Chapter Five
CHAPTER
FIVE
Derek
My shift is nearly over. I’m putting a stack of paper napkins in the cupboard for my boss, Gina. I’m a whole foot taller than her, even with her piled-high Dolly Parton curls. My phone buzzes.
hey, at ur house, u home?
I feel like I’m on one of those drop-of-doom rides at the theme park. I’m strapped in, and my lunch just might come through my nose.
Miguel doesn’t know where I live. But if he’s at my house, that means I’m screwed. “Shit.” I stare at my phone screen. “Shit.”
Gina looks up. She’s wiping tables down, singing Aretha Franklin like she’s a paid background vocalist. Without missing a lyric, she reprimands me with her blue eyes caked in layers of mascara.
coming now don’t go in, I text back.
Then I apologize to Gina and I’m out the door by the time she yells something back.
Within seconds I’m blazing down the street on my bike like it’s the Batmobile.
Then I’m in my old neighborhood, a place I never go unless I’m feeling morose.
It’s the picture-perfect world Mom and I left behind months ago.
On the day we moved, summer was painfully bright.
We sat in the U-Haul, and shouts of Cannonball!
and splashes from the neighbor’s pool filtered through the windows.
I would miss the ease of summer nights here, the stream of glitter sprinkling the ocean from shore to sun.
Boats cutting through the shimmery trail, carrying girls and fun and laughter.
As we pulled the U-Haul out of our street, the palm trees fanned the houses—three and four stories high—like they were regal.
Then we drove away and parked the van in front of a pink bungalow that was nice enough, but would always be empty.
The problem now is, I haven’t told the guys we moved yet.
I see Henry Lee’s hair first. It’s like an upscale landscaping in itself: jet-black, gelled into a Mohawk, and shaved on one side.
Sometimes he sprays color on the tips. Freshman year, he had wavy hair with bangs and looked like a model.
Sophomore year, he buzzed it short and bleached it blond.
And now it’s junior year and a whole different Henry.
When I pull up, neither he nor Miguel says anything. They’re staring at my head.
“Shit,” I say again.
“What’s with the origami hat?” Henry asks.
“And the dumb vest.” Miguel points at my chest like it’s covered in snot.
I swing off my bike and lean it against the iron gate. “It’s called work,” I say, with the greatest nonchalance I can muster. “Wouldn’t hurt you guys to get a job too.”
“Damn. You sound like my mom,” Henry says. “You need a job, Henry! You don’t know the value of money, Henry!”
“Why get a job if you’re not, like … poor?” Miguel asks.
Poor. The word sits on his tongue like a spoonful of sewer sludge sprinkled with roach juice and beetle dung. I want to punch him.
“Guys, it’s no big deal,” I say. “Just trying to learn a little responsibility. Wouldn’t kill you to do the same.”
“Mm, I disagree,” Miguel says.
A bad day for the guys is being grounded from yacht privileges. They have no idea things are different for me now.
Dad was always cool about paying for our hangouts and parties, even taking Miguel’s family with us on a cruise.
So they’re not going to understand how bad things are now.
I can’t tell them that Mom financially destroyed us, and that without my new job, I wouldn’t have any spending money, which includes school lunches.
And more importantly, I wouldn’t have enough money to apply for college without a fee waiver.
They wouldn’t understand. Or worse yet, maybe they would, and they’d stop hanging out with me.
Bottom line is, Miguel and Henry are all I have left from Before. They’re my only anchor to the past where I wish I could have stayed.
I look toward the house, and I can almost see our ghosts through the walls: me and Miguel and Valeria, running down the basement steps to play foosball; Mom and Dad, dancing barefoot on the kitchen tiles, blasting Bon Jovi; birthday hats; barbecues; board games; family dinners.
Maybe we left pieces of ourselves in there.
A lost game token down the vent, a forgotten box in the attic.
That potted vine that hung in the kitchen that Mom forgot to take. Maybe we’re still in there.
The driveway is empty now, the curtains drawn. I’m praying for the front door to stay closed, for whoever lives there now to not be home.
“Why are you here?” I ask the guys. “I told you already. Mom doesn’t want anyone over.”
“’Cause she’s grieving? It’s been two years, man,” Miguel says.
“So what? Grief isn’t linear.”
“Yo. Whatever. Just change out of those ridiculous clothes. McAllister found the keys to his dad’s bike. We’re gonna take it for a spin.”
On any other day I would have laughed at how dumb Brody McAllister’s dad was, but I’m feeling kind of dumb myself. Miguel and Henry are eyeing me, waiting.
“I can change later,” I say, walking toward Henry’s Benz parked at the curb.
“Ho-ho, no way!” Henry waves his hands in objection. “You’re gonna scare away all the chicks. Just go change.”
“Don’t feel like it.”
“Hey, you wanna hang or not?” Miguel adjusts his hat over his shiny eyebrow ring. “Seriously, you look fucking ridiculous.”
I look at the house again. Did I see a shadow move inside?
“I’ll just change here,” I say, pulling my shirt out of my backpack.
“How about those?” Henry points at my creased white pants. “No offense, but I don’t wanna see your balls. Just change inside, dude. Is there something you’re not telling us? What’s the problem?”
“Fine. Fine.” Sighing, I sling the bag over my shoulders. “Stay here.”
I push the wrought iron gate. Locked, of course. I hoist myself up onto one of the ornate spirals and pull myself over, then drop to the ground, feeling a slight tweak in my ankle, and bend down to rub the pain.
“Why didn’t you just use the code, genius?” Miguel asks.
“If I knew the code, I would have used the code. Genius,” I say. “Mom changed it. Changes it all the time and forgets to tell me. I told you. She’s not well.”
I shake out the pain and make my way up the stone driveway, past the gushing fountain, a wave of emotions riding me.
I miss this house. I miss everything about it, how it used to be.
The curtains are a powdery blue now. Ours were striped gray and white.
The rug used to say PEACE, not HOME SWEET HOME.
I look at the drawn curtains before picking up the rug where the spare key used to be.
It’s gone. Of course it is. I look over my shoulders at the guys.
Henry is peering through the gate like a jailed man looking to freedom.
“Come on!” he yells.
I press a finger against my lip and make a sign like Mom’s sleeping. Then I make a last Hail Mary and wiggle the front door latch, push and pull fast, hoping the people who live here now put off fixing the door like we did. I push and pull again. Again. And finally, the front door swings open.
I’m in.