Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(31)
“Oh damnit. Oh lord.”
“Mom.”
“I fell asleep.”
“Oh, no kidding?”
“I have no energy.”
“Please get up and go into work or call them or something.”
“Okay.”
“I am really going to need you to get back on your meds. I am so serious right now.”
“I will.”
“Don’t tell me that just to get me off your back.”
Mom’s voice is somehow both petulant and plaintive. “I was fine until you started digging things up with your dad.”
My blood rises. “Oh. Whatever. Blame this on me.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Well, stop saying. This is happening because you started feeling better and you thought, ‘Welp, time to quit taking the things that made me feel better.’?” Intellectually, I know it can’t help to get pissed at her. But…
Mom starts in about something, but I can’t deal.
“You know what? I gotta go. I gotta help Josie with our stuff. Later.” I hang up. It’s such a scary, lonely feeling when Mom gets this way. What I wouldn’t give for a few consecutive years where my life didn’t feel so precarious. Where my mom could always be my mom.
The studio door opens and Josie and Lawson exit, laughing. Lawson says something to Josie that I can’t quite make out before he splits off to go to where he’s parked, his new clothes bundled under his arm. He steals a last furtive glance at Josie before getting in his truck.
It triggers a strange mix of jealousy and urgency. The world—in whatever form it decides to take—is so hungry for some people, it can’t help but try constantly to lure them away from wherever they are by promising even more. I wonder if people like that—people like Josie—are harder to leave behind. They must be. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Josie and this show are the two good things I have that I can count on. The world has taken more from me before. It won’t hesitate to do it again.
“Did Arliss say anything before you left?” I hand Josie her keys.
“He said, ‘I gotta take a dump,’ and as far as I know, he’s still in there.”
I grimace. “He has the charm of a wet bus seat. Thanks for that mental image, by the way.”
“Said the girl who’s memorized every Wikipedia page on every serial killer.”
“We both know that Arliss pooping is a way grosser thought than any torture murder.”
“Hey, not to change this terrific subject, but next Saturday, you wanna go with me to see Lawson kick people in the face?” Josie gets in and starts the ignition.
“What time?”
“I don’t know. Nighttime. Fightin’ time. Nighttime is the right time for fight time.”
“What about show prep?”
“Can you do it earlier in the day?”
“I’m working.”
“What about another night?” Josie looks over her shoulder and backs out of her parking space.
“We always do it Saturday nights.”
“Don’t you think it sounds kinda fun to go see a cage fight?”
I shrug and try to appear noncommittal.
“You love the bizarre, and I know you will sit through literally anything,” Josie says. “This’ll be like the show Spartacus but with fewer dongs.” She pauses. “Probably.”
“Do you say ‘fewer dongs’ or ‘less dongs’?”
“I think ‘fewer’ is correct.”
“I can never keep it straight,” I say.
“Are we still talking about dongs or—”
“Whether it’s ‘less’ or ‘fewer’ that’s correct.”
“Ah. Anyway, I bet you’ll love the cage fight.”
“I don’t love anything as much as Lawson loves you.”
“Trying to change the subject,” Josie says in a singsong voice.
“Whatever. We were just talking about whether it’s more correct to say ‘fewer dongs’ or ‘less dongs.’ That’s not a subject that’s off-limits to change. Besides, I’m not wrong about Lawson.”
“You are in fact not wrong.”
“It’s pretty adorable how he looks at you.”
“It kind of is. Now enough changing the subject.”
I sigh loudly. “I’ll go. Fine.”
“I mean, he’s so sweet and goofy, I want to see if he’s a kind and gentle kickboxer.”
I check my phone. “Can I bring my mom to the fight and sign us up for a round?”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah, uh-oh. I called a little while ago to see if she wants me to bring home dinner and she’s in bed, which is sort of a problem because she’s not really supposed to be in bed so much as she’s supposed to be at work.”
“I’m no expert in what constitutes good performance at your mom’s job, and yet I feel comfortable saying that that’s probably not considered good performance.”
“Sure, sure, yeah, no. Nope.”
“It’s probably actually considered bad performance.”
“I think that is a fair characterization of being in bed when one is supposed to be at work.”