Lola and the Boy Next Door
Page 17There’s something about blue eyes.
The kind of blue that startles you every time they’re lifted in your direction. The kind of blue that makes you ache for them to look at you again. Not blue green or blue gray, the blue that’s just blue.
Cricket has those eyes.
And his laugh. I’d forgotten how easy it is. The four of us are laughing about something dumb in that silly way that happens when you’re exhausted. Cricket tells a joke and turns to see if I’m laughing, if I think he’s funny, and I want him to know that I do think he’s funny, and I want him to know that I’m glad he’s my friend, and I want him to know that he has the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever known. And I want to press my palm against his chest to feel it beat, to prove he’s really here.
But we cannot touch.
Everyone laughs again, and I’m not sure why. Cricket looks for my reaction again, and I can’t help but laugh. His eyes light up.
I have to look down, because I’m smiling so hard back. I catch my parents in the rearview mirror. They have a different kind of smile, like they know a secret that we don’t.
But they’re wrong. I know the secret.
I close my heavy eyes. I dream about reaching across the backseat and touching his hand. Just one hand. It closes slowly, tightly around mine, and the sensation of his skin against mine is astounding. I’ve never felt anything like it before.
I don’t wake until I hear his voice. “Who’s that?” he asks sleepily.
Some people claim to know when something bad is about to happen, right before it actually occurs. I feel dread at his question, though I can’t say why. His tone was innocent enough.
Maybe it’s the silence in the front seat that’s so deafening. I open my eyes as the car stops in front of our house. And I discover the deep feeling in my gut is right. It’s always right.
For there, passed out on the front porch, is my birth mother.
Chapter fourteen
Skin and bones. I haven’t seen Norah in months. I don’t know how it’s possible, but she’s lost more weight. For as long as I can remember, Norah has been too skinny. Now—body propped against the porch railing, sweater balled into a pillow to support her head—she looks like a pile of twigs wrapped in hippie rags.
Is she just asleep? Or has she been drinking again?
I flush with shame. That’s my mother. I don’t want Cricket to recognize her, even though it’s obvious the pieces have been put together, now that the question hangs in the air. Nathan is rigid.
He pulls the car into our driveway and turns off the engine. No one gets out. Andy swears under his breath.
“We can’t leave her there,” he says, after a minute passes.
Nathan climbs out, and Andy follows. I turn in my seat to watch them prod her, and she immediately startles awake. I release a breath that I didn’t realize I’d been holding. I get out of the car, and I’m blasted by the stench of body odor. Cricket is beside me, and he’s talking, but his words don’t reach my ears.
Because it’s my mother.
Smelling.
On my porch.
“Eighteen months?” Nathan asks. “You told me it’d been twelve since your last payment. I thought we’d worked this out. What do you expect me
—”
“I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP. I JUST NEED A PLACE TO
CRASH.”
The whole neighborhood can hear that. It takes nine long minutes before she lowers her voice. I watch the clock on my phone.
Lindsey calls. I stare at her name, but I don’t answer.
When I was little, I thought my parents were just best friends who lived together. I wanted to live with Lindsey when I grew up. It took a while for me to understand that the situation was more complicated than that, but by the time it happened, it didn’t matter. My parents were my parents. They loved each other, and they loved me.
But there’s always been this nag in the darkest corner of my mind.
I was right for Nathan and Andy, like they were right for me.
Why wasn’t I right for Norah? I know she wasn’t in any condition to take care of me, but why wasn’t I enough for her to try? And why aren’t we—the three of us, her family—enough for her to try now? She may not be on the streets anymore, but . . . well, this time, she is. Why is it so impossible for her to be a normal adult?
My phone buzzes. Lindsey has sent a text:
i heard. what can i do? xoxo
My heart falls like a stone. She heard? How long was Norah outside? How many people saw her? I imagine what my classmates will say when they find out that I have loser wired into half of my genetic code. Figures. It’s the only explanation for someone that screwed up. She must have been wasted while Lola was in the womb. But that’s not even true. I’m not half loser. I’m one hundred percent. I was created from street trash.
Andy knocks on my door. “Lo? Can I come in?”
I don’t reply.
He asks again, and when I don’t answer, he says, “I’m coming in.” My door opens. “Oh, honey.” His voice is heartbroken.
Andy sits on the edge of my bed and places a hand on my back, and I burst into tears. He picks me up and holds me, and I feel small and helpless as I cry all over his sleeve.
“She’s so embarrassing. I hate her.”
He hugs me harder. “Sometimes I do, too.”
“What’s gonna happen?”
“She’ll stay here for a while.”
I pull back. “For how long?” I’ve left a puddle of red eye shadow on his shoulder. I try to wipe it away, but he gently takes my hand. The shirt doesn’t matter.
I stare at my red fingertips, and I’m angry that Norah has made me cry again. I’m angry that she’s in my house. “She doesn’t care about us. She’s only here because she doesn’t have any other options.”
Andy sighs. “Then we don’t have any option but to help her, do we?”
It grows dark outside. I call Lindsey.
“Thank God! Cricket called two hours ago, and I’ve been so worried. Are you okay? Should I come over? Do you want to come over here? How bad is it?”
An explosion in my mind. “Cricket told you?”
“He was concerned. I’m concerned.”
“Cricket told you?”
“He called the restaurant and gave my parents his number, and then told them to tell me to call him. He said it was an emergency.”
I grip my phone harder. “So you didn’t see her, then? Or hear her? Or hear about it from anyone else?”
Lindsey realizes what the issue is. Her voice softens. “No. I haven’t heard anything, neighborhood-wise. I don’t think anyone noticed her.”
And I’m relieved enough to let the sadness and frustration flood back in. After nearly a minute of silence, Lindsey asks again if I’d like to stay with her. “No,” I say. “But I might take you up on it tomorrow.”
“She wasn’t . . . was she?”
It’s easy enough to fill in her blank. “Not wasted, not high. Just Norah.”
“Well,” she says. “At least there’s that.”
But it’s humiliating that she had to ask. There’s a beep on the other line. Max. “I have to go.” I switch calls with dread. A vision of my boyfriend at brunch with Norah flashes through my head. This is bound to put an even bigger strain on his relationship with my family. What will he think of her?
Will it change his opinion about me? And what if . . . what if he finds something of myself in Norah?
“I missed you,” he says. “You coming to the show tonight?” I’d forgotten about it. I’ve been so fixated on last night’s show that I didn’t remember he’d be back here for another one tonight. “Um, I don’t think so.” The tears are already building.
No, no, no. Don’t cry. I’m sick of crying today.
I practically hear him sitting up. “What’s going on?”
“Norah is here. She’s staying with us.”
Silence. And then, “Fuuuuck.” He says it like an exhale. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks. Me, too,” I add.
“So she expects you guys to bail her out of this?” I roll onto my side, still on my bed. “Like we always do.”
“It’s messed up your dads are letting her take advantage of them again.”
The thought has occurred to me many times over the years, but I still don’t know if it’s true. Are they—Nathan, especially—
enabling her? Or would she be even more lost without them? “I don’t know,” I say. “She doesn’t have anyone else to turn to.”
“Listen to yourself. You’re defending them. If I were you, I’d be pissed. I’m not you, and I’m still pissed.”
His anger refuels my own. It’s getting easier to talk about it, to talk about everything. We go for another hour until he needs to pack the van for his show. “Do you want me to pick you up?” he asks.
I tell him yes.
I get dressed with a fury I haven’t felt in years. I find a gauzy black dress that I’ve never liked in the back of my closet, and I rip the hem shorter.
Orange-and-yellow makeup. Red wig. Boots that lace to my knees.
Tonight, I’m fire.
I storm downstairs. My parents are talking quietly in the kitchen. I have no idea where Norah is, and I don’t care. I throw open the front door, and there’s a loud, “HEY!” but I’m already blazing down to the sidewalk. Where’s Max? Where is he?
“Dolores Nolan, get your ass back in here,” Nathan says from the doorway.
Andy is behind him. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I’m going to Max’s show!” I yell back.
“You aren’t going anywhere in that mood OR dressed like that,” Nathan says. A familiar white van turns the corner and speeds up our hill. Andy swears, and my parents push out the door but block each other in the process. The van jerks to a halt. Johnny Ocampo slides the door open.
“Do not get in that van,” Nathan shouts.
I give Johnny my hand. He pulls me inside and slams the door. I crash into a folded cymbal stand as the van lurches forward, and I shriek in pain.
Max lets out a rapid string of profanity at the sight of blood running down my arm. The van jerks to another stop as he leans back to make sure I’m okay.
“I’m fine, I’m fine! Go!”
I look out the window to see my parents on the sidewalk, frozen in disbelief. And behind them, sitting on the steps of the lavender Victorian—as if they’ve been there for a long, long time—are Cricket and Calliope Bell.