Page 9 of Electricity

“No—Mom?—”

“Give me your phone—” she said again, more ominously, holding her hand out.

I gritted my teeth and handed it over. She looked at it dismissively. “You know I pay your phone bill.”

“I give you over half my paycheck!” I said, before I could bite my tongue.

“And we’re barely breaking even, Jessica. You know that. If I can’t trust you with my car, withmyphone,” she said, emphasis on the ‘my’, “and to have any money—” She shook her head. “From now on everything comes through me.”

I stared at her, jaw dropped. “You told me last night that you loved me?—”

“And I do—but I can’t trust you. I’m doing this for your own good.”

A tidal wave of anger built in me then, for every time actions ought to’ve had consequences and didn’t, or shouldn’t have then did—my mother was the most confusing, most frustrating, most worst person ever.

But I saw her fingers flex around my phone—if she threw it and it broke I might never get a new one.

“For how long?” I asked, doing my best to sound contrite and utterly failing at it.

“For as long as it takes.” She put the phone in her robe’s pocket, and nudged Allie with affection. “You two have fun—I’m going back to bed.”

I waited until she left the room and dropped onto the couch. Allie’s hand crept out and found mine. I took it and squeezed it once. She quietly squeezed it back.

“Go get your homework?” I asked after a few minutes of TV.

“Next commercial?”

“K.”

I spent the afternoon helping Allie with her times tables while I studied for my chemistry class. As the only class I had Liam in, it had priority over all other classes. The sound of my mother’s chainsaw snoring reverberated through the back of the trailer all the while.

I had tonight off at work. Why couldn’t the party have been tonight? Then I could’ve gone with Lacey and neither of us would’ve ended up grounded.

At six o’clock sharp I made our dinner. Fish sticks and tater tots, Allie’s favorite, cheap and easy. We were sitting in front of the TV when my mother lumbered forth again.

“Save me some?”

“In the fridge,” I said with a finger-point. She walked past us, still wearing this morning’s robe, I could see the outline of my phone pressing against its thin pocket. When she was in the kitchen I heard the fridge open.

There was a quiet clink as she pulled out the plate I’d left her, and the pop and deflating hiss as she opened up a can of beer.

“How’re you getting to work tonight?” I asked casually.

“Barbara,” she answered, and retreated with her drink and dinner back into the bathroom.

It took my mother upwards of an hour to get properly ready. When I was little I used to sit on the toilet and watch her, mystified, as the air clouded with Aqua-net. When I was older, I used to wonder how she managed to put on mascara while buzzed, but older still I realized now she probably couldn’t manage it sober. She paced from her bedroom, the bathroom, and the small porch outside, where she took pensive smokebreaks in between phases, staring out at the rest of the trailers on our block. Allie and I did our best to stay small, pretending whatever was currently on the TV was fasc-in-a-ting, until she emerged from the back, all made up, an empty plate in one hand and her purse in the other, wearing a low-cut top designed to induce tipping in Neanderthals. She handed the plate over to me.

“How do I look?”

There was only ever one answer. Like the Evil Queen in Snow White, my mother always had to be the most beautiful in all the land.

“Gorgeous!” Allie said, enthusiastically.

I could see the dark circles that foundation couldn’t quite hide, and all the thin lines radiating out from her lips because of smoking, but if I was still being honest I had to admit she still looked, “Pretty good.”

“Thank you,” she said, tilting her head at us, her court of two, regally. Then she reached into her purse and pulled out my phone. For a heart-flippingly hopeful second, I thought she’d toss it to me, but no. “I’m only showing you this so you don’t go into my room, looking for it.” She waved it between us—and it beeped.

Her perfect eyebrows rose and she flipped it to look at the screen, reading my messages.

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