The Snowball Effect (8 page)

“Uh, thanks,” I said. As I got into the car, I shivered at the thought of taking Collin on a playdate with Christine and her other teen mom friends.

When we got home from Lobster Larry's, the Mustang was back. Parked in the driveway.

Riley helped Collin out of his booster seat, and I went upstairs to Vallery's room. She was in bed watching TV. I leaned against the door. “So where'd you go?”

She held out her hands. “Got my nails done.”

“Very nice. Your car is in the driveway.”

“Good. That's where I left it.”

“We're lucky we found a spot on the street.”

Vallery shrugged.

“Do you not care at all?” I asked.

“About what?”

“Parking in my spot.”

“I thought it was a first-come, first-served thing. Anyway, you're getting Collin to sleep tonight, right? Because it's pretty late.”

“Are you serious? I had him all night! I had to take him out to
dinner
. Do you know how much of a nightmare that was?”

“Well, I had him all
day
. And I gave you a copy of the schedule. You didn't have any complaints about it earlier.”

“But Riley was going to spend the night.”

Vallery smiled. “There's room. You have a queen.”

I left Vallery's room and slammed the door on my way out.

“Riley?” I called.

“In Collin's room,” he yelled back.

Collin and Riley both sat on the floor, building LEGO towers. Collin loved to stack them as high as he could before the whole thing toppled over and snapped in half.

“Collin's going to sleep with me tonight,” I said. “Vallery made up some kind of stupid schedule. If you want to go home, I won't be mad or anything.”

Riley shrugged. “I'll stay. You ready for bedtime, Collin?”

“No,” Collin said. He didn't even look up from his tower.

“You don't mind?” I asked Riley.

“Not at all.”

“Okay, Collin. Five minutes till bedtime.”

“No!” That time he did look up.

“Yes,” I said.

“No!”

“Yes! Four minutes!”

I got up and went to Collin's dresser. I wasn't sure where Mom kept his pajamas. On the rare occasions when I'd needed to dress him, I'd grabbed something Mom had just washed and folded and left in his laundry basket in the basement. I opened a few drawers until I found them. I pulled out his Spider-Man pajamas. His favorite. I knew that much.

“Spider-Man pajamas?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Yes.”

“Five more minutes!”

“More like
two
more minutes.”

“FIVE MORE MINUTES!”

Riley reached up for my hand. I dropped the Spider-Man pajamas on Collin's bed and helped him up. “Why don't you go get ready for bed?” Riley asked. “I'll help Collin.”

“Yeah?” I asked.

He kissed my forehead and then pushed me toward the door. I knew I should have told him that it was my brother, my problem, but instead I smiled and walked away. He was much better at this than I was, and we both knew it.

W
hen I woke up the next morning, Collin was gone. I walked halfway down the stairs, saw him sitting on the couch watching cartoons, and then climbed back into bed with Riley.

“Are you supposed to get up with him?” Riley asked. He rubbed my back. “Or is it Vallery's turn now?”

“I don't know. I checked on him. He's watching TV.”

“I have an idea.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mmm-hmm. You're gonna get up and scramble some eggs and make some sausage and maybe whip up a stack of pancakes. And I'll go out in the yard and fix some of the stuff on your list. Then I'll come in and we'll all have breakfast. Won't that be nice?”

“I have a better idea.”

“What's your idea?”

I wrapped my arms around Riley. “Let's just go back to sleep.”

“Laine. We gotta get up and do something. We can't just stay in bed.”

“I can. It's my day off.”

“We'll sleep for ten more minutes. Then we'll get up and do what I want. Deal?”

“Two more hours?”

“Lainey.”

“Fine.”

 

An hour later I stood by the stove flipping pancakes with a spatula. After Riley discovered that we didn't really have any useful tools in the garage (as if Carl ever did anything mechanical), he came back inside and started heating up the precooked sausages in the microwave. I'd sent Collin upstairs to jump on the bed and wake Vallery up. She'd been mad at first, but the smell of breakfast won her over and she trudged into the kitchen and started popping slices of bread into the toaster.

Riley set the table and filled four plates with food. I went into the living room, picked up Collin, and brought him to the table. I sat him in his chair and scooted it in.

He grabbed at the eggs with his hand.

I picked up the fork and gave it to him. “You're not a baby. Use your fork.”

He held the fork in his right hand and used his left hand to pick up pieces of scrambled egg. Whatever. I sat
down between Collin and Riley and started my breakfast. I was just finishing up my toast when Collin leaped up from the table and ran into the living room.

“Collin!” I yelled. “Finish your breakfast!”

“Let him go,” Vallery said. “It's kind of gross to watch him eat.”

I shrugged. “Whatever.”

“Thanks for cooking.”

“It was Riley's idea.”

“What time do you work today?”

“I'm off.”

“Good.”

“Why?”

“I have an interview.”

“For a job?”

Vallery looked at me like I was stupid. “Yes, for a job.”

“Why?”

“Uh, maybe because I had to quit my old job to come to Baltimore and live with you goofballs.”

“But who's going to keep Collin if you get a job?”

“We'll have to coordinate our schedules or whatever. You can start working more afternoons and evenings.”

“I can't work more afternoons just because my sister says I have to work more afternoons. Bob doesn't have many people who can work mornings. He really depends on me.”

Okay, I was exaggerating. And Riley worked a lot of later shifts anyway, so I really didn't have much reason to
want to work during the day. Except I didn't want Vallery to tell me what I was going to do. And I didn't want her to go get a job and leave me alone with Collin every day.

“I'm sure Bob would understand if you talked to him,” Riley said.

I ignored Riley and shook my head at Vallery. “I don't think you should get a job. You're Collin's guardian. That means you're supposed to be here to take care of him.”

“Okay, then I guess you want to start paying the mortgage and the gas and electric and—”

“Yeah, I can afford that.”

“Exactly. Someone has to pay the bills, Lainey. If you want to go work full-time, knock yourself out. Otherwise I'm going to need you to help me out.”

“What about the money?”

“What money?”

“Isn't there money? Didn't Mom leave us money?”

Vallery rolled her eyes. “No. Are you kidding me?”

“No, I'm not kidding.”

“There was a little money, but that went toward the funeral.”

“Lainey,” Riley said. I knew he wanted me to shut up. I ignored him.

“Fine, get a job,” I said to Vallery. “I don't care.”

“Jesus Christ. Do you want to know what your problem is?”

“No, I don't.”

“You're such a spoiled little kid. But we're not
little kids anymore. We're grown-ups. And when you're a grown-up, you have to pay for things you don't necessarily want to pay for. It's not all clothes and take-out food and CDs anymore.”

“No one asked me if I wanted to be a grown-up,” I mumbled. I took my plate to the sink, and then I went back and grabbed Collin's. Vallery kept talking, but I flipped the garbage disposal on and I couldn't make out anything she said.

 

Everyone left after breakfast. Vallery got dressed in a black and gray business suit and went for her interview. Riley insisted on taking Collin to the park. I stayed home and cleaned because I couldn't remember the last time anyone had wiped down the counters or mopped or vacuumed. After I'd made decent progress, I lay on the couch and turned on
Heartstrings
.

Riley and Collin came back halfway through. Collin ran through the living room carrying the toy car he'd found at Lobster Larry's. He made obnoxious noises and drove the car up the railing as he went up the stairs.

Riley sat down on the couch beside me. I didn't acknowledge him until the commercial break.

“Sorry about breakfast,” I said.

He shrugged. “I don't think I'm the one you should apologize to.”

I went back to not talking to him until
Heartstrings
went off. After the credits rolled, he took the remote.

“No talk shows,” I said.

“All right. Can you go check on Collin?”

I went to Collin's room and watched him ride the toy car up and down his bedpost; then I went back to the living room. On the television, a woman in a blazer with a big fake smile held up sheets of stickers.

“What the hell are you watching?” I asked.

“It's scrapbooking. My mom does this.”

“Oh, like pictures? Like a photo album?”

“Yeah. You take your pictures and put them in the scrapbook, then you decorate it and stuff. My mom's are really nice.”

I watched the woman smear glue all over the back of a picture and then slap it down on a piece of yellow-and-pink striped paper. “What's with the crazy paper?”

“I don't know. It's just to make it look nice.”

I reached for the remote.

“Lainey, I want to watch this.”

“Why?”

“To get ideas. I think we should make one.”

“Why?”

“For Collin.”

“I guarantee you, Collin will not care about a bunch of pictures and stickers and crazy paper.”

“You don't know that. He should really have something to help him remember—”

“Drop it, Riley.”

“Fine.”

 

After Riley left for work, I went back to cleaning the kitchen. Vallery came home from her interview and went straight to her room before I even had a chance to ask how it was. Then I heard the crash.

I ran up to my room and found Collin crouching on top of my dresser.

“COLLIN!” I screamed. “What the hell did you do?”

I grabbed his arm and yanked him down. His head smacked against the door as I pulled him out into the hallway. He cried. I dragged him to Vallery's room and shoved him in. Vallery sat on the bed pulling off her pantyhose.

“It's your turn!” I yelled at her. “So watch him!”

I went back to my room and looked at all of the stuff he'd knocked off my dresser. I picked up my bottles of perfume and lotion and threw them back in their basket. I made a pile of papers and ticket stubs and receipts. Then I started picking up the pieces of the Elaine Pike Memorial Shrine. After she died, everything my grandmother ever gave me found its way onto the top of my dresser. Every greeting card. Every little note. Every little gift.

I picked up the angel statue. The keychain from Disney World. The cards. A shopping list from when she stayed here after Carl died. And then I touched a shard of glass. I felt the carpet. Wet. And it sparkled with glitter.

“No,” I said. “Oh,
come on
.” I felt the carpet, pricked myself with more shards of glass, and then finally found
the broken snow globe underneath the dresser. The little angel was still attached to the base.

“Jesus Christ, Collin!” I screamed. “You know you're not supposed to be in my room!”

I picked off the few jagged pieces of glass that hadn't already broken off. I rubbed the little angel's head and put it back on top of my dresser. Then I got back down on my knees and picked the rest of the glass out of the carpet.

As I walked into the hallway, Vallery came out of her room and followed me down to the kitchen. “What did he do?” she asked. “He's hiding in my closet banging his head against the wall.”

I showed her my hand. My palm was spotted with drops of blood. And glitter. She looked at my bloody, sparkling hand and shook her head in confusion.

“He broke my snow globe,” I explained.

“Oh. That sucks.”

“My grandmother bought it for me when I was a baby. It's, like, the oldest thing I own.”

“Jeez,” Vallery said. “I'm sorry.”

And she probably was sorry that I was upset, but she obviously didn't get it. Didn't understand how upset I was, or why. I didn't want her to see that I was crying, so I dropped the glass into the trash can and went to the sink to wash my hands. I could just make out the
thud thud thud
of Collin smacking his head against the wall. Vallery sighed and turned to go back to her room.

My hands shook as I dried them with a towel. Mom was always getting rid of my old toys and clothes, practically as soon as I'd outgrown them, but I'd always held on to that snow globe. And now parts of it were in the trash can. In my carpet. Embedded in my hand.

I walked upstairs past Vallery's room and heard her calling to Collin. I heard the
thud thud thud
of his head bouncing off the wall. Collin knew he was in big trouble—that I'd been mad enough to hurt him—but he didn't get why. Vallery knew I was upset, but she didn't understand how I felt. And in that moment I realized that nothing that mattered to me meant anything to either of them.

 

Riley came over after work with shopping bags full of stuff. He dropped them on my bedroom floor and smiled at me.

“Riley, what's all that?” I asked, although I kind of already knew.

He bent down and held open one of the bags. I walked over and looked inside. Paper. Lots of crazy-colored paper. “My mom gave it to us so we can get started on Collin's scrapbook.”

“I thought I said—”

“If you don't want to help, I'll do it myself. I know he'll love it.”

I lay down on my bed.

“Well, knock yourself out. That kid doesn't appreciate anything.”

“Will you show me where the family pictures are, or do I have to find them myself?”

“Hall closet,” I said. “In one of Carl's old shoe boxes. That's how much we treasure our memories around here.”

Riley shook his head and left my room. He came back with the shoe box and sat down on the floor and started unloading his plastic bags.

“Look at all these scissors,” he said, opening a canister. “I wonder why she gave me so many.” He stared at a pair with yellow handles and then tried them on a sheet of white paper. “Oh, it does fancy cutting. Look, Lainey.”

He held up the paper. The edges were scalloped.

“That's nice, Riley.”

He tried another pair of scissors. “Look at this one.”

I hardly glanced at him. “Yeah, cool.”

He sighed and wiped his hair out of his face. “You don't care at all, do you?”

I looked at him sitting on my floor surrounded by all that crazy paper. Why did I have to be mean? He was just trying to do something nice. “Of course I care. Come here.”

Riley put the scissors back in the canister and climbed up on the bed. “I just want to do something nice for him.”

“I know.” I kissed him.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” I said.

Riley lay down with me.

I kissed his neck and slid my hand down his chest. I bit his earlobe and reached down to rub the front of his shorts.

He pulled away and laid his head on my stomach.

“Your stomach's making funny noises,” he said.

“What was that?” I asked.

“What was what?”

“I was getting friendly and you moved away from me.”

“I just wanted to lie down with you.”

“No. You're being weird. What's wrong with you? Am I keeping you from your paper cutting? Fine, I'm sorry. I don't want you. I don't want to touch you. Go. Get off my bed.” I tried to push him off me.

Riley sat up. “It's just—I remember after your grandmother died.”

I turned away from him. “I don't want to talk about people dying.”

“You didn't want me to touch you. Remember?”

I did remember. The first time he kissed me after I found out about Grandma Elaine, I ran to the bathroom and cried. And every time after that I pulled away. Finally he asked, “Are you afraid that she's up there watching or something?” And I nodded. And he told me he was sorry. And we didn't have sex again for a month.

“I don't feel that way now,” I said to him. I tried to kiss him again, but he turned his head.

“Well, I do. I don't want to do anything right now. I feel weird.”

“Come on, that's silly.”