The Waiting Sky (4 page)

Ethan sighs, relieved. “Well, thank God. Now we can go to bed happy.”

I hug him good night, wishing silently that was all it took.

3

T
he next morning, I’m up early to get breakfast at the motel’s complimentary buffet before the Torbros hit the road on another chase. After packing up my small bag and cramming it with more free toiletries, I brush out my hair and place a vintage, feather-patterned headband just so on my head. It’s beautiful—and the perfect thing to distract people from noticing my lame T-shirt that reads
GO MILLERS!
(courtesy of Minnetonka Mills High).

I pull my door shut behind me, thinking about how my mom put the headband on the kitchen table next to a glass of milk and a steak at six thirty in the morning, just days after the accident.

“What are you doing?” I’d asked when I’d dragged myself out of bed. Not only was Mom awake without me having to force her to get up, but she was dressed and cooking. In the gray morning light, her pale skin and yellow hair seemed ethereal—and I wondered for a minute if I was imagining her entirely.

“The gas works,” she said, motioning to the stove, where another steak was sizzling. “Figure we should eat up what we can until they turn the power back on. I splurged and bought the meat for a special occasion, but I guess we’ll just have it now. And look!” She opened up the cupboard underneath the sink and pulled out a bag of tea lights. Her eyes sparkled. “Got them at the dollar store. We can add ambience!”

She placed a few of them around the kitchen and immediately the room was transformed. The cold edges were replaced by a soft, warm glow. “Isn’t it romantic,
dahling
?” she asked, and I laughed, giddy with the improbability of all of it. “Go on, eat,” she said, pointing to the steak, and that’s when I saw the headband.

“What’s this?” I asked, picking up the arc of soft feathers.

“Found it at a garage sale and knew you had to have it. I know you love those old fashions.”

It’s more like when you’re broke, you get good at figuring out how to have a sense of style for cheap, which usually means buying old, old stuff. Not that I was going around dressed like a flapper or anything. Mostly I spent what little money I had on a hint of flair here or there. A scarf. A bracelet. One time I found a pair of fur-trimmed satin shoes from the 1940s at a Salvation Army. Because if I was going to have to wear castoffs, the least I could do was jazz them up. Last season’s crappy hoodies from Target looked way better when you stuck a faux Depression glass pin on them.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, stroking the feathers. “Thank you.”

My mom plunked down next to me at our battered table—the one with toilet paper shoved under two of its legs to keep it from wobbling. “Let’s eat these steaks,” she said. “It’ll be like a picnic. And then you can get in the shower before they turn off the water, too.”

We smiled at each other, then ate the steaks like it was totally normal to be gnawing on a slab of beef before school. While we chewed, we talked about my mom’s coworkers at the women’s clinic where she works, and about our neighbor Mr. Eisengrath, who went for a walk the other day in nothing but his robe.

And this is what I thought the whole time we were sitting there talking:
My mom is not like other moms
. It was the most awesome truth in the world right then. Because, okay, fine, the power’s off, but so what? My mom is young, and she’s beautiful, and we’re hanging out and talking like friends, which we are. And we’re having a super unconventional breakfast because we’re trying to make the best of things. Together. Her and me. Us versus the world.

You don’t go through things with people and not love them more for it. It’s like those guys in the army who fight in muddy trenches and drag each other out of harm’s way and are blood brothers for life because of it all. Only in our case, my mom and I faced eviction notices and power shutoffs together.

We talked about the free concert we could go see that weekend and whether it would snow again, even though it was May, but in Minnesota there was always a chance.

But the one thing we didn’t talk about was the accident.

Not once did we bring up how we’d turned on the news for three nights in a row, biting our nails and watching the screen, wondering if someone had died out there on the roads (no one had). Not once did we mention the cuts on my face that I was covering with makeup, or the Honda, battered and crunched in the apartment’s parking lot, dripping oil onto the blacktop like blood. But still running—somehow, thank God.

And we didn’t talk about Cat.

“Are you babysitting tonight?” my mom asked, sweeping the dishes into the sink when we were all finished.

“Yeah,” I replied, “for the Bargers.”

“Oh, good,” she said. “Anyone else lined up?”

“The Clydes asked for Sunday night, but I have a test on Monday so I’m not—”

“Oh, you can manage it,” my mom said, pushing my hair back to kiss my forehead. “Can’t you?”

I poked at some of the toilet paper under the table with my toe. “I guess. But you just got paid last Friday, right? We can’t need money that badly already. I only paid the cell phone bill online so we should have—”

“There you go again, Mr. Scrooge!” she laughed. “Being so tight with the funds all the time.”

“I can’t be tight with it when it just disappears,” I say.

“Funny,” she says giggling like this is all a big joke.

“Did you spend it all at Larry’s again?” I pressed. “Is that where it went?” Lodged in my throat was the
real
question I wanted to ask, which is whether or not Mom was getting into something bigger, maybe speed or meth, because we were just so broke all the time. Surely she wasn’t drinking enough to bankrupt us, was she?

“Not all of it. But I had a couple baby showers at work. Donna invited me to lunch, and I splurged on the steaks. I promise I’ll be more careful next time. If you’ll just babysit for the Clydes, we’ll be fine. I’m sure of it.”

I nodded. I wanted to believe her. “I guess so.”

Mom picked up one of the tea lights and blew it out. “I need to run, gotta get to the clinic early today. You’ll handle cleaning up?”

I took in the grease splatter around the stove and the little tea lights, some tipped over, wax dripping down the counters and onto the linoleum floor. What had looked romantic twenty minutes ago was more like a crime scene now.

“No problem,” I said anyway, because I didn’t want to spoil the mood.

My mom smiled. “Thanks, honey.” She gave me one more kiss before heading out the door. I watched her go, heard the clatter of the Honda shuddering to life, and told myself she really was going in to work early. There was no way—not after the accident—that she’d be stopping for a forty of Coors before work.

Just to be sure, I peeked out the front window and looked down at Hyde Street, watching my mom turn left out of the apartment complex. My heart sank because her work was the opposite way. But there
was
a party store just down the road in the direction she’d headed.

I made my way back to the kitchen, trying to decide what to do. The answer, as usual, was a big fat nothing. I couldn’t call her and ask her what she was up to; she’d flat-out lie. I couldn’t call her work and tell them she’d been drinking; they’d fire her and then we
really
wouldn’t be able to pay our bills. I couldn’t tell anyone at school because, in the end, they’d probably call some state agency, and
no way
was that an option.

Suddenly, there was a reckless beating inside of me, like a trapped bird’s wings. For a second I thought I was having a heart attack until I realized—it was fear. The beating quickened, and I felt as if the glass from the accident was pumping through my bloodstream.

There’s no time for this,
I thought. I gritted my teeth and fought the emotion, struggled upstream against it.
Do something. Stay busy. Don’t stop.

I had to start cleaning. I took a breath, figuring I could tackle the kitchen for about fifteen minutes before I’d have to get in the shower and head for school. But when I went to run the water for the dishes, there was only the wheeze and groan of empty pipes.

The water had been shut off, too.

Think. Keep going.

I grabbed my backpack, which always had a change of clothes and a toothbrush in it. If I got to school early enough, I could shower there. I pulled out my wallet for bus money, and my mouth dried up when I realized it was empty.

I’d had ten dollars in there yesterday.

My mom had taken it.

I opened the cupboard above the coffeemaker to check the change bowl, but that was empty, too.

I checked my phone for the time. At least my cell was still working, thank God. It was 7:16, which meant the (free) school bus I could catch three blocks down had left ten minutes ago.

The birds’ wings wanted to come back, but I forced myself to relax.
No use in getting stressed.
You’re the problem solver. You can do this. You always figure out a way.

Cat could come get me, I reasoned after a while. Cat’s mom let her borrow the car when it was important. This qualified, right? She could pick me up, and once I got to school, I might not have time to shower, but I could at least wash my face and brush my teeth.

Cat.

I juggled my cell in my hand. We hadn’t talked much since the accident. I mean, we’d talked—like in the hallways and stuff at school—but we hadn’t
talked
talked. Not like before, when we’d just chat about anything and everything in our easy way because that’s what best friends do.

I scrolled to Cat’s number. She answered on the third ring.

“Hey, you,” she said, like she was forcing herself to sound glad to hear from me.

“Hey, Cat,” I replied. “I don’t mean to be a total pain here, but I’m kinda stuck without a ride to school. I was wondering if you could come get me.”

Cat paused. “Where’s your mom?”

“She left for work already,” I said. “The clinic’s having a free vaccination day, and she had to get there early to set up.”

The lie left my lips so easily. Why did I do that? Why couldn’t I just leave it at “she had to work early”?

Cat grunted. She wasn’t buying it. “No money for the bus?” she asked.

“No.”

“Huh. You’re still babysitting all the time, though, right?”

My jaw clenched. So this is how it’s going to be, I thought. Cat gets to bust my balls because of the accident. And I just have to take it.

“What do you want me to say?” I asked finally. “What am I supposed to do?”

Cat didn’t respond. My heart froze, and I worried she’d hung up on me. Then I heard a sniff and realized she was crying. “I’m sorry, Jane,” she said. “I don’t mean to be a bitch. I don’t. I know your mom has a problem . . .” She trailed off. I swallowed down the lump in my own throat.

Tears are just eye pee,
I could hear my mom saying,
and nobody likes it when you piss your face
.

I blinked to hold them back.

“I’ll come get you,” Cat said, “but we’re not going to school. We have to talk. Okay?”

I nodded, even though Cat couldn’t see it. “Okay.”

I hung up and waited in the dark, dirty kitchen for Cat to come get me.

4

M
y sandals hardly make a sound on the lobby’s stained carpet as I approach the breakfast room. But even if they did, I wouldn’t be able to hear it above the cacophony of the Torbros arguing.

I round the corner to see them bent over a table, studying the radar on Mason’s laptop, trying to figure out where to chase today.

“There is no way we should go that far south when we’ve got dry lines right here,” Hallie says, pointing at the computer screen. “They look better than the ones that are farther away.”

Victor scoffs. “Remind me again why we should listen to someone who learned weather by watching Al Roker?” He pushes his lanky black hair out of his eyes and glares at Hallie. His ugly scar makes him look even angrier, and I mentally give Hallie full props for not backing away from him.

“Enough,” Stephen says. “Insults won’t be tolerated, Victor. Watch your tone.” Stephen stands to his full height. He hasn’t shaved since we’ve been down here, and right now his beard makes it seem like there’s even
more
of him, if that’s possible. If I were Victor, I’d reverse a few steps, but of course Victor doesn’t, probably because he’s older than Stephen and, somewhere in his brain, still thinks he’s the boss.

“What, so you’re on her side now?” Victor asks, his dark eyes blazing.

“This isn’t about sides,” Ethan interjects. “It’s about our team. It’s about
science
.”

“Screw off, Boy Scout,” Victor replies. “No one asked you.”

“Vic,” Stephen says, lowering his voice, “please stop. No one wants to see you acting like this.”

“Then fine,” Victor says, collecting his cell phone and a few miscellaneous papers, “I’m
gone
.”

He storms past me without so much as a glance.

“I take it Victor’s permanently constipated, then?” Mason asks. He’s still got the duct tape in his freckled hand, mid tear—he was fixing a walkie-talkie when the fighting broke out.

“I’m sorry, you guys,” Stephen says, hunching his shoulders. “Victor hasn’t been the same since . . . well, you know.”

The same since what? I wonder, approaching the table.

“I know he’s exceptionally hard to deal with right now,” Stephen continues, “but he’s also an integral member of this team. He understands Polly better than anyone, and we need him. He’ll get over this thing. I know he will.”

I’m about to ask what part of the story I’m missing, when Hallie spots me and speaks first.

“Oh, hey, Jane,” she says. She looks adorable in a cowboy hat, shorts, and rugged boots that come to just above the ankle. She’s not even posing about the Western thing—she actually grew up on a ranch in Texas. Her blond hair, like mine except silky and straight and without the hints of red—which is to say, nothing like mine at all—is pulled into a low ponytail.

“Hey,” Ethan says to me. “You sleep okay?”

“Sure,” I say quickly, wanting to circle back to Victor. “Everything okay here?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Stephen says, waving his hand like he’s ready to wipe away the whole discussion. “Victor just needs to get with the program.”

“So we chase the nearby dry lines today?” Hallie asks, speaking again before I can get any questions out.

“Absolutely,” Stephen says, and I rack my brain to remember what the heck a dry line is. After a moment, it occurs to me that it’s the line where hot air meets cold air, which is what needs to happen for twisters to form.

Mason, Ethan, Hallie, and Stephen are all back to discussing the radar, which is my cue to grab food, though I make a mental note to ask Ethan about Victor later.

I head toward the waffle maker, passing the coffee and juice machines. This early in the morning, I practically have the whole buffet to myself. But just as I get there, someone’s standing next to me. “You using the waffle maker, or can I go?”

I look over and am surprised to see a guy around my age. There just aren’t that many teenagers at an Oklahoma Days Inn on a Thursday morning. I’m about to ask him what he’s doing here when he points to the waffle machine. “Seriously. Can I use this? I’m starving.”

He taps his foot a little. He’s wearing the same brand of shirt Cat bought for her boyfriend last Christmas. Designer crap, meaning he’s probably some rich kid who thinks he’s entitled to waffles before everyone else. Most likely he’s just passing through Oklahoma on a road trip. His douchebag frat friends are probably only seconds from showing up.

“Whatever,” I say, holding back an eye roll only because, with his tan skin and dark hair, this guy isn’t terrible looking. The next thing I know, he’s ladling out the batter in messy, drippy globs that drive me nuts.

Before I can get any more irritated, I hit the fruit and cereal. I settle with my breakfast at a table by myself, fork a pear slice, and try to enjoy the peace and quiet, since it’s such a change from meals at home. I know I should be loving the fact that I have as much food as I want, that the water will come out of the tap anytime I need it to, that I’ll have electricity when I flip a switch. Plus Ethan’s paying me every week for my photos, and no one’s stealing my money.

I should be happy, but the truth is, I can barely get breakfast down my throat. Nothing about this feels right. No way should I be down here enjoying free food while my mom flies solo at home. What will
she
eat? I wonder if she’s checked her voice mail or remembered to cut the dryer sheets in half to make them last longer.

It’s fine,
I tell myself. I take a deep breath. But the air expanding inside my lungs doesn’t calm me down much. And the ache in my chest is getting worse. I glance around the breakfast room, wondering what I can do. Maybe I can bring Hallie some coffee. Or help Mason organize all his equipment.

Except everyone seems just fine. No one needs me to do that stuff, which, if you asked Cat, she’d say is a good thing. But she wouldn’t understand it’s a
hard
thing, too.

No, Cat would just shake her head, like she did the day she came to pick me up from the apartment before school.

“You’re trying to keep it together, I know you are, but it’s like nailing Jell-O to the wall,” Cat said as we settled on the worn sofa in my living room, ignoring the fact that we were both going to get detention for not showing up at school on time. I tried not to stare at the gash above Cat’s eyebrow, which was covered with a smaller bandage now, but still very much there. She caught me looking and touched the dressing self-consciously.

“My mom and dad think you and I crashed our bikes,” she said. It had been months since Cat and I went anywhere on two wheels. I’m relieved they bought it. “I told them you were hurt too, but I probably didn’t even need to say anything. You just have those red marks. You could pass them off as zits or something.”

It was my turn to touch my face. The skin was hot where my fingers landed. Probably from guilt since Cat would no doubt have a scar from all this, while I just had cuts that were already fading.

“It was a stupid cover, I know,” Cat continued, watching me. “But the thing is, I’m not as good a liar as you are.”

She let the words hang there for a moment. I imagined grabbing each letter—L-I-A-R—and shoving them all into the trash. But of course that was impossible and, besides, Cat was right. I
did
lie. She just couldn’t seem to understand that this is the way it had to be. I didn’t have any other choice.

“But it’s not even the lies that upset me so much,” Cat continued. “The worst part of this all is, you’re not actually helping your mom. You’re hurting her, and eventually, someone is going to die if you don’t change. Whether it’s your mom from liver failure, or someone she runs over while drunk. Either way, you won’t be blameless next time. Not unless you figure something out.”

“Fine, but what am I supposed to
do
?” I asked, thinking Cat had some nerve coming in here with her hundred-dollar backpack and her mom’s Lexus parked outside, telling me how to live a life she’d completely fail at after a day. Granted, the accident was awful, and I did play a part in it. But still. What kind of twisted form of intervention was this, when I wasn’t the one with the drinking problem?

Cat pulled out a crumpled sticky note from her pocket. Her hands were shaking as she unfolded it. She cleared her throat. “Stop calling in to work for her, saying she’s sick,” she said, reading off the paper, which was covered in her tiny, bubbly writing. She’d made a
list
, for crying out loud. “Stop allowing her to take your babysitting money. Stop paying bills. Do not tell any lies, period, to cover for her.” She took a breath. “
Do
tell a counselor at school what’s going on.
Do
start attending Al-Anon meetings. And
do
come live with me if you want to. Or go live with someone else. School lets out in a couple weeks, and you should be somewhere else for the summer. But—and this is the last one—
do
let your mom hit bottom, so she can realize she needs professional help and sobriety.”

Cat shoved the note back into her pocket and looked at me. I expected her to be teary again, but her eyes were clear. Her chin was up. “So?” she asked. “What do you think?”

I took a breath. My heart was pounding, though I couldn’t say why. Cat was clearly wrong about everything, so it wasn’t like I didn’t have a leg to stand on. And, it’s not like I was mad at her—she was just doing what she thought best. So why was I getting all emotional?

“You’re my best friend,” I began, “and I don’t know what I’d do without you. I’m so super sorry about the accident. It was awful, and I never should have let us get into that car. But I don’t think it means you understand any of the stuff that my mom and I go through. If I do those things on your list, my mom will lose her job. We’ll get evicted, and we’ll have nowhere to go. My mom will still have a problem—but in your version she’ll have it in the back of the Honda instead of in an apartment.”

Cat opened her mouth, but I barreled forward. “I know things with my mom are fucked up. I’m not arguing that point. But until you’re
in
it, until you live it, you can’t sit there and say what it’s going to take to fix it. I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

Cat tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. She nodded. “All right, then. Here’s the bottom line. I love you. And it’s because I love you that you need to know that I can’t be friends with you if you don’t try to at least do
something
on this list.” She pulled the paper back out from her pocket and put it on the coffee table, then stood. “I’m sorry. But I can’t be friends with you if this is how it’s going to be.”

I stood too. My heart was jackhammering now, and I could feel my face flush. “Wait, so suddenly you’re dumping me?”

Cat looked at the list. “Unless something changes.”

“Unless I do your chores, you mean. And, for the record, that’s manipulative. Not to mention ridiculous.”

“No,” Cat said, marching over to the light switch and flicking it over and over to no effect, “
this
is ridiculous.” She went to the coffee table and grabbed the television remote. She hit the power again and again. “
This
is ridiculous,” she said when it didn’t turn on. She went to the sink, lifted the faucet, and let the pipes groan. “
That
is what’s fucked up, Jane.”

“Okay!” I said, wanting her to stop. “Okay, you made your point already. Little miss house-on-the-hill, can-I-have-a-convertible-for-my-birthday has made her point.”

Cat froze. “This has nothing to do with where I live or what I drive. My parents love you. They want you to stay with us, okay? It’s not about money.”

“Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”

“So that’s it?” Cat asked. “
Whatever
?”

“That’s it,” I replied.

Cat stared at me for a moment before she shook her head and walked to the door.

“Don’t forget your list on the way out,” I said.

She didn’t even look at me. “Keep it,” she replied, and pulled the door closed.

And that was that.

At least it was until I decided to spend the summer in Oklahoma with my brother.

It was one of the things on her stupid list, which I’d lifted off the coffee table and buried in the middle of a book at the back of my shelf. I couldn’t say exactly why I kept it around, except that a hazy, gnawing feeling was pulling at me, telling me Cat might not know everything, but she might know
something
I didn’t. Which is why I texted her when I had news:

Am leaving 2 live w Ethn in Oklhma 4 summer.

Radio silence for an hour. Then finally, a text back:

Im prd of u.

* * *

I nearly drop my pear when the chair next to me is suddenly occupied. “Are you with the Torbros?” It’s Waffle Boy. I want to be annoyed, but I’m too caught off guard by him—and the fact that his waffle looks like it’s been massacred, then laid to rest in a syrup-and-whipped-cream grave.

“Um, yeah,” I reply, working simultaneously to stop thinking about Cat and to figure out how this random rich kid knows who the Torbros are.

“Cool,” he says, and shoves a mass of carbs and stickiness into his mouth. While he chews, he studies me with green eyes that are like a mixture of sunlight and moss. His dark brown hair juts out in every direction and should look ridiculous—but somehow doesn’t. A current vibrates through every vertebra on my spine. It’s all I can do not to shiver.

When a guy in a burgundy shirt and khakis strides by, Waffle Boy raises a hand, flagging him down. Like it’s a restaurant, and this guy is a
waiter
or something. “Hey, yeah, I was wondering if we could get more strawberries at the breakfast buffet?” Waffle Boy asks.

The guy shakes his head and gives a little wave, the kind like when you’re saying no thanks to a second helping. “I don’t work here,” he says, and walks on.

Unbelievable, I think. Waffle Boy must have people waiting on him all the time if he’s picking people out of a crowd and thinking they should bring him stuff.

“My bad,” Waffle Boy says. “He’s wearing the same colors as the front desk guys.” He laughs in an easy way, unfazed, and I think that if I’d just done that in front of a stranger, I’d be ducking my head, red from embarrassment.