“No,” she says. “I think Randall was over the line in talking to you like that. You’re his friend, and he owes you more than that. But this is a big deal, and I am pissed at you, and he has a point.”
“Is it really, though?” I spit out, speaking before thinking. “So Casey has a crush on him? Does that warrant all the crying and the breaking shit?”
“Look who’s talking, Mr. Takes Me Two Minutes to Cripple Someone,” she says. “This isn’t just a crush, hon. This is years of friendship and embarrassment on Casey’s part. You dealt with the venom your own way, but part of Casey is wanting what he can’t have, and you just yanked the support out from under years of propped-up baggage. What if that happened to you? What if a portion of this crazy-ass life you’ve built around yourself just got smashed?” She shakes her head against me. “There’s no right answer here, it’s everyone’s fault, but it’s not the end of the world. There.”
You don’t know a thing about me, lady.
“I’m sorry. I love you.”
“I know,” she says, and then as an afterthought, “and I think your mom’s home.”
The door clicks and opens to the sounds of my mom and Lon carrying groceries into the kitchen. My eyelids clamp together, and I take a deep breath. The siesta was nice, but we have to get out of here. Considering the state I’m in, I can’t deal with my family, especially if they’re meeting my girlfriend for the first time.
“Locke?” calls my mom. “You here, honey? We got chocolate milk.”
There’s no way of exiting without running into them. Make this quick. “In my room. Be out in a second.”
We straighten ourselves up and get our coats back on. Before I open the door, Renée grabs my face and kisses me, hard, as if we’re on our way to a quick demise. I open the door, and we shuffle into the kitchen.
My mom looks up from a paper bag and smiles. “Hey, babe, chocolate milk’s in the fridge-Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had someone over.”
“It’s cool. Mom, this is Renée. Renée, Mom.”
“Renée? The Renée?” My mom squeals in delight and, in traditional Mom response, sidles over to us and gives Renée a huge bear hug, pulling my girlfriend into her maternal bosom. Renée’s eyes are just visible between my mom’s grasping arms, a look of panic lining her face. It’d be cute if I didn’t want to leave this place as soon as possible.
The person who gave birth to me pulls Renée back at arm’s length and beams into her face, but her smile suddenly wanes a bit, and then she decides to mortify the crap out of me.
“Honey,” she says, inspecting my girlfriend, “do you really need all that mess on your face? You’re so pretty!”
“Jesus, Mom,” I say a little too loudly. “Come on, don’t do this.”
My mom suddenly looks hurt and embarrassed, and I hate myself for it. “I’m sorry, kidlet, I don’t mean to be…It’s just, she’s got this beautiful figure, and this lovely hair, and then BAM! Captain Howdy!” For the first time in my life, I contemplate matricide. Like lightning, I pour myself a glass of chocolate milk and throw it down my throat. It helps. A little. Mostly I just feel nauseated.
Renée stays charming, picking up my slack. “Locke makes me wear it. He doesn’t want any competition, and it scares the other boys away.”
“Well, good. At least he knows a worthy investment when he sees one.”
“Yeah, he’s a pretty perfect kid.”
My mom glances sidelong at me and stage-whispers, “I like this girl,” which sends her and Renée into fits of well-choreographed laughter. I try to force a chuckle, but it dies in my throat. “So can you kids stay for dinner? I was thinking spaghetti, but if we have company, I could do something a little bigger, maybe make some chicken parmigiana-”
“Actually, we have to get going,” Renée interrupts before I can act like an even bigger dick to my mother. “We’re meeting Casey and Randall for dinner in a little bit, and we’ve already ditched ’em a couple of times in the past. You know how it is.”
“Sure, sure, no problem, have a good time,” she says, waving us away. I can hear it in her voice-I don’t mean to cramp your style, you kids go ahead. I feel terrible, like I’m hurting her, but I’m also enraged. Sorry I have my own fucking life to deal with now. If she had any idea what I’m going to have to deal with today-
“Honey? Come on, we have to run.” Renée’s hand is on my shoulder, pulling me away. I wave good-bye to my mom, and we move toward the door, thinking only about the fresh air, the sun, all things outside my fucking apartment.
Suddenly a blond blur darts in front of us, and Renée and I are confronted with ten years of overachieving young man smiling up at us.
“Are you Renée?” asks Lon peppily.
“I so am,” she says with a smile. “Lon, right? How’re those comics treating you?”
“They’re great,” he says, elated to be in front of my comics-savvy girlfriend. “I really liked ’em. Too bad you guys can’t stay for dinner. Locke, we’re having spaghetti tonight. And you can see some of the drawings I did at school today! Here, stay for dinner, I can show you, I did this one of Iron Man. And his armor’s really hard to draw. But I think I got it down. It’s just the chest plate, it’s a real pain, so I don’t think he looks perfect-”
“Lon. We’ve got to go. Back off.”
Lon’s mile-a-minute speech stops dead with a frightened wheeze. Renée looks over her shoulder at me, equally taken aback-the voice that just spoke was commanding, cold, and impatient, exactly not how I should be talking to the best little brother ever.
I clear my throat. “Sorry, man. Rough day, okay? We’ll talk about it later. We need to go.”
“Yeah,” he says, looking down at his feet, ashamed to be shut down in front of company. “Sorry. I understand. Nice meeting you, Renée.”
As we tromp down the stairs of my building, Renée shakes her head. “That wasn’t cool, Locke. You don’t do that to a little kid in front of company. All he wanted to do was impress me, you realize.”
I don’t. Fucking. Care.
The cool New York air hits me, lowering my insane body temperature a few degrees. Every remedy for the venom-chocolate milk, cooling down, Renée-is frighteningly temporary. Every movement of my body is charged with fire. Every thought is murderous, persistent. This day could not get any worse.
And, as if on cue, Renée’s phone rings.
“Hello? Brent, hey, yeah-What…Oh, fuck. Yeah. Locke told him. No, no, we should get to him first…Right, exactly. Where is he? Okay. Yeah, sure, it’s cool. Yeah, I know where that is. Thanks a bunch, man. Bye.” She clicks her phone shut. “He’s at a bar on Seventy-third. Apparently, he’s called all the Major Arcana to try and put out some sort of hit on us or something. They were less than receptive, so Brent called me.”
“So what do we do?”
“We meet him at the fucking bar.” She sighs. “What else do friends do?”
The P &G Café is apparently a dive in the truest sense-it is neither large nor well-lit nor clean nor in any way cool. There’s a bar, some bottles, and a couple of tiny booths surrounding a broken-down jukebox. While its outside is lined with flashing neon depicting martinis and signs for steaks, it’s really only good for holing up and drinking yourself to death. It looks, honestly, like the kind of place I’d normally love to go and drink, probably with Casey. Today it’s the house of Dracula.
“Put on your game face,” says Renée, staring at the bar with the same dread. “You’ve seen Casey bad before, but nothing like this. Fuck, this might even be a learning experience for me.”
“How do we want to do this?”
“I’m gonna go in there and sit down with him and try to talk him down. After that, I’m going to tell him that you’re outside, and if he’s down, we should go somewhere and work this through. I figure we give him the choice, that way he doesn’t feel cornered.” She gives me a wary eye. “The most important thing is that everyone keeps their temper. You need to basically throw your pride away and apologize fully. Remember, in a situation like this, anger never solves any-”