The Snowball Effect (10 page)

I drove to the 7-Eleven on Corben Avenue. There were new ads in the window for hot dogs. The hot dogs on the posters were enormous, but I knew the real hot
dogs rolling around on the warming rack were practically as thin as my fingers. When I got inside, I realized I didn't have any cash. I went back outside to the ATM.

The prompt to enter your PIN popped up, and I froze. What was my PIN? The four-digit code that I'd punched in a million times had suddenly fallen out of my head. I stood there with my fingers hovering over the buttons. Which looked familiar? Four, maybe. There was definitely a nine in there. Somewhere. I hit a few numbers that looked right. No good—the machine beeped at me. I tried another combination of numbers. And then I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“I wouldn't suggest trying again. If you enter your PIN wrong one more time, it's going to keep your card.”

I stared at the man with his hand on my shoulder. He wore an olive-green camouflage coat and had longish brown hair and a scruffy beard. For a second I thought he was a homeless person, but then I doubted a homeless person would speak coherently or know much about the ATM.

“How do you know?” I asked. I took a step back and he let his arm fall to his side. I glanced back at the 7-Eleven to see if there were people inside to hear me scream and come to my rescue if he tried to abduct me. But I couldn't see anyone. The huge hot dogs blocked my view.

“I forgot my PIN one night and it kept my card,” he explained.

“Oh,” I said. I hit a button and the machine ejected my card. I shoved it in my purse real quick in case he
wanted to rob me. Not that it would do him any good to steal my bank card, since I couldn't tell him the PIN.

“You'll have to go to the bank tomorrow and get them to issue you a new PIN. It's a huge hassle, though. They have to call some home office and then you have to wait for it to come in the mail, which takes about a week.”

“I'm sure I have it written down somewhere. You know, when they first sent it to me in the mail.”

He grinned. “You kept that? You were supposed to memorize it and destroy the evidence.”

“Yeah, well, it's a good thing I didn't.” When he smiled, I realized he wasn't actually as old as I'd first thought. Probably just a few years older than I was. The beard just made him look thirty. And a little crazy. But that grin changed everything.

“What brings you out at this hour, anyway?” he asked. “You work the night shift?”

“No, I just really wanted a Slurpee.”

“And now you can't get any cash.”

“Nope.”

“Well, let's go,” he said.

“Where?”

“Inside. On me.”

“I don't know,” I said.

“Oh, come on!” He threw his hands up in the air. “You've already spent five minutes out here talking to me. We'll just walk in and I'll pay for your Slurpee and we'll go our separate ways. Tell me how that's dangerous.”

I shrugged. “Okay. But when I remember my PIN, I'll hunt you down and pay you back.”

“Fair enough.” He held the door open for me, and we walked inside and headed for the Slurpee machine. I filled my cup with piña colada. He mixed all six flavors into his. Kara and I used to do that with fountain sodas back in middle school, when it was the cool thing to do. It was called a Suicide. I don't know why.

We went up to the register, and the cashier put her romance novel facedown on the counter and rang us up. He paid and we went outside. He sat down on the curb in front of the pay phones, right next to the big
NO LOITERING
sign.

“No loitering,” I said as I sat down beside him.

“They only frown upon loiterers on skateboards. We're cool.”

He held his Slurpee out toward me, and I thought for a second that he wanted me to take a drink.

“Cheers,” he said.

“Oh.” I tapped my cup against his.

We sat there and sipped our Slurpees. He kept stirring his with the straw. I didn't feel like grasping for topics of conversation and he didn't start any, so we just sat there and watched the cars on the street, and the occasional customer turn into the 7-Eleven parking lot. Finally I heard
slurp slurp slurrrrrrrrrrp
, and he was finished. I swallowed the last few sips of mine, and we stood up and tossed the empty cups in the trash can.

“Thanks for the Slurpee,” I said.

“No problem.”

He stood by the front of his car. I stood by the driver's door of the Grand Am. Now he was supposed to ask for my phone number so I could keep him up-to-date on the PIN situation, and arrange to pay him back when I had cash again. But he just stood there and smiled.

So I said, “See you around,” and got into the Grand Am. He waited for me to back up, and then he opened the door to his car and waved as I drove off.

“I
think Collin's dying,” Vallery said when I got home from work the next afternoon.

“What's wrong?” I asked.

She pointed at him, sleeping beside her on the couch. “He's lying down and being quiet. And the TV isn't even on. He hasn't made any noise all day.”

I went up to Collin and put my hand on his forehead. “He has a fever, Val. Just give him some Tylenol.”

“Are you sure he doesn't need to go to the doctor or anything?”

“No. Only if he starts crying about his throat or his ears or something. He'll be fine tomorrow. Today, just enjoy it.”

“Enjoy it? That's twisted, Lainey.”

“Well, haven't you enjoyed your quiet morning?”

“No. I've been worried.”

I went into the kitchen. I dug through the cabinets and found the cherry-flavored children's Tylenol. “Rock, paper, scissors,” I said, walking back into the living room.

“Huh?”

“One, two, three, shoot!” I yelled. Vallery threw rock. I threw paper. I covered her fist with my hand. “I win.” I handed her the medicine. “Have fun with that.”

I walked up to my room, waiting for Collin's screaming to start. At the top of the stairs I looked back. Vallery held Collin up and poured a capful of the medicine into his mouth. I kicked myself for not giving him the medicine this time, when he was too knocked out to complain. Vallery would keep score. Next time, when he would surely be in a terrible mood and want to fight, it would be my turn to do it.

 

Collin fell asleep in his own bed a little after nine o'clock. Vallery ran into my room and gave me the thumbs-up sign. “He's still out. You know what this means?”

“What?” I asked.

“Margaritas,” she said, and ran down to the kitchen.

 

“What we're celebrating,” Vallery said as she carried two margaritas into the living room, “is that I got a job. They called today and offered me the position.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I'm telling you right now.”

I took the margarita glass from her. “I'm sorry I was such a bitch about it before.”

She shrugged. “It's okay.”

“Well, congratulations. What are you doing?”

“Some kind of secretarial work.”

“Sounds great.”

“Don't make fun. Everyone lied to you when they told you a college degree was the ticket to a great career and successful life. Mine, thus far, has failed to help me in any way whatsoever.”

“What was your degree in?”

“American studies.”

I laughed. “What's that supposed to prepare you for?”

Vallery shrugged. “I don't know. It seemed like a good idea at the time. All my classes were really fun.”

“Riley and I are going to start at the community college in the fall,” I said. “He took a year off so we could take a few of the same classes and graduate together.”

“You guys are disgusting, do you know that?”

I nodded. “I know.”

“So you're going to get married.”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“You guess? You have the rest of your life planned around him and you haven't talked about getting married?”

“He hasn't asked me yet, but I guess we will.”

“You're awfully young to be settling down.”

“We've been together almost four years.”

“Have you ever even had another boyfriend?”

I shook my head. “Not really.”

Vallery whistled. “Brave young girl.”

“I love him.”

“I'm sure you do.”

“Did you have a guy in Texas?”

“Huh?”

“Like a boyfriend.”

She shrugged.

I grinned. “That wasn't supposed to be a hard question.”

“Well, there was a guy for a while. I could never settle down like that, though. There's too much out there to sample.”

“That's a nice way of looking at it.”

Vallery finished the last of her margarita and went into the kitchen for a refill. “I bet,” she called to me, “when you go into a restaurant, you can look at the menu and pick exactly what you want. I can't do that. No way. I make up my mind and then I see what someone else orders and it looks good to me, and I want to have it.” She came back in and sat down next to me on the couch. She carried a bunch of envelopes in her hand. I gave her a questioning look but she kept talking. “That's why I love buffets. It's not because I want to gorge myself, you know? I just love it that there's no room for error. Meat loaf turns out to be a bad choice? Dump it in the trash and go back
for the chicken. You can't do that in real restaurants.”

“What are you holding?”

She looked down at her margarita glass.

“The envelopes?” I asked.

“Oh! Right.” She waved them toward Collin's room. “This kid is having a birthday.”

“I know.” My birthday actually came before Collin's, but if Vallery didn't know that, then I wasn't going to tell her.

Vallery nodded. “Apparently his grandma has planned some hoopla at her place.” She held the envelopes up and shook them in my face. “We're supposed to pass these out to—get this—his friends. Does this kid have friends?”

“Well, he's starting camp next week,” I said. “Maybe he'll make some new friends.”

“Camp?”

“Yeah.”

Vallery slapped my leg with the envelopes. “No one tells me a goddamned thing around here!”

“Sorry. I forgot about it too, but then we got a letter in the mail a few days ago. I left it on the table for you.”

“I didn't see it. Is it, like, sleepaway camp?”

I shook my head.

“Damn it.”

“It's at his school. It's actually almost just like school but we call it camp to make it sound more exciting.”

“Okay. Well, I can drop him off on my way to work if you pick him up.”

I shrugged. “Okay.”

I was on my second margarita and Vallery was on her third when Riley showed up with his overnight bag.

“Where's Collin?” he asked, looking around the living room. “It's after his bedtime.”

“That's why he's in bed,” Vallery said.

I giggled. After two margaritas, anything amused me. I got the giggles under control and explained, “He's been sick.”

Vallery raised her glass. “Margarita bucket is in the kitchen. Help yourself.”

“No, thanks.” He eyed me and then sat down in Carl's old recliner.

Riley didn't like it when I drank—and I didn't do it often, because when I did I always got myself in trouble. It's not that I was an angry drunk like some people (ahem, Christine). It seemed like drinking only amplified whatever mood I was already in. If I was feeling happy and flirty, drinking made me too friendly and too flirty. If I was kind of in a pissy mood, drinking made me knockdown-drag-out angry.

I'd probably embarrassed Riley at every party we'd ever been to, but two incidents were especially bad. The first was at Jamie's birthday party sophomore year. I had a little too much on an empty stomach and ended up getting in a fight with a girl from the basketball team who I thought had been checking Riley out. She wasn't, and she was a lot bigger than I was anyway, so even if she had
been, I should have kept my mouth shut. Not one of my brighter ideas.

The second time was at a party junior year. I kissed a guy. Right in front of Riley. Again, not one of my brighter ideas.

I hadn't finished the margarita, but I took my glass to the sink.

“We're going to bed,” I said to Vallery as I walked back into the living room.

She held up her glass. “One more for the road?”

I went back to the kitchen, filled her glass up, and put the bucket back in the freezer. When I went back to the living room, Vallery stood and reached for her margarita. I shook my head. “Let me carry it,” I said. “It's really full.”

Riley took Vallery's arm and led her up the stairs to her bedroom. The margarita sloshed over the sides of the glass as I slid my hand along the wall and walked toward the stairs.

When Riley let go of her, she flopped down onto the bed. I set her glass on the nightstand.

“Hugs!” she said. I hugged her, and when I stepped back she reached for Riley. “I love you guys,” she said.

“We love you too,” I said, rolling my eyes. At least she was a happy drunk.

I followed Riley across the hallway to my room.

As soon as the door shut behind us, he started.

“What do you two think you're doing?”

“Calm down. We just had a few drinks.”

“What about Collin?”

“What about him? He's asleep.”

“Okay, let's say he woke up with a really high temperature and needed to go to the hospital. You and Vallery are drunk. Vallery can't even walk straight, and you hardly can either. Who's going to drive him there?”

I smiled and then kissed him on the cheek. “You.”

He didn't smile back. “What if I wasn't here?”

“Jesus Christ, Riley, that's why they invented ambulances.”

“I just wish you two were a little more careful. I mean, you're
parents
now. You're
responsible
for him. I don't think you're taking this seriously.”

I flopped down on the bed. “I get so sick of listening to you talk sometimes.”

“You get sick of listening to me talk because you know I'm right.”

I shook my head and rolled onto my back. “No, I'm just sick of you. You're smart and perfect and I'm just so irresponsible. Sometimes I can't even stand to look at you.”

“God, please just go to sleep. I hate it when you're like this.”

“Remember that guy at the party?” I asked.

“No.”

“You remember. Junior year. That guy.”

“My junior year, or your junior year?”

“Mine. Duh.”

“I don't know what guy you're talking about.”

“That guy I kissed. At the party.”

Riley frowned at me. “Why are you bringing this up?”

“I just wanted you to know, I really wanted to kiss that guy. Like, really. I'm glad I did it. It's nice to sample stuff, you know? Like a buffet? You shouldn't just get stuck with what you order.”

“God, Lainey. What makes you
say
these things?”

“You should have broken up with me then.”

“Why?”

“I'm a bad girlfriend. I don't deserve you.”

“Lainey.”

“We should break up.” I covered my face with my hands.

He touched my shoulder. “You don't mean that. It's the tequila talking.”

“I do mean it. I don't want to go out with you. You're too good.”

He nudged me. “Scoot over. I'm going to sleep.”

I rolled over to the edge of the bed. I fell asleep before Riley even finished taking off his pants.

 

That night I dreamed about the Slurpee guy.

We were in bed together, cuddling, watching a movie. He wore boxer shorts and that camouflage coat. When I woke up, I still remembered the way his body had been curled around mine, the way it had felt in the dream when
he'd rested his hand on my hip. As I lay there in bed the next morning thinking about Slurpee Guy with Riley's arm wrapped around me, I couldn't help but realize that the feeling I had when Riley touched me and the feeling I'd had in my dream weren't the same at all.

The night before came back to me in slow motion. Telling Riley we should break up. Tucking Vallery in. Talking about food.

I always ordered chicken. Always. Chicken strips if they had them, or a chicken sandwich if they didn't. I'd been doing that for years. I didn't like buffets. Mom had worked at too many buffets. I'd always been embarrassed every time we had dinner there and she knew all the people clearing plates and refilling the food.

I looked at Riley sleeping with his face resting against my arm.

Why did you come over last night?
I thought. I hadn't asked him to. Usually I loved it when he came over and surprised me.

Usually I didn't dream about half-naked strangers.

I liked to pretend that Riley and I had always been disgustingly happy, but we'd actually broken up for a few months during my sophomore year. It was in the fall, so it didn't interfere with his junior prom or our birthdays, and we still spent Christmas together because we weren't ready to tell our families. It was easy to forget afterward that it had ever happened.

But it had. And it had happened because I dumped
him to go out with Grant, who sat next to me in art class. And I wanted to go out with Grant from art class because I'd had a sexy dream about him.

I didn't know why I'd had that sexy dream about Grant. I'd never thought about him in that way before. But after the dream, I wanted him. I told myself it was a stupid crush and it would go away, but for weeks I pined after stupid Grant. So finally I picked a fight with Riley, we broke up, and I dated Grant.

After a few weeks I realized I didn't like Grant all that much, and breaking up with Riley made my social life really awkward (plus I missed him). I dumped Grant and got back together with Riley.

Dumping Riley was the dumbest thing I'd ever done.

I stroked Riley's hair. His eyes flickered open. He blinked a few times and then smiled at me.

I couldn't leave Riley again. He was perfect, even though I hated that sometimes. You didn't leave a perfect guy. Well, not unless you were Mom.

I hadn't thought about that guy in years, the one perfect guy Mom had dated, the only one I'd really liked. I couldn't even remember his name. He wasn't all that good-looking, but he could cook and he was super nice and he treated Mom and me like queens. Mom only went out with him three times. She didn't like the way he was going bald, or the funny shape of his nose, and besides, some better-looking guy from work had asked
her out. I hated her for dumping him. He could have been the perfect father. He definitely wouldn't have driven a motorcycle off the highway and broken her heart.