Shivering Mind

Chapter 33

We’re in a Volkswagen and I’m six three. The fine German engineering of the People’s Car was not engineered for this. Still, there’s no freaking way I’m gonna stop and request a more comfortable situation. Even if my legs are wedged under the glove compartment and my rib cage is about to be cracked by the gearshift.

“What am I doing with you?” Matilda whispers, sliding her hands up my back. “This is crazy,” she says, shifting her hips to accommodate me. “You’re a kid.”

“I’m no kid. And you know it.” I move my lips behind her ear, along her throat, her neck, lower. Then slip one hand very slowly, tips of my fingers, edge of my thumb under the triangle of her suit.

“It’s most likely a good idea if you don’t say anything right now,” she says, kicking open the car door.

“But—” I slide out of my seat, start to circle around the Bug.

“Don’t. Talk.” She slams the door, then shoves it shut after it pops open again. Cal startles and begins to cry. Matilda casts one incredulous look at me, then strides toward the house.

“I thought you said you didn’t have a girlfriend.” Hester’s voice lifts over the baby’s shrill wails. She’s scooped him into her arms and is jiggling him up and down. His eyes are saucers.

“I don’t.”

She stares after Matilda’s fine retreating ass. I punch the side of the Bug, hard, and then boot the tire for good measure.

“So who was that?”

“Hester.” I’m gritting my teeth so hard, I expect shards of molars to fly out onto the tar of the driveway. “None of your business.”

“If it would help to talk about it—” Her voice is all soothing, and where the hell does she get off with that? The baby, who has paused with the screeching, cranks it up again.

“No offense, but you don’t know me at all.”

More shrieking from Cal.

“Hell, give him to me, Hes.”

Gnawing her lip with her teeth, she passes him over. “My car should be done soon. You could drop me off in town. Or . . .” Her shoulders slump. “I guess I could walk. How far do you think it is?”

Nail yourself to the freakin’ cross, already. I hoist the baby on my shoulder, bury my nose in his neck. He makes this little wiggling movement, snuggling in safe. I don’t feel safe, my gut tight, my intestines squirming like snakes, so I shut my eyes; try to recite the Serenity Prayer or something in my head. The best I can do is take my mind back to the beach, cool water glistening silver on Matilda’s tanned shoulders, the flash of her ring in the sunlight, her smile.

“Sure she’s not your girlfriend?” Hester asks. “Because she’s looking out the window at us.”

“It doesn’t matter. Let’s get Cal inside.”

“His name is Calvin.”

I’m spoiling for a fight, and I’ll take one anywhere, on any grounds, no matter how much of an asshole that makes me.

“I’m calling him Cal. Calvin is a p***y name.”

Hester flinches, blue eyes, pale face. I’ve sucker-punched a kitten. Muttering an apology, I head up the stairs, Hester following. Only one quick backward glance to see if Matilda actually is watching.

She’s not.

Inside, I fill a glass of

water from the tap, guzzle it down, then set the glass on the counter and stick my face right under the faucet. Gulping, trying to cool down.

Hester’s got Cal now, patting his back. She keeps trying to talk to me, going on and on, something about the adoption intake interview and my medical history and ethnic background and paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.

My temples are pounding and I’m hot, then cold, then hot again. “How long is your car going to take? I can’t do this now,” I say. “Call the garage and tell them it’s the fan belt. Better yet, let’s just go over there.”

“It may not be the fan belt. Unless that girl is a car mechanic. She didn’t look like a car mechanic. Is she—”

“Leave it alone,” I say, picking my cell up off the counter. “Which garage is it?”

“Oh, no. This diaper is leaking. Here.” She shoves the baby at me in this offhand way, like he’s a pile of towels, then heads to the sink to wash her hands, adding over her shoulder, “Can you get this one? As I said, they need a medical history. Do you have any chronic diseases?”

“Nope,” I snap, resting Cal against my chest, head on my shoulder, with one hand and bending over to rummage through all the crap in the bag for one of his postage-stamp-sized diapers.

“Unless you count my slight touch of alcoholism.” And horniness. And douchebaggery.

Cal’s little scratchy fingernails are digging into my chest like Jase’s cat’s paws do, like milk’s going to come spilling right on out. “Hang on,” I mutter to him. “Cleanup first.”

Something’s warm and sticky on the hand that’s holding him and I know before looking what it is.

“Jesus God, Hes. Why is it this color? What is wrong with this kid?”

“Nothing! He’s just fine. Fine. Why would you even ask that?”

Shifting Calvin to the other side, I hold out my hand, the hand that was on Matilda’s back, her neck, her waist, less than an hour ago. “It’s green. That can’t be right.”

“He’s fine,” she repeats, handing me a box of baby wipes and this folded plastic thing and, for some reason, a little woolly hat with a pompom. “Sorry about that. Change him on that so he doesn’t leak on the couch.”

“Do you think I give a damn about the couch? God knows what could be in those genes or chromosomes or whatever was my contribution to the party. I’m surprised my sperm could even swim straight, if you want the truth.”

“He’s perfectly healthy. Calm down. You’re making him upset.” She pauses. “Look, Max.” Her voice softens. “I know this is hard. For both of us. But we need to get along for the sake of the baby.”

My hand jerks as I’m undoing the tape thing on the side of the diaper, and the plastic shreds, so more crap spills out, on the couch, on me. “We do not need to get along for the sake of the baby. We are not married. He’s, like, an amoeba.” And he’ll be gone as soon as I can possibly make that happen.

I drive her to Reynold’s Garage, all but change the fan belt myself (yes, it’s the fan belt). Guilty for comparing my son to a one-celled organism, and a major p***y, I agree to take Cal for another night. When I ditch her in town, it’s like I’m scraping her off my shoe.

Matilda

The house is dead quiet when I come storming in, sandy, and suit still damp with seawater. I chuck my wet towel in the corner of the kitchen, like I’m one of my messier brothers. Then I kick one of the stools near the island, which crashes to the ground. My repaired ankle is already killing me from my assault on the car door while making my mature exit.

I’m glad Mom’s not here.

I wish Mom were here.

Just Mom, alone. Nobody else she had to pay attention to.

My throat feels as though I’ve swallowed clamshells from the beach parking lot. My eyes are hot sand.

I pick up my cell to call her, and then drop it with a clatter on the counter. What would I say? Guess what, we’ll need to be picking up a Father’s Day card for Max Mason next year. In other news, I ...ed him and I didn’t want to stop and now I have to because, well, obviously. And also, great news! Grace Reed stopped paying Dad’s bills, so there’s that to celebrate too. The thought brings a crush of guilt, heavy, like someone sitting on my chest, because my dad, my family, is screwed if I don’t figure this out, and here I am thinking about Max Mason.

I kick the stool again, harder, so it smashes into the trash can, which someone must have pulled out to empty and then forgot about. The can tips over, spilling orange rinds and a coffee can and some of Patsy’s diapers out on the floor, which was already getting grimy.

I’ll just let myself cry. Blast some music. Shower off. Shake it off.

He and that girl made a baby. Whatever.

That’s his type?

God, I hate it when people even say there are types, like people come in flavors.

Was that why his parents kicked him out? He’s been here for three weeks. That baby seems older than that. Was that why he got kicked out of prep school? Who is that girl? Is she going to move into my apartment with him? Sleep in his bed and eat Grape-Nuts with him and go to the beach and—

She’s very pale. I bet she sunburns.

I am the worst person in the world.

I start to drag myself upstairs to my room, throw myself down on the bed, and cry myself to sleep. Trash the room. Something.

But I share my room with Andy, who, because she’s now in high school, as of today, is already home. She’s lying on her back on my bed (because hers is covered with clean laundry she hasn’t taken the Maxe to put away yet), painting her fingernails, periodically pausing to eat a Nilla Wafer from the jumbo box propped against my Tardis pillow.

When I come in the door, she jolts up guiltily. “I didn’t get any crumbs on— What’s wrong? Is it Dad? Mom? Oh, God, Matilda, don’t look like that.” She’s jumping up and putting her arms around me, getting pink nail polish in my hair as she brushes it back. “Oh honey,” she says, in a quite good imitation of our mother.

“Everyone’s fine,” I choke out. Tears would be a relief at this point, my eyes sting so badly.

“But not you. You aren’t fine,” Andy says, pulling me over to my own bed and tapping the comforter (also getting nail polish on that, but what the hell at this point). “Talk to me. Matilda, please.”

“And what, you’ll braid my hair and do my nails?”

She blinks for a moment. I’m Tin Matilda once again. My little sister with her open heart and her open arms.

“If you want,” she says after a minute. “I was thinking of just listening.”

I swallow, can barely swallow. “It’s . . .”

I can’t. I can’t get the words out, because then . . . then they’ll be true. That he’s a dad, and that I’m a mess. That he lied to me. With what he did, if not actually what he said, since I didn’t happen to ask him if, by any chance, he’d recently fathered any children.

I was thinking . . . for just a moment, I was thinking we could—nothing serious—but we could—

Well, no we can’t.

“It’s a guy,” my sister says. “Brad? No, it would never be Brad.”

“Why not?” I ask immediately. It would be a natural assumption. I just broke up with Brad. Andy was a wreck for a month after Kyle Comstock broke up with her, the faithless twit.

“Flip?” she guesses again. “I liked Flip. He took me wakeboarding.”

“That was two years ago. Not Flip. Why wouldn’t it be Brad?”

“Brad couldn’t get to you. Not the real you. He didn’t have the—”

“Balls?”

“Gag.” Andy makes a face. “No. The . . . I don’t know, the strength or whatever . . . the depth. You didn’t need Brad.”

I’m brushing at my eyes, even though they’re dry as driftwood. “What I don’t need is this.”

“No. You don’t,” Andy says with absolute certainty. “To hell with this. Whatever this is. You’re too great and tough to let anything or anyone get to you.”

Yeah,

except unpaid bills and Dad and school and redheaded ex-junkie alcoholics with infants and my entire life.

Don’t panic. Don’t go there. I take a minute, focus on drawing a slow, invisible circle on my thigh. Chase away all that. Andy would freak out.

“I’m not all that tough, Andy,” I say on a slow exhalation. “Just so you know. I mean, don’t do that to yourself. Think I’m the tough one so you have to be the not-tough one. It’s just—I just—”

“Matilda, c’mon. You can have a bad day. Without it being your period or you being a ballbuster—see, I said it—or a wimp or calling yourself names. Although, if it would help, we can call this guy names. I know a lot. Dip-twit. Tool. Douchemonkey. Eejit. Wenis. Sludgeball. Asskite. Showerfunk. Dirtbag. Ratfink. And those are just the nice ones. I’ve been collecting them.”

She’s still got her skinny arms around me, and my head is tipped against her shoulder. She smells like vanilla and nail polish remover and my gardenia perfume.

I’m laughing a little, and she does too, bumping her shoulder against mine. “Max taught me most of them. Along with how to knee a guy in the crotch. He taught me lots more, but they might shock you.”

“Not much can at this point,” I say sadly. But that’s not true. I am shocked. Well down the road beyond that, even—all the way to flabbergasted. Floored. But why? Isn’t this the kind of thing everyone would expect to happen? The Boy Most Likely To strikes again?

Oh, Max.

Just as expected, right, Matilda? I wanted to be better than that.

I flop down on the bed, fold my arms, rest my head in them.

“Max also taught me to hit someone in the nose, upward, with the heel of your hand”—Andy pulls on a lock of my hair, raising my face so she can demonstrate—“to break it.”

“You’re going to pull this move on some poor fourteen-year-old i***t?”

“Only if absolutely necessary. He gave me a whole lecture about that. Not to bust it out on some poor sucker who was just trying to cop a—anyway. He was awesome. Like a brother.”

“You’ve already got more than your share of those, Ands.”

“Joel and Jase would want to go beat the guy up for me. They’re not going to teach me swears or kickass moves. I’d love to have Max as a brother.”