I got out of bed and crept into the dark hall, watching from a spot where I could see the corner of the living room. They were on the couch, facing each other. Mom’s hair hung loose down her back. She’d gotten black tips on the blond.
They were eating potato chips. Dixie had one in her hand and was gesturing with it while she talked to Mom in an excited whisper. I thought I heard my name. I often had the feeling they were talking about me, especially since Dixie started high school. Before, I had my own life there without Dixie’s to compare it to. Not having friends felt normal for me until I imagined it through her eyes, and I could see Mr. Bergstrom as often as I needed without anyone much noticing or caring. Now, Dixie could observe my life, judge it, and report it to Mom.
Gem is a loner.
Gem is always in the counseling office.
Gem takes money from freshmen boys so she can eat cafeteria ravioli.
These were the conversations they had in my head. I leaned farther back into the dark, listening harder.
“So I didn’t change into my gym clothes. Not after he was like, ‘Oh, when am I gonna see you in your shorts again?’ Dick. I told Ms. Moser but she still marked it as a cut. That’s why they called you.”
“Gym,” she’d said. Not “Gem.” I scratched an itch on my arm and Dixie looked toward the hall. Mom turned around. All her silver necklaces and pendants and leather cords were draped over the scoop of her black tank top. The edge of her mermaid tattoo showed at her collarbone.
Like Dixie’s, Mom’s beauty wasn’t model-or actress-beautiful. But still powerful. And when she and Dixie were right next to each other like that, their power doubled. In the face of it, I felt myself shrink.
“Oh, hey,” Mom said. “You’re up.”
The smile she had for me didn’t look like the one she had for Dixie. For me, she had to force it. Mr. Bergstrom once asked if this might be my imagination. If he could see it for himself, he’d know what I meant.
Mom, apologetic, held up the chip bag. “We just finished. It was only like half a bag anyway.”
“Where were you?” I hadn’t meant to ask, at least not before saying something else first, something that didn’t sound so much like an accusation.
Dixie widened her eyes at me, annoyed. She hated when I started in on Mom. She wanted to pretend like Mom was another one of her friends, another girl with boyfriend drama and body issues and money problems who didn’t need to hear shit from anyone about how she should be living her life.
Well, I didn’t want to be monitoring Mom, either. But someone had to.
I stepped into the room and Mom touched the black tips of her hair. She’d started drinking again in the last six months or so, using some. It started with her birthday in September and never stopped. A little wine. A little pot. It’s nothing. I came closer in, to see her eyes, and tried to tell if this time it was a little wine or a little pot or both.
“I went and paid the electric bill, for one thing,” she said, and looked away.
At one in the morning?
“I had to go and get a money order first,” she said to Dixie. “Then the guy couldn’t find our account. I gave him the number, my name, our address. . . . It was like it disappeared from the system. He had to set it up all over again, and he was a real pain in the ass about it, too.” She turned to me again. “Then, like I told you or think I told you, Judy’s in town. Tonight was the only night we could get together.”
Dixie sat up on her knees. “They went to the Velvet,” she said to me, as if I’d be excited.
Mom flashed her a look.
“Sorry,” Dixie said, eyes down.
I guess I wasn’t supposed to know. Like they were the sisters, me the mom.
“Only for a few hours.” Mom bent over to dig around in her purse, which sagged open on the floor enough for me to see cigarettes, crumpled-up pieces of paper and dollar bills, her torn canvas wallet. “It’s not the same as it used to be, that’s for sure. Did you take my lip balm, Dixie?”
“No.”
“Then why do I have to buy a new one every goddamn week?” She turned her purse upside-down and shook it, then spread the contents out on the carpet, sliding to the floor to hunch over mascara and pens and napkins and a couple of pieces of unopened mail.
Dixie leaned down and darted her hand into the pile for one of the envelopes. “That’s for me,” she said. Mom grabbed for it, but Dixie held it away and was already studying the handwriting. “It’s from Dad?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. There’s no return address.” Mom sat back on her heels and held out her hand. The dark green polish on her fingernails was chipped to almost nothing. “Dix. Honey.”
“It is from him. The postmark is Austin.” Dixie pressed it to her chest. “It’s addressed to me, Mom.”
I held my breath and watched.
“Oh,” Mom said with a shrug, letting her hand fall.
“Just to you?” I asked.
Dixie had backed into the corner of the couch, legs drawn up, one hand to her mouth. She had on the same polish as Mom, but hers was freshly painted.
Mom started shoving her stuff back into her purse. “Well, open it,” she said. She was agitated now, more like she got after a little pot than after a little wine. Dixie knew, like I did, that Mom could turn on you fast when she was like this.
“Not right now.”
“Why not? You’re so fucking eager to steal it out of my purse. What do you think is in there? A check? A plane ticket? Dream on. ‘Dream on, dream on,’” she sang, the refrain from an old rock song, her voice high and crazy. Definitely pot, plus maybe something stronger. I flashed on an image of her, in her bed, me trying to get her to wake up, trying to know what I should do.
Dixie’s eyes met mine in search of something. Help? Sympathy? She wouldn’t get either from me; she was the one who had a letter from Dad.
“Here, Gem, I got you something.” Mom stumbled to her feet and handed me a matchbook from the Velvet. “Don’t set anything on fire.”
A matchbook. She hadn’t gotten it for me. It was like how, when I was little, she used to pull random crap from her purse if we were out and I got bored and whiny. Look what I got you, Gem! A pen, a stick of gum, a business card. I thanked her for the matchbook anyway and scratched my nail along the edges of it.
She ran her hand through her hair and shrugged. “Ain’t no thing.” She tried a more genuine smile and grabbed my hand. “What’s new, kiddo? Things okay at school? Still passing your classes and everything?”
This was her new game. If Dixie wasn’t happy with every single thing Mom did, Mom pretended she didn’t exist. Before I started to notice the moments between them that caused it, I even liked the attention. But stoned, getting-back-at-Dixie attention didn’t feel much better than being completely ignored. And it had the side effect of making Dixie mad at me, like it was my fault.
I extracted my hand from Mom’s while Dixie got up and brushed past us on her way to our room. “Whatever,” she muttered.
“We need food,” I told Mom.
“Do we? I feel like I just went to the store.”