“You hungry?” Matt asked as we pulled away from Trevor’s house. “That cake smell made me pretty hungry.”
“Umm . . .”
“I am,” Matt said. “I want a greasy cheeseburger, or something.”
“I thought you were maybe a little hungover?” I said.
“Not enough not to eat. And they say fatty food helps. After that, maybe we can go try to find Sullivan.”
Wharton was at least a half hour away, south of Colesbury. And I wasn’t sure I was up for stalking a big-time drug dealer today.
“I don’t think I have time to go to Wharton,” I said. “I have a ton of homework to catch up on. And no, I’m not that hungry. But you should stop if you want something.”
Matt pulled over to the first fast-food place he saw, and after we ordered, we drove around for a while, eventually finding a park with his GPS. He wanted to stop and eat somewhere outside.
The place we found was empty except for one lady pushing a toddler on a swing. There were no picnic tables, so we sat on a bench overlooking the playground.
Matt handed me the fries I’d ordered, then unwrapped one of his two enormous bacon cheeseburgers.
“Do you think it’s weird that Andrea was hanging out with Jimmy at his cousin’s place?” I asked. “I mean, obviously she wasn’t just buying a little pot from him.”
“It’s not so weird,” Matt said. “I did know they were hanging out, even if she didn’t always say where. But their relationship in general—that started with Jimmy’s mom. Did I tell you that?”
I shook my head.
“Jimmy’s mom was doing work for Andrea’s parents. You know she sometimes cleans houses?”
“I guess I’d heard that, yeah.”
“Well, Andrea’s folks weren’t really the type who would usually hire a housecleaner. But her dad’s had all of these issues with his knee replacement. In and out of work, and couldn’t really help Andrea’s mom much around the house. So they hired Jimmy’s mom. First just to clean, but they liked her a lot, so sometimes to watch Andrea’s little sister, Bella, too. So she was around Andrea’s house pretty often, and Andrea said she liked her a lot. They talked about their favorite TV shows, I guess, and Jimmy’s mom was really good with Andrea’s little sister. So, when Jimmy came around a couple of times to see his mom, I guess he’d go try to see her at Andrea’s house sometimes. You know, to avoid running into his mom’s crazy boyfriend at her own house.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“So she got to know Jimmy that way. I think at first she talked to him just to be polite to his mom, but eventually it turned into something else. She thought he was funny. That was usually what she’d say about him, when she talked about him.”
“Do you think they were ever . . . more than friends?”
Matt lowered his hamburger and stared at the jungle gym in front of us. “No.”
“Why do you say no? You seem to think he hurt her in some way. Isn’t that more possible if they were into each other?”
His face darkened. “I just don’t think she’d ever be with a guy like that.”
“A guy like what? What was Jimmy? Not good enough for her?” Maybe what made him so sure was that there was more between himself and Andrea than he was willing to admit. Just like Cecilia had implied. On the other hand, I had no idea why I was sticking up for Jimmy. The guy he’d grown up to be was not the kid who’d once played at our house. Maybe I wished I was wrong about that.
“I didn’t say that,” Matt said. I could tell by his tone that he mistook my awkward silence for anger. “I just don’t think she would’ve been into him, is all.”
“Does Jimmy’s mom still work for Andrea’s family?” I asked.
It seemed to me that would be pretty awkward.
“No,” Matt said. “See, some of Mrs. Quinley’s jewelry supposedly went missing. They asked Jimmy’s mom about it, and I guess it caused a lot of tension.”
“Did Andrea think that Jimmy’s mom did it?”
Matt shrugged. “I remember her saying that she didn’t want to think so, but couldn’t think of any other explanation. I think that they didn’t fire her, actually. She got upset and quit.”
“Was Andrea sad about that?” I asked.
“Yeah. I think she was sad for Jimmy’s mom. It’s hard to say. It was around that time when she was weird about all sorts of things. Around when she quit basketball.”
“Oh,” I said.
We were quiet for a little while. Matt finished his hamburgers. I ate a fry or two and tried not to listen to all of his chewing and smacking. Maybe I’d liked him better with an innocent orange in his hands. After the burgers were gone and the wrappers crumpled into our to-go bag, Matt turned his attention back to me.
“Why do you live with your grandmother?” he asked.
I was so startled by the question that I sat for a minute or two without making a sound. My fatigued fry drooped in my hand.
“It’s a long story, Matt,” I said finally.
It was a story I told no one but Carson, in fact. Telling it felt disloyal. Not to my mom so much as G. Clara. The story showed how screwed up my mom was—which was fair, because she was. But it also felt like it implicated G. Clara somehow, to have such a screwed-up daughter. And that part of it had never felt fair.
“I don’t have anywhere to be,” he prodded.
I decided it was okay to half tell it, since it had been so long since anyone else had asked.
“Well,” I took a breath. “My mother got pregnant with Noah when she was very young. Her first year of college. And then she married my father. And then they had me a couple of years later. But when I was little, she had kind of a breakdown. Drinking, other stuff. She and my dad divorced. G. Clara says they were never a good match, anyway. They were both young, it wasn’t anyone’s fault . . . That’s how she put it.”
I hesitated. How much was I willing to divulge about how I would put it? I decided to keep it short and stick to the facts.
“Anyway, it started with us just staying there a lot while my mom worked and went back to school. She worked in the daytime and went to school at night. We never saw her. It was really like G. Clara was our mom. So when my mom graduated, she got a job in Virginia.”
“Uh-huh,” Matt said vaguely, waiting for more.
“Well, she didn’t last long. But that’s another story. Then she suggested we all go out there with her, but I was in second grade by then, and Noah was in fourth. We had friends here, and it was the middle of the school year, and we didn’t want to leave G. Clara.” My face felt hot. “I feel like the house was nicer then,” I added quickly. “But probably it was just that I was a little kid and didn’t care. It was home.”
“You talk about your house like it’s a dungeon. It’s not so bad.”
I decided not to tell him about the bathroom mushrooms. Even Carson didn’t know about those. “Anyway. My mom didn’t have a plan for school for us. The public schools in the district where she’d be living weren’t great—not as good as Colesbury, anyway. And G. Clara convinced her that she should let us stay with her until the end of the school year, and make a plan for that, and then we’d talk about it that summer.”
“Which didn’t happen, obviously.”
I bit my lip. “Obviously.”
“What did happen?”
I sighed. “The story doesn’t get any more interesting, Matt. The gist is that G. Clara wanted us to stay with her, and my mother didn’t find it hugely difficult to leave us, ultimately.”
Matt nodded. He looked away. “Do you see her?” he asked quietly.
“Holidays and summers when she can afford a ticket here, or is up for the drive. But that almost never happens. She’s had this one boyfriend for years. They live in Georgia now. He takes care of her when she runs into screwups.”
“Are you mad at her?”
I thought about this for a long time. “I don’t know. I guess I would be more, if I didn’t have G. Clara. She’s always made us feel taken care of. Anyway, she’s always telling us that my mother’s brain doesn’t work like other people’s. That she would love to get her shit together, but there’s something off about her chemistry that prevents her from being able to. ‘She loves you kids,’ she’s always saying. ‘She really does.’”
Matt turned to me. “Is she an alcoholic?”
“G. Clara has never put it that way.”
“But that’s what it sounds like she’s trying to say.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Sometimes I think Payson is going to be an alcoholic,” Matt offered. “Sometimes I think he already is.”
Or maybe he’s just a jerk, I thought. I wasn’t sure how Payson was relevant to this conversation, but it was a relief. I was glad enough to stop talking about my mom.
“Are you worried about him?” I asked.
Matt’s dark eyes appeared to be studying me in a way I didn’t quite understand. “I’m worried about all of us, sometimes.”
I didn’t ask for an explanation. I was pretty sure I knew what he meant. I worried about all the people around me, about everyone close—sometimes.
Matt pushed an inch closer to me. His dark eyes were beautiful, but his hamburger breath was gross. Suddenly, his eyes were closed and his lips were in my face. Before I could think about it, I’d turned my head, so his lips mashed my ear.
“Oh!” I said, smacking my arm. “There was a bug on me.”
Matt straightened up, looking perplexed. He couldn’t tell if I’d dodged him purposefully or cluelessly. I wasn’t sure myself.
“I guess we should head home,” he said.