Fancy White Trash (11 page)

It's dark, but that too-bright streetlight in front of our house illuminates the scene perfectly. The Guitar Player, motionless between the Groupie and my mom. The Groupie's jaw chomping up and down on a piece of gum.

The Guitar Player's voice floats from the driveway and through Cody's open window. “Mona, I swear it didn't mean anything.”

And to make things worse, a loud baby wail from my bedroom announces that Kait and Stephanie are watching it all from our window.

Kait flings open the window and holds Stephanie up. “Steve, look at our daughter! Isn't she beautiful?”

Steve swivels his head around, and Kait actually dangles Stephanie out the window. Gustavo is behind her, engaged in a bit of careful wrestling to get the baby back into the room, but Kait won't be budged.

I stick my own head out Cody's window and scream, “Kait, get the baby inside
now
!”

She reels Stephanie back in. The Guitar Player's head swings from the window, to the Groupie, to my mom.

“You said it was over with her,” the Groupie says, snapping her gum. Whether she means Mom or Kait or both is unclear.

“Over?” Mom shouts, hands clenching at her sides. “You bet it's over!”

Mrs. Duran from across the street comes outside with a watering can. Only she doesn't water any of her dying flowers, just stands in the drive and stares. The Guitar Player shouts something, then Mom yells back. Kait is crying and Stephanie lets out a scream loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood.

“I'd better get over there,” I say to the guys. “Sorry you have to see this, Brian.”

“No, it's fine.” He has that look in his eyes that explains exactly why
Jerry Springer
has been on the air for so long. Who doesn't like a nice white-trash scuffle now and then?

Cody hugs me before I go. “Come over later if you need to. You can sleep here.”

“I know.” It wouldn't be the first time I'd hidden at Cody's. I rest my chin on his shoulder and whisper, “Cody, give Brian a chance, will you? He seems so nice.”

Cody steps back, shoves me away from him. “What? What did you say to me?”

“I was trying to be discreet.” I look meaningfully in Brian's direction. Brian is politely pretending not to pay attention, standing in front of Cody's bookcase with his attention fixed on the collection of Little League trophies across the top.

“I am not gay.” Cody's voice is low, but then he says it again louder. “I am not gay.”

Brian's head whips around. I feel like I'm going to cry because I've never seen Cody look at me like this. Cold, flat. Like I'm no one to him.

“I . . . I didn't mean . . .”

“You! You know I'm not! Say it, Abby.”

“You're not gay. Okay, Cody, you're not. I'm sorry.” Tears stream down my cheeks, but unlike the rest of my family, when I'm upset I get quieter, not louder. “Don't be mad,” I whisper.

“Get out.” He points to the open door. He's talking to me, but his eyes are on Brian. The coldness I see in him stutters my heart. It beats overtime, like a drummer on speed, when Cody says in his dead-serious way, “Abigail Elizabeth Savage, don't bother coming back.”

Brian leaves through the door but I slip out the window, slide across the ledge, and land on the sandy ground. I wonder if what I've done is unforgivable.

Brian walks down to the street, where his car is parked. I catch up to him. Over the shouting in the driveway, I say, “I'm sorry.”

“It's harder for some guys than others. Don't worry about it.”

“I'll still help you with your closet.”

The smile he gives me is a dull version of the real thing. “Forget about it. I'd never be able to keep it clean anyway.”

He drives away and I turn to face my family. Still outside, still yelling. Now it has escalated to the point where no one is taking turns. They are all shouting or crying, and waving their hands around. Mrs. Duran has been joined by her husband, and they appear to be enjoying the show.

I put on my sternest face. I reach deep inside for the voice I use when Hannah is about to do something life-threatening and I bellow, “Everyone! In the house! Now!”

Chapter
10

Inside, Jackson sits at the kitchen table, eating our leftover pizza from last night.

“Make yourself at home,” I snap, and collapse into the chair across from him. Although I was quite clear that they should all come inside, I can still hear them yelling at each other in the yard. My Hannah voice was not enough to penetrate their white-trash-fighting-on-the-lawn haze.

Jackson holds out a piece of cold pizza for me. “You get some alone time with
Bri-an
?”

“No.” What I got was a big ol' fight with Cody, but I'm not telling Jackson about any of it. I take a big bite of cold pineapple bits and congealed cheese. Yum. “I hate them. All of them.”

“Who?”

“My psycho family. Can't you hear them?”

“I learned to tune out the Savage quarrels years ago. What's this one about?”

That my family has had it out on the front lawn many a time before is no neighborhood secret. “I'm not sure. The Guitar Player's back with some bimbo, and Kait's pushing the baby out the window at him.”

“So
Savage
.” He fake shudders.

I pick off a hunk of pineapple and toss it at him. He bobs his head and catches it in his mouth. “Thanks.”

I contemplate throwing other, heavier, and more damaging things at him. Like the toaster. I could reach it from here.

Before I can act, Shelby walks in with Hannah on her hip. “What's the racket?”

“Same old, same old,” Jackson says. “Want a slice?”

Shelby arranges a surprisingly compliant Hannah on a chair with a phone book under her. This brings her up so we can see her eyes and tip of her nose over the top of the table. It's weird to see our mom's eyes staring out of her chubby face.

“No, thanks. I'm gonna make Hannah a late-night snack and then it's straight back to sleep—right, young lady?”

Hannah nods like a good girl, her razored bangs playing peek-a-boo with her eyebrows. Very suspicious. Bribery must be involved.

Shelby opens the freezer and looks in the door where we usually keep the ice cream. It's empty. She pushes things aside, rearranges the frozen orange juice concentrate and the Ziploc bags of who-knows-what. No ice cream.

“Abs?” Shelby speaks very slowly. “Do you know where
it
is?”

“The ice cream?” I say, because I don't think you should bribe three-year-olds into going to bed with a bowl of ice cream. It's not like Shelby has dental insurance.

Hannah's upper lip starts to quiver. Shelby sees it and searches more frantically through the freezer, shoving aside frozen peas and long-forgotten vegetable-medley packs. “Abs? A little help here?”

“Why would I know?”

Hannah whimpers.

“Abs, please. I haven't slept in three nights. Please, please tell me there is ice cream in this freezer. It was here earlier tonight—why can't I find it?”

Jackson moves his gaze from Shelby to me like it's Wimbledon. His face is too carefully blank. I get up and look in the sink. Unrinsed ice-cream bowl.

“Ask Jackson,” I say.

He gives Shelby his heartbreaker smile. The one he tried with me when he said, “Yes, it's technically possible that I'm the father.”

“You can't expect a man to resist cookies and cream.” He smacks his lips.

Shelby, who to my knowledge has not slept with Jackson but is obviously trying to rectify that situation, lights up. She pouts her full lip-glossed lips at him. “Jackson, I promised the baby some ice cream. Now what am I gonna do?”

On cue, Hannah lets out one of her patented howls. It goes on and on, like the fire alarm at school.

“Please?” Shelby does her shy smile, the one that tricks boys into thinking she's a sweet
thang
when she really is a manipulative
thang.

But it works, like it always does. Sometimes I think I was born without that special gene my sisters have. The gene that lets them know just what to say to get a guy to do anything they want.

Jackson stands and pushes in his chair. “Be right back, honey. ” I think he's talking to Hannah, but I'm not sure. Hannah isn't clear either, because her howl kicks up a notch, not high enough that only dogs can hear but close.

I cover my ears. “Comin' with, Romeo. I can't stand another second of this.” Jackson and I head down the hallway. As Hannah's howls lower in volume, the fight outside becomes audible again.

“Tubes tied, my ass!” the Guitar Player is shouting at Mom. “You lied then and you're probably lying now!”

“Yeah!” says the Guitar Groupie, hands on her hips.

Is that the sound of hair being ripped out of a head? No. We pass by them on the way to the car and I see that it's just the Guitar Groupie's too-tight shirt my mom has grabbed in her fist. The material in the back gives way, tearing apart to show there's no bra underneath.

Mom sees me then. Lets go and says in a voice that I'm sure they can hear on the other side of Mingus Mountain, “Oh, Abby, if you go by the store, get me some laxatives, will you? I haven't taken a decent crap in days.”

Mom lays into the Groupie again, the Guitar Player stepping between them like a referee in a prizefight gone bad. I cannot catch a break tonight. Not one.

Mrs. Duran doesn't have much of a lawn—mostly sand and a few surviving patches of a grass that Mr. Duran is forced to mow once a month—but apparently it's quite the hot spot this evening. It only takes a few minutes to get to Jackson's car, but in that time, neighbors from up and down the street have gathered and are watching while my mom hangs on to the Guitar Player's sleeve, begging him not to go off with that “piece of trash! I'm telling you she's no good for you! Come inside and I'll show you what you've been missing all these nights away!”

Mr. Ketchum, from three houses down, brings a lawn chair and sets it up in front of Mrs. Duran's house. Mr. Duran comes out of their house with a cooler. Some of the neighbors help themselves to a beer.

Piece of Trash Groupie tugs on the Guitar Player's other arm. “Steve, she's crazy. It's not safe to leave you here.” She pouts her clearly collagen-injected lips at him.

The neighbors appear to be debating the truth of her statement.

Kait pops her head out the window. “Steve, when are you coming in to see our new baby? Steve?”

I close my eyes against the pain. Can you die of embarrassment? If the barrel cactus in our front yard was healthier, perhaps I could impale myself on it and put myself out of this misery. Sadly, the cactus would most likely just collapse under my weight.

“Get me out of here,” I say to Jackson.

“My dream come true.” He takes my elbow and guides me over to his driveway. Distance in no way keeps me from hearing my mother say, “Steve, no other woman can make you feel the way I do!”

Jackson hits his forehead with his palm. “Sorry, I'm confused. In the dream, you say, ‘Get me out of
these
.'” He points to my jeans.

I slap at his finger. “Don't make me beg.”

“Hmm,” he says as he opens the door for me and then goes to his side of the car. “Begging? Now that's an interesting thought.”

I try not to smile. “Don't think you can cheer me up. You can't.”

“Wouldn't dream of it.” He backs onto the road, and we leave my still-arguing family behind.

The nearest grocery store is sixteen miles down Highway 260, so I flick on the radio. Jackson immediately turns it off.

“Abby, tell me what's wrong.”

“Nothing, and I liked that song.” Even though I don't remember what it was. Could've been a commercial jingle for all I know.

“I can tell you're upset about something.”

Besides the idea of you and my sister being parents together?
But I don't want to touch that with a ten-foot pole tonight. How about,
I accidentally outed your brother and now he hates me forever?
Nope, not that, either. I fall back on an old standard. “You saw them. Putting on a show for the whole neighborhood. I don't know why they're like that.”

Jackson shakes his head. “That's not it. You're used to them. This is something new.”

I fix my gaze out the side window. Mountains in the distance, cacti arms upraised in the pools of light spread by the streetlights we pass.

“It's that big, huh? Let me guess—you're pregnant!”

“No!” For that, I hit his arm. Hard. “Not even.”

Jackson seems not to notice the killing blow I gave him. “Must be Cody then.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because if it wasn't him, you'd have already told him the problem and you wouldn't be upset anymore. So what happened? He doesn't like you being with Brian?”

It's true I have lots of things to be upset about, and Cody is definitely one of them. The whole situation is so messy, I'm not sure where to start or even if I should. Because Cody wouldn't want his big brother in his business, and as long as Jackson thinks I'm interested in Brian, maybe he'll back off. But I keep seeing that expression on Cody's face, how he looked at me like I was a stranger, or worse, one of the guys at school who's been taunting him.

We stop at a red light. Jackson turns his head toward me, takes his hand off the wheel, and pats my knee. “Come on now, honey, tell Jackson what's on your mind.”