Toby kicked Max in the shin and Lizzie giggled.
“You guys should go,” I said to the girls.
Anna scowled at me. Lizzie crossed her arms over her chest and smiled like this was a game. Jess just seemed hurt.
“Why?” Anna asked.
“Business,” Toby said. “Jack’s right. We’ve got some shit to handle. We’ll see you girls later? Tonight maybe?”
“I might host a party at mi casa,” Max added.
Lizzie and Anna lit up at this, two little wind-up bimbo dolls. Party, party, party. Jess kicked at a stray bottle cap. I tried to tell her telepathically that this wasn’t the right time, that she shouldn’t be around for stuff like this, that she should go home and re-dye her hair because she was so beautiful and unique and so Jess before, and that she was too smart to hang out with wind-up dolls like Anna and Lizzie and losers like me and Toby and Max, and that if she got arrested I could never forgive myself.
But I knew my attempts at telepathy weren’t working. Jess was frowning at me, waiting for me to tell the guys to let her and her friends stay.
She was only one month older than me, but ever since we’d met in third grade, she’d felt more like a little sister. Someone I needed to protect.
“Fine, we get the message,” Jess said. She looped her arms around Anna’s and Lizzie’s. “See you around, boys.”
The three of them finally headed back to the Shop N’ Save. Jess kept glancing over her shoulder at me. I reached into my pocket, pulled out my phone, and texted her: Sorry. Explain later.
“Showtime,” Toby said. Max was breathing faster now, clearing his throat and rubbing his hands together. I put my hand on his shoulder to steady him as the hideous orange SUV pulled up in front of us.
“Just stand watch and relax,” I murmured in Max’s ear. “Act natural. But not…you know, not too natural. Not nervous.”
Max nodded. We watched Toby slip into the car as the driver eyed us suspiciously. He was a big guy, bulky, tattooed, with a shaved head and pierced eyebrows. His eyebrows were like lightning bolts across his brow, his jaw set in a grimace. A real stone grimace.
These were the kinds of guys that Toby and his cousins dealt with every day. These were the drug dealers I wanted far away from Jess.
And hopefully soon, away from me.
3.
The kitchen smelled like a menthol ashtray.
Mom was at the table when I walked in, wearing her tattered lilac bathrobe, hair in a tangled mess. The radio was on, a talk show host murmuring the lotto. She tapped her cigarette against a clay ashtray on the table, my fumble-handed attempt at a great white shark during my 4th-grade obsession with oceanography. Wrinkles moved in the creases of her eyes as she squinted up at me.
“There you are,” she said, voice filling with smoke as she took a long drag.
“Have you eaten?” I dropped my bag to the linoleum, nudged the dog’s snout from going near my crotch, and opened the fridge. Nothing but milk, beer, and a few sad-looking radishes.
“Jesus, Mom, we need groceries,” I said. I searched the cabinets for a scrap of something semi-nutritional for her to eat, but found only a stale pack of marshmallows and my stash of Lucky Charms. I made her a bowl.
Mom coughed deep from her chest and turned to the window. I opened the blinds to let the sunlight in and handed her the cereal. “Thanks, baby,” she said, reaching up to lightly touch my cheek. Her fingers were freezing. “You’ve always been good to your mother.”
“Where’s Dad?” I asked. I leaned against the chair next to her and it wobbled unsteadily against my weight. I’d have to find the toolbox and fix it later.
“Oh, you know, the usual church-and-brewskis Sunday afternoon. Probably downing a six-pack with Joel and the boys.”
“Great.”
“Should be back soon,” she said. She flicked her finger across her bubblegum-pink Bic, lighting another Menthol.
I put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a little rub. “Mom, you really shouldn’t smoke so much. Remember what the doctor said?”
She laughed dryly, mussing her frizzy curls. Streaks of gray were pushing through the roots, licking up the last of her natural auburn.
“What for?” she asked dryly. “Fear of cancer, emphysema? I’m not afraid of dying. It’s the living that fucks us over, babe. Remember that.” She took a big, noisy bite of my cereal.
The front door banged opened and the smell of cheap beer, sweat, and something sour I could never quite pin down followed in the wake of my father. He kicked off his mud-coated boots and tossed the keys on the coffee table with a familiar clang. My stomach tied itself into a knot.
He strode over to smack me on the back a little too hard, like always. “Hey there, Jack, haven’t seen you around lately.”
“You either,” I said.
Dad pushed past me to grab a beer from the fridge, snapped it open with the bottle opener clipped to his belt, and took a long swig. “You want one, son?” I shook my head and walked over to scratch the dog behind the ears. Old Gunther moaned and licked my palm.
“Has he been out?” I asked. My parents didn’t respond, my father too busy thumbing through a thick wad of unpaid bills, Mom staring into the blue milk she stirred slowly around her bowl.
“I’ll take him,” I said aloud to no one in particular. As I clipped on Gunther’s leash and reached for the doorknob, I heard them starting up again.
“You want to tell me what this bill is for, Ellie? Huh? You gonna pay this fucking bill anytime this century?”
“It’s my money, Jim! I can buy whatever the hell I want with my money.”
“The hell it’s your money! Who do you think’s been keeping a
