I need to know why.
“Good morning, Eddie!”
I open my eyes. Beth’s face is inches from my face. I can smell her perfume, something expensive and awful. Her green eyes are bright. She’s either been up for ages or she was snorting lines of cocaine in the bathroom. Or both. I glance at the clock on my nightstand. I’ve been asleep three hours. Maybe.
“After I caught you prowling around the house last night, it got me thinking about circadian rhythms,” she says, clapping her hands. “And then your mom told me you’re up very late these days. Maybe you have a sleep disorder. I think we need to get you back on track.” She sits on the edge of my bed while I briefly marvel at the fact Mom notices anything I do these days. “I was talking to Kevin—”
“God, what is he?” I grumble. “An esthetician-slash-life coach?”
“—And he made a really good point. We should focus on not doing things that exacerbate the inherent sadness of this situation and do what we can to maintain a positive balance as much as possible. Did you know lack of sleep is detrimental to a positive attitude? You need to make sure you get enough sleep. And you should exercise, get those endorphins going! Eat healthy! Come downstairs and have breakfast!”
“No.”
“But your mother would love to see you at the breakfast table. She told me so.” She gets off the bed. “Positive attitude, Eddie! I’ll see you in five or I’ll come back for you in ten.”
She leaves. I roll over and stare at the ceiling. I hate when Beth stays the night. Mom upgrades from zombie to total robot, which isn’t much of an improvement because it just means she’ll do anything Beth tells her to do. Beth tells her to get out of bed and she does it. Beth tells her to eat and she’ll eat. Beth won’t ask her to get out of Dad’s housecoat, but she’ll get Mom used to the idea, suggest it in a way that won’t lead to a total breakdown, like I accidentally did the second week after he died.
But I guess easing Mom into the idea of getting out of the housecoat isn’t a bad thing.
Not that it makes me hate Beth any less.
Breakfast. More positivity than I know what to do with. Mom dredges bite-size pieces of pancake through sticky maple syrup, but none of them actually reach her mouth. I wonder if Beth pre-cut her food. I wonder if, in the future, Beth will have to pre-chew it.
Gross.
Mom stares out the window like there’s nothing more fascinating than the maple tree in the front yard. Beth follows her gaze. I sip at my coffee. It’s decaf.
Beth has brought decaf into this house.
“It’s almost better that it’s summer,” Beth says thoughtfully. “Then you’re not dealing with SAD on top of everything else…”
I choke. That’s the dumbest to come out of her mouth yet. It’s so dumb I start to giggle, and I shake so much I have to set my coffee down. And then I start to really laugh. I laugh so hard I have trouble breathing. Mom finally turns her gaze from the window and stares at me, but her eyes are so empty. I want to wave my hand in front of her face and say, hello? Is anyone there? Are you hearing this? But I can’t because I can’t seem to stop laughing.
And Beth looks at me like I’m crazy when I finally do.
“I’m so glad you find that amusing, Eddie,” she says.
“When are you leaving?” I ask her. “Like, don’t you have somewhere else to be?”
“Actually, it’s funny you should say that because it turns out I’m going to be staying with you for a while,” Beth says. She smiles at me, but it’s not really a smile. “Maybe a month.”
“What?” I turn to Mom. She’s not looking at me anymore. “I’m sorry—what?”
“Because you need someone here,” Beth tells me. “To get all the…” she trails off, but I know what she wanted to say. Death. To get all the death out. “You need someone here to bring some positive energy to this place.”
“But I’m here,” I say.
And then Beth starts laughing.
I am going to explode.
I put on my shoes and leave the house half-dressed. I’m wearing shorts with a pajama top that hopefully passes for a T-shirt if no one looks closely at the cartoon sheep slumbering over the big bubble letters across the chest that say NIGHTY-NIGHT NIGHTIE.
I leave on my bike, pumping my legs hard because I’m angry and I don’t know how else to work it out. I check my watch. Milo is at Fuller’s right now, killing time until two, when his cousin Mark relieves him and then we can skulk around Branford with less purpose than anyone else in this dumb town.
I bike across two streets, cut through an alleyway and round the corner off the main street. Fuller’s comes into view. The place is busy. One truck, three cars, a self-serve parade. The closer I get to it, the sounds, the smells, everything feels like too much. Instead of slowing down and pushing the handbrakes or even dragging my feet, I speed up, pumping my legs harder, until I can feel it in my heart. I just keep moving—
Until the back of the truck stops me.
I guess I’m not going as fast as I think I am. Maybe it only felt like my legs were matching pace with my pulse. Still, when I hit the truck, it makes this awful sound. My stomach ricochets off my spine and instead of going over the handlebars and into the truck bed, I sort of flop right over. I land on my side and my bike collapses on top of me. I close my eyes.
I don’t feel so much like exploding anymore.
I mean, I think I could sleep here.
“What the fuck did you do to my fucking truck?!”
I open my eyes. The guy the truck belongs to stands over me. He’s wearing an unbuttoned plaid shirt over one of those greasy, off-white undershirts and his arms are hairy and the knees of his jeans are so worn out it’s amazing they’re still attached. Roy Ackman. Farmer. Everyone knows Roy.
He came to the funeral.
He is giving me the weirdest look right now.
“Eddie Reeves?” he asks, totally bewildered. I’m the last person on earth he’s expecting. Before I can say anything, the jingling of the bells over the front door to the store sound. Open. Close. Milo. I hear him before I see him.
“Jesus, Eddie!”
Roy lifts my bike off me. “You got a problem with my truck?”
“Why didn’t you stop?” Milo demands, looming over me.
“Uhm…” I lick my lips. Milo extends his hand and I fumble to get my fingers around his. I can’t figure out how to work them because when I say they’re dying, I mean it. I can’t hold on. It takes forever, but I finally get a grip and Milo pulls me to my feet. As soon as I’m upright, his hand is on the small of my back, like he’s keeping me steady.
“I spaced out,” I say. “I guess.”
Milo just stares at me, but Roy’s face softens like that, and I sort of hate that I’m going to get away with this for all the wrong reasons, but I think I have to let it happen because everyone in Branford knows how Roy Ackman feels about his truck.
“I’m really sorry, Roy,” I add. “I didn’t mean to.”
“No, no,” he says gruffly, waving a hand. “It’s okay. I know…”
He looks me right in the eyes. I didn’t notice how blue Roy Ackman’s eyes were until this exact moment. He shoves his hands in his pockets, rocks back on his heels, and starts vomiting small-town condolences all over me.
“So, is your mom doing okay? We miss seeing her around town. If you ever want to come down, we’d love to have you for dinner. Corinne keeps meaning to call to let you know our door’s always open to you…”
I rub my arm. “Yeah … thanks.”
“Okay, then…” He keeps staring until he snaps to, remembering where he is and what he was doing before I decided to play chicken with his Chevy. He goes in his pocket for his wallet, pulls out a twenty, and hands it to Milo. “Twenty even. I’ll be on my way.”
Milo salutes him. “Have a good one, Roy.”
We watch Roy pull out and then I grab my bike and make my way to the store, resting it against the building before pushing through the door. The air-conditioning feels good.
Milo edges in behind me.
“What the fuck was that?”
“Beth served gluten-free pancakes and decaf for breakfast. And she’s moving in for like a month.” I lean against the freezer full of pop and energy drinks. “You seem busy.”
“Kind of.”
He goes to the counter and pours two coffees, no cream and no sugar—straight up. He doubles up on the cups so we don’t burn our hands because the Styrofoam gets hot and then he grabs two pepperoni sticks from the jar beside the cash register and hands me one and he never pays, but it doesn’t matter because his aunt owns the place and she doesn’t care. Milo is on all the surveillance tapes, eating up the food, but as long as she never has to work the register, it’s totally fine.
“Sorry about Beth,” he says, looking me up and down. His gaze lingers on my NIGHTY-NIGHT NIGHTIE. He doesn’t say anything, which is good. I yawn. “Tired?”
“I was up late.”
“Really? Because I called you last night and you didn’t pick up.”
“Sorry.” I take a sip of the coffee, which is stupid. It burns all the way down. “Beth woke me up as soon as I got to sleep. She says I need to get my cicada rhythms back on track.”
His mouth quirks. “You mean circadian rhythms?”
“What are you, Beth?”
A customer comes in, and then another and another. Milo stands alert behind the register and I just stay there, yawning, until he says, “Take the couch. I’ll wake you when my shift ends.”
I go to the backroom and flop down on the gross leather couch that has been here since time immemorial and that, despite its grossness, is actually really comfortable. I close my eyes and next thing, Milo is shaking me awake and the light coming in through the window has changed.