Unteachable

by Leah Raeder

  “Stay here tonight,” he said after a while.

  The first wrong note of the evening. It jangled inside me, discordant. Stop, I told myself. Why are you scared? Has he given you any indication he’s going to leave you? What are you afraid of, being loved?

  “I’ve been gone all day. My mom will freak out. I need to butter her up for St. Louis.”

  I need do no such thing. Mom hadn’t cared where I spent the night when I was thirteen, and she sure as hell didn’t care now.

  Evan kissed my forehead, but I saw the disappointment in his eyes.

  “Next weekend,” I said, “we’ll be doing this in a new city.”

  Waking up in the morning together. I had never woken up in the morning with anyone else.

  “Are you nervous?” he said.

  “No.”

  That’s another thing about lies: if you convince yourself they’re true, they become true. A lie is a discrepancy of belief, not fact.

  #

  Wesley skipped Film Studies on Monday. I looked for him in the cafeteria, but he wasn’t there either. Maybe he’d ditched the whole day.

  It felt depressingly empty without him.

  Britt and Hiyam didn’t mention the party.

  Mr. Wilke smiled at me, relaxed, peaceful. Beatific.

  I hit the computer lab after school.

  My phone took shitty video, but it wouldn’t matter for this project. This was about impressions, experiences. The feeling of being there, the blurry bright overwhelming way real life looked as you lived it, not the surgical precision of HD after the fact. I scrubbed through my clips, looking for the bones of the story I knew was there.

  Somehow, the photos captured what I was looking for better. Receding tail lights on a dark street. Evan’s back, roped with muscle, his arms raised as he put on his shirt in a motel. The little girl with the black-eyed Susans, walking with her dad beneath the Gateway Arch. A series of leavings, endings.

  My old life ending. A new one beginning.

  There was more to film than live action. I put headphones on, streaming music from my phone, and started scribbling.

  you don’t want friends

  wise girl lovely too

  i’m looking for some coke

  just a trail of fire in my hands

  I set the text over the photos in a video editing app. Each image flashed onscreen for a couple of seconds, then cut to the next. Tail lights/trail of fire. Little girl/looking for some coke. Jarring. Weird. Kinda disturbingly beautiful. Closer to what I was trying to say, but I still wasn’t quite sure what that was yet. Like Siobhan said, maybe it would emerge.

  I missed Siobhan.

  And her stupid, stupidly-in-love-with-me son.

  #

  “I’m cooking tomorrow night,” Mom announced when I got home Thursday.

  I flung my bookbag at the couch. This week had been a trial. Evan and I thought it best not to see each other outside of school until the weekend, in case anyone had noticed our slip-ups. Wesley thought it best not to see me inside or outside of school until I dropped dead.

  I was in no mood for Mom’s tweaked-out bursts of chemical enthusiasm and trying to be a Real Mom.

  “I’ve got plans this weekend,” I said.

  “I bought food already. Steak’s marinating.” She pronounced it meer-uh-nay-ten.

  I looked at her dully. “The only thing you know how to cook is meth.”

  She did not find that amusing.

  “What are you even cooking for?” I said, grabbing a jar of sweet pickles from the fridge.

  “We’re having company.”

  I froze. “Who?”

  “Mr. Gary Rivero.”

  “Who is Mr. Gary Rivero?”

  “A very important man. A very wealthy man.”

  I narrowed my eyes as I laid out bread for a sandwich. “That doesn’t sound shady at all.”

  Mom sat at the kitchen table, sparking her lighter.

  “Could you not smoke in the house, please?” I said.

  “I ain’t.”

  She stirred the ashes in a terracotta pot. I gave up trying to get her to quit smoking indoors; my only condition was she not do it while we breathed the same air. Sometimes I could not believe this woman and I shared DNA.

  “Mr. Rivero is very interested in meeting you,” she said.

  “Stop calling him Mr. Rivero. That sounds like a teacher.” I did not like that association attaching itself to her skeezeball friends. “Why does he want to meet me?”

  “Because I told him what a smart, pretty girl you are. How you’re going to college and all.”

  I paused in peanut buttering my bread and glanced at her. That was almost a compliment. My mother’s compliments were never without ulterior motive. “Why does he care if I’m smart?”

  “I don’t know, babe. Maybe you should talk to him and find out.”

  I had zero intention of doing that. “Like I said, I’ve got plans. I’ll be gone all weekend.”

  “Where you going?”

  “None of your business.”

  Mom scooted her chair back and loomed. She had a good three or four inches on me. Mentally, rationally, I knew this woman couldn’t do shit to me. But I imprinted on her, and my brain remembers how to light up the fear circuits when she glowers.

  “Long as you live under my roof, everything’s my business.”

  I couldn’t meet her stare. I addressed the peanut butter. “I’m going out of town with a friend.”

  “A friend? Your boyfriend?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That man who was here the other night?”

  “Yeah.”

  She mused over this, her makeup almost moving in sync with her facial features.

  “Well, I just need you here Friday night. You can go first thing Saturday.”

  God fucking dammit. This was not worth fighting over. Fighting with Mom tended to result in the molecular destabilization of household appliances. Lately, she had made threats against my laptop.

  “Fine,” I said, slapping pickles into the peanut butter.

  Mom finally noticed what I was making. She frowned at the sandwich, then at me, and said with a dry, croaking laugh, “What are you, pregnant?”

  Heart failure.

  It only lasted a moment, and then I laughed back, right in her face. She couldn’t tell the difference between sincerity and sarcasm anyway. Birth control was one thing I’d gotten right in my ridiculous life. I never missed a pill, and Evan was paranoid about protection for some reason I’d eventually cajole out of him. That, at least, would not be the drama that destroyed us.

  Still smiling, I said, “What are you, a mom?”

  #

  By Friday afternoon I was utterly miserable. No one to talk to or sleep with or bother all week. Being miserable is even worse without an audience. I would’ve welcomed Wesley’s senior citizen wisecracks right then. Go ahead and talk about how decrepit my mystery boyfriend is, I thought. The same one whose jokes you laughed at third period. The same one Hiyam was imagining fucking in her head.

  Wesley had found some clandestine place to eat lunch, so I stopped showing at the cafeteria, too. It was a bad idea, reckless, but I spent that lunch period in Evan’s empty class, mostly talking and only kissing him for about five minutes out of forty.

  “This is poor risk management,” he said, pressing me against the whiteboard during those five minutes.

  “I want to fuck you in this classroom,” I said.

  He exhaled slowly through his teeth.

  “On this desk,” I said. “While you’re wearing your shirt and tie, and I’m wearing nothing but socks.”

  He kissed me to make me stop talking.

  Before I left, he said, “This is torture.”

  “I could always drop out.”

  He looked horrified.

  “Kidding,” I said. “Relax, guy.” But I ran my hand up his arm wistfully, adding, “I can’t wait till tomorrow.”

  He embraced
me, and said into my ear, “I’m going to fuck the shit out of you.”

  I lost my breath.

  It was crude, it was unexpected, and it set me on fucking fire.

  #

  Mom insisted I wear the new clothes she’d bought. Suspiciously pleasant aromas leaked from the kitchen. It was possible she was concocting something actually edible in her cauldrons.

  I was 99.98% sure Gary Rivero was a druglord. The 0.02% was the possibility he was my father, reentering my life at the precise moment I cauterized the wound he’d left in me. Still, because I was forced into this and because fucking with middle-aged men was my favorite pastime, I put on a wispy skirt that showed generous thigh, a snug tank, and a brass locket from Nan. No makeup but a dash of eyeshadow that made my eyes look feral, staring eerily from a shadowed cave. My hair decided to behave and do the milk chocolate waterfall thing. My body looked sleek and tight and new. I took a selfie and sent it to Evan.

  Can I kidnap you? he texted.

  Is it kidnapping if I give permission?

  A delay before he responded. Sometimes I can’t believe you’re real.

  I felt a weird, bittersweet sort of elation. Me either, I thought.

  Mom didn’t react when I came downstairs except to hand me a bowl of potatoes with the instruction, “Peel.”

  I hadn’t bothered painting my nails, so I didn’t care. I was not going to let Mr. Rivero think I gave more than the minimum Mom-mandated fuck about him. It irked me that she’d actually made an effort at cleaning. For once, the house smelled more like Pine Sol than smoke and despair.

  “So how do you know this guy?” I said, shaving potato skins into a pile.

  “Work associate.”

  “Does he run a cartel?”

  Mom clanged a lid onto a steaming pot. “Rule number one: no business discussion unless Mr. Rivero brings it up first.”

  “He’s not even here yet.”

  My logic did not move her.

  “If this gets sketchy, I’m out of here,” I warned, handing her the bowl. I watched her dirty up the ladles and dishes no one had touched in years. “Mom.”

  She looked at me. Her makeup was understated tonight—she didn’t quite look like a corpse who’d escaped from a funeral home.

  “Thank you for the clothes.”

  Her eyebrows made a sad arrowhead pointing up. Jesus, please don’t say you love me.

  “You look beautiful, babe,” she said, and dropped the potatoes in the pot.

  I left the room, relieved and slightly queasy. I didn’t want to hear her lie. I wanted her to actually love me, but I guess “you look beautiful” was about as close as I’d get. Some girls had mothers who never called them beautiful but swore their love up and down. It’s all the same, really. All bullshit.

  I answered the door when the bell rang.

  Two men stood on our porch, both in dress clothes, no ties. The older one wore a suit coat. I immediately pegged him as Mr. Rivero. Salt and pepper hair, dusky Italian complexion, aquiline nose, Mediterranean green eyes. Very Robert DeNiro-ish. Handsome and slim for his age. He smiled easily and took my hand as he stepped inside, squeezing. I half-expected him to kiss it.

  “You must be Maise,” he said.

  “I must be.”

  Mr. Rivero’s easy smile crinkled at the corners. “I’m Gary. This is my friend, Quinn.”

  I wasn’t sure whether Quinn was a first or last name. He was built like a bear, more hair on his hands than his scalp. He nodded at me silently. Hired muscle.

  I seated them in the dining room and poured drinks. Maker’s Mark on the rocks for Gary. Water for Quinn. Mom was still busy in the kitchen, so I poured myself some Maker’s, too. Quinn’s eyes moved around the house, lingering on the windows. Gary’s eyes lingered on me.

  “So,” I said. How the hell could you talk to a middle-aged man without mentioning business or sex? “Lovely weather.”

  Gary’s smile said he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Your mother’s told me a lot about you.”

  “Like what?”

  “You want to go into the movie business.”

  “True. What else?”

  “You’re the smartest girl in school.”

  Had she actually said that? “Debatable. What else?”

  “You’re a stunning young lady.”

  I sipped my bourbon to mask the warmth in my face. I was aware of him watching every move, my hand setting the glass down, fingers poised on the rim. “Is it true?” I said.

  “Very much so.”

  Pots clashed in the kitchen. I leaned toward Gary. Quinn’s eyes darted to me.

  “I don’t do what my mother does,” I said under my breath. “Any of it. Whatever you came for, you’re wasting your time.”

  Gary didn’t blink. His eyes were shrewd, intelligent. “I’m certainly not wasting my time,” he said, and sipped.

  The ribeyes were black outside, vivid pink inside. Perfect. There were three different vegetable dishes and a lemon custard pie. Quinn ate more than all of us combined and never stopped scanning the room. I stared at my mother, unsure if I was impressed or furious. She had the capacity for this and had let me grow up on microwave meals.

  “What kind of movies do you make, Maise?” Gary said.

  Plus one, Mr. Rivero. Thank you for not assuming beauty is my only asset.

  “Experimental stuff. I’m interested in playing with the boundary between reality and fiction. True stories mixed with fantasy, in a way that makes both of them more true and more false at the same time.”

  I blushed. The alcohol had gone to my head.

  Gary took a drink. “That reminds me of something I saw earlier this year. The one about killing bin Laden.”

  “Zero Dark Thirty,” I said.

  “That’s it.” He swirled the melted amber in his glass. “There’s always controversy about things like that. You have all these people with their own version of the truth, trying to tell one story.”

  “And then we all interpret it our own way,” I said, “and it becomes a million more truths.”

  Gary smiled. “What about you? What truths do you tell?”

  “I haven’t finished anything yet. I feel like I need more life experience before I can make something worthwhile.”

  Life experience that I was racking up rapidly with Evan.

  “Quite a mature attitude.” Gary tore the steak gently with his fork. He watched me as he chewed. It was like Mom and Quinn didn’t exist. Mom was unusually quiet. “You show a lot of self-awareness for someone your age.”

  Backhanded compliment. “Thank you,” I said. “You show a lot of cultural awareness, for someone your age.”

  Gary laughed. Mom pinched my knee under the table. I despised her. You don’t even know what we’re talking about, I thought. You’re just reacting to tone. Like a dog.

  “Anyone for pie?” she said.

  Gary excused himself to smoke, brushing my wrist as he stood. “Join me,” he said.

  My pulse jumped. Whatever he’d come to ask, he was going to ask it now. I followed him to the back porch, Quinn behind us like a shadow on a leash. October had just started, a sharp, ice-toothed bite in the air, tearing the skin off the earth. Leaves rustled in the yard, a sound I’d always thought of as dying. A thousand cells shivering, delicately giving up their ghosts.

  Gary offered me a cigarette. I shook my head.

  “Smart,” he puffed.

  You are some bigshot druglord, I thought. You have a personal bodyguard who could rip a Bible in half with his hands. What the hell do you want with me?

  “It’s important to me that I understand all angles of a problem,” Gary said. “I don’t like to make uninformed decisions.”

  He looked at me then, and I shivered, hard, understanding: I am an angle of the problem.

  “What decision?” I said.

  His gaze slid away from me, unhurried. He was not the kind of man to be rushed. “Raising a child alone is very difficult. I don’t b
egrudge your mother her choices. But I do require her to be accountable.”

  A chill started to shimmy its way under my skin like a fine knife. Require had never sounded so ominous.

  “Sweetheart,” Gary said, eyeing me again, “your mother owes someone a lot of money.”

  “I’m not part of her business,” I said immediately.

  “No, but you’re part of her life. And when someone owes a lot of money, the people in their life become collateral.”

  I went cold all the way to my marrow. This was suddenly way too Godfather. I stared into the ghost-filled yard, seeing nothing.

  “I’ve worked with her for several years. She’s never disappointed me. I knew she had a daughter, and I knew she kept her daughter in the dark about certain things.”

  My eyes darted to Quinn. I wondered where the gun was on him. In his waistband? Strapped to his calf?

  Gary put his hand on mine on the railing. It was warm and papery. He smelled like tobacco.

  Holy shit, I thought. My life is a movie. A fucking drug thriller, happening right now, in my backyard.

  “Please,” I said, “I don’t want anything to do with this.”

  “I understand. But she made you part of it without asking.”

  My mind filled with terrifying images. Having to sleep with this man. With Quinn. Being passed around a bunch of skeezy dealers. Snorting coke to numb myself to the horror. I was shaking.

  I could call Evan. Let’s run away tonight, I’d say. Let’s start over in St. Louis. Or LA. As far as possible from this shit.

  “What do you want from me?” I said, my voice like those rustling leaves.

  Gary took his hand away. “As I said, you mother has never disappointed me. I’m willing to help with her debts, smooth things over with some people. But I can’t do things like that out of the goodness of my heart. That’s not how a successful businessman stays successful.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So answer my damn question.”

  When you realize you have nothing to lose, it’s easy to be brash.

  He merely smiled. Nothing I had said or done affected this man. He was a lizard, everything pinging off his scaly surface. “I don’t want anything from you. I just wanted to meet you. Yvette’s daughter.”