Temptation: A Novel (6 page)

15. Bad Romance

That night, I find myself in a circle of girls. At first I think it’s just some kind of school function, but then one of them tells me this is an intervention.

I wonder if my mom’s there, but no. She hasn’t managed to be responsible enough to make it into my dream.

“I just wish Chris had the guts to actually stay in touch with someone,” Poe says to me.

I notice that since she’s moved, she’s become even darker, like
The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
dark.

“I just wish Chris knew what he wanted when it came to girls,” Kelsey says.

She’s got gigantic glasses on and one of those contraptions for braces that I’ve only seen in movies, the kind where it looks like you’re in a neck brace and have wires all around your head.

“I just wish Chris had gotten to me in time,” Jocelyn says. “We all know that record he set in hurdles wasn’t really a record at all.”

Jocelyn doesn’t look like herself at all.

That’s ’cause you’re forgetting what she looked like. Isn’t that right, Chris?

“Why are you all talking about him in the third person?” Lily says, standing up and taking my hand. “Come on, Chris. Let me take you out of here.”

“All Chris ever does is ignore me,” a permanently smiling mannequin says to me as I stand up.

Suddenly I hear a Lady Gaga tune blaring.

What was in that burger I had at lunch?

Then I see my mom’s aunt Alice next to the mannequin. She looks puzzled as she says, “Rah-rah-ah-ah-ah-ah!”

As I take Lily’s hand, I wake up and find myself no longer stuck in a bad romance.

It’s just me and my crazy mind and my narrow bed and the window I’m so used to seeing right next to it.

16. End of the Discussion

The next day Lily shows up late—like half an hour late—and she looks like she had a long night. Not the way my mom might. No, Lily still is a morning shot to the system, but she’s wearing a designer white cap and shades as she strolls in front of the class.

Where’s she going?

I’m sitting where I’ve been sitting, in front of her regular seat across from Harris. But she strolls by us and heads for the other side of the room.

“Well, good morning, Miss Lily,” Mr. Taggart says as he stops whatever rambling nobody was listening to. “Did we interrupt your beauty sleep?”

“We’re all terribly amused,” she says as she sits in a desk near nobody.

All of us look at each other. Harris shrugs and then keeps thumbing his phone.

I look over at her and wait for some kind of glance or nod or anything. I see her head look my way, but I can’t tell if she’s looking at me from behind her sunglasses.

Does it really matter anyway, Chris?

But it does. Because deep down—well, yeah, deep down there’s this crazy little hope.

Mr. Taggart sometimes reads from his notes. We’re covering several subjects, and sometimes he drones on without ever seeing if we’re paying attention, like a machine on an assembly line automatically squirting jelly into jars. But they haven’t been able to make machines that pump information into kids, not yet, so Mr. Taggart is trying his best to correct that reality.

Harris is still texting, and I see Lily working her phone as well. They might be talking. Then again, so is Roger. Shawn is sleeping, his round chubby cheek so soft he’s probably using it as a pillow. I look at Gin/Jen/Linn. She’s listening to Mr. Taggart, making me wonder what she really and truly is doing here. Then there’s Brick, leaning back in his seat and just staring ahead with his mouth open and his eyes fixed on the nothingness of life.

Harris laughs. Then I see him glance over at Lily, who nods.

I gotta get a phone. And service. And connected.

But that would mean I’d need a job. And yeah, I don’t want to go down that road again. Especially now that I can’t even find the blasted road.

During break, Lily doesn’t move from her seat. She’s still got the sunglasses on and still looks like she doesn’t want to be bothered. I head out to use the restroom and then get some air outside.

These hallways have a weird white glow about them, like they could double as the halls for a mental institution. I’ve always assumed it was the strangers inside these halls that caused my mind to grow slowly numb, but now I realize the funky lighting contributed.

As I’m walking out of the restroom, my hands still wet because there were no paper towels to dry them on, I’m heading toward the main doors where the empty cafeteria sits and waits for all the heapings of bad food to be dished out next year.

I’m almost to the door when I see him.

A tall guy in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Walking down the other hallway, away from the front doors and from where our classroom is.

He turns and glances my way, then keeps walking.

I blink because I swear …

No you didn’t just see that.

But half of his face kinda appeared—dark and grisly and gone, like the blond-haired guy at the end of
The Dark Knight.

Imagination and boredom, Chris.

The hallway lights on that side of the school are turned off, but he’s still walking over there.

I feel cold. Like an air conditioner suddenly got plugged in and a gust of cold air is blasting over me. I shiver and can’t help it.

A part of me wonders if it has anything to do with the guy I just saw, but …

Knock it off, Chris.

I refuse to spook myself out anymore.

This life isn’t some script from a horror movie. I’m tired of being in that story.

Brick is standing outside with a cigarette and nods to me as I come out.

“Where’s my smoke?” I ask.

“You finally want one?”

I shake my head. “Just kidding. Hey—did you see a tall kid walking by?”

Brick shakes his head.

It’s easy to forget about that kid I saw. I’m sure he was just another Harrington student who needed to come in for some awful reason.

We finish early, since Mr. Taggart is anxious to get home and do nothing, and I wait for Lily to walk out the door. As the others head out of the room, she moves slowly. So do I. Then she moves even slower.

It’s obvious that I’m waiting for her.

“Yes?” she eventually says.

“Everything okay?” I force myself to ask.

“Now why would you think something’s wrong?”

It’s the same tone she used with Mr. Taggart.

That’s not a good thing.

“I just—I don’t know. You’re kinda quiet.”

“Not sitting next to you guys is different from being quiet.”

“Okay. Yeah, I guess so.”

“After you,” she says. “I insist.”

I walk out the door and head down the hallway. She follows from a distance.

I pause and turn around. “Anything I can, uh, do?”

What a stupid question, Chris.

She shakes her head and gives me one of the smiles that an adult gives a child.

You’re not going to find another Jocelyn, so just move on out.

I keep walking and don’t say another word to her. And I think that I’m probably right. Jocelyn was this beautiful girl who I discovered wasn’t just some silent, stuck-up beauty, but much more. There was so much more going on with her.

With her and surrounding her.

But some girls who happen to be hot act like they know it and that’s it. End of the discussion.

As I get on my bike, I see Lily getting in the car with Harris. I wonder how she got here this morning, then realize it’s stupid thinking about someone who’s not thinking about you.

17. A Slap and a Punch

When I get home, I find Mom already wasted.

It’s not even lunchtime.

I open the door and see her in the kitchen and know something’s up, since she always works lunch and dinner during the week.

“Chris, you’re home,” she says.

And right there I know.

On the way up, my mom sounds like this. Happy and light if not a bit slippery and slurring. On the way down, before she blacks out, she’s either half unconscious or she’s half possessed.

She’s good to go.

The question is where she needs to go
to
. I think AA would be fitting.

“I’m so glad, because you and I are going to have a magnisifent lunch.”

Oh dear.

I don’t tell her that she needs a spell-checker.

“What are you doing home?” I ask.

The sky outside is overcast. I just had a feeling this was going to be one of
those
days.

“We need to celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“How about a birthday celebration?”

“Your birthday is July 15.”

I’m hoping she hasn’t actually forgotten her birthday.

“I know. But you only turn forty once, right? And I need to start really trying to feel good about it.” She comes over and puts her arms around me. “Where’s my little baby?”

I sigh and gently move out of her embrace.

“Come on,” she says. “What are you hungry for?”

How about sobriety? How about an embrace that doesn’t smell like the backside of a brewery?

“I’m not really hungry.”

“Oh, come on. I just went shopping.”

I can see the bags of stuff on the counter. And it really is a bunch of “stuff.” She must have gone a little crazy in the store and bought one of everything.

“How much did you get?” I ask.

“Don’t worry about it—I had a good night last night.”

“Are you serving tables now?”

“No—just—don’t worry about it.” She goes back into the kitchen and starts unpacking bags.

“What about work today?”

“They gave me the day off. ‘Celebrate good times, come on!’”

When Mom starts singing, it’s time to get out of here, and fast.

“And why did they give you the day off?”

She shrugs and keeps her back to me, still humming as she unpacks the bags.

I see a half-empty bottle of wine in the corner. In the garbage can, another completely empty bottle that wasn’t there this morning.

I’m beginning to notice a lot more things, living with Mom.

“Did they send you home?” I ask.

She looks at me with an
Are you kidding me
look that confirms it.

“Mom, come on.”

“What?”

I curse.

“Don’t use that language.”

“What? What’d you just say?’

“I said not to use that kind of language.” She talks in a way someone talks as if trying desperately not to slur their words.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Did that offend you?”

“Chris—”

“No. I mean—come on. It’s barely noon.”

“So.”

“So? Oh, okay. What are the rest of your plans today?”

“I don’t know. I thought we could go sightseeing.”

I look at her and just laugh. The look on my face has to be similar to someone just discovering that there are martians living in the bottom of his shoe.

“And where would we go?” I ask.

“I’ve always wanted to check out the Biltmore Estate. I think that would be fun.”

Yeah. And I’d have to get a stretcher to carry you back home.

“Or maybe Grandfather Mountain?”

So you can fall off?

I just stare at her. “Why did you—what’s the deal?”

“Nothing is the
deal,
Chris. I’m just living life a little.”

“Good to see.”

She brushes her hair back and shakes her head. “Do you know something?”

“I know a lot of things, actually.”

“You’re the most dramatic sixteen-year-old I’ve ever seen. And you’re a
boy
.”

This would have hurt less if she’d slapped me in the face and then punched me in the gut.

The slap’s for the dramatic comment. The punch is for the boy comment.

I stare at her. This woman across from me still doesn’t have a clue. She has no idea the nightmare she’s brought me into by moving here.

I want to say it, to say what I’m thinking and say it while she’s still halfway coherent.

Oh, yeah, well, you’re the worst example of a mother I’ve ever seen.

Or
Oh, yeah, well, suddenly Dad’s place is looking a lot more appealing.

Or something else like the hundred other nasty and mean feelings swirling around in my head.

But I just shake my head and force myself to keep quiet.

I leave this cabin that doesn’t feel like home and never will.