Saving Montgomery Sole (24 page)

“Did you?” Momma Jo raised an eyebrow. “Say ‘eff'?”

“Ummm.” I replayed the exchange in my head. “Sort of. I think I said ‘screw you.'”

“That could have been a pretty … intense experience,” Mama Kate said.

Momma Jo whistled. “How
was
the vigil?”

I smiled. “There was no one there.”

Momma Jo clapped her hands. “Ha! Well, there you have it! What do you know, Aunty? Not quite as homophobic as
some
people would think!”

“Yeah, I was kind of surprised. I guess it's been kind of a surprising day.” Maybe
surprising
was the wrong word. Strange. No. Not strange.

“I didn't know this religious stuff was upsetting you so much.” Mama Kate's voice was a wisp, it was so small. She looked down at her hands.

“It's not, like, just the religious stuff, really,” I said, shifting my stare to the top of our kitchen island, which was covered in bills. “Sometimes I get tired of always feeling like I'm from Mars or something. I get that there's nothing wrong with who I am, okay?” I added, preempting the everyone-is-okay-including-kids-with-gay-moms talk. “I just wish more people got it. Like at school. Sometimes it feels like no one around here gets anything.”

“Oh,” Momma Jo scoffed, “it's not an around-here thing, Monty. Anywhere you go there are going to be some clueless and stupid people. Get used to it.”

“Great,” I mumbled.

Mama Kate gave Momma Jo a look of psychic mom intensity.

“Okay. Mama Kate would want me to say, not everyone is clueless and stupid.” Momma Jo softened. “People. People who live in Aunty, who live in big cities, who grow up religious or gay or what-have-you. People are complicated. Sometimes it's more than just ‘they don't get it.' Sometimes there's more to people than you can see.”

Now you tell me.

The doorbell rang. Momma Jo pushed off the island and jogged to the front door, calling over her shoulder, “Don't move!”

Mama Kate was quiet. Aside from the creak of Momma Jo's footsteps, and the muffled sound of her opening the door, the whole kitchen fell under some crazy spell of silence. Even the fridge was uncharacteristically chill, not humming or shaking or doing that weird ticking thing it's started to do after I slammed the door too hard with my foot because my arms were full of snacks. Staring at Mama Kate, I could feel every breath like a tidal wave.

“I didn't want to tell you about the Reverend White stuff,” I said, finally, “because I know, with your dad … I know talking about that stuff upsets you. And it really—it's
not
a big deal.”

“Monty.” Mama Kate smiled a sad smile. “Just because something makes me sad or upsets me doesn't mean it's a terrible thing I can't talk about. It's okay to be sad.”

“Okay,” I said, sitting up. “Sure. Right.”

How is it okay to be sad?
I thought.
It's the worst to be sad.

My face must have looked all twisted or something. Mama Kate curled her hand over her lip. “You don't think it's okay to be sad?”

“Oh yeah, I mean, it's
fine
.” I kicked the island softly.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

“What are you afraid is going to happen if someone is sad?” Mama Kate asked quietly.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

In the hallway I could hear Momma Jo hunting for her wallet and cursing.

My toes were ringing.

They could leave
, I thought.
They could fold in on themselves and just disappear. They could not come out of the bedroom, ever.

“Crappy things,” I said, finally.

“Well,” Mama Kate said, “I'm sure having someone be sad is pretty scary.”

I swallowed hard. “Right.”

Like the edge of a cliff. A dream you can't wake up from.

“I know,” Mama Kate said, “it scares me when I see you upset.”

“Aha! But it's okay to be sad and upset,” I sniffed, pointing playfully, as I blinked through my suddenly sweaty eyes. “Right?”

“Right,” Mama Kate said. “So, maybe … maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing if we were sad sometimes. Maybe it's not the end of the world. Because we have each other.”

I watched her hand reach over and grab mine.

Mama Kate has the best hands. Maybe that was weird to think. But, really, they're never clammy and they never grab too hard. Imagine having a mom with a bony, sweaty hand.

That would be terrible.

I could taste the tears on my lips. “I know it's stupid, I'm just, sometimes I'm scared if it all gets too bad … I'll lose everyone.”

“Oh, Monty”—Mama Kate's face was all rivers—“you won't.”

Then we basically just … cried for a bit. I don't know how long. Then I wiped my nose on an oven mitt, which is gross, but I couldn't find a paper towel, or a tablecloth.

Momma Jo tiptoed in and slid a box of what smelled like cheese-and-pepperoni heaven on the counter.

“We ordered before you came back from your
vigil
,” Momma Jo said, walking over to kiss the top of my head. “I don't know if they serve snacks at vigils these days.”

“They have cookies,” I said. “But I didn't eat any.”

“Good girl.” Momma Jo looked down at the box, then up at me and Mama Kate. I guess we were both sniffing a bit. “Soooo … we've had a good talk. I figure we can take a break and say we will continue this conversation on a future date. Yes?”

“Sure.” I went to pop off the counter to grab a plate, but Mama Kate had me in a bear hug.

Then Momma Jo had me in a bear hug.

Then Tesla came downstairs in her workout outfit, likely lured by the smell of cheese, and I guess then we had a really long, kind-of-cheesy family bear hug.

And then I had probably the best pizza I've had in forever.

*   *   *

Five slices later, I went upstairs to go online, to find Thomas and tell him what the heck was going on, and I sat down on the bed and there it was.

The cross.

The cross!

What?

I just about to lose my crap when I looked up and Tesla was standing in the doorway.

“You can have it,” she said. “I didn't mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You didn't,” I said.

“Yes I did,” Tesla said quietly.

She had these jammies on. We have matching ones. From Christmas. Pink for her and blue for me. With the feet and the trap door in the back. She normally never wore them.

I wondered how much Tesla could hear me talking with the moms downstairs. Maybe it was just as scary for her, having a sister freaking out.

Tesla ran her toe in an arc over the floor. When she's sad, my sister looks like me. When she looks sad and when she's not jogging, our shared genes shine through.

“You can have a cross,” I said, feeling like more of a jerk than one would ever imagine possible. “You can do whatever you want. I mean, who am I to say…”

“I don't want to be a Christian,” Tesla said, leaning into the doorway. “I just wanted to see what it was like. Like an experiment. Because other people do it and because I didn't know what it would be like to talk to God.”

“What was it like?”

“It was okay, I guess.” Tesla scanned the debris of my room. No doubt wondering whether she would eventually discover her don't-have-to-clean-to-be-cool gene.

“Well,” I sighed, “as long as no one was hurt.”

You're one up on me
, I added silently to myself
.

“Yeah,” Tesla mumbled, her chin to her chest, “I did use it to pray to win against the Gophers.”

I picked up the cross. This one had smooth edges. The same mashed-up face, though.

I looked over at Tesla.

Geez, I didn't even know she had another big game. Was it a play-off?

“How'd it go? I mean, did you win?”

Tesla frowned. “We lost,” she said, sinking to the ground.

“Sorry,” I said, lowering myself across from her.

Tesla started lightly pounding the floor in front of her with her fist, like she was flattening a pancake. “It was stupid. You have to train to win, not pray. Anyway, we'll win next year.”

It was like I was standing on the business end of a batting range with no bat. Just lots. And lots. Of balls.

Flaming balls of
You were wrong, Montgomery
.

Nice one, Montgomery.

Way to misread everyone and everything, Montgomery.

Way to go.

Oh and did I mention you're an amazing sister? That's right because you're not.

Apparently you can be someone who spends a lifetime on the Internet looking up stuff and still not know crap about the world around you.

“Okay, well,” Tesla said, scrambling to her feet. “See you tomorrow.”

“Hey,” I said. “Do you want the cross? I mean, you can have it. Even if you don't want to pray to win. It's cool.”

“No,” Tesla said, shaking her head.

“Okay, well”—I stood and walked over to my desk—“I'll put it in a drawer for you. In case you want it for later.”

“Or in case
you
want it for later,” Tesla said.

“Right.”

I listened to her little foot pads as she walked back to her room and shut the door.

Then I opened the drawer again and looked at the cross. I took the Eye off my neck and shut it in the same drawer.

 

14

 
Time travel

I wonder all the time if I were to meet a version of myself in the future or the past whether I would want to talk to myself. It would be tempting to tell past-me all this stuff I know now, but then again I would probably screw up the time continuum by saying anything. Maybe I could just say something really simple, like “Relax, it's not that bad.”

I don't know if I would believe me. It would probably depend on the timing.

After my “vigil adventure,” as Momma Jo called it, instead of having Pizza Night, the Sole family started To-Be-Continued Night, where we talk about what's going on at school, still over pizza. Sometimes this devolves into this general Q and A, where my moms just ask me a million questions, but sometimes it's nice to just talk about what's going on in our lives.

Once in a while, instead of grilling Tesla and me, Mama Kate and Momma Jo tell us about stuff that they're finding hard.

Which is kind of interesting.

Momma Jo misses playing sports, but she doesn't like the women who run the sports teams in Aunty. She says they are all wimps.

Also, some of the people on Tesla's soccer team are jerks. Like this one girl Tammy, who told everyone that Tesla was a boy's name.

“Um,” Momma Jo said, “it's a super
cool
name of a supercool scientist-inventor, so they can just be quiet.”

“Just tell them it's the name of a fairy,” I said.

“Good idea,” Tesla noted.

*   *   *

I'm not sure if talking about school makes it suck less, or if seeing the Reverend White's failed rally for hating homosexuals inspired a little optimism in me.

I did wonder about Percy for a while after I saw him running out of the building that night. Thomas heard from someone in his English class that he'd been paid by the Reverend White to put up the crosses at school.
Hey, cashmere ain't cheap, darling
, as Thomas would say.

I thought of saying something to him, but then the next time I ran into Percy in the halls, I realized I kind of didn't care.

It's just a cross.

I've basically quit Yoggy cold turkey since Tiffany headed back to Michigan. I did try, for a while, to keep my Yoggy habit going, but it's just not the same without her there.

I hope she's happier now. I also, greedily, am hoping she's somewhere continuing her research. Though she's probably not.

The girl who works at Yoggy now is obsessed with carbohydrates. Now
all
the fro-yo is carb-free.

Which to me is hilarious because it's like, is it
really
carb-free or is it carb-free based on Tiffany's labeling system?

Who knows?

Either way, the new girl is, like, a size two blonde who wears flip-flops and has, like, a zillion tan lines. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't give me any free toppings.

In other news, it turns out Matt Truit has some sort of major heart condition. I overheard Madison Marlow telling the Parte twins that it's a genetic thing. They found it when they were doing tests on him in the hospital.

Madison said her mom said it was because Matt's parents were originally from Los Angeles.

Apparently, according to Madison's mom, people from Los Angeles are prone to heart conditions. Because they all do drugs.