The Quick Fix (13 page)

had to walk my bike home from Sal's. There was no way I could drive in my condition.

Cynthia Shea, head cheerleader and overall knockout, had kissed me. I should've been happy. I should've been flying home instead of walking … but I couldn't get Liz out of my mind.

Most guys would think I was nuts or that maybe I had taken one too many dodgeballs to the head. From a looks standpoint, they'd be right. Liz was beautiful, no question, but Cynthia was at a level seldom seen in middle school. She was dangerous-at-intersections gorgeous.

But looks didn't matter. Okay, they mattered a little—maybe more than a little—but they didn't mean
everything
. And Cynthia wasn't just one-dimensional, a cardboard cutout with a pretty face. She was smart, and funny, and fierce.

But Liz and I just clicked. We'd always clicked. There was no other way to explain it.

That being said, Liz had just sandbagged me with the “Let's just be friends” conversation, when our “Let's be more than friends” relationship had barely even started. It was like crash-landing a plane when you'd only gotten two feet off the ground.

Cynthia was the full package, but I couldn't shake the feeling that if I wasn't
necessary
to her, she wouldn't know my name. She had an agenda, and I felt like she was using me as a means to an end.

When I got home, I saw my mom's car in the driveway. I was pretty sure that she had a restaurant shift that night, and seeing as how it was now an hour past the point when she should have left for work, it meant that she had quit, had been fired, or was taking a more relaxed attitude toward arrival times.

I noticed an expensive German sedan parked opposite the house. It didn't really fit in with the other cars on our
street. It looked like an honor society president sitting in detention. It took me a moment, but then I recognized the car … it was the same one that dropped Kevin and Liz off at school every morning.

I walked to the back door, the one by the kitchen. I started to open the screen door when I heard the yelling.

“I'm trying to help!” Mr. Carling shouted.

“I know!” my mom yelled back.

“So why are you making it so hard for me?”

“Because I know
why
you want to help.”

I leaned closer to the door as their yelling transitioned into talking.

“No, you don't,” he said. “You think you do—”

“No, I know I do,” she said. “You're helping so you can prove to me that you were right. So you can shove my nose in it. I made a bad decision. There. I said it. Are you happy now?”

“No, I'm not, damn it! I'm not happy! And I don't care about that! About any of it, for Chrissakes! Will you just listen to me for one second?!?”

I opened the door and walked inside. “
I'll
listen to you for one second,” I said. “Several, if you need a little more time.”

Mr. Carling's face was about two inches away from my
mom's; he had a firm grip on her shoulders. He let go and backed off. It looked bad, but Mom didn't look worried, not in the least. She looked more confused.

“Matt?”

“Mom … Mr. Carling.”

Mr. Carling just stood there, trying to decide what to do with his hands. Putting them in his pockets were his first and sixth choices.

He was wearing a suit that was worth two months of groceries for my mom and me. He was good-looking in a “I used to be more good-looking” kind of way. He opened his mouth to speak, realized he wasn't sure what to say, and closed his mouth without saying a word.

“You were grabbing and yelling at my mom in our kitchen,” I said. “The least you could do is say hello.”

“Matt. Watch it.” My mom tried to sound stern, but I could tell she was playing defense.

“Watch what?” I asked. “And be specific, so I know what to look for.”

“Your mom and I were discussing her future,” Mr. Carling said. He was trying to regain the upper hand by putting on the arrogant, domineering identity he usually wore. It didn't seem to fit him at the moment.

“I was late for work and Mr. Carling had to come look for me,” my mom said.

“Didn't he think to call first?” I asked.

“He did. I didn't answer the phone.”

“But you let him in the house.”

“Matt, I am really not in the mood for this.”

“Well, what are you in the mood for?” I asked. “Me? I'm in the mood for an explanation that makes even a little bit of sense.”

Mr. Carling's face broke into an odd little smile. “You let him talk to you this way?” he asked, but there was nothing accusatory in the way he said it. The arrogant tone was gone; he sounded more impressed and amused. I looked at my mom, who looked like she was trying not to laugh. It was my turn to be confused.

“I should go,” Mr. Carling said before I had a chance to ask another question. “And, uh … this is your final warning, Kathy,” he said, trying to sound angry. It just sounded fake. “Do it again, and you're fired. You hear me?” My mom was still trying not to laugh as she nodded yes.

Mr. Carling left, slamming the door behind him, but even that seemed fake.

“Okay,” I said, “now you've really lost me.”

“Seems pretty cut-and-dried to me,” she said, making a concerted effort to squelch her smile.

“You want to talk about it?” I asked.

“No. You?”

“What do you think?”

“I think you want to talk about it,” she said, “but you're bound by our agreement. You're not ready to tell me what's going on in your world, but you want to know what's going on in mine.”

A while back, my mom and I made an agreement: I agreed not to ask her about how her odd relationship with Mr. Carling was affecting her life; she agreed not to ask me what was going on at school that was causing me to get into fights. It was an uneasy truce, and neither one of us was very comfortable with it … but we kept it. However, I was getting the feeling that this truce had an expiration date, and it was rapidly approaching. It was already starting to smell bad.

“You're right,” I said. “I'm not ready to talk about it. It's just that I didn't expect you to bring your secrets home with you.”

“Neither did I.”

“Is it about Dad, and why he left?”

She looked away from me. “There's no way to answer that,” she said.

“A simple yes or no will do.”

“Not in this case it won't.”

“Just pick the one that more closely fits, then,” I said.

“Why? It won't do you any good. You won't know any more about it.”

“I don't know anything now, so what's the difference?” I asked.

“It's worse to think you know something … you make all sorts of false assumptions when you think you know something.”

“So what should I assume about Mr. Carling being here?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“You expect me to buy that?”

“What's going on at school?” she countered. “Does it have something to do with all the ‘jobs' you take and all that money you keep bringing home?”

My eyes got wide.

“Yeah … didn't think I knew about that, did you? I swear Matt, I know I'm busy, but I'm trying not to be insulted by how clueless you think I am.”

“I don't think you're clueless,” I mumbled.

“What?”

“I said, I don't think you're clueless.”

She took a deep breath. “I know.”

We looked at each other. I felt the anger drain out of me, like it was air and I was a tire with a slow leak.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

“We could tell each other everything.”

“Okay,” I said. “You first.”

She smiled. I smiled. Even when we didn't really trust each other, at least we could still crack each other up. “Any other ideas?” I asked.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“Kind of.”

“You want to go into town? Get something to eat?”

I didn't say anything. Walking around town was something that made us feel closer together, and closer to my dad's memory. I wasn't sure I was in the state of mind to feel that right now.

“Yeah,” she said, reading me like a one-page picture book. “Me, neither.”

“I have some homework I need to get to,” I said.

“Yeah … of course … Listen, I should probably check in at the restaurant, see if I can help out. You know, at least try to keep my job,” she said.

“Right. Yeah.”

“Okay, well, I'll see you tonight.” She grabbed her purse and headed for the door. “Don't wait up.”

“Yeah, okay.”

She looked at me. Her eyes started to get damp, but she left before the dam broke. I sat at the kitchen table, listening to our decrepit car drive away.

next morning, my mom and I met in the kitchen. We didn't talk, just sipped our beverages.

I almost told her everything. I wasn't sure if it was the fact that I was exhausted or that my mom's face was puffy, maybe from crying. All I knew was that I was tired of this distance between us, tired of not knowing and not telling. I wanted it over.

She must've sensed something was up with me, because whenever I looked at her, she had a strange expression on her face. It was sincere but also a little smiley. I couldn't
tell if it was caring or pre-triumphant because she could tell that I was inches away from cracking.

I opened my mouth, not sure how I was going to begin.

“Stop,” she said, before I could even get started. “Don't tell me anything right now.” She took a sip of coffee.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said with mock arrogance. “I was nowhere near about to crack and tell you everything right now while sipping my orange juice.”

She smiled. “You shouldn't. Not now. If you tell me, then I have to tell you, and then neither one of us is going to get to where we need to go today.”

“So …?”

She smiled. “Tomorrow's Thursday. I have the night off. We'll have a party. You and me. We'll hang out, eat something good that's bad for us, and then, when the clock strikes nine, we'll air our dirty laundry. Sound good?”