Between Mom and Jo

by Julie Anne Peters

  “Nick,” Kerri says. “Stop it.”

  I hit her too. Club her in the chest. She doubles over and squeaks in pain. So what. She has it coming.

  The cops pull up then and end the drama. I storm to my room.

  An ocean of black consumes me, and I feel myself being sucked into the undertow. I’m gasping and groping. I’m drowning in my rage.

  Kerri

  I don’t help her move. Not one box, not one bag, not one suitcase full of her crap. It’s a perpetual flow of furniture and lamps and mirrors, books and bedding. Our house is contaminated now. Infected. I want to call the health department and ask them to condemn it. I would if I had a phone.

  Mom passes by my open bedroom door and peers in. I meet her eyes. We’ve barely spoken since “the incident.” I hate her. Jo and Mom had a yard sale when we moved from our old house to this one, after I pummeled Josh Lever on the playground. This feels like instant replay. Except all I gave Kerri was a bruised rib, and we’re not moving away.

  Our yard sale that day made three hundred dollars. As Jo put it, “One person’s trash is the next person’s treasure.” Mom had told Jo to sell her old stereo and Jo said, “That’s not trash. That baby’s a classic.” Mom said, “You don’t use it. Sell it.” Jo said, “I keep it around to remind me.” “Of what?” Mom asked. Jo said the past. It was the one thing she took with her when she left home at sixteen. Mom told her, “You can’t live in the past, Jo. You have to let go.” Jo didn’t want to sell it, but she gave in.

  Eventually, Mom always gets her way. You learn that.

  The day of the sale Jo asked me to make a sign. In black Magic Marker, she had me print: “Damaged Beyond Repair.” She wore the sign around her neck.

  Mom was wrong then, and she’s wrong still. You don’t have to give up your past to move on. You can’t. Your past is the part of you that makes you who you are.

  Kerri materializes in my doorway. I cringe a little every time I see her. She walks slow and holds her side. “Hey, Nick. Could you give us a hand with my big-screen TV?”

  I roll off the bed and cross the room. I shut the door on her.

  “Thanks,” she calls through the wood. “Same to you.”

  I wake up in a cold sweat. I’m freezing. My sheet is twisted up in my legs and I’m bound tight. I’m wet. Everything’s wet. I wonder, Did I have a wet dream? I must have. I stink. My muscles are tense, sore, like I’ve been hacking through the jungle to outrun the enemy. I’m hot and cold. Burning up.

  My thick head lolls to the side and my saltwater aquarium comes into focus. The water is cloudy, murky. I should check the pH, the temp. My arms and legs are paralyzed. I’m bound.

  I close my eyes. My heart pumps gallons and gallons of black, brackish blood, water, fish water, waste. I pump, pump. The roaring waves beat in my ears and eyes. My skin is crawling. I can’t scream. My mouth won’t open, close, work.

  Death, I think. This is it. The realization that I’m dying is not unwelcome.

  That scares me more than dying.

  Jo, please, I pray into the night. Hear me. Come and get me. Give us back our life.

  Mom and Jo

  Weeks, months, minutes. I don’t know time. I have my earphones on, the pulsing, driving bass, clash of cymbals. A doorbell intrudes. Muted, distant doorbell chime.

  Voices. Vibrations. I unplug one ear.

  Mom says, “I told you not to come here.”

  “I have something for Nick.”

  Jo! I spring out of bed, my earphones ripping off my head, and fly to the door. I fling it open. She’s here! On the porch.

  Mom’s at the screen. “You can give it to me.”

  I rush out the door and throw my arms around Jo. How long has it been? A week? A lifetime? Hers and mine. She’s warm and alive. She holds me hard, as hard as I hold her. We’re trembling.

  “Let him go,” Mom says. “Nick, get in here.” She thrusts an arm out at me.

  I lurch away. I won’t let go of Jo. She heard me, she came for me.

  “Jo,” Mom goes. “I’m warning you.”

  The air crackles with the tension between them. I don’t care. All I hear and feel are Jo’s heart beating against my face and her hot breath on my hair. Breath of life. Almost imperceptibly, she loosens her hold. I tighten mine. “I came to give Nick his phone back.” Her voice is monotone. “That’s all.”

  That’s not all. She came to get me.

  There’s a lull. Then Jo says, “This is bullshit, Erin. You don’t own him.”

  “Neither do you,” Mom snipes. “And you have no rights to him. You know that.”

  “Yeah. You’ve mentioned it once or twice.”

  Another presence fills the space, the doorway. I sense her aura. It’s Kerri, behind Mom. “Hi, Jo,” she says. “What’s going on?” She’s wearing her apron, her chef’s apron from the hotel where she works. Garlic permeates the air. She’s always smelling up the house.

  “Do you want to come in?” Kerri asks. “Nick hasn’t been out of his room for, like, a year. Maybe you can get him to rejoin the human race.”

  Mom says, “Jo’s leaving.”

  Jo says to Kerri, “I guess I’m leaving.” She takes a step back, and I move with her. She presses my forehead with her palm and peers into my face. We talk in that silent way we have. We say it all.

  Jo’s nose flares, and it isn’t from garlic. “You reek. You need a shower.” She lifts a lock of my greasy hair and lets it fall. “There’s this new product they invented that I saw on TV. They call it shampoo.”

  I burrow in to hold her again, but she clamps both hands on my rounded shoulders and applies pressure. “I gotta go, Nick,” she says. Her eyes fuse to mine. They scream, Please! Please. Don’t forget.

  She takes a third step back. With me attached.

  Mom reaches out and scruffs my T-shirt. She knows I’ll tear away. She hooks an arm around my neck.

  Kerri clenches Mom’s wrist. I choke, and Mom slackens her grip. We’re locked in a chain, Mom, Kerri, me, and Jo. I don’t know who breaks the first link, but suddenly Jo’s free. She’s hurrying down the sidewalk. “’Bye, Jo,” Kerri calls. “Um, maybe another time.”

  Mom hauls me inside, bodily. I suppress the urge to lash out. Jo stalls at the end of the driveway next to Beatrice. She turns around. She wants to say something. She wants to fight for me; I know she does. My heart pounds as she heads back, approaches the house. Near the edge of the porch, she stops and says, “I never thought it’d end this way. You know?”

  Mom says all snotty, “Well, it did.”

  “Just like that. You can wipe out all the years we had? Just erase them from your mind?”

  Mom expels a gust of air. “People change. They grow up. They move on.”

  No, I think. I’m not moving on.

  My head tingles in back and I jerk around. Kerri’s touched me. She hitches her chin like, Let’s go. Let’s leave them alone.

  She can move on, I think. She can move out.

  “Couldn’t we just talk, Erin?” Jo says. “How could that hurt?”

  “We’ve said it all, Jo. It’s over.”

  “Not us.” Jo’s eyes search through the mesh of screen. “Me and Nick. At least let us talk.”

  All the need and yearning and desperation I feel for her comes burbling up. I struggle to swallow down the gulping tears. Please, Mom. Please.

  Mom doesn’t hear. She doesn’t listen. She shakes her head and shuts the door.

  Mom

  We stop at the mini-mart for a Red Bull. Kerri can’t have any other kind of energy drink. It has to be Red Bull.

  Mom tries to catch my eye over the seat back. My earphones are on, but only to create white noise. All I want to do is sleep.

  She reaches a hand over.

  Don’t touch me, I think. I struggle to right myself in the backseat. I get about two-thirds of the way up, then my head is too heavy on my neck and I slump over again. I don’t know why Mom is dragging me to this stupid compe
tition. Who cares about Kerri? Who cares what she drinks or thinks or does or wants in life? Nobody asks me what I want.

  Mom’s quick. She yanks off my earphones. “Nick, please. This is an important day for Kerri, and we need to be there for her.”

  Do we, Mom? Do we need to be there for her?

  I don’t say it. Even if I could, my lips are numb. My tongue is numb. My face and head and throat — all numb.

  “Come on.” Mom whaps my knee. “It’ll be fun.”

  Fun.

  She smiles somberly. “I know this hasn’t been the greatest summer for you.”

  The speed of the days rivals the sedimentation rate of sewer sludge. I twist my head to gaze out the window. For all I see that registers, or matters, we might as well be moles in an underground labyrinth.

  “. . . all the change,” Mom’s voice filters through my brain — also numb. “I’m going to take some time off next month so we can do something together. As a family.”

  Did she say that? Did she actually say “family”?

  Kerri returns, popping the pull tab on her Red Bull. “God, I’m a wreck.” She slugs down half the can and refastens her seat belt. “I’m going to crash halfway through this.”

  “No, you’re not.” Mom runs an open hand down the back of Kerri’s head. “You’re going to be great. You’re going to kick ass. Right, Nick?” She eyes me over the seat and smiles. There’s threat in that smile.

  What’s she threatening me with? There isn’t anything left for you to take from me, Mom.

  Kerri swivels her head around and fakes biting her fingernails, like she’s all nervous. I bore into Middle Earth.

  Kerri takes Mom’s hand and fake chews her nails too. Mom laughs. They linger, hands together, as if posing for a wedding photo. Not a picture I’ll be adding to my memory book. Mom kisses Kerri then twists on the ignition. A bag of barbecue chips lands in my lap. Kerri says, “Breakfast of champions.”

  I don’t give her the satisfaction. No nod of acknowledgment that it’s what I usually eat for breakfast. She’s been spying on me. I’m not hungry. Taste buds — numb. Stomach numb.

  We get to wherever we’re going, and Mom parks. There’s a mob of people out on the lawn. Streamers and balloons, tables and chairs. A band or string quartet or something is playing.

  Kerri opens another Red Bull and gulps it down. Mom says, “Do you know where you have to go?”

  Kerri burps. “To the john to pee. Or throw up.”

  Mom straightens Kerri’s collar and touches her neck. “You’ll win. Embrace your inner food critic.”

  Kerri laughs.

  I want to hurl.

  Vaguely, I remember why we’re here. It’s a cooking contest. “Blah, blah top chefs from around the country competing for a spot in an international cook-off.”

  Whoop de doo.

  “It’s important to Kerri. Only elite chefs are invited to compete,” Mom’s words echo.

  Whoop de double doo, Mom.

  “You’re not taking that.” Mom snatches the earphones from my numb ears and tosses them back into the car. She remotes the door lock. She and Kerri hold hands and head for the main building, while I lag behind.

  It’s hot. Humid for July. Too many people milling around, their talking and laughing absorbed by my brain. I’m already bored. I crave home — house — bed.

  “Nick, hurry up.” Mom clenches my limp, sweaty hand and yanks my chain. She reels me in close to her and links our arms, smooshing us together. It’s weird how our arms are touching and I can feel her cool skin on my hot skin and see her hand clenched around mine, yet I feel as though we’re disconnected. Distant. At opposite ends of this campus, this field, this ocean of space. Even at home — house — when we pass from the kitchen to the living room she’s gauzy to me. A cloudy film. I used to look at her and see myself reflected, in her eyes, the shape of our ears, the color of our hair. I don’t see me anymore. I see Kerri.

  “Okay, I’m going to set up and go over my menu again with Gayle and Paul. God, Nick. I wish you were my sous chef today.” Kerri fakes a pout.

  Yeah, I’d have been real happy to help. Thicken the soup with arsenic.

  Kerri kisses Mom again and rushes off to the kitchens. I watch her go. I wonder, Do I want her dead?

  No. Just gone.

  Mom says, “Let’s find out where she’ll be stationed and get a good seat.”

  Whatever.

  When we sit, Mom turns to me and says, “I know all this change is a lot for you to handle. Change is always hard.”

  I don’t answer. I stare ahead.

  “Kerri and I want to build a life together. With you, of course. We’re going to make a new family, the three of us.” Mom takes my limp hand and pulls it into her lap. “You’re the most important thing in the world to me, Nick. I love you. You know that. I need you to be happy.” She raises my hand and presses it to her lips.

  Need? Did she say need? I twist my head slowly to face her. “What about Jo?”

  Mom closes her eyes. She expels a long sigh and drops my hand. I relieve her of it.

  I’ve got news for you, Mom, I want to say. I don’t need your new version of family. “Why can’t I see her?”

  “Nick —”

  “Why can’t I talk to her? Why do you hate her so much?”

  Mom frowns. “I don’t hate her. I just don’t trust her. I’m angry with her for showing up unannounced and never calling. I panic when I don’t know where you are. . . .”

  Or if I’ll ever come home, I finish for her. “I’ll call you every hour. I promise to remember.”

  “I worry when you’re with her. What if she’s drinking again?”

  “She’s not.”

  “Or gets fired.”

  “She won’t.”

  “Or keeps guns in the house. You know how I feel about guns.”

  I look at Mom.

  She stares ahead now. She purses her lips.

  “We won’t go shooting,” I say. “I’ll set the timer on my cell —”

  “Shh,” Mom goes. “They’re starting.”

  The contest is a maze of white-aproned bodies bustling between counters and appliances, flaming woks, grills. There’s a cacophony of voices, buzzers, blenders, mixers, people hollering and barking instructions. The guy next to Mom strikes up a conversation with her. He’s about her age. He could be my father.

  Yeah right. I can only imagine that concept of family.

  I double over and let my arms dangle. My eyelids droop and I zone.

  Depart.

  Deport.

  Desist.

  “Sit up, Nick.” Mom jerks on my arm. “Kerri’s plating.”

  Who?

  Oh. Her.

  Dishes clack and ping and all at once a hush settles over the audience as the judges taste. They chew and score.

  I yawn. “Can I go to the bathroom?” I ask Mom.

  “Not now.”

  “I have to take a dump.”

  She exhales an irritated breath. “Be quiet about it. And hurry up.”

  The men’s bathroom is at the end of a telescoping corridor. There are classrooms on either side, all the way down. This must be a school or something. It is, I remember. A cooking school. Johnson and Wales. Kerri teaches here part-time in the mornings. At the john, I take my time. I really only have to pee. I pause to gaze at myself in the mirror over the sink, but I don’t see anyone. No living life form.

  On the way back my attention is drawn to an object at the other end of the hall. There are two of them. Pay phones.

  Mom discontinued our regular phone service when we got our cells. Even if we still had a phone at home, even if she hadn’t confiscated my cell, I was forbidden.

  It’s a miracle I have money. Prisoners of war don’t need money.

  I lift the receiver and punch in her number. It rings once and she answers out of breath, like she ran.

  “It’s me.”

  “Nicky! Hey.” She blows out a breath. “Hey.�
� Her voice sounds funny. High and . . . watery. “How the hell are you, buddy?”

  Long lost friends. “Fine.” My throat catches. We’re more than friends.

  She doesn’t speak for a minute. Neither do I. We’re sharing space, time. “Fine, huh?” she says. “Yeah. Me too.”

  I want to bawl. I want to press my face to the number pad and bawl. Cradling the phone to one ear, I cover the other to block out the world.

  “What are you doing?” Jo asks. “Where are you?”

  “Here,” I choke it out. Nowhere. “Some stupid cooking contest.”

  “You’re in a cooking contest? Whoa. What are you making? Your famous chicken à la mode?”

  I smile on the inside. “I’m not in it. Kerri is.”

  Jo doesn’t reply.

  I say, “Come and get me.”

  “Nick —”

  “At the cooking school.” I don’t know the address. I wasn’t paying attention on the drive over. “It’s Johnson and Wales. You can look it up —”

  The phone rips from my ear and slams down on the metal holder. Mom is in my face. “How dare you?”

  “How dare you?” I shout. I cry, “How dare you?” I stumble back from Mom. “I hate you.”

  Her eyes grow wide and she reaches for me, but I slap her hand away. Tears spring to my eyes and I’m sobbing and gasping for air, screaming inside, How dare you, how dare you, How. Dare. You.

  I sprawl across the backseat with my face flat to the cushion. It stinks like rotten foam. Mom doesn’t talk to me. Kerri didn’t win. She didn’t even place. She cries on the way home. I don’t feel sorry for her. I can’t feel anything beyond this hurt and ache that hacks through the numbness and forces me to feel.

  Mom

  Mom comes home for lunch on Monday and catches me in the act. “What are you doing?”

  I drop the fiery stick and watch it fizzle on the floor. Mom rushes over and switches off the gas burner.

  “What are you doing?” she asks again. Her voice is calm, but there’s an edge to it.

  “Nothing.” I eye the evidence on the stove.

  Mom follows my gaze. The marshmallows, the open box of toothpicks. Charred sticks and glommed goo all over the burners.