When Meg was in high school, she worked at Kmart for like two weeks before she quit. In that short time we became obsessed with the pizza at the Little Caesars inside the store. I smiled at my mom and my stomach ached. The checkout line took a few minutes longer than usual, even though not many people were shopping. I zoned out while my mom was making conversation with the thickly mustached clerk who scanned our stuff.
I started thinking about how fast this weekend had gone downhill. Between the festival, with Meg and Bell Gardiner, and Meg and Jo, and Jo and Amy at each other’s—
“Uhm, it didn’t go through. Try to swipe it again,” the cashier told my mom.
My mom was startled, instantly panicking. “Okay.” She swiped the card again.
A few seconds later there was an awful beeping noise and he shook his head. “Do you have another card?”
My mom lifted her purse onto the counter and dug for her wallet. She looked mortified, but I could tell she was trying hard not to. “I think I have my Star card.”
She found it and it worked, so she bought a few Visa gift cards with it in case the other card continued not to work until payday, she said.
Wait . . . I realized. It was just payday.
The Star card, even though it could only be used on post, was a lifesaver back when my dad was enlisted and Meg and Jo didn’t have jobs.
Neither of us talked until we got to the car. My mom started the engine, turned down the radio, and sat behind the wheel for a few seconds. She looked so much like Amy and Meg with their heart-shaped faces and the set of their mouths.
Over the soft purring of the car coming alive, my mom calmly asked, “Can I ask you a favor that I really shouldn’t be asking of you?”
I nodded but she didn’t turn her head. “Yeah,” I spoke.
“Please don’t mention this to your dad. I’m figuring it out.” She sighed, dragging her hand over her mouth like she was wiping off the truth.
“Mom, you know I will try to help you any way that I—”
She held her hand up, “This isn’t something you should be worrying about, and I’m sorry for putting you in the middle of it. Sometimes I forget you’re a child.”
I wouldn’t say I was a child. I helped manage the household, but it wasn’t the time to bring that up. “If you asked Meg and Jo for help, they would.”
“Beth . . .” She smiled. “That’s not their job. I’m the parent. I know it doesn’t seem like it lately.” She looked down at the steering column.
“It’s fine, there’s so much going on. I get it.”
She grabbed my hand on my lap. “Your generosity scares me sometimes, if I’m honest.”
“Why?”
She shifted her legs and turned the headlights off. Not many cars were in the lot, and the store was about to close. The gas station next door looked like a ghost town.
“Because the world is just so big, Bug.” My mom would sometimes call us bugs when we were young, but hadn’t in years. “I worry about what will happen to you when your sisters all move out.”
I half laughed, unsure how to take what she was saying. “What?”
“What do you plan to do after graduation? Or even for graduation—are you going to stay home until then?”
I nodded. “Yeah. If you guys will let me.” I was honest, even though it made me feel like what I imagined a hangover would feel like.
She puffed out her cheeks and blew a mouthful of air into the car. “Of course, we will let you. I would never force you to go to school if you hate it so much. I just need to make sure you’re okay. Even staying home, are you okay? Am I doing what I should be doing as your mom for you?”
My mom’s guilt was evident. And honestly, the Spring household wasn’t perfect. But I believed that she was doing everything she could. Her nerves seemed to be getting the best of her lately. I’d seen her this sad before so it didn’t shock me, but it was a different feeling to be the center of it. Part of me felt guilty that she was so upset over me, but a small part of me was desperate for the attention.
“I’m fine. I just learn differently than my sisters. Everyone’s different, you know?”
She laughed. “Oh, I know. I’m serious, Bethany. If you need to talk to someone or maybe feel like seeing a doctor or something, that’s okay. There’s nothing, nothing, nothing, wrong with it. I will do what I can to get you whatever you—”
“Mom”—I squeezed her hand—“I’m okay. Thank you.”
I looked at her. She looked more like the Meredith Spring I knew before this spring. The one with the sharp tongue and dark humor. The warrior with a whole world already on her shoulders who would still dance in the living room to old Luther Vandross songs.
“I love you and I’m fine. I just really need you and Dad to be okay with me not being at school.”
“And you know if you like someone, whether they’re purple, black, white, tan, or blue, or we call them a she, a he, or a who . . .”
“I know. I know.” I smiled. She had been singing that little jingle since I was a kid. She always came up with little songs for random stuff. “I’m not dating anyone, I barely leave the—”
“My point exactly.” She tilted her head down, giving me the look.
“Seriously, I’m fine for now, and if that changes, I’ll tell you.”
She linked her pinkie into mine. “Pinkie promise?”
“Deal.” I nodded and she smiled at me.
“Deal.”
42
meg
Mrs. King was almost done with her monthly dinner for the board of her cancer foundation. She had me come over at noon to do her hair and makeup, direct the caterers, walk her dogs, prepare labels for her mail for the week. I didn’t mind the personal-assistant duties, but would much rather only be handling her glam.
The meeting should be over any minute. The dessert was served fifteen minutes ago. I took the few minutes of downtime to touch up my makeup in the hallway mirror. My eyes were still a little puffy from the night before, and the redness in my skin had started peeking through my foundation. That festival wrecked me. It was like a time machine, and I was right back in Texas with a target on my back. I hated feeling like the two worlds were mixing. I had been thinking the past would never catch up with me. What a fucking idiot I was. I glossed my lips and fluffed my hair and tried to cover up the drama in my life one mascara stroke at a time. I caught my reflection in the mirror on the wall and put the wand back into the mascara tube.
Shia was standing there, his shirt covered in big patches of sweat. He wasn’t moving. He just stared at me in the mirror. I looked away and quickly gathered my makeup into my bag and zipped it shut.
“Wait,” he called after me, but I kept moving. “Meg!”
I turned the corner and walked down the hallway. Mr. King’s study was right in the middle of this hallway, and even though he wasn’t home, I knew better than to snoop around this part of the house.
I turned around to face Shia. “No! Get away.”
“Meg, come on. Hear me out.”
I shook my head. “No. No, Shia. You and Bell Gardiner can go fuck yourselves.”
Shia laughed a little.
“This isn’t funny. You told her, didn’t you?” I lowered my voice. “I can’t believe you. I know she’s your fiancée and till death do you part and all, but I thought we were friends.”
He popped his eyes out. “Friends, huh?”
“Shia.”
“Margaret.”
I looked up and down the hallway. The last thing I needed was for Mrs. King to walk out into the hallway with a group of board members dressed in their Sunday-dinner best.
“I didn’t tell anyone anything about you. You know damn well I wouldn’t. Bell said Shelly sent them to her, and she didn’t know who sent them to Shelly. She knows she was wrong being a part of that shit, but it was Shelly at the center, for real, Meg.”