“Roach, we have a problem. Call me as soon as you get this.” I left about the tenth message on Roach’s voicemail, with little real hope she’d get back to me. Brother Preston had officially trumped me in the Roach’s attention department.
I watched Monty feed Mona for the second time in thirty minutes.
“Are you starving, my dear girl?” he said, tipping a heavy dog food bag out over her dish which quickly overflowed, kibbles and bits spilling onto the floor. The beagle descended upon the offerings, tail wagging as she gulped her way to yet another chin.
No wonder her ribs had expanded near the breaking point. Who knew how many meals Monty fed her each day? Or when ten bowls wouldn’t be enough and she’d start craving human flesh. I added one more thing to my watching-out-for-Monty list. As soon as he turned to put the bag back in the pantry, I scooped up the dish and placed it on top of the fridge.
I did a little dance, avoiding Mona’s snapping jaws. My stomach growled back at her. I opened the fridge. Inside were four half-empty cans of Diet Coke (Monty’s favorite) and a pot full of spaghetti sauce that hadn’t been edible on the first day, let alone the sixth. A few weeks of living with Monty had shown me where my mother’s aversion to junk food came from. After a while, processed food left you craving something grown on trees. Like an apple. Or a tomato. Not that tomatoes grew on trees, but you get what I mean.
“Monty,” I called out. “We need food.”
“Got it covered, supper’s on the way,” Monty said, patting the thick phone book on the counter. “Tomorrow we’ll take the bus to the wholesale place.”
“The bus?”
Monty scratched Mona’s head, oblivious to the snarls she gave whenever she glanced in my direction. “My car’s on the fritz and I won’t waste good money on cabs. We got two feet, don’t we?”
The doorbell rang. In a mom-like move, Monty pulled out a bill from his wallet, folded it around his finger and offered it to me. I sighed, snatched the moolah and went to door.
Mr. Pizza looked at me, squinted, took a step back and examined the outside of Monty’s step.
“What the hell you doing here, kid?”
We made the exchange, cash for grub. “I live here now.” I balanced the two-liter bottle of cola on top of the pizza box.
Behind me, Monty shuffled across the hall into the kitchen, calling, “Get on in here with those pies, I’ve worked up an appetite.”
Mr. Pizza’s baggy eyes widened. “You’re with that old man?” He shook his head sadly. “I will never offer advice again. Kid, you got me all wrong. Go back home, stay in school.”
“With him? You mean like, with him?” I made a face. “That’s sick. You’re the one who’s got it wrong…” But he just hightailed it to his car and squealed away from the curb.
I entered the kitchen, tripping over one of Mona’s bones and yelled bloody murder. My arms dipped, sending the pop rolling off the pizza boxes right into Monty’s hands before it could crash to the floor.
“Nice save,” I said, putting the boxes on the kitchen table.
Monty grunted. “Everyone’s in such a hurry,” he said. “That’s why I gave up driving, too many yahoos out there on a deadline.”
“You gave up driving?” I selected a piece with the appropriate arrangement of toppings. “I thought you said the car was on the fritz.”
“Needs some damnfangled computer looked at. Why the hell does a car need a computer, that’s what I want to know? Does a car have to balance its checkbook? Type up family recipes? No.” He also felt the need to talk with his mouth full. “A car has to get from point A to point B. They make everything so complicated. A man can’t even fix his own wheels anymore. No wonder you kids are a generation of morons – they want to keep you stupid so they can take your money.”
I ate in silence, letting him have that moment, because I knew, deep down, that Monty was scared to get behind the wheel. Scared he’d hurt someone.
I thought it was a good thing, that kind of fear. So I played along. After we ate, I called Roach one last time.
“If you don’t call me back in five minutes, I’m going to the mall and doing the first guy who moderately meets my standards.”
Three minutes later, Roach got back to me. Good thing, because I needed to pick her brain about the Ty situation and spill my guts about how I think I was starting to feel about Eric.
Also, I needed her wheels.