THE OLD GIRLS WEREN'T COMING.
I'd told Jaime to meet at my house at 2:00 on Sunday. It was now 2:05.
I tried to tell myself it didn't matter. It was a sunny afternoon. Ev and Crock and I were hanging out in my driveway. They were shooting hoops and I was cleaning my car. Same as it ever was.
I asked the two of them to please keep the basketball from bouncing on Ginny's hood, and they said why don't you move her to the street, and I said because it's my driveway, and why don't you shoot hoops at someone else's house for once?
Yeah. It was a nice try, but we all knew they couldn't leave. Home for Crock meant his stepdad, Idiot Willy, who didn't like him and who kept live ammo around the house. Home for Ev meant his house at the top of Walter's Hill, where his mom tried to dress him to coordinate with her chintz sofa. They both preferred my house, even though it was haunted.
The basketball bounced once onto the pavement, then ricocheted onto Ginny's bumper. "Sorry," Ev said, not sorry at all. "So, are we going to see Ziggy today or not?"
I stopped buffing Ginny's hood. "How do you know about him?" I hadn't said anything to them. It didn't seem worth it until the Old Girls signed on.
"Jaime told him," Crock said. Swish! He fired a jumper from three-point land (my lawn). The ball went straight through the net.
"Yeah? What else did she tell you?"
Ev lined up another outside shot, and I could tell it was going to miss. It was going to dent my car. So, like a dumb-ass, instead of going for the rebound directly, I threw myself on Ginny's hood, shielding her from the ball.
Then, of course, as I was spread out like that, looking like a doofus, I heard the purr of an engine and lifted my head in time to see the girls pull up in Jaime's parents' Volkswagen Rabbit.
I stood up real quick.
I watched Sonia unfold herself, colt-like, from the passenger side, and everything from my head to my nuts slid and jolted so hard it felt like my guts were doing a slam dance.
She was one long, thin girl. Her brown eyes were the size of 45s. She had teased-up black hair and a skinny, grabbable rattail of a braid that had grown a couple of inches since we'd been together. Now it was glossy and sleek like a whip, and it hung over her left shoulder and reached down to the crevice between her boobs. I wanted to kiss the length of it like I used to. I wanted to feel the crack of it across my face.
She came closer and I inhaled her scent, all musky, like cinnamon and damp earth.
I didn't realize I was shaking until Ev put a hand on my arm in a be cool gesture.
I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked toward the girl of my life. "Hey," I said. "I'm glad you-"
She held up her palm like a traffic cop. "Why didn't you tell Jaime about the money?" she said.
"What money?"
"Oh yeah," Crock said. "I made some calls. There's a purse. Not just airplay and studio time."
"How big?" I said.
"Fifteen hundred dollars," Crock said.
Money. Why hadn't I thought of that? Of course that would reel her in. Sonia's dad was a self-made man with a chain of appliance stores. He wasn't big on spreading his cash around, though. So while the Krajiceks had a condo at Mount Bachelor and another one in Cabo San Lucas, Sonia would have to work her way through college. Her dad acted like he was doing her a big favor, but you could tell he cared less about her than about sipping cabernet in a hot tub somewhere.
Meanwhile, Jay was getting out of the car from the other side, wearing an outfit so bright and polka-dotted she looked like Minnie Mouse.
"It's not a lot if you split it five ways…" Crock went on.
"Six," I said. "We've got Ziggy now."
Sonia's record-sized eyes popped out a little more, and she shot Jaime a look. "You want us to split our prize money with him? Isn't that taking it a little far?" she said.
I thought about saying, It was his idea. He deserves a cut. But I looked at my ex, who was here in front of me but already backing away, and I screwed Ziggy completely.
"You're right," I said. "We can probably talk him into working pro bono."
Another snort from Crock.
After what seemed like a beat too long, Jaime asked Sonia quietly, "Should we go in?"
"I got Milk Duds. And Tab," I said. I knew it was her favorite snack combo. She loved picking Duds out of her teeth.
"All right," she said at last. "As long as you know I'm in it for the money. This is just business. Understand?" She jabbed me in the chest.
My crooked fingers ached with longing. I wanted her to hurt me over and over again.
"Sure. No prob."
· · ·
I led them all down to the basement. Ev's eyes flicked to the spot on the wall where the stain was showing through. He'd been here the day of Dad's accident too.
Everyone else rushed ahead to their stations.
Ev's bass and my guitar were on stands in the corner by the amp, next to the upright piano with faux wood paneling. I figured Sonia wouldn't be "in" enough to bring her kit, so I found upturned paint buckets and a Folgers Crystals coffee can. As I may have mentioned: Sonia can beat on anything.
Crock found the food.
He pulled a six-pack of Tab from the drippy basement fridge and set it on the Formica coffee table, along with a tray of tea sandwiches (peanut butter and grape jelly) and a carefully arranged pyramid of Milk Duds.
"Did you really cut the crusts off these?" Crock said, double-fisting the sandwiches.
I nodded. "Dud?" I offered Sonia.
"Those things look like rabbit poop," Crock said, his mouth sticky and his speech slurring from the peanut butter.
"They're not for you, ass-wipe," I said. Crock kept eating.
There was a tinny, out-of-tune clang. Jay was testing the piano. She played a couple of runs that sounded classical. Probably Beethoven. It was Jaime's version of warming up.
She played the runs again, but she began to change the beat, put a little hesitation in it. 1-2, 1-2-3. Waiting until the last moment to play the next note. That little bit of syncopation gave it a Latin feel.
Sonia, meanwhile, found the coffee can and started shaking it like a maraca.
I opened a Tab and sipped, closing my eyes. Do you hear it? I heard Ziggy's voice in my head. Do you hear how it could be?
Yes, I thought. Yes and yes and yes. My buddies were weaving a kind of Latin magic around me. Ev and me could pick it up at any time and words would follow. Two verses. A bridge. A chorus.
Then it was over with a shriek.
"Stop it, stop it, stop it! Do you have any idea what time it is?"
Cilla came down the stairs wearing nothing but an oversized football jersey, her bleached hair sticking up in a rat's nest, the skin under her eyes thin and purple. She looked like someone's tragic heroin-addicted girlfriend.
Sonia and Jay stopped playing.
"Do you know how late I worked this morning?"
It was a rhetorical question. Any time of day or night was too late for her.
"You," my sister went on, glaring at Sonia. "What the hell are you doing here? You said Noah was an asshole and you were better off without him, remember?"
"It's just business," Sonia said in such a soft voice it sounded as though her mouth was jammed with peanut butter. Which it wasn't.
"Whatever," Cilla said. "Look, if you want to start up with my brother again, be my guest. Break more fingers. Break anything you want. I don't care. But you can't practice here. I work nights. You guys almost drove me to the loony bin last time."
I felt rage wash over me. My hands balled into fists at my sides.
"Why don't you move out, then?" I said.
She glared at me. "What?"
I felt the leather of my square-toed boots thicken. I wanted to stomp her into chunky salsa. "I said: Why don't you move out?"
Jay closed the lid on the highball piano, with the watermarks from years of our parents' guests setting down their scotch and sodas, and looked at a watch she wasn't wearing. "Sonia and I have to study," she said. "Personal finance." Then she mumbled something that sounded like "worth half a grade."
Sonia shuffled her feet, then swept some Milk Duds directly into her purse. "See you, Noah," she said.
Crock and Ev followed them, muttering blah blah ride home blah blah blah, even though Crock only had to go across the street.
I heard the front door open and close.
Fuckin' A. I'd almost done it. I'd actually gotten us back together, for five whole minutes. Then my stupid-bitch sister ruined it.
She started shrieking even before the front door closed. "What gives you the right to boss me around?"
"Easy. You're twenty-one years old. You've got a job. You don't pay rent and you never do the dishes."
"I do the dishes. I do the dishes plenty."
"-I mow the lawn. I vacuum-"
"-I'm up late working hard. Not something you'd understand."
And then I did it. The one thing I vowed I'd never do.
I pushed her.
This was no mosh pit. There was no one behind her to help her up. She fell backward onto the stairs, and even though she didn't crack her head, she might as well have. That look of wild-eyed fear that came over her-I'd seen it many times before, but never pointed at me.
It only lasted a second, then she was back to being the Cilla I knew, the boss of me and untold legions of shiftless truckers, and I was back to being Noah, the kid who looked tough but who never ever fought back.
"Please. Don't say it," I begged.
She got to her feet, and even though she was my height, she towered over me. "You're no better than Dad."
That was all I could take. I ran past her up the stairs, outside, and into Ginny, feeling like I was never going to breathe again.
· · ·
I drove aimlessly, thinking, What have I done?
If there was one thing I'd learned living with an abusive asshole, it was how to avoid one. Most of the time you can find a corner to hide in until the booze wears off, or payday comes, or they bag a black-tailed deer, or their football team wins the Rose Bowl, or whatever they need in order to feel good about themselves again and don't have to take their shitty life out on you.
But that was no help today. What happens when you're the abusive asshole?
Where do you hide from yourself?