“Okay, okay,” I said. “I don’
t actually need the whole story. So what do you want me to do? I can drive down there in a little bit and give you a jump if you want. But you’re going to have to tell me where the car is.” I already knew where the car was, but there was always a miniscule part of me that was hoping she might say it was somewhere respectable—say, the grocery store or the laundromat.
“It’s ... it’s at The Finery.” She sounded like a petulant child. “And I don’t need you to give me any shit about it, okay? I’ve got to make money, too, you know. We’ve all got bills to pay. I’m just like anybody else, trying to make ends meet.”
Don’t let the name fool you—The Finery was about as seedy a place you could get, a strip club masquerading as a tavern/gentleman’s club. My mother had worked there my entire life (and was probably where she met my father), though now that she was in her mid-40s, had been demoted to waitress.
“What happened to applying for the job at town hall?” I said. “The one that Lauren told you about.”
My mother laughed. “Oh, I checked out the application. It was about five pages long. Wanted to know all this personal stuff. Which is fine by me—I’ve got nothing to hide—but then it was also asking about past experience and everything. And trust me, Graham, I know some of the women that work in the town hall, and they don’t want to hear anything about the past experiences that I’ve had. It just wasn’t the right fit for me. You can understand that, can’t you? It’d be like me trying to make you work somewhere that you just didn’t fit in. You would hate it. How is business going, anyway?”
“It’s fine. Listen, I’m not at the house right now, but I’m going to head back there in about half an hour. I’ll get my truck and then I’ll come pick you up and we’ll go jump your car. I don’t know why no one offered to give you a jump last night—oh wait, no, I do; everyone was probably way too wasted.” The patrons of The Finery were less than stellar characters, and I wasn’t looking forward to going over there, even though the worst of them wouldn’t be out until much later this evening.
“You’re the best,” my mother said. “What would I do without you? I’ll see you soon.”
“Bye,” I said. I had just put the phone down when I saw my father step out of the office building across the street. He was wearing cream-colored shorts and boating shoes and one of those salmon pink golf shirts that seemed to be all the rage with the affluent folks. A woman stepped out behind him, and they stood there for a moment, talking. She was wearing an all-white tennis outfit: white sneakers, white skirt, sleeveless white shirt, white visor. Was that his wife? Girlfriend? Or someone that was just securing a summer rental from him? I was too far away to be able to hear their conversation, though their body language didn’t suggest a romantic relationship.
I had to fight off the urge to run over there and introduce myself. It wouldn’t go well—I knew that much, which was why I hadn’t done it yet, and probably never would. And even now, at 26 years old, I still found myself wondering how my completely fucked up childhood might’ve been different if my father had been around.
*****
My mother and Wade still lived in the same shitty duplex that I’d grown up in. There wasn’t a driveway so much as a gravel parking lot, and their unit was in the back, behind the first two. The paint was peeling; there were empty beer cans littering the sparse front lawn, along with an assortment of forgotten children’s toys. The whole place was depressing as fuck, and I had to bite back the urge to flee immediately.
Luckily, my mother came out, saving me from having to go in and possibly interact with Wade. We’d come to an uneasy truce over the years, mainly due to the fact that I was now an adult who could hit him back.
My mother was wearing her usual attire, consisting of a too-tight tank top and short shorts. It was pointless to suggest she wear something a little more modest, so I said nothing. I didn’t feel like getting into an argument with her over what constituted “modest attire.” She hopped up into the passenger seat of the truck and I took off out of there about as fast as I could.
“So, anything new going on with you?” she asked. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“I saw you last week, Mom.”
“Was it? Well, it was only for a few minutes. Business is going good?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“Do you have a girlfriend? I’m looking forward to being a grandma, you know, even though everyone says I’m way too young to be one!” She laughed as though this were the best compliment ever.
“No, Mom, I don’t have a girlfriend and don’t hold your breath about the grandkids. You know I don’t want to have kids.”
“Don’t say things like that!” she said. “You might very well change your mind once you meet the right person.”
“I’m taking a break from the dating game at the moment, if you must know.”
She frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that you need to stop giving me shit about these phantom grandkids you think you’re gonna get. It also means stop asking me if I have a girlfriend, because I don’t.”
“I wouldn’t be one of those pain in the ass mother-in-laws, you know,” she said, deliberately ignoring my last statement.
I tried to choke back my laughter. “Right.”
“I mean it! I wouldn’t be all uptight about shit. I wouldn’t be giving my daughter-in-law a hard time about what type of diapers she was using on my grandbaby or whether she should formula feed or not.”
It occurred to me just then that my mother had clearly spent some time thinking about this. Was she off her fucking rocker? Clearly, yes.
“You can be as uptight as you want about it, because it’s not going to happen.”
“Oh, I don’t believe you for a second. It’s summer—it’s the best time of the year. People falling in love every single day. I bet you’re going to meet someone this summer and it’s just going to be the best thing ever.”