McMansionville is too quiet. No footsteps thumping on the ceiling from the upstairs apartment. Cameron’s phone battery blinks red, nearly drained. He digs in the bottom of his duffel for his charging cord, but it’s sitting on Katie’s nightstand. He can practically see it there. Left behind, leaving him literally powerless.
Maybe Brad or Elizabeth has a spare. He creeps into their kitchen, opening drawers as quietly as he can. Silverware in neat rows, an entire pull-out devoted to oven mitts. Who needs that many oven mitts? Are they cooking for an infantry unit? Most are monogramed. Elizabeth and Bradley Burnett: EBB. Like an ebb tide. As if the two of them are headed right on out to sea, waving to him as he’s left alone on the shore.
“Hey,” comes a voice from the hallway.
“Elizabeth!” Cameron slams the drawer shut. As if mocking him, it closes slowly and softly, the way these fancy cabinets do.
“Didn’t mean to startle you.” She smiles, an empty cup in one hand. The other rests on her belly, which is trying to bust out of a pale blue robe. “Up for a drink, which means I’ll need to pee again in an hour. My bladder is the size of a jelly bean these days.” She flicks on the light then pads over to the refrigerator and presses her cup under the water dispenser.
“I can’t believe you guys are going to have a baby,” Cameron says. Brad and Elizabeth have been married three
years, and of course Cameron was best man at their wedding, but it’s still just . . . weird. Elizabeth was his best friend since kindergarten, and Brad was a good guy, but always hovering on the periphery of their friend group. Never good enough for Elizabeth in high school, but somehow, they got together a few years later. Now married, now a baby.
“A baby? I thought I was just bloated.” Elizabeth’s eyes crinkle, teasing. “How come you’re awake, anyway?”
“Phone’s dead.” He holds up the moribund device. “You guys have an extra charger?”
Elizabeth gestures. “Junk drawer.”
“Thanks.” He pulls out a neatly coiled cord.
Grimacing, Elizabeth eases herself up onto one of the bar stools lining the island counter and takes a long drink of water. “Sorry to hear about you and Katie.”
He slumps onto the stool next to her. “I screwed that up.” “Sounds like it.”
“Thanks for the sympathy, Lizard-breath.”
“Anytime, Camel-tron,” she says with a grin, returning the childhood nickname. “So, what happens now?”
Cameron picks at the fraying spot on the cuff of his favorite hoodie, depositing the greenish thread bits in a pile on the counter. “I’ll get a new place. Maybe that apartment over Dell’s.”
“Dell’s? Gross.” Elizabeth wrinkles her nose. “You can do better than that. Besides, who wants Uncle Cam smelling like stale beer when he comes to see the baby?”
Cameron drops his head, letting it rest on the cool granite for a moment before looking back up. “I’m not exactly flush with options here.”
Elizabeth leans across the counter and sweeps the thread bits into her palm. “That sweatshirt is also gross, by the way. Brad threw his out a long time ago.”
“What? Why?” It’s not official Moth Sausage gear, exactly, but the whole band got them. Years ago. Always
planned to get them screen printed.
“When was the last time you washed it?”
“Last week,” Cameron says with a huff. “I’m not an animal.”
“Well, it’s still gross. It’s falling apart. And I’ll never understand why you guys picked that baby-poo color.”
“It’s Moth Green!”
Elizabeth studies him for a long moment. “Why don’t you, like, travel or something?” she says quietly. “What’s keeping you here?”
He blinks. “Where would I go?”
“San Francisco. London, Bangkok, Marrakesh.”
“Oh, sure. I’ll just summon my Lear. Fly halfway around the world.”
“Okay, maybe not Marrakesh.” She lowers her voice. “To be honest, I’m not even sure where that is. It was part of a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune last night.”
“It’s in Morocco,” Cameron answers almost automatically.
Not somewhere he’s ever been or will ever go.
“Right, smarty-pants. Well, maybe I’d have learned that if Brad and I hadn’t both fallen asleep on the couch while it was on.”
Cameron crinkles his nose. “Remind me never to get married.”
“I’ll be shocked if you ever do.” She shakes her head, then snakes an arm under her massive belly, wincing. “Okay, back to bed for me. The good news is,” she says as she crosses the kitchen and deposits her glass in the sink, “I already have to pee again. Thanks for the chat. Two birds, one stone.”
“You’re welcome.” He heads back toward the living room, clutching the phone charger. “See you in the morning.”
“Until then.” She flicks off the light and disappears down the hallway.
AN HOUR.
Two. Three.
Bluish light from his phone screen bathes Cameron’s face. Katie had gone through a phase where she tried to ban phones from their bedroom after she read some article about how the light was addictive. Messed up your brain waves somehow. He’d always assumed it was nonsense, but now his eyes burn in the screen’s glow and his brain feels scrambled.
Of course, there’s nothing new on any of Katie’s social media feeds. He’s combed through all of them several times. She hasn’t blocked him. Yet. His index finger hovers over her name. One touch to make the call. But probably she’s asleep, sleeping easier than ever with him gone.
He’d never really belonged there. It was never his place.
He needs to let it go.
He pulls up a listing app for apartments and scrolls through the photos, each floor plan with wide sunny windows and gleaming countertops. Every single one features a bowl of fresh fruit in its kitchen, two oranges, a single yellow banana, and a bunch of shiny red apples. It’s the same exact bowl of fruit. Like, they must have moved it from unit to unit with them. Who gets the fruit when they’re done taking all those pictures of it? And who eats red apples, anyway? It would be better marketing to lay out a piping-hot pizza and a six-pack of beer.
Those fancy-fruit apartments aren’t for him. The place over Dell’s will be good enough. Old Al’s not an idiot, though. He’ll want a deposit. Time to open that box and see if his deadbeat momma left anything worthwhile he can pawn.
As he’s retrieving it from the living room, a security light blinks on outside, in the front yard. Cameron freezes, but it’s just a raccoon. The fattest raccoon he’s ever seen. Even the vermin live large out here. He half expects the thing to
scowl at him through the window and ask him what he’s doing up at this hour, like some middle-aged soccer dad.
The box makes a series of soft hisses as he nudges it across the room with a socked toe. He plops on the couch, and a puff of dust makes him cough as soon as he yanks open the first flap. Aunt Jeanne’s doctor is always blaming her cigarette habit for her chronic hacking, but the filth in that trailer must be at least as much to blame. Now that the seed has been planted, the thought of a smoke is beyond tantalizing right now. He really should quit. But he picks up the box, stuffs what’s left of his last pack into the pocket of his joggers, and heads outside.
Moonlight illuminates the box’s contents as he starts to lay out the items, one by one, on the patio table. The suspense is surprisingly exhilarating. Maybe those storage- unit bidding-war reality shows are onto something.
But the thrill is short-lived. This shit is basic. A box of gross, half-used lipsticks.
A folder of handwritten papers that look like high school essays. Boring and worthless.
A concert ticket stub, Whitesnake at the Seattle Center Coliseum, August 14, 1988. Totally useless, and also, questionable taste in music.
About a million scrunchies, or whatever those things are girls use to hold their ponytails.
A bunch of ancient cassette tapes. Shitty hair bands, mostly. A few blank, like the kind you’d record a mixtape on. Could be interesting, but who has a tape player these days? And in any case, zero resale value.
Cameron takes a drag on his cigarette. What a supreme disappointment. Why had Aunt Jeanne wanted to give him this crap? Nothing conjures even an ounce of warmth toward his mother. And, more important, nothing will generate even a cent of cash.
He picks up the empty box and a small black drawstring bag tumbles out. Jewelry. Jackpot! Four bracelets, seven
necklaces, two empty lockets, one broken silver chain. Nothing diamond-like, unfortunately, but some of it seems to be real gold. Worth pawning, anyway.
He smooths the bag to make sure it’s empty, but it isn’t. There’s something stuck in the bottom. He shakes it, and the thing finally dislodges and tumbles out. It’s a wad of paper . . . but it’s too heavy to be a wad of paper. No, it’s a crusty old photo, folded around a big, chunky class ring. Bringing it inches from his face, he reads the engraving.
SOWELL BAY HIGH SCHOOL, CLASS OF 1989.
He flattens the photo, and even in the half dark he recognizes a teenage version of his mother, smiling, her arms around a man he’s never seen before.
