Chapter 22
My car is taken to a shop and I take a cab home. It smells like Slim Jims and cigarettes and that terrible Little Trees Black Ice car freshener scent. The driver is on the phone with his wife the entire time, arguing. He berates her. She cuts him down.
There are some old unbranded hard candies in the cup holder next to me.
I unwrap one and pop it in my mouth and chomp down, then take a fistful of them and shove them in my pockets.
I’m gonna have to shame-return a lot of my recent regrets to pay for my car to get fixed.
Least I can do is get some free sugar out of it.
The cabbie pulls up to my place and puts the phone on mute.
“Feel better,” he says over his shoulder, then instantly unmutes and goes back to berating his wife.
I head inside and know immediately that Mom has a guy over when I’m hit with the thick, oversaturated scent of a Bath & Body Works three-wick candle. Mahogany coconut.
“Hi, hon!” Mom shouts with the manic enthusiasm that takes her over whenever she’s introducing a new man to me. “Didn’t realize you’d be back so soon!”
“Hi,” I say to Mom, ignoring her smeared lipstick and the man sitting next to her. I don’t have the space for conversation right now. I only have the space for reality TV and a family-size sack of salty potato chips. Anything to not have to feel. Or think. Sometimes I’m not sure which is worse.
“Tony, this is my daughter, Waldo,” she says, laughing nervously. “I’ve told her so much about you!”
“Hey there,” he says. “Good to meet ya.”
Tony the truck driver has leathery skin and dirt under his fingernails and an odor distinct enough for his own candle. Although I don’t know who would fork out sixteen bucks for a scent called Tobacco and Dollar-Store Shampoo.
“I made tacos,” Mom says. “There’s leftovers in the fridge if you wanna heat ’em up and come join us.”
My mouth hardens. It’s stupid. It’s not like throwing ground beef in a pan is a difficult thing to do, but still, she’s never done it for me. I want to scream at her. I want her to hug me.
“Go on, sweetheart,” she says. “Forty-five seconds should do it. Don’t want ’em burning your tongue. Then we can all play a board game or somethin’. Think I’ve got Clue in a cabinet somewhere.”
Tony coughs a wad of phlegm into a tissue and sets it on the coffee table for one of us to clean up later.
“Actually, I was just about to head out,” he says.
He brushes his jeans off as he stands, and Mom’s eyes flicker like a deer about to be struck by a car. “But I-I have dessert for us.”
“Well that sounds lovely but I don’t got much of a sweet tooth anyhow, darlin’.”
“It’s just some cupcakes from Safeway. They’re really not that sweet.”
“I’m quite alright, thanks though, little lady. ’Preciate the offer.” He pecks her cheek and puts on his coat.
“Oh, okay then,” Mom says as evenly as she can. But I hear the lump in her throat. She tugs on her necklace as Tony opens the door. “I’ll save you one for next time!”
“Sounds good. And nice meeting you, Wanda!”
The door slams. I heat up some tacos while Mom turns on The Bachelor and we split a cupcake while we watch.
One of the contestants is upset that she didn’t get enough time to talk with the guy, who looks like a walking wax figure.
Mom checks her phone every thirty seconds for a text that isn’t there, then every forty seconds, then every minute, then every five, the hope slowly draining out of her until, by the time we reach the end of the third episode of the night, her hope has been replaced with the sad droning of acceptance.
“You alright, sweetheart?” she asks as we watch another brokenhearted girl climb into the back of a Cadillac Escalade, roseless and rejected and weeping about how he was “the one.” They’re always so sure “the one” is the one who doesn’t want them.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, eyes glued to the TV with that faraway TV glaze. “You?”
“Yeah, I’m fine too,” she says, her eyes glued just the same.