Spill Over (6 page)

I laugh. “So?”

“Did you hear me? I won’t be a New York guy anymore! I don’t want to be one of those ridiculous sunglass wearing, cheap BMW driving pricks!”

“Then don’t be.” I shake my head. “This is seriously your emergency?”

“Yeah!”

“David, I’m living on a
boat
, in
Seattle
.”

“Yeah, but your mom is…
well,
your mom
. You’ll always be okay. Everyone thinks she kicks ass.”

He’s kind of right. “So, you called for some girlie-talk to make you feel better, and instead you helped my sorry ass.”

“Antony, right now everyone is salivating over your latest adventure with some wild-man father no one’s heard of on some exotic
sailboat near Seattle. It’s all
adding to your mystery as the world-traveler.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way.
“It’s just Seattle man, and there’s worse things than your mom being a totally hot actress.”

“Gross, Antony.” He’s laughing.

“You gonna survive?” I tease
.
             

“Maybe I’ll come up and visit
.
Cali’s closer to Seattle than New York.”

My chest drops. I really don’t want him here. Since when don’t I want to hang out with my closest friend fro
m New York? “I don’t know David. T
hey both feel like a lifetime away right now.
”

“Don’t get all philosophical on me
. Y
ou know how it freaks me out
. We’ll talk later.”

“Later.” F
ive days from home,
and
I feel separated. It’s crazy. Mom and I ha
ve left New York loads of times. I
t’s
that we’ve always done it together. I can’t wait
‘
til she’s settled wherever she’s going so we can talk.

- - -

Amber’s already sitting at the coffee shop when I arrive in the morning.

“W
here’s your bo
yfriend?” I tease—
mostly
to check her reaction.

She blushes again. No kidding. “Come sit wi
th me, and stop using that word.
”

I order, push the hair from my face, and sit.

“You’re a guy . . .” she trails off.

I raise my brows. “Yeah, thanks for
noticing
.” I start to say something about the way I fill up my pants, but keep it to myself.

“No.” She lets out this little snort of a laugh and stares at her cup. “I don’t want Kent to like me. That way.
I don’t think.
”

“Then stop
being likable.” Wait. Did I
say that?

Her eyes wide
n. “He’s my friend! I can’t
be mean!
An
d I’m still not sure how I feel.
I
want him to not like me until I’m ready…
or something
like that
.
”

“No guy
who likes a girl wants to be told she only wants to be friends. We’d
rather get kicked in the…
you know
.”
And if I keep spending time with Amber, at what po
int will I rather be kicked than have
her continue
to be
so depressingly friendly?

Her face turns scarlet and her eyes bore holes into the lid of her cup.

“
What exactly do you want from me?”
And why would it make a difference if she wanted to be with him or not?
I shouldn’t care what she does or doesn’t have going on with Kent. But I do.

She slumps. “There isn’t some magic phrase or anything?
A way to tell him I don’t know how I feel without hurting his feelings
?
I mean, I
might
like him.
”

Girls really are crazy. Even normal seeming ones like Amber.
“Maybe if you told him you liked him, and left off the ‘but’ at the end of it.”

She laughs. “Well, that wouldn’t really help my case, would it?”
Her eyes meet mine again, and there I feel it, in my gut. No one’s
eyes
should affect me this way.

“Nope,” I agree.
“
Just his.”

“Is this one of those universal guy things of getting the girl no matter who it’s for?”

“
Definitely
not.”
I don’t want him to have her. What the hell’s wr
ong with me? Let her run to him. T
hat would sure
un
-
complicate
things for me. My eyes take in her eyes another time. “I gotta go.” I half leap to standing. I cannot let
this girl get under my skin, which means I
need out of here.

“See you Antony.”
How can her voice be so relaxed after we sat so close? I’m totally screwed here.

“See you.” I back out of the door and take a long drink of my Cappuccino. Probably I should spend some ti
me catching up on school
work.

- - -

Dad’s face is pale as I step down into the boat. At least I know how to get the damn door closed now.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“I…” A tear drips from his eye.

“
Dad?”

“Sit down.”

Our eyes lock
. This is big. Something big.
My heart’s making that part clear, banging around inside me.

I’m shaking, all through. The news isn’t for him. It’s for
me. I’m numb, tingling
.

“Your Mom’s plane went down
. T
he small one they chartered for the last flight in
. The whole crew was on board.”

“I…” M
y mouth is thick, stuffed with cotton. My breath st
abs into my lungs. Sharp breath.
I get it now. “Is she okay?” I can’t believe I’m
asking this about Mom. My
mom.

His head shakes.

There has to be some mistake. Has to be. Some mix-up or something. Maybe she wasn’t actually on that plane. Maybe she…

“They have her body, Antony. They’re sending her home.”

Body. Mom. Not okay.
Pain and disbelief start to pull me apart from the inside.
I go numb and fill
with
a wretched aching a
t the same time. This can’t be happening.

Dad steps toward me. I need away. Alone. I push myself away from the table and shut the door to my room.

“Antony, if
you need anything, let me know,
”
he calls through the door.

I sit on my bed and lean against the wall.
My whole body is actually shaking, not just my insides,
but
my legs, my hands.

Tears hit my lap before I realize I’m crying. How can Mom not be okay? It still feels too much to be real.
I’m alone. Seriously, really, alone. Nothing makes sense. Nothing.
How is the boat n
ot shaking? How am I still
sitting here?

Dad opens my door, steps in and sits on the opposite side of the bed from me. He has a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. He fills one to halfway and hands it to me
without a word
. Then he pours one for himself.

I drink. J
ust keep swallowing the burning stuff until my glass
is empty. Dad doesn’t ask—
he
fills it up again. And now I get why it’s cool to have a dad. Mom would want to talk, to hold me. Dad knows I need a drink. Hell, he probably needs a drink.

The heat from the liquid fills me, warms me, and the pain still wracks me from the inside, but it’s duller. I down the second glass. It could still all be a big mistake. All of it.
She could be okay. Maybe she was on a different plane. Maybe it wa
s a different film crew. Maybe.
I’m going to fill my head full of maybes.
It sure beats the shit out of the alternative.

Five

I’ve gotten calls or texts from
almost all my close
friends in New York. Everyone from the Today Show has sent me an email or left a message on my phone. The president of NBC called me to give his
condolences
. I don’t want any of it. I just want my mom.
All of it fades into the minutes and hours, and seconds, an
d little bits of time that
don’t mean anything anymore.

I’m living half in the real world, just enough to function, and half in a world where I’m heading to New York to find Mom and to know that this is all a big mistake.
             

We’re on the plane. The air smells like we’re being canned.
Dad’s asleep
in the seat
next to me.
I drink the whiskey he left on the tray in front of him
. He cut his hair and even had his beard trimmed. He still looks
eccentric, but in a good way. In
a way that makes him look like a writer of something other than cheap mystery novels.

My chest is scraped, hollowed. My brain can’t focus. The pain makes it all so much more real. I don’t want real.

How will I stay with Dad in Mom’s apartment? Where will he sleep? The couch? Even the guestroom feels like an odd place for him to be, but I guess that’s wh
ere he’ll end up. What
am I going to do with myself in
New York
?

I scroll through the texts on my phone, even though I’m not supposed to while flying. What are they going to do? Kick me off the plane?

I stop at the one from Amber.
The girl I barely know, but who
also has this weird inside track on me becau
se I can’t keep my mouth shut around
her.

I KNOW I DON’T KNOW YOU THAT WELL. BUT YOU CAN CALL ME OR TEXT ME ANYTIME K? I CAN’T IMAGINE NOT HAVING MY MOM.

I blink back tears at the simplicity of her words.
Yeah. That makes two of us.

- - -

Dad’s eyes wid
en as we step out of the cab
in front of my building
. Mom and I
live in a great place,
right on Madison.
And now,
with the first sympathetic look from a random person walking from the building,
the problem is clear. Everyone knows Mom. Everyone knows who she is. Everyone knows what happened. I
get a sympathetic look from Carl
, who gets the door for us. I get two sideways glances from an older lady in the elevator.
Pictures
of Mom and I together
have been all over the TV. I caught a glimpse of our last trip to Eastern Europe while I was in the airport.

I hate twenty-four hour news networks. I wonder how many times they’ve played the story about my mom, and I wonder how many more times they’ll play it. Guess it all depends on ratings.

When
I unlock the door to the apartment
, its
like the place already know
s
it
s unused—
it feels too still inside.
Dad’s silent. I would be too. What the hell do you say to your stranger son after your ex-wife dies?

There are pictures of Mom and I everywhere in here. I can’t look.

“Don’t use Mom’s room. Take the one at the end of the hall.
I’m going to bed.” I don’t slow. Don’t take off my shoes. J
ust go to my room.

I open the door to my freshly vacuumed floor, and newly made bed. Rachel
, the housekeeper
,
probably
came, knowing I’d need to come home. I wonder if she stocked the fridge
with coffee grounds and milk
while she was here.

I flop on my back, stick in my headphones and crank the music as loud as I can.

-
-
-

The next few days go by in a haze. I take all the pictures down and put them on Mom’s bed. Then I take them off her bed and put them under her bed. If she comes home in the middle of the night, she won’t want to have to move them. I don’t touch anything on her dresser, or open her closet or bathroom door.
She
always gives me a hard time
when I mess with her stuff.

Being home makes me feel like she’ll walk through the door at any moment.