“What have you been doing? It’s four thirty in the morning,” my mom said, giving me an up-and-down look and shaking her head. “God, Lynn, what’s that smell? It’s like, like—”
I cut her off by pretending to fan my armpits at her face. Until this conversation started, I thought I’d sobered up some. Now I felt dead drunk and none too sure on my feet. She wrinkled her nose at me.
“Like what?” I said, keeping it short. I didn’t trust my voice to do or smell as it should.
“You’re all covered in grime and your hair looks like you haven’t brushed it in weeks. What are you doing up anyway?”
“I got worried, so I couldn’t sleep. I was waiting up for you.”
“Where?” she said. “In a trash can?”
“A book fell back behind my bed.” I spoke slowly and carefully. I must of sounded half-retarded. “It got stuck and I had to crawl under there and pull it out.”
“Jesus,” she said. “It looks like you’ve been rolling around in Mr. Cannon’s charcoal grill. You should take a shower before you go to bed tonight.” She reached over and plucked something off of my head. “You’ve got a leaf in your hair. When’s the last time you cleaned under your bed? You growing trees back there now?”
“Where have you been?” I said, and then added, for the guilt it might stir up in my favor, “I really was worried.”
She narrowed her eyes and went quiet a moment.
“I went to see Hayes.” It was her turn to speak slowly and carefully.
“How’s he doing?” I hoped to God she didn’t hear the Boone’s Farm wrestling with my tongue because I sure as hell did. Shut up, I told myself. Stop while you’re still not grounded.
She didn’t say anything to this. Instead, she went into the kitchen and got a beer out of the refrigerator. She sat down at the table and took her quilted cigarette bag out of her purse.
Paranoia kept me talking. Her silence spooked me. “Is he feeling better?” I asked, sitting down across from her. Suddenly, I had a wine headache and my eyeballs felt like fried grapes. Just like that, the fun part of the drunk was gone.
“You’re sweating like a pig.” She ran a finger across my forehead, examined it in the overhead light, and then wiped it on my shirt.
“It’s hot in here. We need to get the window unit fixed.”
“Not as hot as all that. Why don’t you go take a cool shower?”
“Are you working in the morning?”
“No, thank God, Velma’s taking my shift. I’m exhausted.” So was the smile Mom gave me. “I might just sleep till noon.”
“What did Hayes say?”
“He’s still going through a rough patch.” She gave the wall above my head an empty look. Her eyes went dull.
“You ain’t going to help him again, are you? You promised you wouldn’t.”
“I didn’t promise shit.” Her eyes met mine. “This ain’t none of your concern, Lynn.”
“That means you are helping him.”
She said nothing, but her eyes went from dull to full-on glare.
“I knew it.” I tried to keep the sob out of my voice because I could feel it creeping in and clamping down on the muscles in my throat. “Mom, I wish you’d let loose of him. He’s going to get you arrested or worse.”
She squeezed the tip of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.
“Mom?”
“I told him he should run away.” She lowered her head and picked at the label on her beer. I sat very still and watched her pick. Outside, crickets argued and shouted and told each other scratchy-scratchy lies. Inside, my mom’s nails went click, click, click as she tore away the silver paper. “He said no. The dumb bunny is too scared to leave and too stupid to be scared to stay. He thinks he can handle it. I tried to tell him that if he stays …” Her voice trailed off and she looked too tired to explain what she tried to tell him. This wasn’t the answer I’d hoped to hear, but at least Hayes wasn’t here at the house anymore. And if he wasn’t here, maybe the creeps wouldn’t come here looking for him anymore.
“But you’re not going to help him again, right?” I said, trying to catch her eye. “Right?”
Mom let out a sigh, blowing her bangs out of her eyes, and pushed herself away from the table. “If you’re not going to take a shower, I will.”
When I didn’t say anything, she got up and went back to her room. I drank the rest of her beer. After a couple of minutes, the shower started running. I sat at the kitchen table and stared at the ashtray, wondering what I’d do if all this went wrong, how I’d find my dad if it came to that.