The Snowball Effect (16 page)

Vallery took Collin's hand. They walked inside the house.

So anyway, give me a call if my invitation got lost in the mail. Okay? Love you. Bye.

I hung up and got out of the car. Kara walked down the porch steps.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

Kara shrugged. “Home.”

We stopped in the middle of the yard. Kara looked away from me.

“I just got your message. I'm sorry.”

She shrugged. “Right. It's okay.”

“It was really nice of you to get Collin a present anyway.”

“Yeah. I would have brought it earlier, but it took me a while to convince myself that being mad at you wasn't a good reason to ignore the kid's birthday.”

“I would have sent you an invitation, but I didn't think you'd want to go.”

“You invited
Christine
.”

“Come on, Kara, don't do this. I had one invitation left, and Christine's pregnant and into the whole kid thing, so I thought it'd matter more to her. You know? I really didn't think you'd care.”

She rolled her eyes. “I have known the kid forever,
and I do care about his birthday.”

“I know you do. And it's really not like that. I'm sorry.”

“Okay.”

“I'm glad you came over.”

“Right,” she said.

I sighed. “Can we go somewhere?”

She didn't answer, but I yelled into the house and told Vallery that Kara and I were going out for dinner. We ended up at the McDonald's because Kara wouldn't tell me where she wanted to go and it was the first place I came to.

Kara didn't talk to me while we waited in line, and I wasn't sure what to say. Finally, as we sat down with our chicken sandwiches, I apologized again. “Things have been crazy,” I explained.

“What's going on with Riley?”

I shrugged. “Riley? Nothing.”

“Christine said he seemed kind of mad at Collin's party, and then he left early.”

“Well, yeah, he had to leave early. I don't know why Christine said he looked mad, though.”

“Everything's fine with Riley?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Just fine.”

Kara put her sandwich down. “Lainey, I know you guys are still fighting. He called me and told me all about the party. He cried on the phone for like an hour.”

“You know, we're not
fighting
. We broke up.”

“He told me you're seeing some other guy, and that you had a hickey.”

“It wasn't a hickey. It was a bruise. On my arm.”

“A hickey is a bruise.”

I rolled my eyes. “So what if I'm seeing someone new? How is that his business?”

Kara sighed. “It's not Riley's business, but I thought you might have told
me
about it.”

“Oh.”

“It's just weird that your boyfriend—your
ex
-boyfriend—is telling me all this stuff about you, and I had no idea it was going on.”

“I'm sorry. I didn't think you'd want to hear about the new guy.”

“Why wouldn't I want to know about the new guy?”

I shrugged. “You think I belong with Riley.”

“You thought you belonged with Riley. That's what you always used to say.”

“Well, I guess I was wrong.”

“So who is he?”

“Nobody. Just a guy.”

“Lainey.”

“His name is Eric.”

She threw a french fry at me and cracked a smile. “Very enlightening.”

“Okay…he's in sales right now. But he's a ski instructor in PA during the winter. And he has his own place. He has a beard.”

“And it's going okay?”

I shrugged. “Yeah, fine.”

Kara nodded. “Okay.” She dipped a french fry in my ketchup. “So are things crazy with your brother, too?”

“God, yes.” And so I told her about Collin's birthday party, and about our trip to urgent care. By the time we left McDonald's, I'd gotten her laughing.

“Can I meet him?” she asked as we pulled up to my house.

“Eric? Yeah, we'll do something sometime.”

“Okay. Call me.”

We hugged on the sidewalk, and then Kara walked to her car and I went inside.

 

The next morning Bob called and fired me. He said he'd send my last check in the mail.

I hung up on him before he was finished talking and threw the cell phone across the room. I cried. I'd never been fired before. And I hadn't even thought to defend myself. I'd had a perfectly good reason for leaving. It felt too late to call him back now, after I'd already hung up on him.

After I started to feel really stupid about crying, I wiped my eyes and picked my cell phone up off of the floor. I scrolled to
K
but realized that Kara was probably asleep, so I scrolled down to
R
and then shook my head and wondered what was wrong with me. I scrolled back up to
E
and dialed Eric.

“I got fired!” I whined into the phone.

“Oh, honey! I'm sorry. I know how much you loved that job.”

“Shut up.”

“Well, do you want to go to work with me today?” he asked. “Frank's on vacation.”

“Um,” I said. “All right.”

“Cool. I'll pick you up in a few minutes.”

I dressed in a red button-up shirt and black skirt and heels. I hadn't worn the shirt in a while, and it was relatively clean. The skirt? Well, it didn't have any visible stains, at least. My underwear, though, was brand-new. I'd finally run out of clean underwear, so I'd bought an economy variety pack of cotton briefs at Walmart. They would get me through the next few weeks.

 

“Now, this job works on commission,” Eric explained in the car after he picked me up. “At the end of the day we'll split everything evenly, all right?”

“All right,” I said.

“I figure you'll help me win over the male demographic. My biggest customers so far have been old ladies, because old ladies love me. Anyone younger than forty-five thinks my beard is creepy, but the old ladies dig it.”

“I'm under forty-five,” I said.

“And what do you think about my beard?”

I shrugged and smiled.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Annapolis.”

“Annapolis?”

“Yeah. Frank and I already hit all the streets in Corben.”

“Really. All of them?”

“Yeah.”

“Then I guess it wasn't such a coincidence that we met again. It was just a matter of time.”

“Nah, fate still had something to do with it. Would you have gotten out of bed to answer the door if Vallery hadn't stayed home from work?”

I shook my head. Absolutely not.

The houses in the Annapolis suburbs weren't that close together, so we did a lot of walking. Most people either weren't home or didn't answer the door. They were probably at work, which made sense. If you lived in a big brick house in a suburb of Annapolis, you probably needed a normal nine-to-five job to pay the bills, and that prevented you from being home in the middle of the day to answer the door for a couple of kids selling magazines.

After four hours of going door-to-door, I realized that selling was
hard
. Door-to-door salesmen aroused even more contempt than kiosk cashiers. But some people were receptive to our pitch (or to our charming good looks). We made a bit of money and decided to go out to lunch.

 

The burger place Eric picked out had peanut shells all over the floor. “This place is filthy,” I said to Eric, kicking at the shells with my black heels.

“The food's good, though,” he assured me.

“No, I like it,” I said. “It makes me feel at home.”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I can never tell when you're being facetious.”

After we were seated and the waitress gave us a bowl of peanuts and went off to get our drinks, we stared at the menus and I thought about getting fired. I knew it was just a stupid mall job, but I couldn't stop thinking about it and wondering what I should have done differently.

“I should have just waited,” I said to Eric. “He wasn't even in pain. And then we sat in the waiting room for half the night anyway.”

“Your brother needed you,” Eric said, cracking open a peanut. “Why don't you call Bob and explain?”

“I don't know. I think maybe I should find a full-time job. But I don't even know if I'm going to school in the fall.” I looked at Eric. “What should I do? And what should I
order
?”

He reached his hand across the table and popped a peanut into my mouth. “You want the bacon and mushroom burger.”

“Do I?” I chewed and swallowed the peanut as I looked down at the menu. No chicken. Just burgers. “Okay.”

“To answer your other question, I believe everything
happens for a reason, and everything will turn out the way that it's supposed to turn out.”

“Okay,” I said. “That's nice and all, but it doesn't really help me out now.”

“Why not? Don't you believe that everything will work out in the end?”

This was starting to sound like one of Mom's therapy sessions. “Well, yeah,” I said. “I guess.”

“If everything turns out right in the end, then everything that happened until then was leading up to that point in time. Therefore everything that happened had to happen.”

“O-
kay
.”

Eric grinned. “What I'm trying to say is don't stress out about making decisions. If everything is going to turn out right in the end, then it doesn't matter what you decide to do, because you can't make the wrong decision. You get what I'm saying? You can't do the wrong thing. If you believe that everything will turn out right in the end, then whatever you do, no matter what it is, it will be the right thing.”

“But how do you know what the right thing is?” I asked.

“That's my point. You don't have to worry about it. You do what's in your heart and you don't second-guess yourself.”

The waitress came back and dropped off our drinks. Eric ordered our burgers.

While we waited for our food, Eric made a big production out of building a tower of sugar packets. I stared out the window and thought about what he had said.

The problem with Eric's philosophy was that it was complete bullshit. Do what's in your
heart
? What did that even mean? The only thing in my heart was a lot of blood and arteries and ventricles. When people said that, they really meant do what you
feel
. But how was I supposed to know what I really felt about something, when my feelings changed every time I thought about it?

Right then, I kind of missed Riley and wouldn't have minded if I'd been sitting across from him instead of Eric. Riley would have given me a real answer—apologize to Bob, find a new job and help Vallery, whatever. He wouldn't have given me any do-what's-in-your-heart theoretical bullshit.

But I liked being with Eric most of the time. Earlier, when we were going door-to-door and selling magazines and then making fun of the people who'd been rude to us, I hadn't even thought about Riley for a second.

My feelings didn't change on a day-to-day basis. They changed hourly. They changed every minute.

Sometimes when Collin actually felt like cooperating and Vallery was in a good mood, we almost seemed like a real family, and I didn't feel like someone who just got in the way. But other times I couldn't stand Collin's temper and obstinacy and I didn't want to deal with being a family; I just wanted to deal with being myself, which was
hard enough anyway.

How was I supposed to know what I should do? I had no idea, so I couldn't do anything. I couldn't leave Corben or get a new job or make any plans or register for college. I didn't feel qualified to make even the smallest decision by myself. Not even ordering my own food.

When the waitress came back with our burgers, I stared at mine and wondered why I'd let Eric order for me. I wasn't big on mushrooms, or bacon, so what would possess me to get a bacon and mushroom burger? Eric's burger, topped with chili and red onions, didn't look much better, so I couldn't even propose a trade.

I had no other option, so I lifted my burger and took a bite. I expected to hate it, but the mushrooms and bacon surprised me. “Oh my God,” I said after swallowing. “This is the best burger I've ever had. Ever.”

“Who takes care of you, baby?” Eric asked with a wink. He rubbed my knee under the table.

You just do what's in your heart
.

Is this what was in my heart? Magazines, and this bearded man, and bacon mushroom burgers?

It could be. It felt good. It
tasted
good.

It wasn't so bad, leaving things for other people to decide. They seemed to know what they were doing.

A
s soon as Vallery got home, I handed her half of my magazine money and told her I'd been fired. The money wasn't much, but I knew it would help a little.

“You should call your dad,” she said. She folded my money up and put it in her purse.

“What? Where did that come from?”

“Have you even seen him since Mom died?”

“Yes. He was at the funeral.”

“He was? And you didn't tell me? Nice.”

“You've met him before. You could have gone up and talked to him.”

“I haven't seen him since I was a kid. I wouldn't have recognized him. Anyway, have you talked to him since then?”

“No.”

“He hasn't called? You don't think that's a shitty
thing to do to your daughter, when you're her only living parent?”

“He called me on my birthday, but I didn't talk to him. We've never been close anyway. Hey, how often do you call
your
dad?”

“That's irrelevant to this conversation. Anyway, you need to call him and tell him you miss him and want to get together. Go have dinner or something. He'll ask how you've been, you tell him about Collin, about losing your job, he gives you some money.”

“That's absolutely not going to happen.”

“I'll call him and set up a dinner date for you.”

“You're not going to pimp me out to my own father.”

“Oh, Lainey, why is everything
dirty
to you? He's your dad. If he isn't going to support you emotionally, the least he can do is give us some money.”

“I'll get a real job. With both of us working full-time, that should cover all the bills, right? Maybe I can work night shift at the diner with Kara. Then I'd be home during the day with Collin.”

“I don't want you to do that.”

“Of course you don't. Then you couldn't hold it over my head that you make all the money and I do nothing.”

“Oh, stop it. I've never said anything like that, and you know it. We'll struggle through the summer and then you can get a job in the fall. It would help
now
if you could get some money from your dad, but if you don't want to, then whatever. We'll deal. We'll be fine, all right?”

I went to my room and pulled Mom's notebooks out from under my mattress. I piled them up and stared at them. How much would they be worth to Deborah? Enough to pay our bills for a month or two? Enough to make me feel better about losing my stupid job?

Pick them up. Take them to Vallery. Give her the phone number.

I couldn't do it. I didn't know why, but I couldn't.

I heard Vallery's footsteps coming up the stairs. I threw my blanket on top of the notebooks.

She knocked on my door. “Hey, I'm taking your money and going grocery shopping. Do you want anything?”

“No. Are you taking Collin?”

“Yeah, I can.”

After I heard the Mustang drive away, I sat on my bed with Mom's notebooks. I opened the binder and flipped through the pages. It was full of things like notes on starting your own business. Tax forms and all that. Boring stuff. If Mom had been smart enough to gather all this information, why hadn't she been smart enough to invest her money? Stocks and bonds or whatever?

I closed the binder and opened to a random page in one of the notebooks.

I closed the notebook and threw them all back under the mattress. I didn't know why Deborah would want to buy these books full of clichés. Couldn't she make up this crap on her own?

I sat on my bed. I looked at all the dirty laundry covering my floor and I got angry. Really angry.

I jumped up. I started shoving everything into my hamper. I dragged the hamper into the hallway, down the stairs, through the living room, to the kitchen, to the basement door.

And then I froze.

I opened the basement door. I flipped the light on.

I told myself to take one step, just drag the hamper down one step, but I couldn't move.

I pushed the hamper away. I'd try it without the hamper first.

I took one step down the basement stairs.

Then I jumped back into the kitchen and slammed the door shut.

Ridiculous.

 

Look at what you've done to me, Mom. I can't even walk down to my own basement. I can't even do my own fucking laundry. I'm buying panties in bulk from Walmart because you had to kill yourself and make me
terrified of my own basement.

What the hell was wrong with you, Mom?

And not just in June, either. Not just when you decided to kill yourself. Earlier. Years ago. What was wrong with you then?

When something's over, you're supposed to remember the good times. You're not supposed to remember the sucky parts or the moments that you'd never in a million years want to live through again. You survived, and that's all that matters. At least that's how it's supposed to be. Obviously that's not how it's working out for me since you died. It's not that I
want
to keep remembering the bad times. It's not that I
want
to keep reliving every time you hurt me. I just can't forget. I want to, but I can't.

You were supposed to chaperone the field trip to the aquarium in first grade. You had a whole group of my classmates assigned to you and everything. I didn't remind you that morning because I was six—why would I remind you? And then you never showed up at school, and my group had to be divided up among the other groups, among the other parents who had remembered to show up. They asked me where my mother was, and I had no idea what to say, so I just cried instead.

You also missed: several parent-teacher conferences, fifth grade graduation, eighth grade graduation, and every American Education Week except the one in third grade. And it also took you three hours to come pick me up that time I had a really bad headache and the nurse was afraid
I might have meningitis. I didn't have meningitis, but how did you know that?

Why are these the things that I remember?

I know you loved Collin better because he needed a lot of love. And that was fine. Really, it was. You thought you didn't have to put any work into me. You thought I'd just coast through life and I'd make it okay no matter how much attention you paid to me. And I have.

After you got Collin, I thought you'd changed. I didn't understand why you loved Carl, and I know I mocked your group therapy stuff, but I knew that you were different—and believe me, I appreciated it. I thought,
Well, she doesn't love me any better and she hasn't apologized for any of the crap she put me through, but at least she loves Collin, at least she tries as hard as she can for him. She doesn't live for herself anymore. She lives for him.
But I was jealous—I was the kid you'd accidentally acquired, and he was the kid you'd tried so hard for.

But I had it wrong; you didn't live for Collin. You lived for Carl. And after Carl drove his stupid Kawasaki off the highway, you had nothing. It didn't matter that you'd finally made a nice life for yourself and your kids. It didn't matter that you still had Collin to raise. It didn't matter that you'd never see me and Riley get married or hold your grandkids. It didn't matter that you were helping those women in your groups.

Obviously you hadn't done it for yourself, or even for us. Everything you'd done was for him. Always him. A fat, uneducated, unemployed lazy man sitting in a La-Z-Boy. I don't understand, Mom. And I don't think I ever will.

I should take your blue binder and your composition books and call this Deborah woman. I should hand them over and take whatever I can get for them. Maybe Deborah's just in it for all the money she can make from the poor lonely women you used to counsel. But maybe she actually wants to help them like you used to. Maybe she actually cares. Maybe she'll stick around. Maybe she won't disappoint them.