I'll Stop the World (11)

The way she tells it, the pregnancy was just an excuse. They were convinced that if my grandmother had never gotten pregnant with my mom, then their son wouldn’t have married her, and he would still be alive. They’d only taken Mom in out of guilt, and jumped at the chance to kick her out.

Anyway, not long after that, Stan showed up, saying he’d heard about what had happened through the family grapevine. While he couldn’t mend things with the rest of the family, he offered to help out however he could. He even bought this house for her so we could all stay together, one big happy dysfunctional family.

Mom was so grateful that, when I was born, she named me after him. Justin Stanley Warren.

I know this makes Stan sound like some kind of saint, but he’s not. He’s grumpy and mean and has probably never had a single moment of fun in his entire existence. He’s always there for Mom, making excuses for her every time she gets fired and picking her up at three in the morning when she’s too wasted to drive home, but can’t be bothered to care about my life, unless it’s to tell me what a screwup I am or how I’m being unfair for expecting her to act like an actual adult.

Stan finishes examining Alyssa’s drawing—he proclaims it incredible, a word that apparently applies only to pictures of me, but not actually me me—then shuffles toward me. He looks over my shoulder at my shopping list, his nasty old-man breath brushing my cheek. “Oreos.”

I lean away. “Oreos are expensive, Stan.” I’m arguing mostly because I’m allergic to agreeing with Stan on anything. Oreos are delicious.

“Here,” Stan says, digging a crumpled twenty out of his pocket and handing it over.

“Ew,” I say, wrinkling my nose at the softened bill. “Where’d this come from, your mattress?” Stan deals almost entirely in cash. When I asked him why he doesn’t just get a credit card—or even a debit card—like a normal person, he gave me a long-winded speech about our society’s overreliance on technology, which I tuned out after about fifteen seconds.

He shrugs. “If you don’t want it, give it back,” he says, holding out his hand.

“Not if you want your Oreos,” I say, shoving the bill into my pocket. It may be a gross bill, but money is money. And maybe if I get him his stupid cookies, he’ll forget to ask for the change.

“You talk to your mom today?” Stan asks me, getting himself a glass of water from the sink before lowering himself slowly into a chair at the table. He’s moving more stiffly than usual. His bad knee must be acting up. Some injury from when he was a teenager that left him with a gnarly scar that looks like a smiley face. Probably means it’s going to rain.

I shake my head. “Why? You think she got fired again?”

Stan sighs. “You know you’re allowed to text your mother just because she’s your mother, right, Justin?”

“I could lick the crust off all the dirty dishes in the sink just because it’s food. Doesn’t make it appealing.”

“Do you have to act like such a brat all the time?”

“Nope, I do it special just for you, Stan.”

Alyssa elbows me as she walks by, mouthing stop it when I look up from my list to meet her eyes. I roll my eyes, but resist the urge to keep messing with Stan. For now.

He just makes it so easy.

She sits across from him at the table and folds her hands. “You need anything else from the store? We’re getting ready to run out.”

“That’s sweet of you, dear, but I think I’m good,” Stan says, patting her arm.

Alyssa smiles, placing her hand over his and giving it a brief squeeze. I consider making gagging noises but decide against it, since I don’t want to piss off Alyssa. Even if her affection for Stan is super gross. “Well, you just let us know if you think of anything, okay?”

“Will do.”

For the life of me, I cannot understand why she likes him. He spends about 80 percent of his time in the basement with his weird old-man hobbies that he keeps trying to rope me into, 20 percent of his time parked in a recliner watching The Young and the Restless, and zero percent being even slightly normal or cool. Once I asked her what she saw in him, and she said he was “cute,” and I had to resist the urge to vomit.

“I’m done,” I announce, pocketing the Post-it and picking the keys back up. “You ready?”

Alyssa nods, refilling Stan’s glass of water and giving him a little wave before joining me at the door.

Stan and I don’t bother saying goodbye to each other. We never do.

Back in my Mustang—purchased off Craigslist last summer for $1,500, which was probably too much considering its mismatched paint job, rattly transmission, and slightly sour smell—I steer toward the Dollar Tree, where I can probably get most of the stuff on my list with my employee discount. We’re nearly there when Alyssa gasps, staring at her phone. “Oh my god.”

“What happened?”

“They found a body in the river.”

“Who found a body in what river?”

“Some guy walking his dog out near Wilson Bridge, and the Stone.” I glance over and see her switching between various social media apps, where kids from school are already filming videos and snapping selfies from the bridge. From the animated way they’re talking to their cameras, I assume there are already a few dozen dead-body theories being crafted into hashtags.