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I try to talk to my mom a couple of times after Tammy’s warning, but each time she is either in a frenzy or a near stupor, and she honestly does not want to talk to me. She hasn’t been to work for a week, saying she has the flu. I find her in the living room today, sitting on the sofa watching TV. It’s a new big screen TV. A gift from Cal, I assume. She looks very much like she could be in the throes of a major virus, possibly Ebola. “I need to talk to you about what’s going on with you.” I pause, and she begins to look impatient. I know already that I’ve put her on the defensive; I’ve started out all wrong. “Look, I’m worried. I don’t know exactly what he’s into, but I’m hearing that there are ‘people’ watching Cal. I’m afraid you’re going to get caught up in it.” I try to look small, young.
She narrows her eyes at me, staring at me with a smoldering anger. “What are you saying?”
I take a deep breath, forcing myself not to break eye contact. “I don’t like him hanging around here. You know he tried to kill his last girlfriend.”
“Well,” she leans back, looking away from me, her jaw flexing as she presses her teeth together, “I like him hanging around here.” She lets loose a rampage about exactly what she thinks of the “pigs.” She completely ignores my comment about the former girlfriend.
“I just want you to be careful.”
“Nobody asked you.” I think she is defensive because she knows I am right.
“How deep are you in it, Mom?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But her eyes flash to the pillow at the end of the couch, and I know that she has something hidden.
“I hear things, and I see people talking. I see you. You look like hell, and I know you’re doing stuff.” She doesn’t deny it, but her eyes begin to get more narrow. “Is it meth? Mom, are you doing crystal?” She is sizing me up, trying to find out what sort of threat I hold for her. I try to tone my voice low, non-threatening, the way Jake did that first day he talked to me about all of this. “Cal’s been in all sorts of trouble.” I mention his last girlfriend again, and this time she reacts.
“That’s not true. She was a crazy crank-whore.” Which is exactly what she looks like at the moment, with her jaws cranking together, chewing something that isn’t there.
“Mom, I’m worried about you. This guy is trouble. I don’t like him.”
“Well, you don’t pay the bills, do you? I like him. He’s likes me. He loves me.” Which I know is not true. People who love you don’t give you drugs that make you crazy and destroyed.
“Mom, it’s not just him.” My voice is quiet. I’m scared that she’ll get mad and not listen. “I mean, Jake says that there’s a place you can go in town that can help you clean up. They can help you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Her voice is beginning to rise, and a splotch of red appears on her chin as her jaws churn and churn.
“I think you need help. I think you may be addicted to whatever you’re using now.”
“You been talking to Jake about me?” She spits his name out at me. “You been sitting down there with your fancy boyfriend talking about what a fuck-up your mother is? Is that what you been doing?” The veins pop on her neck, and she glares at me with so much darkness in her eyes that I begin to get scared.
“No. Mom. I’m not talking about you to anybody. I’m just worried about you.”
“I am fine.” Her voice becomes light and airy, like a breeze coming through the window, and I know that what she says is what she wants to believe. “I’m having fun. I mean, don’t you think I deserve to have any fun? I never got to do any of that when I was your age. I was pregnant when I was as old as you.”
“I just think you’re gonna get hurt.”
“You just don’t want me to have any fun. You want me to sit around here like an old woman and take care of you. You are so fucking needy. You’ve always been sucking the life out of me. Suck, suck, suck. Want me to walk around on eggshells and bend over backward for whatever you want me to do. Well, now I’ve got somebody that takes care of me, do you understand?” I don’t. I don’t understand anything, but her anger is coming back.
“I just want you to be well.” I use my smallest voice, but I’m angling toward the cushion at the end of the couch, where her stash is hidden.
“Just leave me alone. Stop nagging at me all the time.” Her hand has edged under the cushion, and she draws her fist out. I reach out and lift the cushion. A small mirror lays there, filmed with white powder, a single-edge razor blade on the side. I grab her wrist and force the vial of white powder out of her bony hand. The vial is over an inch long, clear glass with a black screw-on top.
“What is this?” I ask, and she grabs it back from me, shoving me. I trip, falling backward over the coffee table. The door flies open, forced by the wind, and the rain roars.
“Get out of my house.” She is screaming, standing over me, her hair flying in the wind. I scramble to my feet and escape out into the rain. Was that crystal? Cocaine? What?
***
I find him, sitting in the solarium, playing guitar. I can hear the strings as I come up behind the house. I stand just beyond the circle of light emanating from the room and watch He is wearing jeans and a burgundy sweater, leaning back with the guitar resting on his stomach, his fingers moving across the frets, fingering the strings, so softly it’s barely a pause before glancing off to other parts to touch down. I’ve wanted those hands on me so many times. All of my nerves are frayed and raw, and my skin prickles under my clothes. Just to feel the way he feels the music. Who is he, this boy turning to man, and who will he be?
My teeth are chattering, my body pulling all my muscles together to quake, I can’t force myself into the light as the water pours down my face, dripping in rivulets from my hair, plastering my clothes to my body. Sometimes, like now, I catch a glimpse of the man he will be, and it makes my breath stop. A broadening and thickening out around his eyes, a strength that lights along his jawline. I make my way to the glass door and tap. He jumps, startled, then he sees me through the window and lays the guitar aside, opening the door.
“What are you doing here?” Concern hangs in his voice, seeing the weakness in me, seeing my need. “You’re soaked!”
“You know,” I laugh lightly, my teeth clacking together, “I haven’t heard you play in a while.” He leaves me just inside the door and is gone from the room for a moment. I stand dripping, my mind whirling as I hear him stepping down the halls and finally returning to me. He brings towels and a bathrobe, large and worn, his, the one I snuggled in when I was staying here over Thanksgiving. He hands me the things, and I repeat that I haven’t heard him play in a while.
“I haven’t played.” He motions me to the bathroom, where I am presumably meant to dry myself. For a moment I contemplate stepping out of my clothes and returning to him bare, but my teeth are chattering so noisily and my muscles are so tense that my movements jerk and start as I try to remove my soaked garments. My seduction plot is thrown out in favor of the warmth and comfort of his bathrobe wrapped tied around me, enveloping me in his scent. I could drown in him.
He is sitting again when I return to him. I am listening for sounds in the rest of the house, but it is quiet, uncommonly so. I stand in front of him, looking down for a moment, my hair wrapped up in a towel like a turban. I put my hands on his knees, lowering myself to the floor in front of him, my muscles still moving in hitches and spasms. I sit on my feet and fold my elbows across his thighs. I want to love this man. I do love this man. I want him to love me. I know how to make him love me, his flesh against mine. I take in a heavy breath and let it out, before I meet his eyes.