What's Mine and Yours(33)

“They nearly drowned,” Lacey said, and she bared her teeth at him. She was pulling apart Diane’s hair, pressing her palm into the girl’s scalp. Her fingers came away with blood.

Robbie felt again that he might vomit.

“I’ve got to take them to the hospital,” Lacey said. “Girls, you all go on and wait in the car.”

Robbie couldn’t watch them go. He looked at his feet. He was wearing a pair of flip-flops, his feet pale and hairy, his toenails ragged, long. In his sweatpants and undershirt, he was sure he looked like a bum. And his head. If you put a finger in his ear, with all the pressure in there, he’d explode. He needed water. He could fall down dead in front of Lacey and she wouldn’t care. The girls vanished without saying good-bye to him. Another failure. He slumped against the bed. He figured he should speak before she did. He knew he couldn’t bear whatever she had to say.

“How could you come in here and make love to me, Lacey? You tore me up inside.”

Lacey May laughed.

“Why couldn’t you just tell me you wouldn’t sell the house, that you love me, that you could never replace me—I was locked up.”

“Don’t you blame this on me! You go on a bender and it’s my fault? Please. And I haven’t replaced you. I’d never replace you because I don’t want someone like you in my life! To bring me trouble! To bring me grief! You ruined my life, Robbie, you ruined all our lives, and you had no reason to. You should have loved me more. And if I knew exactly the drugs you needed to do yourself in, I’d give them to you so you could stop wasting our time. We all know where this leads!”

Lacey May was quivering and flushed, her fists balled at her sides. He felt the urge to raise his arms, to cover himself, as if she might hit him. She was glaring at him, her lips pressed together, her head rocking from side to side in a rhythm she couldn’t seem to control. There was a word for the way she was looking at him—asco, like when you see a dead animal on the side of the road, asco, at someone with filthy hands reaching toward you, asco, the sight of a man’s guts, a rotting tree crawling with maggots. Maybe this was how she had looked at him every time she found him high, and he had lodged it away somewhere in his brain, because he recognized it now. It was her deepest feeling for him—he could see that. He wanted to say, It was just this once. He wanted to say he’d clean up his act. He wanted to say, I’ll get help. But it wouldn’t change the way she was looking at him. He could do nothing. Robbie sank to the floor, crossed his legs beneath him, and cried. Lacey May didn’t stoop to comfort him. She left, again.

He looked up when he heard the bathroom door swing open. Margarita emerged from the rear of the motel room with a fat lip, blooming purple, a cut under her eye. He hadn’t known she wasn’t with the others. He wondered what she’d heard.

“Pepita,” he said and crawled onto his knees. “I am sorry, mi hija. I am so sorry. I need you to understand—”

Margarita shook her head, quieting him. “It’s okay, Papi. It’s not your fault. It was my idea. It was me.”





6



August 2002


The Piedmont, North Carolina

Jade’s lips were burning for a cigarette, her legs jumping underneath the seat as she pulled into the lot of Central High School. She parked and turned to look at Gee. He was slumped against the window, his face pressed against the glass. She shook him by the shoulder and called his name.

“This is a good thing,” she said. “I wish this had happened to me when I was your age.”

Still, he wouldn’t look at her.

“I’m not saying it’s going to be easy.”

Gee tuned out his mother and surveyed the lot. It was nearly full, although the town hall wasn’t set to start for another half hour. He’d been dreading the start of the school year all summer. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep since he got the letter approving his transfer to Central. He was gnashing his teeth again.

“You don’t know,” Jade went on, “what a difference this is going to make. This is a good school. I’ve been lucky. I don’t want you to have to count on luck.”

Gee’s mother was good at pep talks, reminding him to double-check his homework, put lotion on his hands. She liked to monitor, advise, steer him the right way. Sometimes he thought he ought to be more grateful. But she didn’t seem to notice that his insides were quaking. Gee felt his jaw clamp shut. He pried it open to speak.

“What’s the point of this meeting anyway? What is there to discuss? It’s all final, isn’t it?”

“It’s supposed to be a welcome.”

“Will it be?”

“Sure. One way or another.” Jade gave him a tight smile, then patted his leg and said, “You’ve got to trust me.” They climbed out of the car, and Jade flung her arm around him. It felt strange, but he let her hold him anyway.

The school was four stories, a brick building with white windowpanes and eaves. Dogwood trees guarded the small lawn between the lot and the entrance.

There was a clatter of car doors opening and closing. Gee recognized a few of his classmates and their mothers trudging toward the school. Adira was approaching the school in a fuchsia windbreaker and faded jeans. She had come in regular clothes, and Gee felt conspicuous in his collared pinstriped shirt, his good pants. Adira was calm and easy all the time, even now, sandwiched between her tall parents, the Howards. She was one of the few kids at school Gee could call a friend, but it wasn’t saying much because Adira was friends with everyone. She was the kind of girl who kissed her friends on the cheeks, complimented strangers on their sneakers or hair and meant it. She could reach for you, hug you, wink at you, laugh, and it didn’t seem like flirting. She bounded toward him, snatched up his hand. It felt natural, good. It didn’t set his skin on fire.