Chapter Twelve Portland, OR 2007 #2
“Sorry, Nan,” Chrissie said with a gurgle of laughter. “But you don’t have to worry about me. Grimshaw is just a friend. We mostly read books together.”
Scarlett lost no time in dragging her friend into the safety of her bedroom—or so she thought.
The moment the door closed behind her, she’d hoped to shut out any and all conversations related to birth control, her mother, and her grandmother’s attempt at instructing them, but Chrissie wasn’t so easy to shake off.
“She’s being protective,” Chrissie said, so much kindness and understanding in her voice that Scarlett wanted to open the door again just so she could slam it. “It’s cute, if you think about it.”
Then Chrissie did think about it, which was the one thing Scarlett had been trying to avoid. Her mouth turned pensive. “Or maybe she just wants to talk about her. Your mom, I mean. I know you don’t like it when anyone brings her up, but—”
“There’s nothing to say.” Scarlett flopped onto her twin-sized bed and lay flat on her back, her head propped on her hands.
There was a damp patch in the ceiling from where the upstairs tenants had let their bathtub overflow a few months ago.
She’d tried covering it up with a rainbow flag, but the pins kept coming loose so the ends fluttered over her head while she slept.
“She had a baby before she was ready. That baby grew up into a sick kid. She decided the kid was too much for her, so she left.”
“Scarlett…”
Scarlett’s throat got tight in the way it did whenever she thought about her mother.
She didn’t remember anything about her, and even though Grandma had pictures—whole albums of them, actually—flipping through them felt like looking at the photos that came in frames from the store.
In them, her mother was beautiful and dark-eyed and laughing, and almost always seemed to have her arms flung around the person next to her.
As a kid, Scarlett had sometimes wrapped her own arms around her stomach and squeezed her eyes tight, imagining it was her who was locked in her mother’s embrace, but by the time she opened her eyes again, she always felt worse.
Those pictures were someone else’s life, someone else’s memories, a Photoshopped version of a world she was never meant to inhabit.
Scarlett turned her head to glare at her friend, determined, as usual, to drag Chrissie in her wake.
“Should we talk about your mom, too? About how she buys you the same sweater from the same store for your birthday every year? Or how you’re still not allowed to hang posters or pictures in your room because it has to stay identical to Malcolm’s even though you’re five years older than he ever got to be? ”
All the color flooded out of Chrissie’s face, and she looked inadvertently to the wall, where the paint-by-number puppy picture they’d once stolen from Malcolm’s room still hung.
It was inexpertly finished and framed in a cheap black plastic frame from the dollar store, but not once, in all the years she’d had it, had Scarlett considered taking it down.
“It’s okay to be mad at her,” Chrissie said.
Even though Scarlett was in a nasty mood and they both knew it, Chrissie lay down next to her and found her hand. Their fingers intertwined with the ease of long practice.
“It’s even okay to hate her,” she continued. Then, after an agonizing pause, “But if you ask me, she did the right thing when she dropped you off here. She knew she didn’t have it in her to take care of you, so she gave you to someone who could. That’s more than mine’s ever done for me.”
Scarlett sighed. One of the worst things about Chrissie was that she knew just what to say to make Scarlett recognize all of her worst flaws.
That was why terrible people always sought out other terrible people.
To be friends with someone whose light always shone bright and good was to walk around with a constant spotlight on your sins.
“When I’m a mom, I’m never going to treat my kids that way,” Chrissie said.
Her cheek came to rest beside Scarlett’s, the pillowy softness of it soothing her even more.
“I don’t care what happens to them or how hard life gets.
Even if one of them dies and I’d rather turn myself off than go through the pain again, I’m going to be there for every minute.
I’m going to care so much that they wake up every morning absolutely smothered by my love. ”
Scarlett gave a reluctant laugh. “That sounds awful. I pity your poor kids.” Then, because this conversation was making her feel all the things she’d spent the last decade pushing down, she added, “I bet Grimshaw will be a good dad. He’ll teach his kids how to put on eyeliner so it looks like they’re not wearing any.
Plus he’s tall, so he’ll probably throw out professional basketball players.
Make sure you start them in sports early. ”
The cheek against Scarlett’s grew suddenly warm.
“It’s not like that between us. Not really.
I think he mostly likes having someone who reads all his book recommendations without question.
” Chrissie paused as if considering her next words carefully.
“You can have him, if you want. Well, he’s not a possession, obviously, but you know what I mean.
I don’t know anything about boys or relationships, and you definitely have more of an idea about what goes on in beehives than I do. ”
“Yeah. You get stung.” Scarlett followed this up with a laugh, but the sound was brittle around the edges.
The thing was, Chrissie was serious. She would step back and let Scarlett sweep the field. With just one word, she’d push down all her own feelings for the sake of what someone else wanted—and she’d do it without once counting the cost.
Scarlett might only be fifteen years old, but she was getting sick and freaking tired of people not counting the cost of things.
When moms left or stopped caring, it was the kids who paid the price.
When grandmothers gave up their golden years to care for their grandkids, it was a struggle all around.
And when best friends let a hot yogurt guy who liked to read pretentious books slip through their fingers, Scarlett was the one who got mad about it.
“And don’t even think about giving the things you like away,” Scarlett said with a ferocity that she knew was misplaced. She snuggled deeper against Chrissie, her fingers curling like claws. “You take what you want from this world, Christina Thomas, and don’t you apologize to anyone for it.”
She thought, but did not add, Not even to me.