Page 4 of Electricity

“ C ongrats?” I guessed, as the waitress set our plates down, and Sarah laughed.

“Is that all?” she asked.

I quickly shook my head. “No.” There was more, it was just figuring out how to say it. “What’s it like?”

Sarah took on that face she got that teachers loved, the one she used from three rows back to lecture fellow students on the Kreb cycle.

“It was—good. Like all the stuff you see on TV or movies—it’s like that, only it was better.

It didn’t hurt, but he went slow, just in case—and then he went faster and—” She shook her head and flushed, unable to explain any more of it to me.

I did a friend/adult-check over both my shoulders before leaning in. “Did you use a condom?”

She gave me a look. “Jesus, Jessica.”

There’d been a time in 8 th grade, where as far as Sarah was concerned, Jesus-Jessica could’ve been my name.

“How’d you know it was time?” I went on.

“The stars aligned. We were kissing, and it just felt right—we didn’t even get out of his truck, we left the party and drove out to the Point.

” I had never been to the Point. She broke the yolks of her sunny-side up eggs and yellow juices flowed out.

“Only time I’ve been out there and it was empty, because everyone else was at Liam’s. ”

“Wait—” I stirred the contents of my plate up into an eggy-potato-y pile and started eating. “What about Lacey?”

“What about her?” Sarah said. “You can’t tell her about Ryan and I. We’re the mature ones,” she said, gesturing between us with her fork. “Her mom still makes her wear floral prints and go to church.”

“But you got us invites, remember?”

“Yeah, but I figured you’d both be at work.”

“So you didn’t see her there?”

“We were only there for literally thirty-seconds,” she said and looked past me for a moment, and I knew she was remembering something private, like Ryan’s hand creeping up her thigh. My gut twisted in disgust and jealousy and I decided to hide it by re-checking my phone.

“She didn’t text me back last night. Or this morning.”

“She’s probably hung-over and grounded. If her mom found out, we won’t see her outside of school for weeks.”

“Yeah.” Lacey’s mom’d threatened her with Catholic/private/all-girls school before. I had no idea where the money for that would come from, seeing as she was in the trailer park with me, but who could say?

“Anyhow,” Sarah said, refocusing our attention back on her, which was where she liked it, “Ryan and I are now definitely a thing.”

Like he was a thing with Erica last year? I wanted to say, but knew better. I just kept shoveling breakfast in.

I gave money to Sarah to pay for things and hit the corner store on my way home. The weather had gone from sunny to gray and by the time I left the store I was using the cereal box as an umbrella to avoid big fat drops of rain.

I could’ve driven straight home then, but Lacey’s house was practically on the way. I pulled over in front of it. Her mom’s car was in the driveway, like most cars were on weekend mornings, and I trotted past it to her front door, determined to play it casual.

I knocked and waited with a cheerful but not manic grin on my face, playing through a dozen age-appropriate variations of, “Why hello Ms. Harper, can Lacey come out to play?” in my head.

I heard shuffling behind the door, but the door itself didn’t open.

“Hel-lo?” I asked the doorknob, leaning forward with my ear. The blinds covering the window beside the door crinkled, and two dark eyes peered out between slats. I didn’t know what to do, and before I could do anything it was too late—the blinds flipped back closed, hiding Ms. Harper again.

I waited—for her to shout for Lacey to come get the door, for her to get the door herself, but nothing happened.

I raised my hand to knock again—but she had seen me.

Wouldn’t knocking now be rude? It was obvious she didn’t want me here, probably because I was, as Lacey’d told me she’d said before, a bad influence.

I trudged back to the Buick. Lacey was definitely grounded. The only question was for how long—and if her mom’d let me see her before she got sent to parochial.

I pulled the Buick into its spot in front of my own trailer and walked up the steps with the cereal box under my arm. I opened up the front door quietly, expecting to hear the TV blaring again and was dismayed when it was not—because I knew why.

Mom was up.

“Hey, darlin’,” she said, from her spot on the couch. Allie was curled up in her arms. They were still watching cartoons albeit much more quietly as befit my mother’s hangover.

“Hey,” I said, waving the cereal box as my proof of innocence. I had reasons to go out. Foraging, for my people.

“Been gone long?”

I froze. Had I known that waitress? And had she known my mom? No, that was silly—I knew Redson was small, but come on. Breakfast hadn’t been that long—I wished I could see Allie’s face to help me judge. “Not too long. The weather outside’s getting awful. We were just out of cereal.”

“You get any milk?”

I shook my head.

“So it took you forty-five minutes to get to the corner store?”

Busted. My stomach sank as my mother pushed Allie off her lap. Allie looked back at me quickly and gave me the look I imagined drowning people saw from people on overcrowded lifeboats.

“Sarah and I went to breakfast—she had something important to tell me—she’s dating Ryan now.” I spilled almost every bean I had, hoping to outrun the storm.

“You know the rules.”

“I do—but?—”

“But for some reason you can’t follow them.”

“It was just breakfast, Mom?—”

“Do you think I’m stupid? Do you?”

She didn’t really want to know the answer to that—but maybe she could see it flicker in my eyes.

“You’re grounded,” she said.

“What?” My voice rose without thinking.

“You heard me.”

“What is there to ground me from? It’s not like I do anything?—”

“Give me your phone.”

“No—Mom?—”

“Give me your phone—” she said again, more ominously, holding her hand out.

I gritted my teeth and handed it over. She looked at it dismissively. “You know I pay your phone bill.”

“I give you over half my paycheck!” I said, before I could bite my tongue.

“And we’re barely breaking even, Jessica. You know that. If I can’t trust you with my car, with my phone,” she said, emphasis on the ‘my’, “and to have any money—” She shook her head. “From now on everything comes through me.”

I stared at her, jaw dropped. “You told me last night that you loved me?—”

“And I do—but I can’t trust you. I’m doing this for your own good.”

A tidal wave of anger built in me then, for every time actions ought to’ve had consequences and didn’t, or shouldn’t have then did—my mother was the most confusing, most frustrating, most worst person ever.

But I saw her fingers flex around my phone—if she threw it and it broke I might never get a new one.

“For how long?” I asked, doing my best to sound contrite and utterly failing at it.

“For as long as it takes.” She put the phone in her robe’s pocket, and nudged Allie with affection. “You two have fun—I’m going back to bed.”

I waited until she left the room and dropped onto the couch. Allie’s hand crept out and found mine. I took it and squeezed it once. She quietly squeezed it back.

“Go get your homework?” I asked after a few minutes of TV.

“Next commercial?”

“K.”

I spent the afternoon helping Allie with her times tables while I studied for my chemistry class. As the only class I had Liam in, it had priority over all other classes. The sound of my mother’s chainsaw snoring reverberated through the back of the trailer all the while.

I had tonight off at work. Why couldn’t the party have been tonight? Then I could’ve gone with Lacey and neither of us would’ve ended up grounded.

At six o’clock sharp I made our dinner. Fish sticks and tater tots, Allie’s favorite, cheap and easy. We were sitting in front of the TV when my mother lumbered forth again.

“Save me some?”

“In the fridge,” I said with a finger-point. She walked past us, still wearing this morning’s robe, I could see the outline of my phone pressing against its thin pocket. When she was in the kitchen I heard the fridge open.

There was a quiet clink as she pulled out the plate I’d left her, and the pop and deflating hiss as she opened up a can of beer.

“How’re you getting to work tonight?” I asked casually.

“Barbara,” she answered, and retreated with her drink and dinner back into the bathroom.

It took my mother upwards of an hour to get properly ready.

When I was little I used to sit on the toilet and watch her, mystified, as the air clouded with Aqua-net.

When I was older, I used to wonder how she managed to put on mascara while buzzed, but older still I realized now she probably couldn’t manage it sober.

She paced from her bedroom, the bathroom, and the small porch outside, where she took pensive smoke breaks in between phases, staring out at the rest of the trailers on our block.

Allie and I did our best to stay small, pretending whatever was currently on the TV was fasc-in-a-ting, until she emerged from the back, all made up, an empty plate in one hand and her purse in the other, wearing a low-cut top designed to induce tipping in Neanderthals. She handed the plate over to me.

“How do I look?”

There was only ever one answer. Like the Evil Queen in Snow White, my mother always had to be the most beautiful in all the land.

“Gorgeous!” Allie said, enthusiastically.

I could see the dark circles that foundation couldn’t quite hide, and all the thin lines radiating out from her lips because of smoking, but if I was still being honest I had to admit she still looked, “Pretty good.”

“Thank you,” she said, tilting her head at us, her court of two, regally.

Then she reached into her purse and pulled out my phone.

For a heart-flippingly hopeful second, I thought she’d toss it to me, but no.

“I’m only showing you this so you don’t go into my room, looking for it.

” She waved it between us—and it beeped.

Her perfect eyebrows rose and she flipped it to look at the screen, reading my messages.

Whatthehellwhathehellwhatthehell —Sarah and Lacey knew that my mom could see my phone—but what if this was the time they forgot? What. The. Hellllllll ?—

“Huh.” She licked her front teeth. “Lacey’s in the hospital. Wants you to come visit.”

“What?” I stood up from the couch so fast. “What’s wrong?”

“She didn’t say.”

“Mom—Mom—you have to let me see her—” I was a second away from dancing like a toddler who needed potty.

“I’ve got to go to work. Don’t worry, I’ll call her mom and see what’s going on.”

“But why can’t I just go? Barbara’s picking you up?—”

“Because you stole my car this morning.”

“Stealing implies I didn’t bring it back!”

My mother sighed a sigh like a freight train.

“Jessica, you need to learn that everything in life you do has consequences.” She dropped her keys into her purse and outside our trailer a car honked.

“Barbara’s here. We’ll go tomorrow, I promise.

Get to bed early, girls,” she said, and waved like a prom queen on her way out the door.

I stared at the closed door once she was gone. There was a chance my mother was lying to me, but she’d seemed as surprised as I was at the news. My mother was many things, most of them awful, but a good actor she was not.

“What’s wrong with Lacey?” Allie asked, coming over to stand at my side.

“I don’t know.” But I knew where to start finding out.