Part 2 (1/2)

I followed Jack inside and found him standing motionless in the doorway between the hall and the kitchen. I touched his back and said, ”What's wrong?” Then I looked over his shoulder and saw what he saw.

The floor was covered with food. The milk from the refrigerator, the flour and sugar and cocoa from the cupboard, the pasta and the rice from their jars on the counter: all of it mashed into a thick, gooey paste that covered the linoleum. The bread had been pulled out of its plastic bag, slice by slice, and ground into the mess on the floor. The condiments from the refrigerator door, the pickle relish and the mayonnaise and the mustard, had been thrown against the floor in their jars. Shards of gla.s.s sparkled like diamonds in the muck. What couldn't be broken had been dumped. What couldn't be dumped had been broken.

Jack turned on his heel and pushed past me without a word. The expression on his face was dangerous. I let him go.

Slowly, I picked my way across the floor to the cupboard under the sink, where I found a dustpan and a rag. I used the rag to push the mess into the dustpan. There was an acrid chemical smell in the air, strong enough to make my eyes water, but I didn't identify it until I carried the first dustpan full of ruined food over to the garbage can and lifted the lid. There were three empty bottles of cleaning fluid lying on top of the garbage inside.

I sighed and found a pair of rubber gloves under the sink.

After a while, Jack came down and helped me. Cleaning the kitchen took us three hours, and the spoiled food filled two big garbage bags.

We were almost done when Raeburn appeared in the kitchen door, red-eyed, with a gla.s.s of whiskey in his hand. He stood and watched us for a few minutes.

”You're thinking now about the nature of my parental responsibility toward you,” he said finally. His words were slurred. ”But you'll soon realize that my parental responsibility is not the issue. Food is the issue. The parental responsibility construct is of no consequence.”

I didn't look up. Took a rag from the cupboard and began to wipe up the last smears of food on the floor.

”Doesn't matter whether we're in Persia or Iraq,” Raeburn said. ”You're still going to bed hungry. Do you understand? Finally, do you understand?”

2.

EVERYTHING IN THE KITCHEN had to be replaced, so Raeburn left us a hundred dollars on Monday. Jack made me ask him for it. ”He won't give it to me,” he said.

”He won't give it to me, either,” I said, but he did. I had to plead for it, though. We both knew he'd leave me the money in the end, but he wanted me to beg. When I gave the money to Jack, he counted it and stuffed it into his back pocket.

”And she says she doesn't know how to flirt,” he said.

I turned away.

The nearest place to eat was a bar that served takeout sandwiches during the day, fat overstuffed things with coleslaw and French fries right there between the slices of bread. We drove to the bar in the clothes we'd slept in and ordered four of them, three fried chicken and one fish, and devoured them in the truck. There was mayonnaise and grease-soaked paper everywhere. I ate one chicken sandwich and half of the fish; Jack ate the rest. They were disgusting. They were wonderful. When we were done, we went back up the Hill and took showers. I washed my hair and brushed it until it gleamed.

Then I put on a pair of shorts and a T-s.h.i.+rt, what I always wore during the summer. Jack took one look at me and marched me back into my bedroom, where he made me change into a different pair of shorts and a different T-s.h.i.+rt.

”What's the point?” I said.

”The point,” he said, ”is that the first time, you looked like you were wearing your brother's old clothes. Now you don't.”

”I like my brother's clothes.”

”I like you in my clothes, but take my word for it. No, don't braid your hair,” he said. ”Leave it down.”

”It's too hot,” I complained, but I did as he said.

This time, Jack made me go into the drugstore alone.

If I was lucky, I thought, it would be the boy's day off and I could just buy toothpaste and leave. But there he was, sitting at the counter with his hair in his eyes, looking bored. He was wearing a green cardigan sweater against the chill of the air conditioning, the kind that Raeburn sometimes wore in the fall.

As soon as he saw me he jumped to his feet.

”Toothpaste?” I said, managing to smile.

”Aisle six,” he said. ”One aisle down from the aspirin.”

He remembered us, then. The smile eased into my face a bit.

I walked to the aisle, chose a tube of toothpaste, and walked back. I could feel him again, watching me too closely. The scrutiny hadn't grown any easier to deal with. The muscles in my legs still didn't seem to remember which way to move.

As he rang up the toothpaste, the boy said, shyly, ”Your name is Jo?”

”Josie,” I said. ”Well, Josephine, but-” I shut my mouth fast, in case I was babbling. I kept my eyes wide and my hands away from my hair, and tried to pretend that nothing I said really mattered to him. It was like talking to Raeburn.

”Oh,” he said. ”I heard your brother call you Jo the last time you two were in here. I'm Kevin.”

We stood for a minute. The drugstore was so quiet that I could hear the hum of the fluorescent lights above me. I was waiting for him to talk; maybe he was waiting for me.

”Your brother drives a blue Ford,” he said. ”I see you two together a lot.”

”We are together a lot.”

”But you don't go to school.”

I shrugged.

”That must rock,” he said.

”I wouldn't know. I've never been to school.”

”Believe me, it rocks,” he said. ”School's a drag.”

”That bad?” I said.

”Yes,” he said. Now it was his turn to shrug. ”Or-I don't know. It's getting better, because I've got two free periods this fall, plus the jazz band. Other than that,” he shook his head, ”it pretty much sucks.”

I tried to look sympathetic, but I had no idea what he was talking about. ”How much time do you have left?”

”Two years.”

Behind him, through the store's front window, I could see Jack's golden head inside the truck, waiting for me. Waiting for me as I flirted with a high school boy, I thought, a little bewildered. Was I doing a good job? How was I supposed to know? It would be easier if there were a meter that you could look at, like the temperature gauge in the truck.

Then Kevin said, ”So what about you?”

”What about me?” I asked and smiled as if I'd said something witty.

Kevin smiled back and said, ”What do you like to do?” His throat moved as he swallowed hard. ”Do you like to go to the movies?”

”Sometimes,” I said, although I'd only been a few times. The smile on my face was beginning to feel strained. ”Not really.”