After I swallow the bite and take a drink of water, I answer, “I hope so. It’s nice to see familiar faces in the audience that don’t know all the bad things about me.”
Her face falls.
“I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. It’s just … you know.”
“I do know. But please remember you’re not the first woman, nor the last, who will have to make that decision.”
I snort. “Then you better keep Dad tied up, because he may singlehandedly try to overturn Roe v. Wade.”
“He’s not upset about a woman’s right to choose, Tris; he’s upset about the law that allows children to go through it alone.”
“Yeah, because I could have said, ‘Hey, Dad, you wanna go grab an ice cream milkshake and an ab—'”
“He would have surprised you. However”—she smiles faintly—“I’d be a better choice.”
“Well, I’m all shot up now, so no need to schedule anything anytime soon.”
“Tris,” she says sadly, and I take a bite and smile big, squishing the banana through my teeth to make her laugh.
She does, but I see a faint sign of tears in her eyes and realize that may be the first time I have really wanted to make her feel … better.
Take that, monsters!
“There’s my little super star,” comes from behind me.
“She’s here?” I ask Mom.
She nods.
“Which means you and Dad really are going back? You trust me?”
She swallows hard and gives me an unconvincing smile.
“Well, at least you’re trying, huh?” I make a joke out of it. Otherwise, she won’t leave.
After giving Momma Joe a kiss on each cheek, Dad walks over and wraps his arm around Mom’s shoulders.
“Well, Mrs. Steel, are you ready to head across the pond?”
She looks shocked. She didn’t know.
“Zandor,” she whispers, shaking her head.
“We have two seniors who need us and a rock star who needs some R&R before her biggest show yet.”
He wraps his other arm around me, but before he can say anything, I do.
“I promise.”
“You sure Uncle Xavier isn’t going to be upset that I’m ducking out?”
“I’m still his momma.” She waves her hand to the door of the SUV being held open by her driver.
I slide in, even though it feels weird leaving with a line still waiting to meet me.
“And you look tired.”
Twenty minutes after I took the pills that I promised my parents I would take after the show, I started fading. That is what it feels like.
As she slides in, I tell her, “It’s the pills.”
“I understand, and my boys don’t know this, but after your grandfather’s death, I took an antidepressant as a precautionary so that they didn’t see me upset. I lasted a week before I realized the boys were moments away from taking over, and I’d be losing control.”
“Did you have trouble sleeping when you stopped?”
“Between you and me, yes, but the obsessive crying was exhausting, and then I would eventually pass out. I was outnumbered. I had to hide it.” She grabs my hand. “So, bella regazza, for the next few days, you need to remember you are not. You want to cry, then you do it. Sleep will come much easier after that than worrying.”
“I don’t love him anymore,” I say, looking out the window and wondering where we are going.
“Ah, I see. But the real question you need to answer, but only to yourself, is: do you love him any less?”
I look back at her, confused.
“Has the pain dulled? The rage begun to evaporate?”
When I don’t say anything, she laughs.
“Well, my dear, if you have to think about it, then I say it has.”
“That’s the problem, Momma Joe, when I do think about it, it brings it all back. I just wish I could forget.”
“Then we won’t speak of it again, unless of course you want to. But, right now, I’m famished, and it’s been a very long time since I’ve gorged on patatas bravas and then stuffed myself with authentic paella until I could barely move. I’d still have to get churros to go, of course. And since Thomas isn’t here, I can eat them in bed.”
“I could eat.” Even though I’m not hungry at all.
“Perfect, bella regazza, perfect.” She pats my hand. “How about you get changed into some street clothes so I don’t have to fight off your fans with my new bag?”
“I think I’ve proven I’m the fighter in this family,” I half-joke as I unzip the duffle that Dad clearly packed for me, because one of his handwritten notes is laying on top of the pile.
“That you are,” she says with pride. At least, I think it’s pride in her voice.
I change quickly, which I have learned to do just off stage, and settle back in my seat.
After a few moments of silence, I know the right thing to do is to say something, but all I keep thinking about is that maybe Brisa and My will stop messaging me every morning and every night when Mom and Dad get home, and they will be able to enjoy what’s left of their senior year, even if it is at Suckshore Academy.
I also wonder if Brisa sits with Torrance Effisto, Fawn and Dramida O’Donnell, or the ho twins at lunch, or if they attend parties pushed out on the Seashore Sound app. I already know Amias and Marc are on the same baseball team; that’s unavoidable. I also take comfort in the fact that, even though he always denied it, Marc is seriously jealous of Amias’s raw talent and athletic ability, whereas he has to bust his ass to keep up.
“We’re here,” Momma Joe interrupts my downward spiral into the darkness, a place those pills always take me, a place where hatred seeps into my pores and doesn’t allow a reprieve.
“Awesome,” I say with enough mustered enthusiasm that I actually sound convincing.
Sliding out of the vehicle, I make a point to tell her, “I may fall asleep after I eat. I’m exhausted.”
“Nothing beats a good food coma, nothing.”
I walk behind her toward a restaurant that has me looking down at my torn black jeans and clingy, heather gray, off-the-shoulder top, and realize I’m extremely underdressed for the restaurant I’m walking into.
Great.
We eat, and we eat like Steels eat together—with gusto and absolutely no regard for calorie consumption. The only thing different about this meal is there aren’t twenty-plus people surrounding us, and there is no wine.
“You can drink, Momma Joe; I don’t have a problem.”
I see her eyebrow start to arch and find it amusing when she fights her own nature—to say what she is thinking—and brings it right back down.
“Fine.” I laugh out, because the whole eyebrow thing is seriously amusing. “I use it like we’re using food tonight, because nothing is better than a good food coma,” I mimic her. “Nothing.”
She sits back as she dabs the napkin on her lips, pretending to wipe a crumb when she’s actually trying to hide a laugh.
“I’m still me, even though I self-medicated twice in the past several months.”