Page 19 of Try Me
“The Farrow charm didn’t work on her? Guess she’s allergic to bullshit.” I thought I caught a flash of anger or hurt in his eyes. I couldn’t tell which, and I didn’t give a shit anyway.You do. You always have.
Mark grabbed the loop on the back of my shirt and tugged. “Slow down a second, dude. Let’s just figure this out.”
I stopped and chuckled humorlessly, caught off guard by the wide-eyed way he was looking at me. There remained a very faint green hue to his jaw where I’d nailed him. Its counterpart lived on the backs of my knuckles. That punch had hurt like a motherfucker. “I’m here to work, not to play kiss-and-make-up with you.” I tipped my head toward the elevators. “Talk fast.”
Mark followed my gesture, then looked back at me, gaze losing some of its edge. “Guess I should’ve assumed you’d apply for this internship.”
“I’m sure if you had, you’d have also assumed alow-lifelike me wouldn’t make the cut.”
He smirked, then glanced over my shoulder and lifted his hand toward someone. Figured he probably knew half the people who worked here.
He turned his attention back on me, a quarter smile turning up his mouth. “You’re such a goddamn grouch.”
“Thanks for the insight,” I said glibly, uninterested in philosophizing about his decent point. “I’m going to work now.”
“Your ribs okay?”
“Yeah, they’re fine.”Finemeaning I’d tossed and turned the past few nights trying to get comfortable. But I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of sharing that tidbit.
“I was really hammered that night.”
I laughed again, the sound acrid even to my own ears. “That old excuse, huh? Favored by straight boys all across the land. No homo. I get it.”
“That’s not what I meant, asshole, about the—” Mark blew out a breath of frustration, brows pinching together as he lowered his voice. “I meant about hurting you.”
He shifted uncomfortably as I cocked my head, eyeing him up and down. “You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be looked at with suspicion basically everywhere you go. To be an already formed conclusion the second you walk through a door. A couple of jabs to the ribs? That’s fucking nothing.”
I turned and walked away, relieved when he didn’t follow.
* * *
My mom was sittingat the kitchen table when I got to her apartment. Her shoes were in the middle of the hallway, staggered apart and sideways like she’d literally walked out of them when she’d gotten home. I bent to scoop them up and set them alongside the cabinet as she gave me a tired smile. “Hey, sweetheart.” She was probably the only person in the world who would call me that.
“Hey, Ma.” I dropped the sack of food I’d mooched off one of the line cooks at Fuego on the table next to the bobby pins she was pulling from her hair. “Carrie in her room?” We’d shared the tiny 10 x 12 room for a single month the summer after my freshman year of college—long enough for me to realize it was less than ideal. I’d moved out onto the couch and then gotten lucky with on-campus work-study apartments sophomore year, which allowed students to stay over the summer. Not everyone in the program got one, but my number had come up in the lottery. Maybe not the lottery I was hoping for, but I’d gladly accepted.
“Of course. She’s in that phase where I’m the biggest moron on the earth. If I recall correctly, with you it lasted until around sixteen, then my normal son returned.”
“Bad news.” I reached into the cabinet for a water glass and filled it. “Think it lasts longer for girls. My friend Amanda is still going through it.” I dropped into the chair beside her as she sighed and tugged fruitlessly on the knot of the bag I’d brought. I took over and slid the containers out. “Mrs. Fessenbein’s not working.”
“I know. But she’s the only option right now. And Carrie’s old enough that she doesn’t need as much supervision.”
“Yeah? Do you remember what I was doing at thirteen?”
She put a hand up. “Don’t remind me.”
Mark and I had gotten in trouble that summer for almost setting an abandoned McMansion on fire. It was a total accident. We’d been trying to make a campfire, and Mark had carefully laid out a ring of rocks for a fire pit. Except that we thought the fire pit should go inside the McMansion. And that the tufts of insulation from the wall made for perfect kindling.
I unearthed some plastic-wrapped forks and knives and spread them over the table, then tried to guide us to less treacherous conversational territory. “I’ve been thinking about it. What about someone part time from the U? And I can probably shift my schedule a little bit, get some more hours at Fuego.” I pulled out an envelope and pushed it over the table toward her. “We can pay Mrs. Fessenbein or a student the rest of the time.”
My mom sighed. “Another girl quit at work, so I’m taking on her workload until they get a temp. That should be next week, though.” She fingered the edge of the envelope before opening it and riffling through the bills.
“Yeah, but something’s always cropping up. I can cover it for the summer, at least,” I insisted.
She eyed me warily. “This is from the restaurant?Just—” she added as I started to sayyes, “from the restaurant?”
A couple of years ago, the data entry company she’d been working for had closed abruptly, leaving all the employees high and dry. It was the first time I’d started dealing weed for Meecham, but it kept the rent paid since everything else we’d ever had had either been seized by the FBI or was tied up in the IRS—which had never settled anything fast. Back then, my mom hadn’t asked me where I’d gotten the money, but she’d been suspicious. Just not as suspicious as she was desperate.
Now anytime I offered her money, she questioned it.