Chapter 13
I could get used to ignoring my brother’s phone calls. I did it so well for months, all the way until my father asked that I try to show up for him more often. “Be involved,” he had said. It all came with the side order of owing my father a favor for keeping my ass out of jail.
I’m not sure how that equates to owing Caleb for anything, however.
Maybe because it’s easier to sink his teeth into my brother if we’re both competing for attention.
Granted, I don’t want the attention. I want the bear off my back.
But that bear got a whole lot bigger when Mike-slash-Steve fed him.
The bear is the entire reason I’m responding to Caleb’s text now as I sit outside our mother’s Tucson salon. Apparently, my presence is needed for more documents and a press conference.
CALEB: Don’t worry. You won’t have to speak. You’re just there to stand in the back and keep your mouth shut.
The low chuckle that slips through my lips every time I read my brother’s last comment is a symptom of our growing mutual resentment. I wonder if Caleb really thinks I’m stupid or is simply taking stabs at me to make himself feel better. My gut says it’s the latter.
I’ve been working on the right words to respond with for about ten minutes.
I’m sure our mom is wondering what the fuck I’m doing sitting out here in my car, keeping it idling like some getaway driver.
She keeps glancing at me through the massive storefront window while she blows out her client’s long platinum hair.
ME: Tell our father I’ll be there. BTW, it’s cool he’s made you his personal assistant. Good for you.
I finally hit send and watch our text string just long enough to see my brother’s response dots come and go a good five times before he finally sends his best retort.
CALEB: Fuck off.
I kill the engine and pocket my phone and keys as I leave my car and head into my mother’s salon.
It’s a simple space in the heart of downtown Tucson, steps away from the college campus.
Most of her clients are sorority girls willing to drop major bucks for extensions and highlights.
The woman in the chair today doesn’t quite fit that bill—she looks to be in her late sixties, and her hair is silky white blonde.
She’s admiring my mom’s work with a hand mirror as I walk in.
“I love it, Cora. You work miracles, I swear,” the woman praises. I step to the side and lean against the bookcase filled with fancy shampoos and hair oils while my mom runs this woman’s credit card through a reader.
“It’s my pleasure, Vivian. You know you’re my favorite,” my mom says, giving the woman a copy of her receipt and a hug. “See you in six weeks.”
The woman pauses when she’s a few feet from me and scans me from head to toe. It would feel invasive and objectifying if it weren’t so blatant. I think that’s her goal.
“Well, this one got his mother’s looks, didn’t he?” She reaches for my shoulder with her hand and softly taps it, the weight of the three gold rings on her fingers giving it a little extra plunk.
“Thank you, ma’am. I owe my mom for a lot more than looks, though. She put a good head on my shoulders,” I say, tapping my temple.
Her deep red lips spread into a crescent smile as she taps my shoulder a few more times.
“You’re a good son for sure. And cute to boot!”
I chuckle, a little embarrassed by her compliment perhaps, but I wish her a good day as she slips through the door and leaves me alone with my favorite person.
“You didn’t have to make the drive. I would have gotten time off to drive up to Scottsdale eventually,” she says, reaching toward me until we’re embracing.
Nobody hugs like Cora Anderson. When I was a kid and the world felt chaotic, probably thanks to having a father who liked to take his bad days at the office out on his family by disparaging us with swear words, my mom would make the noise go mute with one simple hug.
I feel a bit like she’s doing that now, and I think she can feel me relax in her arms.
“Take a seat. What’s up?” She pats the back of her chair when we part.
I didn’t come here for a haircut, but if she’s offering, I’ll never turn it down.
Owning this place was my mom’s dream. It was one of many things my father thought of as embarrassing.
How could the wife of a hedge fund investment officer, who works with millions of dollars, want to spend her days cutting hair?
My dad never understood the creative pull my mom felt, much like he doesn’t get why I find joy listening to motors hum. We’re built differently—us and him.
I can’t really unload everything on my mind to my mother, though I wish I could.
The recording equipment and wire I now have hidden under the front seat of my Camaro isn’t something I can tell anyone about.
Just like I can’t breathe a word about the arson I went to juvie for.
Or the dominoes that led up to my parents’ eventual divorce.
It doesn’t leave me with much other than Saylor Kelly.
But in a way, my mom is probably the only person I can talk to about her, so maybe this was kismet.
She swoops the black cape around my chest and fastens it behind my neck, tugging the cloth straight around my body before running her hands through my hair and pressing her fingertips into my scalp. I close my eyes and breathe in slowly through my nose.
“You remember Saylor, right?” Of course she does. My mom and brother haven’t been total strangers. He shared his relationship with our mom, or at least mentioned it.
“How could I forget her. The girl who tried to sneak my maltipoo home in her Care Bears backpack when she was eight.”
My mouth forms an instant smile as my mom laughs at the memory.
“I forgot about that,” I say. “When her backpack started barking, she acted like she had no clue where the noise was coming from.”
We both laugh at the absurdity. My mom nudges my head to one side as she bends down behind me to look at my reflection straight on.
“Maybe just a little touch up on the sides, and a tiny trim?”
I nod.
“Sounds great.” I think she’s bummed my hair isn’t in worse shape.
I feel guilty that I’ve gotten it cut by someone else.
It’s tough to make it down here often enough, though, and I was starting to get a bit shaggy last week.
I wanted to look good for Caleb’s graduation party, mostly so my father had one less thing to pick at.
It’s bad enough I work in a garage, I don’t have to look like I do . . . at least, according to him.
“I know it’s been a few years since I’ve seen her in person, but she grew into a lovely woman, didn’t she? At least from what I could see on your brother’s social media. I’m assuming they’re still together?”
The scissors snip above my head as I wince, squinting one eye more than the other.
“Well?”
My mom stops cutting and shifts her body weight, jutting out a hip as her hand with the scissors moves to the side.
“Rowan.”
Her tone is the scolding kind.
“Don’t make assumptions. It’s not like that,” I start.
She punches out a short laugh, then goes back to trimming the top of my head.
“So, it’s not like you decided to hook up with your brother’s girlfriend, who you’ve babysat, might I add?”
Ouch. She had to add that part?
“In fact, no. It’s not,” I insist, though her summary is fairly accurate. “Just so you know, Caleb broke up with Saylor. There wasn’t some sordid overlap of her hooking up with both of us.”
“My god, I hope not for her sake. You’re both a lot in your own ways. I can’t imagine the baggage she’d have to deal with if she were stuck between both of you.”
I purse my lips, and my mom softly laughs, stopping the trim to squeeze my shoulders briefly.
“You know I’m saying this with love, and, well . . . I take ownership of most of that baggage. But lord help that girl if she’s found herself at the point of an Anderson brother love triangle.”
“Ohhhhh, no. No, no, no, no—” I wave a hand in front of my body as if I’m cleaning a window. “This isn’t a love story. No L word. It’s not like that. It’s just—”
“Rowan, I know we have a close relationship, but if you’re about to tell me this is just about sex, and it’s with a girl I helped raise in many ways, well—”
I squeeze my eyes shut tight. I should have kept Saylor off the discussion table too. I pinch the bridge of my nose and exhale.
“I’m not. Of course, I respect Saylor more than that.
I’m just saying it’s not like I was waiting around for her to break up with Caleb.
I wasn’t pining after her for years. Hell, until this summer, I still saw her as the bratty little sister who wanted to sneak into my room and snoop through shit. ”
I flash back to the time Saylor found my weed under my bed and took it to my mom. I think my mom is remembering that too, based on the faint smirk on her face.
“Alright. I’ll let you off the hook. Let me just say this .
. .” My mom pauses with the scissors above my head again, sucking in her top lip as she appears to think.
“However long you’ve seen Saylor with new eyes, you can’t forget that she also carries a history with you.
So, navigate this situation with care, for you . . . and for her.”
My gaze meets my mom’s in the mirror.
“Did you give Caleb that same warning when he started dating her?” My chest tightens at my word choice, dating. Thankfully, my mom seems to acknowledge it with only the slight tilt of her head.
“Caleb and Saylor have a different history than you and her do, and you know that.” We hold our stare for a few long, painful seconds.
My mom is part of that history too, even though she doesn’t verbalize it.
She doesn’t have to. It’s a scar that she and I share, a wound we both try to heal for each other.
And I get where she’s coming from. Saylor doesn’t have that wound, and I have the power to keep her safe from it.
“I understand,” I finally utter.