Not if it’s going to be that long. Six months! Half a year! I want you. Us. To all stay here. Together.”
“Charlotte, six months is nothing. The time will fly. We’re talking seven figures and a cash bonus…”
When he tries to grab hold of her arm, she wheels away. “I’m going to bed,” she says, and the door to her bathroom slams.
“Char. Come on, Char…?” Dad follows, disappearing from my view. A few minutes later, they return, my father still trailing behind.
Not five hours earlier, they had headed off to a celebratory dinner and contract signing at the Rainbow Room in New York City, with the guys who were buying Dad’s company. Mom had gotten all dressed up in her new dress and heels, and Dad had apparently rented a tuxedo. They looked like movie stars. My parents never looked like that, all dressed up and glamorous. They looked happy.
And fifteen minutes ago, they’d come back, laughing and giddy.
I had come out of my room to witness that—the glee and excitement—but by the time I reached their bedroom door, everything had shifted.
Now my mother lies facedown, still in her undergarments, on the bed. My father sits beside her. He reaches a hand out to touch her back but thinks better of it, and rests it in his lap.
My mother is prone to these fits more and more lately—her tantrums. She shouldn’t be mad at him. Not if it’s going to make everything easier. I’m sure he doesn’t want to go. And I don’t want him to go, either.
But she should make it easier for him. Get over it. It’s not like she’s ever had to work.
After a few minutes, he reaches out and strokes her back, and she lets him. “I’ll be home soon,” he says, softly. “You’ll see. You’re being dramatic. You won’t even miss me.”
“I will.” She flips over and sits up, puts her head in her hands. When she takes them away she says, “And you told them you could stay longer…”
“I didn’t tell them that. It’s an option, a contract thing. It’s the only way their lawyer would let them make the deal. I’m a ‘key man,’ Char. I have to make sure they’re up and running. Introduce them to vendors, buyers, how to do the studies, schmooze the customers. You know how it goes.”
“Bullshit,” she says. “You want to go, or you wouldn’t.”
“Stop it, Charlotte. I’m serious. For once in your life be practical.” He gets up, and walks over to the chair in the corner, and retrieves a briefcase that he places on the bed. He snaps the locks and yanks the top open. “This,” he says, “is practical.” He tips the briefcase over and wrapped piles of bills fall onto the bedspread. “Cash. And, there’s plenty. Whatever you and JL need … Whatever we need. Even your goddamned mother … Buy her a car. And that’s only one installment. There’s more where that came from.”
She stares at the wads of green paper.
“They paid you cash?”
“Just a small bonus. Charlotte, this is nothing.…”
“I don’t care,” she says, shoving a few of the stacks aside. “I don’t want it.” Her voice is small, petulant like a child’s. “So, take less. Just come home. Six months, tops. Not a minute more. They’re grown men. Let them figure out how it’s done.”
I move my face closer, careful not to be seen, or squeak the floor.
“I promise,” he says. “I promise.”
She leans in to him and lets him stroke her hair. I use the opportunity to back off, turn down the hall.
“But I hate you, now. You should know that…” I hear her say, before I close my bedroom door.
EARLY MAY
TENTH GRADE
As if it were a dream rather than a memory, I forget about it for a few days—the fight, her words, the money, all of it. Or maybe I don’t forget so much as block it, once again, from my mind. After all, I may be a lot of crappy things lately, but I want to believe that thief isn’t one of them.
At least I hope not.
Then Max comes over again, and this time my mother sends me over the edge.
It’s the day the baseball championships are beginning and we have home field advantage, so it’s not like we can hang around after school. Aubrey is there, with those girls. Half the school is there.
Max says we should go hang out behind the Hay & Feed where he and his friends ride their dirt bikes after school,