Page 11 of Nicole
Nicole massage her forehead. “You can be Shirley to everyone else,Mama.” She emphasized the last word.
A loud sigh crackled over the connection. “As I was saying, your brother Barritt’s testimony clinched the victory in court yesterday. The Navy can no longer detonate their ship shock explosives in Southern California waters. You know how many endangered whales, dolphins, and seals he saved from death and injury?”
Nicole moved things around in her trunk. “That’s great, Mama.”
I felt my brows climb to my hairline. The words were right, but they lacked any sort of conviction. And who was this version of Nicole that didn’t get convicted about the state of the planet? She should be pumping her fists over saving endangered whales, not mindlessly shuffling stuff around in her trunk like she didn’t live and breathe environmental causes.
A better man wouldn’t eavesdrop. But then again, I’d never been called a better man. I slouched down in my seat behind the wheel in case Nicole turned around and spotted me.
“Have you talked to your sister lately? Her case against ICE and the detention centers is really making headlines. She’s getting the attention of some important people over at Amnesty International.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“But enough about your siblings. What about you? What have you done lately to make this a better world to live in?”
Nicole gripped the open trunk lid and let her temple rest on her right arm. Her thick brown hair had been twisted up and pinned to her head in some way so that her long neck was exposed. The muscles on either side of her spine corded, tension mapping its way through her body with every word projected out of the phone’s speaker. She sighed, and her left arm fell to her side, limp in defeat. “Mama, I can’t do this right now. Sierra is about to start her first football practice, and I need to get her pads to her.”
“Football!” Shirley’s appalled response would’ve better followed a declaration of an impending drug deal, not a youth sports event. “Nicole, what are you thinking? These Neanderthal games are nothing more than auction blocks for human trafficking. That you would put my granddaughter—”
“Mydaughter, Mama. And she’s waiting for me, so I’ve got to go.” Nicole fingered the phone with enough force to break a phalange.
I opened my door and shut it quietly behind me. “I see where you get it now.”
Nicole started and spun around. “Drew? What are you doing here?”
I ignored her question. “Your passion, I mean.”
Nicole eyed her phone like it would leap out and bite her. “My mother and I are nothing alike.”
My hands dug to the bottom of my pockets, and I leaned against the front fender of the Suburban. “Maybe not. But it’s hard to thrive under that type of…” I searched for the right word. “…expectation.”
She snorted and turned back to her open trunk, wrestling with a filled trash bag.
I pushed off my vehicle and stepped beside her. “Here.” I took the bag from her, pulling gently since the edge seemed to be caught on a metal hinge and I didn’t want the thin plastic to rip. As I worked the side loose, the closure opened and I peeked inside. “Is that…” I blinked, but nothing changed.
She grabbed the orange strings of the closure and pulled tight.
“What are you doing with bags full of human hair? Planning to frame someone for a few hundred crimes with all this DNA evidence?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she muttered under her breath.
“You’re donating the leftover locks to a doll maker so they can make even creepier nightmare inspirations?”
She eyed me, then pushed the bag farther back, exposing a set of youth-sized shoulder pads. I grabbed the neck and yanked, dislodging and freeing the equipment.
“If you’re not donating, then maybe you’re hoping to sell the strands in a heroic and selfless act for a beloved family member.”
Nicole barked out one staccato note of laughter. Sharp but full. A single sound that seemed to have emerged on the air victorious. Free from the captivity of being held in.
My chest swelled. I’d heard Nicole laugh before. She wasn’t always dour-faced and somber. She smiled with her friends, and her joy could float on the breeze like the trill of a flautist. But this was the first note of the first measure that I’d had a part in playing.
“The hair would all have to be mine to be a selfless act, wouldn’t it? And for that to be true, I’d have to grow my hair out and shave it a few dozen times to get this amount.” She shook her head. “I don’t know where you come up with half the things that come out of your mouth.”
“I can’t take the credit for this one. That was all Jo fromLittle Women.”
“You knowLittle Women?”
I shrugged. “I have a sister.”
