by Teresa Toten
“That’s okay, baby. It’s a guy thing—I get that.” She stirred the pot so hard, the stew was going to be churned into soup at this rate. “I know you’ll love it. Lots of potatoes and no peas, just for you! Happy day after the day after Christmas! Hey, take off your coat, stay a while.”
“Okay.” He continued scanning. She could have tossed the letter into the next room and there would be no way of telling. “I’ll just get rid of the trash while my coat’s still on.”
“That’s my boy.”
Was she relieved?
Adam opened the cupboard door and struggled to free the full-to-bursting Greenearth garbage bag. She only ever bought on sale but she also only ever bought that brand. Carmella was loyal in a thousand ways. He picked up the bag and pretended to tie it up while his mother rustled for plates and cutlery. When he got to the curb Adam rummaged through the potato and carrot peelings, the onion and garlic skins and a layer of beef fat. There it was: a crumpled white ball. It wasn’t torn up this time. She didn’t have time. So soon after the last one. Why? Who? Who could hate her that much? Adam shoved it into his coat pocket. Shivered.
The garbage hadn’t been picked up yet because of the holidays and the big green bin was full, so Adam just laid down the kitchen trash beside the four green plastic bags of hoarding trash that his mom had thrown away as part of his “present.” He turned towards the house and then turned back again. Adam picked up one of her garbage bags.
It was so light.
Too light.
Adam untied one as razors scraped his stomach. Then another and another and … they were all the same. There was nothing in any of the bags except crumpled-up bits of newspaper. None of her stuff, none of the hoarded garbage, none of what she’d promised. Just newspapers. He could tell under the streetlamps that it was The Sentinel—they didn’t even get The Sentinel. She’d gone out and bought it!
Jesus.
Adam carefully retied the twist bands.
Oh, Mom.
He was tired and the cold snow and the garbage of 97 Chatsworth seeped into him. But then he thought of Robyn and warmed up all over again.
“I told you,” he whispered to her through the night. “Everybody lies.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
They got stoned on Red Bull and chocolate-covered coffee beans. Pathetic but true. More precisely, after five and a half Red Bulls and a bowl of Robyn’s beans, Benjamin Stone and Adam Spencer Ross were flying higher than out-of-control kites.
The boys had spent New Year’s Eve day at the BattleCraft store in the mall burning through most of Adam’s Christmas gift certificate and Ben’s Hanukkah money. It was a superior day and the evening was better. Ben’s parents were staying overnight at his uncle’s place in Springhill, so the house was theirs. Not that it mattered. In the face of all that freedom the boys stuck to the garage, maintaining a steady caffeine buzz while trying to break their Warhammer marathon record. Mr. and Mrs. Stone had long ago given up on the dream of ever parking their car in that garage again. Ben and Adam made a break for the house only to pee and replenish. A Warhammer game, Cheezies, Sun Chips, Maltesers and said Red Bull was their idea of heaven. Even though Adam may have talked about Robyn too much, it remained a fiercely righteous way to ring in the new year.
“Geez we suck, Stones,” Adam burped at precisely 2:17 a.m.
“IknowIknowIknow,” agreed Ben, who was vibrating from the caffeine. “The place is ours, the liquor cabinet is totally open, I know the ’rents wouldn’t even notice if we helped ourselves, and here we are mainlining Cheezies. We suck. We are the very definition of ‘suck.’ In the dictionary beside said word will be a picture of you and me, dude.”
“Hope it’s a good picture.”
This flung Ben into a fit of giggles.
“Damn, Stones!” Adam opened a fresh Red Bull. “We are even beyond sucking, man.” He took a swig and passed it to his pal. “Thing is, I didn’t want to drink because I was freaking about what booze might do to the Ativans I took after we left the mall.”
“Holy rat-crap,” said Ben.
“Yup,” said Adam. “You know, you’re the only guy on the planet who would put up with my wing-nut stuff.”
“Right back at ya!”
“Serious suckage,” they said at the same time, clinking their Red Bulls.
“Happy New Year, Stones!”
“We may suck,” said Ben, examining the game table intently, “but we suck righteously. Thanks for being here, dork!”
“Geek!” said Adam.
“Nerd!” said Ben.
“Suuucker!” they said in a hopped-up unison.
The boys didn’t return to the house until 5:15 a.m., after which they fell into a coma on the living room couch and floor, not waking until Ben’s parents came home late that afternoon.
It was righteous, as were his two days at Brenda’s with Sweetie and his dad, but not righteous enough to claw back on the Ativan. Adam was burning through his prescription too fast. There would be some explaining to do to Chuck. The List—he should do the List.
Later.
Adam called Robyn twice the weekend she got back. The first time, Sweetie followed him everywhere repeating each word while mimicking Adam’s every facial expression and gesture.
“What the hell were you doing?” Adam asked when he hung up.
“Practising,” said Sweetie.
“What, driving me crazy?” asked Adam, trying to stay mad.
“Practising what to say to my most beautiful best girl when I fall in love,” explained Sweetie. “Does your girl have a big chests?”
“Sweetie! That’s so … no, she doesn’t.”
“Mine will,” he insisted.
Adam had to promise to bake with Sweetie, in order to get fifteen private minutes for a phone call with Robyn the next day. It was worth it. It was a bad day. No reason, just was. His stomach clenched and unclenched so much that he fully expected to develop washboard abs by dinner. But he unclenched as soon as she said hello and he stayed that way right up until the start of their new ritual, the timeless argument about who should hang up first.
“You hang up, now,” she said.
“No, you. I’ll hold on.”
“No, you.”
“You.”
“No, it’s okay, you.”
“No, really, you. I’ll wait.”
And on and on they went, teasing and testing. Thank God Sweetie wasn’t around for that one.
Baking was a small price to pay. Sweetie became enthralled with a lemon cheesecake photograph from The New York Times Magazine and he marshalled his forces accordingly. Brenda prepared the ingredients, read the instructions. She also operated the cobalt blue KitchenAid mixer that Adam’s dad had given her two Christmases ago and Sweetie coveted. He was marking the days until he would be allowed to operate it by himself. Sweetie poured, combined, stirred and supervised. Adam was in charge of the lemon zest, making super-skinny worms of candied lemon peel, which would decorate the finished cheesecake. He took his duties, which included peeling, boiling the lemon in sugar water, drying and decorating, seriously. The cheesecake was genius.
“Adam made the lemon peels!” Sweetie said to his father in an uncharacteristic show of generosity. “But I bossed.”
It was all so great, until it wasn’t.
When it was time for Adam to leave, Sweetie was inconsolable in a way he had not been for months. Bribes, threats and general cajoling proved useless.
“But why? Why do you have to go?” he wailed. “We love you more than Mrs. Carmella Ross loves you. I heard Mrs. Brenda Ross say that to our dad! You’ll be safe here, she said! You need to be here with us, she said.”
“That’s enough, Wendell Jefferson Ross!” His father dragged a stunned Sweetie, kicking and screaming, all the way to his room.
It was a largely silent car trip home.
“Sorry about that, son,” his father finally said, wiping his face with his hand.
Son. It had a
nice ring to it. His dad had been calling him that more and more these past few months.
“S’okay.” Adam nodded. “No biggie.”
“It’s just that he—”
“I know he loves me. I know that, Dad.”
His father exhaled.
“I had a good time, though.”
“Good.” His dad seemed to be absorbed with something in the middle distance. “Look, I don’t want to pry into another man’s … but, well, the girl?”
Adam smiled at the dashboard, remembering the sound of her voice. “It’s good, Dad. I’m, like, simply irresistible.”
His father reached over and messed up his hair. “Yeah, you are, kid. You remember that even if I don’t tell you often enough.”
They returned to a companionable silence until they got to 97 Chatsworth.
“Don’t wait, okay? Don’t wait for me to get in.”
His father’s arms stiffened on the wheel. “Look, son—”
“Okay, Dad?”
“Yeah, yeah, okay.”
After he heard the car drive off, Adam reached into his right-hand pocket, felt it and shuddered.
The letter.
It took him seventeen minutes to get into his house.
“That you, baby? I’m in the kitchen. Hungry?”
“Hi, Mom. No, I’m good. I’ll be down in a minute, okay?”
“Okay, can’t wait to hear all about it!”
Adam picked his way up the stairs carefully. He shoved a man’s slipper to the right. Where had that come from? By the time he got to his room his heart was hiccupping. He felt a gnawing need to walk in concentric circles. No, he needed a labyrinth! He needed a labyrinth like the one set into the granite floor of Holy Rosary. He longed for it. Adam hadn’t walked it since he was an altar boy, but he remembered with a crystal clarity how walking the labyrinth had calmed him in the days before the drugs, before therapy, before Group, before, before. Hell, that boy was practically normal.
He reached in for the letter and carefully unfurled it onto his bed. A few colourful pieces floated onto the floor, magazine word-bits that had come unglued. Judging by the empty spaces, Adam placed the bits into the spots he figured they belonged.
His head exploded.
DIE YOU STUPID BITCH DIE. WHY ARE YOU STILL BREATHING, YOU SLOVENLY COW, YOU PIECE OF SHIT? YOU ARE NOT A MOTHER. YOU ARE A SELFISH, PATHETIC, PSYCHOTIC. EVERYBODY HATES YOUR FESTERING GUTS. YOU ARE A DISEASE-RIDDEN MAGGOT AND SHOULD BE PUT OUT OF YOUR MISERY. YOU ARE RUINING YOUR SON’S LIFE AND THREATENING HIS WORLD. KILL YOURSELF BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE. DO ONE DECENT THING YOU WHORE. GIVE HIM A CHANCE AT HAPPINESS. YOU ARE AN ABORTION. DIE GREEDY BITCH DIE.
“Oh, Mom.” He slumped to the floor. “I’m so sorry, Mom.” Adam knelt in front of his bed. “Sorry.”
“Adam, honey? I baked you a peach-rhubarb pie with the last of the frozen rhubarb we picked. Remember?”
Adam exhaled slowly, washing his face with his hands. Aaargh, snap out of it! “Great, I’ll just clean up, okay?”
He rooted around in his desk until he found the lighter that he used for his models. Holding the letter over his wastepaper basket, Adam set it on fire. The burning paper made his throat feel as dry as burnt toast. Oh, Mom. What the hell are we going to do?
“Adam?”
“Coming,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next time they talked, Robyn was on fire. “Okay, this is way past disgusting. You’ve got to tell Chuck. Next week, after Group. You should have told him last week. I’ll stay with you. It will be okay, I promise.”
This was wrong. She was taking care of him. He was supposed to take care of her. That was the plan, and the plan was everything. Adam would get fixed for her, be normal for her, save her.
“You know why I can’t,” he said. “The risks are too … Chuck is a professional and there are, like, rules about reporting and he might have to … My mom knows this stuff, you know.”
“Yeah, yeah, I got that, but this has gone way off the road here, Batman. You have to talk.”
“I am talking. I’m talking to you.”
“And that’s brilliant, really, but you still have to—”
“I can’t, Robyn. I just can’t. Look, it’s complicated. You have to trust me on that. It’s not going to happen.”
“Okay, okay. For now. I’m just so worried for you, and her of course, but mainly for you.”
So wrong.
“Hey, no one’s threatening me, right? It’s got nothing to do with me.”
And on they went, hashing it out until it was time for their ritual of who should hang up first.
Adam spent the rest of the night agonizing. It was a massive mistake telling Robyn in the first place. What a turd he was. It was a load, a big one, too much for her fragile shoulders. How could he? What was he thinking?
He had to fix it.
But how?
The first ten minutes of Group had a reunion-party vibe. Not that he’d ever been to one. Everyone seemed stoked to see each other again, and that included Adam. While they were still milling about, he noticed that his motley mates were transforming into their alter egos, literally.
He noticed it first with Snooki, who got more tanned with each snowfall. “What’s that on your head?” he asked. It looked like she was sporting a small hat made of hair.
“Oh!” Snooki patted her head. “I almost forgot! It’s my poof.”
Adam must have looked sufficiently unenlightened because she continued to explain.
“It’s like a fake bump thing that you put under your hair to lift it right up so it looks like a poof.”
“But why?” asked Adam.
“Men!” Snooki rolled her eyes. “So you’ll look taller and thinner and like you have more hair.”
While she was explaining, Adam realized that he had probably stepped in it. Had he hurt her feelings? “Well, it looks real nice on you. Not that you need to look taller, or thinner, or need more hair, or, or anything. I mean, you look great with or without hair.”
“Why, thank you, Batman. I think.” She batted her false eyelashes at him. “And Wonder Woman has her golden cuffs, see? Hey, WW!” she screamed across the room. “Show Batman your cuffs!” Wonder Woman raised two gold wrist cuffs with a red star in the centre of each.
“Righteous!” Adam gave her a thumbs-up.
“They were $31.50 on eBay and worth every cent!”
“Hey, whaddya know?” Iron Man came over to Snooki and Adam. “Look!” He pointed to his chest, where a round disc glowed impressively.
“Wow, man,” said Adam. “That’s the Iron Man light-up thingy!”
Iron Man snorted. “Please! It’s my Arc Reactor. My mom actually gave it to me, if you can believe it.”
It was like they’d all phoned each other. Captain America was flipping a red, white and blue shield. Tyrone was toying with a Green Lantern mask, and even Pete, who had already cornered Robyn, was growing in some manly Wolverine sideburns. Of course. Adam was going to start shaving with more vigour and twice a day from then on. He’d heard that the more you shave, the faster—
“Amazing, huh?” said Wonder Woman, who had bounced out of her chair to join them. “Did you get any superhero sompin’ sompin’?” She winked at Snooki. Wonder Woman smiled but her eyes still had the same haunted look that had been chasing her since before the holidays.
Adam grinned. “Yeah, but it was like a Batman beach towel and a coffee mug with the insignia, you know?” Robyn looked over. “Which was my for-sure favourite gift, actually!” he said loudly. “I’ll bring it in next week.”
“No, you goof.” Snooki gave him a playful push. “What are you going to do, threaten Gotham’s diabolical criminal element with a cup of coffee? A mug is so not a part of the Batman brand. Here!” She passed him an oddly shaped ring.
“Put it on!” insisted Wonder Woman. “It’s a Dark Knight ring and it glows in the dark with the Batman signal. Très cool, huh? Snooki and me bought i
t online when we got our stuff!”
“Wow, I don’t know what to …” After a few tries it fit on his index finger. “Guys, I can’t … Geez, this is—”
“Aw, save it, Batpants,” said Snooki. “It was only $6.99, but you rock it!”
“Yeah!” agreed Wonder Woman while she checked out the room. “Now there’s only Thor.”
Even though he was clear across the room, Thor heard his name and frowned. Their Thor seemed to have superhero hearing.
“Who is so clearly Thor without a need for any kind of prop or anything,” said Adam. “I mean, he has the long dark blond hair, rippling muscles … well, he’s just the complete package as is, right?”
Their little group nodded vigorously. “Absolutely! Right! Perfect!”
Thor grunted.
“That leaves our little Robyn, or is she above all this?” asked Snooki.
“Oh, don’t be such a bitch.” Wonder Woman nudged her while Chuck called them to order.
Still, Wonder Woman tried to get Robyn’s attention over the din of moving chairs and Wolverine’s death grip.
“Robyn. Robyn. Pssst, Robyn.”
Robyn finally turned in her direction.
“Want us to get you some of those green Robin gloves that come to here?” Wonder Woman tapped the crook of her arm.
Robyn looked around the room, taking it all in at once.
“Well?”
“Okay, Justice League and Avengers, welcome back and happy new year,” said Chuck.
“Green gloves, $15.64?”
“No thanks, I won’t be—”
“So who would like to start us off?”
Wonder Woman, Snooki and Adam all stared at Robyn, who reddened at record pace. I’ll get them myself, thanks, she mouthed.
As usual, Wolverine led off and chewed up an endless amount of self-reverential airtime, which was almost okay because it left Adam free to count and wonder. Thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-three… He was sure that Snooki had caught him even though he was strictly interior. It didn’t matter.
I won’t be what, Robyn?
Wonder Woman spoke in an increasingly smaller voice. Adam wanted to jump in and say something supportive or decent, but it was the food thing, not the small space thing, and Adam sucked at the food thing. Chuck wrote copious notes.
