Darling Rose Gold(3)

I take a step off the curb toward my family. It’s been almost twenty-five years since my last baby. In seconds his tiny fingers will be wrapped around mine.





2





Rose Gold



FIVE YEARS EARLIER

November 2012

Sometimes I still couldn’t believe I was allowed to read whatever I wanted. I rubbed the glossy magazine photos. A flawless couple held hands on a beach. A teenage boy with shaggy hair ducked into a waiting car. A radiant mother cradled her daughter as she walked the streets of New York. All of these people were famous. I knew the mother was a musician named Beyoncé, but I didn’t recognize the others. I was sure most eighteen-year-olds would.

“Rose Gold?”

I started. My manager, Scott, stood in front of me. “We’re about to open,” he said. “Can you put the magazine away?”

I nodded. Scott kept walking. Should I have apologized? Was he mad at me or just doing his job? Could I get written up for this? I was supposed to respect authority. I was also supposed to outsmart them. Mom always had.

I gazed at the copy of Chit Chat in my hands. I had been searching the tabloid for mentions of her. During her trial, they had written three stories about us. Now, on her first day in prison, they had nothing to say. Neither did the national newspapers. Mom’s imprisonment was nothing but a splashy feature in our local paper, the Deadwick Daily.

I put the magazine back on the endcap. Scott began clapping while he walked the store floor, yelling, “A smile is part of your uniform, people.” I glanced at Arnie on register two. He rolled his eyes. Had I annoyed him? What if he never talked to me again? What if he told all our coworkers I was a weirdo? I looked away.

The security guard unlocked Gadget World’s doors. No one was waiting outside. Sunday mornings were quiet. I flipped on my register’s light. The big yellow “5” didn’t illuminate. Mom always said a lightbulb out meant something bad was coming.

The tremblies in my stomach tightened. For the past year, I had dreaded any big day of her trial: opening arguments, my testimony, the verdict, sentencing. But the reporters didn’t care that “Poisonous Patty” was behind bars. No one but me had remembered it was her first day in prison. She’d still be free if I hadn’t gotten on that witness stand. I hadn’t talked to her since the arrest.

I tried to picture my mother—five feet five inches and stocky—in an orange jumpsuit. What if the guards hurt her? What if she made the wrong inmate mad? What if she got sick from the food? I knew I was supposed to be happy about these possibilities. I knew I was supposed to hate Mom, because people were always asking me if I did.

I didn’t want to imagine her in the present, covered with plum-colored bruises and growing pale from the lack of sun. I wanted to remember the mother I’d grown up with, the woman with broad shoulders and thick arms that could knead bread dough in minutes. Her hair was short and almost black, thanks to a cheap box dye. She had pudgy cheeks, a snub nose, and a big smile that lit up her face. I loved Mom’s smile because I liked looking at her teeth: white and straight and neat, a mouth as organized as her file cabinets. But it was her pale blue-green eyes that won you over. They listened, they sympathized. They were kind and trustworthy without her saying a word. When her fleshy hand enveloped yours and she trained those aquamarine eyes on you, you were sure you’d never feel alone.

“Rose Gold, right?”

I started again. A Disney prince look-alike stood in front of me. I recognized him. He came in all the time to buy video games.

The teenage boy pointed at my name tag. “Okay, I cheated. I’m Brandon,” he said.

I stared at Brandon, afraid anything I said would make him go away. He held eye contact—did I have something on my face? I grabbed his items off the conveyor belt: a video game with a soldier holding a gun on its cover and four bags of peanut M&M’s.

Brandon kept talking. “I go to Deadwick High.”

He was younger than me. I was already eighteen and had my GED.

“Okay,” I said. I was supposed to say something else. Why was someone as cute as Brandon talking to me in the first place?

“Did you go to DHS?”

I scratched my nose so my hand would cover my teeth. “I was homeschooled.”

“Cool.” Brandon smiled at his feet. “I was wondering if you’d go out with me.”

“Where?” I asked, bewildered.

He laughed. “Like, on a date.”

I scanned the empty store. Brandon stood there, hands in his pockets, waiting for an answer. I thought of Phil, my online boyfriend.

“I don’t know.”

“Come on,” Brandon said. “I promise I don’t bite.”

He leaned over the counter when he said this. Our faces were a foot apart. Tiny freckles dotted his nose. He smelled like boy soap. My heart started doing puppy jumps. I could finally get my first kiss. Did it count as cheating if you’d never met your online boyfriend in person?

Brandon winked, then closed his eyes. How was this so easy for him? I should close my eyes too. But what if I missed his mouth and kissed his nose? Eyes open, then. Should I use my tongue? The magazines said to sometimes use tongue. But not teeth. Never teeth.

My teeth.

I couldn’t let him that close to my teeth. Plus, Scott might see us. Our faces were now inches apart. I had been leaning over the counter without realizing it. I was going to mess up. I wasn’t ready. I jerked my head back.