Breakaway (18 page)

“I hope you don't have any ideas about me getting in that car with you,” she said.

“Ideas like what?” I asked with a frown.

“I mean…,” she said, speaking slowly as she tried not to slur her words, “do you think I'm going to sleep with you or something? Because I'm drunk? Because you're taking me home?”

“Wow, you really do have a high opinion of yourself, don't you?” I asked. “You think I can't get laid anytime I want? That I have to take advantage of some drunk girl who doesn't have sense enough to wear pants when it's this cold outside?”

“I'm wearing tights,” she said haughtily. “And I wasn't expecting to be out in the cold. I thought I would be riding in a nice warm car.”

“That's the problem with you rich kids,” I said, hearing myself turn snide. “You're never prepared for life when it happens.”

“You are so annoying,” she said with a sigh.

“Oh, come on,” I said, then started walking away backwards toward Chris's car while she stood there in the middle of the alley. “I take it back, okay?” I said, and waited for her to relent.

She looked pissed, like she might slap me again. “You know, just because my family has money doesn't mean I don't have any feelings,” she said. “And it doesn't mean my life is all unicorns and rainbows. I have problems too.” She had one hand on her hip but was still unsteady on her feet so she looked more ridiculous than menacing.

“I said I took it back. Friends?”

“Maybe instead of taking it back, you should try not to say stupid, insulting shit in the first place,” she said, not wanting to give in.

“I think you like it,” I said. “I think I'm the only honest person you know.”

She sighed as she followed me to the car. “So, is that a fact?” she asked. “You get laid anytime you want?”

I cut my eyes in her direction but didn't turn my head to look at her. “Unless I'm sleeping with you, it's none of your business.”

“Gross,” she said. “Jason, you will not be sleeping with me. Ever.”

“You know, I'm never sure whether I think you're entertaining or irritating,” I said as I looked up to survey the night sky. “I guess it depends on my mood.”

“That's so funny,” she said. “I feel the same way about you.”

We both laughed and our truce was restored, at least until our next argument.

On the drive, we killed the time talking about music. Raine and I liked a lot of the same bands, especially Arcade Fire and Foals. Once we weren't bickering about something, our conversation fell into a natural rhythm—so comfortable I was almost able to forget I had ever been embarrassed in front of her that day in the cafeteria.

While we sat at a red light, I dug through the CDs in Chris's car. Not much to choose from, since he listened to a lot of classic rock. I was hoping for at least Nirvana or something. I stopped looking when I found an Allman Brothers CD. I hit the advance button until the song “Melissa” flooded the car.

“I love this song,” Raine said as she tipped her head back against the seat.

“Everybody loves this song,” I said. “If someone doesn't like this song then there's something wrong with them.”

Raine kept her gaze fixed on the window as we drove. She was pretty drunk, so it wouldn't have surprised me if she passed out. I hoped she wouldn't.

“We'll stop to get a drink or something,” I said, figuring it would help to sober her up, “so you don't smell like such a booze hound when you get home.”

She turned her head to give me a wilting stare but then her face spread into a lazy smile. I pulled the car into a 7-Eleven and parked right up against the front wall of the store. There were a few guys hanging around the entrance to the convenience store, smoking and talking. As I got out, I locked the driver's-side door with the key. Raine still had her head tipped back against the seat and she looked small and vulnerable wrapped in my sweatshirt. I leaned over and tapped on the glass of the driver window, then gestured at her to lock her door too. After a few seconds she got my meaning and pushed the lock down on her door.

I had just enough money to buy us each a drink and a hot dog. Raine was the kind of girl who was probably used to guys buying her a nicer meal than a 7-Eleven hot dog, but when I got back to the car, she was really excited that I had brought her something to eat.

“I'm starving,” she said as she opened the wrapper and dug in to her Big Bite. Then, almost like an accusation, said, “You got me a ginger ale.”

“Isn't that what you said you wanted?” I asked.

“Like, an hour ago, yeah. I can't believe you remembered.”

I took my eyes off the road long enough to look at her as I said, “Doesn't your boy, Brian, buy you nice things like ginger ales and hot dogs?” As soon as I said it, I wished I could take it back. It came off sounding jealous and insecure, which, maybe, I was.

“What do you care if he's my boyfriend?” she asked in that way girls do when they're trying to trip you up, make you say something stupid.

So I said nothing. Just rode in silence while she ate her hot dog and drank her ginger ale.

“Brian doesn't really know me,” she said, her gaze on the scenery out her window. “Nobody does. Every time I'm around my friends it's like I'm always pretending to be someone else.”

“What about Madison and Cheryl? They're your friends, right? I see you hanging out with them all the time.”

She snorted at that and blew out a weary sigh. “Cheryl and I have known each other for a long time. I'm not sure that just knowing someone for a long time qualifies them as a friend. Madison is a mean girl. I could never tell her anything personal because she can't be trusted. She betrayed me once already. I'll never forgive her.”

“How's that?”

“Do you remember Robbie Slade?” she asked as she studied her thumb, then licked a dab of ketchup from it. “He went to school here until tenth grade when his family moved away.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Well, anyway, I had a huge crush on him all through middle school. I was completely in love with him. Madison and Cheryl both knew I had a major crush on him. So, one night we were all hanging around at the skate park. Remember that skate park over near the library? Everyone used to hang out down there in middle school. People would make out behind the half-pipe and sneak in beers and stuff. Anyway, we were all hanging out there one night and Robbie and I were talking, he was totally flirting with me. There were a few of Robbie's friends hanging out with us but Madison was interested in Robbie Slade too. He was the hottest boy in our middle school.

“Madison is such a bitch. In front of everyone she told this really embarrassing story about me just to make me look stupid.”

“What story?” I asked, and was surprised to find I genuinely wanted to know.

“It was so embarrassing. I had just started my period the year before and the first time I tried to use a tampon I accidentally tried to get it in the wrong hole. You know, it's not like I had ever had any reason to put something in my vagina before then. How was I supposed to know? I told Cheryl and Madison about it because you're supposed to be able to tell your girlfriends everything. But she blabbed it to everyone, right there at the skate park, and Robbie and all of his friends were laughing at me. I was so humiliated, I could never even look him in the eye again.”

“Oh my God,” I said with a groan. “Why did you have to tell me that story?”

“What?” she asked, turning to look at me. “What's wrong?”

“That's the worst thing I've ever heard. In case you didn't know, guys don't want to know anything about tampons.”

“Oh, give me a break,” she said, her voice dropping with disdain. “Guys are such babies. All you think about is sex and vaginas, but when a girl talks about it, you can't handle it. It's a double standard, you know? You look at your own dicks all the time, touch them—Christ, you probably even measure them. But if a girl talks about a vagina you get all squeamish about it.”

“I don't have a problem talking about … a vagina,” I said, the word feeling foreign and awkward on my tongue. Sure, my friends and I talked about pussy all the time. Obsessed about it, in fact. But I had never had a conversation with a girl about it. “Guys just don't like to think about … it … in that way.”

“In what way? You mean because we have our periods? If you can't even talk about a period or a woman's vagina then what are you doing having sex with one?”

“If you don't stop talking right now,” I said, “I am going to drop you and your vagina off at the next corner.”

She huffed out a laugh through her nose, almost spitting ginger ale all over Chris's car, then swallowed audibly. “You are too much,” she said.

When I pulled onto her street, I stopped a few doors down from her house and cut the lights, figuring she wouldn't want her parents to see her coming home with me. “I'll watch to make sure you get in,” I said as I put the car into park and cut the engine, loud on the quiet street. “Ain't Wastin' Time No More” was playing and I adjusted the volume down as the music was loud now without the road noise to accompany us. “I just don't feel like getting shot by your old man.”

“My dad's a lawyer,” she said. “He doesn't shoot people. Just sues them.”

“Sounds like a great guy,” I said as I leaned into the armrest on the door. I didn't want to seem in a hurry to leave but, all the same, wasn't going to encourage her to stay.

“I should have thanked you earlier,” she said. “You know, for saving me from getting busted and … everything.”

“Anytime,” I said with a nod.

“And thanks for the ride,” she said.

“You're welcome, Raine.”

After that there didn't seem to be much else to say so she reached for the door handle to let herself out, then stopped with one foot on the curb, the other still in the car. “Jason?”

“Yeah?”

“I was just thinking.…”

Pause. I waited patiently but she didn't say anything else.

“Thinking what?” I asked.

“There's this gallery opening this Friday and I was planning to go,” she said quickly, like she was nervous. “Would you want to come?”

“With you?” I asked. “Just the two of us?”

“If the idea isn't too repulsive to you, yeah,” she said with a small laugh.

“I didn't mean it like that,” I said. “I'm just … surprised.”

“I'm not asking you out on a date,” she said as she turned to look back at me over her shoulder. “Okay? It's not like a dating thing. You don't have to get a big head about it. I'm just asking if you want to hang out is all.”

“Sure, I'm down with that,” I said. “You gonna pick me up?”

“How about six o'clock? Friday night,” she said.

“I have a home game on Friday,” I said, and for a second I could have sworn I saw disappointment in her eyes. “You can come watch the game and then we can go from there. That cool?”

“I'll come to the game if you promise you aren't going to get in any fights,” she said.

“I guess you'll have to show up to find out,” I said.

She just shook her head as she shut the car door but she was smiling. I didn't start the engine until after she was inside the house with the door shut behind her.

 

 

I stopped by Chick's place on my way back to Bad Habits, pushing the curfew Chris had given me to return his car. I found the apartment door unlocked, Chick asleep on the couch when I got there. I left as quietly as I had arrived and set the lock on the doorknob as I let myself out into the stairwell.

When I returned Chris's car to Bad Habits, it was late, almost closing time. I hung out in the kitchen shooting the shit with the guys and waited for Chris to finish his shift so he could give me a ride home. It was cold outside and I had forgotten to get my jacket back from Raine so I didn't feel like walking.

“That your girlfriend?” Chris asked me as we climbed into the car later.

“Definitely not my girlfriend. Just a girl.”

“She's pretty,” he said. He studied my expression while we were stopped at a traffic light.

“Mmph.”

“Oh, what? You telling me you didn't notice?” he asked with a laugh as he twisted his shoulders to settle more comfortably into his seat.

“I noticed,” I said.

“Yeah, I'll bet you did,” Chris said as he adjusted the volume up on the Allman Brothers CD, still playing through the car speakers.

“But she's so crazy, I never know whether I'm coming or going with her,” I said, and Chris laughed at that.

By the time I got home, I was completely wiped out but was at least relieved to find that Mom was asleep. She usually slept only a few hours each night, and the sound of the television was almost constant. I had learned to hate the noise of the late-night shows she watched, the canned laughter and applause grating on every nerve in my body.

I stood over her bed, watching her sleep for a minute. She was still in her clothes, her hair tangled in a mess around her face. In sleep the lines in her face were smoothed and she looked much younger than thirty-six. I turned off the television and dropped a blanket over the bottom half of her body, then went to settle onto the couch.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The next morning I slept in. Mom was gone when I woke so I spent some time cleaning the apartment and decided I would go to the grocery store with some of my carefully hoarded earnings from the bar. I kept the money hidden in the kitchen, since Mom never spent any time in there other than to make coffee.

Until I went to the store, there would be nothing to eat in the house. The refrigerator offered up some molded leftovers that I tossed in the trash, the plastic containers so gross that I tossed those too without trying to clean them. I decided to shower and get dressed and go out for a meal before taking the long bus ride to the grocery store.