In Plain Sight (2 page)

The Beamer’s engine roars to life, sounding like it’s excited for Spring Break too, even though it’s just a car. I crank the air conditioning and lean back in the black leather seat, closing my eyes to just chill for a minute. Midterms kicked my ass this semester, and I can only imagine how bad finals will be. I feel like I’ll need this entire week off school just to recuperate from all the damn studying I did for these stupid tests. Of course, taking a course load of four AP classes at once never bothered my brother Greg, so I won’t let anyone know it bothers me

I let out a deep breath and crank the radio. It’s Spring Break, after all. Fuck yeah. I pull out of the school parking lot, letting my car speed away from that hell hole as fast as I can legally go. Which isn’t fast, because I’m still in a school zone.

Josh calls me, and I answer the phone on my car’s Bluetooth speaker because God knows I can’t afford another ticket for talking on the phone. At least this way, any passing cops will think I’m just talking to myself.

“Sup, man?”

“The Getaway tonight,” Josh says. In the background I can hear the roar of his old Camaro, a classic ’76 that he borrows from his dad every so often to drive to school and look like a badass. “Bryce is meeting at my house, so you wanna just pick us up, say around seven?”

“The Getaway?” I say with a groan. “Come on, man. Anywhere but there.”

“Getaway fuckin’ rules, dude. Just have your gay ass here by seven, okay?”

The call ends and I roll my eyes as I turn toward my neighborhood. The Getaway is located in what used to be a clothing store before the company went bankrupt. It’s described as a “club for teens” and yes, it’s exactly as lame as it sounds. There’s dancing, a DJ, arcade games, and a bar that serves food and non-alcoholic drinks. So it’s pretty much like a night club, but for people who can’t buy alcohol. Without alcohol, I really don’t see a reason for grinding up against strangers under the blinking of multi colored lights to some shitty pop music, but it is what it is. My friends love it.

And at least there’s a ton of girls there, so I guess that partially makes up for the whole lame factor. Given the choice, I’d rather binge watch Netflix in my room with a large cheese pizza, but the guys won’t go for that.

Plus, there’s girls. And I could really use a girl right about now.

I don’t mean that literally. I don’t
use
girls. I treat them with the respect they deserve, just like my mother taught me. It’s too bad that respect thing doesn’t go both ways. If I had a dollar for every time I was approached by a girl who only wanted the popularity that comes with dating a member of the football team, I’d be so freaking rich I could buy my own private jet and get the hell out of his small ass town.

I
love
the idea of having a girlfriend. But every girl around here sucks. The spend more time bragging about dating me on social media than they do, ya know, actually dating me. They want me to buy them things, take them places, do all of the gold-digging things their heart desires, but when I was in the hospital having surgery on my knee, who came to visit me?

None of them, that’s for sure.

With bitter anger and spite flowing through my veins, I make it home and head straight for the shower. I still have a few hours before I need to be a Josh’s but I need some time to myself right now. A hot shower, an hour of watching TV, and maybe a snack. Maybe that will help me decompress. I mean, having a girlfriend isn’t the only thing in the world to care about.

But what can I say? I want one.

I want to love and laugh and hang out with a pretty girl who cares about me just as much as I care about her. I want secret inside jokes and late nights on the phone and lingering goodbyes on her doorstep.

Sometimes I think I need to start an entirely new life on a whole different planet in order to have the opportunity to meet someone who could share these things with me. Living in Greg Jensen’s shadow has kind of ruined me, socially.

My older brother was a rock star athlete, a God with the ladies, and graduated top of his class five years ago. And apparently, just because I look like him and share his DNA, everyone expects the same of me.

I did my share of being a playboy womanizer in sophomore and junior year, but it got old fast. That’s not really me. Maybe that’s why my senior year sucks.

When I’ve steamed up the shower and used nearly all the hot water, I step out, wrap a towel around my waist and reach for my deodorant.

Only it’s empty, so I toss it in the trash and head out in the hallway to grab another tube from the stash my dad keeps in his bathroom. Shouting and passive aggressive comments fly out of my parent’s room, as lout as if the door wasn’t shut.

I stop in the hallway, sighing, as I listen to them go on and on, arguing about money. It’s always bout money.

My parents love each other, they really do. But they are shit when it comes to budgeting. And that doesn’t make any sense because they’re both accountants. Go figure.

Deciding I can probably just chill on by bed for a while without deodorant, I turn and head back to my room.

My parent’s door flies open, and Dad calls out, “Maybe if you took one less trip to the damned salon every month, we could afford the house insurance.”

“You love my hair and you know it, John,” Mom calls back.

I roll my eyes. They both have a point. The thing with my parents is that although they’re madly in love, they also have quite a “keeping up with the Jones’s” complex that leaves them perpetually broke. They love living the good life, even when we can’t afford it.

“Colby,” Dad says, making me freeze in place just before the safety of my bedroom. Damn.

I turn around. “Hey, Dad, what’s up?”

“I can’t give you any money tonight,” he says staring at me like I was just about to ask him for a few hundred. (I wasn’t, by the way.)

“That’s fine, I’m good.”

Dad looks at me the vein in his forehead protruding, but finally he shrugs. “Good.”

Something is weird at the trailer park. I can tell even when I’m still half a block away. A large moving truck is parked in the road that divides both rows of mobile homes. No one who lives in one of these places can afford a moving truck. Maybe it’s really the police and they’re here to seize a trailer full of drugs or something. But I don’t see any cop cars, no flashing red and blue lights—which is actually ironic because here at Quality Mobile Home Park, there’s usually one set of flashing lights once a day.

I walk into the faded gates that surround the property of run down mobile homes in an effort to shield the public from the shit hole that it is, and then narrow my eyes. It really looks like that moving truck is parked next to our trailer. But it can’t be for us because two muscular men in white tank tops and jeans walk down the ramp on the back of the truck. Only Mom, me and my sisters live in our house.

I watch them as I get closer to my house. One of the men walks back carrying a pink dollhouse. It was on sale for five dollars at the Goodwill last year and I got it for Emma for Christmas.

Okay, this is not good.

Are we being evicted?

Or . . .
robbed?

Just when curiosity is getting the better of me, Mom appears, telling the second man to make sure the mirror from her antique vanity set isn’t scratched.

“Mom?” I say, stopping on the gravel road a few feet before our driveway. “What’s going on?”

Mom turns to me, grinning so big you can see her crooked teeth. Teeth notwithstanding, Rose Sinclair is incredibly beautiful, especially for a woman in her early forties. She has long medium brown hair and big brown eyes. Even though we’ve always been poor, Mom never skimps on skin care, always moisturizing and cleansing, saying your skin is what shows age, so it’s best to take care of it.

She smells like baby powder lotion even now as she engulfs me in a hug.

“Surprise!” Her big eyes sparkle as she pulls back, holding me tightly by the shoulders. “We’re getting the hell out of this place!”

Okay, three things cross my mind all at once:

1.How the hell did she find a cheaper place to rent than here?

2. How much worse will it be than this falling-down trailer?

3. Oh well, at least I get to move schools and forget all about how much Jacoby humiliated me.

“Okay,” I say instead of voicing any of my thoughts. Then, because I can’t help myself, I follow it up with, “Why?”

Mom gnaws on her bottom lip, a strand of hair falling from the messy bun on top of her head. She takes a deep breath and holds up her hand, palm facing herself. “This is why!”

It’s only four in the afternoon, so the sun is still shining pretty brightly. That’s why I nearly go blind in the seconds that follow.

Then my jaw drops. Mom’s wearing a diamond ring the size of a freaking Ring Pop. (Okay, maybe not that big, but the damn thing sure is shining like the North Star.)

“What the hell is that?”

Mom frowns, causing a tiny splash of wrinkles around her lips. “Honey, language.”

“Sorry,” I say rolling my eyes. “What the
heck
is that? Did you rob a jewelry store? Are we jewel thieves now? Hmm . . . I guess I could get behind that,” I say, sarcastically putting a finger to my lips like I’m thinking it over.

Mom laughs. “You are hilarious, Maddie. No, this is an engagement ring. Landon proposed to me!”

She looks so genuinely, unbelievably, happy. Her eyes sparkle as much as her behemoth of a ring, and she seems ten years younger. She’s also staring at me like she expects me to be just as excited.

“Landon?” I say, lifting a brow. “Is that the guy you’ve been dating?”

“Yes, silly.” Now she rolls her eyes. The moving men keep walking past us, going into the house and then returning with boxes of our stuff. “You know Landon. I’ve been dating him since we moved here.”

“No, Mom. I don’t know Landon. I know
of
Landon.”

Ever since my dad left Mom in their senior year of college when I was just a baby, and then Emma’s dad left Mom when Emma was just a baby, and then Starla’s dad left mom—well, the moment he found out she was pregnant—Mom has instituted a strict rule. No introducing the men she dates to her kids until she’s positive it’ll work out.

Needless to say, in the two and a half years since Starla has been born, we haven’t met a single guy.

I know it sounds like Mom maybe isn’t the greatest person, but she is. She’s loving and kind and she cares so much it tends to ruin her. She’s just made a few bad mistakes in life, and when you add them all together it makes her seem like trailer trash single mom of three.

I
hate
that so much. My mom is such a great person and she doesn’t deserve that title. It’s not like she’s some inept drug addict. She’s not a prostitute and she refuses to get on welfare, no matter how much I might ask her to. Things are tight, and Mom deals with it in her own way.

Like how five years ago when my real dad—a man named Stephan who only went to college because his parents made him—found us and apologized for not being there, Mom wasn’t mean to him. She let him in my life, saying I need a real dad if he wants to be one. It was awkward as hell, but he apologized for never being there, gave me a check for five thousand dollars, and then slowly stopped calling over the course of a few weeks.

Mom insisted that I keep the money for myself, but I knew we were two months behind on rent and Mom’s knees were killing her from walking to work every day. So I paid the rent and bought her a car. A bad mom would have just kept the money for herself.

My mom is not a bad mom.

Which is why I’m staring at her like she’s lost her mind. “A guy you’ve known four months proposed to you and now we’re moving. Am I getting that right?”

“Yes, honey.” Mom’s smile flattens, and a little crease appears in her forehead. “Look, I know it seems sudden, but it’s not for me. I knew the moment I met him that I wanted to be with him forever. And I should have introduced you girls to him a lot sooner, I should have. Then this wouldn’t be so weird.”

“Where are we moving?” I ask, trying to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“To his house. It’s
our
house now, honey. And guess what? Everyone gets their own room!”

I narrow my eyes. That does sound great . . . “Does he have any kids?”

“Nope,” she says shaking her head. “But he loves kids and he’s always wanted them. He’s going to love you guys.”

“What if he doesn’t?” I ask, crossing my arms. “What if he
thinks
he likes kids but then Starla has one of her epic meltdowns and he realizes he hates kids and wants us to leave? How will get find another cheap place to live?”

“Maddie, that won’t happen,” Mom says, reaching for my hand. She squeezes it, her skin warm against mine. “I know this is sudden, but it’s the best thing that ever happened to us. Landon is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I swear to you.”

A knot is slowly forming itself in my stomach, and about a million alarm bells are going off in my head. What if this Landon guy is a serial murderer who just lured in his next victims? Or worse?
We haven’t even met him!

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Where are the girls?”

“They’re still at daycare. They can stay there until six, so we’re hoping to have their rooms unpacked by then. I read in a parenting magazine at work that when you move with kids, their rooms should be the last to be packed up and the first to be unpacked.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes, I really do. “Okay, well don’t put them in separate rooms.”

Mom’s brows furrow. “Why not?”

“Because they’ve been together their whole lives. Put them together and let them choose for themselves if they want to separate later on. It’ll help them transition to some strange new house.”

“I guess that’s a good idea,” Mom says. “Let me go tell the movers.”

Okay, so as weird and insane as this day is, I am starting to get a little excited. I mean, the pedophile house is gross. There are roaches that skitter across the floor when you turn on the lights, a piece of plywood duct taped to the floor, and every single window leaks when it rains. It always smells like mold and I’ve had more than one nightmare that the roof will suddenly collapse, killing us all.

If Landon has a house—a
real
house—this could be a good thing.

I could get a good night’s rest without hearing the cops arresting some idiot a few trailers down. I could turn on lights without worrying about roaches.

Yes
, I decide, telling that knot in my chest to go away.
This could be a good thing.