One rainy Saturday night, with Nicole sleeping over at a friend’s house, he nailed her. She was as hungry for sex as she was cocaine. She was damned good: knowing, patient, clever and seemingly tireless. At one point, he rolled off the bed and lay on the floor laughing and screaming “Call 911! I can’t take it any more!” And then she’d started laughing, too, and jumped off the bed, landing right on top of him. They spent an hour on the floor violating every silky hot orifice in her body.
He kept her coked up, and she kept him sexed up. At first, the first three-four weeks, they were discreet. Wouldn’t want little Nicole to find out now, would we? They waited until she was gone before they did anything. There were a lot of nooners, Kate rushing home from the office for a line or two of coke and a ripping good time in the sack.
One night, when Nicole was upstairs in her room doing homework, they decided to do it in his room in the basement. It was like high school, the sneaking around, Nicole the stern repressed Midwestern parent, and them the fuck-happy teenagers. She didn’t catch them. The next night and the next night and the next night and the next night, they did the same thing, Nicole working on her homework and them humping in the basement. God, it was great, and the danger made it just that much more delicious.
One Saturday afternoon, she caught them.
Nicole had come home early from the library, tired from a long day’s studying. They didn’t hear her. They were having too much fun in Kate’s bedroom. But Nicole heard them. She flung the door open and stalked into the bedroom and went over to him and grabbed him by the long, dark hair. A handful came off in her grip. She pushed him off the bed and to the floor and shrieked, “I want you out of here! And I mean right now!”
Humiliated, enraged, Kate flew from the bed and slapped her daughter hard several times across the face, hard enough to draw blood.
Nicole spat at her, silver spittle hanging comically on the end of Kate’s classical nose, and then stormed out of the bedroom, and out the house.
She didn’t come home that night.
Kate started calling all her friends. None had seen her.
Mitch said that she was just punishing Kate, trying to scare her. Everything would be fine. He cooed, he cajoled, he caressed, and he finally got Kate back in bed. But the little bitch had spoiled his evening for him. Kate just wasn’t there for him that night. Oh, they had sex all right, but there was none of her usual passion or ingenuity. It was like screwing a hooker who was having an off night. The little bitch really pissed him off. He was enjoying his suburban sojourn. He didn’t want it ruined by all these mother-daughter politics.
She didn’t come home until Monday after school. By then, even stoked up on coke, Kate was a nervous mess. Pacing. Biting her nails. Jumping every time the phone rang.
The little bitch.
She pulled in just as dusk was making it a better world.
She sat in her car in the garage a long time. Kate kept wanting to go out there. Mitch wouldn’t let her. “That’s what she wants you to do.”
“I’ve been such a terrible mother to her, Mitch. I really have.” She was begging him to let her go out to the garage. But by now, Mitch was genuinely resentful of the little prig. She resented him because he’d usurped her place as head of the family. Without him here, Nicole would be giving the orders. That’s how it was in some junkie homes. The older kid took over and became the parent while the parent became a pathetic child. A power thing. Nicole had enjoyed the power. Now Mitch had the power. And he wasn’t about to give it up.
She finally came in an hour later. She didn’t say anything. Didn’t even look at them. She just went straight up to her room and quietly closed her door. Kate spent the night fluttering around Nicole’s door like a moth around a summer night’s streetlight. But it did no good. Nicole wouldn’t acknowledge her in any way.
Kate wouldn’t come down to the basement, not this night or the next or the next. Kate pleaded with Nicole to speak to her. But Nicole came in the door at night and went straight to her room and reappeared only the next morning, in time to go to school. She wouldn’t even say goodbye.
Mitch took it for a week, feeling helpless and sorry for himself. He did not like being at the mercy of the little bitch. She was spoiling his time with middle America. But Mitch, failed artist, failed husband, failed father, failed son, was nothing if not ingenious.
Mitch had a plan.
Nicole
She finally gave in, of course. Nicole.
Mitch was out somewhere. Mom was sitting in the kitchen. Drinking coffee. She looked great. The coke was killing her but it was a trade off. While she was dying, Kate looked better than she had in a long time, and was in a much better mood, too. Nicole poured herself a cup from Mr. Coffee and then came over and sat down at the kitchen table. The sunlight was bright and lazy in the air.
Neither of them said anything for a time. For this uneasy moment, they were strangers.
“You been all right, Nicole?”
“Yes. You?”
“This would be a very happy time for me if my daughter and I were getting along.”
“Are you in love with him?”
Kate smiled. “God, no.”
“But you sleep with him, anyway?”
“I enjoy him, honey. And part of that enjoyment is sex.”
“And the drugs.”
“Have you noticed how much happier I am? I mean, until you and I had our falling out?”
Nicole nodded.
“Have you noticed how much better I look?”
“I know what you’re going to say, Mom. But you’re wrong. The coke may make you feel better right now but it’ll kill you eventually.”
“Maybe that’s not the worst thing, Nicole. To die, I mean. I enjoy the high, hon. I don’t know how else to say it. When I’m high. I’m fine. And when I have my own pusher living right in my own home—” She smiled. “A junkie’s dream.”
“You shouldn’t call yourself that, Mom.”
“Well, that’s what I am.”
“You don’t have to be.”
“I’ll never go back to another rehab program, Nicole. I don’t want to be one of those zombies who just hangs on her whole life, trying to put off taking another line of coke. It’s not a way to live. Especially since Mitch is right under my own roof.”
“He doesn’t care about you, Mom.”
“And I don’t care about him. Except that he keeps me happy with his drugs, and satisfied with his sex. You’re old enough to understand that, Nicole.”
“So I just live here with you?”
“You’ll be leaving for college in California in four months. Then you won’t have to worry about it any more.” Then, “Don’t you want me to be happy, Nicole?”
“You know I do.”
“Then let me live the way I want to, hon. Then you can go away to college and not have to worry about me anymore.”
“Oh, right. I go away to college and then I magically never worry about you anymore? It doesn’t work that way, Mom. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
“Just be civil to him. That’s all I ask. He doesn’t like the way you and I are carrying on. Just be civil so he can enjoy himself while he’s here.”
Nicole carried her cup to the sink, washed it out, put it in the washer.
Then she went over and slid her arms around her mother and they hugged each other and they both cried and Kate said. “I just want to be happy and feel good for a little while, honey. That’s all.”
Nicole held her and kissed her. Tears filled her eyes.
A few minutes later, she was in her car and headed to the library. She had things to do.