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I’m in the grocery store bathroom so effin’ long that I feel confident Josh has to have left. He and the blonde.
I exit, glancing left and right, just in case. When I get to the spot I left my shopping cart, not far from the restroom, I find it’s gone, probably courtesy of an over-ambitious employee. I don’t even care. The only thing I was supposed to pick up was cranberry sauce. That was all Mom needed. Everything else I had in there was just extra stuff. Pecans, marshmallows, two boxes of cordial cherries for Dad. Yeah, I’ll pass on going through the grocery store again—in case Josh is still here.
I make for the aisle where I found the cranberry sauce, the aisle where Josh reentered my life, and snatch one can off the shelf. At the self-checkout, I make a short task of paying. The whole time, I’m scanning the store for Josh and the woman.
Two minutes later, I’m in Mom’s Buick LeSabre—the ultimate realtor’s car, according to her.
“Took you long enough.” She’s snippy, her stuck-up voice grating on my nerves. I have no idea when my mother decided that she was the upper echelon of this little town, but she plays it to the hilt.
“Sorry, Mother. I couldn’t find it. Took a while.”
“Cassandra, you cannot expect to succeed at college if you cannot accomplish a simple task like finding a can of cranberry sauce.” My mother doesn’t use contractions when she talks. She’s way too good for that.
I don’t bother to answer her. I don’t agree or disagree. I know from experience my opinion is irrelevant.
Years ago, my parents moved here when my brothers and I were little. My mother was no one special where she came from, but she convinced everyone here that she’s someone. She’s never gone back to her hometown. After I graduated high school, they packed my baby brother Liam up and moved to Houston for a bit. Only coming back to Boar Creek to check on the land and the property. My dad missed this place the whole time they were gone. That lasted something like two and a half years or so. Now, they’re back. And we’re supposed to be back in it, too.
I sink into the car seat, hoping that Josh isn’t somewhere around here and watching me. I don’t even know what he drives. Back when I used to know him, he drove an old pickup that he’d jacked up—raised that thing so high up that I needed help to get in it. His dad owned the local auto store,Central Auto Supply. And that’s what kept that old truck running because I’m sure it wasn’t cheap to keep repaired.
Three years later, I doubt that he’s still in the same truck. Why would he be? Just because it was the first place we’d gone past first base? Ugh. Why am I even thinking of that?
“I am so happy you came home for Thanksgiving, Cassandra.” Another thing my mother doesn’t do—nicknames.
“Me too, Mom.”
She cuts me a glance when I say that, and it isn’t a friendly one. She hates the wordMom, preferringMother. I know that by now, but sometimes, it’s fun just to be ornery. I know, I know, shame on me.
I lean my head against the cool glass of the car’s window, making it a point not to look atCentral Autoas we drive by. Though I do wonder if it’s closed or if someone else owns or runs it these days.
“Trash,” Mom utters, her voice bitter.
I want to react to my mother’s comment.God, do I ever.But I don’t. I breathe in through my nose, blow out through my mouth. This is supposed to be stress-relieving, I’ve been told, a way to decompress. I call bullshit on that. All it does is make me think a hair longer before I explode on her. I don’t get a chance to detonate. She starts talking.
“He’s trash.” My mother says again. As if she has read my mind that I’m thinking of Josh.
I don’t bother arguing with her. And no, she doesn’t read my mind. She says that every time we pass byCentral Auto.
She always has said that, as long as I can remember. She’s always hated Josh and his family. I’ve never known why. I was in high school when Josh and I dated. The shit hit the fan when my mother found out. I was not supposed to date thattrashy boy.
Boy.Boy was the last word I’d use to describe Joshua Tamez. Even when I was seventeen and he was twenty-one, I knew that he was no boy.
I’m silent for the rest of the ride home. When we get there, I help her out in the kitchen because I’m the only daughter she has. My brothers are outside, shooting the shit with Dad.Shooting the shit, their phrase fortalking.I glance out the kitchen window every so often, envious as they yammer on, talking about old days, new days, fishing, anything. They’re free. They’re lucky to be guys. They aren’t in here, a captive to my mother’s fastidious whims.
“How are your grades?” She’s always the over-achiever. In this town, she’stherealtor to use. Truthfully, she’s cutthroat, not hesitating to use any method she can to get ahead, sacrificing anyone and anything. But I will say this, she’s damned successful. Yes, sir. She surely is.
“They’re good, Mother.” I toe the line, calling herMotherbecause having a peaceful Thanksgiving is important to me. And if my mother isn’t happy, she makes sure Dad isn’t. I don’t want to mess up his Thanksgiving.
Peace, that’s what I’m all about these days. Not like the old days, when I was all about passion. Stupid, passionate, old days—Josh days.
Behind Dad and my brothers, I can seeHardhead Bayou. Even on a gloomy day in November it beckons me, calling me to grab one of my father’s fishing rods and a batch of frozen shrimp for bait, hoping to catch a redfish or a flounder. I turn away from the fruitlessness of wishing for a trip to the bayou and resume dicing onions.
The good thing is the onions give me an excuse to let an emotion out. An emotion I don’t want to give a name to for a man I wish I hadn’t thought of, and now can’t stop dwelling on.
I do wonder why Josh’s back in Boar Creek. I heard he left. I had no way of knowing for sure, but that’s what one of the girls I went to high school with said on Facebook. She also said she had no idea where he went. That was after his dad died. I guess that was a year or so ago.
I feel bad I wasn’t there for him during that time. Then again, I guess I wasn’t there for him at all sometimes—not since we split up. And it’s not like he was there for me. I guess exes don’t do the whole ‘be there for each other’thing.
Jeremy, my older brother, and Liam, my baby brother come in, followed by my dad. Jeremy’s a younger version of Dad. Liam must take after my mom’s side of the family. They’re guffawing about some football thing—A&M and UT or something.
