Yolk(77)

“June.”

“He doesn’t know you,” she says, dumping her change in the center console. “And even if his brother were here, he’d pretend he doesn’t know you either. Just like high school.”

The anger comes off her in waves.

“Look.” I shrug. “I barely even remember high school.”

“You’re so full of shit,” she says. Even in the dark, I can see there are twin splotches of red high on her cheeks.

I sigh and look out the window.

“Let me guess,” she says. “You don’t want your ice cream.”

She’s right about that. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Fine,” she snaps. June guns the engine, spinning the wheel wildly to the right, and I’m convinced she’s going to clip the tail lights of the sedan in front, when she throws the car in reverse at the last second.

“June!” I scream. My hand shoots up to the ceiling as my feet grind the floor.

“Shut up!” she says. Horns blare.

I turn my head, catching the surprised eyes of a Mexican family behind us. June curses while inching out so we can leave. “Thank you!” We both wave in our rearview, but just as our car lurches forward, we almost pitch into the van coming into the parking lot at a wide angle from the road.

June slams the brakes again. And just like Mom, she sticks out her arm to brace me, but she ends up hitting me hard in a clothesline, elbowing me right in the sternum.

“Ow. Fuck.” I rub my chest, glaring at her accusingly.

The van flips us the bird.

“Jesus Christ, June, will you just pull over? Just park for a second.”

“Fine.” June silently slides into a spot.

There’s a maroon van parked next to us. On the back windshield there’s a sign written in white shoe polish. NEED A KIDNEY. BLOOD TYPE A OR O. And a phone number.

“Why are you so weak?” She’s staring straight ahead and I’m braced for the insult, but the last word slices clean through my defenses. She inhales sharply, eyes clenched closed. She exhales shakily. “Look, I know you can’t help it. But you’re just so fucking…” June smacks the bottom of her steering wheel with the heel of her hand.



* * *



When I popped open the door of Holland’s blue truck, Mom’s rubies on my finger, my sister’s voice ringing in my ears, I thought I was going to be his girlfriend. That’s how it felt. I was finally the lead. I was the love interest. I was the one they were singing about in every single pop song.

“Hey,” he said, expression unreadable. I’d expected a smile. I’d hoped for a hug, but he seemed put out. As if I was an imposition. It’s true that I’d been the one to surreptitiously approach him while my friends were in the back of Planet K, the head shop where he worked, but he’d asked me to hang out. When I’d hoisted myself up to the cab of the truck, I was startled by the empty plastic bottles of soda on the floor, the stink of tobacco, the grid of duct tape on the navy pleather seat, and the gristle of coiled spring trying to elbow its way out and dig into my ass. I tried to keep the distaste off my face. I didn’t want to be accused of being high maintenance. It knew it to be the worst possible insult that could be hurled at a girl.

“I thought I’d take you to the Chateau,” he said, without facing me. I’d never been to the Chateau before. We rode in silence, which I chose to think was romantic. We passed railroad tracks, turning into a subdivision that seemingly didn’t end. He was silent and brooding, but I knew we’d talk eventually. He’d reward me for my own quiet and let me in. I couldn’t wait for him to tell me I was easy to talk to. For him to tell me things his girlfriend wouldn’t understand.

We drove into a cul-de-sac where no porch lights were left on as a courtesy. I discovered what few sophomores were privy to. That the Chateau all the seniors talked about at school, the spot for all the wildest parties, was nothing more than a half-built model home in a nothing-neighborhood in a zombie part of town.

The door was ajar, with a hole where a doorknob would be. Holland walked in first, without holding the door for me, and I felt foolish for my crushing disappointment. The floors were littered with beer cans and broken glass, and it smelled powerfully of pee. There was a filthy mattress on the floor and a few plastic chairs around it, a jet-black streak of char coloring the far wall. A gold glimmer caught my eye, and I realized it was a condom wrapper. In fact, there were multiple bits of foil confettied all around the mattress.

I’d thought it would be a mansion, but who knew where I’d heard that. I’d stupidly wondered if there was a pool, whether we’d dip our toes and laugh, but there wasn’t even electricity in the sad, abandoned house. The glass had been busted out of the window frames. There were no appliances in the kitchen, a toilet had been dragged into what would have been a dining room.

I could feel my fingernails digging into my palms like teeth as revulsion rolled thickly through my body.

We drank Fireball, which left our mouths spicy and warm. Still without talking, he kissed me, pushing up against me on the splintery wall of that dank shell of a house. His hooded eyes were open but unseeing, and I left my body there, preferring to witness this as a bystander. I knew this was going to have to be a secret—at least for a while—but I was confident that everyone would recognize the change in me. They’d see it in my movements. That this intense, pulsing charge of rage at my mother could be alchemized into power. He was a good kisser. Slow and deliberate, melting into my edges, which were already fuzzy from the cinnamon liquor. For that moment, I didn’t mind that we stood in a squatter’s den. That there was so much broken glass on the floor. We were both floating.