“Yeah. Why don’t you open the door now?”
“Yeah, I’m not going to do that.”
“What?”
“Apparently your superpower is deviousness because I can see right through you! Trying to act like you’re on my side and shit and then make me open the door so you can bite my head off like a gigantic praying mantis! I won’t be your dinner, Sandy! I fucking won’t!”
“That’s it,” he growled. “I’m calling Matty and Larry.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“And Nana. And yes I would, you just watch me.”
“I’m calling your bluff.”
“I’m dialing my phone! That noise? That’s me pressing the buttons!” I could hear the loud tones of a number being dialed. “You better come out before I tell your mom that you’re pouting in your room because you and your boyfriend had a fight! You know what she’ll do, Paul.”
“Go to hell!”
“Hi, Matty? I’m good, sugar, thank you. Hey, you won’t believe what Paul is doing right now.” His voice faded as he walked down the hall.
I quickly looked to my window to make my escape, only to remember I’d put stylish safety bars on the outside after I’d moved in so no one could break in and rape me in the middle of the night. I cursed my intent to keep myself pure because I could not escape from my prison now. I was pretty sure I could take down Sandy if I tried, but then I remembered what he looked like as Helena and that was one fierce bitch and I didn’t think it would be good for my already bruised ego to get knocked flat on my ass by a man who weighed forty pounds less than I did.
I just couldn’t seem to get the look on Vince’s face out of my head, like I’d betrayed him somehow by going in and seeing his mom. Lori had been right when she talked about how much hindsight sucked. Granted, hers was a bit more profound, what with a lifetime of regret, and mine made it sound like I was a thirteen-year-old girl since I was pining after my weeklong relationship.
But I still couldn’t get him out of my head. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should have opened my mouth the night before and said aloud what I’d thought when I’d looked at the star he’d named after me. I should have told him then that I knew about his mom and dad, how he was going to regret it for the rest of his life if he didn’t spend every waking moment with her until she was gone. I should have told him to put the past behind him and to just let it be until it was no more. It’s easier to be angry at someone when they’re gone, not when they’re still here and suffering. He could have hated her then. He didn’t need to now.
But she didn’t seem like someone to be hated. She didn’t seem like the wicked bitch I thought she’d be, the stereotypical bigot who didn’t love her son because of who he was. Granted, it sounded like she’d put her husband’s political aspirations ahead of her own fa
mily. That was a different kind of negligence. Indifference might not have the connotations of hate, but it could hurt just as badly.
I must have been lost in my thoughts a while, because the next thing I knew, there were the murmur of voices outside my door. I rolled my eyes and tried to shut them out.
There was another pounding on the door, this one a little lighter than Sandy’s egregious wailing. “Paul?” Nana called sweetly. “We’re here for your intervention. I brought you Ding Dongs and Los Betos.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Mom said. “You can’t tell him we’re here for an intervention and then try to bribe him with food. He’s not going to fall for that. We tried that when he was a kid, and he locked himself in his room until we promised to get Zack Morris from Saved By The Bell to come to his birthday party. He didn’t believe it then, either. He said that if that was true, we’d put the food near the floor and blow on it so he could smell the burritos through the crack in the door.”
Yeah, yeah. I was a fat kid. So what. I liked food. Bite me.
“And Zack still never came to the birthday party,” I retorted through the door. “That’s probably one of the reasons I’m so messed up today.”
“Your father tried to dress up like him for you,” Mom said.
“He dressed like Screech! No one likes Screech. All the kids at my party thought he was a homeless clown! And I don’t smell Los Betos, you liars!”
“Oh, he’s a smart one,” Nana said, obviously sounding impressed. “You don’t fall for the bait unless you have proof of life.”
“I don’t think that’s quite what that means,” Dad said. “And a homeless clown? Really, Paul? I never made fun of you when you dressed up like an orange dice for that play you were in.”
“I told you,” Sandy crowed.
“He was so wonderful in that,” my mother said tearfully. “What was his famous line, Larry? You know, the one that everyone was quoting?”
“Give me dairy,” everyone said, “or give me osteoporosis!”
“This can’t possibly be healthy,” I muttered.
“Is he going to open the door?” Sandy asked. “I tried to break it down, but he must have changed his doors to some kind of unbreakable metal.”