Still, I grabbed a half-full cereal bowl and took it upstairs with me. Ants are gnarly.
I found Mom in the kitchen, reading a book at the table. “Hey, hey,” I said, depositing my bowl in the sink. I braced myself on the back of a chair. “Wassup, little Mama?”
She put down her book and smiled. “Not much. What’s up with you?”
“Your boy’s hongry. Will you make me some cinnamon toast?”
“Will you put your cereal bowl in the dishwasher, instead of leaving it in the sink to rot?”
“Pew, pew!” I said, making finger guns and shooting them at her. She spread her hands, palms up. I sighed and trudged back to the sink.
As Mom toasted the bread and melted the butter and mixed in the right proportions of cinnamon and sugar, I told her what happened in Ms. Summers’s class. I started with Stevie and his stupid lobsters and ended with Roby and how he said that not every guy in the universe would go for sex with a willing and eager naked girl.
I didn’t phrase it like that.
Mom placed the cinnamon toast in front of me, warm and bubbly. Yum.
“So?” I said. “Thoughts? Comments?”
“I don’t know, Paul,” she said. “It’s complicated.”
“What is?”
She chewed her thumbnail. “Have I told you about the time I went to the beach, when I was seven months pregnant?”
“With Dad?”
“No, with you. I was never pregnant with your dad.”
“Ha ha.”
“I went with Grandmom and Granddad,” she said. “Your dad never liked the ocean.” She sat down across from me. “I had a big belly — surprise — and for the first time in a long time, I didn’t sense men looking at me when I walked by.”
“Huh,” I said.
“Before, I was always aware of being looked at. Guys could have held up score cards — Nine! Seven! Seven point five! — and it wouldn’t have surprised me.”
The thought of Mom being stared at in that way, judged just because she’d been born a girl, made me uncomfortable. Stevie’s naked, willing girl flashed into my mind, only this time the “willing” part sounded worse than it had in class.
“That sounds creepy,” I said. “Can I have a glass of orange juice?”
“It was creepy, and get it yourself. You’re a big boy.”
“Ouch.”
“You’re not a big boy?”
I tilted my head. “Mother.”
She tilted her head. “Son.”
I got myself a glass of juice. When I returned, she said, “It was a relief, not being stared at. But at the same time, I sort of missed it.”
“Weird.” I stuck my finger into my ear, examined what I dug out, and offered it for her to smell.
She pushed my hand away. “Paul. Ugh. Why are boys so gross?”
“Hey, you raised me.”
“Not to do that.”
“Oh. My bad.”
She exhaled. “Sounds like Roby — Is that his name? The boy who said we don’t have to be ruled by biology? — is a rare find.”
I wanted to ask Mom about me. Was I a rare find?
But I’d left out the part of the story where I didn’t stand up for Roby. Also the part about Stevie’s chuckle. So I fished my phone from my pocket, pulled up “Shining” by bbno$, and hit play. I put my phone in front of my mouth and pretended it was me doing the singing.
“Uhh, hello?” I mouthed. “Skrrr skrrr skrrr skrrr!”
“What are you doing?” asked Mom.
I lowered the phone maybe an inch. “What do you mean? That was me, talking to you!”
“It didn’t sound like you. Who’s the band?”
“You mean the artist? B b no dollar sign.”
She grimaced. She’s not a fan of rap — yet.
“It means ‘baby no money,’” I explained.
“Whose baby has no money?”
“Your baby, obviously.” I flashed a smile. “Speaking of, have any of your customers given you any nice swag for your boy Paul?”
Before Mom and Dad got divorced, we had a housekeeper come to our house three times a week. Now Mom works part-time for a housecleaning service herself. She says she likes it because she can listen to audiobooks while scrubbing other people’s toilets.
Occasionally the ladies Mom works for give her stuff, like if they ordered something and it didn’t fit or if they wanted the maroon Nespresso machine instead of the black one. They’re all, “Here, Callie, why don’t you take this?”
Last month, a lady sent Mom home with a Gucci T-shirt with a snake on it, because her son wanted the Gucci shirt with the lion on it. I keep hoping one of Mom’s ladies will pass along a pair of sweet purple suede Jordans I’ve had my eyes on. I’d buy them myself, only I don’t have the funds.
Mom stood up from the table. “Zero swag for my boy Paul. Alas.”
“Sad day,” I lamented. I stood and cranked my music.
Mom covered her ears. “Too loud, too loud!”
I turned it off. “I’m just playing with you, silly Mama.”
She regarded me with exasperation. But it changed to, like, love.
“Being a human is hard work, isn’t it?” she said.
“You can say that again.”
“Being a human is —”
“Really, Mom? Really?”
She smiled. “Still, you’re doing a fairly decent job. Keep it up.”
At Brevard High School we have blue days and white days, with different class schedules on the different days. The day after Lobster Day was a blue day, which meant I didn’t have WEB with Ms. Summers, which meant I could have pretended that what was done was done and there was nothing to be gained by dwelling on it. I wasn’t comfortable with leaving things like that. I didn’t want to be the guy who used eye rolls and chin jerks to say that Stevie Hardman was a TOTAL TOOL, only to do an about-face and sit with said tool at lunch and laugh, or at least smile uncomfortably, at his illuminating commentary on sex slaves in post-whatever America.
I’m not good at the dialectics of social criticism. I don’t know what any of those words mean, except for social.
Social, I’m fine with, as in fi-i-i-ne. My great hope is that one day in the near future, social will be fine with me — nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
Point is, I wanted to make things better. Maybe I just wanted to like myself again.
During my lunch period, I tracked down Gertrude. I found her lounging loose-limbed on the stairs outside the freshman wing, eyes closed and soaking up the sun.
“Gertrude, ’sup?” I said, sitting down beside her.
She startled. Then she scowled. “Is invasion of privacy one of your things?”
“Huh?”
“We’re the only ones here for miles. You’re sitting practically on top of me.”
“No, I don’t think so.” I rubbed my nose with the knuckle of my index finger, surreptitiously dislodging a booger.
Gertrude seemed at a loss for words.
I propped my elbows on my knees, templed my fingers, and said, “Did you hear about Ben Hartt and the xannies he supposedly brought on campus?”