Better With You Here (9781609417819)

by Zepeda, Gwendolyn

  We single-file it to the living room and arrange ourselves around Oscar and the TV. He gives us all affable glances but doesn’t say anything. Oscar’s a man long used to the company of women. He sits through our chatter, silent as a ninja but somehow never in the way. Is that why he and Geronima have stayed married for so long? Probably.

  “So it’s a long drive to your mama’s house from here?” Geronima says to me as she blots her forehead with the skirt of her apron.

  “What’s that?”

  “You said you were tired from driving. Your mother must live far away.”

  Oh, damn. This is why I should never lie. I’m not good at it. “I…um, I didn’t go to my mother’s.”

  “You didn’t? Where were you, then?” Geronima’s question is completely innocent. How can she know that the answer isn’t something I’m ready to make public?

  “I had to go get something. To finish the dressing,” I say. “The grocery stores around here weren’t open, so I had to drive far away.”

  Geronima looks perturbed. “So you’re not going to see your mama for Thanksgiving? Isn’t she going to miss you?”

  I don’t know what to say to that. Will she miss me? I don’t know. The only thing I’m certain about is that I don’t miss her. So far this is turning out to be the best Thanksgiving I’ve had in a while.

  Sara’s raising an eyebrow at me. I know she isn’t visiting her mother for Thanksgiving either, and I wonder if she’s already explained herself to Geronima on that point. Haley, meanwhile, looks lost in her own world. She’s staring at the TV but not registering the Snoopy-shaped float.

  Oscar chooses that moment to join the conversation. “Gero, isn’t it time for you to take your medicine, vieja?” I can’t tell if he’s trying to change the subject or if he really did feel the need to remind her. Either way, it makes her pop up and hurry to the bathroom. Baby Junior runs out of Tiffany’s bedroom and nearly collides with Geronima’s legs, causing Sara to call out, “Angelica, come get your brother!”

  Once Geronima’s behind the closed door, Oscar turns to me and says, “Never mind her. She’s been sad that Tiffany’s mama hasn’t called her for the holidays.”

  That catches Haley’s attention. She, Sara, and I exchange looks. We know that Geronima’s only daughter, Cristina, lives elsewhere. It’s been clear that they aren’t close, but I wouldn’t have guessed there was any strife between them. I venture a question, since Oscar’s in the mood to talk. “Did Cristina spend Thanksgiving here last year?”

  Oscar shakes his head. “She never does. Christmas either. We haven’t seen her in five years, since Tiffany was born. But Gero’s always hoping she’ll change her mind and come back.”

  Geronima emerges from the bathroom at that moment, holding a bandage to her arm and keeping me from asking Oscar any more questions. It occurs to me for the first time that Geronima’s diabetes must be pretty serious. She’s talked about taking insulin before, but I always assumed she meant pills. Now I see the way she’s holding her arm, and it reminds me of my father’s mother and all the times I watched her, as a child, giving herself injections—before she died.

  “Do you feel okay?” I ask. Now I feel guilty for coming over here, for practically forcing Geronima to cook us an elaborate dinner.

  “I’m fine, m’ija. Good as new.” She smiles at all of us and, magically, looks like her regular, energetic self again. “What are we doing sitting here talking? Let’s eat!”

  The parade’s long over, the brisket’s two-thirds demolished, and Oscar’s gone to his bedroom for a late nap or a very early bedtime. Likewise Baby Junior’s crashed out on Tiffany’s bed, and the girls are sitting on the floor around him, playing with dolls in a food-induced zombie state. The rest of us are sitting in the living room picking at desserts and finishing the wine. Geronima’s the only one still moving around the apartment. Every few minutes she pops up for one reason or other. Right now she’s in the kitchen putting pots and pans full of soapy water on the stove, to soak away the now-hardened rice, dressing, sweet potatoes, and pie. She refuses to let us help her, and we’re too drowsy to argue much.

  It’s strange to be sitting here drinking at what feels like a family party but without my kids. Bittersweet. Apparently Haley feels the same way, because she’s getting pretty emotional, now that we’ve made it through two or three bottles. She keeps looking down at her plate of Brie and tearing up.

  “Are you thinking about the parties you used to have with Geronima?” I say.

  She shakes her head. “No. I’m just…” And then a tear breaks free and rolls down her face.

  I see Sara giving her a cynical look. “Girl, please don’t tell me you’re crying over a man.” A man? Is Sara joking? Or does she know something that I don’t?

  Haley sniffs and wipes away the tear. “It’s not about him.”

  “Him who?” I say. There’s something Sara knows that I don’t, and I’m annoyed. Or slightly hurt—both emotions feel the same.

  Haley won’t say anything, so Sara explains. “She’s into some guy who works at Earth Foods. His name’s J.D.” Then she asks Haley, “What happened? Is he being a dick to you?”

  Haley sniffles again. “No. It’s not about him.”

  I think back to the morning Haley was hungover and told me she’d gone to a rockabilly party the night before. She must have gone with this J.D. person. I can’t believe she’s been dating and didn’t tell us. Didn’t tell me.

  She says, “Nothing’s happening between us. We’re just friends. I’m just…I miss Jared.”

  Now I feel guilty for being suspicious or jealous or whatever it was, and I reach over the corner of the coffee table and put my hand on her arm. Of course she misses Jared. This is her first Thanksgiving without him, and he’s her only child.

  She’s actually crying now. She says, “And Dave wants me to come back home.”

  “What’s going on?” Geronima’s back from the kitchen. “Haley, what’s wrong?” She rushes over and sits next to Haley, to comfort her, probably the same way she did years ago.

  Sara gives Geronima a quick recap. “Haley’s ex wants her to go back home.”

  Geronima sighs. “Well, that’s good. Isn’t it?” She peers at Haley, who doesn’t seem to agree. “Don’t you want to go back? To work things out?” Haley can’t answer. She’s completely distraught.

  Sara pipes up again. “She never told him she wanted a divorce.”

  “What?” Everyone looks at me. “I thought you were legally separated.”

  Haley coughs and sputters. “I’m sorry, Natasha. I wanted to tell you, but…” And she dissolves into tears again.

  Sara leans over and explains it to me. “He thinks she’s just visiting Geronima for a while. She doesn’t have the guts to tell him she wants to leave.”

  I think back to everything Haley’s ever said to me about her divorce, or her separation. And realize that she never said anything about either. She simply let me believe that Dave was her ex. A lie by omission.

  And now I feel like an idiot.

  Geronima’s trying to give advice. “Why don’t you just go back, m’ija? Tell him how you’re feeling. He’d do anything for you. You know that.”

  “I know,” sobs Haley. “But I don’t want to him to do anything for me. I just want it to be over.”

  Sara visibly loses patience with her then. “You can’t just wait for something to go away, Haley. You need to man up and tell him right now.”

  That’s exactly what I’d say to her, albeit less harshly. But how is it that Sara knows all this—all Haley’s backstory—and I don’t? I didn’t even think they liked each other that much.

  The paranoia’s coming back. This just feels too strange. What else is going on that I don’t know about?

  I stand, feeling a little wobbly. “I need to take off now. I have to…call my mother.” It’s the first thing that comes to mind. Hell, maybe I will call her.

  “Natasha.” Haley breaks away from Ge
ronima and stands, too. “I’m sorry. I know what you’re thinking—that I lied to you. But I didn’t mean to. I just didn’t want you to think…Well, I wanted you to think I was someone like you. You know…someone moving on with her life.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. Is it? I don’t know, but she looks so miserable. And she’s saying she lied in order to—what? Impress me? What can I say to that? “It’s all right. Don’t worry about me. Just worry about your situation. Get it taken care of. I hope it works out.”

  “I will,” she says. “I’m going to call him tonight and explain everything.”

  I have to get out of here, right now. I don’t feel so well all of a sudden. But I don’t want to leave it with any of them thinking I’m upset. So I reach out and hug Haley. “Good luck, okay? Call me later and let me know how it goes.” Then I hug Geronima and Sara good-bye. And then I hightail it out of there, so I can be by myself in my apartment for a little while.

  Alex

  After the turkey dinner and the football game, Dad says it’s time to see the surprise he made for us. He goes to the bedroom where me and Lucia sleep when we spend the night at Missy’s. I follow him to see what’s there, and everything in the room is different.

  “What happened to Lucia’s bed?”

  “Don’t worry about your sister. She’ll be fine in Shepherd’s room.”

  Dad took the bunk beds out of our room and put in a new thing that’s like a bunk bed except it has a desk on the bottom. It looks kind of cool, but I’m scared the bed will fall on top of the desk if I’m sitting there.

  “This is where your computer will go,” Dad says. He’s standing under the bed. He has to bend down so his head won’t hit it.

  “I thought the computer was going to be at your apartment,” I say.

  Dad says, “No, that wouldn’t make any sense. There’s more room here, at Missy’s house.”

  There’s a new poster on the wall, of the Dallas Cowboys. I guess they took away Lucia’s poster of that stupid pony show. Also, there’s new curtains. They’re blue with footballs and soccer balls all over.

  Lucia comes in and sees how everything’s different. Her mouth opens up, and she makes the face she always makes before she starts crying.

  “Hi, baby,” Dad says.

  Missy comes in behind her, carrying Shepherd. “Lucy, honey, come with me. I’m trying to show you something in Shepherd’s room.”

  They go out, and I follow them. “Hey, buddy,” Dad says behind me. But I want to go see what they got for Lucia.

  It’s nothing. Missy goes across the hall to Shepherd’s room, and we see that there’s a new bed in there. I guess it’s for Lucia. It’s white, with flowered blankets and pillows all over it. They had to push Shepherd’s dresser into the corner to make the new bed fit.

  “This is where you’re going to sleep now, honey,” says Missy. “Do you like it? I picked out the comforter just for you.”

  Now Lucia does cry, real quiet. She’s a crybaby.

  “Oh, honey. What’s wrong?” says Missy. “Mike!”

  I guess Lucia’s crying because she doesn’t like the bed. She doesn’t really like stuff that’s pink. Mom always has to get her light green or red and black. Maybe she’s also crying because she doesn’t want to sleep with Missy’s baby. He’s kind of a brat, and he cries real loud sometimes at night.

  At least she doesn’t have to be by herself. Now I’m going to have to sleep all by myself in a room with no night-light. Dad doesn’t let us use a night-light, because he says he can see it through the crack in Missy’s bedroom door and it keeps him awake.

  Dad comes in Shepherd’s room with us and tells Lucia, “Aw, sweetheart. Come here. Why are you crying?” She lets him pick her up like a baby. She likes to act like a baby sometimes. Dad says, “We thought you’d like our surprise.”

  Shepherd starts to cry real loud then. I think he’s mad that Dad’s carrying Lucia, even though Missy’s already carrying him. Now Missy looks a little bit mad, I guess because Shepherd’s crying. Or maybe she’s frustrated that Lucia didn’t like the blanket she picked.

  I say, “Dad, maybe you should move Lucia’s bed back to my room. She’s probably scared to sleep by herself.”

  He looks down at me like he’s thinking about what I’m saying.

  Missy says, “She’s not going to be by herself. She’ll be with Shepherd.”

  Lucia squirms out of my dad’s hands and slides back to the floor. She wipes the boogers off her lip and says, “Yeah! Wanna go back with Alex!”

  I hate when she talks like a baby. But Dad always does what she wants when she acts like that. Missy looks really mad now. Probably because she hates when Lucia acts like a baby, too.

  “Well, I guess…” my dad says.

  “Mike,” Missy says.

  “What?” my dad says.

  “I thought you said…” She stops talking and gives him a look, kind of like the way Mom used to look at him, right before they’d argue.

  “I know, but…” Dad turns to me. “Alex, why don’t you take your sister outside and throw the football around a little.” He has to talk loud, because Shepherd is screaming now.

  “It’s dark outside,” I say.

  He looks up at the ceiling, then down at me. “Then take her to the living room, please. Put on one of your DVDs.”

  We go out of Shepherd’s room, down the hall with all the pictures of Missy and Shepherd on the wall, and into the living room, to the big blue couch. Lucia runs and jumps on it. Behind us I hear Shepherd stop crying. Next thing I know, he’s coming into the living room with us. He climbs on the couch next to Lucia, and she makes the fart noise at him with her mouth. He laughs. He has snot on his lip, too.

  I take out the stack of DVDs that Missy and my dad bought for us. Every time we come here, the Sammy Samaritan ones are on top. I move those out of the way and get down to the bottom, to Venom.

  “Put on Little Mermaid!” Lucia says.

  “No,” I say. I put in Venom and go sit on the couch, in the corner with the biggest pillow.

  When the cartoon comes on, Lucia says, “You’re Venom and I’m Carnage.” I tell her to be quiet.

  In the other room, Dad and Missy are talking louder. I hear Missy say, “…your idea in the first place.”

  My dad says, “Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

  Missy says something I can’t hear, then, “Do you even know for sure that they want to live with us?”

  I can’t hear any more after that.

  Now Lucia’s bed is turned so her head’s pointing at the corner, like mine, except her body’s by the window. I know she doesn’t like that. There’s freaky noises here at night. Missy says they’re only frogs, but we didn’t have frogs at our old house, and we don’t have them at our apartment either.

  “Alex,” Lucia says.

  “If you be quiet, I’ll tell you a story,” I say.

  I see her nod her head. “Tell the boy and the girl and the witch.”

  She means the one Mom made up. “No,” I say. “I’m going to tell a new one. Listen. Once upon a time, I was Venom and you were Carnage. But instead of enemies, we found out we were brother and sister.”

  She pulls the flower blanket up to her face, like she’s scared. But I know she likes the story already. I make up a bunch of stuff, but she falls asleep before I can finish. She always falls asleep real fast.

  Now she’s snoring, so I don’t have to say any more. But it’s a good story, so I’ll tell the rest of it in my mind.

  Once upon a time, Venom and Carnage were brother and sister. They flew to the moon to find the source of their power.

  On the moon they found a black substance oozing out of a big silver meteor. Venom collected it in a bottle made of kryptonite, and then they flew back home.

  They knew that whoever swallowed the black substance would turn stronger, like them. Carnage wanted to give it to all her friends, even the ones who weren’t superheroes. But Venom said no. He t
old her, “We only have a little bit, so we should only give it to people who really need it, who we want to be strong.”

  The first person they gave it to was Black Widow. She was already strong, but the black substance made her even more powerful.

  The second person they gave the black substance to was Iron Man. It made him super strong, too. But now Black Widow was changed, and she had the same powers as Iron Man. So they decided to beat each other up.

  Iron Man and Black Widow flew to a big mountain where no one would see them. They shot lasers at each other. They jumped high in the air and hit each other in the face.

  Black Widow said, “You can’t control me! I’m smarter than you, and now I’m going to make you pay!”

  Iron Man said, “That’s where you’re wrong! Only one of us can win, and it’s not going to be you!” His girlfriend was watching and crying.

  Venom and Carnage flew to the mountain and saw what was happening, and Venom knew what he had to do. He took the rest of the black substance and poured it all over himself so that it went inside him and took over his body, making him stronger than ever before. He was stronger than Carnage now, and even stronger than Iron Man and Black Widow. He grew taller than the mountain. His eyes turned glowing red.

  When Iron Man and Black Widow saw him, they got scared and stopped fighting. “Please don’t kill us,” they said. “Tell us what you want us to do.”

  Venom said, “I want you to stop fighting and become allies.”

  “But I don’t like him,” Black Widow said.

  “Yeah, me neither,” said Iron Man.

  Venom said, “I don’t care. You have to get along. I control you both now.”

  So they all stopped fighting and flew back home. And they lived happily ever after, except when they had to fight other people.

  The end.

  Natasha

  I’m going to stop in front of Missy’s house and honk the horn, exactly like it says in the divorce orders. I won’t even roll down the Blazer’s window. And while the kids climb into the car, I’ll be mature and won’t look at the windows of the house to see if Mike’s watching me.