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A little X always smoothed things out. A little X made her feel like she was gliding, a breeze in her face. It put the world into a state of smooth, subtle motion, as if she were on the back of her father’s motorcycle, banking into a turn. She didn’t need to sleep when she was on Ecstasy, was too in love with the world to sleep. She would call her friends instead and tell them she loved them. She would stay up late and sketch tattoo designs to help her across the gap between girl next door and f*ck-you-dead stripper. She wanted to get a motorcycle engine above her breasts, let the boys know what a great ride she was, and never mind that at seventeen she was, pathetically, almost the last virgin in her class.

The little gin samplers were nothing. The gin was just something she kept on hand to swallow Ecstasy.

“Think what you want,” Vic said. “I don’t give a f*ck.”

“I suppose I should be grateful you’re at least using protection. You have a child out of wedlock, don’t expect me to help you. I won’t have anything to do with it. Or you.”

What Vic wanted to tell her was that that was a pretty good argument for getting pregnant as soon as possible, but what came out was “I didn’t sleep with him.”

“Now you’re lying. September fourth. I thought you slept over at Willa’s. In your diary it says—”

“You looked in my f*cking diary?”

“—you slept with Craig all night long for the first time ever. You think I don’t know what that means?”

What it meant was that they had slept together—with their clothes on, under a comforter, on Willa’s basement floor, with six other kids. But when she woke, he was spooned against her, one arm over her waist, breathing against the back of her neck, and she had thought, Please don’t wake up, and had for a few moments been so happy she could hardly stand it.

“Yeah. It means we screwed, Mom,” Vic said softly. “Because I was tired of sucking his cock. Nothing in it for me.”

What little color was left in her mother’s face drained out of it.

“I’m keeping your personal items locked up,” she said. “I don’t care if you are almost eighteen, you live under my roof, and you’ll live by my rules. If you can follow the new program, then in a few months . . .”

“Is that what you did when Dad disappointed you? Locked up your * for a few months to see if he’d get with the program?”

“Believe me, if I had a chastity belt somewhere in the house, I’d have you wearing it,” her mother said. “You dirty-mouthed little hooker.”

Vic laughed, a wild, agonized sound.

“What an ugly person you are inside,” she said, the most vicious thing she could think to say. “I’m out of here.”

“If you leave, you’ll find the door locked when you come back,” her mother said, but Vic wasn’t listening, was already on her way out the bedroom door.





Out in the Cold


SHE WALKED.

The rain was a fine sleet that soaked through her army-navy jacket and made her hair crunchy with ice.

Her father and his girlfriend lived in Durham, New Hampshire, and there was some way to get to them by using the MBTA—take the T to the North Station, then switch to Amtrak—but it was all a lot of money Vic didn’t have.

She went to the T station anyway and hung around for a while, because it was out of the rain. She tried to think who she could call for train fare. Then she thought f*ck it, she would just call her father and ask him to drive down and get her. She was honestly not sure why she hadn’t thought of it before.

She had only been to see him once in the last year, and it had gone badly. Vic got into a fight with the girlfriend and threw the remote control at her, which by some wild chance had given her a black eye. Her father sent her back that evening, wasn’t even interested in her side of the story. Vic had not talked to him since.

Chris McQueen answered on the second ring and said he’d accept the charges. He didn’t sound happy about it, though. His voice rasped. The last time she’d seen him, there had been a lot of silver in his hair that hadn’t been there a year ago. She had heard that men took younger lovers to stay young themselves. It wasn’t working.

“Well,” Vic said, and was suddenly struggling not to cry again. “Mom threw me out, just like she threw you out.”

That wasn’t how it happened, of course, but it felt like the right way to begin the conversation.

“Hey, Brat,” he said. “Where are you? You okay? Your mom called and told me you left.”

“I’m at this train station. I don’t have any money. Can you come get me, Dad?”

“I can call you a cab. Mom will pay the fare when you get home.”

“I can’t go home.”

“Vic. It would take me an hour to get there, and it’s midnight. I have work tomorrow at five A.M. I’d be in bed already, but instead I’ve been sittin’ by the phone worrying about you.”

Vic heard a voice in the background, her father’s girlfriend, Tiffany: “She’s not coming here, Chrissy!”

“You need to work this out with your mother now,” he said. “I can’t go choosing sides, Vic. You know that.”

“She is not coming here,” Tiffany said again, her voice strident, angry.