The Leaving(17)
“Steve’s never gonna believe it.”
Of course he wouldn’t.
Scarlett couldn’t believe it, and it was inside her.
And all she could do was . . .
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock . . .
. . . wait?
It seemed cruel.
Desperate to think about something—anything—else on their way to the outlets, desperate to get her mind off a foreign body working its way through her system, Scarlett said, “How’d you meet him? Steve?”
“Oh, he came into the bar one night. Then again the next night. And so on and so on . . .”
“What bar?”
“Thar she blows.” Her mother pointed out Scarlett’s window. They were on a small on-ramp to a bridge beside the Lamppost Hotel.
“It ain’t . . .”
Isn’t.
“. . . the most glamorous job, but I’ve been there long enough I get to pick my own shifts and everybody pretty much leaves me alone. Haven’t taken a drink myself since the day you went missing, but happy to hand ’em out.”
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“Really?”
“That night, the night before you were taken, I was three sheets to the wind when I was putting you to bed. And I was so H-O the next day when things got crazy—”
Aicho?
Oh.
H-O?
“H-O?”
“Hungover.”
Like it should have been obvious. “
And I promised myself I’d be sober as a judge for whenever they found you. And they just never did, and I never could bring myself to take another drink. Just in case.”
“So wait. You were drunk when I said that thing about going to the leaving?”
“Yes, ma’am. But I remember that clear as a bell.” She looked at Scarlett and spoke slowly.
So slowly that Scarlett
could
see
her
mother’s
tongue . . .
on the l’s in . . .
“Clear as a bell.”
Scarlett looked at The Lamppost Hotel’s many, many windows and wondered whether anyone in there knew what was happening.
Whether guests with sunburns and big hats had the news on while they packed up their beach bags.
Whether the ticker at the bottom of the screen said: GIRL REUNITED WITH ALIEN-OBSESSED RECOVERING-ALCOHOLIC MOTHER . . .
HAS NOTHING IN COMMON WITH HER . . . FULL STORY AT 8:00 P.M.
A song came on the radio that her mother turned up.
Something about wasting away again in Margaritaville.
It seemed to make her happy.
Scarlett wondered what that felt like.
Didn’t know the song.
Any songs?
Her mother said, “Maybe after things calm down and all, we’ll have a little party. You know, you, me, Steve, my friends. Bet your uncle Tom will drive down from Tampa.”
Scarlett ran a search:
Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom. Uncle Tom.
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/ /
/
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/
/
“What about my . . .”
Couldn’t
Remember
Ever
Saying
The word:
Dad.
“ . . . father?”
“Was never in the picture.” Her mother pulled into the outlet parking lot. “So you wouldn’t remember him at all.”
“What about grandparents?” She’d seen a photo back at the house—a woman with curly black hair and a soft, round belly perched on top of a skinny pair of legs, and holding what must have been a toddler Scarlett—and she’d known it was her grandmother.
“With the good Lord.” She made the sign of the cross. “Your grandfather in 2009 and your grandma the year after.”
Scarlett couldn’t focus.
When she’d disappeared, she’d been a girl with grandparents, and now all she had was this woman she couldn’t bring herself to think of as Mom.
The word had felt so wrong,
so sour,
that one time.
“They took it hard. What happened to you. And then we had a fall ing-out because, well, we all had different ideas.” She sighed. “Here today, gone Tamara.”
“What does that mean?” They were out of the car and walking toward the stores.
“Oh, nothing. Just something Steve says.”
The clothes were . . . too bright.
Too boxy.
Too . . . ?
Scarlett didn’t like anything she tried on. Most of it fit, technically.
But didn’t fit her.
Made her look too . . . something.
Too other.
Too someone else.
Lines all wrong.
Colors all wrong.
Patterns that made no sense on her.
They bought most of what she tried on anyway.
Because, well . . . because.
Here today, gone . . .