Love and Leftovers (2 page)
Read Love and Leftovers Online
Authors: Sarah Tregay
Eating Lunch with the Leftovers
In the Aftermath of the End of the World
Staying Home from School Because My Head Hurts
So I Make a Study Date with Katie
Outside on the Thomases’ Front Steps Katie Reveals
Danny Suggested That I Try to Be Understanding
My Best Friend Is Falling in Love
Judging from the Roar of the Crowd
The Second Letter I Don’t Send
The Downside of Living with Dad and Danny
No One Can Hurt My Heart Inside My Little Ball
Because I Want My Best Friend Back
To Love, To Family, To Friends
I’ve Changed My Mind, All I Want Is Everything
What My Ex-Boyfriend Doesn’t Know
Over Coffee and a Cranberry Scone
“My Life Has Been a Hurricane”
Skipping School Never Sounded So Good
I Jump Out of Bed and Call Linus
On the Last Page of My Notebook
My mother
doesn’t understand
that this is a summerhouse
(meant to be lived in
only during the summer).
It is almost Labor Day.
Next week,
I’ll start my sophomore year
at Oyster River High School
in Durham, New Hampshire,
because she doesn’t have the courage
to go home
to Boise, Idaho.
On the first Saturday in June,
Mom and I stopped at Albertsons
to buy milk and bananas.
We bumped into Dad,
who was on his way out—
a Coke in his hand.
But Mom forgot about the
milk and bananas when
Dad introduced us
to a friend of his named Danny,
a bartender at the straight-friendly
establishment across from the opera.
Mom’s eyes narrowed
and her face hardened into granite.
Then she shot the two of them
a look hot enough
to melt flesh.
Mom grabbed my wrist,
pulled me across the parking lot,
and told me to get in the car.
She sank into the driver’s seat
and I watched the granite crumble
into ragged breaths and searing tears.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“I can’t believe it,” my mother said,
more to the windshield than to me.
“Seventeen goddamned years!”
(That was how long Dad and Mom had been married.)
She never did answer my question.
She did, however, start in on a blue streak
that lasted until she pulled into the driveway.
So I pieced together the information.
Dad’d been going out for drinks a lot lately.
Danny worked at a straight-friendly bar,
which was probably a nice way to say
gay bar
.
Dad said he and Danny were friends.
And that pissed Mom off.
Now Mom was swearing about
how long she had been married to Dad,
as if today was the last day
she’d consider herself his wife.
“Is Dad gay?” I wondered out loud, hoping
my problem-solving skills weren’t very good
and that I’d missed the mark by a thousand miles.
But Mom nodded yes.
My mother
took two weeks off
back in June.
I asked her
(in July)
what we were doing.
I think she meant to say, “Vacationing”
but she said, “Running away.”
Which might have been okay,
even though I thought that
if I ever ran away,
I’d do it with
a certain emo-sensitive rocker boy
and not my mother.
The worst part of
this overextended summer vacation
is leaving
behind
a perfectly good boyfriend
with the deepest
espresso-brown eyes
a girl
could ever
get lost
in.
my mother
has transported herself
to another world.
On her planet
showers,
waking up before sunset,
matching her clothes,
and leaving the house
are optional.
Meanwhile
typing furiously,
crying constantly,
and pitting coffee against sleeping pills
for a battle over her body
are commonplace.
Sometimes
I think she needs
those antidepressants
we see in TV commercials.
But every time an ad comes on
she changes the channel.
So she needs me