“You’re both gross,” I say, taking an orange and walking up to my room.

After Park leaves, Celia comes up to my room and plops down on my bed. She flicks my wrist and says, “You wanna go to the movies tonight?”

I look up from my social studies book, surprised. This is awfully generous of her, seeing as how she’s been spending every spare minute with Park. She never has time for me anymore, but I’ll take what I can get. “I guess so,” I say. We can share a box of Milk Duds and a large popcorn, extra butter, and we can throw it at people who talk during the movie, the way we always do.

“Good,” she says, standing up. “I’ll tell Park to pick us up at eight.”

I deflate like an old birthday balloon. “Park’s coming too?”

“Well, yeah.” Celia looks mystified, like duh, of course he’s coming too.

“Oh. Well, maybe you two should just go by yourselves then.” I turn back to my social studies homework.

“What? Why? Don’t you like him, Annemarie?” Celia sits back down again.

“He’s all right.”

“Park is more than all right, Shug. Oh, Annemarie, he’s the best. He’s wonderful. You’ve just got to give him a chance, and then you’ll see.” She falls back onto the bed, and her hair fans out on my pillow. “I really want you to like him. It was his idea that we all go out tonight, you know.”

“It was?”

“Yeah. He wants to get to know you. I think I love him, Annemarie, I really do. I think this is real.”

I stare at her. This was the first she’d talked of love. “How do you know?”

“You just do.” She props her head up on one elbow, and says, “I love him so much it hurts sometimes.”

“It hurts?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Her face is soft and dreamy and full of secrets, and I know why Eli Parker loves my sister.

“Well, how do you know it’s not just puppy love?” I say meanly. Something in me wants to squash those stars in her eyes.

“It’s not.” She looks dreamier than ever.

“Do you think he loves you, too?” I already know the answer. Of course he loves her. I’d seen the way he looked at her, the same way every boy looked at her, including my boy. My Mark.

She thinks this over. And slowly Celia nods. “Yeah, I think he does. And I don’t know if it’d really matter if he didn’t.”

“Are you crazy? Of course it matters! I couldn’t love somebody who didn’t love me back a trillion times more.” A lie. Hadn’t I been loving Mark all this time and hadn’t he been not loving me back?

“You’ll understand one day, loving somebody so much you just want to be near them ’cause they make you feel so good.” Celia sits up and hugs her knees to her chest. She looks about six years old. “He makes me feel like I’m the only person in the room.”

“He loves you, Celia.”

She looks so pleased, I feel like Cruella DeVille for trying to steal that look in her eyes. “You really think so?”

“Yeah.” Of this, I am certain. Who could know my sister and not love her?

Chapter 27

In the middle of the night I wake up to hear Mama and Daddy fighting. I try to fall back to sleep, but it’s useless. I get up instead. I make my way through the darkness, and it’s Mama’s voice that guides me. When I get to the stairs, I stop and rest my head against the wall. It sounds like the same old fight.

“I work, Gracie, that’s what I do.”

“Work, work, work. That’s all you ever do, right, Billy?”

“Darlin’, one of us has to.”

“And just what do you think I do?”

“You turn the TV off and on at a nursing home.”

“Damn you! Who do you think keeps this family together while you’re gone workin’?”

“To be honest, I don’t really see you overtaxin’ yourself. You let both of those girls run wild while you lay around like the Queen of friggin’ Sheba. Lord only knows where Celia spends her nights, and Annemarie never even leaves the house.”

This stings. I didn’t think anyone had noticed the way I was always at home. I can’t help it if everyone I know has taken up arms in the sexual revolution. You’d think he’d be relieved, grateful even.

Mama laughs bitterly. “Oh, please. It’s a little late for you to be taking an interest in the girls. Pardon me, Billy, it’s a little late for you to be taking an interest in our girls. Other girls, you’ve got interest aplenty. Why, you’ve got interest just shootin’ right out of you—”

“I’m not having this conversation with you, Gracie.”

“Oh yes, you are,” Mama hisses. Her voice drops low, and I can’t hear what she says next.

Then he says, “Frankly, I’m surprised you even noticed.” His voice is so cold I don’t recognize it as my daddy’s. “I’m surprised you were sober enough to notice anything at all.”

The sound of Mama’s hand across Daddy’s cheek slices through the air. It’s loud enough to make me jump.

“Don’t do that again, Gracie.” The quiet warning in his voice silences the whole house. So does the door he slams. I hear the car start, drive away. And then all I hear is Mama crying. My shoulders feel tight, and I just want to go back to sleep.

It wasn’t fair of Daddy to say that about Mama never being sober. Plenty of people drink. That doesn’t make them alcoholics. If that were true, Clementon would just be one big AA meeting. And it’s not like she drinks all the time. There’ll be times when she won’t drink anything for days. Mama will go to work and then she’ll come home, and sometimes she’ll even make supper. Or she’ll go out with Gail, or help me with my homework. I don’t really need her help anymore, but it’s nice to work together on something. It’s nice to have her help me. To sit with her in the dining room and have her hair fall across my cheek and breathe in her perfume. It’s like she’s a real mom.

And then Daddy will call and ruin everything. He’ll say he’s not coming home that weekend, or he will come home and they’ll fight the way they always do. Then she’ll drink. Sometimes it’s like there’s this well of sadness inside her, and she has to drink to fill it up. And then sometimes it’s like there’s a monster inside of her, and drinking’s the only thing that will calm it down. And sometimes she drinks just because.

When I was little, it wasn’t so bad. Or maybe it was and I just didn’t notice. It didn’t occur to me to wonder why she woke Celia and me up in the middle of the night to make strawberry sundaes. Or why we were the only kids I knew who didn’t have a bedtime. Or why we were allowed to eat whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. I could have sour cream and onion chips for dinner and Mama wouldn’t bat an eyelash.

That’s probably why I like vegetables so much. The other kids used to be so jealous when I’d pull a bag of chips and a box of cookies out of my lunchbox, but what I wouldn’t do for a Ziploc bag of cut celery or baby carrots. I used to trade Mark my chips for his fruit. Most times it was sliced apples or a banana, but on lucky days there was a kiwi or a tangerine.

When you’re little, lots of things slip past you. Not anymore. I’m old enough to know that not everybody’s mama drinks and not everybody’s daddy is never home. Some daddys are home for dinner every night, like Mr. Findley. Not my daddy, though.

They haven’t had a fight this bad in a while. I wonder if I should go down and comfort her. The thing is, I’m sick of it. I’m sick of the fighting and the crying and the drinking, and I wish I didn’t have to be a part of any of it. But I am.

When I walk into the kitchen, Mama’s standing by the sink wiping her eyes with a paper towel.

I say, “Is everything okay?”

She looks plenty sober now. Her eyeliner is smudged, and her face is red, but she’s still the most beautiful woman I know. Painting a bright smile on her face, she says, “’Course, Shug. Daddy and I just had a little fight. Go on to bed; everything’s fine now.”

“You sure?” Pretending to believe her is easier than not.

“’Course I’m sure. Git on now; scoot.”

I walk back up the stairs, but instead of returning to my room, I go to Celia’s instead. She’s asleep in her bed, and I push her over and crawl in.

My feet are cold, so I warm them up on the backs of her legs. “Annemarie,” she growls.

“Hmm?”

“Get your feet off of me before I cut them off.”

“Sheesh. Sor-ee.” She’s falling back to sleep again, and I whisper, “Celia …”

Silence. “Celia …”

“What?”

“Do you think Mama and Daddy are gonna get divorced?”

“No.”

“Do you think they should?”

“Go to sleep, Shug.”

“I’m not sleepy.”

“Well, I am. So shut up or get out.”

I shut up.

Chapter 28

Daddy called this morning. I picked up the phone as usual. He told me he wasn’t coming home today the way he was supposed to. Something came up at work, something real important. With Daddy, it’s always something “real important.” I asked him if he wanted to talk to Mama; he said no, he’d call back later. I used to be disappointed when he didn’t come home. Now I’m not even surprised. I’m even a little relieved. But what does surprise me is the way Mama still gets upset. You’d think she’d be used to it. But every time he does it, her face crumples for a second, like she’s breaking into little pieces. Pretty soon there’ll be nothing left of her.

This afternoon Jack left a note in my locker. It said, “Can’t tutor at my house today, I’ll be at your house at 7:30.” It’s just like him to change things up on me like that with no notice. Luckily Mama’s working tonight, and Celia’s hardly ever around anyway, so we’ll have the house to ourselves.

As soon as I get home from school, I start cleaning up the house like a madwoman. I wash the dishes that have piled up, I put away coats in the closet, I wipe down the counter, I even dust the TV. I don’t know that the TV has ever been dusted.

For dinner I fix myself two boiled hot dogs and cold baked beans. With ketchup. Plus root beer. It’s a feast fit for a king.

After I eat, I set up a workstation in the dining room. I lay out paper and mechanical pencils, and at 7:30 on the dot, the doorbell rings.

I run over to the front door, and it’s Jack. On time. I can tell that he’s just had a shower because his hair’s still wet. His hair looks so dark it’s almost black. He just stands there, shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Hey.”

“Uh, hey, come on in.”

Leading him through the kitchen, it hits me how weird it is to have a boy that’s not Mark in my house. It’s like on those standardized tests you take at school—which of these things does not belong? Jack Connelly, that’s what.

“You want somethin’ to drink?”

“Nah.”

“Well, let’s get to work then.”

Jack grins and salutes me. “Sir, yes sir.”

I make a face, but I’m not really mad. We sit down at the dining room table, and the two of us get straight to work.

I’m explaining what a split infinitive is when Mama waltzes into the room. She’s wearing her silky emerald green nightgown, and I already know something’s wrong. Her eyes look glassy and unfocused, and my heart almost stops when I realize she’s been drinking. Not a little, but a lot. “Mama, I thought you were at work.” My voice comes out sounding highpitched and worried.

“I wasn’t feelin’ so hot this mornin’. Can’t a girl take a sick day?” When she’s been drinking a lot, she talks extra slow. That’s how you know she’s in a bad way: She sounds like the South.

Mama zeroes in on Jack. “Hi, there. Who’s your little friend, Shug?”

“Mama, this is Jack Connelly. You’ve met him before. We go to school together.”

“Hello, Mrs. Wilcox.”

“Jack Connelly … Hi, darlin’. Your mama works at that steak restaurant over on Clinton Boulevard, right?” She beams at him.

“Yes, ma’am.” I’ve never seen Jack so polite. He’s acting as if everything is normal. He’s acting like he’s come to pick me up for the prom and he’s tryin’ to make a good impression on my folks.

“Your mama and I go wayyy back. She had her eye on my Billy, you know. So did just about every girl at Clementon High School.” Mama giggles. “But I got him, yes siree. And your mama, well, she was just fit to be tied … Trish, whatever happened to her? She took up with that no-account fool Glen after graduation. And then he up and left her, didn’t he?”

“Yes, ma’am, he did.”

“I tell you, Jack, Trish is better off without a man. Men’ll just break your heart. Don’t you grow up and be a man, y’hear?”

“No, ma’am.”

In a low voice I say, “Mama, we’re trying to get some work done. Will you please just go back upstairs and leave us alone?”

“Now, Shug, don’t you go gettin’ uppity with me.” She smiles winningly at Jack. “This one over here thinks she’s the Queen of Sheba. … Are you two hungry?”

“We’re fine,” I say through clenched teeth.