No Ordinary Life (6 page)

12

E
mily's not talking to me. I've ruined her life.

We've been driving nearly an hour, and everyone is miserable.

I thought going home was a good idea; now I realize it was a mistake. When it was time to leave, Emily pleaded with me to let her stay, to let her live with one of her friends or with Bo. The answer was no, and since my refusal, she hasn't said a word. She blames me, and I can't help but rile at her twisted perspective as to which parent she should be angry with.

Molly and Tom sit silent and tense in the middle seat, upset both about leaving Yucaipa and about their sister's despair.

The sun is nearly gone, pink and orange streaking the sky as the day melts into dusk. The van lurches and nearly stalls, and I step on the gas hoping that will fix it, but it falters again and my heart falters with it. I turn on the hazards, and we limp to the shoulder then pitch and roll to the next exit, making it halfway down the ramp before the van sighs a final gasp then comes to rest on the side of the road.

“Mom?” Tom says, his voice concerned. Already he's begun taking on the role of the man of the house, and this situation is out of his depth.

“We're okay,” I say, though we're not. In front of us is an unpromising-looking neighborhood, desperation scrawled in graffiti on the overpass and coiled in the barbed wire that surrounds the salvage yard to our right.

This is the part of being on my own I hate most, the utter aloneness when things go wrong. A year ago had this happened, I would have called Sean, and though most likely he would have been on the road, he would have told me what to do. He would have calmed me down, asked where I was, then he would have called a tow truck to get us. He would have assured me we were okay and would have felt terrible that the van had broken down, feeling responsible for not maintaining it or for not earning enough to buy me a better car. This is what would have happened a year ago.

“Mom?” Tom says again, breaking me out of my frozen stupor.

“Yeah, baby, I just need to call a tow truck, and I'm trying to figure out how to do that.”

With no idea how you find a tow truck, I call 411.

“City and state, please.”

I don't know what city we're in. I hang up. Beneath the overpass, a shadow moves or maybe it's my imagination. All sorts of bad headlines about abduction and rape flash in my mind.

Why did I pull off the freeway?
A bad choice, the story of my life.

I call my mom. No answer.

“I cowld,” Molly says.

It is cold. Despite it being summer, the sun is now gone, and a frigid wind rattles through the windows.

Tears fill my eyes, and I hate that I'm so pathetic. I hate that I'm scared and that I can't even figure out how to call for a stupid tow truck when my car breaks down. I bite my lower lip to stifle the emotions, to keep them from pouring out and freaking out the kids.

“911. What's your emergency?”

I mutter my distress, and the woman instructs me to calm down, then she tells me to stay on the line so she can track my location. Within minutes, a highway patrol car pulls up behind us. A few minutes after that, a tow truck arrives.

13

I
t's after nine when we stumble through the door of the condo. Taking pity on us, the highway patrolman offered to drive us home after our van was hauled away. The kids found it thrilling to ride in a police car; I found it humiliating. He assured me I did the right thing calling 911, but my breakdown preceding the drive home and my incoherent mumblings during it were what had me stammering apologies when he finally dropped us at the curb. The culmination of emotions did me in. Between Bo's terse words, Emily's sob-fest, leaving Yucaipa for a second time, and the van dying, I just couldn't take it.

Too much
, I want to scream.
You win!
I'm not entirely certain what God I'm screaming at, but I imagine some supreme Buddha sitting on a cloud holding his fat belly and laughing as he sharpens his lightning bolts and contemplates what diabolical blow he's going to deliver next.

Uncle. Mercy. I give up. Please, just stop.

“What happened to you?” my mom says. “You were supposed to be back hours ago.”

“Ouwr van died,” Molly says, sounding almost as sad as me about our loss.

“I told you not to go to Yucaipa,” my mom says, as if she divined our car's death.

She told me not to go to Yucaipa because she wanted us to stay here and have a party with her friends when Molly's commercial aired.

With the name of her longing pronounced, Emily remembers her despair, drops her load on the floor, and runs into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

“I see you two are getting along well,” my mom says, with a look that plainly says this is all my fault. Then she kneels with her arms open for Molly to walk into. “I'm so proud of you. That commercial was wonderful, and I bet every kid in America is going to be asking their moms for overalls.”

“I hope they get the ones fwrom Wawlmawrt,” Molly says. “They'wre way mowre comfowrtabwle.”

“And guess what?” my mom says, holding Molly by her shoulders so she's pinned in place.

“What?”

“Your agent called. A casting director saw your commercial, and she wants you to come to an audition.”

“Really?” I say, my emotions reversing course at the thought of doing another commercial and earning another boatload of money that could possibly buy us a new car.

“What's an audition?” Molly asks.

“It's where you try out for a part on a show, and if they like you best, you get the part.”

“And the othewr kids get the othewr pawrts?”

“And the other kids go home until their agent calls for them to try out for a different part. But this is a really good part, so I really hope you get it. It's an audition for
The Foster Band
.”

The words electrify the air.

“I wlove
The Fostewr Band
,” Molly says.

Everyone loves
The Foster Band
.

“With Cawleb?” Molly says.

“With Caleb. And they want you,” my mom says.

“Want me fowr what?” Molly asks, confused.

“To be another Foster kid, to join the band.”

Molly's face tilts, and I can tell the idea is too abstract to get her head around. To her, the show is real and so are the Fosters, and you can't just join a family. It's like telling her Santa Claus isn't real. At this age, she simply wouldn't believe you.

“You don't worry about it,” my mom says, tapping Molly on the nose. “You just show up tomorrow and be your cute, adorable self, and they're going to love you. Okey dokey?”

“Okey dokey, jokey smokey,” Molly says, skipping off to sit beside Tom on the couch where he is playing on Emily's iPhone.

My mom stands, a slight groan emitted with the effort, making me realize, not for the first time since I've returned, that she is older than when I left, and a pang of unexpected concern prickles me.

“You need to be at Fox Studios at ten thirty,” she says. “Monique sent the details in an email. We think it would be best if Molly wears the dress the Gap gave her, the one with the stripes. I went out and bought a pair of Mary Janes that match. Monique also thinks it would be best if she wears her hair in braids, since the show is set on a farm.”

My concern for my mom's aging evaporates with my annoyance.
Monique this, Monique that.
My mom flings the name around like she and Monique Braxton are pals. Monique Braxton has never even seen the striped dress the Gap gave Molly.

“I haven't decided if we're going,” I say, just to assert my authority and piss her off.

“Well, of course you're going. You can take my car.”

And though
of course we're going
, I refuse to give her the satisfaction of saying so. Instead I shrug and plop myself on the couch beside the kids, flick on the television, and scan through the channels, pretending to look for something interesting to watch, while secretly hoping I'll land on the Gap commercial so I can watch my little star.

14

T
he tickle in the back of my brain has a voice that sounds distinctly like Bo. I try to swat it away, and when that doesn't work, I turn up the radio to drown it out.
Buzz, buzz, buzz.

“Get lost,” I say out loud.

“Who you tawlking to?” Molly asks from her car seat.

“Mr. Bo. He's in my head, and I want him to leave.”

“You'wre funny.”

Sometimes I am.

Bo quiets, but seconds later, my brain is ambushed again, this time by the flash of the insidious tabloid my mom works for,
Star Gazer
. This morning, the current issue was on the counter as I poured my coffee, the face of Zeke Aaron splashed on the front page, the latest teen idol to fall from fame into shame.
Zeke Aaron Enters Rehab Again!!!

“Mom, tewll me again what I do fowr the audition?” Molly asks.

My eyes move to the rearview mirror to find my baby, her curls sticking up every which way around her saucer eyes.

“Are you nervous?” I ask, sensing more than curiosity in the question.

“A wlittle. I want to do good. Gwrandma says it's impowrtant.”

I force my own desire from my voice. “Love Bug, this is no more important than picking apricots from the orchard. You're going to meet some of the people who help put
The Foster Band
on television and pretend you're a Foster kid like Caleb. Doesn't that sound like fun?”

Not entirely convinced, she says, “But if they wlike me, I get the job, wright?”

I swallow at the word “job.” “Sweetie, you're four, you don't need a job. But yes, if they like you, you would get the part.”

“And I'wll get paid wlots of money?”

“I don't know how much, but yes, you would get paid.”

“And then we could get a new cawr, and you won't have to wowrk, and Em can go to hewr soccewr games?”

This morning, I needed to break the news to Emily that, on top of everything else, she would miss her game because of the audition. I needed my mom's car, so there was no way to get her to the field. It was an ugly scene, replete with screaming and door slamming, and a dozen I-hate-yous.

“Bug, this isn't about that,” I try to reassure, though I know it's impossible for Molly to see beyond the tumultuous emotions of the past day. “This is about doing something we've never done before and having fun. Tomorrow I'll get a new job, then we'll get a new car, and then Emily can go to her games.”

“But Gwrandma says if I get the job, we can get a wreawlly good cawr. She says we could pwrobabwly even hiwre someone to dwrive Emiwly to hewr games if you and Gwrandma awre busy.”

I grit my teeth and don't answer. I should have known there was a reason my mom volunteered to give Molly her bath this morning.

A few minutes later, when I glance in the mirror again, Molly is turned toward the window playing her own quiet game of Sweet or Sour, grinning at the drivers beside us and trying to get them to grin back. If they smile, they are sweet. If they don't, they are sour.

I imagine her in fifteen years and wonder, if she gets the part, if it will change her. I picture a curly-haired young woman with saucer eyes beneath the
Star Gazer
's banner and the headline
Molly Martin Enters Rehab Again!!!

I shake my head to clear away the image. Molly is not Zeke Aaron, and his fate is not hers. Bo is wrong—a bazillion kids who aren't famous get into trouble with drugs and alcohol every day. We only think of it as prevalent in show business because it's splashed all over the news.

Molly's not the one I need to worry about, Emily is. It's hard to believe that, in such a short time, a chasm has grown so wide between us that I have no idea how to bridge it.

Things will get better after today. I will get another job and get us back on our feet, then we'll go back to Yucaipa and things will return to normal.

I sigh at the thought, surprised at my sudden apathy to the idea, when yesterday, all I wanted was for things to return to what they were. But today, things are different than they were before. Yesterday, Yucaipa was our certain fate, while today another possibility exists. It's a long shot, but that doesn't stop my mind from imagining a future different from the one of which I had been so certain, my thoughts churning with the possibility of something more, something beyond the impossible struggle that is less difficult and more fun. And in a single day, Yucaipa has been reduced to a consolation prize, the choice we will make if the dream doesn't come true.