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  “Would it kill them to stock diet grape soda?” I bitched, staring at the soda shelves at Walmart.

  Ethan busted out laughing.

  I looked down at my kid.

  I’d rearranged my activities that day. Instead of hitting the store, I did some laundry, paid my bills, and cleaned the house before he got home.

  This was because he liked going to the grocery store and he wasn’t a big fan of cleaning.

  I didn’t let him totally get away with that. He had chores. He took out the trash, helped me do the dishes when I was home at night, and he had to keep his room picked up.

  He got an allowance because I thought it was best he learned that you had to earn what you got. I didn’t want to shelter him, then send him out in the world so he could get blindsided about how hard you had to work just to afford decent. I wanted him to know even as I was careful not to bog him down in that crap.

  So he got extra if he vacuumed or dusted. More if he took on the bathroom or mopped the kitchen floor. And he needed cabbage for whatever kids needed cabbage for, so he did both, often.

  But I didn’t want our time together that day, a Saturday that was a full day off for me, to be about laundry and cleaning. I wanted it to be about hanging and doing shit we liked.

  I wasn’t a big fan of grocery shopping, but Ethan was, so I got the crap stuff out of the way so that when he got home we could focus on the good stuff.

  “Somethin’ funny?” I asked, feeling my lips quirk, even after the day I’d had and the lingering hangover that I’d had to manage without an Egg McMuffin but with pills and a fried egg on toast.

  “Mom,” Ethan said through his laughter, sweeping his hand to our cart. “We got diet orange, Diet 7UP, Diet Cherry 7UP, Diet Coke, Diet Dr. Pepper, and two different kinds of Fresca. How much diet crap do you need?”

  “I have to look after my girlish figure,” I retorted.

  “Yeah, right,” he muttered, putting his hands to the cart and starting to push. “You do that real good with your candy stash.”

  I didn’t look in the cart because I didn’t have to. We’d hit the candy aisle already and we were loaded up. My kid liked sweets, but I was a candy junkie. I had some every day, sometimes more than “some.”

  I had a lot of bad habits.

  I could drink my fair share of booze.

  I had three drawers of makeup in the bathroom.

  I knew I should filter some of the shit that came out of my mouth, but I didn’t bother.

  I dressed in a way I knew people thought was more than a little skanky, but I liked it. It made me a dick magnet of the extreme variety, but even knowing this, living and breathing it, I still didn’t change. I just couldn’t bring myself to tone it down. I liked the way it looked—it was me—and I’d learned the hard way to be nothing but me.

  And I ate lots of candy.

  I followed my son, sharing my wisdom, “The diet pop negates the candy bars.”

  “It sucks that that makes sense and is probably true,” he muttered, turning the corner into the snack aisle. Another bad habit…for both of us.

  “Considering your concern for my nutrition, maybe we should skip this aisle and go straight to the carrots.”

  He lifted his eyes and gave me a look.

  I grinned at him.

  He rolled his eyes, the ends of his mouth curling up, and went right to the microwave popcorn.

  I followed him, thinking about how in a couple of years, he’d be taller than me. A year or two after that, his voice would drop. A year or two after that, he’d be dating. A year or two after that, he’d be on his way to building his own life.

  In other words, this time was precious.

  Every moment was precious—I knew that—but this time it was even more.

  I’d had ten, nearly eleven years where he was mine. I shared him because I was generous that way.

  But still, he was all mine.

  That time was more than half over.

  Seven more years and…

  “Theater style or cheddar?” Ethan asked, breaking into my thoughts.

  “Uh…duh,” I answered as my phone in my purse rang. “Both.”

  That was when Ethan grinned full-out at me.

  Yeah, Trent had given him good. My boy would be handsome when he got older because he was cute as hell right now.

  Though, those were my eyes that were bright with humor, so my genes didn’t fall down on the job.

  Ethan got both kinds of popcorn and tossed them into the cart.

  I dug my phone out of my purse and looked at it.

  The instant my eyes hit it, the balm of being with my son disappeared and that thorn drove in deeper, twisting, the prongs at the sides tearing at flesh.

  The screen said, Merry Calling.

  I dropped the phone back in my purse.

  “Who’s that?”

  At his question, I looked to my kid.

  I did not lie to him. Lies were bad and I didn’t want him to catch me in one and be disappointed or get the idea lying was okay (this was going to be hard to keep up if Trent and Peg actually pulled their bullshit).

  I tried to give it to him straight. Sometimes I softened it. Sometimes I shielded him from things he really didn’t need to know or was too young to know. But as best I could, I gave it to him straight.

  This had led to us having some awkward conversations, especially the last year or so. He was growing up, as were the kids around him. Shit happened, was heard, seen, watched on TV, or caught in movies, and Ethan had been taught he could come to me with anything.

  So he did.

  And I gave it to him straight.

  So when he asked the question that was simple to him but not to me, I did what I always did.

  “Merry,” I answered.

  His brows went up. “Why didn’t you take the call?”

  He asked because he knew Merry was a friend. He knew this because, being a friend, we had occasions to be together outside me serving Merry drinks at J&J’s, times when Ethan was around. Parties. Barbeques. Picnics. Basketball and football games Colt would organize with adults and kids. Hanging at the carnival at Arbuckle Acres during the Fourth of July. Heading out with Colt and Feb and their speedboat to a lake.

  Merry was in his life. Merry liked kids, dug Ethan, and often passed a ball or Frisbee with him, teased him, shot the shit with him, ruffled his hair, squeezed the back of his neck, laughed when Ethan was funny, made Ethan laugh by being funny.

  There was no reason Ethan could imagine why I would not take a call from a good guy who might not be a staple in Ethan’s life but definitely had a firm foot in it.

  “’Cause I’m with you at the grocery store and some stuff has gone down with Merry that’s pretty intense, so when I chat with him next, I wanna give him all my attention.”

  This was the truth, thankfully.

  Ethan’s head tipped to the side. “What stuff?”

  “His ex-wife got engaged to someone else.”

  Ethan was no less confused. “He still into her?”

  That thorn drove deeper.

  “Yep.”

  Ethan nodded like he was a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old wise man with a twelve-foot-long white beard, sitting on a mountaintop, a pilgrimage destination for folks who wished to beg his wisdom.

  “I see that,” he muttered solemnly.

  “You got an ex-wife I don’t know about?” I asked, reaching for a bag of Funyuns as we made our way down the aisle.

  “Three of them, actually,” Ethan answered.

  I swallowed a laugh and tossed the Funyuns in the cart. I still grinned at the back of his head as he grabbed a bag of Fritos Scoops.

  “Too bad you didn’t have a momma who taught you how to treat a woman right,” I remarked.

  “Nah, me that got rid of them, seein’ as they didn’t treat me as good as my momma,” he shot back.

  Suddenly, I needed to hold on to something because I felt weak in the knees
.

  My dad drank, slapped my mom around, then gave her the best gift he could: he fucked around on her with a woman he preferred, so he left us to be with her and then minimized contact in order not to deal with his responsibility, but it made it so we didn’t have to deal with his garbage.

  I didn’t like school so I screwed around, graduating by the skin of my teeth, too young and too stupid to know one day I’d need it.

  I liked wild because it felt good, so I found it everywhere I could find it and ended up with men so far worse than my father, it wasn’t funny.

  I ate shit because I’d bought it and I ate shit because that was life.

  But in all that, I’d done something right. Something so right, it was the anchor of my life that kept me steady and whole instead of allowing me to get chewed to shit and spit out, bloody and beaten.

  I’d made Ethan. I’d kept Ethan. And I made sure my boy knew he was loved right down to my soul.

  Which meant he loved me that way right back.

  “You know I love you, baby?” I whispered.

  He turned his head and gave me a glare. “Jeez, Mom. Gag.”

  I couldn’t help it, I burst out laughing.

  The last couple of years, the love and hugs and cuddles I showered on my kid had had to dry up. He might allow it, in private and in moderation. But affection was not big on his hit list any other time.

  “You done bein’ gooey?” he asked through my laughter.

  “Yep,” I said, fighting that laughter back. “Just hit my weekly quota of gooey. But, just warnin’ you, kid, next week I’ll have to fit more gooey in somewhere.”

  He rolled his eyes, but his lips were tipped up again and those eyes were shining. He then headed to the Pringles selection.

  We bought four tubes.

  I found time in the pasta aisle to text Merry, With Ethan. Talk later.

  I got back, You on tomorrow?

  He could find out easily; my shifts at the bar were hardly a state secret.

  Early, I replied.

  Catch you there.

  Fabulous.

  He was going to lay it on me while I was at work.

  Morrie had talked Feb into putting a few TVs in, which meant Sundays at the bar, always steady but not busy, became the last—busy. Good for tips. Bad to have a bunch of folks around while I had to take the hit that Merry was going to deliver.

  But Merry thought I was a woman who “got it.”

  And I did “get it,” even if I didn’t want to.

  So I’d take it, I’d understand it, and we’d carry on.

  I just wasn’t looking forward to it.

  Chapter Three

  Guarantee

  Cher

  “All right! We’re rollin’ out!” I called to the house, walking out of my bedroom.

  It was the next day and we were on our way to my mother’s so I could drop Ethan and then get to work.

  In preparing, I’d managed to beat back the urge to go all out—or more to the point, not.

  Part of me understood why Mia Merrick didn’t make an approach to her ex-husband (a small part of me), this being he had so far from remained celibate since their break it wasn’t funny. He’d tagged and bagged a lot of tail in the time I knew him, and although Mia rarely came into J&J’s and definitely didn’t attend any other events I’d been to when Merry was around, the amount of tail he’d hit in a town that small would be impossible to miss.

  And I saw what he went for. Petite. Emphasis on hair. Talented hand with makeup brushes. Dressed like me, showing skin. They’d get their cling on, if not skintight, not much left to the imagination.

  The difference was it was designer, expensive, not only the clothes but the hair. They didn’t get their hair cut in their mother’s kitchen and their color or highlights out of a bottle. They got it from folks who charged a lot more than my mom, who’d do it for a bottle of wine or me making dinner.

  The extra cake spent on the entire package catapulted them from what I was considered—trash—to what they were considered—class—even if we were all going for the same effect.

  I didn’t spend money on clothes and hair, and my makeup was drugstore, Walmart, or Target purchased.

  I didn’t do this, because I had a kid.

  This didn’t mean I didn’t have the odd piece in my closet that might show Merry I had that in me—class. The ability to turn a different kind of eye, maybe even his.

  The thing was, it was the odd piece and those pieces were for hanging with my girls. They weren’t for work. And I didn’t want to say what it would say to Merry if I faced down the hit he was going to give me that day dressed in armor he’d take one look at and understand that I needed armor. I needed it because he had the ability to hurt me and that was because he meant more to me than I wanted him to know. Or, more to the point, he meant everything to me in a way I didn’t want him to know.

  Besides, it didn’t matter. If he didn’t know me and want me for me, then fuck him.

  So I was in my usual. Tight jeans. Thick, black belt with a huge rhinestone buckle. Black tank with a deep racerback and a rocker cross on the front, studs abounding. Black lace bra that was sexy as all hell, straps showing, giving a hint of the rest of the goodness that was hidden. Spike-heeled, black suede bootie sandals with a slouchy top that my jeans were tucked into, my black-polished toenails and heels exposed.

  Add big silver earrings, black leather studded cuff on my wrist, a tangle of necklaces falling down my front, big hair, and heavy makeup, and I was good to go.

  This look was me, but it also had a bonus—it was good for tips.

  I walked out of my bedroom as I threw on a droopy, loose-woven black cardigan and saw Ethan at the door with his backpack.

  “You good?” I asked, going to my purse in the wicker bucket chair (the purse also black suede with silver studs and the addition of silver chain as straps).

  “Yeah,” he replied, opening the door and heading out.

  I followed him, beeping the locks of my Chevy Equinox.

  Not yet knowing he was criminally insane, I’d given my car to Dennis Lowe and he’d used it to cross state lines and continue his butchery. He’d dumped it along the way, and after all the bows were tied on the case, I’d gotten it back.

  I’d then immediately sold it and used the rest of the money he gave me, plus the money I got from selling all the shit he gave me, to buy my now not-so-new, blue baby girl. She was big and roomy. She was my son’s favorite color. She had a smooth ride. She was safe. She had an awesome stereo. And of all the things Denny Lowe did to me, I did not mind one single bit that his bullshit got me and my kid in a nice, safe car.

  We deserved that. So I’d made it so.

  I backed out of the drive and headed toward Mom’s place.

  Mom, like Ethan and me, lived in the ’burg proper. Not the old part where the houses were established, on big lots, graceful, and grand. Not the edges where the developments ranged from middle class to seriously upper middle class.

  But the post-war middle part where the lots were big, the trees were tall, but the houses were small and there hadn’t been a lot of time, effort, or money put in to throwing them up.

  We hit the curb at Mom’s and Ethan and I got out, moving up her walk.

  Her place was not a rental; she’d bought it. Then again, she’d had a home to sell in Indy so she could. Property values, even for her ’hood in the ’burg, were higher than the not-so-great ’hood she’d lived in in Indy, so she didn’t get much bang for her buck, but she liked it and had paid for it in full.

  The layout was kinda like mine except more square. Living room to the front; kitchen to the back (not the side). Bedrooms down the hall, but there was a small study and the master bedroom was bigger and had its own three-quarter bath.

  It had been a bit run-down, but we’d pulled it together with the help of Colt, Morrie, Jack, Colt’s partner, Sully, Cal, Mike, and even on occasion, Merry. Precisely, I remembered Merry and Mike put in h
er new countertops in the kitchen and bath, and Merry re-skimmed the walls in the living room.

  When we got to that living room Merry had re-skimmed, I saw Mom flat on her back on the couch.

  “You best be up for movie day, honey-sicle, ’cause Gramma’s pooped right out,” she told the TV, then twisted her head back to look at us over the arm of the couch. “Or, you best be up for movie day if your homework is done.”

  I looked down at my mom.

  She’d never graduated from waitress work. She’d done that before Dad left. She did it after. She did it now. She worked at The Station and she was good at what she did. She was liked so much, regulars asked to be put in her section.

  She also made decent money. Like me, not rolling in it but not eating cat food either.

  And she was fifty-six. She didn’t look it. She took care of herself. She was on her feet a lot, so she got exercise, and she’d always taken care of her skin. She ate a helluva lot better than me. She gave a shit about how she looked, took care of her hair, dressed good. To that end, she dated. Even had a couple of men who hung around for a while, both of them treating her right, but she couldn’t settle.

  I got that.

  Once bitten, two hundred times shy.

  Her lying on the couch was bullshit. She was talking movies because she knew Ethan would be into that. Normally, she’d be working in her yard, deep cleaning the grout in the bathroom, or with her bitches, playing poker. Even though she looked great, was fit, and had lots of energy, she had ten years left of being on her feet, schlepping food to people. Then she’d use the meager retirement she’d saved to take the sting out of living below poverty level on social security.

  I hated that for her. Just like I wanted more for my boy and went all out to get it for him, I wanted more for my mom.

  And there was another part of why life sucked, knowing she’d never get it and I’d never be in a place to give it to her.

  I’d put her through the wringer. My little girl years were not filled with Barbies and dreams of marrying whatever British royal was moderately hot at the time but instead listening to my father beat on my mother. Then I’d gone wild, pissed at the world that we didn’t have a lot, that my dad was a dick who didn’t give a shit about me or my mom and showed us just that. Onward to shacking up with a junkie, letting him get me pregnant, and ending up as a stripper with a boyfriend who had about fifteen screws loose and wasn’t afraid of using a hatchet.