I’ll Meet You There (14 page)

Dylan took a swig of her Diet Coke. “You mean about Billy.”

I nodded. He’d started sleeping over every night. It had gotten to the point where
I was mostly working graveyards, just so I didn’t have to hear them.

Dylan wrinkled up her nose. “Are they still … you know?”

I stood up and looked out at the creek. The sun was bouncing off the water, sending
shards of glass our way. Scrubby trees lined the bank, their boughs heavy with dust
from the nearby fields. There wasn’t much of a beach—just a strip of dirt and rocks,
but it was ours.

“It’s so disturbing, Dyl. I can’t even … I know my dad’s gone, but it’s just so
wrong
.”

“I guess your mom probably hasn’t gotten laid since—I mean, you know, for a long time.
Are they loud?”

My stomach turned. “Yeah.”

I walked over to the creek and waded in, gasping as the water numbed my legs. Pebbles
cut into my feet, but I kept going. Even though it was over a hundred degrees, the
creek got most of its water from melted snow that came down from the high mountains
surrounding the valley. Even in the summer, they had snow on their peaks.

I looked back at Dylan. “So, what did The Moms talk about?”

Our moms became The Moms a long time ago. Like us, they were best friends. A unit.
Or at least they were until my mom dropped off the deep end. Again.

“Well, that’s what I sort of wanted to ask you. I don’t think your mom’s planning
on going back to work, Sky. Like, ever. Or for a super long time.”

I sank deeper into the water, tried to focus on the sting of it.

“What’d she say?”

“I mean, it was more the way she was talking. Like, well, like Billy was maybe helping
her out.”

Fuck Billy.

“How? All he does is buy beer.”

Maybe that was why she was with him—because he was promising to help her somehow.
We’d covered all the bills last month, but just barely. I knew this month there’d
be no Taco Bell checks, and I still wasn’t sure how we were going to scrape by.
If
we were going to scrape by.

Dylan shrugged. “All I can say is that this is the first time I’ve actually been
happy
that you’re leaving.”

I stared down at the water, letting the sunlight on the surface blind me a little.
Part of me felt sick, like I wanted to throw up the bag of Ruffles I’d just eaten.
The other part of me was outside my body, seeing a girl in a black bikini standing
in a slow-moving creek. Observing. Waiting.

“You
are
leaving, aren’t you?”

I wondered what my dad was thinking right now. If dead people could think. It always
felt like he was close by when I was at the creek. Not just because we’d scattered
his ashes here. Some of my best memories were of him teaching me how to swim in this
water. Watching him fish. Or eating soggy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with
him and my mom, all of us squeezed onto our ratty picnic blanket. Sometimes, if I
remembered hard enough, the creek still had that old magic.

Dylan sat on her knees, her lips pulled into a frown. “You’re not thinking about staying
here, right? Because that would be ten kinds of insane.”

Maybe Billy was saying he’d take care of her when I was gone. Maybe all of this—Billy,
the drinking—was because she didn’t want to be alone.

“She’s scared,” I said.

“Huh?”

I waded farther into the water.

Hi, Daddy
, I thought. I trailed my fingertips along the surface. I pushed the
if only
’s out of my mind. He was gone, and I was alone, and there was nothing I could do
to change that.

“I haven’t been thinking about this whole thing the right way,” I said. “I thought
she was depressed about the job. But she’s not freaking out just because we’re broke.
Not working at the Bell means that her whole life is going to change when I leave.
Nothing will be the same, except for the trailer.”

After Dad died, I’d thought that was it, that there was no way I could leave Creek
View. Mom had been in a bad place and it seemed like she’d never be okay on her own.
But then she got better, and I started to believe that it was possible. By the time
sophomore year rolled around, I knew I was getting out. I’d pushed away thoughts of
my mom spending her nights alone, with nobody to keep her company. I’d told myself
she could go hang out with Dylan’s mom. When I felt guilty, I’d reminded myself that
going to college was what my parents had always wanted for me—and that when I graduated
and got a good job, I’d be able to take better care of her.

But working all day at a shit job, then coming home to an empty trailer and a TV dinner—what
kind of life was that? Now she didn’t even have the shit job.

Dylan shook her head. “
Not
your problem. Your mom’s an adult. So are you.”

I didn’t say anything, just kept looking at the water. Feeling numb.

“
Sky
.”

I sank down, let the water cover my head. Gave my whole body a brain freeze. I stayed
under the surface, felt the gentle current swirl around me, grabbed rocks with my
hands, held on to them like they were gold nuggets.

I waited until the sob that was building in me drowned. Waited until the water felt
good. Then I swam up to the bank and walked back to my towel.

“I don’t know what I’m gonna do,” I told Dylan. “If I just leave, I don’t think she’ll
be okay.”

“Sky, look at me.” Dylan grabbed my hands, turned me around so that I faced her. “Staying
here is not going to help your mom at all. The only thing that will do is make her
feel even worse.”

“But—”

“No. Shut up and listen.”

I closed my mouth.

“What you need to do is find her another job. ASAP. I guarantee you that once she
has a routine again, she’ll be fine. And San Fran is only a few hours away. You can
visit her every weekend if you want to. But I swear to God that if you give up that
full scholarship so you can stay here and take care of your—no offense—drunk-ass mom,
I will personally kill you. With a nail file. Or something equally creepy. Got it?”

I closed my eyes and listened to the creek, the birds, the distant hum of an airplane.
I knew she was right. I just wished there could be another way for Mom and me to both
get what we needed.

“This sucks,” I said.

“It’s life.”

I bit my lip, guilty that I felt so much relief. I could still go. All I had to do
was find my mom a job. Not beg her to look for one herself, like I had been, but physically
go out and get her job interviews myself. I had to start taking control of the situation.

I reached over and hugged Dylan, hard. She was greasy from the tanning lotion, and
her skin was hot against my cold, creek-drenched body. “Thanks,” I whispered.

“Hey, you did it for me when I got knocked up. I owe you one.”

She settled back onto her towel and turned up the Jack Johnson. I sat down in the
sun and looked out at the creek, watching the water slide by and roll over rocks and
fallen tree branches that were in its way, steadily eroding whatever wouldn’t budge
until, finally, it made a path for itself to where it wanted to be.

chapter twelve

I’d never been so broke in my life.

No matter how many times I did the math, there wasn’t enough. Rent. Car insurance.
Gas. Electric. The maxed-out credit card. Food. Without Mom’s checks from the Bell,
it was all on me now. Even if she got a job right away, it’d be two weeks, maybe more,
until we saw any money. Forget basics like toilet paper and deodorant. I only had
a few days to figure out how to keep the lights on.

I threw the calculator on the ground and watched it slide across the cracked linoleum.

“Crap.” Like I could just go out and buy a new one—
Look at me, I’m so rich I can throw calculators around!
I stood and picked it up, shook it. Still worked.

I looked out the window; Mom was sitting in one of the lawn chairs underneath the
birch trees, the smoke from her cigarette wafting around her so that she looked like
an old photograph, sepia tinted and out of focus. She’d been out there for over an
hour, staring into nothing, moving only to bring another cigarette to her lips.

Usually when I did the bills, she would sit with me and tell funny stories about the
people she worked with or make Rice Krispies treats. But today she’d just shuffled
by the stack of bills and walked outside, her slippers and my dad’s robe still on.
When Billy wasn’t around, it was like she went into hiding. I missed hanging out with
her. Now she was a roommate I never saw.

I felt like my life had turned into a Magritte painting, where nothing made sense
anymore.
Ceci n’est pas une pipe
, it said, under his painting of a pipe. I wanted to take a picture of my mom right
now, then surround it with a halo of cigarette boxes and pages from her
TV Guide,
like those icons of saints. Underneath, it would say
Ceci n’est pas ma mere
: This is not my mother.

It was close to dinnertime, and my stomach was starting to grumble. I hadn’t realized
just how much free Taco Bell we’d been eating until Mom stopped coming home with it.
I could kill for a Mexican pizza and a Pepsi. Instead, this was what I had to choose
from: a box of saltine crackers and a can of Chef Boyardee. A bottle of sprinkles
sat alone on the top shelf, where I’d put them after Dylan and I made Christmas cookies
last winter. The fridge wasn’t much better—expired milk, a few slices of bologna,
a stick of butter, and a twelve-pack of Billy’s Coors beer.

I had to leave for the Paradise evening shift, so I grabbed the box of saltines. They
were stale and sat like a lump in my stomach, but I ate the last pack and pretended
I was full. I put the Chef Boyardee on the counter, next to a bowl and spoon. I hoped
she’d remember to eat. I headed outside, thankful the heat had subsided to a dull,
uncomfortable pulse.

“Hey, Mom.”

She squinted, like she was trying to figure out who I was. “You off to work already?”

“It’s almost six.”

She blew out a puff of smoke. “Really. That late?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You doing a graveyard?”

“No, I’m off at midnight. I switched shifts with Amy because she had a thing to go
to.”

“Huh.”

I had one of those headaches that live right behind your eyes, like some evil little
elves had gotten in there with sharp tools. All I wanted to do was lie down in a cool,
dark room. Give up. But Mom was doing enough of that for the both of us.

She sat there, queen of the trailer park. Getting Dad’s robe dirty. The elves went
pound, pound, pound,
and I hated that cigarette between her fingers and the fact that the
TV Guide
in her hand was three weeks old.

“I’m calling Aunt Celia,” I said.

The last resort. We’d reached it weeks ago, but I’d kept hoping she would do it herself.
I didn’t want to go behind her back and call the sister-in-law she hadn’t spoken to
since my dad died. What Aunt Celia had said at Dad’s funeral was pretty unforgivable.
But I didn’t want us to be homeless, either.

“It’s bad,” I said, when she didn’t say anything. “And I know she’ll be able to help
us out—lend us some money. I can pay her back.”

She stood up, the
TV Guide
falling to the dust at her feet. “No.”

“Look,” I began, “I just ate crackers for dinner. We have to call her.”

She started toward the house. “Just lay off, okay? I’ll find the money.”

“How?” The word flew out of my mouth like a smack in the face, but I was past caring.
“The money isn’t just going to fall from the sky!”

“Fuck you,” she yelled.

Ceci n’est pas ma mere.

She touched her lips with the tips of her nicotine-stained fingers, her eyes wide.

Somewhere on the highway, a big rig sped by. A kid up the street shrieked. Then a
gust of dusty wind swept between us, carrying something important away, but I didn’t
know what it was.

I turned around and practically sprinted to the car.
Away
—I had to get away.

“Tomorrow,” I said, pulling open the door. “If you don’t call her, I will.”

Mom shouted my name, like she was crying out in her sleep, but for once I ignored
her. I jammed my key into the ignition and backed out, driving way too fast. Reckless.

Away:
that was the only command my body could respond to.
Away Away Away.

*   *   *

By midnight I was ravenous. I resisted the Paradise vending machine—I couldn’t afford
to waste seventy-five cents on a handful of candy. I was in a dilemma; the stuff at
our local bodega was way overpriced, but it would cost me a lot of gas to drive to
the nearest grocery store, which was an hour away. And fast food was too expensive.
I decided that as soon as Amy came in, I’d buy a box of pasta at the bodega and cook
it up at home. It would be at least two, maybe three meals.

“Skylar, you rock!” Amy said as she pushed through the screen door. She was still
wearing a skimpy sheath from her date. “Thank you so much for switching.”

“No problem. I wasn’t doing anything better, trust me. Have fun?”

“Oh, yeah. We went to Red Lobster and then we spent, like, three hours at Starbucks.
God, I can’t wait to move to Bakersfield. You’re
so
lucky you’re going to San Fran.”

Away Away Away.

I slid off the stool and grabbed my bag and the part of Marge’s collage I’d just finished,
Mom’s
fuck you
a whisper in my ear. “I’m definitely looking forward to living near some civilization.”

Every time someone mentioned school, my answers sounded like rote memorizations for
a part I no longer had, in a play I’d always wanted to be in.

“Lucky, lucky,” she said.

Amy sauntered over to the counter and proceeded to settle in. For her this meant wearing
slippers, painting her nails, and eating copious amounts of junk food.