He winked, tossed the wrappers and cup into a trash can, and tossed himself back into his truck.
“Mom, you were saying earlier about me as a kid.”
“Yes, dear, suppose I was.” Her mother pulled some napkins from the dispenser and sat down. She didn’t look at Jackie.
“What was that about?”
Her mother laughed. She kept laughing.
“Mom, what is going on? Why won’t you tell me?”
Her mother didn’t stop laughing. Also, she was crying. Jackie wasn’t sure what to do. Her mother’s food showed up and her mother was still laughing and also crying. Pausing several times along the way, Jackie moved toward where her mother was hunched at the counter, extending an arm and placing it across her mother’s back. Jackie looked out the windows toward her own car. She wished she could laugh and weep, too. She felt as though everything had been taken away from her, even though only most things had.
Jackie stared past her car at the dust of John’s departure swirling in the edge of light and darkness, where she could still see movement that looked like a running man.
“Diane Crayton,” she said to herself. She couldn’t hear her mother anymore.
Chapter 19
Diane watches the local news quite a bit.
Even when the cable is out, she watches the local news. The local news has a strong broadcast frequency, so even if one did not have cable, one would still receive the local television newscast. Even if one had working cable, the local news broadcast would come in on all channels. Or even if one did not have an antenna. Even if one turned one’s television off, sometimes the frequency is just so strong. So very, very strong. It is hard to turn off the news.
That’s the local news station’s slogan: “It’s hard to turn off the news. Go ahead. Try. See?”
In any case, Diane watches local television news because it speaks to her. It literally speaks to her.
One of the morning news coanchors—who was wearing a necktie and a coat and who had hollow eyes and sharp teeth and who cannot see themself in still photographs—said, “Diane Crayton. Hello.”
Diane said nothing at first, because she was eating cereal. It was the morning and she had just gotten out of the shower before work. In the shower, she had suddenly had a thought about all the space within the walls of a house and how much space that would add up to if it were all turned into one hollow cube. She had no idea where the thought had come from.
“Hello, Diane,” said the coanchor’s coanchor.
“Hi. Hello. Good morning,” Diane replied, politely covering her face and chewing the remainder of her mouthful of Flakey O’s, cereal made by a local company known for its aggressive and controversial advertising.
“How is Josh?” said the second coanchor, who wore a brown suitcoat with ivory lapels, who wore their hair down, who had shiny maroon lips and nails and bright red eyes.
Josh had already caught the bus to school. The day after their talk was good. The day after that day was less good. The days after those days had returned to averted eyes and closed doors.
Diane had gotten some concerned calls from the school about Josh skipping classes and doing dangerous things like expressing public curiosity about the mysterious lights that pass over Night Vale at night, and trying to enter the City Council chambers without protective gear. He had also been coming home late each day.
She had tried to talk to him about Ty, but Josh looked annoyed when she brought it up. He would just roll his thin, yellow eyes, his long ears flat across the top of his skull, and say, “It’s fine,” or “Nothing new,” or “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Is Josh all right?” said the second news anchor.
“He’s fine.”
“How do you know?”
Diane did not answer.
“He’s going through a lot, Diane,” said the first coanchor, and the two coanchors shared a smile. (Was that a smile?)
“He had a crush on someone, I think, I guess, and it didn’t work out,” Diane said. She wasn’t eating cereal anymore.
“Is that all that’s bothering him? Just a failed crush?” the second coanchor pushed on, showing at least some background in journalism.
“I don’t know. I wish I knew. I don’t know. He seems different or like something has gotten off the rails inside him, and I don’t know how to nudge him back. He’s been texting in class. When he even shows up for class.”
“Is he texting a particular person?”
“Not that I was told.”
“Definitely check your phone records, Diane,” the first anchor said, leaning farther over the desk than seemed possible.
“It’s a little invasive.”
“You’re his mother. You are allowed to be invasive as long as he is living under your roof with you paying the bills,” the second coanchor said.
“And it’s not like you’re averse to checking other people’s phone records,” the other added.
And here the two coanchors laughed tinnily, with trained rigor, and there was a low rumble felt by many people across Night Vale for the next few seconds.
“I don’t think it’s just about a crush,” said one of the anchors.
“I agree with Tim,” said the other.
“Thank you, Trinh.”
“Last night, when I saw him,” said Diane, “he was small, about the size of a basketball. And like a basketball, he was round. Unlike a basketball, he was smooth and dark and heavy. I don’t know how to talk to him when he’s like that.”
“You do not know how many parents say that, Diane,” Tim purred, smiling, eyebrow tilted. There was a rapid clicking sound from the back of Tim’s throat, or “thorax” as news anchors call it.
“You must be there for him,” Trinh said.
“But what does that mean? I stand outside his door. I knock. I say ‘Josh.’ I say it twice. I tell him there is dinner. I tell him there is television. He says ‘cool.’ That’s all. Everything is ‘cool.’ And he stops going to class.”
There was a high scream from somewhere in Diane’s house, and the sound of a mirror cracking. The refrigerator opened, and a carton of almond milk hit the floor as if it had been slapped off its shelf. (It had.) The faceless old woman who secretly lives in her home was on one of her rampages again.
“Dammit.” Diane rolled her eyes and stood up.
“Relax, Diane. The milk is not a disaster. It does not need tending to right away.”
“Yes, finish your story.”
“Well, when he does come out of his room, he sits without speaking. His eyes retract. His hair grows long around his hands and feet, silky and straight and soft. His nostrils expand. What am I supposed to say to that? What is the right thing to do?”
She sighed, watching the almond milk spread across the floor.
“Honestly, there are times when I want to hit him,” she said. She had not known she was going to say it.
The coanchors glanced at each other and shuffled blank papers on their fake desk. The almond milk pooled against the cabinets. She needed to get a paper towel to wipe it up but didn’t feel like she could move.
“I mean I would never do that. I just think it. Does this make me a bad person?”
“You are only a bad person if you do bad things,” said the second anchor.
“Thank you.”
“That’s not an acquittal, Diane. The counterpoint is that you are only a good person if you do good things.”
“Turn off the television and look at this knife I found on eBay,” whispered the voice of the faceless old woman over Diane’s shoulder. She turned and looked down the hall, more out of habit than out of interest. It was empty and unnaturally dark. She felt a finger brush her cheek.