Things We Didn't Say (23 page)

I polish off the plate of spaghetti, and before I even get up, she takes it from my hand. “Here, I’ll put it away.”

She’s being too nice. Maybe cyanide really is coursing through my veins. Doesn’t that smell like almonds? Did I smell almonds?

She flops down on the couch again.

“Don’t look at me like that. Seriously, what do you think I’m gonna do?”

I’m glad she can’t see me blush at this.

“I’m going to have to tolerate you, I guess,” she says with a heavy sigh, stretching her arms over her head.

“What happened to ‘You will never raise my children’?”

She waves her hand at me. “I thought Michael would have explained by now not to take anything I say seriously. I get sort of worked up, if you hadn’t noticed. I would like to play a more active role. Maybe I can work my way up to shared custody.”

I hold my breath, not knowing how Michael would want me to answer.

“Would that be so bad?” she says, turning her smile on me. “More time for just you and Mike? Newlyweds?”

Michael has talked about her smile during one of the conversations we had early on when he was trying to explain her to me, before I told him to stop trying. He said her smile was magnetic and powerful. I thought he was full of it, just trying to rationalize his lust for a foxy coed, but I never said so.

It is a charming smile, but that’s all. She doesn’t have magic powers.

She has turned back to the TV. “I know. You don’t want to say anything. I get it.” She seizes the remote and jabs it at the TV. “God, this is boring. I’m bored. Aren’t you bored?”

I nod. Seems safe enough to agree.

“I’ll make some popcorn and put on some music. If it’s quiet, it shouldn’t wake the girls. Maybe we can talk, you know?”

I’m wary, but also pleased. I can see Michael now, smiling and relieved that he doesn’t have to worry about us in the same room anymore, in awe, in fact, that I made friends with his crazy ex.

He will be so proud of me.

For several minutes we just snack on popcorn, and then I start to feel stupid for thinking I could talk to her.

“So, how did you meet Mike?” she finally says.

“You never heard?”

She snorts. She has turned on her end of the couch to face me, sitting cross-legged. “Yeah, we’ve never much discussed his current love life.”

So I tell her the story about meeting at the med center when Jewel was sick.

She sniffles a little, wipes her eyes. I’m not sure I get it, it’s not
that
romantic.

Then she answers my unspoken confusion. “I should have been home to take her to the doctor.”

Normally I would snap at this, something to the effect that it’s her own damn fault. But this would seem cruel to say now.

She pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her face on her knees, looking out to the middle of the room.

I want to break the mood, so I turn the question around on her.

“How did
you
meet Michael?”

She snaps her attention back to me. “Really? You want to know?”

I nod. Frankly, I’m curious to hear her version of the story.

This has livened her up. She goes back to cross-legged sitting and nabs a fistful of popcorn.

“Well. I was at a party at MSU. I was a social work major, he ever tell you that? Ha. I was going to solve all the world’s problems. I was going to make sure what happened to me never happened to any other girl.” She says this as if mocking herself, with exaggerated earnestness. She laughs, shakes her head, and eats some more before resuming. “Anyway, so my guy of the moment was giving me a hard time. He’d been so hot, all tattooed and sexy, but a mean drunk, so I ditched him. Then I was all bored and wandering by myself when I saw this nerd . . . Remember that show
Murphy Brown
? Remember the boss, what was his name?”

I’ve seen it on reruns. I try to think . . . “Miles?”

“Yeah! He looked like Miles! Only taller. And not Jewish. But anyhow, he was the polar opposite of Tattoo Guy—you know, I fucked that guy for two weeks and I don’t even remember his name?—and I thought maybe I should try something different. He was so cute, and at first he was all standoffish and sad. Some girl had just dumped him for another guy. But his resistance lasted like, what, a minute? I kissed him right behind his earlobe, and just licked a little bit there, he really loves that . . . Wait, you probably know that!”

She carries on some more about the seduction, but all I can think of is how Michael told me not to kiss his neck at all. He said he found it distracting.

I look up in surprise as Mallory continues her story, reaching over and slapping my knee to emphasize something funny. I tune back in to hear her describing their first night of sex in great, gory detail.

Why did I start this conversation?

She sits back, almost glowing like she just really had sex. “Yeah, he was done for. And I thought, hey, who knew that nerds could be so great in bed? And he was so nice. God, so nice. No one had ever been that nice to me. Especially no man. So it started as a lark, but I kept seeing him. I
worshipped
him back then. I think that’s why he stuck around so long, I mean, who can resist being worshipped? I was like a starving person who’d been eating gruel finally given a fresh apple. All I ever wanted then was fresh apples, one after another. And then, Angel.”

At this I maintain a diplomatic silence.

“Oh, I know. You think I got pregnant on purpose. Everyone on Michael’s side thinks that. My own family thought it, too. No one thought I could actually keep a decent man on my own.” She begins to pick at her cuticles, crack her knuckles. “Guess they were right, in the end. But I’d like to think he stayed with me for some other reason than the baby. I mean, these days, having a baby out of wedlock is nothing, right? People do it all the time. Who even uses that word,
wedlock
? Lock, yeah, right. It was meant to be, I guess, however awful it was. Because it wasn’t always awful. You know that, right, that it wasn’t always?”

“Sure,” I say, because it must not have been. Not every minute.

“It won’t always be perfect, either,” she says, pointing to me. “Don’t get your hopes up for
that
.”

“Oh, I know that. Believe me.”

“Oh?” Mallory smirks. “Really.”

I shouldn’t say anything. But maybe this is just the kind of girlfriend bonding to heal the rift. After all, it’s something we have in common. I opt for a small complaint, something most wives have, as I’ve gathered.

“Well, I sometimes feel like he takes me for granted.”

She sits up straight. “Oh, honey. We have a lot to talk about.”

Chapter 32
Dylan

H
ey, Romeo,” says the female cop again, this time coming in with a bottled water.

I’ve been dozing on a chair, my feet up on another chair, leaning on the wall. I sit up and nod, swinging my feet down to the floor.

“Not much for talking, huh?”

I shrug.

“Alrighty. Well. Your dad just called from the road. The storm has slowed him up, but he’ll be here in a few hours.”

Oh, jeez. I’m such a baby. I can feel my eyes getting wet again. At least it’s a lady cop and not that mean detective.

“So, what was so bad you had to run from, huh?”

“N-n-nothing.” I wipe my eyes with my sleeve.

She sits in a chair across from me, leaning on the table. “You don’t fool me, kid. It wasn’t just your Juliet, not that she isn’t a lovely girl. What’s up? You have trouble at home?” Her face shifts, just a little, from her relaxed, just chatting look. Her eyes harden a little. “Anyone hurt you at home?”

“NO.”

Her eyebrow goes up, and now I think, Shit, she’ll think I’m lying, I’m trying to convince her too hard. I don’t want to get my dad in trouble, or Casey.

“I hate my school.”

She nods, a look of recognition on her face. It’s embarrassing to think she’s heard it a million times, but also a relief. Maybe I’m not such a freak. She might even understand.

“My grandpa made me go cuz they f-f-f—” I take a deep breath. Slow down, calm. “They found a gun at my old school. Now I’m not even in band. Hate it.”

She notices my sax case on the floor next to me. “Why didn’t you just talk to them?”

I shrug. Like that would help. My dad is all about doing “what’s best,” whether the kids want it or not. Nothing ever changes around my house, anyway. Even the divorce didn’t change that much. Mom is still nuts half the time, and they still fight. Only now we have to stay in her shitty apartment every other weekend where I can’t practice because my sax disturbs the neighbors.

“I made friends with this . . . girl and it sounded like she had a bad . . . time of it.” Sometimes I pause instead of stammer, but that’s only slightly better. It still sounds weird. Anyway, I could talk for an hour, and it’s not like any of it would make sense.

It sounded great just to go away, when Tiffany suggested it, like hitting a big “delete” button on everything bad.

“You know,” the lady cop says now, “adults can help you. But you have to say something. There’s no reason to suffer alone.”

I look at her from under my hair, which I’ve let fall over my face.

“You know, most adults were once teenagers. The ones that didn’t spring into being from a pod in a lab. Give your folks a chance, will ya? Better than running off.”

The cop slaps the table. “Well. Gotta do some paperwork. So much paperwork. If I’d known about all the paperwork I might have been a lumberjack or something. Anyway, I’ll let you know when your dad is here.”

When she goes, I rest my head on my arms and let my eyes go unfocused. It’s like being in a cave.

I really want my dad to hurry up.

Tiffany didn’t look at all relieved when her dad showed up. It didn’t take too long; he lives right in town, after all.

Tiffany got up to leave with the officer, and looked back at me. I didn’t get why she looked so wrecked exactly. I thought she was going to barf.

“He’s never going to let me talk to you again,” she croaked out.

I stood up and came over to hug her. She hugged back, too hard. “C’mon, it won’t be that bad. You’ll be grounded, but not forever.” I was thinking of her “bars on the window” story and was convinced by then that he was just a normal strict dad.

“No, he’s going to take away my phone for good and ban me from the library and everything. He’ll find a way.”

I didn’t know what to say to this. I couldn’t tell her she was wrong because I didn’t really know. And even though she’d been annoying me pretty much from the moment I saw her in person, my heart dropped when I thought of never chatting online again, or talking on the phone.

She hugged me one more time, and then the cop sort of pried her off me, and she looked back over her shoulder the whole way out, her face soaking wet by then. There was a circle of her tears on my shirt.

They didn’t let him in the room with me, but I heard him bellowing outside, probably loud enough for me to hear him on purpose.

“I want that kid charged!” he screamed.

They’d already explained to us that running away was not a crime, after Tiffany had started to panic about going to juvy.

Still. It made me nervous to hear that. I thought of all the e-mails I had that would show she went willingly. Anyway, she met me at the bus station. I didn’t drag her out of her house.

The cops’ voices were lower, so I didn’t hear them. But he screamed again. “I will take out a restraining order against this little pervert! He better not contact my daughter ever again, or I’ll make him regret it!”

“Dad!” Tiffany’s voice was panicked and squeaky.

“That’s enough! I made a mistake trusting you even this far, haven’t I? And to think I could have lost you like we did your mother . . .”

At this his voice broke.

All I heard after that was Tiffany sobbing her way down the hall.

And by then I figured she was probably right and I would never hear from her again.

I’d never felt so lonely in my entire life and I decided to sleep. While I was drifting off, I kept thinking about what her dad had said, about “lost you like we did your mother.” Tiffany didn’t talk much about her mother, but she didn’t mention not having one, either.

Geez. With that kind of history, she doesn’t stand a chance.

Chapter 33
Michael

I
’ve been awake so long, it feels like I’ve got sand in my eyes, but I’m at least some semblance of alert. My dad has refused to relinquish the wheel, so the unspent fury building inside me at being treated like a helpless child has brewed strong enough to jolt me to life.

The rest of the drive has been spent in hours of prickly silence. Eventually Dad switched on the stereo to classical music. I was grateful that it seemed to be all the thundery, angry classical tonight, not the sleepy-weepy stuff. Must be lots of Wagner.

Now my father’s GPS interrupts Wagner to tell him to get off the highway, turn left, turn right. My dad has selected a British woman’s voice for his GPS. It sounds like Kate Winslet. Maybe it is. Maybe if you can afford a luxury SUV, you get Kate Winslet telling you where to go.

The snow has faded to a few wispy flakes, now, and the plows and salt trucks are carving furrows into the slushy gray of the roads. The only other cars out seem to be police cars, tow trucks, and semi trucks, who don’t stop for anything or they don’t get paid.

If Dylan had climbed into a trucker’s cab, he could have made it to New York by now.

We get out of the SUV and I embrace the cold as opposed to the close, oppressive interior. I’d even started to resent the seat warmer.

The lights inside the police station burn my eyes. It’s quiet in the lobby, but the cops behind the counter look busy as ever.

We tell them why we’re here, and the officer, placid and calm, picks up a phone to dial somebody.

My throat feels thick with held-back emotion. It’s clear why they call it “choked up.” Haven’t felt like this since Jewel was born.