Amends: A Love Story (2 page)

"Floppy, deflated, and confused," I reply. I
tell her about the Chris incident as she pulls onto Flamingo Drive.
"Do you think he could have been, you know, just a regular guy who
wanted to talk to me?"

Maggie takes an audible breath. "Ams," she
says, "I know you've been through a lot. That you go through a lot
every day. But not everybody is so bad. Sometimes you have to take
a risk."

I sigh. Of course, she's right, but I'd
really rather not say so. "Yeah, I know. I'm turning into a bitter,
defensive old hag, and I'm not even eighteen."

"Well, you old hag, you better stop fucking
lying to me right now." Her voice is rough and growly with mock
anger, and I know I've been busted.

"We applied to some of the same schools," she
continues. "I got into NYU, although God knows how I'm going to
afford it, and I was waitlisted by Barnard and Oberlin. There's no
way you haven't heard by now."

"You got me," I confess. "I have an inbox
full of emails from college admissions officers. But I'm too much
of a coward to open them."

Maggie makes a series of clucking sounds as
she passes a truck full of watermelons. "We've got to do something
about all this fear you have." She pauses, pretending to think
about something she's probably had in mind for days.

"I know!" she exclaims, as if she's just won
the lottery. "You can come with me and Damon to the Swamp Bowl.
Then we can all get stoned and read your acceptance letters
together."

I groan. This plan combines two things that I
hate into one evening of frog-marched fun. First, the Swamp Bowl is
a post-season, pre-Christmas exhibition game between the Triple
Marsh Gators and their arch rivals, the Jasper Heights Eagles.
Jasper Heights is our rich sister city that sits on a manmade hill
overlooking the nice part of Lake Everclear. It's known for lush,
green golf courses and rich, entitled assholes. Anyway, the Swamp
Bowl almost inevitably ends in a drunken brawl.

And then there's Damon. He's one of Maggie's
friend-boys from the Extension. He's tall, scrawny, and covered in
ink, just the way Maggie likes 'em. He also plays the drums in a
local band called Invasive Species and treats Maggie like she's a
for-real dumb blonde and not the Marilyn Monroe devotee that she
is. It makes me slightly nauseated to see them together.

"C'mon," wheedles Maggie, sensing my
reluctance. "It'll be fun."

"I don't think so. I have a calculus test on
Friday. I need to actually study for it."

Maggie snorts. "Yeah, I know, tagging along
for Bowl night with Damon just isn't your thing. Well, I'm not
giving up. I will totally text-stalk you until you read those
letters."

I'm smiling—Maggie is awesome—when we pull up
alongside my house, a beige stucco ranch surrounded by a lovely
garden that thrives on neglect. When I notice my mom's white Ford
Escape in the driveway, I instantly know exactly what I'm going to
do with all those terrifying emails.

/////////////////////////

My mom has long, dark hair, ice blue eyes,
and a totally impenetrable poker face. She's been reading the
admissions emails on my phone, one after another. She looks down at
me with her usual placid expression. Because she works as a
pediatric nurse at the Jasper Heights Community Hospital, she's
used to giving bad news in a way that's both kind and free from
extraneous bullshit.

"So?" I ask. "What's the damage?"

Her face is a soft mask, and her voice is a
gentle monotone. "It looks like you got into Barnard, NYU, the
honors program at the University Extension, and the University of
Pennsylvania."

"What about Adams? Did I get into Adams?"
Adams is my dream school. I've wanted to go there since I figured
out that going to college was my only way out of Triple Marsh.

My mom's face remains stoic for another
moment, and then it blooms into a rare, spectacular smile. "You got
into Adams, too, honey."

My mind doesn't quite take it all in, but my
body goes wild. First, I'm chilly. Then I'm hot, sweaty, and dizzy.
Partly from excitement and partly because my dad still hasn't fixed
the air conditioner.

I take a deep breath of air so humid I can
taste it. I can hardly believe it. Me. Going to Adams College. An
intellectual city on the hill with crisp falls and bracing winters
entirely unlike Florida's smothering humidity. A place where even a
misfit like me might actually be accepted—or, at least,
tolerated.

My mom, still grinning, pulls me into a long,
tight hug. She smells like sandalwood and smoke. I know she has a
secret cigarette every now and then. I've never caught her, but the
smell sometimes lingers in the back of the garage or on the front
porch. I don't say anything. Her modest little vice is nothing
compared to Dad's drinking.

I'm basically blackout giddy for about thirty
seconds when reality crashes back into my skull. How the fuck am I
going to pay the tuition and all the other fees I remember from the
financial aid application? Even if I get financial aid, which isn't
guaranteed, the school still demands a pound of flesh and a quart
of blood from each student's parents.

I wiggle out of Mom's embrace. Her wide smile
has softened into a warm, happy glow. My face must have fallen
fast, because she asks me what's wrong.

"Adams is pretty expensive," I say.

"I know, honey, I helped you fill out the
financial forms."

"Can we really afford it?" I ask, thinking of
Dad's job detailing cars at the Mercedes dealership in Jasper
Heights. He used to be a mechanic, practically a genius with cars,
but he had trouble getting to work on time and staying conscious
when he got there.

Mom puts her hands on my shoulders and
squints her big blue eyes. It's her determined look. "We'll find a
way. I'm going to start working double shifts. There might even be
one tonight."

I try to protest—I don't want her to be
exhausted, the state program at the Extension is both cheap and
well regarded—but she shushes me into silence as if I were one of
her young patients.

"I'm going to help you attend that fancy ass
college," she says firmly. "And there's nothing you can do to stop
me."

Chapter 2: Laird

"Hey man," says Deegan O'Neil, holding a
silver flask. "Want some?"

"Christ," I say, trying to
sound at least mildly scandalized. "Are you actually offering me a
drink at my own mother's funeral?" Damn it, I keep forgetting and
saying funeral. I can practically hear Mom's soft, cultured voice
correcting me.
It's not a funeral,
sweetheart, it's a celebration of life.

Deegan winks and grins wolfishly. "I've got
weed, too." I know he does. He got stoned before, during, and after
last night's Swamp Bowl. Neither one of us actually played. We let
the second string guys have their shot at glory.

Deegan waggles the flask again. I look at it
and think about the hot, easy warmth it could give me. After a few
pulls, I could pass through this insane nightmare of a day without
even noticing all the sharp edges that will surely cut me. I shake
my head. That's not how I'm going to play it. Not today.

"Thanks but no thanks," I say. "My head's
already fuzzy enough."

"Have it your way, man." Deegan takes a long
swallow from his flask and tucks it back into his jacket. His face
pinks up quickly, then slowly reverts to its usual deep tan.

I look around for a small but curvy
strawberry blonde wrapped in a white bandage dress, but I can't see
her anywhere. Damn it again.

"Any idea where Ember went?" I ask.

Ember is my girlfriend. My beautiful, funny,
untamed girlfriend with a heart-shaped ass that fits perfectly in
my two palms. She left about half an hour ago to hit the little
girls' room. Or so she said. She's a free spirit with the rare
ability to immerse herself completely in the moment. The downside
is that she's really impulsive and does a lot of stupid,
inconsiderate shit.

Deegan pauses and then shakes his head. I
wonder if he knows something I don't. I tell myself I'm being
paranoid.

"Do you mind looking for her?" I ask.

"Not at all, man. I'm on it." His voice
cracks with relief. As I watch him go, it occurs to me that he's
really cleaned himself up for this event. His long hair is slicked
back and secured in a discreet pony tail. He's wearing a suit that
covers all his tattoos except the one that spells FEAR in Japanese
kanji on his neck.

Formal events are totally not his scene, but
I'm glad he came, and I'm grateful he didn't show up looking like a
carnival sideshow.

I feel a light tap on my shoulder. It's
Tricia, a short, plump woman in a black, gathered pantsuit that my
mom would have called suburban chador. "Are you ready?" she asks.
"Or do you need a little more time?"

I take a deep breath of cool,
over-conditioned air and survey the crowd outside the industrial
glass doors at the other end of the atrium.

My father's supposed to be with me, greeting
all these random guests that Mom invited on one of her morphine
highs. But, as usual, he's nowhere to be found. He left around ten
for a business brunch with some guy who owns a startup software
company in South Dakota. He said not to worry, that he'd meet me
here before the memorial started.

As I expected, and dreaded, he's still a
no-show five minutes after the memorial was scheduled to begin.
Ever since my mom got sick—really sick, hospital sick—Dad has
buried himself in his work and a series of barely legal
girlfriends, each more vapid than the next. It was me, not him, who
logged time at Mom's bedside, feeding her cherry-flavored ice
chips. When I told her how sorry I was that Dad was being such an
epic, gaping asshole, she smiled at me and took my hand. "Your
father loves me in his own, imperfect way," she said. "He's just
not strong, like we are."

Tricia taps my shoulder again, this time a
bit more insistently. "Well? Would you like to wait for Mr.
Conroy?"

"No, no," I mutter. "Let's do this
thing."

Tricia says something in Spanish into her
headset, and the doors open. A flood of people, mostly women
wearing black and white dresses, converge on me, their heels
click-click-clacking like hungry mandibles.

I scan the crowd and dull, heavy
disappointment settles into my chest. Ember and Deegan aren't
there.

/////////////////////////

My mother never cared much for tradition. And
she always hated funerals. So she left instructions in her will
that, in lieu of a memorial service, there would be a Black and
White party in her posthumous honor at the Mangrove Center, a
starkly post-modern conference venue where she liked to hold
charity events.

She could only bring herself to work on the
guest list when she was high on pain meds. For obvious reasons, it
was heavy on friends and light on DNA. Dad hates his family—he
calls them a bunch of whining parasites—and Mom was the last
survivor of a tribe ravaged by cancer and bad luck. I try not to
think too much about this last bit, and what it may bode for my own
future.

Because Mom had a twisted sense of humor and
a deep appreciation for camp, her final event is hilariously
macabre. Before she died, she commissioned a full-sized sculpture
of herself in ice and artificial snow. It's here today, suspended
from the ceiling, and wearing a black-and-white, asymmetrical
dress. Even slowly melting, she looks better than most of her
friends.

I take a deep breath and try to ignore the
tears gathering behind my eyes. My mother would have loved this
crazy, swirling spectacle. Elegant people in black and white eat
Beluga caviar on toasted Wonder Bread. Oh-so-flattering pictures of
her greatest charitable triumphs flicker by on a twenty-foot high
digital wall. Waiters in white shirts and specially made
checkerboard pants ply the guests with cocktails made of champagne
and stout beer. They work hard to make sure no glass remains empty
for long.

So far, about ten people have offered me
their drinks. I keep saying no. Tomorrow, I'll get shitfaced.
Wasted. Incoherent. But today I'm going to suck it up and keep my
shit together. I want to end this day as someone my mother would
have been proud of.

To that end, I stay stalwart at my station,
which is beside a giant computer monitor asking guests to make
donations to one of several charities in my mother's name. At the
hospital, she called it the ultimate charitable guilt trip,
coughing out a long, wheezy laugh. My job is to record guests'
pledges without breaking down into a sodden mess of blubbering
grief. Easy, right?

I'm thanking a woman about
my mother's age for donating to a local chapter of Mothers Against
Drunk Driving—and thinking horrid thoughts like
why are you still here when my mother is ashes in the
wind
—when Tricia sneaks up behind me. She's
holding an onyx tablet and stylus; her hunched posture makes me
think of a vulture.

"Um, excuse me?" Her voice, full of guilt and
foreboding, puts me immediately on my guard.

"Yes?"

She purses her lips and looks nervous. "Your
father. I need to speak to him. Soon."

Of course, even today, everything comes back
to Dad. My head buzzes with anger, and I will my voice to remain
even. "Look, Tricia, I have no idea where my father is. Probably at
a business meeting. I've tried calling him several times, as I'm
sure you have, and he doesn't pick up. It's probably easier if you
just ask me whatever it was you were going to ask him."

She shakes her head so her jowls wiggle. Her
mask of compassion slips ever so slightly, revealing weary
impatience. "I was going to have your father do this, but..." She
pauses and then steels herself to continue. "I'm sorry to ask you
this, but could you go through this list of expenses and approve
them?"