“Is this a girl you’re texting with, Gib?” He’s all kinds of surprised, almost laughing. I’m apparently more hilarious than a tap dancing monkey in a hula skirt.
“Are you making some friends at school? This is good news. Progress.”
I’m not sure what he’s playing at, why he’s suddenly changing his tune, but this might be my best chance. Instead of punching his smug face, I pucker up and push. Yeah, it’s basically word constipation and has me red-faced as I manage to shit out a few little nuggets. “I’m gonna be late …”
That’s as far as I get before the front door swings open, triggers the automatic bulb and drenches me in light. I am the raccoon, my scars on full display and caught right on the porch. I back pedal into the shadows, bump into the railing and almost drop my boots.
“Albert,” V for Vivian says, just above a whisper and keeping watch on me. “Would you mind stepping inside for a moment? I need a private word with Gibson.”
“Sure, sure.” Step Douche the Super Whipped hops up from the swing so fast he leaves skid marks. He tries to clap my shoulder, slap my arm, smack my face, who the hell knows, and we dance around each other until he finally gives up and ducks inside.
V for Vivian waits for the door to close. She’s barefoot in blue flannel pajamas with her hair down, pink painted toenails and no trusty pearls. She looks like a mom in a television show.
“You have his eyes,” she admits then regrets it. After rubbing the evidence off her face, she squeezes the bridge of her nose between her thumb and index finger and wraps the other arm across her stomach. “We can’t keep doing this. We’re not making any progress, and I have Jamie’s safety to think about.”
She suddenly steps in so close her breath warms my icy cheeks. “He’s getting out.”
Three words and everything goes still. There’s no dark sky, no automatic porch light or giant moth pinging against it. There’s no big flower pots bursting with red, yellow and orange petals and no pumpkins all set to carve. There’s just me and my heart rattling around in my chest like an ice cube in an empty glass bottle.
“I can’t be put in the middle ever again.” She glances at the case in my hand and hard grooves bracket her mouth. “You and that guitar. His prodigy. He was completely obsessed, and we all had to suffer for it.”
My right eyelid spasms. I turn away before I disintegrate in front of her.
“You can’t be here when he comes looking for you.” Her tone finds the perfect edge to slit me wide open. “If you go back into custody, he can’t get to you. None of us will be put at risk.”
I swing around, a little dizzy, a little sick and tip sideways, clunking my case off the railing. The fingers of my right hand fall into attack mode.
“It’s the best solution for everyone,” she says and my fucken hair stands on end. “The guitar stays here. I need to make sure you don’t disappear before I can make the arrangements. There can’t be any question of where you are.”
I heard her wrong. Everything about this is wrong. But her hand is out and waiting for something.
“The guitar, Gibson.”
The buzz of my brain is so loud, packs my head so full that maybe the sound bleeds from my eyes, my ears, my nose. Only my mouth holds it back, sealed tight, my fucken tongue humming like a live wire.
“I’m doing what’s necessary.” I read her lips. I can’t hear her, not over the ugly, angry notes that are cannibalizing me from the inside out. “He’ll come here looking for you. He won’t take no for an answer, and I can’t … I just … this is the only way.”
She’s supposed to be my mom before anything else. I waited inside a nightmare for her to come for me. I watched that empty goddamn driveway and waited, waited, waited, and everything he said was true. She didn’t want me. She didn’t care enough to get me out. And the next day was the same as the last and turned into a week, into a year and next year will be the same, and every year after because there’s no end.
“No.” I’m not sure if I actually spoke. “NO! Fuck Noooooooo!” Suddenly I’m yelling back. My hoarse voice shocks her, shocks me and I’m not sure if I’m forming words or just stringing curses together, vowels blistering my lips and consonants so sharp they cut.
“HEY!” Super Tool’s voice draws an abrupt silence. He wedges between us, the flat of his hand pressing into my heaving chest as he looks from me to V for Vivian with guppy eyes. “Let’s calm down here.”
I squirm in my clothes, in my skin, like I’ve teleported to this spot and arrived with every molecule turned inside out. I’m so raw, the cold air burns.
“Step back, Gib.” Step Douche pushes at me. “Take it easy. Don’t make a mistake.”
Super Tool is worried I’ll come back and kill them in their sleep. He’s got it wrong. I’d want them awake, so they could see it coming and know it’s me.
“You don’t understand, Albert!” my mother cries. Tears stream down her face and she pulls at her hair. “You have no idea. He could… he could …”
“Enough Vivian.” He reaches his opposite hand to cup the nape of her neck. “He’s just a kid. A boy. Your boy. Come on now. Come inside with me.” He turns and draws her into the shelter of his arms, swaying and rotating and almost dancing with her. She sobs into his chest, and he looks for me over her shoulder, murmuring softly, “It’s going to be OK. Everything will be OK.”
I know where that leaves me. I’m out.
CHAPTER 47
Tia:
It’s Saturday. Once upon a time, a day of sleeping in, lounging in jammies, watching movies and painting toenails. This morning, I was up before the sun, skipped my run because of an aching knee, shuttled the twins to practice, ladled styrofoam bowls of fundraiser chili for three hours, provided a lonely cheering section at Theo’s game and spent twenty minutes stalled in the rink parking lot while the Ark coughed, wheezed and demonstrated all the symptoms of an asthma attack.
I’ve got a break before I need to pick up a pair of brothers from a birthday party and drop off a pair of sisters at ballet and some cheer thing. I should vacuum, tackle the endless mountain of laundry, prioritize bills to pay and track down that weird smell under the sink. The keyword is should. Don’t judge. I’m beat.
I rub my face as the chill of the house pebbles my skin. So far, I’ve gotten away without starting the heater. Like everything else around here, it’s old and temperamental and my dad keeps it running with determination and a magic screwdriver. But he’s not here to do that and everyday we’re getting deeper into fall with no change for the better on the horizon. Taking an extra long breath, I swipe under my eyes, dry my fingertips on my jeans and ignore the worry swimming around in my belly. Today isn’t the day to fall apart.
I just need a shower, an endless scalding shower that tests the limits of our new water heater. Convincing myself coconut scented body wash is enough to turn my day around, I’m on my way to the bathroom when I hear voices from Tully’s room. One is definitely hers and the other … I peek into her doorway. Well, well, well.
Baby Sis is sitting on Taz. He’s stretched out on the pink carpet, his right heel rocking back and forth as he works with crayons in a princess coloring book. Her little bum is settled into the dip of his spine, in the designated no-touching zone. She’s finished giving him one messy pigtail and is dragging a comb through the leftover strands, gathering them into a second.
She tugs and his chin tilts back. Then he speaks. TAZ SPEAKS. “The one with the tail.”
That voice. I could use it to scratch an itch. I’ve become convinced it’s possible to orgasm just by hearing someone speak. If he ever says something dirty, I may spontaneously combust.
“Very good,” Tully compliments in her pretend school teacher’s voice. “Who rides the match-ick carpet?”
“Jazz something,” he supplies.
“Jasmine.” Propping her chin on the top of his head, she lays on him like she’s in the final stretch of the Kentucky Derby. “What princess saves the be
ast?”
“Tia.”
For a second, I think I’ve been spotted, but then Baby Sis tells him, “Nooooo. Member I toll you, Tia hasta kiss the frog. But it’s not as scusting as it sounds. Cept she turns into a frog cuz she’s not really a real princess.”
“She looks like a princess.”
This is fascinating. I blush, tighten my ponytail and consider a curtsy.
“Do I look like a princess?” Tully fishes. Shame on you Baby Sis.
“Yup.”
She wraps her arms around his neck and cuddles. “Can I give you bows?”
“Uh-huh.”
“And we’ll make diggs after?”
“Sure.”
I wanna play too.
“Hey you two.” I step forward and remember I’m wearing a red-sauce-splattered hockey T-shirt that says “puck off.” Oh and I smell like the inside of a dirty crockpot and can’t stop myself from an infantile finger wave.
No worries because Taz gives me less than a glance. It’s just enough to show me his eyes are red around the edges and sunk deep into hollowed sockets. With his mouth tugged tight at the corners, he looks as if he’s been scraped across the bottom of hell and wedged in-between a rock and a hard place.
“I found him!” Tully bounces on her bottom and Taz takes it like a champ. “I did. So, I get to play with him. Just me. Not you. No sharing cuz it’s my turn.”
“Hey, hey. How about taking it down ten notches and starting from the beginning?”
She gives me an eyeroll that better not become a habit and winds a lock of Taz’s hair around her finger. “Bogart was meowing and Mora wouldn’t get up. I poked her and she yelled at me to not be a baby. So I let him out by myself cuz I’m a big girl. That’s when I found Tummy sleeping in a dick chair. Isn’t he silly?”
“Deck chair,” I correct.
“That’s what I said.”
“Not quite.”
Taz left here last night before dinner and wouldn’t let me drive him home, yet ended up in a lawn chair in my backyard, in the freezing cold, with no coat? Now I see why Tully’s allowed to use him as a jungle gym. He’s not totally here. Just this broken piece came back to us. This boy is hard on my heart.
“The twins toll me it’s a dick chair,” Baby Sis insists.
“They also told you shampoo is made out of actual poo and tried to save their farts in tupperware. Never listen to them.”
“Is peanut butter really made out of pee and butts?”
“Nothing that tastes that yummy has urine in it.” I stretch out next to Taz, grab a crayon and start on Ariel’s dress. He’s propped onto his left forearm, giving her an orange tan and pressing hard enough to dent the page. He’s still wearing the same sweats and T-shirt from our run yesterday, from the scene of the unexpected boner. Not that I replayed the feel of his body on mine all night long or anything. I’d definitely like to forget the horrified expression on his face, because, seriously, he looked as if he’d just gotten caught dry humping Mary Poppins.
“I taste good.” Tully announces.
“What?”
“You said nothing tastes good with me in it.” She’s all pouty over something.
“Still not following, Baby Sis.”
Now she huffs with the depth of suffering reserved for martyrs and five-year olds. “Nothing tastes yummy when you’re in it. That’s what you said!”
I rethink. “Urine! Not you’re in.” These are the kinds of intellectually stimulating conversations we have at the West house. “Pee,” I clarify. “Urine means pee.” I bump my shoulder against Taz. “I’m glad you’re here.”
That’s the teeniest bit of what I really want to say. I’m overjoyed he came here, came to us, but so sorry he needed to and downright devastated he didn’t feel he could knock on the door. I’m dying to know the details and kind of want to grab him and shake the words out of him. But just my proximity is overwhelming him and he shifts away, his body rigid, his jiggling heel picking up speed. Big surprise, he doesn’t seem eager to confide in me. I warn myself not to push. I need to be extremely careful here. He’s ready to bolt.
“Can I do your hair too?” Tully asks me. She’s the one who coaxed him into the house, put a crayon in his hand and anchored him to the floor. In her happy little world, the scary, brutal truths locked inside Taz’s silence don’t exist. There’s nothing but rainbows and sparkles and a convenient place for Taz to hide. It might not be what’s best for him, but it’s easier and maybe the right thing for right now.
I arrange my mouth into a smile and say, “Make me beautiful, Baby Sis.”
“You can have pink ribbons. Then we gotta make scrap cookies for my ballet party.”
Uh oh. We’re out of eggs. Which means no diggs, no scrap cookies, total meltdown, Baby Sis shunned at ballet, the death of her dreams and ultimately living in a Winnebago off Ramen noodles with eighteen cats. Deep breath.
“Um.” I flounder.
“Me and Tummy need the Ark.”
“Why pray tell do you need it?” Pray tell? I groan. I’ve suddenly turned into Queen Elizabeth.
“We gotta get greedy ants.”
“Greedy ants?” It takes me a second to translate Tully-talk into English. “Ingredients?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Not even close, but OK sure.” I mentally zip up my better-person suit, downsize my expectations to a five-minute shower and give up on shaving my legs. “Buy ingredients. Make cookies. In-between picking up the twins and dropping Mora off. Yeah, I can make time to go to the store.”
“Not you!” she blasts back. “Me and Tummy. It’s MY TURN!”
“Careful there,” I warn, which pisses her off. Little mouth puckered like she’s gonna blow up a birthday balloon, she yanks the comb, snags Taz’s hair and he makes the same yowl as Booger when Hem rollerbladed over his tail.
“Whoa,” I warn as Tully warbles, “sorry,” and kisses his head.
“Be nice,” I remind her.
“I’m gentle.”
“As a baby gorilla.”
“Can we?” she demands.
Do I hand over Baby Sis and my keys to this complicated boy? They both expect me to say no. Tully’s preparing for battle while he’s falling into the defeat he’s most familiar with. I so want to surprise him in good ways and teach him to expect it.
“Sure,” I say and give him another little nudge. “Are you cool with the miniature dictator of dough bossing your butt around?”
He sort of nods and bites at his lip.
Don’t push, don’t push I mentally repeat, even as I open my mouth and … “Let me buy you dinner tonight. We can grab burgers at the diner, maybe catch a movie or something.”
Did you catch the “or something,” at the end? The flutter of hope in my chest is so fragile, I don’t dare breathe. I’m fully expecting him to rip the wings off, chew them up and spit them back at me.
I wait, watching whole conversations play out behind his pale eyes. It’s probably not a good sign when he twitches like I plugged him into an electrical socket and tossed him into the bathtub.
“I wanna go to the movies too,” Tully noses in, and I hate to burst her bubble but that ain’t happening.
“Not this time, Baby Sis. It’s going to be too late for you.”
“That’s not fair!”
“The law of the West,” I tell her with a shrug. “Written down and everything.”
“Nuh-uh. You’re fibbing just so I can’t go.” The sticky little noodle wraps her arms around Taz and squeezes until his eyes bulge. If she thinks I won’t peel her off and plunk her bottom in time-out, she’s sadly mistaken. “Tummy will take me to the movies. And you’re not in-bited.”
“Invited. I think somebody needs a nap.”
“You do!”
She’s got that much right. I’d kill for a nap. I’d be tickled with a time-out. Her life is so much better than mine. Thank goodness. “Tully, you’re acting like a brat.”
“You
’re a brat. A big fat brat!”
“Says the teeny beeny bratopotomus.”
“You’re a brat beagle,” she flings back, but her lips twitch.
“You’re a bratilope.”
“You’re a brat-a-bomb-in-a-bowl no-man!”
She’s trying to for abominable snowman. Instead of correcting her, because that’s just too cute, I haul her off Taz, bundle her up and douse her in sloppy kisses until her pretty giggles remind me why I get up in the morning.
Glancing over, I see Taz watching and his expression is downright priceless. “It’s called laughing,” I tell him. “Just wait until you try it. You’ll never want to stop.” Snuggling Tully into my lap, I try to sound casual. “Theo and Mora should be home to babysit tonight. So how about it? Do we have a date?”
Wrong word choice. I’d probably get the same reaction if I suggested bikini waxes. His eyes swerve off to my right, and I wanna grab his cheeks and force him to look at me.
“I um …” he starts and then leaves me hanging. My face wears the stain of my humiliation.
“I can’t,” Taz tries again. “I have a gig. My band. At the Crypt. Tonight.”
He drops this excuse at my feet like Booger bringing me a dead mouse. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it.
CHAPTER 48
Tia:
I’m all dressed up for a night out. High heeled boots, skirt smaller than Thumbelina’s hanky and sparkly top pulled from Mora’s closet. With my hair straightened and too much makeup, I’m a cross between a street-corner whore and a magician’s assistant.
This is all because Frannie stopped by for my World Government notes and caught me in a sugar daze from half a dozen cookies. Within twenty minutes, I confessed everything and the plan to crash Taz’s gig was hatched.
My best gal might not be the boy’s biggest fan but she’s standing right next to me, clinging to my arm and attempting to blend into the line of tattooed, pierced, over-twenty-one crowd funneling into a subterranean bar known as the Crypt.
Shatter (The Choosy Beggars Series Book 1) Page 22