Vintage Veronica (23 page)

he stink of Violet’s dog food almost makes me barf. After Ginger leaves, I pop open a can for Violet’s dinner. Violet’s beady little eyes follow the chopsticks I use to extract chunks, and when I hold out a morsel she snaps at it. Dipping further into the mucky stew and trying not to gag, I start to feel more and more angry at Len.

“I was in this really bad car accident.”

“Both my parents are dead.”

“You’re beautiful.”

“You can trust me.”

Liar
.

Violet goes
snap!
again. She’s got quite a set of jaws on her, though she’s smart enough not to bite the hand that
feeds her. At least not on purpose. I’ve seen Len get nipped once or twice, nothing major. Violet’s actually looking pretty good. Maybe she’s feeling better.

Or maybe she was never even sick
. Was that another lie? Another ploy to get my sympathy? I remember what Len said when he showed me Violet the first time.
“She has a rare bone condition.” Sure she does
, I think, offering her another beef chunk.
Snap!
She grabs it and gulps it down, then opens up for more.

“Jesus, slow down,” I tell her. “Stop eating like such a lizard.”

I fish out another chunk.
Snap!
This time, she bites a little higher up on one of the chopsticks and holds on tight.

“Violet? Hey, uh, let go.”

Instead, she makes these chewing motions with her jaw, like she’s gnawing on the chopstick. But she does not release it. Gently, I take the other chopstick and poke it into the side of her mouth. A trick Len taught me. Violet moves her head away but does not relax her grip.

“Come on, let go.” I try to pull the chopstick out, but it doesn’t budge. Len also showed me what to do in this particular situation, but I haven’t had to try it yet.

“All right. Hold still,” I tell her. Carefully, I slide my hand around the back of her head.

I use my thumb and pointer finger to slightly pinch the sides of her jaw. Her mouth opens a tiny bit wider and the chopstick falls to the floor.

“Okay, that’s it for dinner. Time for bed,” I tell her. “Sweet dreams,” I add. I put the box top back on and weigh it down
with the desk lamp. Now that she’s regained her strength—if she ever lost it to begin with—it seems pretty necessary to keep her from getting loose. I have a feeling that a free-range blue-tongued skink wouldn’t go over very well on Employees Only! With Rags, maybe, but not with the Lunch Ladies.

I turn on the Elvis lamp and point the desk lamp’s beam downward. In this configuration, the boot box sits in its own private spotlight, like some cabaret act. It makes me think of my dad and his Big Broadway Break. Maybe, one of these days, I’ll take the bus and go visit him. Go see his new place, meet the people at the hotel where he works. Hear him say, “This is my daughter, Ronnie,” so many times I’d want to kill him. Or hug him. Or both.

Maybe we’ll just take a walk, talk about nothing special, hang out. Maybe we’ll even get cinnamon rolls and go to the fleas. Like old times.

When I go outside, it is just starting to get dark, though the day hasn’t cooled down one iota. I stop by the Mooks for a smoothie. There’s a new sign hanging by the registers. It says,
MEET MARTIN JIMENEZ, OUR NEW ASSISTANT MANAGER
. I look around. Mr. Singh is nowhere in sight.

“Welcome-to-Mookie’s-I’m-Carla-can-I-take-your-order?” Through her thick glasses, Carla fixes her bovine gaze on me, showing no acknowledgment that she’s ever seen me before.

I guess some things never change.

I get my iced mocha smoothie and linger in front of the Mooks with it for a minute, watching the moths dive-bomb a streetlamp. I stand there thinking, my straw in my mouth.

I want to confront Len.

I need to confront Len.

I’m going to confront Len.

I’m terrified to confront Len.

It takes me a long time, longer than it probably takes him, to get myself over to his house and up his front steps. I ring his buzzer, but get no answer. Assuming this is because he’s coming downstairs slowly, I stand there, drink some smoothie, then ring again. Finally I sit down on the weathered porch swing, prepared to wait.

“Can I help you?”

I look up and a woman is standing in the doorway, holding the door with one hand and a lit cigarette with the other. She’s probably about forty, and she’s wearing a tank top, frayed denim cutoffs, and flip-flops. She has light hair with dark roots and her face looks weathered, like she gets too much sun.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I must have pressed the wrong buzzer.” I get off the swing. As I’m walking down the steps, I hear her gravelly voice again.

“Who ya looking for?” She cocks her head to one side and looks me up and down, kind of amused. I get this a lot. It’s the prom dresses.

“Um, no one. Sorry.”

“Go on back.”

“Excuse me?”

“Leonard. He’s out back.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

I walk around the front of the house and up the driveway. I practically can’t see, it’s so dark, but I know I’ve reached the yard when I step off the gravel and onto the dirt.

Entering the backyard, I see Len on his knees, near the goldfish graveyard. He’s wearing the gardening gloves he wore when we buried Dep and he’s digging with a trowel. There’s a plastic tray of small orange plants next to him—marigolds, maybe. In the light cast by a bare bulb on the back porch, he looks even paler than usual, almost like he’s glowing. His neck sort of shines and I realize he is covered in sweat. His bangs shield his eyes, as always.

When he sees me, he wipes the sweat off his brow and awkwardly gets to his feet.

“Veronica,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“I just came by to … Look, we need to talk.”

“Did something happen to Violet?” asks Len.

I give him a look.

“No,” I say.

“Oh. Good. You scared me there for a second.”

“For your information, I am capable of taking care of animals.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t about Violet,” I tell him.

“Okay,” he says.

“I mean, it is and it isn’t. The thing is, I’ve been hearing a lot of … shit.” Oh, great, now I sound like Bill. I try again. “I think you need to clear some things up.”

“What things?”

“Well, like, I dunno. Why did you tell me you got fired when the truth is, you quit?”

Len pauses. Then he says, “Who told you that?”

“It doesn’t matter who told me. It’s true, isn’t it? You didn’t get fired. So why did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No,” says Len carefully, taking off the gardening gloves. “I said I wouldn’t be working at the store anymore. I didn’t say I got fired.”

“Yes, you did. Plus, you lied about other stuff. Like being in a car accident? And your mom, who you told me was dead, but I think I just met? And about Violet being sick.”

“Violet
is
sick,” says Len.

“Yeah, well, great, but what about the other stuff? Huh?” I can’t stop thinking about that night on Employees Only! And the other night, upstairs in his room. “You said you wouldn’t lie to me, remember? But you did, didn’t you?”

“Veronica, look,” says Len, shaking his bangs out of his eyes for a microsecond. “I’m sorry. Some stuff is hard for me to talk about. I wasn’t sure what you’d say.”

“So you just
made stuff up
?!”

“I didn’t do it to hurt you.”

“Yeah, well, you did! Congratulations!” I spit the words at him. “Are you happy?”

“No.”

“You sure? Come on. You totally had me going. I mean, the other night, I almost—”
I can’t even say it
. I am such an idiot. I’m such a dumb, pathetic fat girl, so desperate for attention she’ll just throw herself at the first guy who lies to her
with a straight face, even a freaking loser like The Nail. “You must be very proud.”

“Is that what you think?!” he says angrily.

“What am I supposed to think?” I yell back, shaking.

“Oh, I dunno. Is it so impossible for you to believe that someone actually likes you for you? And maybe even likes you despite the way you act sometimes?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I shoot back, responding to the second part before the first part has time to sink in.

“Just that you haven’t exactly shown yourself to be the most trustworthy person.”

“I never lied to you.”

“Oh, really? You told me you didn’t even know Zoe and then I come to find out she’s your best buddy. And that everything that’s been going on between you and me, which I thought meant something, turns out to be just some big joke for you and your friends.”

“That’s not true.”

“Oh, yeah? Last I checked, you and your buddies Zoe and Ginger tried to get me fired, killed one of my pets, and got the rest of my pets confiscated by the police.” He ticks these off on his fingers—one, two, three—then waggles his fourth finger at me. “Plus, now I have to go to court next week so they can fine me and keep my pets.”

“Wait a second … what? You think I tried to get you fired?”

“‘Len steals,’ remember that? Who do you think is in charge of emptying the suggestion box, brainiac? I know your handwriting.”

“Jesus, Len, I can explain …”

“And you know what the worst thing is? When I found out, I didn’t even care! That’s how much I wanted to keep believing that maybe we had something real. I had myself so convinced that maybe you actually had feelings for me that I was willing to overlook all the bullshit you pulled. That’s what a fucking moron I am!”

“I do have feelings for you. I mean, I did,” I say.

I can’t help feeling confused at how this whole situation has sort of flip-flopped somehow and my righteous indignation has kind of evaporated at the same time. I’m still mad at him. I mean, I still want to be mad at him. He’s still very, very wrong for lying to me. I know that, or at least I think I do. “You still shouldn’t have lied to me,” is the best I can spit at him.

Len stares back at me with a look of pure hatred. “You’re a fine one to talk,” he says finally.

“You’ve got it all wrong …,” I start to say.

“Look, forget it,” he snaps. “It’s over. It doesn’t matter anymore. I’m sorry, okay? Now please. Just go.”

And he crosses his arms and just stands there.

He doesn’t argue. Or get mad. Or anything. He just looks really, really sad. And I stand there feeling a rising sense of dread and nausea.

It’s so quiet. Too quiet.

It’s something I learned from my mom and dad when they split up: when all the drama is over and two people really and truly finish with each other, it gets very quiet. They don’t care about each other enough to yell anymore.

It’s over
.

It is very quiet in the yard.

Then Len says again, “Just go. I’ll come get Violet tomorrow.”

And he turns and limps slowly to the back porch and up the stairs, leaving me alone in the garden.

“I don’t know what I was fucking thinking!” I suddenly yell at his back door. “I never should have trusted you, never! After all the shit I’ve been through, you’d think I’d know better. Jesus! But you know what? Fuck you! Fuck you and fuck your fucking lies and fuck your stupid fucking pets! I don’t need you! I never needed you. So ha-ha-ha.”

My voice breaks pitifully on that last “ha.” I turn to leave, but as I stalk toward the driveway, I trip over one of the bricks.

“Fuck!” I say, fighting not to cry.

I look down at the brick.

DEP
, it says.
REST IN PEACE
.

s I stagger out of Len’s yard, the tears can’t be held back anymore. I stumble down the block, find my way to the curb, and just lose it. I cry as hard as I ever have for a long, long time. It hurts so bad I want to claw my skin off. I want to throw myself in front of a bus. I want to go home and get into my bed and never get out ever again.