Lover's Lane (8 page)

10

CHRIS WATCHED HIS MOM TOSS HER BACKPACK INTO THE backseat before she climbed into the old, dented car Mrs. Schwartz let them use. Mom named it Betty Ford. His friend, Matt Potter, called the faded old station wagon a junker, which kinda made him mad and embarrassed at the same time.

Mom couldn’t help it that she didn’t have enough money for a new car. Waitresses didn’t make a lot of money. She reminded him of that all the time, usually right before she told him that he should be thankful for what he had and that kids were starving in lots of other parts of the world.

He wished that they had a cool new Land Cruiser like Matt’s dad. That or a way cool Harley. He’d happily ride on the back, even when it was raining.

Matt Potter was his blood brother. They had a secret ceremony one day, picked scabs then pressed their scraped knees together, but being Matt’s blood brother didn’t mean he could claim ownership of any of Matt’s cool stuff.

He wished for a real brother all the time. He wouldn’t even mind sharing his room with one. Sometimes he even thought he’d be willing to take a little sister. That would be better than nothing.

But most of all, he wished he had a dad. Not just so he’d have somebody to go places with like camping or to ball games, or somebody strong enough to ride him around on his shoulders, but ’cause then Mom would have somebody to love besides him.

Usually he felt really special knowing that he was the only one Mom really, truly loved, but sometimes it was kinda hard on him. He didn’t want to be the only person she had in the whole world ’cause he was only a little kid. No way could he take very good care of her if she ever really needed it.

Chris sighed and kicked the underside of the glove compartment with the dusty toe of his tennis shoe. He spent a couple of minutes trying to figure out why it was called a glove compartment when they didn’t ever put any gloves in it.

Mom leaned close, fastened his seat belt and then hers before she started the car. Most of the time he knew what she was going to do before she did it, so it was no surprise when she leaned over and planted a noisy kiss on the top of his head.

“Hey, Mom?”

“Yeah, big guy?”

“Who was that man I saw you talking to?” He snuck a peek at her as she moved the gear shift to R and the car started backing up. She was looking over her shoulder, not at him.

“What man?”

He could tell that she
knew
who he was talking about, but she was trying to act like she didn’t. He spotted Matt with his mom and dad and waved as they pulled away.

“The man in the bleachers wearing the blue shirt.”

Mom turned on the radio and started singing a country song about wide open spaces really loud. Now she usually only did it to drive him crazy because back in October he made the mistake of telling her it wasn’t cool for moms to sing out loud. He hadn’t even known that it wasn’t cool until he overheard some fifth graders talking behind him in the cafeteria.

“Mom!” he hollered.

“What?” She turned off the radio and rolled down her window. The air rushed in and mussed up her long hair but she didn’t even care. Matt Potter’s mom always yelled, “Close the window!” when even a tiny bit of air touched her hair.

He didn’t think Mom’s boss Selma’s hair would move either. It was stiff as cotton candy.

“Who was he, Mom?”

“Are you hungry?”

“Maybe he’ll ask you to go out on a date.”

He tried to act like he didn’t care, but he really, really did. He crossed his heart and hoped like crazy the man would want to take his mom out to a movie or to get something to eat.

His mom
never
went on dates. Matt told him that wasn’t a good sign—Chris would never get a dad if his mom didn’t start going on dates.

He checked her out from under the bill of his baseball cap. She was biting her lip, watching the road, and worrying. He knew she was worried because funny little lines were folded between her eyebrows.

They turned onto Cabrillo Road and drove past the usual shops and stores. He waved as they went by the diner, even though he didn’t see Selma in the window.

Except that she smelled like cigarette smoke, he kinda liked Selma. She had big boobs that stuck out of the top of her Plaza Diner T-shirt.
Amazing
boobs. He always pretended not to look at them even though he did. Once he and Matt even drew pictures of them, but then they tore the papers into little pieces and tossed the scraps in Matt’s trash can.

That was one of their blood brother secrets.

“Are you hungry? I can make you peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cut them out with the star cookie cutter,” Mom said.

“If he did ask you to go on a date, would you go?”

She sighed very loudly, probably hoping he would stop asking questions. He saw her hands tighten on the steering wheel as they started down the long hill toward Seaside Village.

She was quiet for so long that he thought she was
never
going to answer his question. Maybe she felt really bad and had started thinking she was really ugly or something because men never asked her to go on dates.

He couldn’t figure out why because she was the prettiest mom in the whole world.

“What’s all this about going on dates?” She took her eyes off the road for a second and looked down at him.

Chris shrugged and rubbed an itchy spot on his neck. “Matt says that’s how I’d get a dad, if you went on dates and then married some guy.”

“Lots of kids in your class don’t live with their dads.”

Mom sounded kinda sad, and he knew it wasn’t because she was sad for the other kids. He wished he had kept his mouth shut, but now that he was blabbing away, he couldn’t stop.

“Yeah, but they still
have
dads. They might not live with them all the time, but they see them and talk to them and go on overnights to their houses. I don’t have a dad
anyplace
. You don’t even have any
pictures
of him.”

Mom slowed down when they reached the gate to Seaside. She always aimed the car right between the two skinny posts with the gas tiki torches sticking out of them. When she ran over the pothole that was inside the gate, just like always, he pretended to get knocked around in his seat. He did that every time they hit the pothole, but this time Mom didn’t laugh.

“You have a dad in Heaven.” Her voice sounded soft and full of cotton.

“Yeah. I know. But that’s no fun.” He didn’t have one single cousin or aunt or grandma or anything, which Matt said made for sucky Christmases.

He could tell Mom was still thinking about what he had said as she pulled the car up into the parking space between their mobile home and Mrs. Schwartz’s. Betty Ford began to cough and rattle when Mom turned off the motor and the car shook from side to side, twitching like an old, wet dog until it finally died.

Mom didn’t move.

“Hey! Maybe we should just get a dog.” He tried to make it sound as if he’d just thought of it. As if he hadn’t asked her for a dog one hundred thousand million times already. “You wouldn’t have to go on a date to get a dog.”

“Our place is too small.”

“We could get a
tiny
little dog, like Napoleon Bonaparte.” Mrs. Schwartz had a mobile home exactly like theirs, and
she
had a dog. It was a little French poodle with kinky white hair and painted toenails to match Mrs. Schwartz’s, and a real French name.

“I don’t think that would be such a good idea.” As Mom unhooked his seat belt, Chris knew exactly what she would say next. And she did.

“We might have to move again.”

Mom opened her door and stepped out, reached for her backpack and the duffel bag with his batting helmet and sweatshirt.

He’d lived in lots of places. Mom told him it had been too many for her to count before they had moved here three years ago. He didn’t remember any of the other places, he’d been too little to recall them now.

She had been telling him that they might have to move his whole, entire life. It seemed like forever she had been saying the reason they couldn’t buy this or that was because they might have to move and they couldn’t carry a lot of stuff around. That’s why they had no pets. No dog, no bird, cat, or even a fish.

Too hard to move.

He was afraid he would grow up like Mr. Evans, the short, bald man who lived by the bocci ball and shuffleboard courts in the middle of the mobile home park. Mr. Evans swept his walk and front porch three times a day. He didn’t want kids or dogs or bikes getting anywhere near his place, and nobody ever came to visit him.

Mr. Evans was such a grump that Mrs. Schwartz never even gave him any of her Christmas jelly, but she gave jars of it away to people she hardly knew.

Chris thought Mr. Evans must be the loneliest man who ever lived, and he was afraid that was what he was headed for since there was no one in the whole world he was related to except his mom.

Mom waited with her hand on the door while he climbed out. He kept his head down, slowly dragged his feet, and kicked the sand at the edge of the pavement just in case she didn’t get the picture.

“No dog, Chris,” she said softly. “You might as well save the drama for something really important.”

He sighed. Loud. The only thing more important than a dog was a dad.

“How about those peanut butter and jelly stars? Want some?” She started across the Astro-Turf that covered the stairs and porch outside their mobile home. The aluminum screen door squealed when she pulled it open. He waited while she turned the key in the front door. One day she said she was tired of looking at all the scratches on it and painted it bright purple.

He wanted to say no to the sandwiches and pout awhile, but his stomach growled. “I guess I could eat a little something.”

“I’ll make the sandwiches. You wash up.”

Mom dumped her backpack on one of the dinette chairs and headed for the kitchen as he walked down the hall to his room.

Star sandwiches were okay. She had made them lots of times. They tasted like ordinary peanut butter sandwiches, but Mom always got excited about recipes and crafts she saw in her magazines, so he pretended they were the best things he ever ate.

He stepped into his room, walked over to the bed, threw himself down on top of his race-car comforter, and stared up at the glow-in-the-dark stars and planets Mom had stuck to the ceiling.

There wasn’t any reason to bug her about going on a date with the man who had been talking to her and smiling real big.

She hadn’t even told him the guy’s name.

11

CARLY BRACED BOTH HANDS AGAINST THE RIM OF THE kitchen sink and closed her eyes against a sudden wave of guilt and uncertainty.

Chris could probably have everything he ever wanted if he were living with the Saunders. Though she barely made ends meet, she was independent, happy, and safe.

A dog might make him happy now, but what would he say when he was old enough to know the truth? How would he feel about what she’d done, about the privileged life and identity she had kept from him?

His kindergarten teacher claimed he was gifted. He was due to be tested in the fall when school started again.

The Saunders could afford to send him to any of the finest universities in the country. The way things were going, she’d be lucky to scrape together tuition and book money for the local junior college.

Chris was Rick Saunders’ son. She looked around a kitchen that was barely large enough to swing a cat in. Was it fair to bring him up this way?

Maybe he would be better off with the Saunders and all the advantages they could give him.

She shuddered at the unthinkable thought and pressed her hand to her mouth. He was her baby. Her heart. She could never give him up. Not for anything.

She knew what he was feeling, though. She had grown up longing for things she’d never have, loving people who weren’t there. At eleven she started a life of shuffling from one foster home to another. After that she never had two pieces of clothing that matched, let alone her own room.

She’d worn hand-me-downs and thrift shop specials, worn out shoes and ragged parkas that failed to keep out the harsh, high desert cold.

At least she was able to give Chris more than she had ever had. Their home here was modest but clean as a new dollar bill. She’d painted the walls, made slipcovers for the used furniture, hand painted race cars in bright primary colors around Christopher’s room. He had as many books and toys as she thought he needed and that she could afford.

She read everything she could get her hands on about raising a child and running a home. She tried in every way she could to be a good mom, the kind she wished she’d had.

She’d survived by being a chameleon, watching and imitating the qualities in others that she lacked and admired.

But the one thing she could never be was a dad.

Sighing, she shoved her hair back off her face and looked around her tidy kitchen again. For now, this was enough. It had to be. There was no sense in worrying about how Chris would judge her in the future. For now she could only hope that he would understand that she had let love be her guide.

But was love enough?

She was taking the peanut butter out of the cupboard when Etta Schwartz called through the front screen.

“Woo hoo! Carly?”

“Come on in, Etta.”

The screen door screeched and then banged shut. Carly started spreading peanut butter on a slice of whole wheat bread. Etta walked into the kitchen and stood at her elbow.

“Do you ever give that boy any lunch meat?” Etta was losing her hearing, and she had developed a habit of yelling. She also owned an endless wardrobe of spandex leggings that were all bagged out at the knees. She wore them topped with oversized T-shirts hand painted with puffy paint and sequins.

Not only did she also own an abundance of muumuus, some dating back to the forties when her father was stationed at Pearl Harbor, but she had a different wig for every day of the week. They were all too big for her head and made of shiny synthetics in a rainbow of shades with names like Mocha Madness and Chestnut Cherry.

What with the woman’s passion for scented candles, Carly’s worst fear was that one day Etta was going to set her hair on fire and that one of the wigs would melt onto her head.

Today Etta’s faux tresses were a shade close to magenta, set off by a bright chartreuse jumpsuit with a leopard print belt. When she moved, the scent of liniment and peppermint wafted around her.

“The Stingrays won the game today, so this is a special treat.” Carly knew that if Etta had any idea of what Carly had grown up eating, it would have curled her toes. She was used to Etta questioning everything she did, but knew Etta did it out of concern, so Carly let it go.

Etta had opened her home to Carly the day Carly and three-year-old Christopher had stepped off of a Greyhound bus with nothing more between them than two backpacks full of essentials. Carly had stopped for a cup of coffee at Selma’s after spotting a Help Wanted sign in the diner window.

After a brief, informal interview in a back booth, Selma hired her on the spot and sent her straight to Etta, suggesting Carly ask the widow if she would agree to rent Carly a room in her mobile home. Selma had guessed that Etta could use the extra income and companionship, and she had been right.

It turned out there was a rule at Seaside Village against subletting, so Etta told the manager Carly was a long-lost niece. Etta started baby-sitting Chris while Carly worked, claiming she could always use the extra money for Bunco, her bimonthly dice club.

Etta “loaned” Carly her old Ford. Three years later it was still registered in Etta’s name, although it was Carly who paid the registration fees the last two years.

When the mobile home next door to Etta’s came up for lease, Carly took it, and the two women remained partners of sorts. It was a symbiotic relationship—Carly needed Etta for childcare, Etta needed the extra money and companionship. Carly drove her into town and into San Luis Obispo to her doctors appointments and to shop.

And they both loved Christopher.

“It’s Saturday. You working tonight? Same as usual?” Etta asked.

“Five-thirty.” Carly pressed the small cookie cutter into one corner of the peanut butter sandwich and carefully lifted out another star.

“Better warn Christopher it’s his turn to come over to my place. It’s Bunco night, and all the girls will be there.” Etta wriggled her eyebrows like Groucho Marx. “Things get pretty wild.”

Carly hid a smile. Not one of the Bunco girls was a day under seventy-seven. “I’ll tell him. He’ll watch television on your bed and stay out of the way.”

“Only if he takes his shoes off. I can’t carry that spread to the laundry room. It’s too heavy.” Etta’s mouth puckered into a frown. Carly knew she was already envisioning footprints on the bedspread.

“Want a star, Etta?” Carly offered the plate of peanut butter and jelly stars, but Etta pursed her lips harder and shook her head.

“You really should learn to play Bunco so you could join us. You know, Carly, for a woman your age, your social life is a disaster.”