Mom announced we’d be having lunch with her cousin Bobby. From New Jersey, or lately from Reno, both places so far from Montana that I had a hard time picturing how he’d get there—was he crossing the whole darn country just for lunch? I didn’t care enough to ask.
Mom had just picked me up from horseback riding camp outside Helena. I hadn’t given her one thought in two months, not since she dropped me there in late June. She said we’d stay overnight at a motel, so she could take me shopping for school clothes the next day. Said the motel had cable, and a pool, and continental breakfast. I said OK, no more or less excited about any of that than I was about meeting some cousin of hers for lunch. Or going home to the ugly yellow house overlooking an alleyway lined with ratty bushes that Mom had moved us to after the divorce. Where was home anymore, anyway? The cabin Dad built was gone—somebody else’s home now. I wanted to go back to the horse ranch. To Opal, the sweet white mare who’d reminded me of Diamond; to the nice girls from other places, who didn’t seem to notice the things the other sixth-graders picked on me about: bad breath, big lips, messy hair. I’d gotten a heart-covered note from Becca, a plastic ring from Julie. These would go in the box under my bed with the Chinese coins and Red Rose Tea figurines; with the gold-filled molar Dad plied from his own mouth when it rotted, and let me keep because I liked the way it shined; with the tie ring from the bridle Dad pulled off Diamond’s head before they shot her.
Mom jerked the dark blue Chevy Nova into the parking lot of the Flying Y, a grimy truckstop on a hill. I remembered it from other drives, other stops, as a place that stank of cigarette smoke and dirty bathrooms.
“Why’re we meeting him here?”
“We just are.” Mom flipped open her sun visor mirror to fix her lipstick. The mole on her upper lip stuck out like a nipple when she rubbed her lips together. Then she made that awful smack-pop sound, and tested out the clown-like smile she’d passed on to me, whether I liked it or not. She shifted the shoulder pads on the Liz Claiborne jumpsuit she was so darn proud of—when it came to things she wanted, somehow the money was always there.
“Now, when you see him, I need you to call him Uncle Bobby.”
“How’s he my uncle? He’s not your brother.”
“He’s a lot older than you. Just call him your uncle.” She opened her car door, pushed the button to lock it, then leaned over and gave me that look like sharp, slick stones under bare feet in a creek bed. “Let’s go, Angela.”
Cousin Bobby, or Uncle Bobby—whoever he was—was already there, waiting in one of those sticky-looking orange booths by the window. He smiled and jumped up when he saw us.
“There she is! Get over here!” He hugged Mom like he was trying to wring the juice from her. He was sort of handsome, for an old guy, with wavy brown hair and golden-brown eyes.
“Hi, Uncle Bobby.”
“Jesus, is that Angie? Look at you! Pretty as a freakin’ picture.”
I let him hug me, smelling his minty aftershave, feeling the combination of rough and smooth from his open leather jacket and the Polo shirt beneath. Letting me go, he said, “Figures you’d be a looker like your mother. Too damn skinny, though—you call that an arm?”
Ordinarily, someone comparing me to Mom was enough to make me dislike them. He grabbed my hand, tossing my arm up like spaghetti. I giggled.
“Remind me later, I got a nice box of Toblerones for you back in the car. Your mother said they don’t get those out here. You like chocolate?”
“Uh huh.” Was that ever an understatement; pretty much every time we went to the store, I’d ask Mom for a Kit-Kat or 100 Grand bar, and she just about always said no.
“Good, you need all the chocolate you can get. You remember me, right?”
“Sort of. I think so.”
“Ah, I’m only teasin’. You were what, two? Three?” Uncle Bobby looked at Mom.
“Three,” she said. “Summer ’82.”
I got a flash of an inflatable kiddie pool on the grass; small, fat legs running; larger legs reposing on lawn chairs; the heat of sunshine. Maybe a memory, or maybe something closer to a wish.
“I’ll be damned,” Uncle Bobby said. “Hey, Gigi, so great to see you. You look fantastic.”
Nobody called Mom “Gigi” anymore. She said her name was Jo, short for Joanne, which was a lie, because it was Giovanna, and there was no getting Jo from Giovanna. At least my name, Angela, didn’t sound like it was from another country. Still got nothing but torment for it anyway, on account of me not being terribly angelic. Soon as I grew up, I’d be changing my name to something like Kate or Sarah. Something I wouldn’t have to live up to, or hide behind by using a dorky nickname like “Jo.”
We sat down, Uncle Bobby across from us. The waitress brought menus.
“This one’s on me, Gigi,” Uncle Bobby said.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Please. I insist.”
“No, I insist,” Mom said. “Least I can do for you keeping that pizza-faced Tommy Berardi off me when we were kids.”
“Freakin’ Tommy Berardi. Remember they called him ‘T.B.’?”
He and Mom cracked up together. She fell into his rhythm as they talked, starting to sound more like him and Nanna and all those other relatives back east. Cousins, second cousins, third cousins twice removed—who could keep track? They all had so many kids out there. Mom was the only one who’d had an accidental kid she never wanted in the first place. Also, Mom was the only one who’d left.
Uncle Bobby explained how he’d gotten the week off from this gig in Reno. There were only two months left on the contract, but the job was rough and his back hurt. His work buddy suggested some time in the great outdoors, so he said great, let’s do it. The foreman—a real standup guy—found a couple Guatemalans to fill in for them.
“Anyway, I got this roommate, Freddy, we let tag along on our trip, right?” he said. “Love him like a brother, but he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. So, we come on an elk herd, right by the road, and even I know an elk when I see one, but Freddy yells out, ‘Get a load of them scrawny-ass cows!’”
“No!” Mom hooted, slapping the table. “No! No!”
He shook his head. “I’m telling you, Gigi. He’s on disability and everything. Gets the depression when he’s alone. What are you gonna do, leave him behind?”
“I’d leave him,” Mom said.
Bet you would, I thought.
Uncle Bobby’s honey-brown eyes bobbed excitedly between Mom and me as he described seeing his first buffalo, his first honest-to-God moose. He said how lucky we were out here, how he’d always dreamed of living like the old-time pioneers. Mom said she’d always felt that way, too, and knew she didn’t belong in the city, even as a kid. Was that ever a bison-sized load—Mom only came west because Dad wanted to. And hardly left the house anymore except for work or to go shopping. She was afraid of horses, for Pete’s sake.
“You guys should just move out here,” Mom said.
“You know how it is, Gigi,” he said, “Gabby’ll never leave Jersey. She thinks there’s nothin’ out here. The kids got their friends. Plus, her pop ain’t been doin’ too good, matter of fact. They’re getting ready to move in with us. Soon’s I’m back home, we gotta start the arrangements, you know. Try to sell the in-laws’ house, sell the car, yadda yadda.”
“Sorry to hear that,” Mom said.
“What can you do?” He tossed his hands at the ceiling.
The food arrived. We’d all ordered the same thing: bacon double cheeseburgers. Red juice trickled down Uncle Bobby’s chin and neck, almost to the edge of his thick brown chest hair. He wiped it up with a paper napkin, which he tossed, crumpled, on the table. He caught me looking, winked at me over the top of his sesame seed bun. I wondered what life would be like in Jersey with Uncle Bobby and Aunt Gabby and their kids. I imagined it would have to be better than the life I had—schooldays with Mom, who was always ticked off; weekends with Dad, who was so tired and quiet these days.
Dabbing mayo off her mouth, Mom asked, “So, what you guys hunting, anyway?”
“What are we huntin’? Oh, yeah. Bear.” He laughed. “A sort of a contest, you know. Whoever shoots one gets to stuff it and put it in his livin’ room.”
“Bear, huh? Shouldn’t you be up higher for that?”
“Nah, they got bears down here, too. Smaller ones. More our speed.” He laughed again.
“Didn’t think they lived in the valley. Are you sure?” Mom cocked her head. I felt that scratchy, burning feeling I got in my gut whenever Mom talked too much. Why couldn’t she ask him something useful? Like whether or not we should ditch our motel and go stay with him in that cabin, for instance?
“Pretty sure, yeah,” he said, ruffling his hair. “But if we can’t find bear, heck, a couple nice bucks, maybe? We ain’t picky. We’re here to relax, you know? We get nothin’, those are the breaks.” He shrugged. “And I gotta say, my back feels better already.”
“Well, that’s good. What do I know, anyway? I been here ten years, never hunted a thing. You boys be careful out there with those guns, though,” Mom said.
“You bet. Wouldn’t want any accidents.”
They both cracked up again. I felt like a toddler stuck in a playpen, watching the grownups have a good time. When the waitress came back, I ordered a root beer float and a slice of chocolate cake. Mom shot me a look, but didn’t say anything. If she did, I decided, I’d tell him what a liar she was.
Finally, he talked to me again.
“So, Angie. How you doin’? You like school?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded. “Good. Keep it up, make sure you go to college. Your mother was tellin’ me how smart you are.”
I glanced at Mom. I felt good that she’d bragged about me, but also angry with her, because I was always angry with her. Mostly for forcing me to live with her, but also for other forms of torture: keeping special foods on a high shelf where I could see them, but not get to them easily; promising to buy me presents if I was good, then not buying them, because I wasn’t—I climbed on the countertop and raided those special foods; got into her lipsticks and put them away too fast, smashing the tips; used her good hairbrush, and left telltale blonde hairs behind.
“Only problem is . . .” I said.
“What?” He looked worried. I liked that.
“Some of the other kids aren’t very nice to me.”
“Not nice to you? Gigi, how can you allow this?” he said, flinging an open palm at Mom.
“I’ve complained I don’t know how many times. Principal’s an idiot. Says the kids need to learn ‘independent conflict resolution,’” Mom said, scrunching rabbit ears in the air around her words. “Unless she’s got marks on her, says there’s nothing he can do.”
“What’s with these kids, Angie? They got somethin’ against Italians?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll tell you what it is. Pearls before swine, like it says in the Bible, eh, Gigi?”
“She’s a pearl all right.” Mom patted my shoulder. I flinched. She didn’t often touch me, and I hated, especially, when she did it for show.
“Buncha morons. Can’t see what’s under their freakin’ noses.” He had half of his large torso on the table, leaning all the way toward me, like he really cared. I felt the way a cat must feel when a sunbeam hits its favorite chair. “Italians discovered this place,” he said, pointing out the window at the great beyond. “Don’t you forget it, neither. We’re better than any of them.”
Something about this didn’t feel right to me, but I said, “Thanks, Uncle Bobby.”
Pretty soon Mom said we should be going. She wanted to be there when motel check-in started at 2:00 p.m. Uncle Bobby flagged down the waitress for the check. He wrote the cabin’s address and phone number on a napkin and passed it to Mom before we left the table.
“I know it’s outta your way, but just call me up if you wanna stop by, meet the guys. We’re there through the tenth.”
“Thanks, Bobby. I appreciate that.”
He walked us to the Nova, opened our car doors for us.
“What a gentleman,” Mom said. He backed away, waving at us through the smudgy window glass. I bit my lip and waved back.
As we drove away, a horrible wet grief sprang up in my eyes. Uncle Bobby had said we could go stay with him anytime in Jersey. He had a jungle gym in his backyard bigger than the one at school. He’d get out the grill, he said. Take us all to the Shore. He said his daughters would love to play with me again, like when we were little. Mom said sure, let’s do it, but I knew she didn’t mean it. She never meant it when she said things like that.
We were back on the highway when I remembered the box of Toblerones.
“Wait! I forgot to get my chocolate! We gotta go back!”
“No can do, kid. I’m exhausted, and I need a bath. Bobby’s long gone by now, anyway.”
“Please, Mom? If we hurry, he might still be there.”
“You better drop it, if you’re expecting new clothes tomorrow.”
“Who cares about the stupid clothes. I hate you! You’re so mean!”
I twisted my body as far toward my window as the seatbelt would let me. It cut into my neck, so I shoved it under my arm, knowing Mom always said not to do that because the belt was useless that way. I felt hotter than a lightbulb with too many watts for the lamp it was in. If Mom said one other thing to me, I might hit her, make her crash the car. We might both die. In that moment, I really didn’t care.
She pulled into a space behind the motel. Whenever we stayed overnight somewhere, she’d make me wait in the car while she checked in, so they’d only charge her for one person.
“Listen, Angie . . .”
I could tell she felt guilty now, from her hangdog tone.
“Ange, I know you’re disappointed about the chocolate, and I’m sorry.” I looked at her, but said nothing. She sighed, clenching and unclenching her hands on the steering wheel. “The thing is, how do I say this . . . Uncle Bobby, he’s a nice guy, but he’s not a very good person. OK? He’ll do anything for you—or anything to you.”
“What, like you’re Mother Theresa?” I spat. “Who lies about having a kid with her just to save a few bucks on a motel room?”
She went small and quiet then. She got out of the car and went inside to the office, dragging her steps like a beat-up boxer. I wasn’t one bit sorry. I’d hit my mark. I was winning.
I boycotted the motel pool that afternoon. Mom went down to swim alone. I watched cartoons, and kept watching after she got back. I made a show of ignoring her. She took me someplace nice for dinner. Said she was sorry again about the Toblerone. I ate my ribeye and all my mashed potatoes without a word. Ordered a brownie meltdown for dessert. The next morning, we got up early for breakfast, then hit Herberger’s department store, where I picked out way more clothes than I needed, including the white Adidas Superstars I’d wanted since last year. Mom bought everything, no questions asked. I felt bad for a second, watching her check the receipt. I kept my mouth shut, though. Couldn’t go soft now.
Then we were back in the car, bags loaded.
“Look, Angie, I was thinking, maybe, if you wanted, we could run up to Uncle Bobby’s cabin and just get your Toblerones before we head home.”
“Sure, Mom. Whatever.” In my head, I did a victory dance.
Being a lousy navigator, she ended up having to pull over and spread the roadmap out on the hood like a tourist. Then some old geezer with a Grizzlies cap and matching stickers on his truck stopped to see what was the trouble, pointing this way, waving that way, until he gave that up and drew her a picture. She put the map away then and had me hold up the geezer’s scritch-scratch for her as we drove until she spotted the turnoff for Old Pine Road and took it.
Maybe a mile down (hard to tell with how slow she drove—she didn’t want any nicks in the paint from flying gravel), there was a driveway to a log cabin in a clearing. There were stumps all over, from the trees they cut to build it. Dad wouldn’t have left things like that; he’d have burned the stumps and cleared them, the way you’re supposed to, like when he built our cabin. Took him three years. Started when I was a baby, finished before I went to school. Some of those logs had my drawings of unicorns and princesses on the bottom that I made while Dad was working—he didn’t mind. He said they were lucky. I guessed they weren’t, though.
After we moved in, Dad got me Diamond. A white horse, like Opal, only she was mine for good. She was gentle, but restless; let me stroke her muzzle as long as I wanted, jumped back when I reached for her flank. Dad was only halfway done training her when she escaped and got hit by a semi. I never even rode her one time. Probably a sign of other things that would end up the same way—broken, like a horse on the highway.
The driveway was empty, the cabin windows dark.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s here,” Mom said. “Should’ve called first.”
“Let’s go check, at least.”
“I think we’ve wasted enough time already.”
“Who cares what you think?!” I shoved my door open and jumped out, rabbit-fast, before she could snag me.
“Angela, get back here!”
The slamming door silenced Mom’s shouts like a mute button. I ran up the driveway. Once at the front steps, I looked back. She’d gotten out of the car and was glaring at me, but didn’t dare give chase and grab me (like she had that one time, almost ripping my arm from the socket) because if somebody was in there, they might see. Uncle Bobby might see. He’d have no choice but to rescue me from Mom then—wouldn’t be a thing she could do about it.
I knocked on the door, knocked again. I listened, praying—Come on, Uncle Bobby, please be there—but heard nothing. I jiggled the handle; it was locked. I whipped around to the back door, but that was locked too. About ten yards from the cabin was a firepit, still smoking. We couldn’t have missed them by more than a few minutes.
A dark, heavy feeling settled in. Right then, I just knew that most of the things I wanted were never going to happen for me. I’d never taste that special Toblerone chocolate; never get another hug from Uncle Bobby; never again fall asleep between the creaky, pine-smelling walls of a log cabin; never have my own horse again; never be loved by anyone who wouldn’t disappear.
I wanted to scream at the air, rip bark from trees. Instead, I stomped into the smoking firepit, kicking ashes and embers all over the place until there was nothing much left to kick. I’d wrecked my new Superstars and didn’t even care. I hoped I’d start a forest fire.
Surveying the mess I’d made, I spotted a metallic gleam just past the rock rim of the firepit. I picked the glinty thing up, wiping the ash film on my shirt. When I realized what I had, my heart thrummed like grouse in the bushes. It was a tooth, gold-capped, like Dad’s, but smaller and pointier. This was no box of Toblerones from my kind and handsome Uncle Bobby, who I’d probably never see again, but it might be even better, because it would last. Sensing that dark, heavy feeling lift away, I tucked the tooth inside the front chest pocket of my jean jacket, and strolled back to where Mom stood, giving me the stink eye.
“You were right. Nobody here,” I said, beaming.
“What the hell did you do to your new sneakers?”
“Tripped over the firepit.”
“Christ almighty, Angela. I’ll think twice before buying you expensive shoes again.”
She dug a towel from the trunk and threw it at me. When the condition of my sneakers passed muster, she ordered me into the car. I was barely buckled up before she threw it into reverse, backing down the driveway. None of this spoiled my mood.
“Check it out, Mom. I at least found something cool.”
I pulled the tooth from my pocket and held it up for her. Didn’t know why—I felt like gloating, maybe. Wanted her to see that even though I hadn’t gotten what I’d been after, I wasn’t leaving empty-handed. She took one glance at the object pinched between my fingers and looked like she’d seen death, coming straight at us.
One time when we lived with Dad in the woods, I’d been out on the porch, laughing at this bear cub that got itself treed in our yard. Mom yanked me back into the house. I was about to holler when I saw her face. “Angie,” she said, “where there’s a cub, there’s always a bigger bear.” Mom’s flat, whitened expression, her huge eyes, scared me enough to keep me still. For once, I knew she wasn’t just mad and wanting to spank me for something. She wanted only to keep me safe.
“Oh, my God, what is that, Angela? What the hell is that?” Mom shouted now, jerking her gaze back and forth between the gravel road and the thing I held in my fingers.
“Geez, relax! It’s just a tooth, see?”
Mom hit the brakes. Our bodies lurched forward, seatbelts snapping. She cranked her window down, snatched the tooth, and chucked it. Then she hit the gas and took off again, making the gravel spit and spark the way fat does when it drips into the fire.
“Mom! What’d you do that for?”
It was like she didn’t even hear me. And I started to cry then. Not so much from the loss of my consolation prize as from the terrible realization behind Mom’s sudden determination to get us away from there. People didn’t just chuck their own teeth into the fire. I knew that. I’d wanted so badly to feel joy that I’d allowed myself, for a moment, to forget.
I thought again of that bear cub in the tree. How much I’d wanted to climb right up there and pet the cub’s soft brown fur. But I stayed inside, and we watched from the window, Mom and Dad and I, and just as she’d foreseen, the bigger bear—the dangerous one—came.
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” I said, throat choked with tears. “I’m sorry about the shoes.”
I couldn’t look at her. But I knew she was crying now, too.
You might also like
