“I don’t know. I think maybe I should find a full-time job. But I don’t even know if I’m going to school in the fall.” I looked at Eric. “What should I do? And what should I order?”
He reached his hand across the table and popped a peanut into my mouth. “You want the bacon and mushroom burger.”
“Do I?” I chewed and swallowed the peanut as I looked down at the menu. No chicken. Just burgers. “Okay.”
“To answer your other question, I believe everything happens for a reason, and everything will turn out the way that it’s supposed to turn out.”
“Okay,” I said. “That’s nice and all, but it doesn’t really help me out now.”
“Why not? Don’t you believe that everything will work out in the end?”
This was starting to sound like one of Mom’s therapy sessions. “Well, yeah,” I said. “I guess.”
“If everything turns out right in the end, then everything that happened until then was leading up to that point in time. Therefore everything that happened had to happen.”
“O-kay.”
Eric grinned. “What I’m trying to say is don’t stress out about making decisions. If everything is going to turn out right in the end, then it doesn’t matter what you decide to do, because you can’t make the wrong decision. You get what I’m saying? You can’t do the wrong thing. If you believe that everything will turn out right in the end, then whatever you do, no matter what it is, it will be the right thing.”
“But how do you know what the right thing is?” I asked.
“That’s my point. You don’t have to worry about it. You do what’s in your heart and you don’t second-guess yourself.”
The waitress came back and dropped off our drinks. Eric ordered our burgers.
While we waited for our food, Eric made a big production out of building a tower of sugar packets. I stared out the window and thought about what he had said.
The problem with Eric’s philosophy was that it was complete bullshit. Do what’s in your heart? What did that even mean? The only thing in my heart was a lot of blood and arteries and ventricles. When people said that, they really meant do what you feel. But how was I supposed to know what I really felt about something, when my feelings changed every time I thought about it?
Right then, I kind of missed Riley and wouldn’t have minded if I’d been sitting across from him instead of Eric. Riley would have given me a real answer—apologize to Bob, find a new job and help Vallery, whatever. He wouldn’t have given me any do-what’s-in-your-heart theoretical bullshit.
But I liked being with Eric most of the time. Earlier, when we were going door-to-door and selling magazines and then making fun of the people who’d been rude to us, I hadn’t even thought about Riley for a second.
My feelings didn’t change on a day-to-day basis. They changed hourly. They changed every minute.
Sometimes when Collin actually felt like cooperating and Vallery was in a good mood, we almost seemed like a real family, and I didn’t feel like someone who just got in the way. But other times I couldn’t stand Collin’s temper and obstinacy and I didn’t want to deal with being a family; I just wanted to deal with being myself, which was hard enough anyway.
How was I supposed to know what I should do? I had no idea, so I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t leave Corben or get a new job or make any plans or register for college. I didn’t feel qualified to make even the smallest decision by myself. Not even ordering my own food.
When the waitress came back with our burgers, I stared at mine and wondered why I’d let Eric order for me. I wasn’t big on mushrooms, or bacon, so what would possess me to get a bacon and mushroom burger? Eric’s burger, topped with chili and red onions, didn’t look much better, so I couldn’t even propose a trade.
I had no other option, so I lifted my burger and took a bite. I expected to hate it, but the mushrooms and bacon surprised me. “Oh my God,” I said after swallowing. “This is the best burger I’ve ever had. Ever.”
“Who takes care of you, baby?” Eric asked with a wink. He rubbed my knee under the table.
You just do what’s in your heart.
Is this what was in my heart? Magazines, and this bearded man, and bacon mushroom burgers?
It could be. It felt good. It tasted good.
It wasn’t so bad, leaving things for other people to decide. They seemed to know what they were doing.
14
BOOKS OF CLICHS
As soon as Vallery got home, I handed her half of my magazine money and told her I’d been fired. The money wasn’t much, but I knew it would help a little.
“You should call your dad,” she said. She folded my money up and put it in her purse.
“What? Where did that come from?”
“Have you even seen him since Mom died?”
“Yes. He was at the funeral.”
“He was? And you didn’t tell me? Nice.”
“You’ve met him before. You could have gone up and talked to him.”
“I haven’t seen him since I was a kid. I wouldn’t have recognized him. Anyway, have you talked to him since then?”
“No.”
“He hasn’t called? You don’t think that’s a shitty thing to do to your daughter, when you’re her only living parent?”
“He called me on my birthday, but I didn’t talk to him. We’ve never been close anyway. Hey, how often do you call your dad?”
“That’s irrelevant to this conversation. Anyway, you need to call him and tell him you miss him and want to get together. Go have dinner or something. He’ll ask how you’ve been, you tell him about Collin, about losing your job, he gives you some money.”
“That’s absolutely not going to happen.”
“I’ll call him and set up a dinner date for you.”
“You’re not going to pimp me out to my own father.”
“Oh, Lainey, why is everything dirty to you? He’s your dad. If he isn’t going to support you emotionally, the least he can do is give us some money.”
“I’ll get a real job. With both of us working full-time, that should cover all the bills, right? Maybe I can work night shift at the diner with Kara. Then I’d be home during the day with Collin.”
“I don’t want you to do that.”
“Of course you don’t. Then you couldn’t hold it over my head that you make all the money and I do nothing.”
“Oh, stop it. I’ve never said anything like that, and you know it. We’ll struggle through the summer and then you can get a job in the fall. It would help now if you could get some money from your dad, but if you don’t want to, then whatever. We’ll deal. We’ll be fine, all right?”
I went to my room and pulled Mom’s notebooks out from under my mattress. I piled them up and stared at them. How much would they be worth to Deborah? Enough to pay our bills for a month or two? Enough to make me feel better about losing my stupid job?
Pick them up. Take them to Vallery. Give her the phone number.
I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t.
I heard Vallery’s footsteps coming up the stairs. I threw my blanket on top of the notebooks.
She knocked on my door. “Hey, I’m taking your money and going grocery shopping. Do you want anything?”
“No. Are you taking Collin?”
“Yeah, I can.”
After I heard the Mustang drive away, I sat on my bed with Mom’s notebooks. I opened the binder and flipped through the pages. It was full of things like notes on starting your own business. Tax forms and all that. Boring stuff. If Mom had been smart enough to gather all this information, why hadn’t she been smart enough to invest her money? Stocks and bonds or whatever?
I closed the binder and opened to a random page in one of the notebooks.
The early bird catches the worm. So true. Set your sights on what you want and go out and get it. Don’t take no for an answer. Don’t let the wind knock you down.
Everything work
s out okay in the end! If it’s not okay…it’s not the end!
I closed the notebook and threw them all back under the mattress. I didn’t know why Deborah would want to buy these books full of clichés. Couldn’t she make up this crap on her own?
I sat on my bed. I looked at all the dirty laundry covering my floor and I got angry. Really angry.
I jumped up. I started shoving everything into my hamper. I dragged the hamper into the hallway, down the stairs, through the living room, to the kitchen, to the basement door.
And then I froze.
I opened the basement door. I flipped the light on.
I told myself to take one step, just drag the hamper down one step, but I couldn’t move.
I pushed the hamper away. I’d try it without the hamper first.
I took one step down the basement stairs.
Then I jumped back into the kitchen and slammed the door shut.
Ridiculous.
Look at what you’ve done to me, Mom. I can’t even walk down to my own basement. I can’t even do my own fucking laundry. I’m buying panties in bulk from Walmart because you had to kill yourself and make me terrified of my own basement.
What the hell was wrong with you, Mom?
And not just in June, either. Not just when you decided to kill yourself. Earlier. Years ago. What was wrong with you then?
When something’s over, you’re supposed to remember the good times. You’re not supposed to remember the sucky parts or the moments that you’d never in a million years want to live through again. You survived, and that’s all that matters. At least that’s how it’s supposed to be. Obviously that’s not how it’s working out for me since you died. It’s not that I want to keep remembering the bad times. It’s not that I want to keep reliving every time you hurt me. I just can’t forget. I want to, but I can’t.
You were supposed to chaperone the field trip to the aquarium in first grade. You had a whole group of my classmates assigned to you and everything. I didn’t remind you that morning because I was six—why would I remind you? And then you never showed up at school, and my group had to be divided up among the other groups, among the other parents who had remembered to show up. They asked me where my mother was, and I had no idea what to say, so I just cried instead.
You also missed: several parent-teacher conferences, fifth grade graduation, eighth grade graduation, and every American Education Week except the one in third grade. And it also took you three hours to come pick me up that time I had a really bad headache and the nurse was afraid I might have meningitis. I didn’t have meningitis, but how did you know that?
Why are these the things that I remember?
I know you loved Collin better because he needed a lot of love. And that was fine. Really, it was. You thought you didn’t have to put any work into me. You thought I’d just coast through life and I’d make it okay no matter how much attention you paid to me. And I have.
After you got Collin, I thought you’d changed. I didn’t understand why you loved Carl, and I know I mocked your group therapy stuff, but I knew that you were different—and believe me, I appreciated it. I thought, Well, she doesn’t love me any better and she hasn’t apologized for any of the crap she put me through, but at least she loves Collin, at least she tries as hard as she can for him. She doesn’t live for herself anymore. She lives for him. But I was jealous—I was the kid you’d accidentally acquired, and he was the kid you’d tried so hard for.
But I had it wrong; you didn’t live for Collin. You lived for Carl. And after Carl drove his stupid Kawasaki off the highway, you had nothing. It didn’t matter that you’d finally made a nice life for yourself and your kids. It didn’t matter that you still had Collin to raise. It didn’t matter that you’d never see me and Riley get married or hold your grandkids. It didn’t matter that you were helping those women in your groups.
Obviously you hadn’t done it for yourself, or even for us. Everything you’d done was for him. Always him. A fat, uneducated, unemployed lazy man sitting in a La-Z-Boy. I don’t understand, Mom. And I don’t think I ever will.
I should take your blue binder and your composition books and call this Deborah woman. I should hand them over and take whatever I can get for them. Maybe Deborah’s just in it for all the money she can make from the poor lonely women you used to counsel. But maybe she actually wants to help them like you used to. Maybe she actually cares. Maybe she’ll stick around. Maybe she won’t disappoint them.
15
HAMBURGERS AND SNOWBALLS
Saturday was moving day for Christine and Wallace. Christine couldn’t lift much because of being very pregnant. Kara and I were both notoriously lacking in upper body strength. Joe was coming along, but he’d sprained his wrist at work, so he wouldn’t be good for any heavy lifting. Everyone else was otherwise occupied. Jamie and her boyfriend were supposed to come but had to cancel at the last minute. Owen and a few others were working. No one told me anything about Riley’s whereabouts, but I was sure they hadn’t decided to invite me first over him. Christine had called and said to me, “Bring your new guy along if you want. We’re going to have a little pizza party afterward.” I knew they were only asking because they were desperate. And probably wanted to check out this new guy. I didn’t know if Kara had told everyone about Eric, or if it had been a lucky guess. I mean, it was a valid assumption. If you were going to dump a great guy like Riley, you must have a new boyfriend already lined up. You didn’t just walk away from something like that without a plan, not unless you were crazy.
As soon as I stepped outside on Saturday morning, a woman shoved a paperback novel in my face and asked, “How much is this?
I took the book from her and looked at the price on the back. “Five ninety-nine,” I said, and handed it back to her.
The woman rolled her eyes. “You can’t charge the cover price.”
I noticed the stack of paperbacks on the porch swing. Then I looked past the woman and noticed everything else. It wasn’t just one crazy woman on our porch. It was a whole yard sale.
“All books are a quarter!” Vallery yelled from behind the woman.
“Thanks, hon,” the woman called to Vallery. And then she handed me a quarter and walked off with the book.
Yard sales were a big deal in our neighborhood. Someone on our street had one just about every week in the summer, and now apparently it was our turn. Our neighbors traipsed around our tiny yard, digging through boxes of our stuff. They were even out on the sidewalk because Vallery had hung Mom’s dresses and shirts on both sides of the fence. She’d even pulled out some of the extra chairs from the dining room.
I walked down the porch steps and pinched Vallery. “What the hell are you doing?”
She turned around and smiled. “Having a yard sale. Obviously.”
“You shouldn’t have done this without telling me!”
“Well, I need to make some extra money somehow.”
“I gave you practically all of the money I made with Eric!” Eric had let me tag along for the rest of the week. Apparently Frank didn’t have much of a work ethic. Eric had told me that he wasn’t away on vacation—just at home playing Grand Theft Auto.
“If you want to get rid of some stuff too, bring it out. I’ll give you your cut.”
“What if there’s stuff here that I don’t want to give away?”
“It’s just Mom’s old clothes and a bunch of stuff that belonged to Carl. We don’t need it. I’ve made over a hundred bucks already and I’ve only been out here an hour.”
I recognized some of our neighbors. I spotted the woman with the long braid, Deborah, digging through boxes on the other side of the yard. I wondered if she’d already asked Vallery about Mom’s notebooks, or if she was hoping to just come across them and buy them for a quarter.
I walked around and started looking down into boxes. Then I came across a box that had LAINEY OLD CLOTHES written on the side.
I looked inside. Yes, definitely my old stuf
f. I held up the box to Vallery. “What does this say?”
“‘Lainey old clothes.’ Old! You clearly don’t want them anymore. They’ve clearly been put aside for disposal.”
I dug through the box. “Vallery!” I whispered. “There are panties in here.” Panties! At a yard sale! Labeled with my name for all the neighbors to see!
“Oh for God’s sake,” Vallery said. “Just take them out.”
I heard a car pull up, and I turned and saw Eric idling by the curb.
“I’ll be home in a few hours,” I said. I closed up the box and carried it to the car. I threw it in the backseat and got in beside Eric.
“What’s in the box?” he asked.
I sighed. “Vallery was selling my underwear at her little yard sale.”
Eric laughed and shook his head. “How much did she want for them?”
“Not funny.”
“Did you have to buy them back from her?”
“Also not funny.”
I could tell right off that Eric was not making a great impression on the Old Crew. I should have gotten him to shave the beard off. Wallace and Joe shook his hand, and Christine and Kara were friendly to him, but I knew they wanted to shake me and scream, “YOU LEFT RILEY FOR THIS GUY? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
I mean, Eric wasn’t bad. Obviously, I liked him. But Riley was a man’s man. He fixed cars and played sports. Eric spouted off bizarre philosophies and had favorite movies that no one else had heard of. He just didn’t fit in the way Riley did. Not that I fit in either. If it hadn’t been for Kara, I wouldn’t have talked to any of those people ever again.
But fortunately Eric had no trouble holding up his end of a sofa, and he was old enough to buy alcohol, so at least he wasn’t a total outcast. Moving took way longer than I thought it would, and then Eric and I stopped by the liquor store on our last trip to the new apartment and bought a twelve-pack for those of us who weren’t pregnant. Christine ordered pizza. Wallace put on a movie. It was like the old days, except we were in a strange place and Riley was missing.
The Snowball Effect Page 17