#1 - Page 15 (2/2)
“You’re such a b.i.t.c.h, Charlie,” He says, laying a plate down in front of me. He glances at Janette. “Sorry,” he says.
She shrugs. “What is your name?” she asks through a mouthful of food.
“Dover. That’s what my friends call me.”
I nod. Dover.
“So last weekend…,” I say.
Dover bites. “Yeah, that was crazy. I didn’t expect to see you back here this soon.”
“Why not?” I ask. I’m trying to be casual, but my insides are jumping around like they’re being shocked.
“Well, your man was pretty p.i.s.sed. I thought he was going to blow his s.h.i.+t before he got kicked out.”
“Blow his s.h.i.+t…?” I change my tone so it’s not so much a question. “Blow his s.h.i.+t. Yeah. That was…”
“You looked pretty p.i.s.sed,” Dover says. “I can’t blame you. You might have liked it here if Silas hadn’t ruined it for you.”
I sit back, the chicken suddenly unappealing. “Yeah,” I say, glancing at Janette, who is watching us both curiously.
“You finished, brat?” I ask her. She nods, wiping her greasy fingers on a napkin. I pull a twenty out of my purse and drop it on the table.
“No need,” Dover says, waving it away.
I lean down till we are eye to eye. “Only my boyfriend gets to buy me dinner,” I say, leaving the money on the table. I walk to the door, Janette trailing behind me.
“Yeah, well,” Dover calls, “you live by that rule, you can eat for free seven days a week!”
I don’t stop until I reach the car. Something happened in there. Something that made Silas almost lose his s.h.i.+t. I start the car and Janette lets out a loud burp. We both start laughing at the same time.
“No more Doritos for dinner,” I tell her. “We can learn to cook.”
“Sure,” she shrugs.
Everyone breaks their promises to Janette. She’s got that bitter air about her. We don’t speak for the rest of the ride home, and when I pull into the garage, she jumps out before I’ve turned off the engine.
“Nice spending time with you, too,” I call after her. I imagine that when I walk in, Charlie’s mother will be waiting for her—perhaps to chew her out for taking the car—but when I step into the house, everything is dark except for the light underneath the door to Janette’s and my bedroom. Mother has gone to sleep. Mother doesn’t care. It’s perfect for the situation I’m in. I get to snoop around and try to figure out what happened to me without the questions and rules, but I can’t help thinking about Janette—about how she’s just a little kid who needs her parents. Everything is so screwed up.
Janette is listening to music when I open the door.
“Hey,” I say. I suddenly have an idea. “Have you seen my iPod?” Music tells a lot about a person. I don’t have to have a memory to know that.
“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Maybe it’s with all your other c.r.a.p in the attic.”
My other c.r.a.p?
The attic?
I suddenly feel excited.
Maybe there’s more to me than a bland bedspread and a stack of bad novels. I want to ask her what kind of c.r.a.p, and why my c.r.a.p is in the attic instead of in our shared bedroom, but Janette has stuck the buds back in her ears and is working hard to ignore me.
I decide the best route would be to go up to the attic to check things out for myself. Now, where is the attic?
The front door to my house opens as I’m putting my car in park, and Ezra walks outside, wringing her hands together nervously. I get out of the car and walk to where she’s standing, wide-eyed.
“Silas,” she says, her voice quivering. “I thought he knew. I wouldn’t have mentioned Charlie was here, but you didn’t seem to be hiding it, so I thought things had changed and she was allowed over here...”
I hold up my hand to stop her from more unnecessary apologies. “It’s fine, Ezra. Really.”
She sighs and runs her hand across the ap.r.o.n she’s still wearing. I don’t understand her nervousness, or why she antic.i.p.ated I would be angry with her. I shove more rea.s.surance into my smile than is probably necessary, but she looks as if she needs it.
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