by Chris Myers
Alex slides closer to me. “Why won’t you go out with me?”
“When hell ices over,” Rena says, like the pit-bull everyone knows she can be.
“I’d be happy to meet you both down there,” he says, winking.
I step away from him and behind Rena. The distance makes me breathe easier.
Nothing ever goes right for me. Alex. Step-monster coming home. Lennon. Why didn’t Zach show up without Kelly and slip his warm arms around me? Because I screwed up—big time.
I sigh and dump more plastic cups into the overflowing trash bag in an attempt to clear my name from the many violations I’ve accrued tonight. It’s been a while since Step-monster caught me at anything, and I don’t need to give Him any more ammunition.
“Party’s over,” Rena says, pushing Alex toward the front door, “so Adios.”
“See you guys, manana,” he says.
How am I going to face Lennon in choir tomorrow after seeing his…? A flush prickles my neck.
Unlike me, he joined the top high school choir without trying out. I didn’t get in until my junior year, and even now, I have a ‘B’ because I can’t read music. It’s the only ‘B’ I’ve ever gotten in my entire life, and it sucks. This whole mental block thingy keeps me from catching onto the treble and bass clefs. I hate the fact he doesn’t really have to work at music like I do.
My shoulders sag just thinking about school tomorrow. I dread sitting next to Lennon. The heat that boy generates is like standing next to an open fire. I get burned every time he’s around me.
When Winter Comes
Words and music by Lennon Tyler
When winter comes, the world is grey, the sun is gone
Icy claws dig into me
Dragging me beneath its bitter realm
Chorus:
But your warmth brings me life
Takes me from the cold
Reminds me of our world, the one we built to shut the others out
The one that helps me to forget
Never let me go
Don’t let the cold sink me and take you away from me
Take me where there’s some sense of sanity, but when it snows, bring me home to you again
Their storm is not ours
You and I have created our own calm
Sheltered by your light
We move on from the winter they built and into the sun
CHAPTER THREE
LENNON
In the taxi, Bailey cuddles with me. Her mouth presses against mine, but my mind is elsewhere.
“What’s up?” she asks.
“Could you drop me off first,” I say to Lou.
Half my mind wraps around Jinx, that flame of a girl, while the other half frets over what I’ll find at home.
“No problem, and your lady friend?” he asks.
“Take her home.”
“Sure you don’t want to go somewhere quiet?” Bailey manhandles me, literally.
“I can’t. Crisis at home.”
“Your mom?”
“Yep.” I grasp Bailey’s hand and then use my other to go under her shirt. We have a few minutes until we arrive at my house. I may as well make the most of it.
She moans and reciprocates. Lou doesn’t even once glance back, probably because I’m a good tipper. I kiss Bailey with a lot of tongue. In my mind, I should see nothing but Bailey stripped of her clothes, but instead, the demon queen pops up along with her shower of fiery hair.
“I could help you deal with your mom,” Bailey says.
“Thanks, but you know the rules.”
“You break other ones. Why not this time?” With her hand on my joystick, it’s hard to believe I don’t cave and say sure, come home with me, spend the night.
“I can’t.” The real answer is I won’t. It’s not that I don’t like Bailey. It’s easier for me this way and for Currie. I have to be there for her and pick up the wreckage Mom leaves cluttering the house. I don’t want any of my classmates to see that. It’s bad enough the babysitters do.
“You want to talk about it?” Bailey asks.
“Not really.” One of the few people who knows much of my history is my next door neighbor, Mrs. Nowak, Currie’s best friend’s mom. That’s because I had to tell her, so she would help me with Currie when she was an infant. It took my best pleading to keep Mrs. Nowak from calling Children’s Services on my parents.
Bailey kisses my cheek. “I’m here if you need me.”
The taxi pulls alongside the curb. I hand Lou money including enough fare for Bailey. “I appreciate it, Bailey. You should find yourself a real guy.” If she did, I’d really miss her, but I realize she could get a fulltime boyfriend who takes her on dates.
“You are real. You just don’t see it.” She gives me one last kiss before I get out and trudge up the sidewalk.
I’ve never led her on, but she keeps waiting for me to ask her out. It’s not like that will ever happen. I’m not good at relationships.
An orange Dodge Charger blocks the driveway, which is highly irritating because I’ll have to move it tonight to get out in the morning. I walk in through the garage, fingering the keys around my neck.
The steel one secures my handgun that’s kept in the Toyota Highlander glove box. It’s locked as well. There’s zero tolerance for firearms on school property, but it doesn’t help me if the gun is inside the house where I can’t get to it. I debate on retrieving it before going inside. I’ve only had to use it once.
Pulling the gun out will only upset the babysitter Nicky. She would’ve already called the police if it were necessary. Taking a deep breath, I walk inside the house, knives stabbing my gut at what I might find. Nicky stands just inside.
“Your mom’s male friend used the lamp to break his fall, which didn’t work out so well for him or the lamp,” Nicky says, giving me the lowdown. After three years of tending to Currie, she knows what to do and never tells her parents. Otherwise, they wouldn’t let her come over.
The Raku lamp Currie picked out lies on the hardwood floor in several pieces.
Nicky points at the vomit. “He was so shit-faced—”
“Language,” I say.
“Right. Anyway, you don’t pay me enough to clean up that nasty stuff.”
“Where are they?”
Nicky laughs. “They retired to the bedroom. That’s what your mom said, as if I have no clue what they’re doing.”
“Currie?”
“She was sound asleep when I checked on her after Heather and friend passed out in the boudoir.” Nicky pokes fun at what Mom calls her room of horrors.
I frown because Currie’s good at faking asleep. She texted me close to ten. It’s more likely that she heard everything, and that sucks.
“Here you go.” I pay Nicky forty bucks for a little over two hours.
“Unh, unh,” she says, holding out her hand. “Extra for not getting sick myself after watching creepers puke.”
I hand her another ten. This is why the babysitters love me. I pay the best rate in our neighborhood.
I check on Currie before seeing the babysitter home. Harry is curled up on her pillow, snoring. Startled, he jumps up and growls at me. I snort out a laugh at the soup-bowl-sized dog. When Currie brought the hairball home, I wasn’t sure what it was. He’s a black and brown rat’s nest of hair, even after a trip to the groomer.
Currie’s chest rises and falls in an even tempo. I kiss her forehead. “Sweet dreams,” I whisper.
Not trusting Mom’s friend, I dead-bolt Currie’s bedroom that she can open from the inside.
“When would you like me next?” Nicky asks, tapping my shoulder.
“Probably Friday night and Saturday day.” My band has two gigs this weekend, including the wedding of the decade for Chicagoans.
“Good. I need the money.”
On the front porch, I stand outside in the cold and watch Nicky walk three houses down from ours.
When I go back inside, I attend to the mess.
At least the puke isn’t on the Persian silk rug Currie made me buy, but it’s disgusting just the same. It pisses me off that Mom expects me to clean up after her guests.
I pad to Mom’s room. A bare male ass straddles the bed. Her hand lies on his back. I’ve had this discussion before, not to bring home guys unless she’s serious about them and they aren’t musicians. It’s not like she listens. I close the door, so Currie doesn’t have to walk past this lovely vision in the morning. Unfortunately, she can never have sleepovers at our house because of Mom.
I stink of stale beer, so the shower in my room beckons me. I toss the sticky shirt and jeans in the hamper while my mind wrestles with Jinx. What is it with her? Why do I care what she thinks? Why was she so mad? Then it dawns on me—the burned down candles, the photos, her dad’s guitars.
I press my hand to my forehead, feeling like a complete jerk. Stupid numb-nuts.
The den is a shrine to her dead dad. Major screw-up on my part, which I should be used to by now, but the saddest part is I don’t want Jinx to hate me.
CHAPTER FOUR
LENNON
The next morning, the tapping on my face is so light it’s like a feather brushing my cheek.
“Get up,” Currie says. “You’re supposed to wake me up.”
I roll out of bed. “I’m up.” I tug on jeans over my boxers. No girl respects briefs.
“Nasty. Dude, change your underwear.”
My hand shoos her away. “Okay. Get out.” It’s cute when she goes urban on me.
I do as Currie instructed me. After I put on clean boxers, jeans, and a Led Zeppelin tee, one of the few things Jonathan ever bought me, I brush my teeth and wash my face. I don’t shave because chicks dig stubble, and I’m lazy.
Harry noses his way into my room, so he can hump my leg, even though we whacked his nads off years ago.
“Buzz off.” I shake him off my leg, not too roughly, because he’d blow away in a light breeze.
Undeterred, Harry follows me to the kitchen. He’s determined to impregnate my foot. He licks his chops.
“Sorry, bud. No treats here.” Currie’s a pescatarian, so there’s no meat in the house for the little guy or me.
Harry attacks my ankle again. “Would you get your gay dog off me?”
“He’s not gay,” Currie says, matter of fact while spooning more yogurt. “Humping on your leg is also a show of dominance. Harry’s simply letting you know he’s the boss.”
“Why doesn’t he hump your leg?”
“Because Harry didn’t train me to feed him.”
“That was supposed to be your job when I agreed to keep him.”
“You are such a pawn in our game.” She shoves a bowl of yogurt and fruit over to me. “Eat.”
Currie has me pegged. I pick Harry up by the scruff of his neck and feed him yogurt from my spoon. “Who’s your boss?”
She waves her spoon at me. “Harry is. And that’s disgusting.”
“You’re the one who told me a dog’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s.”
“It’s still gross.”
Gray circles smudge the skin under her eyes that she tried to hide with Mom’s concealer.
I peel a banana and stuff it into my mouth. “Didn’t you sleep last night?” The thought of her overhearing Mom’s antics roils my insides.
A world of knowledge churns in her dark eyes. “I have a hard time sleeping until you get home.”
Guilt works its way into my expression. “I’ll come home earlier from now on during the week.” I can’t on the weekends because of the band. I don’t want Currie to lose sleep, especially over me. Many a night I was stuck in the house alone, waiting for the deadbeats to get home. I either pay a babysitter when I go out or Currie goes next door to the Nowaks.
“It’s your senior year. You should have fun.”
I mess her hair. “You’re my fun.”
“Hey. Stop that. I just got my hair to lay flat.” She pulls out a compact mirror from her designer bag and fixes it.
“Diva,” I say, laughing.
Currie pouts. “Am not.”
She pinches me. It doesn’t hurt, so I laugh harder. She huffs at me.
I thumb through the paper to see what’s happening in the world and because Currie makes me. She wants me to become more cultural. Nothing really helps, but I try for her. A sour expression twists her lips, which makes me wonder what’s really troubling her.
“Anything going on with Zoe?” I ask. I’ve known her since the day she was born, which was a week after Currie. I arranged play dates, so Currie had someone normal to hang out with. Zoe’s parents adore me, maybe the only two grownups on the planet who do.
Currie’s face pinches with worry. “She has to have more chemo.”
Zoe’s been in remission for almost four years. We were hoping forever. “That sucks. We’ll sneak in real food for her at the hospital.”
Currie nods, fighting back emotion. Most kids don’t stress about dying, but Currie does. Like me, she’s had important people disappear in her life. That would be Jonathan. The only problem with him is he keeps popping up like a serial killer in a bad horror movie.
It’ll devastate her if Zoe isn’t around anymore. Even though she was only six the last time she had treatments, Currie helped Zoe every day. There’s not much else we can do.
“Maybe we should go to church and pray,” Currie says.
I don’t have any feeling for the Dude either way. “Okay.”
“Dad called.” Currie hesitates, reading me first before she continues, “He wants me to stay longer this summer. I can take a dance intensive, and there’s this great violin teacher. There’s also this really—”
“You can do that here.” She doesn’t need him and neither do I. If I have my way, she won’t have to go this summer at all.
She swirls her yogurt with her spoon. “I like Denage. I wish we lived in LA so I could see them more.”
Denage is Jonathan’s latest entanglement.
Currie pushes out her bottom lip and pouts. It’s her favorite pastime.
I hate to admit it, but Currie’s sour lip routine normally makes me give into her. Jonathan is a whole other matter. Currie sees him at Christmas and during the summer. That’s our arrangement for now. “Be careful what you wish for.”
“Dad wants you to call him. He needs to talk to you.”
“I’m sure it can wait.”
“Please,” she says. “It’s important.”
“I’ll think about it.” If Jonathan dropped off the face of the earth, it would be better for us both.
Currie doesn’t remember him strung out on crack cocaine and heroin or the endless parties. Escaping from the harsh Chicago winters to the sunny beaches of Malibu, where Jonathan lives, and shopping on Rodeo Drive hold fast in her mind. Her memories don’t include Jonathan’s many relapses and broken promises. Once an addict, always an addict.
We have the Jonathan discussion every other day and sometimes twice a day. She misses him, and that burns me more than hot coffee spilled onto my legs. I have the scars to prove it.
While we eat breakfast, my mind pores over Jinx. Jonathan can wait. Lord knows he kept me waiting a thousand times at school, at my friend Clive’s house, at the hospital with a broken arm from skateboarding off the roof of a house. I was supposed to land in the pool. Jonathan’s list of forgetfulness is endless.
My mind travels back to more important matters. Jinx threw me out. Why did I tell her it was no big deal? That was stupid. And she was scared of me. I would never hurt a girl.
“What’s eating you?” Currie finishes her yogurt and places the bowl in the dishwasher. At her request, I bought all stainless steel appliances so that the kitchen appeals to her tastes.
“There’s this girl. She called me a pig.”
Currie laughs. The light, pleasant sound makes me smile. She inherited it from Mom. “Why?”
“She caught me with my pants down.” Though Currie’s a muffin, she’s my
closest friend, and it’s not like she hasn’t seen everything living in this house.
She laughs again. “Justified.”
“True, but it bothers me.”
Currie slaps her forehead. “It’s finally happened. You’ve grown a conscience.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. She threw me out of her party,” I say, though guilt needles me for defiling her dad’s shrine. God, I’m a dumbass.
“No,” she says sarcastically while stretching out the ‘n’. “It was deserved. You’re such a ho.”
“Why are you with me then?”
“I have low standards. Tell her you’re sorry.”
“What good will that do?”
“It doesn’t hurt to try.”
Harry scoots over to the kitchen door where Zoe enters from the opened garage. “Hey, Harry.” She pats his scruffy head. He doesn’t hump her leg. It’s only me and Jonathan.
Zoe rummages through the pantry. Her shoulders slump. “No Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms?”
Dried, sweet cereal makes me nauseous. I lived off it until I was eight and Zoe’s mom showed me how to fend for myself and invited me over for meals.
“No good food,” Zoe says. “No wonder you don’t have a girlfriend. You can’t be trained.”
“I have my two girls. That’s plenty.”
“You need a real girlfriend.” She takes an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter and bites into it. “All this health food is going to make me sick.”
Currie makes a sad face at Zoe’s words but quickly replaces it with a feigned grin. “We need to hurry, or we’ll be late.”
On my way to get my backpack, I check to make sure Mom’s door is still closed. She never gets out of bed until noon. One of the many reasons I’ve taken care of Currie since the divorce. Well, actually since the day she was born.
I secure my room and Currie’s. Mom’s boyfriends always take souvenirs, as Mom puts it. They’re not allowed to collect from us anymore.
In the garage, I slide into the Highlander where Currie and Zoe have already belted themselves into the backseat. Currie insists I do the same before backing out of the garage.