Page 31 of Electricity
T he bus was the bus. Kortney saw me first and elbowed Emily to make sure she saw. She in turn hopped onto ZB and sent me a message, I felt it ping through:
It doesn’t matter how much make-up you put on—you’re still the friend of a whore.
I pretended not to check my phone and stared resolutely out the window until my stop.
Homework was completed at the McMullen residence in record time, the trailer spotless, and dinner on the table by the time my mom emerged.
“Well, well. This is nice,” she said, coming out to the sight of me dusting.
“Thanks!” I put the duster away under the sink and calculated out how long I needed to be nice versus getting what I wanted, without seeming like I was trying too hard.
“You know what you said last night, Mom?” I asked, broaching the subject as I cleared dishes post-dinner and she tilted back, drinking something on ice.
“Yeah?”
“Well,” I did my best to be a little nervous in front of her. She reacted to cocksure poorly. “Liam invited me to the post-game party at his place tonight.”
“Yeah?” she said, eyebrows rising over the edge of her glass.
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t the game on right now?”
“Well, yeah, but—I had homework to do?—”
“It’s a Friday. You’d have all weekend.” She sighed through pursed lips. “How did I ever raise such a goody-two-shoes?”
Mainly by providing disturbing examples of what’d happen if I wasn’t one? But I did my best to give her a charming, ‘Beats me!’ grin.
“Sure. Of course you can,” she said.
I pre-winced a little to acknowledge the seriousness of my next question. “Can I also borrow the car for it?”
She put on a show. “I guess. Bring it back in one piece though. Go get me my phone, so I can call Barb.”
I raced back to her bedroom and grabbed her phone without thinking. In an instant, everything on it downloaded to me.
If Tricia’s late again, she’s gonna get fired?—
who cares, she’s a cunt!
No, I know, I need her shifts, Jerry’s late again?—
they’re your kids too, Jerry?—
who has time for that?
Of course I’ll come in?—
yeah, she’s always been trouble?—
I can’t, now that we’re down Jessie’s job?—
She said that? I can’t believe her!
Didn’t your little sister go to school with her?
What about later?
Go home, I can close. I need the $$$
Do you think Don’ll be there?
I’m allowed to have needs, Barbara ;)
Jerry, seriously, where’s my cash?
I bet your new kids get dental?—
I dropped the phone, then caught it, then set it down and squatted over it, wracked with things I didn’t want to know and a stabbing sensation in my temporal lobe.
No wonder my mother mythologized her time in high school, when her current life was an endless struggle to make ends meet.
It might have been the last time she was carefree.
“Jessie?” she called from the living room, and I picked up her phone carefully with my fingernails, not my fingers. I knew why my mom drank—and it kinda made me want to drink, too. I plastered a fake-ass smile on my face and went back into the living room.
“Here you go!” I said, handing her phone over.
She started texting Barbara for her ride. “Just make sure to leave before the cops break this one up, okay?” she said, smiling at me. For me.
“Sure thing,” I promised. The second she left for work I started plotting.
If there were other pictures, how many there were? And who else had seen them?
I wouldn’t know if I couldn’t get to the source—Danny—and so I dressed with him in mind.
Danny always looked like a cover model for Midwestern Monthly, the hatband around his hair near permanent, one outfit change away from a camo-shirt at all times.
If it was his destiny to cradle rifles near slaughtered bucks, what should I wear as his wannabe cornfed bride?
I didn’t remember what Lacey’d worn to her party so I erred on the side of caution, with a tight red tank that showed off my chest shamelessly, a denim mini, and strappy white sandals.
I checked myself out in the mirror. I’d never been so patriotic before.
Then I did my hair and face and aimed for the natural zone where Sarah lived, landing somewhere south of it, in ‘I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing here so I give up’-land. After that I sat on the couch, nervously playing with Allie’s hair.
Liam would text me any minute now, wouldn’t he?
I mean, of course he would. He hadn’t forgotten about me again, had he?
I could just drive over to his place, I remembered the directions from the other night—besides, if I did that, I might be better off, I could get closer parking—like that’s what was important tonight, rational parking.
Just when I’d written him off, I saw-felt his text come through.
Party’s on!
I stared at the phone for a long moment. Was I really doing this? Oh God.
C U soon!
Flashed across the screen, far more positive than I felt, but before I could change it I pushed send.