with feelings and ask me questions so that I can lose that same shit once in a while, okay?”
I held my hand up like I was taking an oath. “I vow you can lose your shit on me anytime,” I said. Then, even though I still had to read the stupid Dickens book, I added, “Do you want to come in? I can show you a picture of the dusty peach dress I’m wearing for my dad’s wedding.”
“After the schnapps, I don’t want to think about anything peach-related for a while. No offense.”
I hefted my bag off the floor of the car and put it in my lap. “I never even got to tell you about walking around the motel with Bobby last night. In my pajamas.”
“Did you try out any of your Cosmo strategies?”
“Well, I didn’t have a bra on.” I thought of how easy it had been to talk to him. “We had this kind of . . . nice conversation.”
“Like we’re having now?”
“Yeah, except I kept wondering if he had on underwear under his track pants.”
“He definitely sleeps in the nude.” Tina closed her eyes, as if imagining it.
“So he was naked like two hundred feet from all of us.”
We paused to think about that.
I got out and put my bag on my shoulder, then leaned into the car and said, “I’m sorry, Tina, for being a bad friend,” before I walked to my door.
“I’m sorry I’m such a badass.” She waited until I’d opened the door to drive away.
Inside, I unpacked my stuff from the weekend, and even though the conversation with Tina had ended well, I still felt like a crappy friend, plus a lousy person and a letdown of a soccer player. Putting my dirty uniform in the wash to Tide away all the grime of the game was like washing away all the hard work we’d done to get there. The practices and the car wash and the lessons with Joe.
What if we didn’t get another chance?
The headache that had seemed to be fading when we’d finally gotten off the expressway returned with a vengeance thanks to whatever was still polluting my system. With the dull pain came a renewed sense of despondency.
I heard my mom’s key in the front door and the rustle of grocery bags. Instantly, my stomach rumbled at the promise of food. Also, at the promise of Mom’s attention, which might feel good after the laborious self-loathing I’d put myself through. A mother’s unconditional love was supposed to make everything better, right?
I moped down to the kitchen, watching as Mom unpacked the grocery bags, taking out elbow noodles and tuna and a bunch of celery, cans of soup, and the store-brand pop that tasted like the offspring of Coke and RC (and not a child its parents were proud of).
“Hi,” I said, imbuing the word with as much woe as I could.
“Hi, honey.” Mom left the tuna, noodles, and celery near the stove, no doubt to remind herself to prepare another casserole for the week. I wondered what it said about us that we ate the kinds of foods you gave to people after a loved one died. I also wondered what Polly was making that weekend.
I tore open a bag of potato chips on the counter and wolfed down a fistful. “Can you get barbecue next time? Or Pringles? Remember I said I liked those?”
I wanted Mom to register my dissatisfaction, and to connect my hungry pillaging of the new food to something besides my empty stomach.
“You know I buy what’s on sale,” she said. “And Pringles were not.”
I pulled more food from the paper bag. Bananas. Eggs. Bread that I thought was real Wonder Bread for a second but then realized was the off-brand we always got now, Wow Bread. When my parents had been married, we’d always bought Wonder Bread.
“Can we have a real dinner?” I asked her, putting away a package of hot dogs that we’d eat on folded slices of Wow Bread, since Mom didn’t buy buns anymore. I peered deeper into the fridge, hoping to see a package of meat that still bled. Visions of steak, like we’d often eaten on Saturday nights with Dad, danced across my mind. But I didn’t even see hamburger.
“I don’t know what you mean by a ‘real dinner,’” Mom said. “We can order a pizza, but that will be it on takeout food for the month.”
I closed the fridge and faced her, giving her one last chance