seem to you?” Mom asked Antonio.
“He’s okay,” Antonio answered, picking at his fingernails.
“Just okay?”
Antonio kept picking at his nails.
“Antonio?”
Antonio frowned. “I don’t know him. I can’t say anything about a guy I don’t know.”
“How about you, Laz? What do you think of Curtis?”
I looked at the table. “I d-don’t know him either.”
She folded her hands together as if she were praying and looked from Antonio to me. “Well, I hope that eventually he is more than okay for you boys, because Curtis and I have decided that we’re going to reconnect.”
Silence.
“What’s that m-mean?” I finally asked.
“Duh,” Antonio mocked.
“Antonio,” Mom snapped. She turned to me. “It means he’s going to move in, Laz.”
Antonio dropped his head. Five seconds went by. Ten. Fifteen. “Does he expect me to call him Dad?” Antonio said, breaking the silence.
“Do you want to?”
The answer was immediate. “No.”
“Then call him Curtis. Laz, you can call him that, too.”
I nodded.
“And you’ll be respectful. Both of you.”
I nodded.
“Antonio?”
“Whatever you say.”
“But where will he sleep?” I asked.
As soon as the words were out, I felt like a fool. Antonio laid his forehead on the table. Mom paused, and then answered. “He’s going to sleep with me, like a grown man does with a grown woman.”
I looked toward the mall and saw Curtis approaching. When he reached our table, he opened the bag he was holding. “I got us pretzels.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking one.
Mom also took one, but Antonio shook his head. “Not hungry.”
Curtis drove the Corolla back to Jet City, got into his pickup, and returned to his own place, wherever that was.
Back inside the trailer, I lay on my bed, listening to my mom through the wall, moving around. Soon Curtis Driver would be in her room, in her bed. They’d have sex sometimes, and I’d hear them. Just thinking about that made my whole body ache.