Hummingbird Heart (4 page)

Usually, I was happy to get time alone with Mom. Karma had been living with us for three years, since her own mother died, and while we got along okay, I liked it when I had Mom to myself. But tonight, I wasn't so sure. There was something about the way Mom was looking at me—something about the forced cheeriness of her tone—that made me nervous.

F
our

There was something so
cosy
about having routines, I thought, as I slid the creamy block of mozzarella across the sharp scalloped edges of the cheese grater. Beside me, Mom was slicing a heap of mushrooms
. Pizza
night.
Before Karma came to live with us, Friday night was always pizza night. Unfortunately, Karma wasn't a fan of anything involving melted cheese. She said it was gross and stringy and complained that the smell made her gag. So that was the end of our weekly pizza night. Now, whenever it was just me and Mom, we always made pizza together. I loved it.

“Goddamn it.” Mom dropped the knife and looked at her thumb for a second. “Knife slipped.” She stuck her thumb into her mouth and used her free hand to refill her wineglass.

I made a sympathetic face and turned my attention back to the mozzarella. Something was definitely going on. Toni always said how cool it was, the way my mother was so young and talked to me like we were friends, but I didn't always think so. Mom had a tendency to give me way too much information, especially when it came to her boyfriends.

There were things you didn't want to know about your mother. Things you didn't want to talk about.

I knew it was wrong of me, but I couldn't help wishing she was more like other people's moms. She was thirty-three but looked younger, and people always thought she was my babysitter or my older sister. And I knew it was snobby, but I wished she had a more professional kind of job, like being a nurse or a teacher or something. I had no shortage of wishes: I wished she'd finished high school; I wished she'd stay single for a while; I wished she wasn't going to get another tattoo; I wished she didn't drink so much; I wished she didn't smoke pot.

Sometimes I felt like she was the teenager and I was the parent. Mothers, I thought, should be more reliable. More predictable. More
grown-up.

“Mom? Do we have pineapple?”

No answer. I glanced sideways at her. “Yo, Mom? Pineapple?”

She was done with the mushrooms and was just standing there with the tomato-sauce spoon motionless in her hand.

“Earth to Mom? You're dripping sauce everywhere.”

“What?”

I shook my head. “I asked you if we had any pineapple.”

“I don't have a clue. Look in the cupboard.”

“Fine. Don't bite my head off.”

“It's been a long day.”

“Whatever.” I turned my back and rummaged in the cupboard. Cat food for a cat we don't have, canned mystery-meat ravioli, soup, beans. No pineapple. I snuck a glance at Mom. She'd knocked back that second glass of wine in less than a minute and was scratching the back of her hand, leaving a red welt. Something was definitely up. “All right,” I said. “What is it? What's wrong?”

Mom stopped scratching and folded her arms defensively. “What do you mean?”

“Please.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes.

“Look, I…I'm sorry. You're right; I'm distracted.” She fingered the stem of her empty wineglass. “There's something I have to talk to you about.”

“Is it about Scott?”

“No.”

There was a long pause, and I felt an unexpected rush of fear: ice in the belly and an electric tingle shooting down my arms. What if it was something really bad? What if she had cancer? I stared down at the tablecloth still folded on the table and studied the embroidered flowers.

“Dylan?” Mom reached out and touched my arm. “Pickle…I had a rather weird phone call this morning.”

I wondered if it was a teacher or something, but I hadn't done anything wrong that I knew of. Teachers generally liked me. “Who from?”

She hesitated. “Mark. From back east. Your…you know. He's in town. He wants to come and see us. To meet you.”

A split second's relief—there was nothing wrong with Mom—and then the words sunk in. My
father
, even though Mom wouldn't say it, wouldn't ever call him that. My heart was doing something crazy, crashing around in my chest like it was trying to bust out. I could hardly breathe. Was it possible to have a heart attack if you were only sixteen?

“Dylan, you don't have to see him. I'll just call him back and tell him to get lost. You can say no.”

I swallowed hard. “Why? Why does he want to see me?”

“I don't know.”

“So he just suddenly got curious or something? Like, maybe he was bored one day and remembered, ‘Oh yeah, I have this daughter. I wonder what she's like'?”

“I don't know.” She hesitated; then she cleared her throat as if she was going to say something.

“What?”

She dropped her eyes, shook her head. “I really don't know.”

“He just called? For no reason? Why?”

“Oh, Dylan. I've told you everything I know.”

I just looked at her. Maybe she didn't know why Mark was here, but there was something she wasn't telling me. I'd put money on it.

“I have,” she protested. “You know I haven't seen him since before you were born.”

“I know. But…this is really weird.”

“Tell me about it.”

She'd never told me much about my father.
Just a one-night
stand
, she'd said.
No one important.
She'd happily share all kinds of details about her current boyfriends—and I mean
way
too much information—but whenever I asked her anything about the guy who got her pregnant, she basically brushed me off.

Was he tall, like me?

Yes.

What color were his eyes?

Shrug.
It's too long ago, Dylan.

Mom…

Blue. Okay? They were blue
.

It was like pulling teeth.

I only had this one bad photo of him: Mom in denim cutoffs, looking very pretty despite being too skinny and having dyed black hair and heavy black eyeliner. Standing behind her, out of focus, was Mark. All I could really tell about him was that he had brown hair and a blue T-shirt.

She wouldn't even tell me his last name, because she just didn't want me going online and searching for him. According to her, he was an asshole and a selfish prick who had never even wanted to meet me. End of story.

Only now he was here, in town. And he wanted to see me. I looked at my mother and blinked back my tears. “I guess you don't want me to meet him.”

She shook her head. “It's up to you.”

“I might not bother. You know, since he's never bothered before.”

“That's fine then. Fine.” That was all Mom said, but the expression that flickered across her face looked a lot like relief.

FIV
e

Mom and I seemed to have some unspoken agreement not to talk about it again, which was fine by me. I didn't even want to think about it, though of course I did. It was hard to think about anything else. The air in the house seemed to be getting heavier and harder to breathe, full of the thick sour smell of unsaid things. By the time Saturday evening rolled around, I was desperate to get out of the house, even though parties weren't my favorite thing.

Toni was sitting on my bed, applying purple nail polish she'd borrowed from my mom. “What are you wearing?” she asked.

I looked down at my jeans and blue sweater. “This?”

Toni looked up from her fingernails and studied my face for a moment. “Okay, what's the matter?”

“Nothing.” She might have money for a dozen different outfits but I did not. “You don't think this looks okay?”

“It looks fine.” Toni gave me a scrutinizing kind of look. “It's just that usually we try on different things and…oh, you know.” She blew out a breath of frustration. “Come on, Dylan. You're so not into this party. Just tell me what's wrong.”

I opened my window. The nail polish fumes were stinking up my room. I tried to breathe shallowly and wondered why I hadn't phoned Toni last night after Mom told me about Mark's call. Usually I told her everything. “Just some stuff with my mom. You know.”

Toni watched me, a mixture of hurt and irritation flickering across her face. She flapped her hands to dry the polish and said nothing for a long moment. Finally she shrugged. “Well, if you want to talk about it…”

“Thanks. But I'm fine.” I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Okay. Maybe I should wear something else. What do you think?”

“Actually, you look gorgeous, as usual. And that shade of blue suits you.” She tilted her head to one side thoughtfully. “You just need something…here, try this lipstick.”

I took it and ran the color along my lips. I wouldn't share lipstick with anyone else—I was too germophobic—but Toni didn't count. “There. Better?”

“Perfect.” She sighed, lower lip sticking out, blowing air upward so that her curly hair lifted off her forehead. “You are so beautiful, Dylan. Seriously. Sometimes I wonder why I hang out with you. I'm so totally jealous.”

I didn't think I was beautiful at all. I was tall and kind of clumsy, with long straight brown hair and blue-green eyes. My mouth was too wide, my eyebrows too heavy; and I wasn't sure what I thought about the slight cleft in my chin. I did like my nose though, and at least my teeth were all right. I stared at my reflection and wondered for about the millionth time whether I looked anything like Mark. The lipstick was startling: dark red against my too-pale skin. I brushed my hair and held it away from my face for a moment, trying to see myself objectively; then I let it fall forward so that it partly covered one eye.

Maybe I would refuse to meet him. Let him see how it felt to be rejected.

The party was only a few blocks from my place, so Toni and I walked over together. Karma followed us for the first block. She was pretending that she was going for a bike ride, but she was just tagging along to be annoying. She was so good at it, you'd never guess she hadn't been a younger sister her whole life.

“Is your boyfriend going to be there?” she asked Toni.

“How exactly is that any of your business? Anyway, it's too dark for you to go for a bike ride. You don't even have a light on your bike.” Toni made a face at her. “Shouldn't you be in bed, little girl?”

Karma was unfazed. “I'm fixing my light. Anyway, it's not even eight thirty yet. I bet Dylan's going to kiss boys. Are you, Dylan?”

“Karma! Get lost.”

“I know what high school parties are like,” Karma said, her bike wobbling on the sidewalk and almost hitting me. “My friend's sister goes to them all the time. Everyone gets drunk and makes out.”

“Yeah? Well, I don't, okay? I'm not like that.” I gave her handlebars a gentle shove.