The knife stilled and her eyes flashed up. “You cannot be serious, Pearl!” She shut her eyes and mumbled something too soft to hear, likely a prayer for patience in Spanish, and then, “I should have never allowed you to omit ninth grade. That counselor at your school—he said you were advanced and you needed to be challenged by more difficult classes. And what has it led to? You are a college graduate at only twenty. Too young to make this sort of decision for yourself—to throw away your future because of a breakup—”

“That is not what this is about—”

“We understand not wanting to go to the same school that boy will be attending, but to throw away the opportunity—”

“Mama, are you even listening to—”

“You cannot live here and do this.”

We stared across the space between us as her edict rang in my ears, the knife no longer thumping rhythmically against the cutting board. My mouth fell open, words crowding through my head but failing to organize themselves into anything coherent.

She found her voice first. “I have never put my foot down with you before, but I am doing it. This is too important.” Nothing in her expression suggested that she was bluffing or promised a retraction, but that was typical for Mama. Just not where it applied to me.

I remembered Boyce’s theory that my mother and I had simply never disagreed about the direction of my future… until now. “So if I decline my acceptance to Michigan and stay here—in a doctoral program—I can’t live at home?” My voice emerged stronger than I’d assumed it would.

“Yes,” she said.

I nodded, closing my notebook and textbook. My hands were shaking. “Okay.”

As I reached the base of the stairs, she called, “Supper will be half an hour!”

When I got to my room, I tried to text Boyce, but the autocorrect made nonsense of my attempts and I gave up and pushed Talk instead. I shut the bedroom door as he answered.

“Hey, what’s up?”

“You were right—she’s expecting me to cave. She says I’m not old enough to know my own mind. That I can’t live here if I decline my acceptance. I don’t know what to do—student housing is full and it’s June. Even the crappiest rooms for rent in town are either booked or cost a fortune—not that it matters because I don’t have a job. What am I going to do? Housing is full for fall too, but I thought I could get an apartment for the nine months there and— God, I’m so clueless! I just assumed they’d pay the rent—” I choked on the last word. I’d never once in my life fought with my mother. I’d been so self-righteous about the difference between my relationship with her and Mel’s with her mother, when all the time it was no different.

“Pearl? Did you hear me?”

I took a trembling breath, hating my panic. Hating my powerlessness. She couldn’t force me go to medical school, but how would I pursue what I wanted to do? I had options. I had to have options. I just had to figure out what the hell they were.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t… I didn’t hear. I’m just trying to think.” I closed my eyes and swallowed. Think. Think.

“It’s not much, but I have a spare bedroom,” he said. “You know you’re welcome to it.”

Chapter Fourteen

Boyce

I had just asked Pearl to move in with me. I had just asked Pearl Frank to move into my two-bedroom, one-bathroom, piece-of-crap tin can of a trailer that butts up against a garage. And damn if the bedroom I offered her wasn’t still chock-full of thirty years’ worth of squirreled-away junk, for fuck’s sake.

I’d spent the afternoon at Mateo and Yvette’s place watching the Astros pull out a win over Chicago and being used as a climbing wall by Alonso and Arturo. As I handed off a twelve-pack to their mama at the door, they’d run up and attached themselves to my legs, one wearing the Astros second baseman jersey I gave him on their birthday last month and the other in full Batman gear, cape and all. To be honest, I’ve never been sure which was which. They’ve always looked like miniature replicas of their daddy and each other.

Now, still holding my phone, I came around the corner to find all four Vegas staring at me from the table where we’d just sat down to Sunday supper. “What?”

“Mama says no phone calls at the table,” miniature José Altuve said. “It’s rude.”

“There’s still food on your plate,” pint-sized Batman added.

“Hush, y’all two. Rules for daddies and little boys don’t apply to guests.” Yvette blinked innocently. “So… who was that?”

I pulled my keys from my pocket. “Um, I gotta go.”

She turned wide eyes at her husband, who was chewing.

“What?” he asked her.

“Boyce never gets up from food. Certainly not my food.”

She had a point. This was a first.

“I’ll explain later,” I said, thinking or not and turning toward the door. “Uh—thanks for supper, Yvette.”

Poor Vega would be subjected to the third degree before I got my TA backed into the street. Too bad he didn’t actually know anything.

• • • • • • • • • •

From her minute-long silence on the phone, I’d guessed Pearl was as bowled over by my proposition as I was having said it. But she needed somewhere to live for the summer; I had an extra room. I’d have offered the same thing to Maxfield or Thompson or Vega… who were all guys. Though it had been known to happen, I’d never even wanted girls to stay over after sex. I’d always reckoned that was because I lived with my dad, but he’d been in and out of the hospital for months and I’d had the trailer to myself most nights. He’d been dead for four weeks. Neither made a lick of difference. I was flat-out opposed to hookups getting cozy in my place.

Yet the notion of Pearl living there hadn’t bothered me enough to keep it from coming out of my mouth. I hadn’t even hesitated before offering it. If anything, I was ready to talk her into the idea. Sort of like signing up for voluntary torture. 

I left the keys hanging in the lock when I got home and walked straight to the closed-off master bedroom. After wasting two evenings and half a weekend searching for the documents Mr. Amos had asked me to find, I’d rid the room of cans and bottles, bagged up an ass-ton of odds and ends and pointless documents, and pulled the door shut on the rest. The old man had amassed piles of statements, bills, and junk mail mixed with mildewing stacks of Field & Stream, Car and Driver, and the Hustler mags I’d stolen and stuck beneath my mattress until I discovered the Internet and real girls. His closet and dresser were crammed full of clothes that should all be trashed. Ditto the bedding. Shit—and the soiled mattress. No fucking way I was allowing Pearl Frank to lie down on that.