14.

AFTER THE INVESTIGATION, everything in the house on Columbia Street changed. Just Jack never did get thrown in the Pen for shooting the chef lady, but he didn’t go back to work at the piggery either. He didn’t go to work anywhere. Mamma Shirley hardly bothered to talk to him at all. When she did, she’d say that he was a lazy, no-good bum. She had to say this to him at dinner, because he didn’t get up with everyone for breakfast anymore. He stayed in bed till Mamma Shirley was gone, and he was still in his housecoat and track pants, with his hair all standing up all over and his chest fur sticking out, when they all got home from school.

Sometimes, after dinner, Just Jack would go out for the night and Mamma Shirley would put on her Elvis record and play it so loud the windows rattled. Some nights Mamma Shirley stayed in and watched Happy Days with Emma and Lester on the couch, and some nights she packed up her pink suitcase and wheeled it around the subdivision, to sell Avon makeup to all the neighbour ladies. Mamma Shirley said she had to keep an eye on her inventory because Nina had slippery fingers, so when she wasn’t using it, she kept the suitcase locked in a trunk in the garage.

Nina said that Avon was crap for raisin-faced old ladies. Nina didn’t have a lot of makeup, but she said that she didn’t give a rat’s ass, ’cause she had good skin, and only needed lip-gloss, eyeliner and mascara. In the mornings, and after dinner, she put it on fresh, making her lips look slick and gooey, and her eyes caved in and sneaky, like a raccoon.

After a few months like that, things changed. Emma starting noticing that as soon as Mamma Shirley left to go sell Avon, Just Jack and Nina would go out together in the car without saying goodbye. One night, they were still out when Mamma Shirley got home, and didn’t come back until long after everyone went to bed. The next morning, Mamma Shirley paced in the kitchen, stirring her coffee like she was mad at it, until Nina got up and came down for breakfast.

“Hey!” Mamma Shirley said as soon as Nina walked into the kitchen. “Where were you last night?”

“None of your damn business,” Nina shot back, her eyes still puffy and smudged with black eyeliner from the night before. She pushed past Mamma Shirley, and put a slice of bread in the toaster.

“Yes it is my business!” Mamma Shirley yelled, popping the bread back up, and standing in front of the toaster, so Nina couldn’t pop it back down.

“Okay, Jesus,” Nina said. “If you must know, Just Jack took me out for driving lessons.”

“Driving lessons?” Mamma Shirley said, blinking like there was something in her eyes. “But you’re too young. You won’t even be able to get a learner’s permit for at least another year.”

Nina laughed. Not a happy laugh, but the one that meant that she thought everyone was an idiot, except for her. Then she left the kitchen, shouting behind her, “Keep your fucking toast.” Mamma Shirley gave her a dirty look as she left the room, and was about to yell something after her, when Just Jack came in. Mamma Shirley started talking to him instead, telling him that he shouldn’t be taking Nina out in the car, because she was too young, and it was illegal.

“That is if this whole driving lessons story is true, which I’m really not sure about at all,” she said, pouring Just Jack a cup of coffee like she always did in the morning, though this time, she held on to his cup – like it was a hostage.

Just Jack rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and rubbed his head. “What the hell else do you think we were doing?” he asked. And then said, “Do you think I could just have my coffee now, Shirley? For God’s sakes, I try to help the girl, do a good deed, and all I get is hassled.”

Mamma Shirley looked down into the coffee cup. She looked like she was going to get mad again for a minute, then she looked like she was going to cry. But instead, she said, “Sorry Jack. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Just Jack took the coffee cup out of her hand, and Mamma Shirley left the kitchen to go get ready for work. Emma went upstairs too after that, to get ready for school. Nina was in their room, looking at herself in the mirror, rubbing her makeup off with cotton-balls and baby oil.

“You should be nicer to Mamma Shirley,” Emma said, before she could stop herself. “Even though she pretends to be happy, she’s really not, and when you’re mean to her it makes her cry when she’s alone in the bathroom.”

Nina wheeled around and threw her hairbrush in Emma’s direction.

“Can you shut your trap for one second?” She yelled after it.

The brush flew by Emma’s head, and left a dent in the wall.

After that, Emma didn’t say anything when she saw something bad happening. Instead, she became a frozen statue, invisible, silent, dead. Possum.

Jamie Francis hardly ever spoke to anyone. When he was home, he stayed in his room practising his guitar or listening to records. He threw David Cassidy away and said John Denver was for kids. He had posters of KISS in their scary makeup and platform shoes, and one of Angie Dickinson in her Police Woman uniform. He stopped letting Mamma Shirley cut his hair, so it was long and hanging down in his eyes. He wore a blue bandana all the time to hide the pimples on his forehead. He told Emma he wore it so he could look like Jimi Hendrix and Robert Plant. He said Zeppelin was “heavy,” and Hendrix was “off the hook.” Emma wondered what hook, but didn’t ask. “Nobody ever messes with those guys, not even that Freddie Mercury from Queen. And he wears makeup and everything,” Jamie Francis told Emma once when he was in a good mood and decided to let her in his room. “Francis is only for a girl when it’s a first name,” he said. “And besides, you spell it differently for girls.”

Even Lester was different that year. That was because of the skunk they saw on the way to school one day.

“Oh Jesus,” Mamma Shirley said when she saw it, all mashed up with its guts spilling out like hamburger on the side of the road.

“What happened to it?” Lester asked, walking over to get a better look. There were flies on the hamburger and a bad rotten smell all around it.

“The poor thing must have been in an accident. Likely a car just smacked into it and drove right off. Sheesh. The least they could have done was call the city and get someone to clean it up. It looks like it’s been here all weekend.”

“A hit and run?” Lester asked, his eyes wide. “The skunk was in a hit and run?”

“Yes, Lester, Jesus, come on now. It stinks,” Mamma Shirley said, holding her nose.

Lester didn’t move. He stared at the heap of skunk guts till Emma came and pulled him away by the arm.

“Not all car accidents are like that though, Lester,” Emma told him.

Lester didn’t seem to hear Emma, but he let her lead him back to the sidewalk anyway.

After that, Lester stopped dressing up in his bow tie and shiny shoes, stopped playing truck driver with the garden spade, and never talked to anyone at Foster’s house about his parents coming back to get him again. At school it was a different story though. At school, Lester started telling everyone that Emma was his real sister, and that their parents were away on parents’ day, doing big important jobs. Once he said that their dad was an astronaut, and their mom worked in a newsroom like Mary Tyler Moore. Another time he said that their parents were big stars in Hollywood and were going to have their own TV show soon, just like Sonny & Cher.

Emma didn’t call Lester out, or say he was a liar right in front of everyone, but if any of the other kids asked her afterwards if it was true, Emma would whisper, “No. Lester’s mixed-up. We don’t have the same parents. His parents are dead, but he doesn’t like to talk about it. Hit and run.” As for Emma’s parents, she didn’t have much to say on that because she didn’t know where they were. Mamma Shirley said, “Beats me,” and that nobody in the office at the place where she got Emma knew either. Emma wondered sometimes if Lester was right, and maybe her parents were still alive doing something super cool out there somewhere in the world. Emma thought she remembered her mom though, and didn’t think that she was really Cher, or anybody else on TV, just a normal lady. As for her dad, Emma had no idea who or where he was. She had a feeling though, that he was the reason she was so brown and different from everyone. Emma wished whoever her dad was, that he was someone else instead. Someone more like a normal person.