Chapter 1 #2
"And we all remember, honey. We all watched your qualifier. We'd all love to see the great Morgan Wheeler show off a little."
I snort. "The great Morgan Wheeler. The only great thing about me is the size of my ass, and I'm using great in the sense of the Great Barrier Reef, as in massive."
"Morgan."
"Alaina."
"You haven't forgotten how to skate."
"Well, no, but I haven't done anything more complicated than a single toe loop in…god, I don't even know how long. I think I tried a double toe loop once when Mal was eleven or twelve and twisted my ankle."
"So practice! You don't need to put together a showstopping short program, girl! Just get out there, do a jump or two and a few spins, and then let the kids take over."
"I'm almost fifty, Alaina."
"And? You're in fantastic shape, your self-deprecating jokes about the size of your butt aside. Just think about it. Please? There are more eyes than ever on the game this year. News crews from Juneau, Fairbanks, and Vancouver are coming."
"Oh, great. So half of Alaska and part of Canada will be watching when I fall on my ass and break my ankle."
"You won't."
"You don't know that."
"Yes, I do. Because when you put your mind to something, you always succeed."
I sigh. "I'll think about it."
"In the meantime, change out of your sweats, put on something cute, and come have drinks with the girls."
How well she knows me, I think, looking down at myself: flannel pants, thick wool socks, and a thick, hand-knit wool cardigan over a plain white tee, no bra.
"Fine. Just a couple of drinks," I say. “Meet you there in thirty."
“Bye-eeee!" she sing-songs.
I plug the phone in to charge so I don't run out of battery while I'm out and head up to change.
I leave the cardigan and tee on, adding a bra and some jeans—the ones without back pockets that do good things for my backside.
Ankle booties and some bangles on my wrists complete the half-hearted attempt at an outfit.
I run a brush through my hair and leave it down, and then pop by Mallory's room.
I tap and then peek in. She's belly-down on her bed, headphones on, and textbooks and notebooks spread out in front of her.
She has her laptop open and a YouTube video is playing a fast-paced visual assault of short-form content, her iPad propped up showing a complicated chemical formula, and her iPhone is off to the side, playing music—and, presumably, an ongoing barrage of texts and Snaps and DMs from her friends.
My brain hurts just looking at it all—I have never been able to fathom how she can have three screens at once, all doing different things, without getting overwhelmed.
I grab a hair-tie from her dresser just inside the door and shoot it at her like a rubber band to get her attention. It smacks against her laptop screen, and she rolls over and sits up facing me while tugging her headphones back in one motion. "What?" she snaps.
I arch my eyebrow at her, and she looks away sheepishly. "Sorry. I was concentrating. What's up?"
"I'm running into town to meet Alaina and Kath for a little bit. Your dinner is in the fridge if you get hungry."
"Thanks," she mutters, but doesn't immediately return to her studying—meaning, she has something to say, so I wait. "I'm sorry I stormed off and slammed the door, Mom. I'm just tired of having the same stupid argument with you. I just…I just wish you'd understand where I'm coming from."
I bite down on my initial response—which would have been snarky and unhelpful. Mal is a lot like me, which means we tend to get into catty tiffs a lot; as the adult and the mom, it's incumbent upon me to restrain my own temper, something I'm not very good at, historically.
"I'm tired of it, too, Mal. How about this—I'll think about a compromise, okay? An arrangement where you play hockey and keep up with your practice."
She doesn't like this, I can tell, but she holds back whatever counter she was considering; she nods, sighing. "I could do that. As long as your idea of a compromise actually meets what I want to some degree and isn't just another ultimatum in a different costume."
I exhale sharply, annoyance building in me like magma beneath a volcano. I bite it back. "We'll talk later, okay? We'll figure it out. Meet each other halfway."
"Don't stay out too late, Mom, and call me if you need a ride home." She grins as she says this, teasing.
"Yes, dear, I will." I point at her. "Don't forget to eat."
Mal has a tendency to get so focused on whatever she's doing that she forgets to eat, and then wakes up hungry in the middle of the night and stays awake snacking and watching YouTube.
Fucking YouTube, seriously. That shit is like crack for these kids.
She doesn't watch TV; she watches YouTube.
Friends? Gilmore Girls? Nahhh. LarryReads?
Yes. I guess I'm glad her favorite YouTuber is a book reviewer and not just, like, "lifestyle" or some vapid nonsense like that.
Yes, I'm aware how judgmental that makes me sound.
I'm a single mom of a teenage girl, and I'm well aware that the internet has far more influence over my daughter than I do.
I get into my Flame Red 2001 Jeep Cherokee and let her idle for a minute; she's an old girl, my Cherry, and needs a minute to wake up.
I've owned her since new, and she's all original, except things like tires, brakes, and suspension.
Mal drives a much newer but still used Toyota Tacoma, sold to us at a steep discount by Henry Howell, my cousin, who owns a used car dealership the next county north of us.
I'm actually kind of excited to be getting out on the town—I'm a homebody more and more as I age, and I haven't been out for drinks with the girls in weeks, if not months. Just the fact that I thought the phrase "out on the town" should tell you how lame I am, though: lamer than a one-legged goose.
B-and-I is hopping when I get there. Jukebox Jackson and the Jumpin' Johnnies are playing on the little stage in the alcove across from the bar just inside the door; Tomlin Falls' most popular band, they play a rollicking mix of rock, country, and Americana, both original tunes and covers.
They're at B-and-I during the week and Lonergan's on the weekends, and if there's a town event where a band is needed, like fairs, weddings, or block parties, they're the go-to.
Jukebox, bellied up to the mic, sees me enter and gives me a flirty wink as he belts the lyrics to a country-rock inspired cover of "Thank God I'm A Country Boy.
" Juke's been trying to get me to go out with him for nearly fifteen years, now, but at this point, his efforts are more out of playful habit than a real desire for me.
Mainly because, as an avowed, lifelong bachelor, we both know if I let him catch me, the fun would be over.
So I wink back and give my hips a bit of an extra sway as I weave through the crowd clustered around the bar and dance floor, making my way to the booths lining the walls at the back of the bar, around the four pool tables and dart board.
The only real difference between this place and Lonergan's is that this place is in town and clean, whereas Lonergan's is a few miles west of town on the highway that is the county border and is sticky, dirty, and smoky.
The clientele, despite all arguments to the contrary, isn't all that different; it's just that Lonergan's attracts the rough crowd of truckers and bikers that roar along the county highway.
B-and-I attracts the nearly-as-rough townie crowd that makes up my beloved Tomlin Falls.
I used to be a regular at Lonergan's back when I was dating Slade Slaughter—yes, that was his honest-to-god real name, on his birth certificate.
Sounds like a villain from those superhero movies.
He looked like one, too. Huge, with long blond hair and a long, braided beard, he was a biker and roughneck who spent half the year on oil rigs and the other half spending his money on booze, his bike, and me.
When he was good, he was good—with his words, his dick, and his fists.
Trouble was, when he was bad, he used his words and his fists on me, so when he was offered a job as a foreman on a rig down in the Gulf, I wasn't all that broken-hearted about it. I did have fun with him…when he wasn’t giving me black eyes, at least.
That was a long, long time ago, though. After the miscarriage and before I married Kevin.
I push both Slade and Kevin out of my mind—good riddance to both.
I hear Alaina's shrieking WHOOOO-HOOO! that precedes her taking a shot; I reach the table just as she, Kathy Tanner, and Ingrid throw back shots. Alaina sees me and holds up a pair of shots toward me. "Morgan! You're behind! Shoot 'em up, sweet thang!"
Oh goodness, our dear mayor is tying one on, it seems. I slide in beside her and throw back a shot and then accept a bottle of light beer, saving the second shot for a bit—I don’t drink much, and I have no intention of trying to catch up with or keep up with Alaina.
I get sucked into a conversation with the girls—mostly Kathy complaining about her husband Jim's propensity to leave his underwear on the floor, and does he even wipe his ass at ALL?
Ingrid recounts an unlikely but funny story about a tourist who was chased by an angry moose all the way through town and right past B-and-I.
Alaina takes part in both conversations, complaining about her husband's habit of clipping his toenails in bed while insisting the angry moose story is one hundred percent true, even though we all know if a tourist came in contact with an angry moose, there would be no more tourist in about six seconds.
Moose are, like, big, ya'll—average deer they are not.