When I pull up next to the curb outside Grandma Flo’s, I’m not surprised to see Elaine’s shitty Nissan parked in the driveway. If it weren’t Thanksgiving and if I weren’t so worried, I’d peel the fuck out of here. I rush out of the car, not at all looking forward to seeing Elaine when I’m hungover and wearing last night’s clothes. But I guess it’s better that she thinks I’m a worthless drunk who’s pissing his millions into the toilet. The less she knows about me the better.
I race up the front steps then open the door, preparing my psyche for the inevitable rage that will follow the sight of her emaciated face. The living room is empty, so I quickly move to the only logical place for Grandma to be on Thanksgiving morning: the kitchen. The kitchen is also empty and the turkey is still swimming in the bucket of brine. Grandma usually gets it into the oven by 6 a.m. Something’s wrong.
Chapter Seven
Senia
The gods of Thanksgiving and I have a secret pact: I eat all their tasty offerings and they agree to not let me vomit or gain more than five pounds. Unfortunately, they never seem to hold up their end of the bargain on the weight gain and, when December rolls around, I find myself renewing my pact with the treadmill gods. But I think I may have been a bit overenthusiastic in my commitment to consuming the tasty offerings of the day. I feel sick, which gives me the perfect opportunity to skip out on family karaoke hour so I can handle some
covert
business.
Once Claire is deeply entrenched in a karaoke battle with my cousin Nico, I sneak out of the family room and race upstairs. It’s a few minutes past one in the afternoon. Tristan texted me about six hours ago. I know I’m going to regret this.
Me:
Thanks for the kind message. Now kindly stop texting me. I’m not interested in being one of your concubines.
I actually get a pain in my chest after I hit send. I know I’m supposed to hate Tristan and I’m sure as hell not supposed to talk to him, but I can’t help but feel like I’m misjudging him. Like we’re all misjudging him.
That’s so stupid!
That’s exactly what guys like him want girls to think. Oh, poor misjudged Tristan who fucks anything that breathes.
I met Tristan a little more than three years ago after a show they played in Durham. Claire and I had been friends for a total of five weeks, but I already knew, from the moment she shared her love of
Vampire Diaries
with me, that she and I were destined to be best friends forever. She actually had to drag me to the show. I was pretty shy before college. Most of my friends throughout junior high and high school were math geeks, like me. Unfortunately, none of my high school friends ended up attending UNC Chapel Hill. Starting from scratch is difficult for any eighteen-year-old, but for a kid with moderate social anxiety, it’s torture. Thankfully, Claire supported me through my
drink-till-you-don’t-give-a-fuck
stage of development. So, of course, the first thing I did when I arrived at the club in Durham to watch Chris, Tristan, and Jake perform was get shit-faced drunk.
Needless to say, my eyes were glued to Tristan all night as crazy thoughts of marriage and babies – and hot sex – raced through my socially inept and highly inebriated brain. Eventually, about halfway through the show, he finally cast his smoky gaze in my direction and smiled – a smile that I would later learn he and Chris refer to as their
crowd smile
. But, let me tell you, when he directed that smile my way … I’m not ashamed to say that I think I may have peed a little.
I am definitely
never
going to text him again. Unless it’s to send him a pic of my awesome bunion, as I promised Claire.
Never. Again.
Tristan:
Whatever you say.
Great!
Now
I
feel like an asshole.
No. I will not allow him to do this to me. I will not text him again.
I sigh as I lie back on my bed and close my eyes. I try to push the images from that day outside Yogurtland out of my head, but it’s no use. It’s all I’ve been able to think about for the past twelve days. It was so different from all the other times Tristan and I have come close to having sex. It was almost as if seeing me on the phone with someone else spurred some competitive streak inside of him and he needed to outdo Eddie. And, let’s be honest, as amazing as Eddie is in bed, he could never be Tristan.
What the hell am I thinking? Stop it, Senia!
Oh, great. Now I’m yelling at myself inside my head.
It wasn’t just the sex. He wanted to know who I was talking to on the phone. That’s not just sex, right?
No, it was sex combined with typical male territorial issues. It wasn’t just sex. It was a fucking pissing contest. I am not anyone’s property! Especially not anyone’s property to piss on.
Okay, that settles it. I am not texting him back.
Me:
Are you okay?
Tristan:
No. I’m at the hospital.
Me:
What’s wrong?
Tristan:
Can I call you later?
Shit!
I’m so stupid. I stare at the text for a few minutes before I begin typing. The bedroom door flies open and Claire walks in. I quickly tuck the phone underneath me before I can finish typing my response.
“What are you doing in here?” she asks, looking winded and flushed from singing.
“Nothing. Just trying to digest the twenty pounds of food I’ve eaten. No better way to make sure it goes straight to my ass than lying down and doing
absolutely nothing
.”
Claire raises an eyebrow. “Why are you acting like I just caught you masturbating?”
I laugh as I sit up and discreetly push my phone underneath my pillow. “Please. You’ve caught me masturbating plenty of times.”
“Oh God, please. I don’t want to talk about you touching yourself.”
“Whatever. Let’s go downstairs. I think I’m ready for some more pumpkin pie.”
I glance over my shoulder at the pillow and shake my head as I close my bedroom door.
Chapter Eight
The emergency-room doors open and I race through, clutching the note Molly left on the refrigerator:
Went with Grandma to hospital. She wasn’t breathing. Get here quick. Don’t call me. I dropped my phone in the toilet.
The entrance to the emergency waiting room is right before me. I storm in and find Molly sitting in a chair in the far corner with Elaine two chairs away from her. Molly’s eyes are closed as she leans her head back against the wall. Her light-brown hair is pulled up into a messy bun at the top of her head – the way she always does it before she goes to bed. Elaine looks at me and I quickly look away as I head for Molly. I shake her knee and she jumps a little as she opens her eyes.
“Shit!” she cries as she’s startled awake.
I’ve told Molly that she needs to stop cursing so much, but that’s like trying to tell a fish to stop breathing water. She grew up with me as her role model. She’s always looked up to me and, unfortunately, I haven’t always set the best example.
“What happened?” I ask her as she sits up straight in the mauve chair.
“She took too many of those pain pills the doctor gave her,” Molly replies.
From the corner of my eye, I can see Elaine leaning forward as if she’s going to get in on this conversation. She knows I won’t speak to her. I haven’t spoken to her in nine years. I don’t care if she thinks her presence here earns her Brownie points. There’s no good deed she can do that will ever make me think she is anything other than a selfish, depraved human being.
“Is she okay?” I ask, still unsure whether I want to take a seat next to Molly.
“Yeah. They know she wasn’t trying to commit suicide because they have her medical records, so we don’t have to wait for the psychiatrist to check her out. They’re just keeping her here for another few hours until her blood pressure comes back up, then we can take her home.”
“She needs someone to keep an eye on her.”
Elaine’s voice makes my skin prickle. Molly glances at her then back to me, foolishly wondering if I’m going to respond.
“I’m going to the cafeteria. You want to come with me?” I ask Molly and she nods as she stands from the chair.
After a long silence, punctuated by the occasional squeak of our sneakers against the shiny floor in the hospital corridors, Molly finally says something. And what she says makes me sick.
“I think you should talk to her.”
She doesn’t have to say her name for me to know she’s talking about Elaine. I pretend not to hear her, but she doesn’t give up.
“I’m serious. Do you want Grandma to die thinking that you never spoke to her again?”
“Don’t use Grandma in your emotional blackmail scheme.”
“You’re so selfish.”
I get a flash of pain in my chest at these words spoken from Molly’s lips. “Don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry,” she says as we turn into the cafeteria. Her face scrunches up as if she’s trying to keep from crying. “I’m just so scared of having to live with her.”
“That will never happen. Go sit down. I’ll get you something.”
She rolls her eyes as she heads for a table in the corner. I make my way through the cafeteria line behind two other bleary-eyed patrons. I grab a couple of turkey sandwiches from the refrigerator case and some juice. When I arrive at the table with my tray of food, Molly’s elbows are propped on the table and her face is buried in her hands.
“Eat your turkey dinner,” I order her, but she doesn’t move. Then I see the glistening puddle of tears on the surface of the table.
“She’s gonna die,” she whispers. “Why?”
“Because life fucking sucks.”
“Not the answer I wanted.”
“It’s the truth.” I unwrap the plastic wrap on her turkey sandwich and push the tray toward her. “You can’t expect anything good to last or you’ll always be disappointed. Everything dies.”
She groans as she wipes the tears from her eyes and looks up. “Why do you have to say stuff like that?”
“You need to be prepared.”
“You need to talk to Elaine and tell her I’m going to live with you. She was blabbing to me in the waiting room about how nice her new apartment in Durham is.”
“Nice compared to what? A fucking cardboard box?”
“I don’t want to live with her. She said she has a new boyfriend.”
“You’re not going to live with her.”
I lean back in the uncomfortable steel chair and try not to think of what I’ll have to do to prevent Molly from being placed with Elaine. No one knows what Elaine is capable of except for me. Everyone thinks she’s just a drug addict with a long list of ex-boyfriends and STDs. If I have to tell everyone the kind of person she really is, I will do it – for Molly’s sake. I’ve never told anyone, not even Chris, about the summer before seventh grade.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out immediately. When I see the name on the screen, it’s as if the clouds have parted and shined a light on this tiny corner of the hospital cafeteria. Then I read the message and I resist the urge to throw my phone across the room.
Senia:
Thanks for the kind message. Now kindly stop texting me. I’m not interested in being one of your concubines.
I probably don’t deserve anything better than this from Senia, but it still feels like a kick in the nuts right now. In any case, I don’t have it in me to chase her any more. It was sort of fun for the last twelve days to bug her with cheesy text messages, but it just feels stupid and pathetic now.
Me:
Whatever you say.
Molly stands up and I grab her hand before she can leave. “Where are you going?”
“I have to go to the restroom. Want to join me?”
“You think that’s funny, but I actually—”
“Potty-trained me. I know. You’ve told me a million times. It’s gross.”
“Get out of here before I tell everyone in this cafeteria about the time you shit in Grandma’s flower pot.”
“There’s no one here.”
“Then I’ll write a song about it.”
“You haven’t written anything in years,” she mutters, then she walks away.
My phone vibrates again and a tremor of regret reverberates inside me for all the ways I haven’t been good enough for Molly. I must be such a fucking disappointment to her. I used to write songs for her all the time and I’d sing her to sleep. I stopped writing three years ago. It’s pointless. No one needs me to write songs. They need me to play my fucking instrument and bring the band the occasional bit of bad press.
I turn my phone over on the table to check the screen and this message brings the faintest hint of a smile to my lips.
Senia:
Are you okay?
Me:
No. I’m at the hospital.
Senia:
What’s wrong?
I don’t have to tell her anything. Something tells me that Senia will probably come running to my side if I speak the right empty promises. But I really don’t feel like fucking her.
I just need to talk.
Me:
Can I call you later?
She makes me wait a torturous forty minutes for her response. Molly is back from the restroom and seated across from me, using my phone to text her friends, but even Molly smiles when she sees the text message pop up on my screen.
Senia:
Fine. But you’d better not tell me you’re pregnant.
Chapter Nine
Once the doctor releases Grandma, I help her to my car and Molly climbs into the backseat. Grandma’s blood pressure was still on the low side, so they asked us to keep a close eye on her and to make sure she gets plenty of rest.
“Molly will make the turkey tomorrow,” I assure her as she leans her head back and closes her eyes.