Jolene
There’s this famous sci-fi movie from the ’50s, I think, about aliens who come to Earth, only humans don’t realize they’re being invaded, because the aliens snatch people and replace them with aliens who look just like them. Also, there’s something about pods. I should probably watch the movie at some point, but pre-1970s sci-fi doesn’t really do it for me.
Still, it would have been helpful to know how the humans defeated the aliens in the movie—they did, didn’t they?—because I was 96 percent sure there was one in my kitchen.
It looked like my mother. Olive skin, sleek, dark bun, “Sarah Conner circa Terminator 2” arms. But the alien had made one fatal mistake: the apron.
“Try to tell me you come in peace.”
“For heaven’s sake, Jolene, you almost gave me a heart attack.” My mother, the alien, waved me off and bent back over the giant pot she was stirring on the stove. Keeping to the perimeter of the kitchen, I edged closer until I reached the prep sink in the island. I ran water over my fingers, then flicked the droplets at her.
“Stop it, Jolene. What’s wrong with you?”
“Hmm, so you saw Signs, too. I always thought that aliens with a water vulnerability coming to a planet that’s two-thirds covered with the stuff were too stupid to live anyway.”
“Is that was this is? You think I’m E.T.?”
“More like the queen from Aliens.” I fished the candle lighter from a drawer and flicked the flame to life. “And I’m Ellen Ripley.”
“You watch too many movies.”
“Someone had to raise me.”
My mother, the alien, paused, then turned to me. “It hurts me when you say things like that.”
In another life, in another movie, that lilt of pain in her voice would have brought me up short. But this wasn’t a charming character piece where the mother and daughter fought before one of them broke the tension with a well-aimed handful of flour that devolved into a laughing food fight and a tender reconciliation by the end of the scene. My mother and I didn’t do tender, and if I had any doubt about her motives that day, the tiny brown glass bottle that she tried to surreptitiously tuck back into her apron pocket cleared me of them. The contents of my stomach turned cold and familiar. That bottle didn’t belong in a kitchen.
I opened my mouth, then shut it, then opened it again. “Sorry.”
“How was school? Soccer practice?”
“Enlightening, as always.” My hands went clammy as I stared at the bulge in her apron. “How was... What do you do again?”
My mother, the alien, ignored that question. “Are you hungry?”
My stomach clenched. “Wrong. My mother would never ask that question. And she doesn’t own an apron.”
“She does, actually. She used to cook before you were born. Some anyway.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She lifted a spoon from the pot and held it out for me to taste.
I eyed the soup. Like my mother, the alien, it looked completely harmless on the outside, but I knew better.
Her hand shook when I didn’t respond. “It’s minestrone soup. I made it for you.”
“You first.”
The spoon slammed down on the counter, and boiling orange liquid splattered everywhere. “Dammit,” she whispered. There were tears then. “Why can’t you be good and easy? Why can’t you smile and eat a bowl of soup? Dammit.”
My whole body trembled as I watched her. I didn’t know for sure what she’d put in the soup, but something between too-sick-to-go-to-Dad’s and not-sick-enough-to-warrant-a-hospital-visit was a fair assumption. She’d done it before—not often, but enough that I no longer ate anything she’d had prior access to on these weekends. “You burned your hand.”
“I know I burned my hand.” Red welts were rising along the backs of her knuckles and down her wrist. “It was just soup, Jolene.”
It was never just anything.
“It’s ruined now.” She lifted the massive pot—which held enough soup to feed a dozen people—and dumped the whole thing down the sink. Tiny vegetables and little half macaronis clogged the drain, preventing the orange liquid from disappearing fast enough. She turned and slid to the floor. “Why wouldn’t you eat it?”
Watching her, my stomach was churning like I already had. “You’ve never made me soup. You’ve never made me anything.”
“I’m not an alien.”
But she had to be; a real mother wouldn’t do this. “That’s what an alien would say.”
Still teary, she smiled at me. “Good girl.”
Several minutes later, nothing had burst out of my chest. Or hers. The soup was still swimming in the sink. She was still on the floor, or rather, back on the floor, this time accompanied by a glass of amber-colored liquid that she tipped to her lips.
I hugged my arms around my chest. “You’re supposed to drop me off at Dad’s.”
A healthy swallow was her response.
“I won’t get into a car with you and I don’t have time to walk.” Dad’s apartment was only a ten-minute drive from here, but considerably longer by foot.
She toasted that comment.
I sank down opposite her and my voice broke when I spoke. “Why are you doing this?”
That open-ended question earned me a blank stare until the glass was emptied and refilled. Halfway through her second drink, she paused to trace the welts on her hand with gentle fingers. “I wonder sometimes... Would I still be married if I never had you?”
If my mother had said that, I might have done more than flinch. I looked at the alien. “Was Dad cheating before you had me?”
The alien stared off at nothing. “He was always cheating.” Then her gaze shifted to me and the overnight bag still hanging from my shoulder. “Go put that away.”
My eyes shut slowly before opening. “You know I can’t.”
“Jolene. Don’t argue with me today.”
“I have to be at Dad’s apartment by six.”
“It’s my weekend.”
Even if she’d somehow forgotten, which she never did, Dad’s lawyer had taken to calling and reminding her, which had no doubt prompted the display of horror-tinged domesticity with the soup that I’d walked in on. The welts on her wrist and hand were bright red and painful looking. Even sober, she’d have a hard time driving. I had a suspicion she knew that, maybe had intentionally burned herself for that sole purpose.
I drew my knees up. “It’s always worse when you fight it.”
My phone rang before she could reply. We both knew it was Dad’s lawyer before I saw the screen.
“Hello, Mr. Kantos. Yes, I know it’s my father’s weekend... She’s here...” I glanced at the alien, who stared straight ahead and drained her glass. “Unfortunately, she won’t be able to drop me off.”
A small smile played at her lips.
“I’ll call an Uber but I might be a little late... No, that’s not necessary...” Dread raised my voice an octave. “I really don’t think... Mr. Kantos—” I turned away and tried to whisper, for all the good it would do to keep the alien from hearing me “—we all know that very bad things happen when they get near each other.” I bit the inside of my cheek and concentrated on not saying something that would get me into trouble later. “I’m sure you are.” I ended the call and stared straight ahead like my mother, the alien.
Shelly was coming to pick me up.
ADAM
It wasn’t possible that Dad’s apartment looked worse the second time I saw it. Objectively, I knew he’d been working on it since I’d been there, but I could still feel Mom’s fingers tight on my shirt when she hugged me and the tremor that transferred from her body to mine as she forced herself to let go.
So, yeah. It looked worse.
“Come on, man.” There wasn’t a thread of irritation in Je
remy’s voice. Mom had clung to him, too. “We can call her after dinner. Tomorrow and Sunday, too.” And then he added my bag to his before shutting the trunk. That was the Everest of goodwill as far as Jeremy was concerned.
Two years ago, I’d have appreciated the gesture.
Two years ago, Greg would have not only smoothed out our rough edges but made us forget they’d been there in the first place.
Two years ago, Dad hadn’t moved out and I wasn’t standing in a pothole-ridden parking lot while my mom spent yet another weekend bereft of her sons. I was a second away from slamming the car door hard enough to royally piss off Jeremy when another slamming car door beat me to the punch.
“Jolene! I’m not done talking to you!”
I looked and saw Jolene walking away from a red sports car with her bag over one shoulder and her braid dangling over the other. She turned, walking backward so that she could respond to Shelly, who was standing by the open driver’s-side door.
“But you really, really should be.”
Shelly’s door slammed shut just as hard as Jolene’s had. “It’s not my fault that your mother threw a glass at my head.”
I felt my eyes widen and glanced over to see Jeremy’s do the same.
“No, but you should have stayed in the car,” Jolene said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Doors locked, engine running. That’s what you do.”
“You were supposed to be outside waiting for me.”
Jolene stopped. She even took a few steps toward Shelly, and I noticed how frayed her braid looked. “But you don’t want to know why I wasn’t, do you? You don’t want to know that she got drunk and tackled me to the ground when the doorbell rang, or that, before that, she tried to poison me just enough to keep me in bed for the weekend. You don’t want to know any of that, because you can’t tell my dad or his lawyer without risking the courts deciding that I’m better off living here full-time.”
Jeremy and I both swiveled our heads toward Shelly and watched her face turn several shades of red before she looked away.
“Right,” Jolene said, turning back to the apartment. “That’s why you need to be done talking to me.” She yanked open the door, and that was when she finally caught sight of Jeremy and me. To her credit, her expression didn’t change at all. She held my gaze long enough for my face and neck to flame hot, and then she went inside. A moment later, Shelly slunk in after her.
“Still feel like complaining about your life?” Jeremy asked, letting his shoulder bang into mine as he headed for the doors.
* * *
Jolene held up a finger to her lips when I opened the door to my room and found her sitting cross-legged in the middle of my bed.
I halted with my hand on the door, staring at her and trying to decide if I was hallucinating. Then the sound of Dad and Jeremy talking spurred me into motion and into the room. I pulled the door shut behind me and locked it. “What are you doing here? How did you even get in?”
She lowered her voice to match mine. “I adopted your technique for scaling balconies. Though let me just say it’s much more difficult without your height advantage. Also, wet metal is super slippery. Did you know that?”
I half shook my head. “Wait, start with the why.”
“Am I here?” She pointed to the bed she still sat on. “In your room?”
I widened my eyes in confirmation before darting them back to the door I was basically barricading with my body. If Dad or Jeremy heard her... But then, Jeremy had already heard her—we both had—down in the parking lot. When she’d said all that stuff about her mom. My gaze slid more slowly over her. I’d noticed her messy braid before, but up close I could see that strands and tangles stuck out everywhere, and one knee on her jeans was torn—and not in a way that looked deliberate. Plus, there was a scrape on her cheek. “Is that all from your mom?” I asked, unable to keep the concern from my voice.
“What?” Then she looked down at herself and half laughed. “Oh, right. No. My hair is mostly from the wind trying to fling me off the side of the building while I was climbing the railing, the scrape is from getting up close and personal with the apartment wall, and the torn jeans are from when I tumbled onto your balcony. It was all very graceful.”
I wasn’t sure I completely believed her but before I could ask anything else, a fist pounded on the door.
“Adam. Get out here. We’re going to dinner.”
I looked at the door, then back at Jolene. More pounding.
“Hey, open up. Let’s go.”
She raised her eyebrows at me, as if she was merely curious as to how I’d handle the situation of hiding a girl in my room while my dad and brother stood right outside the door. Considering that she’d risked much more than a broken leg climbing onto my balcony, the least I could do was blow off my brother.
“Can’t. I feel sick.” I stood up, took a few steps toward the door, and half turned my back to her.
“You are such a little—” The doorknob rattled as Jeremy tried to force it open. Dad asked what the problem was and the rattling stopped. “It’s fine. Adam’s sick though. We had to pull over on the way here so he could puke.”
The doorknob was tried again, easier this time. “Adam, you all right? Do you need anything?”
Jeremy answered for me. “He’s fine. He’s gonna stay here and sleep it off.”
There was a conversation that I couldn’t quite follow, but it ended with Jeremy convincing Dad that they should go and leave me to rest in quiet.
“We’ll bring you something back in case you feel better later,” Dad said. “You have my cell.” The front door opened and shut a minute later.
“You’re not really sick, are you?” she asked, eyeing me.
“No, this is my normal skin tone. I’m pale.”
“So can I hang out for a while? Not all night or anything, just until Shelly falls asleep?”
“Yeah,” I said, sitting on the foot of the bed and feeling pretty good about the fact that I’d gotten rid of Jeremy and Dad so easily. “Stay as long as you want.”
She beamed at me, and when I felt my flush start to creep back again, she took pity on me and glanced around my room. “So this is nice. It’s like the cheap motel room from a slasher flick.” Her eyebrows flicked up. “You know, cozy.”
I looked around. That seemed accurate.
“Don’t feel bad. Your apartment could be dripping with blood and I’d still find it infinitely more appealing than mine.”
“Shelly?” I asked, my gaze catching on the apple orchard picture above the bed.
“Aren’t you the smart one?”
I didn’t feel smart. I felt...compelled. My focus had strayed from her for only seconds at a time since I’d walked in. She demanded my complete attention without seeming to try. Plus she talked a lot. Sometimes her voice would get a little strangled as she ran out of air, but she’d force another sentence or two out before drawing in a massive breath and continuing. Shelly had struck me that way, too, but her nonstop talking had felt smothering. With Jolene, I didn’t mind.
She wandered around the room, looking in drawers and peeking into the closet. All my stuff was in my bag, so I let her.
“Want me to help you unpack?”
“Why?”
“Aren’t you going to unpack?”
“I hadn’t planned on it.”
Jolene dropped onto the corner of the bed. Her brown hair was so long that she was practically sitting on it. I’d never seen anyone with hair that long in real life. “You want some advice? Divorce kid to divorce kid?” She immediately raised her palms when I started to object. “Sorry, divorce kid to separated kid.” It was clear from her tone that she considered that distinction a technicality. I felt that irritation from our first meeting stir to life. “Don’t waste your energy on the small stuff.”
“Small stuff?
”
“Yeah, you know, tiny acts of rebellion like living out of a suitcase and—”
“Smoking?”
Her mouth twitched and she bit back a smile, the slight movement effectively snuffing out my irritation. “Okay, yes, and smoking. Although in my defense, I have to focus on stuff that speaks for me even when I’m not here since I’ve barely laid eyes on my dad in months. The last time he stood outside my door and begged me to go to dinner with him—” she gestured toward my door “—was, oh, never.”
“Seriously?”
“No,” she said, plucking at her braid. “I’m making it up so you’ll pity me.”
Why did she have to say stuff like that? “Sorry.”
“Yes, he is, so let’s not talk about him. Let’s talk about you.” She scrambled up on her knees again and took out her braid so she could comb through the snarls with her fingers. “You still haven’t told me what your mom thought about our picture. Good, right?”
I blinked at her. In that moment I was sucked back to Mom and me standing in the kitchen and the expression on her face when I showed her the photo. I couldn’t think about it without seeing it through her eyes, without seeing Greg.
“Let me guess.” Jolene rolled onto her stomach and hung her upper body over the edge to search under the bed, her impossibly long hair pooling on my floor. “She thinks I’m way too pretty for you. Don’t feel bad,” she added. “When you grow into your ears, you are going to be intolerably cute.” That was when she looked up and saw my flushed face that had nothing to do with her teasing and everything to do with the thing about Greg. “Oh, wow, are you sensitive.” She twisted and sat up to face me, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I was messing with you. And even if I wasn’t, that would put you at tolerably cute now. Tolerably cute is still cute, Adam. Plus, I like your ears. They’re the first part of you to light up like Rudolph when you get embarrassed.”
As if on command, I felt blood rush to my ears.
“Honestly, it’s more than tolerably cute, but you probably already know that. Hey, is that why you blush so much? Can you control it like a flirting superpower?”
Every Other Weekend Page 6
