Shifting Gears: The Complete Series (Sports Bad Boy Romance) (67 page)

“Mom, what’s going on?”

That was when she smiled. It was the same
sick little smile that she used to give me when I came home from school to find
her wasted. She was tweaking…again. “Hi baby. What do you think?”

“What do I think? Are you fucking insane?
Mom, what did you take?”

She tried to pull of an innocent look, but
it didn’t work at all. She was doing that thing with her mouth where she
continuously smacks her lips and her neck kept twitching to one side. She was
high, there was no denying it. “I didn’t take anything, baby. I don’t do that
anymore.”

“Where did you get the money to buy
anything? Who did you buy it from? Oh God Mom, please tell me you didn’t have
Justin over here.”

“A man came over.”

“What? When?”

“I don’t know. Last night…maybe this
morning….”

“Who was it, Mom? What was his name?” God,
what if it was Mitch and he saw her like this. It was perfect…the thing he
could use against me, my junkie mother.

“I
don’t know,” she was using her whiney voice now, the one that made me want to
slap her.

“Think, Mother. Was he old? Young? Was it
the nice looking guy who took me out the other night? Was it a cop?”

“Why would it be a cop? I don’t want to go
to jail, Jessie!” She started crying, “Please baby. I’ve been sober…I just
slipped.”

“Oh Jesus, Mom. You’re not going to jail.
I just need to know what happened here when I was gone.”

“I used the money you left me for food,”
she said in a rush. I’m so stupid. First rule you learn in Al-Anon is not to
leave a junkie home alone with cash. Jesus! This is just what I fucking needed.

“Mom, come here and sit down.” I tried to
take her by the arm but she jumped back like my touch burned her skin or
something. I hated it when she was like this, mostly because I never knew if I
should be pissed or worried that she was going to drop dead. “Please, Mom.”

She finally sat down on the couch, as far
from me as she could get and perched on the edge of it like she was preparing
to have to run away.

“No, please tell me where you bought
whatever it was you took. No one came here, did they?” When I had been with
Justin I’d seen my fill of dealers and junkies. There wasn’t a single one of
them I’d want in my home. It freaked me out just thinking about it.

“A man came by. He was looking for you.”

Shit! “I know, Mom. You told me. But what
about the drugs? Who sold you the drugs?”

“I don’t do drugs any more baby. I’m
sober.”

“Shit!” I jumped up off the couch and so
did she. She really looked like she was about to rabbit out the door. I took a
deep breath and in an even…relatively calm tone I said, “I’m sorry, Mom. I
didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m just worried about you.”

“I love you, baby.” The tears were
streaming down her cheeks now.

“I love you too, Mom. Maybe you could go
take a shower and clean up. I think that would make you feel better. I’ll make
some coffee and when you’re finished, we’ll talk.” I was making decaf that was
for damned sure.

She sniffed up the snot that was running
out of her nose and in a shaky voice she said, “Okay baby. I’m sorry I made a
mess.”

I looked around at the murals. “Don’t be
sorry, Mom. They’re kind of pretty. We’re going to get you some help, okay. Go
get cleaned up.”

I watched her go down the hall and I went
into the kitchen to make coffee. She must have worked all night. The cabinets
all had little woodland creatures painted on them. Shit! Hopefully the
apartment manager doesn’t come by for anything before I get this cleaned up. I
started the coffee and sat down at the table with my phone. I typed in
narcotics anonymous meetings and our city. I got about a million hits. I
narrowed it down by date and neighborhood and found one that was at a church a
few miles away. It said they had one tomorrow night.

I called the number listed and a man
answered, “First Baptist Seventh Street. This is Mike, how can I help you?”

“Hello. I was wondering about your NA
meeting tomorrow. Is that open to newcomers?”

“Of course. Everyone is welcome.”

“Good. My mother was sober…for a while. I
honestly don’t know how long. I’m not sure how much of what she tells me is the
truth, you know?”

“I do. It’s difficult.”

“To say the least,” I said. “Can I get
directions? I think I will bring her down tomorrow, if I can convince her.”

He gave her the directions and then said,
“If she refuses to come you’re welcome to call me for advice, or come anyways.
We have some really good programs here for the families as well.”

“Thank you,” I told him. “I will do my
best to get her there.” I hung up and went to check on Mom. She was sitting
naked on the edge of the bed. She looked like she was in a trance. “Mom? Were
you going to shower?” She looked up at me like she didn’t know me. It took her
a good ten or twenty seconds to process who I was…I could see it on her face.

“Hi baby. I was just getting into the
shower. A man came by…”

“I know, Mom. Come on, I’ll fix the water
for you.” I fixed it so the water wasn’t too hot or too cold. Then I laid out a
clean towel and laid out a sweat suit for her that I found in her things. I
also found some little white pills in a clear plastic baggie on her nightstand.
There were only three in the baggie. I wondered how many had been there to
begin with. I flushed those down the toilet. I’m sure we’d have another knock
down drag out when she went to look for them…but too fucking bad.

She looked a little better when she got
out of the shower. I had to help her get dressed and then I blow dried her hair
for her. I brushed and straightened in and then because she asked me to, I
helped her put her make-up on. I didn’t tell her that what she looked like
didn’t matter. We weren’t leaving the house today. Once she came down off her
high and crashed, I was going to start cleaning up her mess.

******

I worked on the apartment that entire day.
There wasn’t much I was going to be able to do about the landscape murals on
the walls, but I got the rest of the place cleaned and the furniture put back.
My mother had finally crashed about an hour after she had her shower. She slept
all day and through the night…thank God. When she woke up on Sunday morning she
was starving. I made her a big breakfast and after she had that and her coffee
I said, “Mom, I talked to someone at the Baptist church nearby. They have NA
meetings and programs there. I’d like to take you to one tonight.”

“I don’t need to go to NA, Jessie…”

“Mom, please don’t do this. I came in here
yesterday and you had redecorated the entire apartment. Your pupils were the
size of quarters and I found a baggie of pills in your room. You had taken so
much…whatever the hell it was that you were practically incoherent. First and
foremost, I love you and I’m worried about you. But second…you cannot stay here
if you’re using. You think I won’t kick you out on the street, but bring drugs
back in here and you’ll see how wrong you are.”

She was looking down at the table, not
making eye-contact with me. When I finished talking she pulled her head up
slowly and peeked out underneath her hair like a child. “I’m sorry,” she said.
It was her favorite line. It was supposed to make everything magically
disappear.

“That’s a start. But I’m sorry is not good
enough, Mom. You go to the meeting tonight, and promise me you will not bring
drugs back in this house…or I can’t help you any longer.”

“I don’t want to be like this,” she said.
It was pathetic and no matter how angry I wanted to be, I knew she was telling
the truth about that much anyways.

“I know, Mom.” I reached over and put my
hand on hers. “I don’t want you to be this way either, because I love you,
okay?”

“You’re the only one, Jessie. You’re the
only one that never leaves me.” She started crying again. I just hugged her and
let her cry it out. Sometimes that was all you could do. The rest of the day she
acted embarrassed every time she looked at the walls and she kept apologizing.
She fixed us lunch and we watched a movie together and when it was time to
leave for the meeting, she didn’t complain.

I told her we needed to take the bus
because my car was having some problems. The truth was that I was worried still
about Mitch. She couldn’t even remember telling me a man came by when she
sobered up, much less who it was. I was also going to meet Paul after I dropped
her off and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t being followed there.

When we got off the bus I walked her to
the door. She looked scared and I felt really bad leaving her. She knew that I
couldn’t stay though. The meetings were confidential and if I waited for her,
I’d have to sit outside in the dark.

“It’s going to be okay,” I told her. She
nodded, but she didn’t look too sure. “This is a safe place. Here,” I handed
her the bus pass I bought for her and said, “Just wait right over there where
it let us off. It will drop you in front of the apartment. If I’m not home when
you get there, don’t let anyone in, okay? No one, Mom. Remember what I said
earlier, okay?”

“I got it,” she said. I could tell she was
annoyed with me. She used to tell me I talked to her like she was a child or an
idiot. I used to tell her back that if she didn’t act like a child or an idiot,
I wouldn’t talk to her like she was one.

Trying to sound more upbeat than I felt I
said, “Good luck, Mom. I’ll see you at home.”

She nodded again and turned and went
inside. I stood there, feeling guilty about…I don’t even know what. I finally
turned and went back over to the bus stop. When the bus came I got on it,
changing buses twice before I finally got on the one that would take me to the
small town where Paul’s sister and nephew were at. When I got off the bus
there, Paul was waiting for me.

“Hey,” he said, giving me a kiss before we
got into his truck.

“Hi.”

“No problems getting here?” He was asking
nicely if I made sure I wasn’t followed. I didn’t tell him that I felt like a
Bond girl sneaking around from bus to bus.

“No problems. I was really careful.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too.”

We drove for about ten minutes and Paul
parked his truck in the lot of a Chinese food restaurant. We went inside and he
ordered take-out.

When we got back outside and I started
towards the truck he said, “We’re going to leave it here.”

“Oh, okay.” I knew he was being careful.
He took my hand and we started walking. We walked through a little town that
sat not too far from the city we lived in, but looked like an entirely
different world. To me it looked like it used to be a little fishing village or
something. The houses and markets and even the schools were piled on top of
each other, a jumble of different colors, styles and materials. One house would
be made out of brick and the next would be a two-story Tudor style. There were
wooden ones that looked like cottages and in the midst of it all were
trees…everywhere you looked were dense green trees that seemed to almost twist
out of the buildings in some spots. Some of them were leaden with unpicked
fruit and gave the whole town a sickeningly sweet kind of smell. It was a
strange little place, and I found it even stranger when we left the residential
area and came to a whole row of what looked like abandoned buildings. It was an
old strip mall, and some of the buildings looked to barely still be standing.
Everything on this side of the little town looked like it had sat and been
baked by the sun for decades.

Paul led me to what looked like a gym, but
a really old one. The roof was flat and made of aluminum or sheet metal. The
building was wooden and painted a shade of red usually reserved for barns. The
front door had a big padlock and chain on it which Paul surprisingly had the
key to. He unlocked it and pushed in the double doors. I stepped into a
work-out room from the 1970’s. It was almost surreal.

“What is this place?”

“It used to be a gym. It’s been abandoned
for years…decades.”

“Why? Why are all of these buildings
empty?”

“The town used to be self-sufficient.
There was a furniture plant that employed most of the adults in town. Then in
the seventies it closed down and the people who had cars either moved or got
jobs in other towns. The ones who didn’t likely went on welfare…either way, the
town pretty much died. It came back to life a little in the nineties, but they
started re-building over there near the bus depot. They’ve never done anything
with this part of town. My Sensei owns this building.”

“Hey Uncle Paul! Did you bring food?”

Victor was racing towards us and Paul
grabbed him and pretended to throw him down on the old mat on the floor. They
wrestled for a while, it was really cute. When Marie came in the room though,
they stopped and both looked guilty. “Were you two wrestling again?” Neither of
them said anything but the guilty look on their faces said it all. She shook
her head at them and then she looked at me and smiled. “Hi Jessie. How are
you?”