Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(88)

“She seems to be stable, but there’s going to be some long-term issues we have to deal with.”

“Let’s see . . . Chicago to Flint is, what, five hours? Six? I’ll be there this evening.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ll be there this evening. Love you.”

He hung up before I could answer, and I turned back to Colleen with a tense smile.

“So, how have you been? Work’s going okay? How’s your boyfriend—was it Gerry?”

“Terry.”

I tended to steer clear of her boyfriends except when family functions absolutely required it, because a lot of the white residents of Flint were actually transplanted rednecks and hillbillies (including my family) who had moved there for jobs in the auto factories. None of them had ever gotten in my face, thank God. No, the problem was that—in the interest of keeping the peace and not embarrassing anyone—I was expected to let their ignorant (or sometimes subtly deliberate) racist or homophobic remarks roll off my back. If I called them out on it, I was deemed the troublemaker.

For the next hour and a half, I listened and nodded attentively—with the occasional “hmm”—as Colleen told me everything that was going on in her life, a great deal of which seemed to involve drama with her boyfriend’s ex. It was the sort of thing that really should have been left behind in high school, but even at the age of twenty-five, Colleen liked her catfights and jealous tiffs.

Most of our conversations went this way when we were getting along. She never once asked me what I’d been doing or how I was. She never even asked where I was living. For Colleen, everything was about her.

When her recitation about her latest weight loss endeavors had wound down (she was a size six trying to get down to a size four now that she’d had breast reduction surgery because “flat-chested women get to wear the cutest clothes!”), we fell silent, sipping our Cokes.

“She’s going to need live-in care, Topher,” she said finally.

“Well, luckily you’re right here in town,” I said brightly, knowing where this was going.

“You know I can’t live with her. She and I fight all the time when we try to live together. You’re the one she doesn’t argue with. She likes you.”

“She likes me because she knows she can get to me emotionally, and because I’ve never borrowed money from her and conveniently forgotten to pay it back. Multiple times.”

Colleen huffed. “That is such bullshit. Families don’t make ‘loans’ to each other. They help when someone needs help. She was never there for us as a mother, the least she could do was keep me from being evicted.”

Month after month. I didn’t say that part.

“Well, she did, and now the money Clay left her with is gone and she’s going to lose her house because she can’t pay her bills living off disability. So yeah, however bad a mom she’s been, I can see how she might resent that a bit.”

“Whatever. I run her errands for her. She can suck it up about the money.”

“Right, whatever.” Yeah, that argument was a one-way street to a rant on how the world owed Colleen for her dysfunctional childhood. No matter what she did, my older sister always convinced herself that people were unreasonable for holding her accountable. Mom wasn’t the only one she’d hit up for money. Every relative in the family had cut her off when she kept going back to the well.

“You need to move in with her, Topher. You’re the only one who can. You heard the doctor. She’s not going to be able to take care of herself for months, maybe years.”

“No, I can’t. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m enrolled in college.”

“You can enroll at Mott or Baker—”

“Colleen, I have a scholarship at GVSU, remember? An actual university. An associate’s degree from a community college is not going to get me the sort of career I need to make a decent living.”

“Well, fine, apply at U of M Flint then. Jesus, Topher, you’re such a snob. You don’t need a degree to have a decent career, you know. I’m making a really good living selling blinds and wallpaper—”

Oh f*ck. Seriously, Colleen?

“Really.” The Condescending-f*cking-Wonka meme had never smiled so blandly. “You go to people’s homes to consult with them on those sales, right?”

“Yeah, I go out on calls so I can take measurements.”

“Uh-huh. And how many of those people would let you in their homes for those consultations if your skin were the same color as mine? Would Blinds & More, or wherever it is you’re working, have even hired you for that position to begin with if you looked like me?”

“Oh, come on! Not everything is about race!”

“Yeah, that’s the knee-jerk reaction of people who never have to deal with racism. You bet your ass employment opportunity is about race. Don’t f*cking insult me by pretending the doors that are open to you would be open for me. I need that university degree to have a chance at earning more than a subsistence wage.”

“You’re only half black—”

“And I’ll absolutely be sure to explain that to the employers who express interest in my pedigree. But most of them are just going to take one look at my skin and ask if I’m there applying for the job flipping burgers or mopping floors.” I rolled my eyes. “So check your privilege, mmkay? That seventy-seven cents white women earn on the white man’s dollar may be working okay for you, but without a university degree, I’ll be making even less.”