All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(40)

“I hit one-oh-five in the quarter-mile. Think she’d do one-forty out on the flats.”

Sandy came back with the beers, already open. Kellen took his and drank.

“We should take it out,” Liam said.

“Yeah, there’s some money to be made. Plenty of guys with newer cars think they can take an old beast like this.”

I touched Kellen’s leg and he shifted the beer to his other hand. When he lowered his hand to his side, I slipped mine into it.

“You gotta stay outta trouble, Kellen. I got work for you to do. Can’t be having the pigs hassling you on bullshit charges,” Liam said.

“No, you’re right.”

For a few minutes, they were quiet, drinking their beers.

“Well,” Kellen said. “It’s late. I guess I better take Wavy on up to bed.”

“Stay outta trouble.”

“I will.”

I scooted back in the car and Kellen got behind the wheel, with the beer bottle between his legs. At the farmhouse, he didn’t turn the engine off, and he was quiet, worrying. I turned around in the seat, put my arm around his neck and laid my head on his shoulder. He sighed.

After a few minutes, he put his arm around me and kissed my hair again.

“I had fun,” I said.

He laughed.

“You got punched and arrested, and you had fun?”

I nodded, careful not to bump my head against his jaw. He squeezed me tight, almost as tight as I needed. Tight enough to let me know he wasn’t too afraid of Liam. Tight enough to tell me I was important to him. A little tighter and I would know I was more important than anything else. That was what I wanted.





7

WAVY

March 1982

When Donal and I came home from school, a shining red Corvette was parked in the driveway. Uncle Sean was standing in the front room, smiling and running his hands through his hair. Blond, like Liam’s. Mama was dressed and pretty and smiling back at him.

“Do you remember your uncle, baby?” she said.

I remembered him. He came to stay with us after Liam got arrested. Before Mama got arrested. Uncle Sean was loud, like Liam, and sneaky. He had tricks to make you smile when you didn’t want to.

To warn Donal to be careful, I pinched him, but he said, “Ow, Wavy, don’t,” and went right to Uncle Sean. Laughing with his mouth open, he let Uncle Sean roll him around on the rug and tickle him. Dangerous.

Then Liam came, and he and Uncle Sean slapped each other on the back. Loud thumping slaps that made my shoulders tight. I didn’t want to stay there, but I didn’t want to leave Donal alone with them. He was still little.

Uncle Sean tried to lift Donal up the same way Kellen did and said, “God, he’s big! Are you serious he’s only six?”

“He turned six back in January,” Mama said.

“I thought he was born in March.”

“January,” Mama said. “And he’s big for his age.”

Liam picked Donal up, too, and said, “He’s gonna be a giant.”

“Like Kellen!” Donal shouted. Mama frowned when he said that, but I hoped he was right.

“Let’s have dinner,” she said.

She took down Grandma’s cookbook and flipped through it. Nothing belongs to you. It didn’t matter that Grandma gave the cookbook to me. All Mama had to do was hold it in her hands and it was hers.

“Oh, please, the good meatloaf,” Sean said.

“Yeah, baby,” Liam said.

Donal, too: “Meatloaf!”

“Alright, alright!” It made Mama smile, everyone asking her to feed them.

Uncle Sean went to buy groceries with the list Mama wrote, and he said, “You wanna come with me, Don? Ride in the Corvette?”

I wanted to hug Donal before he left, because what if Uncle Sean didn’t bring him back? But he ran out to the car before I could.

They came back laughing and made a mess. Hamburger blood dripped off the counter onto the floor, and Mama and Liam snorted meth off the kitchen table, where it left dust under the metal edge that was so hard to keep clean.

They made so much noise. A broken plate, Liam laughing, Donal squealing. Then Uncle Sean turned on the radio and danced Mama around while the potatoes burned.

“Damn, you’re gorgeous. Why don’t you leave this chump and run away with me?”

Mama laughed but her eyes looked hot and scary.

“Here, now, are you trying to romance my wife right under my nose?” Liam said.

Uncle Sean laughed and twirled Mama around, while Liam set the table.

“Oh, Liam, put a plate on the table for her anyway,” Mama said. Her eyes were so soft when she looked at me standing in the hallway, but I knew not to trust those eyes.

“I’m not gonna sit here with her watching us eat,” Liam said.

“But your mama made the good meatloaf. You don’t want any?” Uncle Sean came toward me with a green olive in his hand, but when I ducked my head, he laughed and popped the olive in his own mouth.

Pulling up chairs to the table, no one else noticed the rumble of the Panhead coming up the drive. They were too busy putting food on their plates: burned mashed potatoes and greasy meatloaf, because Mama forgot to put bread in the bottom of the pan.

“Damn, did you smell the meatloaf from down the hill?” Liam said, when Kellen walked in. “This son of a bitch can eat, in case you couldn’t tell.”