Boy Scouts, the veterans.

  Kara came by at one point and sat on the porch swing with me. “When are you guys getting back together?” she asked.

  I sighed. She’d already asked me at least seventeen times since she’d found out. I hadn’t told her. I guess Riley had, or he’d told someone and they’d told Kara.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You know you guys are meant to be together.”

  “I know.”

  She rolled her eyes like I was the most ridiculous person she’d ever met. Which I probably was.

  “I just want to be alone,” I said. “You know. On my own.”

  Kara nodded. “I get it. Well, I better get back. I’m supposed to bring Christine a hot dog.”

  As Kara walked away, a shiny Camaro drove past along the parade route. The balding man sitting in the back of the car waving to the crowd looked kind of familiar. I checked out the sign on the side of the car.

  Lee-Johnson Funeral Home.

  And then, as the Camaro passed by a group of kids sitting on the curb, the old man tossed out a handful of Tootsie Rolls. The kids jumped up and ran for the candy.

  I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. I stared at the bald guy’s head until the car turned the corner, and then I took my orange juice and went inside.

  On Tuesday everyone started something new but me. Vallery came down to the kitchen dressed in her black and gray suit.

  “You’re wearing that same suit?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  “You wore that to the interview.”

  “Did I?”

  I nodded.

  “Crap.” She went back upstairs and came down a minute later wearing black pants and a gray shirt.

  “Very different,” I said.

  “Oh, hush.”

  I got Collin dressed for camp while Vallery ate her cereal; then I packed his lunch. When I went back into the living room, Collin was half naked.

  “Jeez, Collin!” I yelled. “What did you do with your clothes?”

  He ignored me completely. Like I expected anything more.

  I ate breakfast. I took a walk. I watched Heartstrings. I started to straighten up my room, but I got tired of that pretty quickly and took a nap instead. If I hadn’t dumped Riley, I probably would have gone to the shop to have lunch with him. Instead, I ate half a bag of stale potato chips. I left early and stopped by 7-Eleven for a Slurpee. When I picked up Collin, he cried because I hadn’t brought him one too. I let him have mine.

  When we got home, I found a note from the teacher in his take-home folder. “I am so excited to work with Collin this summer. I can tell he is a very special boy. However, he needs to be reminded to keep his hands to himself.”

  I figured I’d let Vallery handle that one, but when she got home, she only wanted to talk about her job.

  “They didn’t train me on anything except what to say when I first answer the phone,” she said as she crashed down on the couch beside me.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yes. And the phone rang all day long. I’m not even kidding. And it took me half the day to figure out how to transfer people. I kept hanging up on them.”

  “It’ll get better,” I said. “The first day is always rough.”

  “It won’t get better,” she promised me. “I can already tell.”

  I nodded. “That’s the right attitude.”

  On Wednesday I worked. I played the alphabet game with Rodney. I sold four bottles of perfume. Then I left the mall and picked up Collin from camp. I got there a few minutes early and passed out birthday-party invitations to all the kids from camp. I had two left. I could give one to Mabel. Who else would want to attend Collin’s birthday party? Christine, maybe. If she didn’t totally hate me for dumping Riley.

  As I drove home, I pulled the teacher’s note out of his folder and read it to him. “‘Collin needs to stay focused during group activit
ies. We all like Collin and want him to be our friend.’ Do you hear that, Collin?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have to stay focused when you’re doing group activities. You can’t wander off or make noise or anything. Okay? You have to listen and follow directions.”

  “Okay.”

  Like that little chat would do any good.

  Vallery’s second day at work wasn’t much better than her first.

  “How many people did you hang up on today?” I asked when I heard her come in.

  “On purpose or accidentally?”

  I shook my head. “Vallery.”

  “What! Not many.”

  On Thursday I worked again. Alphabet game. Six bottles of perfume sold. Picked up Collin.

  The note: “Please review sharing, taking turns, and respect for others.”

  Vallery went straight to the bathroom and took a bubble bath when she got home. When I asked about her day, she just rolled her eyes.

  On Friday I didn’t have to work but I wished I did, because I’d had a stupid dream that I couldn’t shake. My dreams suddenly had this annoying way of setting the tone for the rest of my day. Or longer. Like that stupid dream about the Slurpee Guy.

  In this dream I was taking a drive with Vallery. We were in the Grand Am but she drove. It was a beautiful night. Lots of stars. Lots of trees and hills.

  Eventually we stopped at a hotel. But it wasn’t actually a hotel. It turned out to be a mental institution, and Vallery was checking me in.

  I wanted to explain that I didn’t really belong there, but I was afraid to talk to anyone. They showed me to my room, and then a girl came to my door and invited me to join a group session downstairs. She told me if I wanted to come, I had to write down my feelings. Then she asked me if I wanted to read what she’d written. I didn’t, but she was crazy so I told her I would. She handed me a watermelon. She had written her feelings on the watermelon.