Gimme a break. I was less of a burden now than I’d ever been in my life. I’d had all the fight taken out of me. I knew that wasn’t it, and Dawn and Laurel and Marcus all told them that was crazy. They said how much my mother loved me and how devoted she was to me and all that, which made me feel like a shit for how I treated her sometimes, like she was my maid. I’d be different when she came back.
Second theory: I had something to do with her going missing. They didn’t say that, but I didn’t have to be a genius to know what was going through their heads. A couple of them—a guy named Detective Wiley, and I couldn’t remember the other dude’s name—came to the trailer this morning and went through it again, looking for the diary or memoir or whatever. I’d already looked everywhere I could think of. After they tore the place apart, they talked to me for a couple more hours. Their questions started in one spot and then spun out like a spiderweb, looping all over the place until they had me good and confused. I got angry and told them they were wasting their time, and Wiley said, “Settle down, Keith,” which pissed me off more. Like he could settle down if his mother went missing.
They asked me where I was the afternoon she disappeared.
“In school,” I said. Stupid. I knew the minute I said it, I’d screwed up.
Right in front of me, Wiley called over to Douglas High to check the attendance records. “Uh-huh,” he said into the phone, but he was looking at me with these half-closed, suspicious eyes. “Uh-huh. Right. Thanks.” He turned off his phone and talked to the other guy like I wasn’t even there. “She says he left after sixth period,” he said, and they both looked at me, like, what d’you have to say for yourself now, kid?
“All right,” I said. “I went surfing. By the pier. You can ask anybody.” But I knew the dudes who hung out there wouldn’t be able to say if I was there or not. You could be invisible out in the water. That’s why I liked going there in the first place.
The cops finally left, and I spent the next few hours waiting for them to come back with handcuffs—or worse, with a social worker. I couldn’t believe they still hadn’t figured out I was only seventeen. No one at Laurel’s meeting had ratted on me about it, either. Maybe no one knew? Or cared? That was all right with me. The last thing I needed was to end up in a foster home or something. If the cops thought I was eighteen, I’d be eighteen.
I’d managed to get one of those grocery carts with a squeaky wheel, just so the other shoppers would be sure to notice the burned guy. The wheel made the cart tough to push and probably would have killed my shoulder if I hadn’t doubled up on the Perc again that afternoon. The good news was that, even though I was out of food, I had plenty of Percocet. I got them through the mail and my mother must have just re-upped before she disappeared, because three beautiful bottles arrived that afternoon. When it came to pain meds, at least, I was golden.
I lowered my head as I raced through the store, tossing stuff in the cart, not looking at anybody. I just wanted to make it fast, but I didn’t know where anything was. I found the bread and then got some of those packages of ham and cheese. The cart was getting to me, so I traded it in for a smoother ride. Then I got some toilet paper. Some Coke. I pulled one of the cans from the carton, popped it open and drank it warm as I tooled around the store. I passed the cold beer. Oh, man, what I wouldn’t give for a six-pack! I knew this guy at the gas station who’d buy some for me. He got burned in Iraq, so he knew what it was like. I found the cereal and threw a couple boxes in the cart. Then I noticed the price on the shelf below the Honey Nut Cheerios: $4.49? No way. I put the boxes back on the shelf and started looking through the other stuff I’d stuck in the cart. No prices on anything. How were you supposed to figure this out? I’d planned to get out of there for ten bucks. If everything was as expensive as the cereal, I was screwed. How did my mother do it? She was always cutting coupons, so maybe that was the secret to getting by on the crappy money she made at Jabeen’s. I didn’t want to think about her while I was in the store or I’d end up with another crying fit like I’d had in Laurel’s bathroom. That’d be really smooth in the middle of Harris Teeter.
I stared at the meat counter for a long time. I’d had steak maybe four times in my life, and my mouth actually watered, staring at it. I wasn’t even sure how you cooked it. We had this old charcoal grill, but you needed lighter fluid to grill stuff. Just the thought of spraying the coals with lighter fluid and tossing a match on them made me hyperventilate. I was never going to be one of those guys who got his rocks off cooking things on a grill.
I looked up from the meat counter to see this old lady. She was holding a package of ground beef, and she was staring at me. At my face. I’d let down my guard while I was salivating over the steak.
“What are you lookin’ at?” I asked, shoving my cart past her. I had to get out of there.
I whipped down the first aisle I came to. Canned chili was on sale and I tossed four cans in my cart. Then I saw some rice, which was cheap and had directions on the back, so I couldn’t screw it up. That was enough. I headed for the checkout, wishing I could just steal the stuff and not have to face a checker and count out money and everything. I had twenty dollars in my pocket. What if I had more than twenty dollars’ worth in the cart? Crap.
I spotted boxes of chocolate-covered doughnuts at the end of the cereal aisle for half price. A lot cheaper than cereal. My mother never bought doughnuts, but they looked good. I reached toward one of the boxes.
“I can’t resist them either.”
I looked up to see this totally, totally hot girl smiling at me.
I lowered my head again, fast. “’ Scuse me,” I said, trying to push my cart past her, but her cart sort of had me blocked in. Shit. I started moving backward to get around her.
“Aren’t you going to get the doughnuts?” she asked. Like, what the hell did she care?
“Oh. Right.” I grabbed one of the boxes.
“They’re so yummy,” she said.
I turned my head so the right side of my face was toward her. “Yeah,” I said. I hoped it seemed natural for me to talk to her with my head turned, but it probably just made me look weird. Whatever.
“I totally love Entenmann’s,” she said, and it took me a minute to realize she was talking about the brand. “You put those doughnuts and chocolate together, and I’m powerless.” She looked like she’d never eat a speck of chocolate or anything else that could pack on the pounds, but she was skinny in a good way. Not like one of those anorexic actresses. She had small breasts, the way I liked them, and an inch of flat stomach between her white top and brown pants. Those pants fit her like the chocolate coated the doughnuts. She still had a tan and I could picture her on the beach in a string bikini. Her hair was nearly black and her eyes blue and—Oh, shit! I’d let down my guard again. Turned my head toward her while I was salivating over her. She was still smiling, though. I slipped my bad left hand into my pocket.
“You don’t look like you indulge.” That was out of my mouth before I thought about it. It was the kind of thing I would’ve said to a girl before the fire.
“Well, like I said, chocolate’s my weakness.”
I took my hand out of my pocket long enough to flip open the doughnut box and offer her one. “Your only weakness?” I asked. Whoa. All the way, dude. I felt my smile freeze on my face, waiting for the rejection.
She laughed. Reached for a doughnut. “I’ve got others,” she said. “How about you?”
Was she blind? “Too many to count,” I said.
“So.” She nibbled the doughnut. Licked the chocolate from her lips. “What’re you buying today?” She leaned on my cart to peer inside. Her top wasn’t all that low-cut, but I liked what I could see.
“Shopping cheap,” I said.
“I’m the queen of shopping cheap.” She picked up one of the cans of chili. “Need a little nutrition here, though,” she said.
“That’s