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“Your father had the nerve to suggest a new doctor—”
My mother has the youngest face money can buy, but she’s insecure about it, so the man she professes to love more than anything uses it to hurt her. She’s just as bad with his insecurities.
The noise out the front disappears as I put my bag on the waist-high stone wall and pull myself up.
My mother finally takes notice of something other than her scheme. “Ashley, what’s happening? Where are you taking me?” She gasps. “Are you going to murder me?”
“Thinking about it,” I murmur, swinging a leg over to straddle the wall. “Give me your hand, I’ll pull you up.”
There’s enough light left in the evening I can see her shocked face. “Have you lost your mind? This is a Versace.”
“Then turn around and go back out the front. But I’m leaving.”
She gasps again, mortally wounded by my lack of feeling for her or her dress. “You wouldn’t leave me here, all alone in the dark, with those people outside your house? Isn’t it enough I have to come into this part of LA to visit you?”
Yes, my solidly middle-class neighborhood is the worst. “Then give me your hand.”
“You always were a selfish child,” she snaps, crossing her arms and pouting.
“Okay. See you later.” I swing my leg over and she breaks.
“Wait, fine. I’ll climb over this huge wall in this expensive dress—which was a gift from your father, by the way—and when I fall and break my neck—”
I tune her out, but I can’t pull her over the wall. I have to climb back down and give her a lift. The whole thing takes way too long, she’s way too loud, and her dress does not come out of the ordeal the same as it went into it, but somehow the SuperVans out the front don’t hear. Which is good, because I left the baseball bat in the garage. We’re defenseless.
I lead my mother across a vacant lot, along a narrow alley past other houses, and onto another street. She’s still complaining, her voice rising at how I’m just like my dad, cold and unfeeling in my mistreatment of her.
I am anything but unfeeling. She’s lucky I’m keeping everything locked down tight or only one of us would make it out of here.
Lea’s car is waiting down the street, engine idling, and the lights flick on and it springs to life, stopping in front of us.
My mother freezes. “I’m not getting kidnapped by someone driving a Volvo.”
Lea’s car isn’t a Volvo. It’s a Toyota sedan of some type. Maybe ten years old. “Should I put you in the trunk?” I ask sweetly. “I didn’t bring zip ties or duct tape, unfortunately.”
“Ashley!”
I open the back door. “Then get in.”
“Hello Mrs. Foley,” Lea says darkly, sounding exactly how I’m feeling as I slam the back door and get into the passenger’s seat.
“Hello, Lily,” my mother says dismissively. “I don’t know what’s going on, but please take us somewhere with alcohol.” She lifts an old burger wrapper from the back seat by the corner. “Lots of alcohol.”
“To the hotel,” I say quietly. “She can have my room.”
Lea nods.
The drive could never be silent. Not with my mother in the car. She immediately launches into her grievances, taking Lea’s occasional disgruntled murmur as interest. I stare out the car window, the lights blurring from the tears in my eyes. I brush them away. I have never cried real tears in front of my mother and I’m not about to start.
When we get to the hotel, Lea changes the reservation. While she’s gone, my mother directs all her impotent rage about my father at me. I ignore it. Finally, Lea’s back, and my mother—lured by the hotel bar—gets out of the car. “Well?” she says impatiently. “Come on, Ashley. I’m not standing out here next tothatall night.” She motions to the car.
I twist to lean out the window. “I’m not getting out. I’m not going to have a drink with you or help you with whatever drama you’re whipping up. My life is a dumpster fire and right now, that’s all I can handle. You’re on your own.”
“Ashley! I can’t—”
I turn to Lea. “Drive. If she jumps on the roof, keep going.”
Lea throws the car into gear and steps on the gas. The tires squeal, the car shoots forward, and the sudden unexpectedness of it combined with the shocked expression on my mother’s face in the mirror brings a peal of hysterical laughter out of me.
