Peter could only hear a whiny murmur.
“They’re feeding you lies, Diane. You’re like some peasant in the Soviet Union who believes Lenin is still alive. You’re like …” and his monologue went on until Peter was certain she was crying.
But she was back again the next night, and Peter heard Stuart telling her about that trip to California. “We rented this convertible in San Francisco. Mom refused to let me drive up all those hills because it was a standard, but she was hopeless. It was like she’d forgotten how to drive. We kept rolling down backwards and stalling and going down one-way streets, the whole town honking at us. One time there was this poor guy on a bike and our car rolled down straight toward him and he had to lift his bike up onto someone’s porch to avoid being killed. She kept forgetting where our hotel was. God, we bickered the whole time, more like brother and sister than mother and son. It was really funny.”
“My father and I went on a trip like that once—”
“But what was really funny is that we had this one day when we didn’t speak. Not a syllable. She was mad, I was mad, and we were both too stubborn to give in. And I had my interview at Berkeley that day. She came with me and after the interview the admissions lady gave us this tour of the place and we all ate together at this fancy dining hall but Mom and I never looked or spoke to each other the whole time. That lady must have thought we were a really screwed-up family. Maybe that’s why I got in. Mom was stubborn as a goddamn mule sometimes.”
Peter moved quietly away from the door. He wasn’t sleepy, but he didn’t want to hear any more. He was starting to know more about Mrs. Belou than he knew about his own mother.
Mom wore lipstick called Desert Rose. Mom told me cotton candy was made of ghosts. Mom broke her ankle when when she was eight months pregnant with me. Mom knew French. Mom helped raise four thousand dollars for the public library. Mom hated Spiro Agnew almost as much as Nixon. Mom gave dad a black eye once when they were having sex. With her elbow. She didn’t mean to. That’s not true! Yes it is, Fran. Remember how she used to say “Holy mackerel?” “Holy mackerel, you look lovely.” “Holy mackerel, he’s a pig.” Mom loved birch trees best of all.
Your mother, they always said in a completely different tone of voice. They never said Vida. Your mother needs a new pair of shoes. Your mother’s so bony. Your mother said she’s going to replace the rug in here.
Your mother, they always said, as if they were trying to give her back.
On the way to school the following Monday, his mother gave him a lecture in the car. His grades, she said, were abysmal. He had to start trying or he’d flunk out.
“I do try, Ma. I try hard.”
“You need to work something out with Stuart. You can’t talk to him and do your homework at the same time.”
“I like talking to him.”
“Fine. But after you’ve done your work. Should I have a word with him?”
“No.”
“Don’t start thinking about throwing your future away, too.”
“He hasn’t thrown anything away.”
“He’s a dropout.”
“He didn’t drop out. He finished and he got into a really good college.”
“But he didn’t go. I call that dropping out.”
“He’s going next year.”
“Right.”
“He is, Ma. He told me. He wants to learn Chinese.”
“Chinese,” his mother said, threading her cigarette stub through the crack in the window. “And what’s this ‘Ma’ business?”
When he got home that night, Stuart was waiting for him.
“Hello, Mole.”
Peter dumped his books out on the bed. Huge French test tomorrow. He’d have to tell him he needed to study.
“How was your day, Mole?” Stuart was lying on his back with his legs straight up and his fingers laced through his toes.
“All right. How was yours?”
“Do you know what ‘mole’ means, Mole?” He was using a tone he usually used on Fran.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t think you do. Otherwise you’d already be apologizing profusely for having told my father my plans for next year.”
“I never told him,” Peter said, indignant, the truth on his side.
“But you told your mother.”
Had he? He had. “I—” was defending you, he wanted to say.
“I wanted to tell him — at the right time. I never thought you’d go scurrying to your mommy with it. He came in here tonight like I was the Second Coming. It was disgusting.”
Stuart sat up and stretched his elbows unnaturally, nearly behind his head. Peter didn’t know what to say. His heart was racing.
“If I had told my mother something like that, she never would have told my father. She would have known it was mine to tell.”
Peter left the room and found his mother dumping frozen peas into a pot.
“Why the hell did you blab to Tom about Stuart?” He’d never sworn at his mother before.
“You mean about going to college? He’s overjoyed.”
“I told you not to say anything.”
“You did?” She had her fake understanding-teacher voice, like he was telling her the dog ate it.
“I did.”
He waited for her to expose him, to give him a speech about the truth and the power of words, but all she did was pitch the pea box in the trash and take a sip of her drink. Then she said, “Let’s not get mixed up in other people’s battles.”
“Let’s not blab everything you hear.” He turned to leave but she caught him tight by the arm. He could feel her thumb pressing through his muscle to the bone. It burned.
“I’m not your whipping boy, Peter,” she whispered. “And you’re not theirs.”
He let go a few frustrated tears in the bathroom. Mrs. Belou’s smile was unsympathetic today. She wanted them out. He took the picture off the wall and put it facedown on top of the toilet so he could feel sorry for himself in peace. He stayed in there until he heard Stuart leave their room. Then he grabbed his French books and bolted down the hall to Caleb’s room. Caleb was reading a five-hundred-and-twenty-page book about horse farming.
“Have you heard the one about the horse who walks into the bar?” Peter said.
“No.”
“Horse walks into the bar and the bartender says, ‘Why the long face?’”
Caleb waited for him to go on.
“That’s it.”
“Oh.”
“It’s a short joke. I don’t remember the long ones very well.”
They both returned to their reading.
At dinner all of his stepsiblings were silent and sulky. One by one Tom tried to draw them out, but they resisted. It was Peter’s turn to do the dishes with Tom. When he was through, he found them in the living room, speaking in low voices. They stopped when he came in. He headed for his room, then paused in the hallway. They resumed.
“It’s like something out of a bad movie.”
“She’s sick.”
“Totally unsubtle.”
Peter had no idea what they were — then he knew. The picture. He’d forgotten to put it back on the wall. The realization was physical, like something shattering inside him, his skin pricked from the inside by all the shards. He’d have to explain, release his mother from blame. He’d wait and tell Stuart later; maybe he’d think it was funny that Peter talked to her sometimes.
But later Stuart did all the talking, his mind whipping around his usual topics like a race car: the body, the Tao, Eastern medicine, college….
“I’m rethinking the plan. My stomach has been sort of sinking ever since it was”—he gave Peter a forgiving smirk—“revealed. I would like to go back to California.”
“To Berkeley?”
“No. Just to live. Forget college.”