This Ordinary Life (15 page)

“Hey,” he says, burying his hands in his pockets.

“Hey,” I say, the stress of the afternoon unraveling so quickly, I have to sit down to keep grounded.

“Danny, you remember Wes, right? From Dr. Bee's office?”

“Yeah, and he was my roommate in the hospital!” Danny moves to slap Wes five, but Wes gives him a handshake like he'd give someone our own age.

“What's up man?” Wes says.

Danny beams at the attention before marching back up to take another turn.

Wes drops into the seat next to mine and I pass him a slice of pizza. “I don't know why we bought a whole pie. And I'm not bringing any home for my mom, either.”

Wes raises his eyebrows. “Um, okay… Something happen?”

I whisper the story. My mouth stutters as much as my heart when I tell him about Mom being passed out in her drunken glory. It's not the kind of thing I really share with too many people. But the afternoon is stamped all over me, so it's not like I can hide it. And Wes obviously gets Danny's problems.

So it all pours out of me, detail after detail, coming home, her passed out, my search up and down the block for Danny. It's like slipping on the most comfortable pair of shoes to talk to someone who understands without having to explain. Wes listens intently as I reach the pinnacle of the afternoon search, eyes widening all saucer-like when I tell him about finding Danny alone in the bath. Saying it out loud makes my voice shake like we're in a 10 point on the Richter scale earthquake.

I close my eyes and take a huge, steadying breath. Nausea rises in a wave and I taste it in the back of my throat. “God, she's such an asshole. I mean, can you imagine. If… He could have…”

“He's okay,” he says, putting a hand on mine. I look down at our hands without even really thinking too much about the fact that this is kind of weird, his fingers lying on top of mine like they belong there. Like it's their job to do what they're doing, giving me comfort and making me feel so much less alone. His nails are clean and neatly trimmed, his fingertips rough against my skin.

But I can't stop thinking about that stupid bath.

“Nothing happened,” Wes says in this super soft voice that feels so much like a comforting hug. “Talk to her again. Remind her. I'm sure you can make her understand. I mean she must know—”

“Yeah she knows, but you don't understand, when she's like that—”

“Your turn, Jazzy!” Danny bounds over to us. I pull my hand away from Wes's quickly.

“Can Wes take my turn?” I ask my brother. “Maybe then I can come close to catching up to you.”

Danny looks between us as if deciding. I pick up a paper airplane Wes left on the table and toss it at my brother. Danny catches it and throws it back with a laugh.

“I guess so,” he says. “But only one turn.”

“Fair enough, bro.” Wes ruffles Danny's hair as he passes. Danny smiles up at him, obviously smitten with Wes's attention.

I watch the interaction with a faint smile, trying to keep my own emotions from mirroring my brother's.

T
HE WORST PART
about my mom is how freaking clueless she is. Okay, that's not the worst part, since let's face it, she pretty much sucks all around. But geez. I give her the silent treatment the rest of the week and she doesn't even notice.

The night we came home from bowling she was still passed out and after putting Danny to bed I went to bed myself. What if I wasn't home? Would he have gotten out of the bath, made himself dinner? Who would have given him his medicine? I guess she just assumed I would have been home and done it all, like I always do. Or did she just not think about him or care? And God forbid he had a seizure in there. She wouldn't have even known. So I spent the next two days avoiding and ignoring her. I kept myself and Danny on track in the mornings and evenings and she worked her stupid shifts at the bar and pretty much acted like we didn't exist.

And it's not that I don't want to take care of Danny, because of course I don't mind. He's my heart. But I've been working Easy Easton Mornings all week and had afternoon meetings with Ms. Hudson to get the portfolio ready for next week's WYN60 Get Up and Go visit. So I'm stressed to the point of breaking.

When Saturday rolls around, I have no interest in getting up early. I wake up at seven to give Danny his meds and then fall back into the warm cocoon of my blankets and drift off again. I finally open my eyes again at almost lunchtime. I sit up, yawning
and stretching and remembering suddenly, that today is my nondate with Wes.

I smile and look up at my ceiling.

Why I find myself poring relentlessly over my closet, I can't say for sure. Since I don't know what we're doing, I settle for a casual jean skirt and a lacy black tank top.

By early afternoon, I'm home alone and pacing the kitchen. Mom and Danny actually went somewhere together, shockingly, though I have no idea where since she seems to finally have gotten the I'm-not-talking-to-you-leave-me-alone-no-really-I-will-kill-you-with-my-deathglare memo. I don't think she even knows what she did wrong—cluelessness and aversion to actual true life details seem a natural side effect of her drinking.

But whatever. I wipe down the gold Formica and straighten the pile of papers on the counter while I look out the kitchen window for Wes's fancy SUV. I say a silent thank you prayer that Mom isn't here. I told him I didn't want him to meet her, but I'm afraid Wes's stubbornness would have made him come in to say hello. A paper on the top of the stack grabs my attention.

“Lab results?” I mutter, frowning. The date at the top is from last week. Did his labs already get here from his Dr. Bee visit? I flip through them. On the second page, one of the lines has been highlighted manually in bright yellow, by someone at the doctor's office, I guess.

“Shit.”

His med levels are way up again. Damn it. This is the constant problem for Danny. He's tiny and metabolizes the medicine so quickly that he needs a ton of them to stop his seizures, but then the levels get too high, which has a whole other host of possible problems, like awful mood swings and side effects that could cause damage to his kidneys and liver. I grab a sticky note and scrawl a note for myself as much as for Mom. M
UST
C
ALL
D
OCTOR
M
ONDAY ABOUT
L
ABS
!

There's not much they can do. Controlling the seizures is the most important thing, despite whatever harm to his system or organs or side effects the medicines cause. Tears burn my eyes. Why can't she handle this? Any of it? How did this huge thing become my thing?

I press down on the sticky note harder than I need to. I hate her.

A brown bag sits at the back of the counter, amid the mess of papers. I peer into it and roll my eyes. A bottle of vodka? At least she remembers some things. Like stocking up on her booze.

I fold the top of the bag back over to close it, but then I think again. I crack open the bottle and take a whiff, and the stench almost knocks me over.

Eau de Mom.

I pour almost the entire contents down the drain, leaving about 5 inches of vodka in the bottle. I pour dish detergent down the drain to try and cover the smell of liquor before filling the rest of the bottle with water. I laugh as I push the bottle to the back of the counter. She probably won't even remember she had an unopened bottle.

“Drink that,” I mutter just as there's a knock at the back door.

My eyes dart around the kitchen and family room. It doesn't look great, but despite the second-hand furniture and stained carpet, it's relatively neat for the Torres house. Enough not to feel too embarrassed if he gets a glance in here from the back porch, anyway. Wes's outline is visible through Mom's gauzy door curtain, his shoulders, the flop of hair, even. I take a deep breath and the fluttering wings in my stomach settle like glitter in the bottom of a snow globe.

I open the door, standing close enough to the threshold to hopefully keep Wes from coming in and looking around.

“Hey!” I say. A little too enthusiastically.

“Hey.” His hands are buried in his pockets and he's wearing that half smirk, half smile that is really starting to get to me, like stirring way deep in my belly get to me. It stays on his face for a second longer and I squirm, hoping the way my insides are flopping around isn't obvious. He takes a step back.

“Whoa,” he says. “That's some outfit.”

My face instantly goes all pie-just-out-of-the-oven hot. He's wearing jeans and a white tee shirt and I'm hoping I'm not dressed wrong for whatever we're doing. I gesture to my skirt. “Is this okay? I wasn't sure what we were doing. I can change.”

“Oh, don't worry. I have some awful stuffed planned for us.” He grins. “You will have the worst time of your life. But no, please don't change. It may not be the best choice for our plans, but my conscience will not allow me to let you change into anything other than that skirt.”

Hellllllo, listeners. Welcome to—wait, what did he say?

“Don't look at me like that,” he says with a shrug. “I'm human. And a guy. I appreciate what I see is all. I'm allowed that, no?”

“No,” I answer as I lock the door. “Checking out your friend is weird.”

Not that I didn't notice the way his tee shirt fits just right across his chest and back.

“Let's go,” I say.

Smirk smile. Smile smirk.

Jesus. He's cute.

This is not a good start to this supposed non-date. I shake my head as I push past him toward the car.

Wes's eyes have a mischievous twinkle as he moves toward the passenger door. I elbow him, but I'm smiling now and laughter sits on the edge of my lips. “I can open my own door.”

I settle into the luxurious leather and pull the visor down to check my lip gloss. Wes crosses behind the car and I watch him in the mirror. I try to ignore the smallest of smiles still dancing on my lips in my reflection.

“Where to?” I say as the engine roars to life.

“Just you wait.” Wes pulls away from the curb.

We drive for twenty minutes, turning off one highway and onto another and then changing onto yet another again. We head so far east, the New York skyline looms larger with each passing mile, but he gets off before that, turning onto side streets in a strange looking, industrial-type town I've never seen. My curiosity is practically strangling me, but there's no way I'm giving him the satisfaction of asking. I pick at a loose thread on the hem of my skirt instead.

Wes changes the radio station endlessly, going between pop, hip hop, country, and oldies stations. He shakes his head, frowning. “Never anything good on.”

“I am so making a playlist for next time.”

Wes turns toward me, his eyes bright and meeting mine before flicking back to the road. “Next time?”

I huff and wave a hand. “Oh you know what I mean.”

Damn it. He knew exactly what I meant. Even if I didn't.

We turn down a deserted street, nothing but a few factories that look like they've been closed since before my mom was born. The buildings eventually give way to large fenced areas that go on for what looks like miles. He shifts into park with way more drama than necessary and wearing a hey-I-think-I'm-so-cool grin. I crane my neck to look to the top of the fence. It's at least 15 feet high with barbed wire on the top.

What the what?

“Um, wow. You really shouldn't have…”

“Come on.” He climbs out of the car and waits for me by the chain link.

“What is this? A garbage dump?” I ask.

“Close!” Wes waves behind him as if he is giving a tour. “I'd like to welcome DJ Sunny Torres to the Garden State's largest junkyard.”

“Largest junkyard.” I deadpan.

“Is there anything less date-like than junk?”

I cross my arms and squint through the fence. “Oh my God,” I say. “We are literally hanging out and looking at garbage.” I drop my head in my hands. My laugh vibrates against my palms.

Wes taps my toe with his shoe. “Come on.”

When I look up at him, he's all expectant like a cat that's delivered a dead rabbit and is waiting for a scratch behind the ears.

Still laughing, I shake my head. “Okay, I guess?”

I follow him down the crumbling sidewalk, kicking dusty gravel along the way. We reach the junkyard's gate and Wes gently pushes one side open, the lock and chain hanging.

“This isn't illegal, is it?”

Wes gently touches the small of my back as the gate falls closed behind us. “Not exactly. I have friends who know people. So we get to take our own private tour.”

I can't help but laugh. “You really are a dork,” I say.

We walk around a particularly huge pile of old appliances in various states of disrepair. I stare, kind of amazed at the pile of old refrigerators and dishwashers.

“This is pretty much the weirdest place I've ever been.”

“Ooh, look!” Wes darts down the next aisle. I hurry to catch up to where he stands, staring at what looks like a pile of metal. Across the way, what appears to be rusty car parts sit in piles and I even see shells of actual, whole cars at the end of the row.

“I don't get it?”

Wes kicks a large scrap of metal. “It's an old propeller.” He squats down and runs his hand along the side of it. “Definitely an old prop plane. Probably a turbo prop.” He squints up at the
pile behind the propeller, eyes darting back and forth along the scraps.

“See anything you like?” I snort.

He looks at me with animated eyes. “Come on, this is cool! You don't think it's cool? There's probably all kinds of plane parts here.”

“Very cool,” I agree, humoring him.

“Anyway,” he says, dusting his hands off and standing up. “We have other places to go.”