’NSYNC, or the Hamilton soundtrack?”
“Mmmm…you pick.”
She taps the screen, and we hang a left out of the complex as Justin Timberlake says, Dirty pop! And then my head is bobbing.
“I love this song,” I say.
“God, yes. Timberlake’s old now, but I’d totally have his babies if I weren’t so bent on having Ness’s. Can you grab the wheel for a sec?”
I do, and she reaches into her purse and pulls out…a shower cap?
Once she’s got all her luscious blond hair tucked into it, she rolls her window down and then reaches across me to pull a pack of Marlboro menthol cigarettes—I recognize the box from restocking them at the Gas ’n’ Go—out of the glove compartment. “You smoke?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Mind if I do?”
“No.” It’s her car, isn’t it?
“I don’t do it often because Ness won’t touch me if he can smell it, but after these fights with my mom I like…need the buzz, you know?”
I don’t, but I nod anyway.
This is almost an out-of-body experience.
“You mind rolling your window down? I’ll crank up the heat so we don’t freeze.”
I do as she asks, and she lights up. Takes a deep puff and blows the smoke out her window.
“She just like…God. You ever have moments when you wonder how you could possibly be your mother’s child?”
I shift in my seat. I’ve never talked to anyone about Mama and our issues, but the truth is, “Yeah. I have.”
“I know raising me by herself has been hard, but I’ve done my part, you know?” she goes on. “I’m a National Merit Finalist and on track to be the goddamn salutatorian. And that’s on top of being cheer captain, class prez, and holding down a part-time job since I turned sixteen.”
“Dang…”
“Right? But it’s like…not enough for her.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
“She’s gotten into this thing where she’s always asking me for money. Says I have to start paying rent when I turn eighteen next month,” she says. “We got into it today because she found this bag of clothes I bought at work, and she went off about how I waste too much money on unnecessary things. First of all, it’s my money that I work for, and second, she doesn’t seem to get that I have to wear the brand.”
Her take on money is fascinating to me: I’ve been working a year longer than she has, but I’ve never even considered doing what I want with what I earn. “Where do you work?” I ask.
“Nike.”
Well, at least the apparel makes sense.
“It’s just like…like it’s not my fault she drinks away most of her paycheck, you know? I’m not the cause of her dissatisfaction with how her life has gone, and I hate when she makes me out to be the problem.”
Alcoholism aside, that does sound familiar.
Though why she’s spilling her guts like this, I’m not sure. “I know what you mean,” I say.
We take the left at the YMCA that will lead us past the middle school to the richer part of town. Still no clue where we’re going, but this doesn’t seem like the time to ask.
She takes another deep puff of her cigarette, which is almost down to the orange part. “She’s always yelling at me, and then she wonders why I won’t ‘spend any time’ with her. I can’t even tell you how ready I am to graduate and get the hell outta here.”
“Where are you going?”
Now her whole face lights up. “Ness and I are both headed to UGA. We have to live in the dorms freshman year, but we’re getting our own apartment next summer. I can’t even wait, Rico.”
That…does something to me. And deep down, I know the must be nice thing doesn’t work here—Jessica doesn’t come from any more money than I do. There’s no younger sibling for her to worry about, but that aside, our situations are virtually the same.
Space Camp was one thing, but being around Jess makes me wonder when I stopped dreaming.
Next thing I know, we’re turning into Wellington on the River, and I have an intense flashback of being in fifth grade and new to the area. This subdivision was under construction, and me, Mama, and Jax (who was a toddler at the time) would drive through and explore the houses as they were still being built. Mama would relay to me what furniture she would put where, and I would close my eyes and imagine it.
Back then, I actually believed there