Life Before Read online

  “Fine.” It was two syllables and a double-dose of sarcasm. I wish I could ground her from the car for being sarcastic. Maybe Gretchen and I could go without a car. Spend the afternoon at my house while Mom is out. Maybe movies and a long chat on our L-shaped couch. Maybe—

  “Alexander Fife?”

  Next to us stands an eager, perky blond creature with tacky red nails, a tight suit, and (it must be said) enormous fake boobs.

  I’m chewing a breadstick that is way too big for my mouth in the first place, so Mom half-stands in the booth to greet her. “Yes, this is Xander.”

  The woman gushes. “I have so been looking forward to meeting you!” She thrusts her right hand and a half-dozen bracelets toward me.

  Half-chewed half-baked bread slides down my throat as I reach for her. She shakes my hand with enthusiasm.

  “I have just been dying to meet you. I’m Renee, your dad’s fiancée.”

  My quick breath sucks another bite of breadstick down my throat. Stop eating, seriously. I flex my diaphragm to expel the demon. No dice.

  This is it. I am going to die right here in freaking Olive Garden before my life has even started.

  Mom tries desperately to get out of her bench but Renee is frozen. These two women are watching me die.

  No graduation.

  No date with Gretchen.

  No kissing.

  No naked nights on the couch.

  No Infinite Summer.

  Finally—and before I have to Heimlich myself—the bread returns to my mouth and glorious air fills my lungs.

  My eyes gush as I sip my water and draw some long, welcome breaths. “’Scuse me. Went down the wrong way.”

  Renee pats her bare chest and fans her face. “I almost lost you before we really knew each other.”

  Gary has enjoyed lots of women since the divorce. Since way before the divorce, if I’m being honest. Renee seems different from the get-go. She’s about Gary’s age, for one thing.

  “I am so glad I recognized you.” Renee’s enthusiasm seems genuine. “I expected we would meet at graduation, but here you are!”

  As the pieces fall into place, I reach for the bench to steady myself and my hand finds the police portfolio that was too important to leave in the car.

  Two minutes ago, I almost died. And I am just pissed enough at Gary to raise a little hell. My smile broadens. “Renee, why don’t you join us? This is my mother, Helen.”

  Renee startles at the mention of my mom, as if I’d be having Friday dinner with any other middle-aged woman.

  Mom scoots toward the wall to make room.

  Renee sits as far from Mom as she can, an inch of her thigh hanging over the booth’s edge. “One of my clients invited me to dinner as thanks for finding her a house, and the second you walked in, I couldn’t keep my eyes off you. I knew it was you. I just knew.” Her penciled eyebrows bob as she nods.

  She sure seems genuine. Maybe she has merely cultivated the sincerity required to succeed in real estate, but I almost like this person. Does she have any idea what’s in store for her if she marries Gary?

  I’m starting to fear for her. Keeping my eyes on Renee, I reach down and open that manila file folder.

  “Renee, you seem like a really nice person. You deserve to be happy. In what I can only call a bizarre twist of circumstance, I happen to have with me some photos of my mom from a few years ago.” I prop the stack of photos on my lap facing my abdomen and slap them on the table one at a time: bruises in varying degrees of healing on Mom’s spine and legs, stitches that covered a puncture wound to her torso, finger-shaped bruises on her upper arms.

  Mom raises her voice. “Xander, I think—”

  “Mom. I think she deserves to know. Don’t you wish you had known?” To Renee I say, “This is why Gary is prowling the singles scene.”

  Renee picks up a photo of Mom’s back.

  “Yeah, you can tell from that one that some bruises are old, huh? Some are weeks old. Some days, and some are fresh.” I tip the photo back toward me and point to my mom’s lower shoulder. “That one, right there? If you hit the wall or the floor just right on the shoulder blade too many times, eventually the body gives up trying to heal. She still has a shadow right there, but you only see it when she’s walking around in her bra.”

  Mom’s shoulders sag as she studies the plastic table tent advertising Olive Garden’s summer desserts. She’s folding in on herself emotionally and physically. Gary has defeated her again and he’s not even here. This time I did it. I’m embarrassing her, but I can’t stop.

  Renee picks up the photo with Mom’s stitches.

  “Oh, that’s a good one: the last straw, so to speak. At twelve, I had been living with this BS for years. I always, always expected beatings on one or both of us. But on this morning, after she’d lost consciousness for a few seconds, something changed.”

  Actually, everything changed. It wasn’t her last beating from Gary, but it was the catalyst for their divorce. Mom and I ran to Jill’s house in our pajamas. Jill’s parents thought Mom was crazy for never saying anything before.

  “Our neighbor was a cop—he’s now the chief of police—and my mom’s act was so good that even he didn’t know how bad things really were in our house. We all stood there looking at my mom, and do you know what she said?”

  Renee shakes her head very slightly.

  I remember every single second of that afternoon: the seven doughnut varieties Jill’s mom offered us, the argument about whether to file a police report, Jill’s too-big pajama pants dragging on the checkered kitchen floor.

  “She said, ‘I never dreamed that he would kill me.’ That’s what she said, as though everything else—the cuts, the bruises, me wetting the bed until age ten, her three broken bones—hadn’t signaled a big enough problem.”

  Mom is tearing up now, but I can’t shut up because I’m on a roll. “So, Renee, let me tell you: you deserve to be happy.” I pick up the photos one by one until only the stitches are left in Renee’s jittery hand. “And you’re not gonna get there with Gary.”

  Renee focuses on nothing in particular, her right hand massaging her pale throat. Finally, faintly, she says, “I deserve to be happy.”

  I catch Mom’s eye and mouth the words, “I’m sorry.” She keeps her hands in her lap when I reach across the table toward her.

  Renee sniffles a bit, though she’s not crying. A minute later, as if she’s just processed everything, her eyes snap back to mine and she says it again: “I deserve to be happy.” She scoots out of the booth and whispers, “Thank you, Xander. Helen.”

  We’re silent for a long time. Eventually, I pick up my fork and work through my lukewarm lasagna. Mom doesn’t eat another bite.

  After our waiter delivers the dessert menus, Mom says, “That poor woman.”

  How many people have said the same thing about us?

  SIX

  Graduation day. Finally!

  Between catching up on sleep, dinner with mom, and Jill’s very late Friday night date, she and I still haven’t talked about what went down at Tucker’s house. She doesn’t even know about my date with Gretchen! In less than twenty-four hours!

  Or that I’ll have to miss Quaker Steak for it. Quaker Steak is Jill’s sanctuary, our regular hangout outside of town. Just over the Pennsylvania border, it claims America’s best wings, and is well enough away from Jill’s dad and the rest of the police force that we go every Sunday for a break. Jill’s treat.

  We don’t skip it, and we don’t take dates.

  Maybe Jill will make an exception for Gretchen.

  We’re at my house this afternoon, because Jill’s brothers and parents have converted her house into a medieval battlefield, complete with armor and weapons. Jill and I settle into the ancient metal glider on my questionably safe back deck. How can I tell her I’m bailing on Quaker Steak without sounding like an asshole?

  In my defense, I am very new at the whole dating thing. In my further defense, this is Gre
tchen, so shifting around my schedule for this epic occasion is completely justified. Still, weaseling out of Sunday night Quaker Steak will be infinitely more difficult than getting the date itself.

  And that took four years. Crap.

  Hoping Jill’s excitement will eclipse her anger, I draw a herculean breath, and blurt, “I need to bail on Quaker tomorrow.”

  “Grounded again?”

  “No.” I wait a beat for dramatic effect. “I have a date with Gretchen.”

  Jill pulls the latest teen zombie novel from her bag. “Yeah, I know.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I had coffee with Gretchen yesterday. She says you two are going out. And I had to act all nonchalant when she apologized for keeping you from our Sunday tradition.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be. I don’t know why you two can’t spend a couple hours making out and then come to Quaker Steak together. We always go together.”

  I hadn’t considered that. “Maybe we could!”

  “Just don’t be an ass about it, okay, Xander? The two of you shouldn’t disappear from everything just because you’re going out. Nothing needs to change.”

  “You disappeared for a while when you dated that football player from Howland who expressly requested number 69 on his jersey.”

  “Yeah, but did you really want him around all the time?”

  Point taken. “I promise to behave.”

  Jill scrapes the filling from an Oreo and piles it on her knee. Munching the chocolate cookies, she reaches for another. She repeats this several times before rolling the sizable mound of lardy filling into a ball, smashing it like a pancake, and shoving it in her mouth.

  She’s done this since the day I met her. I still find it repulsive, but who cares? I’m off the hook for Quaker Steak!

  Today is the perfect segue into summer. Jill will have free evenings after babysitting her brothers, and I only have twenty hours a week at the batting cages, so this will be awesome. Hanging out, eating junk, and plotting dates.

  Infinite Summer, here at last!

  Well, one graduation speech, then here at last! Starting with Gretchen. Tomorrow!

  Jill has read my mind. “So where are you taking her?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Xander, she’s just a girl.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like hanging out with you,” I say. “This is a real date. I need something that will impress her.”

  “Oh, I get it.” Jill pulls out her bookmark and presses her book open.

  “You get what?”

  She refuses to look at me. “You want to get into her pants.”

  “What? No!” Okay, that’s exactly what I have in mind, but I am about three bases shy of a home run with anyone. Plus, that’s the sort of thing you don’t say aloud. “I just want to have a great date.”

  “Too bad.”

  “What? You have some foolproof way to ease a girl’s seat into full recline?”

  Jill jabs me with her fist. She has spent more than her fair share of dates in full recline. And on several of those occasions, she was half naked.

  “Xander, just start with what you like about her and go from there.”

  “I like everything about her.”

  “No.”

  “I really like kissing?”

  Jill straightens up. “No. That’s generic. She’ll want to hear the things you like about her, specifically. You can’t just say you like kissing.”

  I can dissect the “everything” I like about Gretchen. Easy. “She’s strong; I could watch her play soccer all day. I like her stories and the way she tells them. I like watching her try to pronounce schlüessel and frühling and München. Her freckles. I love her hair.”

  “Never.” Jill forces eye contact. “Never use the word love about anything, because if you say you love her, it will freak her out. But if you say you love other things—U2 or my mother’s perfect crispy bacon or that ratty periodic table T-shirt—that makes you seem like you’re slutting the word around.”

  This T-shirt isn’t ratty. It’s a little faded, but none of the atomic numbers have cracked. It’s just old enough that it’s super, super soft.

  “Gretchen would get it, Jill. She also loves U2.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Okay. I’m done talking about this. I’m going to shut up and work on a soundtrack for my date. You read.”

  Jill puts in earbuds while I create the best-ever mix of music for the girl who either is my girlfriend or soon will be.

  I’ve pared down the collection to fifty-three songs when Mom shouts out the kitchen window two hours later. “I’m home!” She pokes her nose into the screen. “Hi Jilly, you staying for dinner? Tacos! And I remembered the limes.”

  I thumb toward the window and mouth, “Dinner?”

  Jill rips out her earbuds. “Yes, please! I need to be home and dressed by 5:15.”

  “No problem. You line up at 5:45, right?”

  Jill nods. “Hey, Helen, I got The Zombie’s Attaché, book 3!”

  She flashes the cover at Mom, who says, “I want that when you’re done. And Xander? I’m feeling gracious today. Yes, you may borrow my car tomorrow.”

  “Mom! Thanks!” I throw open the sliding glass door, run through the dining room, and give her a huge, huge hug that lifts her off the ground.

  “Hot stove,” she says.

  She stirs the beef, staring intently as it browns. Quieter, she says, “And, look, some things are private, but I understand why you did what you did last night. That was a pretty mature thing to do, even though you did it in a really puerile way.”

  “I’m so mad at him right now. This is supposed to be a happy time, and instead he’s pissing in my cornflakes.”

  “Language.” Mom scratches her fingers through my hair the way she has since I was five. “I know you were trying to protect that woman, but you also were angry. You wanted to hurt Gary, and no good can come of that. Acting in anger will lead to a lifetime of regret. Think of it this way: I act out of love and comfort. Gary acts out of anger. You’re half him and half me, and you get to choose which is the better way to live.”

  Her point made, she nods. “You’re a better person than he is, Xander. Remember that at Tulane.”

  Mom tears up a little, and I look away. She wasn’t thrilled when I chose Tulane, but I’ve been jonesing for warm weather as long as I can remember. I mean, visiting all fifty states is on my bucket list for sure, but I only want to live where it’s warm. Every single school on my list was well south of the Mason-Dixon line.

  Tulane was my third choice, but together I’m smart enough, Mom’s broke enough, and Tulane admissions is still hurting enough from Hurricane Katrina that they’re giving me several significant scholarships. Kick. Ass.

  Mom thinks school eleven hundred miles away is less kickass, but she promises to love me anyway.

  Maybe she’s thinking about that when she digs in her purse and presses three twenties—three—into my hand.

  “This isn’t a loan, and it’s not an advance. Consider it a graduation present for you and Gretchen, okay?” She’s tearing up again and I can’t really look at her. “We made it through. You and me. We did okay, right?”

  Mom’s fingers smell of cilantro when she cradles my face in her hands. I hate it when she does this, but she’s so sincere.

  And a little sappy.

  And sixty dollars.

  “You did great, Mom.”

  She stretches her face really long and wipes her eyes with her thumbs. “You made it happen, kid. Even in the rough years—and god, were they rough!—even in the rough years, you made it totally worth it.”

  She hugs me again—one of those hugs that’s so tight and so long that I’m glad Jill is outside.

  “I am so proud of you, College Man!”

  “Almost.”

  “Okay, Mr. Almost. Dinner in about twenty minutes, and then we’ll get changed for the big night.”

&nbs
p; The scent of generic dryer sheets wafts up through the deck as I settle back on the glider next to Jill. She glances at me and I mime a steering wheel and a thumbs up.

  She gives me a high five and I go back to my playlist.

  I’ve been working on it maybe ten minutes when a car tears down the street and screeches to a halt. A moment later, someone pounds on our flimsy front screen.

  “Where is fucking Alexander?”

  Gary. I freeze.

  Ours is a split-entry house, so he can see right up to the kitchen from the front door.

  “It’s just me in the kitchen!” Mom sounds carefree. How has she shed her fear of him while I hold onto mine with every atom of my being?

  The front screen slams and Gary’s voice is closer. “You’re lying, Helen. Where is that motherfucking kid? I’m gonna send his head through plaster.”

  I tug on Jill’s earbud cord and cover her mouth before she can protest. “Gary’s here.”

  Silently, we move off the glider and tuck ourselves under the kitchen window where there’s a blind spot that will hide us. Toe to toe, our hips right up against the vinyl siding, we rest our heads on the house. Jill hugs her knees.

  Gary yells, “You put him up to it, didn’t you, Helen? I’m gonna take care of you both at once. Where is that little fucker?”

  Mom is only slightly flustered. “It’s graduation weekend. He could be just about anywhere.”

  I learned my lawyer’s answers from her, clearly.

  A thud rattles the house and I wonder whether our kitchen has a new hole in the wall.

  Mom is cool. “Get out. Of my. House.”

  Gary’s not cool. “You poisoned his mind. I am so tired of you people fucking with my life.”

  “Well, you fucked with ours for years.” Swearing means Mom is either really pissed or really scared. Her voice, at least, is nonchalant. “I guess payback is a bitch, Gary. Now get out.”

  The funny thing about a punch is that it sounds remarkably like any old thud. I’ve heard enough punches in my life to know that Mom just got one. Gary curses and I can hear them wrestling. The commotion wakes a hurt deep within me, and my wounds start to throb. The back of my head, where Gary first shoved me into plaster, pulses. My left arm, long since healed, throbs just like on that day six years ago, when I cradled it until Mom came home and took me to the emergency room. All the pain returns to my body as though this beating, too, is on me.