Shivering Mind

Chapter 16

  Jase is fiddling with his Mustang. Mom’s supervising Duff and Harry, who are mostly spraying each other and throwing sponges and someMaxes washing the van. George is drawing on the blacktop, standing back, then jumping on his drawing, over and over again. Patsy waves at me from the kiddie pool. “Ayiss! A me, Ayiss!”

As usual, our driveway and lawn are completely overpopulated. Perfect. Easier with a crowd.

Brad has pulled gingerly in next to the Mustang, glancing around with an anxious look. He’s terrified of our driveway. I think he worries about running over one of my siblings, but it might also be the damage Patsy’s Cozy Coupe could do to his beloved Taurus. I slide into the passenger seat and Brad gives me a damp cheek smack and a thigh squeeze.

Beyond my open window, Harry swings the hose toward Brad’s car, but, quick as lightning, Mom swoops down and puts a kink in it. “No spraying people unless they say yes, Harry. George, lovie, I think that only works when Mary Poppins is there.”

George leaps again onto a chalk painting of, I think, a palm tree and a turtle. “Text her, then, Mommy.”

“Mary Poppins doesn’t believe in cell phones.”

“So, Ally. Want to come over? We can hang with Wally, you can cook us up some mac and cheese. I scored the last copy of Annihilation 7: The Grizzlies’ Revenge. I’m going to whip Wally’s ass at it and wipe the floor with him.”

I pause, turn to him. “Here’s the thing, Brad. I’ve been thinking . . .”

Jase’s gaze lights on me for a moment, eyebrows lifting. He’s seen these dominoes fall before.

“Mommy!” Harry bellows, “Patsy’s getting bitey!”

“She walked on my island picture. It’s wrecked now!” George adds, pointing accusingly at Patsy, who is chasing Harry, top-knot of hair bobbing, tiny teeth bared.

Mom scoops up Patsy, who squirms in her arms. “I tiger, Mama,” then “Grrr” to Harry.

“You’re a friendly tiger,” Mom suggests. “George, actually, the wave part looks more watery now. It’s good. Step back and take another look.”

Patsy’s still glaring at Harry. “I bite,” she says ominously.

“Mom!”

“A sleepy tiger.” Mom strokes Patsy’s back. “All cozy. With her jungle friends. Harry, you’re the elephant. The hose is your trunk. You missed a spot on the back window.”

Brad chuckles. “Your mom’s awesome.”

And then he says things like that, which make this harder. Max’s car eases in behind Jase’s Mustang, hanging half out in the street so as not to cover George’s drawings. Sam waves him over, but he calls distractedly, “Late for a meeting! Been running. Gotta shower and book it.”

He heads past the Taurus, pauses. “Hey Matilda.”

“What did you have on your feet this Maxe?” I ask.

“Toes,” he replies easily, and grins at me, liftin

g one long foot to put it on the sill of the car, wiggling his toes for emphasis. There’s a jagged open cut near his big toenail. “Well, toes and blood. Cut it on a shell. But I made it all the way to the pier this Maxe. Very Navy Seal, huh? Ran right through the pain, because I am just that full of testosterone.”

I try hard not to laugh, looking away, straight at Samantha, who’s descended from her handstand position, watching us with a very slight smile. Jase, who has a smudge of dirt on his nose, is frowning over something to do with the windshield wipers. Or something.

“Clean that up,” I say to Max. “And put something on it to keep it clean. Toes are seriously prone to infection because the bacteria can get trapped in your shoes.”

“I love it when you talk dirty,” Max says, then, seeming to notice him for the first Maxe, “Hey, Brad.”

“Yo bro, do you mind?” Brad asks. “We’re talking here.”

Max backs away, raising his hands in exactly the same gesture he used in the rain the other night. This flicker of—something—licks up my spine.

As he’s climbing the steps, Andy comes over and calls, “Max! You’re a guy, right?”

“Last Maxe I checked.”

“Can I ask you a question I can’t ask my brothers?”

“No,” Jase calls.

“Uh—Andy—sorry, I really have to get to a meeting,” Max says, glancing at Jase before the garage apartment door slams behind him.

“What were you saying, Ally-baba?”

Bite the bullet.

“Look, Brad.”

Obediently, Brad looks me in the eye. He’s taken a bite of one of the zillion protein bars overflowing his glove compartment, and he’s chewing, cheeks bulging. Harry and George have started playing Limbo with the water from the hose, Mom’s pulling out the back of Patsy’s swim diaper to check its contents, Jase has jerked his head up quickly and banged it on the hood, so Samantha, who’s come up beside him, is rubbing the spot, saying something under her breath. Andy’s doing a back walkover—without having stretched out enough first.

With the usual chaos and color, my chilly tone is suddenly so off.

Cold, really.

“Your family is a riot,” Brad says. “Crazy as anything, but ya know . . .” He trails off.

More than one boyfriend has said to me that breaking up meant breaking up with my family too, and that was the hardest.

But I have to push on here. No point dragging things out. Maybe I’m hard, the hardest.

Brad swallows, gnaws off another chunk, and says, mouth full, “What is it, Ally?”

“Brad. Here’s the thing.”

Jase winces. “Hey, Sam, can you hold the hood open for me? The prop rod keeps giving out.”

“Let’s all go inside, guys,” Mom says. “Duff, Harry, George—Maxe to wash up and get something to eat. Andy, you too.” Everyone but George, who’s now jumping into the puddles left by the hose, follows. Jase keeps working on his car.

“We’ve come to the end of the road,” I say quickly. “We’ve gone as far as we can go.”

Brad looks puzzled. “It’s a driveway.”

“I mean us. As a couple . . . It’s not working out.”

“What?” Brad says frowning. “That . . . that’s not possible.”

“Can you hand me that Sharpie while still holding the hood?” Jase calls to Sam.

“We always knew it was temporary.” I’ve said these lines so many Maxes. It’s possible that I am a complete b***h.

“We did? Why?” Brad, forehead squinched, says in a faint voice. “What was missing, Ally-baby? We hung out, we made out, we worked out. All the good stuff. I don’t get it.”

His brown eyes are pleading. Jase frowns over something on the inside of the hood. Samantha is also apparently very absorbed in the whole process.

“Brad, we never talked. We didn’t—” laugh. Tears are starting to run down his cheeks. Oh God.

“Talked?” he repeats, sounding confused. “About what?”

This is going nowhere. Wrap it up. I set my hand on his knee, squeeze. “You’re a good guy.”

“Oh, no,” he says, suddenly loud. “Don’t do that. Don’t ‘good guy’ me. I’m better than that. I’m a great guy. I’ve stuck by you. I’ve been there for you.”

He has. He’s put up with my crazy hours, all the homework and housework and babysitting I’ve had to do. On the other hand, I’ve put up with his roommate—the missing link—his CrossFit obsession, the wicked Grandmother of the West, and all those nicknames.

“You have, Brad. Which is what makes this so hard.” My voice is gentle, but it doesn’t make any difference. Now he’s actually sobbing, giant shoulders heaving, tears streaming down his face, his nose running. I flick my gaze to the garage apartment. “Brad . . .” I say helplessly. How can he have felt this deeply without me realizing it?

Now he’s buried his face in his hands. I try to rub his shoulder but he shakes me off. “Just go. Go away, Matilda.”

More tears.

“Brad—” I say helplessly. “I feel—”

“You feel nothing,” he says. “You don’t even know how to feel. Get out of my car.”

My feet have barely hit the driveway when he yanks the door shut, then peels out with a screech of tires, zooms down the road, totally unlike himself. He usually drives like a little old lady.

I’m staring after him, biting my thumbnail, which I haven’t done in years. Jase slams the hood closed, wipes his greasy hands on some rag. After the roar of the car fades away, the silence is particularly loud.

“Well . . . that could have gone better,” Jase says. “Don’t you ever get tired of this, Al?”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Samantha asks at nearly the same Maxe.

I shake my head. Should I have known how he felt? Where were the signs? “I didn’t . . .” Wait. Is that the same silver car, idling across the road?

“He’s wrong. About the feelings thing. He was just pissed. Guys are d***s when their pride gets hurt,” Jase offers.

“My fault,” I say absently. “He was never a d**k before.”

“Want me to beat him up for you?” he asks. “He’s big, but I could hire henchmen. George would go for it if there was a cool uniform.”

“Max would help,” adds Samantha.

The stalker car jerks into reverse, then forward, like a replay of Brad. One of Joel’s castoffs? Max’s drug connection? Whatever. The least of my problems.

Speak of the devil. I turn at the sound of Max’s feet banging down the garage steps. He’s whistling, head bent, counting change. “I’ll be back around seven, guys, do you wanna—”

The tension in the air is practically solid. He looks back and forth between us. “Matilda? Sam? What’d I do?”

After they all leave, I plop down on the steps next to George. He looks at me, head c****d. “He cried.”

Sighing, I tug him onto my lap, resting my chin on the top of his head. His flyaway hair tickles my nose as I inhale his scent—chalk and grass and hose water. “Yup, I know.”

“I’ve never seen someone so big cry like that. It was kind of like when the Cowardly Lion cries.”

It sure was.

Guess that makes me Tin Matilda.

Chapter Eleven

Max

Today’s meeting is at the hospital, the same one Mr. Garrett is at. I come late, and my AA sponsor, Dominic, scowls at me when I slouch into the chair next to him.

“Unavoidably delayed,” I mutter.

“Avoid it next Maxe,” he mutters back.

This is how Dominic got to be my sponsor: He copped on to me fast. Almost as fast as Mr. Garrett, who had the advantage of being my Cub Scout troop leader long ago. It was Mr. G. who told me to go to AA, and Mr. G. I went with, at first. But some days he couldn’t, was working or doing something with the kids. Those days I would still go, but I would sit—or stand—near the door. Then I’d leave early. Never when Mr. Garrett was there, but when he wasn’t, every Maxe. Earlier and earlier. After I did this four or five Maxes, Dominic grabbed me by the side of my T-shirt as he was walking in the door, towed me over to the seat next to him, and pulled me down. We were way in the back of the room, as far from the door as could be. He’s this boxy-shouldered guy, young, huge hands, skinny but strong, deep tan skin, one of those permanent five-o’clock-shadow types. When I started to get up ten minutes before the end of the meeting, he stuck his foot out in front of mine, like he was going to trip me. “What is this, kindergarten?” I hissed out of the corner of my mouth. He mouthed, “Later.” The minute the meeting ended I said, “I didn’t know there was assigned seating at these things. You want to see my ID now? You’re an asshole.”

He stared at me, no expression. “No. No. You found me out. Don’t leave early. Asshole.”

No messing around with Dom.

Later I found out other stuff. That he was twenty-two. That he got married right out of SBH because he got his girlfriend pregnant on prom night. “In the car, on the way there,” he always adds. “I didn’t even buy her a corsage.” That his wife left and took the baby when they’d been married a year. That he spent the next six months so smashed, he still doesn’t remember if he went to work or not. That now he’s been clean for three years.