“Forget it.” I move to get back on my bike, but Moss grabs my arm.
“I’ve never had sex before.”
Now, I’m sorry—what?!
Moss can’t look at me. “I got nervous. Because I don’t want to mess this up.”
“Oh,” I say.
“And I don’t want you to feel like you have to do it. I’m not in any hurry. But I don’t care if you’re damaged. I like your damage—it makes you . . . you. And I like you.”
He’s still holding my arm, so I take it as an invitation to step closer. My freezing attitude is melting in the sun.
“I like your damage, too,” I say.
“I don’t know. I’m pretty damaged.” Moss rubs his head, his habit’s familiar, just the way I like it. Just the way I like him. “I just want you to trust me. Do you trust me?”
“I trust you.” The words come quick, unfettered. “Do you trust me?”
Moss nods, and just like that, we’re back to kissing. He wraps his arms around my waist and holds me closely. I think I could stay here forever. Tangled in damaged and broken parts, but locked in trust.
But Jesús is waiting . . . And he needs me. When I peel away from Moss, it feels like Velcro that doesn’t want to separate, but the sun is hanging lower in the sky, and my time is limited. I’ll need to be home soon.
“I need to check on Jesús.”
“Right now?” Moss licks his lips. Holy sweet Jesus, I want to stay, but . . . Jesús.
“I’ll be quick, and then I’ll come back.”
“I’ll be here until we close at five thirty.”
“Five thirty,” I say.
I get on my bike, and Moss stops me. “Tell Jesús to get his ass back to work.” And then Moss adds, “Also, I miss him.”
At San Pedro Loop, in front of the only blue trailer in the park, I rest my bike on the gravel, prepared to check on Jesús and get back to Moss before HuggaMug closes. But I should know better than to expect the expected.
“What do you want?”
The woman who lives in the blue trailer is not what I envisioned at all. She’s rail skinny, her jeans hanging off her body, and she’s smoking a cigarette, which is kind of French, like Jesús, but she carelessly flicks ash on the carpet, like it doesn’t matter if she burns down the trailer. Jesús would never be that thoughtless.
“Is Jesús here?”
With a long drag of her cigarette and a tap, ashes rain onto the ground at her feet.
“Is this a joke or something?” she says.
Good question. I’d like to know the answer to that myself.
“No. Is he here?”
The woman puts her cigarette out by rubbing it dead on the screen door. “Jesús hasn’t lived here in months.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
She points a really bony finger in my face and says, “And you can tell that faggot that he’s not welcome back here. Not until he stops his disgusting, filthy ways. It ain’t right. I won’t have that in my house.”
“But he’s your son,” I say.
“And?”
“And . . . you’re supposed to love him?”
“Love?” She spits the word at me. “I ain’t gotta love nobody. Especially someone like him.”
If Jesús hasn’t been living here, where is he?
The need to leave overwhelms me. Without a goodbye or a look back at the woman who’s supposed to love Jesús unconditionally, I ride away. I hope I never go back there. I hope Jesús doesn’t either. That place is death on earth.
The strangest thing happens as I ride away from that hellhole—I realize that I love Mom and Tom a little more for moving us to the desert. It could have been a lot worse.
I make it back to the HuggaMug after the sun has completely gone down and the streetlights are on in town. I don’t know what time it is. The neon OPEN sign is off, but a light inside the shed is still on. Hopefully Moss is still here. And while making out with him right now sounds delicious, we have bigger problems. Where is Jesús, and where has he been living?
I bang on the HuggaMug door.
“Moss, open up! We need to talk!” More banging. More pounding. “It’s about Jesús! Come on, open up!”
My hand starts to hurt from the pounding, but my pain means nothing. Then I notice a red ten-speed bike.
And the door opens.
“What about Jesús?”
It isn’t Moss. It’s Jesús.
I throw my arms around him when he opens the door.
“Mon chéri,” he says into my neck, like this isn’t a big moment at all.
I shove him in the chest. “What the hell is going on?”
Jesús can’t look at me, and that’s when I notice that his usual clean, groomed self is disheveled. His perfectly waved hair is messy. I want to take back the shove, so I grab his hands and say in the softest voice ever, “What is going on?”
We sit on the couch—a couch that I’ve sat on numerous times. A couch that’s there for hanging out while he and Moss work their shift. A couch that we talked about truth on. A couch that is presently set up to be a bed.
Here is a notable thing about Jesús. He hasn’t been living in the trailer on San Pedro Loop. He’s been living at the HuggaMug.
“Welcome to my home, mon chéri.” Jesús makes a grand gesture. “It’s not much, but it’s better than where I was living.”
After having met his mom, I have to agree.
“Start at the beginning,” I say.
Jesús sits back on the couch, closes his eyes, and spills his truth all over the HuggaMug floor.
“My truth is that I’m homeless.”
But he says he can’t write that for his senior statement, or the school will call the cops. Truth . . . and consequences.
It was a love letter written months ago with red hearts on pink paper, all pasted together. Jesús folded it up and left it in his room.
Brett—
I miss soccer season and your shorts. And the way you kick the balls in your shorts. Throw a guy a bone?
All my love, Jesús
He never planned to give it to Brett. He wanted to hang it in Heaven. His mom found it before he could. The love letter was thrown in the garbage, and Jesús was thrown out of the house.
Jesús has been living at the HuggaMug ever since. When I ask him why he didn’t tell us, he says it’s because he was embarrassed. It was bad enough to live in a trailer, but to live with parents who hated him, when we were all surrounded by parents who at least accepted us for who we are, was too much. I tell Jesús that’s only partly true. My parents are hiding my past from everyone, especially people at church, and if the secret ever gets out, who knows what will happen. I might need to move into the HuggaMug with him.
Jesús laughs a little bit.
When I ask him why he hasn’t been at school, he tells me that he’s been showering at the campground just north of town, along the Rio Grande where they have public showers and bathrooms, until a few days ago when it went under remodeling.
“I can’t go to school like this.” Jesús gestures to his wrinkled clothes and messy hair. “They’ll figure it out, and I can’t go home.”
He fiddles with his hands in his lap. I want to hold him and never let go, but the sun has completely set, and I’m late.
“Why didn’t you at least tell Moss and Color? You could stay with them.”
“Everyone has their own problems. I don’t want to be a burden.” And there is the real truth—Jesús is the person who always helps but doesn’t want to be helped. “I’ll figure it out. I just need a few days,” he says. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
And how can I say no? Jesús is finally asking for something, so I say, “OK. But I’m here if you need me. You know where I live.”
“And you now know where I live,” Jesús says, and it breaks my heart.
I leave him at the HuggaMug alone, and tell him that he has a few days to sort this out before something needs to happen.
&nbs
p; Tom asks why I’m late for dinner, and Mom says I must have had an extra good workout because I’m sweating like crazy, and Hannah isn’t home because she’s at church practicing with the special choir, and I’ve never been more thankful for our empty home with a pool that might someday be filled with water.
34
Tom’s job at Bank of the Southwest is super boring, and so is his office.
“This is my computer.”
Duh. I’ve seen one of those before, even if Mom and Tom have strict rules about how much I’m actually allowed to use one.
“And these are my cards.”
Tom has business cards with his picture on them. He’s smiling, but it looks forced.
He exhales like he’s super uncomfortable. “And this is my chair.”
“Can I sit in it?”
“Sure.”
I sit in the chair. This is going to be a really long day. And all I can think about is Jesús. Did he show up for school today? How is he feeling? Does he need me? I stare at Tom’s stapler. How do I hold it together when Jesús is falling apart?
“Esther.” Tom says my name loudly.
“Huh?”
“I’m telling you what I do, and you’re staring at my stapler.”
“It’s a nice stapler.”
Tom ignores the comment and goes on to tell me about opening up bank accounts, how some people want to invest in CDs, how interest accumulates when the bank reinvests the money that people invest in the bank, and then each person gets a sliver of the return on their investment.
But I can’t get invested in this conversation. I have too much on my mind.
Tom is exhausted with me by ten in the morning. “Seeing as you like the stapler so much, why don’t I find something for you to staple?”
Since I’m relegated to an empty office room with Tom’s business cards and a stack of pamphlets about “wise investments,” my job today is to staple the cards to the pamphlets. I’m sure this is just what Mom envisioned when she suggested this ludicrous idea.
We eat lunch at his desk. Mom packed us tuna salad. After lunch, the tuna smell lingers, and I go back to stapling.
Sometime in the afternoon, Tom interrupts my stapling, a job that has actually become slightly meditative. Mom’s idea wasn’t so bad, and while I don’t want to do this again, Tom and I have gotten along better than I thought we would. I feared Tom would be all over me, but he’s surprised me. Turns out, we both appreciate avoiding the other.
“We have a client here who wants to discuss investment options for a large sum of money she’s just received,” he says. “Why don’t you sit in on the meeting with me?”
And since Tom has actually been kind of cool today, and I’ve enjoyed the mind-numbing task of stapling, I decide to say, “Sounds great.”
We head back through the bank to another unused office. When the door opens, though, my meditative, sedate world ignites.
The events that occur are somewhat blurry in my head, but go as follows.
Tom says, “Mrs. Jones, it’s good to see you.”
She says, “It isn’t Mrs. It’s Ms. I’m not married.”
Tom says, “I’m sorry about that.” I think he really means he’s sorry she’s not married because all good women need to get married. But I know this woman, and there is no way she could commit to a man. She can’t even commit to her kids.
Color and Moss’s mom says, “Esther! It’s so good to see you. What are you doing here?”
The conversation falls apart from there.
Tom: How do you know my daughter?
Ms. Jones: Because she’s dating my son, Moss.
Tom: You have a son named Moss?
Ms. Jones: And a daughter named Color.
Tom: Color?
Ms. Jones: The world just needed more color, so that’s why I named her Color.
Tom (looking at me): The girl who cleans our house?
Ms. Jones: She’s part of a school program.
Tom (still staring at me): I’m sorry. Did you say my daughter is dating your son?
Ms. Jones: My son, Moss. (With her hand to her face, like she’s telling Tom a secret.) I caught them the other day, if you know what I mean.
She winks.
Tom: Moss.
Time is moving so slowly, and my brain catches up only enough to say, “But I’m not your daughter.”
It turns out the large sum of money Ms. Jones wants to invest is from her recent sale of a Blockbuster.
I try to plead with Tom. I wish I could say this is the first time in my teenage life that I’ve begged for understanding, but I had a baby out of wedlock, which is cause for much begging and pleading. But Tom doesn’t understand that love is love is love is love is lying.
Tom’s sleeves are rolled up, exposing his snake tattoo because he’s so hot with anger. “You want answers, Esther,” he says. “Why don’t you start with the problem? You are the problem in this family. You.”
I’ve reduced Tom to expose and utter his truth. Again.
He was the one who took control of the situation when I told them about the baby. Outside, the wind blew the rest of the autumn leaves all over the driveway. It was raining.
“You’re what?” Mom asked.
“I’m pregnant.”
“I don’t understand how this happened,” Tom said.
“The usual way,” I said.
“Don’t be smart with me.”
“Didn’t I raise you right?” Mom talked to the air, not me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“You’re sorry?” Tom said. “Sorry doesn’t mean much right now. How could you do this?”
“I’m sorry.” It was the only thing I could think to say.
“Sorry doesn’t erase the problem,” Tom said. He used that word—“problem.” You can’t erase problems. You solve them. “Sorry doesn’t erase bad choices. You were supposed to give yourself to Christ, not some teenage boy.”
“This is my fault. You had no father for too long,” Mom said.
“Don’t worry, Julie, I can fix this,” Tom said, touching her leg. “We’ll take Esther out of school. We’ll wait out the pregnancy here, and when it’s all over, we’ll move. No one needs to know.”
Tom got in my face then. “Tell me the name of the boy.”
And with the same force Tom had applied, I pushed back, just this once. “No.”
But secrets always come out.
After the scene at the bank with Tom and Moss’s mom, I’m grounded for life. This time I don’t bother saying sorry.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
Tom puts my bike on the lawn with a FOR SALE sign. Just like Heaven. Soon the bike will be gone, too.
Complex Math Problem: What is the cost of innocence?
The answer doesn’t matter. Later that day, someone steals the bike and leaves the FOR SALE sign behind.
I don’t make it to Color’s on Friday to get my Christmas present. I’m being held captive. On Saturday, I rearrange the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling to look like actual constellations. That’s how bored I am.
Hannah comes into my room dressed up like she’s going out—tight jeans, boots, and a shirt that’s probably too tight, but Mom and Tom are so focused on me right now, they don’t notice Hannah. She’s also clutching her Bible. I am so done with that thing I want to scream.
“You have a boyfriend?” she asks in a tone that’s not nice at all.
I jump on my bed, putting the final stars in the ladle of the Big Dipper.
“How do you have a boyfriend?”
“Just go away, Hannah.”
But she doesn’t. Hannah stands there like she wants to say something but can’t actually get the words out. I complete the constellation. Then I stand staring at Hannah as she fumbles with her words. Her annoying factor is through the roof right now because my patience is thin. I am living in a house of lies, and yet I’m the only one who ever gets busted.
“What do you want?” I
bark at her.
Tears collect in Hannah’s slightly surprised eyes, and she points the Bible right at me.
“Why does everyone always fall in love with you?” Hannah turns, whipping her hair over her shoulder, and storms out of my room, slamming the door. A lonely star falls from my ceiling and lands on the bed. I marinate in Hannah’s words and ask my fish if my relationship with Hannah will ever be repaired.
Even my fish shakes her head. No.
Mom reacts a bit differently to the news that I have a boyfriend named Moss. It’s Monday and the doctor’s office is busy. The magazine pile hasn’t changed from the last time I was here. Mom leans down, picks up a magazine, and then puts it back.
“Magazines are the most toxic things in a doctor’s office.” She sits forward, her elbows on her knees. “Everyone picks them up while they’re waiting and gets their germs on the pages.”
But Mom always has hand sanitizer, which she promptly pulls from her purse and applies to her fingers. She squirts some in my palm.
“Thanks,” I say.
She sits back in the seat and looks at the door.
“Don’t ever tell Tom I did this.”
“OK.”
“He doesn’t understand. Men don’t understand. They can’t. It’s women who carry the burden. Men walk away unscathed.” Mom shakes her head. “I’m doing this because I care. I won’t have your life ruined.”
“OK.”
“And we will never talk about it again.” Mom reaches out for the magazines once more and stops. “I almost forgot.”
“Germs,” I say.
Mom looks at me. “Do you like Tom? Don’t answer that.” Her bouncing feet shake our seats. “He’s a good man. A good man, but he isn’t perfect. Perfect is overrated.”
“That’s what Color says.”
“I’ve always liked her. Smart girl.” Mom’s smile fades. “You’ll understand when you’re older, Esther, why we do all of this.”
“OK.”
“Stop saying ‘OK.’”
“OK.” I glance down at the magazines. “Sorry.”
“Don’t say ‘sorry’ either. Women apologize too much. Men don’t do that.” She puts on another layer of hand sanitizer. “Just in case,” she says.
The Infinite Pieces of Us Page 17
