My mother finally wore me down, but not so much that I’ll show up on time.
I’m exactly fifteen minutes late to meet Lisa Marie at Shooters on Sunday evening, because I’ve made a deal with myself. If she’s not there yet—which she won’t be, because she’s never on time—then I’ll leave. I have my text all planned: Sorry, couldn’t wait. See you next time you’re in town. Then I’ll go home and collapse into bed, because my head is still pounding from last night at Charlotte’s house.
Which I can barely remember, except for the part where I almost told Brynn—what? Too much? Everything? Thank God Shane came along when he did.
I knew I shouldn’t have texted Brynn. That moment of weakness after Colin punched her in the head has caused nothing but trouble.
Anyway, it’s good to have a solid plan when dealing with my mother. So I’m annoyed when the hostess leads me to a booth where Lisa Marie looks like she’s been sitting for some time, judging by the almost empty
bottle of beer in front of her. Not only was she not late, but she might’ve been early? This doesn’t bode well. At all.
“Get stuck at work?” Lisa Marie asks as I slide onto a cracked red vinyl cushion. Shooters is one of those places that keeps changing ownership—first it was Steady Eddie’s, then Midtown Tavern, then the optimistically named Paradise Lounge—but nobody ever bothers to update the interior. It’s always been my mother’s go-to spot in Sturgis, and I still think of it as Steady Eddie’s because we used to go there every Saturday when I was a kid.
“Yeah,” I say, accepting a menu from the hostess. If finishing my Kendrick Scholarship application with Regina’s prodding could be called stuck at work. She gave me a stamp, then left a line of customers waiting so she could march me to the mailbox down the corner from Brightside Bakery to make sure I actually mailed it.
“Think positive thoughts,” she told me as I slid the envelope through the slot.
“I’m positive I won’t get this,” I said.
Regina patted my arm with a sigh. “Attaboy.”
Now, a server appears beside the booth. “Something to drink?” she asks me.
“Just water.”
Lisa Marie rolls her eyes. “Have a soda. Live a little.” “I like water,” I say evenly.
“You folks ready to order, or do you need a minute?” the server asks. “Several minutes,” I say, since I’m not even sure I’m staying for
dinner.
“Ugh, really? I’m starving,” Lisa Marie whines. When I don’t reply, she turns to the server and asks, “Could we get a basket of bread or something?”
“Coming right up,” the woman says.
Lisa Marie nudges my foot with hers. “I’m getting the burger,” she says.
Instead of opening my menu, I lay it on the table and lean against the back of the booth, letting my eyes settle on hers. I know that makes her nervous; my mother has always hated prolonged eye contact. She looks about the same as she did the last time I saw her two years ago—too much like me for comfort—although her hair has gotten blonder and her teeth are blindingly white. Also, are her lips bigger? I think they might be.
“How’s Junior?” she asks.
“Dad is fine,” I say. It annoys me that she never calls him your father,
like the title is as pointless for him as mother is for her. “And how’s school?” she asks.
No. We’re not doing this. “Why are you here?”
Lisa Marie finishes the last of her beer and glances out the window. “Still not a fan of small talk, huh?”
“Nope,” I say. I might be acting calm, but I don’t feel it. I’m always jumpy around my mother, wondering what form her particular brand of dysfunction is going to take this time.
The server reappears with my water and a basket full of rolls, with foil- wrapped butter. “I’ll take another one of these too, please,” Lisa Marie says, holding up her beer bottle. Then she grabs a roll, tears it in two, and smears an entire butter packet over one half. “So you’re applying to colleges now, huh?” she asks.
“Applied,” I say. “It’s done.”
“When do you find out if you get in?” she asks, before taking a big bite of roll.
I slowly unwrap my straw. “A few months.”
She’s silent for a beat, chewing, then swallows and says, “What about the money part? How are you paying for it?” Another bite of roll leaves a line of butter along her lip, and she lifts her napkin to wipe it off.
“To be determined,” I say.
She raises her brows. “You need help?”
“Of course,” I say, wondering why she’s wasting my time with this when I already spent months bugging her to fill out the goddamn FAFSA
forms already. She finally did, which is all the help I’ve ever expected from Lisa Marie.
“Well, that’s why I’m here,” she says.
Something tugs at my chest then, and it takes a few seconds to realize that I just felt a small rush of hope in my mother’s presence. I push it down, immediately. I don’t trust it. “To help me?” I ask. “With what?”
She rolls her eyes, like it should be obvious. “Paying for school.”
The server returns then with Lisa Marie’s beer and asks, “You ready to order?”
“God, yes. I can’t wait another second,” my mother says, and rattles off her burger order.
“I’ll have the same,” I say. My voice is a low rumble, because my throat has gotten kind of thick all of a sudden. Stupid hope.
We hand over our menus, and when the server leaves, Lisa Marie folds her hands on the table and gives me a big, overly white smile. I almost return it, until she says, “There’s an exciting opportunity I want to tell you about.”
The lump in my throat dissolves instantly. That sounds like an infomercial, not an offer to cover part of my tuition. “Really,” I say.
“So, you know, I meet some pretty interesting people in the casino,” she says. “And sometimes we end up talking for a while, about more than whatever game they’re playing.”
Oh Christ. Does she have a new boyfriend? Does she want me to meet him? Even if he’s rich and generous, I’m not sure I can stomach that. “Okay,” I say.
“So last month I met this guy”—I close my eyes briefly, but they pop right back open when she continues—“and as it turns out, he knows Sturgis.”
“Knows it?” The skin at the back of my neck starts to prickle. “Why?” “Well, he’s a true-crime reporter, and—”
I don’t need to hear the rest of her lead-up. “Gunnar Fox,” I say flatly. I should’ve made the connection as soon as Mr. Delgado called him a Las
Vegas hack. It’s a big city, but my mother has the kind of negative energy that would pull someone like him right in.
Her eyebrows rise. “You know him?”
“I saw the hit piece he did on Shane, yeah,” I say. “Killer Kids?
Classy.”
“Gunnar is looking to revolutionize the true-crime genre away from the stale, overproduced shows that dominate the airwaves,” my mother says, like she’s some kind of Gunnar Fox puppet getting its strings yanked. “Everything the networks churn out now is just same old, same old. There’s no pizazz, you know?”
“Because they’re crime shows,” I say. “About dead people.”
Lisa Marie waves a dismissive hand, as though she’s sweeping away the negativity that’s keeping me from seeing the big picture. “He has a vision.”
I grab a roll, just to have something to rip apart. “Am I the next Killer Kid, then? Is that what this is about?” I ask. “You’re giving me the heads-up that Shane didn’t get? Thanks a lot. I’ll be sure to plan my day around getting slandered on YouTube.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lisa Marie snaps. “That Delgado boy’s story has never added up, and it’s about time somebody called him on it. But you’re different. I told Gunnar, there’s no way my son would protect a thug like that unless he was afraid for his life.”
“You told him what?” I stare at her, disbelieving. “I never said anything like that, to you or to anyone else. It’s not true. So you’re just making shit up now?”
“You didn’t say it because you felt like you couldn’t,” Lisa Marie says earnestly. “I’ve finally realized that. But you’re safe now, Trey. You have people looking out for you, and you can tell your side of the story.”
“Jesus Christ.” I stuff a too-big hunk of roll into my mouth, briefly fantasizing that I’ll choke and she’ll have to stop talking. Who am I kidding, though? She wouldn’t.
“That’s where the opportunity comes in. Gunnar knows what your story is worth, and he wants to pay you. Ten grand to be a guest on Don’t
Do the Crime. Ten thousand dollars. And that was just the starting offer. I bet we could get it higher. Can you imagine?”
Yes, I can. That’s almost enough to cover a year’s worth of room and board at UMass, and after that, who knows? I could worry about that once I’m not in Sturgis anymore. But as soon as I’ve finished swallowing, I say, “No.”
Lisa Marie’s brow furrows. “What do you mean, no?”
I keep shredding my roll into smaller and smaller pieces. “I mean I’m not going to lie on television, and if I were? I wouldn’t do it with your pal Gunnar.”
“Oh, come on, Trey. You haven’t even thought about it—” “I don’t have to think about it. The answer is no.”
“If you don’t tell your side of the story, he’ll tell it for you.” I pause, mid-tear. “Is that a threat?”
“Of course not. But don’t you want to control your own narrative? Gunnar thinks it would make for amazing television. And he’s not the only one doing something on Mr. Larkin, by the way.” Lisa Marie takes a sip of beer. “He heard a rumor that that Motive show is going to cover it too. You know the one? With the host who just moved to Boston. That type of show always picks an angle, and if they haven’t gotten in touch with you, guess what?” She tips the bottle toward me. “You’re the angle.” Then she puts on her most persuasive voice. “Honey, I haven’t even told you the best part,” she says. I almost laugh, because since when does she call me honey, but then she adds, “We’d be doing this together.”
The server arrives with our burgers and slides plates in front of us while asking questions about ketchup and drinks that I can’t answer because my mind has gone blank. Then it slowly fills back up, like data populating a spreadsheet, and I understand everything. Why my mother is here, why she suddenly cares about my college career, and why she looks like a camera- ready version of her usual self.
Once our server leaves, I say, “Gunnar Fox offered you money too, didn’t he? Was it the same amount? No, probably half. But we’re a set, so without me, you get nothing. Am I right?”
Her shifty expression is all the confirmation I need, even before she says, “Gunnar is very interested in my contributions too.”
“Your contributions?” I almost laugh. “What would those be? You weren’t even around when Mr. Larkin died. You’d been gone for years.”
“I was in town,” Lisa Marie says. “I remember the atmosphere. Very tense.”
I stare at her. “You were not in town. You were in Vegas, like always.” “I came back for the Saint Ambrose spring concert, remember?”
Right. The spring concert, which every student is required to attend, even if they’ve never sung a note in their life. It’s always held in late March, which never really feels like spring in New England. “You came back for Valerie’s birthday,” I say. “The concert just happened to be the next night, and Mr. Larkin died two weeks later.”
“I was still at Valerie’s,” she insists, a faint flush creeping into her cheeks, probably remembering how she’d made a big show of having to leave right after the concert. “I ended up not feeling well when it was time to go to the airport, so I stayed.”
“For two weeks? And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“I had the flu,” Lisa Marie replies with a delicate sniff. “I didn’t want you to catch it.”
God, she’s such a liar. I can’t decide which is worse—that my mother flew all the way from Las Vegas just to try to push me onto some TV show, or that I actually thought, even for a second, that she came back for me.
When I dropped the Kendrick Scholarship application in the mail today, I thought to myself, I’d do anything to win this. But what I really meant was, I’d do anything to get out of Sturgis next year. Apparently, that’s not quite true, though. I’d rather live in Regina’s spare room forever than hand over thousands of dollars to the woman who walked out on me eight years ago and never looked back.
I shove the remains of my roll aside and grab my hamburger. “Give Gunnar my regards and tell him he can go to hell,” I say, taking a big bite of the burger as I slide out of the booth.
“Noah Daniel Talbot! You don’t understand what you’re throwing away. Come back here and have a mature conversation,” Lisa Marie calls after me. She finally uses my actual name—my full name, even—but it’s too little and way too late. I wave goodbye over my shoulder with the burger and keep walking.
