“Oh, Aidan,” I exclaimed. “You still want me to get back with Aidan? Let me tell you what he—”
She interrupted me. “I went to school with lots of boys like Sawyer.”
“You don’t know what Sawyer’s like,” I said. “You hardly know him.”
“I’ve heard plenty about him. In fact, I’ve heard half of it from you.”
She had me there. I put my chin in my hand and stared out the window, cursing myself for repeating the cheerleaders’ rumors about Sawyer over the years to my mother.
I was so angry, and my mind was spinning so fast, that I didn’t even realize where we were headed. But when she turned onto the exit in the seediest section of Tampa, I knew. “Mom.”
She didn’t answer, just kept moving her land yacht smoothly down the ramp. I could see one muscle in her jaw working as she clenched her teeth. She sailed into the slum, deserted of cars except for one 1980s model far down the long, straight street, its axles up on cement blocks. But the neighborhood was busy with young men hanging out in the shadows of the run-down apartment buildings, and riding kids’ dirt bikes in circles. Any sane person not looking to buy a dime bag would have recognized what she’d stumbled into and hightailed it out of there.
My mother was not sane. And it was getting worse. In the past she’d only slowed long enough to point out her old apartment building to Barrett and me. This time she actually pulled alongside the curb, put the car in park, and pushed the button to turn off the engine. She looked over at me and raised her eyebrows.
Instantly the car was surrounded. A guy on a bike hopped down the curb, into the street, and pedaled back and forth in front of the car. A boy in a baseball cap with a marijuana leaf on the front knocked on my mother’s window. She didn’t react.
Watching this in horror, I jumped, startled at a knock on my own window. I didn’t turn, afraid of what I’d see, terrified that I was separated from these people by one pane of not-bulletproof glass.
My mother watched me smugly.
“Fine,” I said. “You grew up in that corner apartment.” I pointed to the second story across the lawn of brown grass and packed dirt, strewn with cigarette butts and trash. “Your brother died at sixteen on this very street, selling drugs. Your dad was robbed and killed coming home from work. At age forty-five your mom died of cancer, which could have been caught early and treated if she’d been able to afford health insurance.”
My mother gave me a curt nod.
“You got good grades, participated in every academic competition available, and snagged a full scholarship to Columbia, so you and your new family could live to their full potential, and you would never have to face this crushing poverty again.”
She raised her chin to nod again, but stopped when I said this:
“You got out of here. You ensured your children would never have to live here. And yet you have driven your daughter back here, and we’re both about to get shot in the head, because you don’t like my boyfriend!” I was shouting now.
Even if my mother didn’t care, the drug dealers around the car did. The guy at my mother’s window and the guy on the bike said something to each other and took off, jumping the curb and speeding around the far side of the apartment building. I felt rather than saw the shadow of the man at my window moving away.
Another knock sounded on my mother’s side. I started again, and this time she jerked her head in that direction too. A policeman’s tan uniform filled the window. I looked behind us and saw the cop car, blue lights flashing.
“Oh, and I’m the one who always gets arrested,” I said.
“You shut your smart mouth.” My mother pushed the button to start the car, pressed another button to roll down her window, and then turned the car off. “Yes, officer?”
“Ma’am, do you live around here?” I couldn’t see his face above the roof of the car, but he sounded young.
“I live at the beach,” my mother said icily.
“What are you doing in this part of town?” came his voice. “Did you know this neighborhood is full of drug activity?”
“I grew up in that apartment right there.” She pointed to the corner. “I like to show it to my children now and again. That is not a crime, not yet, not even in Florida.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “If you ask me, if I grew up here and got out of here, I wouldn’t come back. I definitely wouldn’t bring my daughter to this neighborhood.”
“Young man,” she seethed, “I did not ask you.”
This could not be happening. I was going to sit in the back of a cop car for the second time in twelve hours, because I had a habit of hanging out with people who couldn’t keep their attitudes in check and their big mouths shut.
But cops were more leery of my mother than they were of Sawyer, apparently. “Yes, ma’am,” this one repeated. “Y’all have a safe afternoon.” I watched his uniform pass the back seat window. He got into his patrol car, shut the door, and put his head down as if he was writing something. I suspected he was really waiting for us to leave. I wouldn’t put it past my mother to outstay him just to spite him.
She pushed the button to start the car again with one elegantly manicured finger. Her hand was shaking, but she didn’t say a word. She pressed the button to roll up the window, flicked on the blinker, looked behind her so as not to pull into oncoming traffic while a cop possibly had her on camera, and headed down the street.