Friday night. Three whole days since Kyle caught me alone in the trailer, and he hadn’t been around since. Maybe Mom got wise to him. Maybe she told him where he could stick it.
We were having dinner, takeout pizza in front of the TV, watching Friends, and Mom was laughing out loud at the way Monica was bouncing off the furniture in a fat suit. Normally, Kyle would come around on a Friday. It was weird that she didn’t mention him, so when a commercial came on I asked her if something was up.
‘Up?’ Mom asked. She sounded normal, relaxed. She bit into her piece of pizza, wiped some sauce from her chin. ‘What do you mean, up?’
‘I mean, did you guys break up or something?’
‘No, he’s just busy is all. He’s starting some deal with these guys from Kenosha.’
I didn’t say any more. I let the big sale announcement for Menard’s Lumber Warehouse take up the silence. If Mom didn’t want to talk about it, then that was OK.
Only she did want to talk.
‘You know, like a business.’ Mom’s voice sounded a little higher than normal. ‘A factory. Making stuff. OK?’
I wanted to ask her what kind of stuff, but I knew how she’d take it. Turned out, my not asking made her take it the same way. After a few seconds she picked up the remote and turned down the sound.
‘It’s all on the up-and-up, Etta. A business opportunity. Car parts or something.’
I kept my mouth shut. Car parts, right.
‘Can’t you give the guy a break?’ she screeched.
‘What are you talking about, Mom? I didn’t say anything!’
She threw down her pizza and folded her arms. ‘You didn’t need to. I can tell what you’re thinking.’
‘That’s crazy, Mom.’
‘No, it ain’t.’
‘Yes it is.’
She was acting like a five-year-old, so she must have known something was wrong – with that business, with me. When the show came back on she turned the sound up so loud the laugh track hurt my ears. I should have taken the remote off her and made her listen, for a change. I should’ve told her about Kyle calling me a slut. I should have tried squeezing her arm till it bruised, seen how she liked it. I should’ve told her what I heard him say on the phone to some guy named Charlie, that stupid gangster stuff about ‘lessons’.
But she wouldn’t even look at me, let alone talk. She stared at the TV like her eyes had got stuck in that position and wouldn’t ever move.
‘OK,’ I said, sarcastically. ‘Sorry I even asked.’ I made a big show of stomping out of the trailer and letting the door slam behind me. It felt good, hearing the metal steps shudder and shake, made me feel like I was a normal everyday teenager, one with normal, everyday problems and a normal, everyday mom.
I ran down the bike trail, headed into Welmer. It was like being the last survivor in one of those movies about the end of the world. The houses were all dark, the streets empty. When I got to town I walked right in the middle of the road, just like in the movies. There was nobody to stop me. No one to even see.
Then a car came up the road, swerving back and forth, catching me in its headlights, forcing me to skip onto the sidewalk. It drove past, slowed down so the boys inside could lean over for a quick gawk before speeding up and skidding around the next left turn.
I turned right on Main Street, walked past a boarded-up store and a tavern with no lights on. I took another right at the next corner – not that I cared what direction I was going in. I had nowhere to go. The houses on this street were small, with tiny toy-covered front lawns and open square porches. There were warm yellow lights on in some of them. I saw the wallpaper in a kid’s room. Disney Princesses, pink and pretty. I don’t know why that made me jealous. I hated Disney. I hated pink even more.
I slowed down, dragging my feet along the sidewalk, dipping the toes of my sneakers into the cracks in the pavement. I had to make a plan. I couldn’t just walk around in circles all night. I needed to think things through. What if I told Mom everything and she took Kyle’s side? What if she thought I was making it up? What if she had been telling everybody I was some kind of slut? Those questions kept going round and round in my head. Worse ones, too. What if she was in on something with him, something really bad this time – something dangerous or illegal, not just stupid?
The car full of boys turned back onto the street. They crossed the centre line, slowed down, pulled over onto the grass, nearly cutting off the sidewalk, blocking my way. It was nice car – new, metallic blue, just like Kyle’s.
‘Hey.’ The driver’s head bobbed out of the open window. Country music was blasting out of the speakers. Some deep-voiced hick was whining about trains. ‘You’re that chick from the trailer court.’ The boy was wearing a baseball cap that said, ‘Welmer Panthers. All-State Basketball Champs.’ He didn’t look too bad, a little shiny and pimply was all.
The guy in the passenger seat leaned over for a better look. He had a long, skinny face, and bleached blonde hair under a Minnesota Twins cap. His tiny eyes were glazed over, either drunk or high.
‘We seen you down by the football field that time,’ he mumbled. Both boys were messed up, but at least they were smiling. Maybe I should do what Mom said, give them a break.
‘We got beer,’ the driver said. The two boys in the back seat raised their Leinenkugel cans in a kind of salute. ‘Other shit too.’
‘And we got a place to do it.’ The driver revved the car engine for effect.
‘You wanna go there?’ More revving, louder this time. ‘It ain’t far.’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Christ Almighty,’ the front seat guy said. ‘Ain’t you stuck-up?’
‘I gotta go home,’ I said.
‘Think you’re too good for us or something?’ the driver asked.
‘Honest, guys, I just gotta go.’ I sounded like Mom, kissing some loser’s butt.
‘What you getting so high and mighty about, anyway? You’re the one living in the trailer park.’
The guys in the back seat laughed, choking on their beer until it spewed out of their mouths like foamy fountains. One of them chucked his empty can out of the window. It clattered on the sidewalk next to my feet.
‘Thanks for reminding me,’ I said, picking up the can and backing away from the car. ‘I might’ve gone to the wrong house if you hadn’t pointed that out.’
From inside the car, one of the boys shouted, ‘Smart-ass, ain’t ya?’
I scrunched up the can with my fingers. There was no point in wasting any more of my words.
‘Bitch!’ The car pulled away clumsily, no squealing tyres, no gravel dust. It was a let-down, really, but still they kept shouting. ‘Bitch. Whore.’ They called me the other name, too – the really nasty one.
I wound my arm back and let the can fly. It took off like a cannon ball, soaring through the air, catching the light, until it clunked straight onto the blacktop, short by a mile.
Ten minutes later and I was back at home. Mom had left the living room light on for me. She’d cleared away the pizza and put the box in the garbage. My uneaten pieces were on a plate on the counter, neatly wrapped in aluminium foil. There was a post-it note on the top.
Day off tomorrow. How about Duluth?
That made me smile. Maybe she wasn’t so bad.
I finished off my pizza and went to bed. For a long time I lay awake in the dark, thoughts niggling in my head. It was about those stupid boys in the car, something they had said.
Just after midnight, it came to me. It wasn’t what they had said or the names they had called me.
It was the car – same make as Kyle’s, same colour as Kyle’s.
I could see it now, pulling away. I’d been too angry and upset to notice it before. There were bumper stickers on the back, side by side – one Harley Davidson logo, one American flag.
Same as Kyle’s.