by Cat Carmine
As I text Emma, I realize it’s been a whole five minutes since I’ve thought about Wes. I honestly didn’t think that was possible. Maybe escaping to my parents’ for a couple of days is exactly what I need to put him out of my mind completely.
Thirty-Five
There’s a soft rap on the door.
“Go away,” I mumble. I’m lying flat on my back on the floor of my childhood bedroom. There’s no bed in here anymore — Mom claimed the space as her home office a long time ago, and moved my bed into Emma’s old room with hers. But I wanted my own walls again, still painted the same pale yellow they were back then. The familiar view into the next-door-neighbor’s overgrown backyard. The same old crack running through the ceiling, bisecting the room into almost perfect halves. It doesn’t matter that the space is also filled with Mom’s huge oak desk and matching bookcase, the desktop computer humming quietly, the printer and fax machine combo that occasionally whirs and beeps for no apparent reason. This is my room. Somehow, no matter how old I get, or how much they try to reclaim it for more practical purposes, it still feels like my room.
Maybe that’s symbolic of my whole problem, actually, now that I think about it. It was the same with Wes — even though we’re both older now, and hopefully wiser, and have at least in theory moved on, it still felt like he was mine. That he belonged to me. That we belonged to each other.
What a joke. All this time, he was only using me. Still the same Wes he always was underneath. Someone who was only around for as long as he needed you. A jackass, as Emma would say.
The knock at the door comes again. Louder this time.
“I said go away.” I can be louder too.
Instead of going away, though, the door cracks open.
“Mom says dinner’s going to be ready in ten minutes.” It’s Blake.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Yeah, she said you’d say that. She said to tell you it’s non-negotiable.”
“I’m not negotiating. I’m just not hungry.”
I know I’m behaving like a baby, but I’m starting to regret my decision to come here instead of going back to the city. What I really want to be doing right now is hiding out in my apartment, drinking wine and watching reruns of crime shows until my brain starts to feel like it’s bleeding. My parents don’t even have a freaking television.
Blake slides in through the door and closes it softly behind her. She pulls out mom’s desk chair, the wheels squeaking as they roll across the floor. I can feel the vibrations through my back, even through the thin rug my mother’s added to the space.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
“So you’re just lying on the floor of Mom’s office because it’s fun.”
“Yes.”
“Riiiight.”
“I’m not kidding, Blake. I really don’t want to talk about it.” Especially not with my baby sister, the one whose biggest concern is whether Mom remembered to buy coconut oil at the grocery store, or if she’ll be able to get a spot at her Barre class this week.
“Is this about Wes?”
“No,” I say quickly. “What makes you think that?”
She sighs. “Because it’s always about Wes.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’ve been hung up on that guy since you were fifteen years old. What’s the deal with that, anyway?”
I let out of a puff of breath. “There’s no deal. We’re working together. He’s my client.”
“So why’d you take him to Celia’s wedding?”
“He was doing me a favor. That’s all.”
“It didn’t look like a favor, the way he was dancing with you.”
My cheeks flush. God, that moment on the dance floor, looking into his eyes. It had felt so goddamned real. And all that time … nothing but lies. I can’t get over how despicable the whole thing is, that he’d use Marigold to cover up his corporate greed. It’s gross, really.
But if I’m completely honest, that’s not the thing that’s bothering me the most. The thing that really hurts me is the realization that I was wrong about him. Again. That I’d let myself feel something with him, and it had all turned out to be a lie.
I angrily brush away a stray tear that trails down my cheek. Blake swings back and forth in her chair, not saying anything.
“Come downstairs,” she says. “Mom’s making smothered pork chops and mashed potatoes.”
“With mushrooms?” I say hopefully.
“Extra mushrooms.” Blake grins. “And then if you’re maxed out on family time, I’ll give you my laptop and you can binge watch something on Netflix for the rest of the night.”
I force a smile. I do love my sister, even if I happen to think she’s a bit of a spoiled baby sometimes.
“Thanks Blakey.” I force myself to sit up and shake out my hair, then follow my sister downstairs to the kitchen.
“Pass the mushrooms, please,” I say, and Dad passes me the bright red vintage ceramic bowl. The same bowl we’ve had for as long as I can remember.
I scoop a heaping helping of Mom’s famous sautéed mushrooms into my plate. It turns out I was way hungrier than I thought I was. I add them to the mammoth pile of mashed potatoes — with fresh chives from the garden out back — and feel my mouth start to water.
“Save some for the rest of us, Rori, God,” Blake whines. I glare at her but she grins, and I know she’s just playing. Mostly. I pass her the bowl and then dig into my meal.
“Well, that was certainly a beautiful wedding, wasn’t it, girls?” Mom sips her white wine and smiles at us.
I swallow, and Emma and Blake both glance my way. Even though neither of them know exactly what happened, they both know something did. Most of all, they know I definitely don’t want to talk about the wedding right now.
Mom looks around the table. Her brow wrinkles as no one answers her. I pick at my mushrooms, my appetite somehow mysteriously gone.
“Well, I thought Celia looked beautiful. And the flowers were perfect, don’t you think so, Tom?”
Dad nods. “They were perfect, honey. You did a fantastic job, as always.”
Mom looks around the table smugly, as if daring any of us to disagree with Dad. I crack a half-smile.
“The flowers were perfection, Mom. Honestly. Celia was thrilled.”
Mom takes my comment as an open invitation.
“They really had a perfect space,” she gushes. “I loved how they had the wedding and the reception in the same hotel. It’s easier for us, of course, setting up the flowers, but I think it’s better for the guests too, don’t you? I mean, that way no one has to be running around, trying to find the reception hall. You’re just in one place and that’s it.”
“It’s great, Mom,” I say through a mouthful of mashed potatoes. Emma and Blake exchange another look, and Emma dabs at her lips with a napkin. I suspect she’s hiding a smile.
“It sure was nice to see Wes again too,” Mom says. A lance of ice goes through my heart at the sound of his name. “You didn’t tell me you were back in touch with him. I always liked him.”
“He’s just a client,” I mumble. Although even that’s not true anymore. No way am I doing another minute of work on this project, now that I know what he’s really up to.
“Oh, isn’t that nice,” Mom says. “He certainly seems to have done well for himself.”
“At what cost, though?” I don’t mean to say it out loud, but the words slip out.
Mom wrinkles her brow in confusion. Then she shakes her head, as if my comment doesn’t even register. “Well, I’m happy for him. He was always such a sweet boy.”
I stare at her. A sweet boy? Even without knowing about his most recent antics, he’s still the guy who stood her daughter up at the prom. You’d think that would earn me at least a little sympathy.
Strangely, it’s Emma that stands up for me.
“How can you say that?”
Mom’s
eyes widen as she spins to face her. “Say what?”
“That he was a sweet boy. Don’t you remember what he did to her?”
Mom looks confused for a minute. Then she squints. “That thing with the dance?”
Emma rolls her eyes. “Yes, the thing with the prom. He stood her up, Mom. He broke her heart.”
I want to protest, insist that he didn’t break my heart, that he never had any power over me at all, but it would be pointless. I know everyone here remembers that night. The way my heart shattered into a thousand pieces in front of my entire family.
But to my surprise, Mom waves off Emma’s comment. “Well, yes, there was that. But it’s almost understandable, given what he was dealing with at the time.”
I freeze, a forkful of mushrooms halfway to my mouth. I set the fork down carefully and force myself to face Mom.
“What was he dealing with at the time, exactly?”
Mom shrugs. I can tell she’s enjoying the fact that all of our attention is on her, but the way my eyes are burning into her makes her squirm a little.
“You know, everything with his foster family.”
His ... what?
The words pierce something inside me. Wes never had a foster family. He’s told me many times about his mother, about how she worked at the diner and used to bring him in with her and sneak him pieces of pie. I even met her that one time, when we were at the mall, slurping Orange Julius smoothies and eating cinnamon sugar pretzels.
I feel Emma and Blake both looking at me. I sneak a glance at Emma and she shrugs, just slightly. I can tell she doesn’t have any idea what Mom’s talking about either.
I push a mushroom around on my plate. It looks slimy and unappetizing now, and it leaves a streak of brown goo across the white glazed ceramic.
“What foster family?” I force the words out of my mouth. They feel like rocks tumbling off my tongue.
“You know, dear, the Merchants’. That’s where he was living.”
“What about his mother?”
Mom’s eyes are wide. She sets her fork down gently on her plate, so quietly it doesn’t make a sound.
“Honey, his mom died when he was quite little. I assumed you knew that. He went into the foster system when he was, oh, maybe eight? Nine? He wasn’t always with the Merchants, that was only from ninth grade or so, I think. Until he turned eighteen.”
Mom’s words are like a blazing hot spear, piercing my insides. My brain is rolling a million miles an hour down a mossy hill.
“The Merchants...” I say. “Was the woman ... was she kinda stocky? Short black hair?” I describe the woman we had run into at the mall that day, the one Wes had seemed reluctant to introduce me to.
“Yes, that’s her. Patty. Real piece of work, I tell you. Not sure why she was ever allowed to be a foster parent.” Mom shakes her head, real anger coming over her face. It takes a lot to piss my mother off, but when it happens, look out.
My stomach is doing unhappy cartwheels, and I can’t even look down at the food on my plate.
“What ... what did she do to him?” I ask the question, even though I’m not sure I really want the answer.
“Oh, nothing like what you’re thinking,” Mom says hastily. “But she sure as hell didn’t love him either. Kicked him out the door the day he turned eighteen. Wouldn’t keep him a day longer than that since he wasn’t good for a pay check anymore.”
My stomach rolls again. I do the math and realize Wes had turned eighteen a few weeks before high school ended.
I glance over at my sisters. Blake is staring down at her plate, her blonde hair hanging over her face. I can’t see her whole expression, but the downturn of her mouth tells me she didn’t know any of this either. I look over at Emma and find her watching me, an expression of sadness on her face that I’m sure mirrors my own. Except I can’t quite tell if she’s sad for Wes, or sad for me.
I can’t believe that all this time, I had no idea Wes was a foster kid. He hadn’t talked much about his family — the stories he’d told me this year, about his mom and the diner she worked at, were honestly the most I’d ever known. Now I know why.
With a shaky hand, I reach for my wine glass and force myself to swallow down a small mouthful. Just enough to wet my throat, which suddenly feels incredibly parched.
“Where did he go?” I ask. “After she kicked him out, I mean.”
Mom shakes her head. “You’d know better than me. I always assumed he was staying with a friend. He only had a few weeks to go until graduation, if I recall correctly. I figured he left for Boston early because there was more chance of him finding summer work out there, something to keep him going until school started in the fall.”
I nod, but my neck barely feels strong enough to support my head, so it’s more of a dipping of my chin. I have no idea where he would have been staying. He had a few friends, but I was the only one he was really close to. Or at least I thought I was.
But now it feels like maybe I never really knew him at all.
That thought upsets me almost as much as the thought of Wes getting kicked out of his foster home. Though I don’t know why it would surprise me at this point. If I learned anything this week, it’s that I don’t know anything about the real Wes Lake.
“How did I not know any of this?” I feel tears starting to prick my eyes, but I will them not to fall. I will not cry over Wes Lake at my parents’ dinner table. I won’t.
Mom reaches over and puts her hand on my wrist. “I don’t know, honey. I suppose he didn’t want you to worry about it.”
“It was pride,” Dad says suddenly. All this time, he’d been slowly plowing through his dinner, slicing at his pork chop wordlessly while Mom talked, but now he looks straight at me. “Wes was always a proud man. Even back then. He loved you and he didn’t want you to know anything about that part of his life.”
I nod dumbly. Somehow, that does make a certain amount of sense.
“He came into the shop, you know. A couple of weeks before prom.” Dad sets his fork down, wipes his mouth with the blue cloth napkin. “Said he wanted to get you a corsage, but he didn’t have the money to pay for it. Asked if he could do some work around the shop in exchange for the flowers.”
A lump forms in my throat, and this time, a single tear does trickle down my cheek. I wipe it away with the back of my hand.
“What did you tell him?”
Dad shakes his head, a sad grin coming over his face. “I told him he didn’t have to do that, that I’d gladly let him have the corsage, have your mother do up something really nice for him. He wouldn’t hear of it though. Came in every day after school for a week and did anything he could around the shop. Chores I never would have even thought of doing myself — cleaning out the inside of the air conditioning vents, installing shelves underneath the cash register counter so that we didn’t have to keep everything piled in those old wicker baskets we had. He was a smart kid. Hard worker.”
The lump in my throat is the size of a fist. How could that Wes be the same one who stood me up a few days later? Who tricked me into working for him?
“It was always a mystery to me why he never showed up that night,” Dad says, as if echoing my question. “He picked up the corsage that morning. Had a fresh haircut and everything. I remember teasing him about it, asking if he was trying to impress you. Boy, I never saw a kid blush like that.” Dad chuckles at the memory, but it only makes the lump in my throat grow another two sizes.
There are too many memories flooding over me. Too many, too much. I feel like I’m getting sucked up into the undertow, carried along to somewhere I don’t understand and don’t want to go.
“May I be excused, please?” I toss my napkin down on the table and push out my chair without waiting for an answer, and then I bound up the stairs to my room. Well, Emma’s room, really. The room that holds our two twin beds now. I throw myself down on mine and bury my head in the pillow. It still somehow smells the same way it did when I was in high school. So
me magical combination of Mom’s laundry detergent, the baby powder perfume I used to love, and something that’s perfectly, indescribably home. I breathe in the scent and let the tears flow freely. I cry for Wes, and for me, and for everything that could have been but now would never be.
Thirty-Six
I woke up with a crick in my neck. The way I always did. I sat up and rubbed the stiff muscles at the nape, and then used my sleeve to wipe down the windows of the car. They always got fogged up over night, when I’d been in there too long. Which I supposed was good for privacy, but not so great for the whole not-having-my-car-smell-like-morning-breath thing.
I pushed open the car door and stuck my feet out onto the pavement of the parking lot so that I could stretch my legs. I had discovered that sleeping in the backseat was more comfortable than staying in the front, even if I leaned the seat all the way back, but the fact that I still couldn’t stretch my long legs out was killer. I hopped out of the car and did a few squats, just to get the blood flowing.
It was Friday, but the school parking lot was empty. School had finished up a week ago, and ever since then it had been quiet there. Just a few teachers in and out, wrapping things up, but they used the staff parking lot which was on the other side of the gym. No one noticed the single red Sunfire that never seemed to leave the student lot.
I’d been there six weeks at that point. Sleeping in my car. For a while, I would try to find different spots around town to park every night, not wanting my car to be spotted or to have anyone question what I was doing. Now I was used to it, and I knew the places that no one would look, no one would poke around. The school was safe enough, and it was quiet up here on the hill. Sometimes kids came up here to smoke or drink, but ever since summer had arrived, they’d found other spots to party. That was fine by me.
I climbed up on the hood and let my legs dangle over the front of the car while I went through my mental list of everything I had to get done that day. Pick up Rori’s corsage from her parents’ shop. Stop by our friend Aaron’s where I was going to shower and hopefully iron my shirt. Wash the car. Find somewhere to stash all my stuff so that Rori wouldn’t figure out that I’d been living out of my car for the last month and a half.
