The Snowball Effect (17 page)

S
aturday was moving day for Christine and Wallace. Christine couldn't lift much because of being very pregnant. Kara and I were both notoriously lacking in upper body strength. Joe was coming along, but he'd sprained his wrist at work, so he wouldn't be good for any heavy lifting. Everyone else was otherwise occupied. Jamie and her boyfriend were supposed to come but had to cancel at the last minute. Owen and a few others were working. No one told me anything about Riley's whereabouts, but I was sure they hadn't decided to invite me first over him. Christine had called and said to me, “Bring your new guy along if you want. We're going to have a little pizza party afterward.” I knew they were only asking because they were desperate. And probably wanted to check out this new guy. I didn't know if Kara had told everyone about Eric, or if it had been a lucky guess. I
mean, it
was
a valid assumption. If you were going to dump a great guy like Riley, you must have a new boyfriend already lined up. You didn't just walk away from something like that without a plan, not unless you were crazy.

 

As soon as I stepped outside on Saturday morning, a woman shoved a paperback novel in my face and asked, “How much is this?

I took the book from her and looked at the price on the back. “Five ninety-nine,” I said, and handed it back to her.

The woman rolled her eyes. “You can't charge the cover price.”

I noticed the stack of paperbacks on the porch swing. Then I looked past the woman and noticed everything else. It wasn't just one crazy woman on our porch. It was a whole yard sale.

“All books are a quarter!” Vallery yelled from behind the woman.

“Thanks, hon,” the woman called to Vallery. And then she handed me a quarter and walked off with the book.

Yard sales were a big deal in our neighborhood. Someone on our street had one just about every week in the summer, and now apparently it was our turn. Our neighbors traipsed around our tiny yard, digging through boxes of our stuff. They were even out on the sidewalk
because Vallery had hung Mom's dresses and shirts on both sides of the fence. She'd even pulled out some of the extra chairs from the dining room.

I walked down the porch steps and pinched Vallery. “What the hell are you doing?”

She turned around and smiled. “Having a yard sale. Obviously.”

“You shouldn't have done this without telling me!”

“Well, I need to make some extra money somehow.”

“I gave you practically all of the money I made with Eric!” Eric had let me tag along for the rest of the week. Apparently Frank didn't have much of a work ethic. Eric had told me that he wasn't away on vacation—just at home playing Grand Theft Auto.

“If you want to get rid of some stuff too, bring it out. I'll give you your cut.”

“What if there's stuff here that I don't want to give away?”

“It's just Mom's old clothes and a bunch of stuff that belonged to Carl. We don't need it. I've made over a hundred bucks already and I've only been out here an hour.”

I recognized some of our neighbors. I spotted the woman with the long braid, Deborah, digging through boxes on the other side of the yard. I wondered if she'd already asked Vallery about Mom's notebooks, or if she was hoping to just come across them and buy them for a quarter.

I walked around and started looking down into boxes.
Then I came across a box that had
LAINEY OLD CLOTHES
written on the side.

I looked inside. Yes, definitely my old stuff. I held up the box to Vallery. “What does this say?”

“‘Lainey old clothes.' Old! You clearly don't want them anymore. They've clearly been put aside for disposal.”

I dug through the box. “Vallery!” I whispered. “There are
panties
in here.” Panties! At a yard sale! Labeled with
my name
for all the neighbors to see!

“Oh for God's sake,” Vallery said. “Just take them out.”

I heard a car pull up, and I turned and saw Eric idling by the curb.

“I'll be home in a few hours,” I said. I closed up the box and carried it to the car. I threw it in the backseat and got in beside Eric.

“What's in the box?” he asked.

I sighed. “Vallery was selling my underwear at her little yard sale.”

Eric laughed and shook his head. “How much did she want for them?”

“Not funny.”

“Did you have to buy them back from her?”

“Also not funny.”

 

I could tell right off that Eric was not making a great impression on the Old Crew. I should have gotten him to shave the beard off. Wallace and Joe shook his hand, and
Christine and Kara were friendly to him, but I knew they wanted to shake me and scream, “YOU LEFT RILEY FOR THIS GUY? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

I mean, Eric wasn't bad. Obviously,
I
liked him. But Riley was a man's man. He fixed cars and played sports. Eric spouted off bizarre philosophies and had favorite movies that no one else had heard of. He just didn't fit in the way Riley did. Not that I fit in either. If it hadn't been for Kara, I wouldn't have talked to any of those people ever again.

But fortunately Eric had no trouble holding up his end of a sofa, and he was old enough to buy alcohol, so at least he wasn't a total outcast. Moving took way longer than I thought it would, and then Eric and I stopped by the liquor store on our last trip to the new apartment and bought a twelve-pack for those of us who weren't pregnant. Christine ordered pizza. Wallace put on a movie. It was like the old days, except we were in a strange place and Riley was missing.

Christine had drawn a diagram of where she wanted all the furniture to go, but now that everything was where she wanted it, she couldn't decide if she liked it. She kept asking me my opinion, and I kept telling her it looked fine. I kept trying to talk about other things, but then I'd catch her looking around the living room and I knew she was still thinking about the furniture.

I was on my third beer when I ended up alone in the kitchen with Kara, getting another slice of pizza. I
grabbed her arm. “Do you like him?” I whispered.

“He's nice,” Kara said. “Do
you
like him?”

“Of course I like him. Well, most of the time. I don't know. I miss Riley sometimes, you know? Why do I have to be such a crazy person?”

Kara opened her mouth to tell me, but I reached out and tried to cover her mouth with my hand. I grabbed her chin instead, but that shut her up. “Don't tell me I'm going through a difficult time,” I warned her. I let go of her chin.

“I wasn't going to. I was just going to say, if you like Eric, be with Eric. If you like Riley, go be with Riley. They're both nice.”

“And they're really different, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So how am I supposed to know which one I really like? I mean, I don't know anything anymore, Kara. For real. Like I can't even decide what I want to eat. I sit around thinking and thinking and thinking and I can't make up my mind about anything.”

She took my beer and handed me a can of Coke. “Maybe you should switch to soda.”

“See, that's what I need. That was good. Make up my mind for me.”

“Okay. Let's go back to the living room and drink our sodas.”

“No, no, no, I mean about the boys. Which boy do I want?”

“You're with Eric. I thought you already made up your mind.”

“But I miss Riley sometimes.”

“Well, which one do you like better?”

“That's the problem, duh.” I rolled my eyes. “I can't figure it out. Maybe it's Riley. But maybe I only think that because I had him for so long. It could be Eric because, you know, I liked him enough that he pulled me away from Riley. Right? So which one is it?”

“If you're confused, then maybe you don't need a boyfriend right now.”

I laughed. “Who would help Wallace lift the sofa if I didn't have a boyfriend?”

Kara rolled her eyes. “I really don't understand you and Christine. Why you're like that.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged. “I don't know. Never mind.”

“It's not our fault we have boyfriends and you don't.”

She didn't answer. She just stood there, staring at me.

“Kara?”

“What?”

“Are you mad at what I said?”

“No.”

“Okay. Then please pick for me.”

“Fine. Hold on. I'm thinking.”

She stood there for at least an entire minute before she spoke again. “Okay, I'm not saying this is what
you
should do, I'm just saying this is what
I
would do. If
I
had
to pick, I'd pick Riley. He worships you. Not that there's anything wrong with Eric. He seems really nice and interesting. But didn't you say he's moving to Pennsylvania or something? And besides, you have a history with Riley.”

“It doesn't even matter what I want. Riley hates me now anyway.”

“I guarantee he doesn't hate you.”

“I messed everything up.”

Kara shook her head. “You just have too many problems, Lainey St. James.” She took my arm and guided me back into the living room.

 

On the drive home Eric's car sputtered to a stop.

I looked at Eric. “Are we out of gas?”

“Well, we drove around all damn day. I thought we'd have enough to make it home. I
hope
we're out of gas, actually. If not, it's something a lot worse.”

I sighed.

“What?”

“It's my night to watch Collin.”

“I'll call Frank, and he'll come take us to a gas station. Don't freak out.”

“I'm not freaking out. I should just be home by now, that's all.”

“Well I'm not the one who wanted to sit and drink beer with your friends for three hours.”

“I knew it. You don't like my friends.”

“I like your friends just fine.”

“You think they're stupid.” I kicked my feet around on the floor of Eric's car. There were CDs everywhere. Some of them weren't even in cases. “You should take better care of your CDs.”

“Lainey, you had too much to drink, and I really don't want to talk to you right now.”

Well, that was one thing Eric and Riley had in common: They both hated me when I was drunk.

“I didn't drink anything,” I lied. I was a compulsive liar when I was drunk. That got me into trouble at parties too.

Eric rolled his eyes. “Just sit there and be quiet, and I'll call Frank.”

“They just like my old boyfriend better, that's all. He would have known what was wrong with the car. He would have fixed it a long time ago before it broke down.”

“I'm out of gas. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.”

“You're just guessing. He would know the difference. He would have fixed it.”

“Oh yeah? Why didn't he fix your car? Why do you have to get under the hood every other time you try to start it?”

“Shut up.”

He took out his cell phone and started dialing. I jumped out of the car. I pulled my box out of the backseat. I held it to my chest and stomped down the shoulder of the road.

Stupid Eric. Stupid Riley. Stupid Corona Light. Maybe
Kara was right. Maybe I didn't need a boyfriend. I'd be anti-Mom. I wouldn't need anyone.

Kara
had
been right, when I stopped to think about it. She wasn't jealous that Christine and I had boyfriends. Where had it gotten us, anyway? We'd been with the same guys since ninth grade, planned our lives around them, and now what? Now Christine was knocked up and living in a sad little apartment. I didn't even have a plan anymore, didn't even know if I was still going to community college in the fall. Kara knew what she was doing. She'd go to school. She would be a nurse. She'd never needed anyone, and she never would.

I'd probably walked about half a mile when Frank's car pulled up beside me. I saw Eric sitting in the passenger seat.
I'm sorry
, he mouthed to me. I stopped walking. I climbed in the backseat.

“What's with the box?” Frank asked.

“Her sister tried to sell her panties,” Eric explained. “Now she has to take them with her everywhere and guard them with her life.”

Frank turned and raised an eyebrow at me. “How much was she—”

“I don't want to talk about it,” I snapped.

 

Vallery came in and sat on my bed that night. Collin had already fallen asleep, and I'd almost been out, too.

“Do you know a woman named Deborah?” she whispered.

“Deborah?” I asked.

“Yeah. She said she came by and talked to you a few weeks ago.”

“Oh. That weird woman. With the hair.”

“Yeah.”

“She wanted to buy Mom's notebooks. I didn't know what she was talking about, though. I think Mom just made that stuff up off the top of her head.”

“So you didn't find anything?”

I shook my head. I had at least ten composition and spiral-bound notebooks under my mattress, and that huge blue binder stuck between my mattress and the wall. And I lied to Vallery's face.

“Yeah, I looked through the whole house and I couldn't find anything either. God, that sucks. She wanted to give us a ton of money.”

“How much is a ton?”

Vallery told me.

“Oh my God.”

“Seriously.”

“Maybe they'll turn up.”

Vallery sighed. “Maybe. Okay, good night.”

Vallery walked back across the hall to her bedroom.

Deborah seriously wanted to give us that much money?

That could pay the bills for a few months.

That could get me a new car. A cheap used one, at least.

I fantasized about taking the money and running off to Pennsylvania with Eric. He'd go out in the cold every day and teach people how to ski. I'd get a job working in the lodge, making hot chocolate or something.