Читать книгу A Little Friendly Advice - Siobhan Vivian - Страница 9

The salty smell of breakfast seeps underneath my comforter, where I am buried, eyes squinted shut. Bright sun radiates heat and light through the bedding and bakes me like pie filling.

But I shiver, as if I were still freezing cold, still out on the hood of his truck. I haven’t thought of the day he left in years, but suddenly I’m reliving it in such sharp detail that it takes my breath away. It’s not like a dream or a flashback, where things seem all soft and muddy and confused. This is different. This feels as real and painful as it did the first time. I brush away a clump of damp hair from my face and kick the covers off.

Mom stands at the foot of my bed in her mint-green nursing scrubs, staring down at me. The skin around her eyes is dark and puffy, even though she’s put makeup on to try and hide it. She probably hasn’t slept a wink. I doubt I would have either, if not for passing out cold on my pillow after praying that I wouldn’t throw up. I’m never, ever drinking again.

She’s holding a plate piled high with scrambled eggs, toast, and a neat stack of bacon. A huge glass of water and an economy-sized bottle of Advil are wedged in the crook of her arm. I can’t remember the last time she cooked me breakfast, though I doubt my brain is really working properly. It feels like it hates me, the way it pounds and amplifies the steady beat of Mom’s slipper tapping the carpet to a frighteningly loud decibel level.

“You slept right through your alarm this morning. I had to come in here and shut it off myself.”

“Sorry,” I say, reaching for the water with the Advil. My tongue feels like a dried orange peel as it presses two tablets against the scaly roof of my mouth. I start gulping.

Mom shifts her weight from left to right. Her shiny hair flips shoulders accordingly. “I let school know you wouldn’t be in today, seeing as it’s nearly two P.M.”

The red dots on my digital clock look blurry and fat through the bottom of the glass. Every part of me feels heavy, sinking deep into the grooves worn into my old mattress, but I can’t get comfortable. Mom clears some junk from my nightstand and sets the plate down. I keep swallowing until the glass is empty, and then trade it for a fork she’s got stuffed in her pocket.

“Is it safe for your mother to assume that coming home drunk will not be behavior she can expect from you on a regular basis?” Slipping into third person is Mom’s trademark of being annoyed, another way to put more distance between us.

Sharp pain ripples across my forehead, but I force myself to nod through it.

“Good answer. Then suffering through your first hangover will be your only punishment. You can consider this Get Out of Jail Free card a belated birthday present. But know that if you ever come home intoxicated again, you’ll be grounded like there’s no tomorrow.” She plants her hands on her hips and waits for me to formally acknowledge the huge amount of parental slack I’ve just been granted.

So I mumble, “Umm . . . thank you.”

A smirk creeps across her mouth. “That was quite a tirade last night. At least your father knows I’ve raised one very polite teenager.”

This is how my mom and I communicate. Sarcasm acts like smoke and mirrors, so we can talk about something without having to actually say anything. But her punch line lights the fuse of my memory. I see flashes of faces gawking at me by birthday candlelight, feel sparks of soreness in my throat from my courteous rant, hear the crackle of cellophane in his tightening fist. He was here, but now he’s gone. Again.

“First off, he’s not my father.” I half expect her to defend him, but she doesn’t say anything. “And what did he want me to say? ‘Hello there! Umm . . . gee, this is awkward, but what’s your name again? Ahh, that’s right . . . Dad! I totally didn’t recognize you there! Would you care for some cake?’” A clump of eggs slides off my quivering fork. I might still be a little bit drunk.

Mom walks over to my window and opens it wide. I’m glad, because her perfume is thick in the hot room and my first bite of breakfast tastes like a mouthful of overripe petals. Sharp October wind pours in and tangos with the heat of my radiator. She stands there quietly for a minute, peering down at the front lawn.

While her back is turned, she says, “I don’t know what he expected and I’m certainly not going to guess. But it’s obvious what he wanted. He wanted to see you.”

Her words get colder the longer they hang in the air. Maybe she’s jealous, because she’s the one who actually still seems to care about him. At least I have a best friend who’s helped me deal with everything. My mom has nothing but work and awkward conversations with me.

“Well, he got what he wanted,” I say through squishy bites of buttery toast. “Now he can go on back to wherever he’s been hiding for another six years, because we don’t need him.”

She turns back around to face me, and we wrestle our lips into weak smiles. Then she pulls out the dirty towels from my hamper while I eat, and both of us ignore the uncomfortable silence that has settled over my room. Just like always. It’s almost comforting.

Mom flips the hamper lid shut and makes for the door. My throat suddenly feels tight and I swallow hard to force shards of bacon down. Something triggers my gag reflex. But it’s not food that bubbles up.

“So, did he say anything to you last night? Like . . . where he’s been for the last six years?” My voice is tinny and high-pitched. It doesn’t sound anything like me.

Mom surveys the distance left between her and my open bedroom door. Her shoulders slump and her lungs empty with one deep sigh. “Yeah. He did.”

I sit up too fast and my bloated gut seizes in protest, swishing around remains of last night’s champagne. Mom sits down on my comforter. Her bottom lip catches under the ridge of her front teeth. I wait patiently and avoid eye contact.

“Your dad’s been living in Oregon.”

“Oregon?”

“Yes. At least, until last week.” Her voice stays even and measured. “Apparently, he was a park ranger there.”

I look for an edge to these two puzzle pieces. Some kind of cheat to link park ranger and Oregon with what little I know about Jim. But they are blobs from somewhere in the hazy, undeveloped middle of What Happened. I have no idea where or how they belong. Or why I even care.

A few seconds pass before my breathing kick-starts. “A park ranger? In Oregon?”

She bites at her pinky nail.

“Mom.”

“Ruby.” She matches my tone exactly. Then her head dips back and rolls around her shoulders a full 360 degrees. “Okay, fine.” She sounds tired and annoyed. Not with the conversation. With me. I grip two fistfuls of my comforter and let her continue. “After you left, he sat down and asked if he could smoke.”

My nostrils flare. “You should have told him no.”

“I honestly didn’t know what to do. His hands were so shaky; it took him about half a book of broken matches before he got one lit. It was very awkward and very quiet, so I got the dustpan out and swept up your flowers. But I did ask him what he’s been doing these days. He said he’s been living in Oregon, working as a park ranger, but now he’s moving on to something new.” Her fluttering lashes mask her eyes. “And he said, ‘Tell Rubes I’m real sorry for ruining her party.’ Then he left.”

Cold sweat beads on my temples. “That’s it?” That can’t be it.

“Don’t look so surprised. You should know by now that your dad isn’t particularly good at apologies.” She couches it in a hollow chuckle, because she’s not being mean. Just honest.

I cram the million other questions I have back down my throat.

Mom shakes out her arm until a gold watch slides to her wrist. She checks the time and says matter-of-factly that she better get over to the hospital, as if our conversation needed an official ending. Leaning over, she takes a bite of the toast in my hand and plants a quick kiss on my cheek. Her gooey lipstick deposits sticky crumbs on my face.

“Sorry,” she says. And she wipes my face clean.

I don’t bother to clarify the intention of her apology.

On her way out of the room, she bends over to pick something up off my floor. “Oh, Ruby. This is beautiful!” She rubs my gray birthday scarf against the side of her face.

“Yeah. Beth made it for me.”

Her fingers trace the yellow ribbons. “She’s such a good friend.” Mom carefully folds the scarf up and lays it on top of my dresser, making me feel crappy that it was ever on the floor in the first place.

I roll away from the rest of my breakfast and fill my face with the pillow until her car scuttles down the driveway. Then our tiny house is quiet, except for the silence, which seems extraordinarily loud. There’s no sleeping through this kind of silence. So I get up and take a shower.

My fingers jerk hard and fast through soapy knots of hair. I squint my eyes so tight while I rinse that, when I open them again, the colored spots take forever to fade from the white bathroom tile. Not once but twice, the bar of Ivory flies out of my hands. Every movement feels clumsy and awkward. So I make the executive decision not to shave my legs, even though they’re pretty prickly.

It’s certainly no secret that I’ve got some serious emotional baggage. Make that a complete set of luggage with wheels for easy transportation, zippered sections for compartmentalizing, and ballistic nylon for an impenetrable shell. But I remind myself that there’s no need to worry. All my issues are packed nicely and neatly away. Just because Jim randomly showed up doesn’t mean I have to relive everything all over again. Once was more than enough.

The water turns icy and my skin is pruned. I run to my freezing room and slam the window shut. I squeegee myself with a towel and pull up my favorite Levi’s. They feel chalky and in desperate need of a wash, just the way I like them. I shiver into a white tank top and a Japanese Coca-Cola T-shirt I found at Revival, twist a pile of my thick wet hair on top of my head, and secure it with a rubber band. I take one more Advil and start a load of towels in the washing machine.

Then I crash onto our puffy floral couch. The late afternoon light makes everything in the living room look dusty. Traces of leftover cigar smoke burn through my nose.

I try not to think of Oregon. Oregon. Oregon.

Especially because it’s a very boring train of thought. I don’t know a thing about the state, other than its general Pacific Northwestness.

The Internet might enlighten me a bit, if not for our hulking paperweight of a computer. Wedged in the corner of the room, it’s covered in catalogs, credit card offers, and receipts. The sickly green monitor is practically bigger than our television set and the dial-up modem can barely handle a heated IM discussion. We can’t afford a new computer, but we might as well throw this one out. It’s completely useless.

Then I remember. My map.

It hung on my bedroom wall in our old house — a temporary cosmetic concealer for the garish metallic wallpaper Jim promised he’d strip and replace with something nicer when he had a chance. Each state was a different pastel color. I’m almost positive that Oregon was pale yellow. That’s a pretty weird thing to remember. But my post-shower chill is suddenly replaced by a shade of warmth.

I head up the creaky attic stairs, past the bulk toilet tissue and paper towels we buy from Costco. I throw all my weight into the door to get it open. Inside the main room, packed moving boxes are bricked tall like the Great Wall of China.

We used to live in the smallest of the Victorian homes on Rose Lane, but it was still enormous by anyone’s standards. My parents bought it cheap because it was classified as a Fixer-Upper — meaning it had been left vacant and uncared for after the bulk of the Akron rubber industry shifted overseas.

Tiny flecks of white house paint would flutter in the air like confetti whenever it got windy. Roof tiles wriggled loose and got lost in the tall grass of the front yard. The pipes leaked and made patches of ceiling turn rusty. Some of the rooms had exposed nails poking through the raw studs, which I was warned to be careful around. It was creaky, run-down, and pretty spooky, especially at night. But the house was also full of endearingly weird quirks, like false-bottom floorboards, sliding doors that would disappear into the wall, and a hidden back staircase that Beth and I filled with stuffed animals and made into a hideout.

I loved that house. I’d never forget that house.

Mom and Jim had planned to restore it together. A labor of love. But up until the time he left, most of their repair projects were in various states of half-ass. The perfect metaphor for their relationship, I guess. Mom pledged to finish the place herself, but that never happened. Partly because he took all his tools with him. Though I seriously doubt she could have done that kind of work alone anyhow.

Two years later, property taxes went up in our neighborhood. Mom and I moved to a tiny two-bedroom row house across Akron that was practically the size of an apartment. We packed up the old house together. At that time, I had been doing okay for a few months. My grades had gone back up and I had stopped seeing the school counselor. But moving shattered any progress I might have made. I think I cried the entire time. It was like I was being forced to look at all these things from my old life and then bury them in boxes forever. It must have been unbearable for Mom. But the one pacifier to the whole situation, which Mom made sure to constantly remind me of, was that our new house was just around the corner from Beth’s.

I restack a few of the boxes off to the side to gain access to a cardboard poster tube in the corner. The plastic cap makes a hollow pop that echoes through the room.

The map is not nearly as big as I remember it to be, stretching barely the length of my arm. Random boxes make for an uneven display surface, so I unfurl only the top left corner and press it against a stack at eye level. The rest of the map uncoils sloppily off to the side. A slight tear grows through a state that may or may not be Wyoming.

Well, I was right. Oregon is yellow. Ohio is blue.

But beyond that, there’s no real information about the state except for its capital, Salem, a couple of brown triangles indicating the Cascade Mountain Range, and a tiny cartoon horse with a cowboy on top. I squint forward, as if something secret might suddenly emerge if I just stare hard enough, long enough.

Then I spot it. A fleck at the peak of the cowboy’s hat. It looks like a pinprick. It looks like his plan to leave us.

Another wave of nausea crashes over me and I get clammy. My hand shakes as I carefully reach forward, as if I were adjusting one of the logs in a campfire.

But the fleck sticks to my damp fingertip. It’s dust. It’s nothing at all.

A plastic tarp rustles and I jump. My sweaty bare feet slip on the attic floor and I fall hard into one of the boxes. A corrugated corner jabs my pathetically untoned bicep. I touch the red spot softly and find it’s already tender and lumpy, a definite bruise in the making. Across the room, the tarp flutters again. From the ground, I can see it’s draped over a hissing heat vent.

I pull my knees up to my chin and wonder what it is that I’m doing up here in the first place, and what kind of grand revelation I expect from a stupid third-grade classroom map.