For about three minutes, and then he’s shoving me away with a look of horror on his face. His back slams up against the front door hard enough to set the broken chain lock swinging. His eyes are wide, his mouth is open. He gives a single, high-pitched squeak.
I know before I turn around what he’s afraid of. “It’s just my mom, Tony!”
I’m so tired of saying this over and over, with nobody listening. I turn. My mom’s not even doing anything weird, just standing in the doorway to her bedroom. She’s wearing normal clothes, she’s clean. She’s not frothing at the mouth or coming at him with fists clenched. She doesn’t smell bad, she’s not making any of those weird noises.
“It’s my mom,” I tell him. “You’ve seen her, like, a thousand times. It’s how she is.”
Tony tries to pretend he didn’t act like a little girl, by shaking himself and putting on a brave face. “You could’ve warned me.”
“I told you I’d found her and brought her home,” I say, as nicely as I can. I don’t want to make him mad. I need him, and not for kissing. “Mom, you remember Tony.”
I feel stupid, acting like I’m giving introductions at a tea party, but I act like I don’t know this is pretty ridiculous. Tony doesn’t say hi, but he can’t stop staring at her. My mom, on the other hand, ignores him and makes her way to the couch, where she sits in front of the TV. She doesn’t turn it on. “It’s just my mom, see? Nothing to be scared of.”
“I’m not scared.” Tony sounds so scornful, I wish I’d said it a different way.
Boys can be such a pain sometimes. “Mr. Garcia says she can’t stay here,” I start to tell him, but he interrupts.
“So, you’re going to send her back, right? You can do that? Don’t they have places for you to put… them? Her?”
At least he didn’t call her it. I think of the long rows of cages, the sour smell, the darkness. “I’m not sending her back. She’s home with us now. I’m going to take care of her.”
“She’s got the whattayacallit, right? The collar? I saw it on the news.” He moves a step or two closer but still looks as though at the first wrong move from her, he’ll be jumping through the front window to get away.
“Yeah. She’s neutralized. She’s fine. And, Tony, everything they say about them… about how they can’t really act normal. It’s not true.” I’m talking faster, trying to get my point through to him as though he’s cutting me off again, but Tony’s not saying a word. “She has a little trouble with some stuff, but she’s getting better. Even in the couple of days she’s been home, I can see an improvement. I think she just needed to be with us.”
“Trouble? Like what?”
There’s no way I’m going to tell him about what happened with Jerry. “Like…”
I don’t really want to tell him the rest, either. It’s private. It’s embarrassing. I wouldn’t want anyone saying it about me. “Like what?” Tony asks. He looks fascinated. “Getting dressed. Eating. Umm, bathroom stuff. Like that sort of thing.”
He swivels his head to stare at me. “Like, you mean she can’t go to the bathroom herself and stuff? You have to help her?”
“Yeah.” I lift my chin. “It’s not so bad. She’s better off than a lot of the people I see in the home.”
“Yeah, but…” Tony shudders. He swipes a hand across his mouth. “That’s gross, Velvet. How could you do that? I mean, you have to, like, what, help her go?”
“You’d do it for your mother,” I tell him.
I see in his eyes that he doesn’t think he would. Maybe he’s right. Maybe Mrs. Batistelli’s smothering of her little boy hasn’t created the obedient little robot drone she intended, and besides, this kind of care can’t really be taken on out of obligation. You have to really want to help the other person, I think suddenly. I’m not sure I’ve ever known Tony to really help anyone else. I don’t think he’s ever had to.
“So. The ride. Can you give us a ride to my house, Tony? I have to be out of here in time to get there and then pick up Opal at school… and crap! Work, I forgot about work.”
I’ll have to call off. I’ve never called off before, but I did ask for the day off yesterday, which won’t work in my favor. My boss, Ms. Campbell, is okay, but she’s not my friend. I think about how many other people could probably use my job, and my stomach again leaps and twists. At this rate, I’ll get an ulcer before the month is over.
“I can’t drive you.” Tony says this so flatly, so firmly, I almost give up right then and there.
Defeated, I put my hand on the back of the kitchen chair and hang my head. “Please, Tony. You said you’d help me.”
“That was before.”
“Before what?” I ask, looking at him. “Before you knew my mom would be with us?”
“Yeah,” Tony says.
I want to cry but there’s no time for that. Also, I can’t cry anymore. I don’t have the tears, I can’t give in to them. I have to get me and my mom and our stuff to someplace safe. I have to pick up my sister. And I have to figure out how to keep my job. I don’t have time to worry about saving Tony’s feelings.
“Then get out,” I say, already heading for the phone to call my boss.
“What? Wait! Velvet!” He follows.
I can’t believe it, but Tony pushes down the button on the phone to keep me from calling out. I glare at him, but he takes the phone from my hand. I don’t want to break it, so I let him.
“Don’t be like this,” he says.
“Tony, I don’t have time for this. Really. I need to call my boss. I need to figure out a way to get us where I need to go. I’m… Tony, I’m getting ready to lose everything here. If you won’t help me—”
“You’re not going to lose everything,” Tony says as he takes my hand. “You still have me.”
“What?” I stare at our fingers, linked, in disbelief.
“I still want to be your boyfriend, Velvet. That other girl wasn’t anything.”
“You… I…” I am speechless. I can say nothing. I can only stutter.
I do have enough gumption in me to pull away when he tries to kiss me again, though.
“I want to be your boyfriend,” Tony repeats.
“No way. Wow.” I shake my head. “Unbelievable. You won’t help me out when I need you. I really need you to do this—”
“I can’t drive that far and get back. My mom will find out!”
My shoulders slump. “Tony, just go. We’re not getting back together. You’re not my boyfriend.”
“I love you!” He whispers this fiercely and looks over at his shoulder toward my mom, who’s still staring at the blank TV.
“No, you don’t. If you did,” I tell him, “you’d already be driving me where I need to go. Don’t you get it, Tony? This isn’t a game or something. I’ve been kicked out of here. I have to find a place for us to live. I have to take care of my mom and my sister and me. I just… I have this life, Tony, that you can’t even begin to understand. You have no clue, okay? So if you’re not going to help me, then you need to leave so I can figure out what’s going on.”
Once, before the world spun out of control and we all spun with it, Tony and I had gone to a homecoming dance. He’d worn a suit and tie. I had a new dress and shoes to match. My mom had let me wear some of her perfume. I’d pinned a carnation on his collar and he’d given me a wrist corsage. The DJ had played a lot of popular slow songs and we’d danced together, one after the other. At the end of the night, he’d asked if I wanted to be his girlfriend, and I’d said yes.
That was the first time he kissed me, and I would always remember it.
Too bad I want to forget the last time he kissed me.
“Velvet…”
I ignore him. I pick up the phone, already dialing. I hear the door open and shut behind him, but I’m already on the phone with Ms. Campbell.