I push the words through my teeth. “You don’t know anything about it, doll.”
“And that’s disdain.” She claps her hands with glee, and I grin. “Only thirteen-years-old and you can play any lead any writer dreams up. You’ve got it, kid. I’d say our work is done.”
“Done?” I panic because running lines with Maddie for the last five years is all I’ve had to look forward to. I’ve been coming to her house every day since I was eight years old playing the part of Donald Ross, Troy Wilbur, Arnold Scott, and Terrance Cooper. These men are a part of me. I know their mannerisms, how they move, how they walk, and breathe. They are, despite being mostly bad men, my best friends and the fathers that raised me. Without them, I wouldn’t know who to be. It’s how I survive, as these men, as Maddie’s partner. It’s all I have.
None of the kids in the trailer park are my age, and I don’t have any friends at school who live close by.
Maddie reads my mind and pats my shoulder. “Don’t worry, there’s always room for improvement. Did you sign up for drama this year like I told you to?”
“Yes,” I say sourly because I know what’s coming. A lot of shit from the kids I already despise.
“Don’t worry. You’ll find your tribe there.”
“My tribe? In drama?” I roll my eyes. “Bunch of fags.”
She slaps the back of my head. “Your parents are ignorant, so I’m going to let that slide just this once. Fag is no longer in your vocabulary. Do you understand me?”
My thirteen-year-old brain is pissed at the burn on the back of my neck, but Maddie’s been good to me, always keeping a stock of burritos so I’m never hungry and I never much liked the word anyway. I nod, and her eyes soften, a tell that I’ve done something good. Maddie believes in tells over words and that you can always know the difference in what people feel and say by their signals. She said most men are too damned dumb for their own good and sometimes ‘I hate you’ means ‘I love you,’ that I’ve just got to pay close attention to tells because those are the truth. She says you can end up living years with a stranger if you can’t figure out what their eyes and hands say. I love watching the kids at my school for their tells. It’s a hobby of mine. I always know when Derick Jones is about to pounce me because his lip curls and he tightens his fists right before he strikes. It’s always with his right fist. Soft eyes are how I know Jessie Soto wants to talk to me, but she loses her nerve every time I get close. I wish she would talk to me. She hasn’t said a word to me since second grade when the lice got so big, they trailed down my forehead like a bunch of ants, and the teacher screamed before kicking me out of class.
Maddie was the one to buy me the special shampoo and combed my head because my momma wouldn’t listen. It was one of the most embarrassing days of my life. No one spoke to me much after that. But they came up with enough nicknames to make sure I would never say a word to them. Maddie says my station in life will only be made greater through trials like this. I didn’t see how. She said I didn’t need to know anything yet.
“Quit daydreaming and go get us some carrot juice,” she orders, pulling the fedora off my head and gathering the other props we’ve used.
I walk over to her fridge and grab the glasses out of the dish drainer when a knock sounds on Maddie’s hollow door. I worry about her sometimes at night. She doesn’t have a lot of valuables, but she’s old and alone, so I sometimes watch out for her through my bedroom blinds until I fall asleep. Her husband died of a heart attack which Maddie only tells me about when she drinks, which isn’t much. He was a manipulator of the worst kind. She said she fell for him because she couldn’t ever memorize his tells. That’s what drew her to him and led to her losing both her fame and fortune.
“Maddie,” my mother’s voice sounds, and it’s then I fully understand the word