“Well, Beth?”
“I’m just not going,” Zoe answers softly.
“And that’s what I’m supposed to tell your mama? You just aren’t?” Grandma tilts her head and looks down her nose at Zoe. It’s a look that makes Zoe want to curl inside of herself so the whole world is black. It’s a look she has seen so many times before.
“You don’t have to tell her anything at all,” Zoe says. “She knows where I live if she wants to hear it from me.”
Grandma knows Mama will never show up and so she changes the direction of the conversation. Zoe has always noticed that about her—her skill at maneuvering conversations and lives.
“What about the car?” she asks. “You think you’re gonna keep that thing?” Her voice lowers, and she spits the words out like well-aimed bullets. “Think again, missy.”
Zoe hadn’t thought about the car. No one has keys to it but her—she made sure of that the last time Mama was arrested. She has all the keys for safekeeping. The only way Grandma is going to be able to take it away is to have it towed, and Zoe wouldn’t put that past her. “When Mama can drive again, I’ll give it back.”
Grandma moves on, searching for the next soft spot. “You think you’re going to make it on your own? You’re only seventeen! You sling hash, for God’s sake! You think you can make it on that?” The look again. She fumbles in her purse for another cigarette and lights it as she continues to talk. The cigarette is tucked in her knobby fingers like a glowing pointer that she shakes at Zoe. “You ain’t gonna make it. You hear me, Beth? You’ll be back. You’ll come crawling back for forgiveness, and you know what? We’ll give it to you, too. Your mama and me. Because we’re family, and that’s what family does. You’ll come begging and crying, and we’ll take you back. But things’ll be different, that’s for sure. You can count on that. You hear me, Beth? You hear what I’m saying?”
“I hear,” Zoe says.
Grandma shakes her head and narrows her eyes to puckered slits. She leans so close Zoe can smell her smoky breath. “Family sticks together—real family, that is. But I think you got all of your daddy’s blood and none of your mama’s. I guess you’re hardly family at all.” She shakes her head one last time and leaves.
Zoe walks to the landing, watching Grandma plod down the steps. When she gets to the bottom of the stairs, she turns and calls, “And don’t bother coming to Kyle’s party on Saturday. Only family’s invited. Unless, that is, you’ve already come crawling back by then.”
She watches Grandma disappear around the corner of the garage, and with crushing clarity Zoe knows that she will die—she will truly die—before she ever crawls back. She forces a breath, and another wave of knowing hits her. Nothing will keep her from Kyle’s party on Saturday. Kyle is more hers than anyone’s.
She goes back in and closes the door, the door to her room on Lorelei Street, and in that instant, with the clicking of the latch, Ruby is no longer small. It is a large town of close-knit families, best friends arm-in-arm, houses with well-kept gardens and easy laughter, conversations buzzing over phone lines, and life of which Zoe is not a part. Ruby is suddenly very, very large, and Zoe is very, very small. She is only seventeen, and she only slings hash, and if she were to slip away into inky black nothingness, would anyone really notice?
Fourteen
Opal hugs a bag of groceries with one arm and lifts the other arm to Zoe. She waves her twiggy fingers, and Zoe thinks her smile is too young for her wrinkled apple face. It reminds her of Kyle, smiling from somewhere down deep, as much for himself as anyone else. Zoe waves back. She manages a smile, too. She knows her smile doesn’t come as freely or as deeply, but it is the best she can do, and Opal nods her head like she is so pleased that Zoe saw her.
She puts the car into drive. Soon Opal is out of her vision and she only sees the dappled flash of light on her hood as she races down Lorelei Street to work. She is only at Carmichael when another flash comes into view. The red warning light glows on the instrument panel. She needs oil. Shit. Why now? She thinks she can make it to the gas station half a block from Murray’s. Didn’t she just add oil? How long can you drive with the oil light on? She doesn’t know. Grandma would just love to see this. Would love to see her burning up Mama’s engine. But it’s only oil. It’s only a couple of bucks. She’ll take care of it better than Mama would have.
With each block she feels the glowing red light twisting something inside of her tighter. Ungrateful. Am I really? The light seems to grow brighter. The engine and I may poof at the same time, she thinks. Poof. No more engine. No more Zoe. No more nothing. Would that be so bad?
Six blocks later she turns off into Thrifty Gas and Garage. She rolls down the window and asks the attendant for oil. “I’m in a hurry, if you don’t mind. I’m on my way to work.” He obliges and lifts her hood. He pulls out the stick, shakes his head, wipes it with a blue paper towel, and shoves it in again. He shakes his head again when he pulls it out, and Zoe’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel. Maybe she drove it too far. Maybe the engine is ruined already. God, she can never face Grandma with that.
The attendant walks over to her window, carefully holding the stick like there is a virus on the end. “I can add more oil if you want, but I’d just be adding it to sludge. When was the last time you changed the oil in this thing?”
Changed the oil? She has never changed the oil. “I think it’s been a while,” she says. “Does it need it?”
He silently nods his grease-smudged face like the condition is too grave to utter a word.
“How much?” she asks.
“Change the oil, new filter, and top off your other fluids for twenty-nine bucks. Best thing you can do for your car. Simple stuff like that’ll keep it running for years. Could have it done in half an hour.”
Zoe sighs. She doesn’t have half an hour. She doesn’t have twenty-nine bucks. But she needs a car that will last for years. A car that Grandma can’t blame her for trashing. “Can I leave it and pick it up around nine?”
“Sure thing.”
She grabs her purse and gets out of the car, dropping the keys into the attendant’s greasy palm. She is afraid to ask but she does. “And can I pay when I pick it up?”
“You bet.”
So much for groceries for the refrigerator. She heads for Murray’s, grateful that she didn’t burn up the engine. Mama would have. It is still light outside, but she can see Murray’s neon sign half a block away already glowing with its red and yellow lights.
Ungrateful? What did Grandma mean by that? Zoe grabs a cigarette from her purse for one last smoke before her shift begins. She notices the pack is nearly empty. Didn’t she just open it this morning? It must have been yesterday. What should I be grateful for? She lights up and takes a drag, wondering if she looks like Grandma when she does. She tries to keep her face smooth and light as she inhales, her chin drawn up and her eyes soft and round.
Grateful? For what? That Mama didn’t get rid of her when she was nothing more than a peanut inside of her? Grateful for all of Kyle’s crappy diapers? Grateful for all the times Mama didn’t show up for parent conferences at school? She almost smiles—maybe she should be grateful for that. Or maybe grateful for all the life-sucking, meandering, tearful monologues that squeeze the spirit right from her heart and have everything to do with Mama and nothing, nothing to do with Zoe? I’m only seventeen, Grandma. Don’t I deserve a life, too?