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It hit like wildfire, the news that Cal Robinson, small-time drug dealer and general scumbag, was dead. It spread through the media and filled the cycle for a full day and a half before moving to second tier. The proximity of my mother to Cal would maybe not have brought her into the news, but the timing of both of their deaths did. Suddenly, the news got a hold of the “suspicious” part of her dying. I sat glued to the television that first night, with Leslie on one side and Tommy across the room. Jay was, as the summer came to an end, still needed at the campground, even though Tommy was not. Mr. McGill had gone back to the firehouse, reminding me that the police may need to talk to me.
The timeline from months ago played out. On Sunday, Cal drove out of town and didn’t come back. Nobody realized he was gone, in a serious way, until the police found his car abandoned alongside 57 on Monday. I try to remember what day my mom had come to my room, but the week folds together into one long series of moments. Nobody really thought too much of Cal slipping off the radar because he had a network, and everybody just figured he’d gone somewhere else, lying low. Thursday night that week, after I had come home from work and found her, everybody assumed that he was really lying low—because, of course, if she hadn’t killed herself, then he had. At least that was the word on the street. Hadn’t he tried to knock off his last old lady? But now that timeline doesn’t work, because he was probably already dead, and not just dead, but shot-in-the-head dead. So he hadn’t killed my mother.
What the hell was that water bottle doing there?
I have a headache, trying to make it work, trying to make it just a suicide for my mother, just an accidental overdose. I could make it all work except that damn water bottle. What the hell? I stay up after the late news, sitting out on the back deck, watching the stars. I want to talk to Warren but have left two messages with his brother already, and he hasn’t called back. His brother just says he hasn’t heard from him. “He’s out.” It’s not his night for the Vendor Tender, so I wonder where he has gone. I wonder who he is with.
I push him out of my mind, the acid in my stomach just roiling like clouds on a stormy night. Somebody killed Cal, clearly, and no matter how much I don’t want to think it, somebody killed my mom, maybe? Somebody other than Cal killed my mom? It makes me angry. Angry. Nobody had the right to take her from me. Especially when she was getting it right. It was going to be different. She was going to be better. She had a sponsor, and that was a first, that made her serious.
The next week goes by in the slowest drag I’ve ever experienced. Tommy and Jay go back to school, and with them goes Leslie to get started with putting together the yearbook staff. I work at Billups Hardware as much as they will let me, but I still find myself alone a lot more than I want to be. I master driving my car, while I try not to call Warren for the thousandth time. I vow a hundred times a day that I won’t even speak to him when he shows up again. We were supposed to be something. He was supposed to love me. He told me he loved me and then he just dropped off like he always does. What an ass. I can’t believe I fell for him. Hard. I fell for him hard. Every time the door opens at Billups, I expect it to be him, and every time it isn’t, my heart breaks a little bit, and I don’t think there is much of it left to break.
I get back to Leslie’s after the longest day of my life and guess who is waiting in his car across the street? Warren, all slunk down low in his seat. I stop at his window and bang it. He jerks and jumps upright, his hair mussed, dark circles ringing his eyes. He opens the window because I’m standing at the door, blocking it from opening. “What the hell, asshole?” I snarl.
“What?” he asks, his brows drawing together.
“You. That’s what.” I step back so he can get out of his car, and I turn, walking away from him.
“What did I do?” he asks, as if he seriously doesn’t know.
“Go to hell.” I storm away, but he catches up, grabbing my wrist, drawing me back. I hiss, “Where have you been?”
“I’ve been in St Louis. You know that.”
“No. I don’t know that. You didn’t tell me that.” I don’t want to hear his excuses.
“Yes. We were cutting the demo,” he says, looking so innocent, so baffled at my anger.
“And what? There are no phones in St. Louis now?” I did know they were going to cut a demo, but was that now? Was that planned, and I knew and then I forgot?
“I’ve been in the studio for two weeks.” A spark of anger ignites in his eyes.
“They found Cal,” I say, because this is really why I’m angry. That he hasn’t be around so I can talk to him about it.
“What? When?” he asks, the spark shifting from irritation and self- defense to something akin to excitement.
“The day you left.” Which reminds me that he had just packed up and left, without even telling me he was going to be gone, just poof. “You . . . well, you were just gone.” I say, remembering how angry I am.
“Al. We talked about me going. You knew I was going. You knew I wasn’t going to be in touch,” he says, sounding very rational, very calm. Too calm.
“No, I didn’t. I thought you . . . that you left me,” I say, and I feel my lower lip push out and draw it back.
“No, babe. I told you I was leaving for the demo. I swear I did.” I almost believe him, then he draws his finger along my cheek and I don’t pull away. His mouth finds mine and all the anger and hurt begins to drain away. “I want you to come back with me,” he says, against my lips. “Let’s get out of this town and start over somewhere else.”
I sigh, dropping my head onto his chest. “Where?” I ask, not really believing that I can leave, not really believing that there is any other place but Charleston, Illinois.
“St. Louis. Baby, I found us a place. It’s nothing fancy, but it can be ours.”
“Really?” All the anger leaks out of me. I reach up and kiss him, not caring that we are standing in front of Leslie’s house, not caring that we are standing in the middle of the street.
“Yes. I only want you,” he says. He wraps his arms around my waist and lifts me off of my feet. “I hated these last two weeks. I hated being away from you.” He’s so smooth. He says all of the right things, and I feel myself melting into him, buying it. Believing him because I am really just too scared to think about the rest of my life without him. I can’t think of the rest of my life without someone else steering the ship. I need somebody who can steer the ship. “Say you’ll move with me. Let’s get out of this shitty town.”
“I thought you left me,” I whisper.
He cups my face, holding my chin in his hand, looking at me with those intense, storm-cloud-blue eyes and my knees go weak. “I will never leave you.” Serious, earnest, smooth.
He is lying.
He may not know it, but I do. I am not a person that is “enough.” I am not a person you stand by. I am just like my mother. I am the person you leave behind when something better comes along.