Chapter Twelve
It was tough to face reality after my date with Vinnie. And yes, it had been a date.
I felt like I was flying. More than flying. It was like some crazy vibration, some wild beat within my body that kept me smiling, kept me dancing, kept my feet from ever touching the ground. I wanted to stand on my front porch with him all night, just to feel his fingertips on my cheek one more time.
Walking through my door was a rude and sudden crash landing back to earth.
“Home already?” my mom asked from the couch. “Figured you’d stay at your boyfriend’s house.”
“How often has that actually happened, Mom? Have I ever not come home?”
She shrugged, as if it were inconsequential. Her gaze never strayed from the TV.
I tossed my keys on the table. I stared at her, where she sat swaying on the couch. It seems strange to say that an alcoholic can’t hold her liquor, but my mother couldn’t. She became confused and clumsy. Her words came out thick and slurred and slow. Usually I could tell how drunk she was by looking at her eyes. The further down the well she was, the less able she was to keep them open. Her eyelids would droop, and she’d teeter unsteadily in her own private darkness.
She was a mess this time, her lids heavy, her mouth hanging open.
I debated going straight to my room, rather than letting myself be dragged down by her drinking, but the anger and the rage were so hot and fresh. I couldn’t let it go. I couldn’t walk away again.
“Why’d you do it this time?” I asked.
“Had a tough day.”
“A tough day? Doing what? Sitting here on your ass?”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re right, Mom. I don’t understand. After working so hard to get sober, why would you throw it down the drain? You know how much I hate it when you drink.”
Her head bobbed lazily as she nearly toppled off the couch. “It was a fur coat.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I had one once.”
“I know. What does that have to do with anything?”
“It was rabbit fur. It was brown and gray. It was so soft.”
“I remember.”
“I lost it. Your dad and I went to Boston—”
“I know.” I’d heard the story a hundred times, but she continued on as if she hadn’t heard me.
“—and I guess I left it at the restaurant, but we went back. Your dad looked and looked. He even tried to offer a reward, but we never found it. He was so upset.”
“Mom, I know.”
“I still wonder if I dropped it in the parking lot, or if somebody stole it. It was rabbit fur. It was brown and gray.”
“I know! I remember it!”
“We were in Boston—”
“Mom!”
She gestured toward the TV, which was still on some home-shopping channel. “They showed one. It was just like the one your dad bought for me.”
“And?”
She shook her head. “It was so soft. Your dad looked and looked. He even offered a reward.”
This was always what she did, circling back over her words, repeating herself endlessly.
“Why are you drinking again?”
“It’s not my fault, Trey.”
“Then whose fault is it?”
“It’s a disease.”
“Don’t give me that bullshit.”
“You don’t understand. You never understand.” Her voice caught, and tears fell from her eyes, but any sympathy I’d ever had for her had dried up years ago.
“So you saw a goddamn fur coat on the TV and decided that was a good reason to get drunk?”
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand that you’ll use any flimsy excuse you can find.”
“It’s a disease. It’s not my fault. I can’t help it!”
“It is your fault! The disease didn’t decide to drink. The disease didn’t go find your purse. The disease didn’t walk out the door and down the street to Lucky’s. The disease didn’t walk to the back row where the vodka is and pick the bottle up off the shelf—”
“I didn’t go to Lucky’s. You never understand.”
“—and walk up to the register and pay for it. The disease didn’t open the bottle, Mom. The disease didn’t drink it, either. You did. It is your fault. It’s always your fault.”
She closed her eyes and shook her head hard, like a dog shaking water from its fur, as if she were trying to shake her thoughts into order, trying to make sense of what I was saying. The motion caused her to fall sideways a bit. She caught herself and sat there, frozen, leaning to the side, her eyes shut tight. “It was so soft. It was brown and gray. We looked and looked…”
Swearing, I turned away from her and headed for the stairs. On the way I kicked something on the floor, a small brown bottle that went immediately under the couch. Instead of picking it up, I went up the stairs and slammed my bedroom door shut behind me, thankful that my Gram was asleep and without her hearing aid wouldn’t be wakened by my temper.
I threw myself down on the bed. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I held my pillow over my head and forced myself to take a deep breath. And another. The anger began to fade, but behind was the tired resignation I’d grown so familiar with. It brought tears to my eyes. Not sympathy for my mother, but frustration at knowing that I was on a merry-go-round that would never, ever stop.
Up and down, round and round, the same goddamn nauseating music going on and on and on. It was enough to make me wish Vinnie had asked me to go home with him. How much better would my night have been?
I probably wouldn’t still be a virgin.
I took another deep, shuddering breath. Yes, the merry-go-round went on, and I’d never escape, but at least now I had a new distraction. I thought about Vinnie—the way he’d kissed me in the club, grinding against me, and again on my porch, a sweet, lingering kiss that made me giddy—and I smiled.
I shouldn’t really have agreed to the date on Sunday. I had too much schoolwork to do and too little time between jobs.
On the other hand, it would give me a perfectly good excuse to spend all of my time at home locked in my room, studying.
And on Sunday, Vinnie Fierro would kiss me.