Theresa bent down over her foot, carefully aiming the brush at her big toenail, focusing intently on the red paint she was applying.
Her voice wove along to the music in the room almost out of habit. She could do a decent Macy. It wasn't Zaneeta Shinn; but then, when did she ever want to sound like Zaneeta Shinn? "And it's clear," she sang aloud, "Obviously, this is not the place I'm supposed to be... Dammit!" She grabbed for the Q-tip soaked with toenail polish removed and quickly attacked the drip to the side. She hated doing her toenails. If she ever had money like Lily's, she would pay to have them done.
"Before I do, just one more look at you..."
She brushed the last layer over the last of her big toenail, checked to make sure it was even, and screwed the top back onto the bottle, satisfied. It would do. Sandal season now, she had to look good. Her toenail polish was getting a little skanked now, it was still left over from last summer, but new polish wasn't really at the top of her limited shopping budget. She desperately wanted to buy a copy of the new Harry Potter book, everybody else she saw seemed to be halfway through it, but she didn't know anybody in her life who had actually bought a copy themselves. And the waiting list at the library was six months long, and Theresa was not a patient person.
She dumped the used Q-tips in the trash and replaced the red polish on top of her dresser. She was kind of hungry. Maybe a banana... She wandered out into the hall, where she heard voices and froze.
"I will watch my daughter, and my son. But if you ask me, I still think perhaps you should be worried about your own sons."
The sharp, braying laugh in response made Theresa's skin tingle . She didn't understand how she could like Ryan so much and yet hate his mother so much. It didn't make sense to her.
"My sons? Let me tell you something about my sons. Do you know where their father is?"
Eva's voice was unnaturally even. "Of course I do."
"Do you know how these things work? Maybe you don't. I do. I am doing everything I can to keep those boys in line, but with one of 'em ditching me first chance he gets, and the other taggin' after him, and your kids... even having a man around don't help..."
"My kids are not the problem." Theresa's skin was crawling even more now. How could she...? How dare she...? As if she was the one leading Ryan astray. She wished she was leading Ryan anywhere, but she was definitely not leading him astray.
"Oh, sure they're not. Don't you even want to know where your son is all night?"
"Don't you?"
There was a long silence. Theresa glanced down at her drying toenails and flexed her feet. She rubbed a toe along the worn hardwood floor.
"Listen to me. The kids? They are all right. We have smart ones, you and I."
Another long silence. "That," Mrs. Atwood said, sounding tired, "is exactly what I'm afraid of."
"Didn't you make mistakes when you were young? I know I did. It's where kids come from, and then it's what kids do."
Theresa heard the voice approaching the door, and she backed up, but not in time to get away from her mother, who emerged and found her. For a moment, Eva looked worried, but then she smiled a tight, forced smile.
"Oh, Therese! There you are. Look who stopped by."
Theresa forced a smile. It didn't feel right. "Hi. Mrs. Atwood."
Dawn Atwood turned in her chair, beaming that patronizing smile she used with Theresa sometimes. "Hi, honey! Look, your mom made these yummy cookies! You want one?" Mrs. Atwood didn't understand kids at all. It was mind-boggling that she had two of them.
Theresa bit back the urge to point out that she could get the cookies herself if she wanted them. "Oh. I'm not really-"
"Just one cup of tea," Eva said, and even though she was smiling, Theresa heard the veiled threat far, far beneath the surface of the words. She would be joining them.
Her fake smile still pasted on, Theresa reluctantly slipped into the living room and helped herself to a handful of cookies before settling into the corner of the couch away from Eva and Dawn.
"I was just telling your mom I'm working at Pepe's now," Dawn said, beaming. "Don't you go there sometimes?"
"Sometimes," Theresa said, trying to smile as she looked away. Maybe she wouldn't be going there anymore. And if Ryan's mom was working there now, no way would Ryan ever go there. Which kind of took away all of the point of going. And besides, that wasn't what they were talking about at all anyway.
"And your mom was telling me about your house-hunting," Dawn said.
"Oh. Really?" Theresa bit into a cookie, catching the crumbs with her hand.
"A.J. and I are talking about moving, too. Give Ryan some more space." Dawn beamed, as though she thought he was solving all her problems.
"Hmmm," Eva said through her nose.
Dawn's face tightened. "Eva. I know you're Juana's friend."
Eva shook her head abruptly. "Oh, no, that's not – it's not my business, I stay out of it."
Theresa hid behind a cookie, now frustrated with her mother again. Of course not. It was never Eva's business.
Dawn looked relieved. "You know, she treated him horribly. So selfish-"
"Dawn," Eva said patiently. "I said. Not my business."
Theresa poked at her teeth with her tongue. A bit of raisin flesh was stuck in her molars.
"Having a man around – it's different when you have boys, you know," Dawn Atwood said, her voice taking on that high, nasally range that she always used when she was pleading with Ryan for something. "I'm just afraid Ryan only has Trey for a role model."
Theresa's head shot up. "And Eddie and Turo," Theresa piped up, if only to remind them that she was still here.
Eva shook her head. "Eddie... I don't know."
"What's wrong with Eddie?" Theresa asked, feeling suddenly defensive. "He's a good guy."
"Unlike Trey," Dawn sighed. "I don't know what I did wrong with that boy. Ryan at least is trying." She sipped her tea and made a face. A little rude, Theresa thought crossly. She wouldn't be making a face if it was spiked with rum. "But even him, with the fights. The other night. Ryan comes in at five-thirty, all scratched up." Theresa looked at her lap, feeling suddenly conspicuous and out of place. "I just don't know anymore."
Theresa caught her mother watching her sideways. She got it. This conversation was done, as far as she was concerned. Dawn, however, was oblivious. So she would have to jump on her chance to escape now, while she still could.
"I – I have to get ready for my shift tonight," Theresa stammered, hopping up and shoving her hands in her back pockets. She plastered another attempt at a smile on her face. "Bye, Mrs. Atwood."
She couldn't shake the feeling that something was not right. The thoughts swirled in her head as she biked her way to Pizza King, past overflowing dumpsters and abandoned storefronts and barbed-wire fences. It was such a strange world sometimes, mothers and children and lovers. Eva only ever talked about two of her lovers, the only two who had left evidence. The rest were lost to time. The two with evidence, surely there was more evidence, their names were somewhere, written on a birth certificate or letter. There had never been a marriage license, Theresa was fairly sure. Some day, she would have to ask. She wasn't even sure about that. All she knew was that Arturo's father had been deported, and her own father was dead. Or as good as. She wasn't exactly clear which one. Ryan and Trey's father had been doing time since before they ever moved to Chino, and Ryan tended to avoid the subject altogether. But Eva and Dawn were different. So different. Where Eva occasionally bemoaned the lack of a man in her household, Dawn seemed paralyzed in that situation. As if she was afraid to be with just her two boys – or one, as things now were.
"Your change is three twenty-one, and it'll be out in a minute." Theresa dropped the money into the impatient palm and slammed her cash drawer closed. People didn't understand when they were being rude to her that there was a person on the other side of the register. Since when had basic human decency ceased to exist?
"Busy?"
The voice disarmed her at once and she smiled with relief into Eddie's grinning face.
"Depends. You ordering?"
"Only if you have turkey subs." He looked hopeful.
She leaned forward, settling her weight on the counter. "Do we ever."
"Really good ones?"
"The best."
"No mayo?"
"Done. Manny!" Theresa scrawled on her order pad before tossing it up on the line. "Number forty-eight's on my tab, and no mayo."
"Sure, you just tag it on," Manny called from the back.
Eddie leaned forward, resting his elbows on the counter. "Now are you busy?"
"No." She blinked at him, the wheels turning. For some reason she felt unusually glad to see him. "Not now. Hey, Lily?"
Lily, slumped against her register, straightened up.
"I'm taking fifteen. Can you deal?"
Lily's eyes went wide. "Uh-"
"Yes, you can," Theresa said automatically. She whipped around the counter, pointing at the order window. "If that turkey sub comes up, bring it out for us, 'kay?"
She led Eddie to the outdoor seating area, where they settled at one of the white plastic umbrella-covered tables across from each other. He took a deep breath as he pulled his shoulders in, huddled beneath the umbrella, practically hiding from the sun.
"So I wanted to see how everything was," Eddie said, not looking at her. "Cause the other night was, you know-"
"Intense?" She chuckled in spite of herself. "Oh yeah." She looked up at him, sobering. "I'll be okay, Eddie. I'm a big girl."
"You are," he agreed. "Jesus. Seems like yesterday you was dressing Turo's Power Rangers in Barbie dresses, pissin' him off."
"Eddie, that was yesterday," she deadpanned.
He finally looked up at her and snorted. "...Right."
She sat up, something striking her all of a sudden. "Oh, if I'd known you were coming, I would have brought your sweatshirt. I washed it."
He shook his head. "Don't bother. It's fine."
"Are you sure?"
"Keep it. I don't care."
"Cause I'll give it back to you."
"Whatever."
"Listen," she said, her expression sobering. "Eddie. I know I'm lucky to have friends like you and Ryan."
At Ryan's name, his head shot up. "Have you talked to him?"
"Who, Ryan?" She reached for a napkin. Her hands needed to fiddle. She couldn't sit still for some reason. "Yeah. We're good."
"Are you?" He looked skeptical. "You sure?"
She began to crumple the napkin methodically, focusing all of her attention on it. "You know how he is. He goes off, but give him an hour to cool down and he's apologizing like hell."
Eddie tapped his seat with his fingers, drumming, restless. "So he apologized?"
"Yeah. We're cool." She rolled the corner of her napkin back and forth.
"And you accepted?"
"Eddie." She wrinkled her nose at him. "I said."
"So you," and he looked nervous and pitiful and terrified all at once. "And Ryan, it's like nobody really knows what's... well..."
"Oh, no," she said in a hurry. "No, it's not that, it's never been that. Not like that. We're just friends. C'mon."
"So you could have gone out with, uh-" He stopped, looking rather bashful.
She bobbed her head, urging him on. "It's okay. You can say his name – Mike."
"-Jackass, yeah," he finished, and she had to smile at the table. "Him."
"Oh, yeah. Ryan hangs out with girls a lot." She stopped, considering this. "I think."
"What, he doesn't tell you?"
"We don't really talk about it, no." She reached up to finger the ends of her hair. She had some split ends starting. Maybe she needed to see if her mother could cut it for her.
"So..." Eddie took a deep breath. "You don't tell him when guys ask you out?"
"God, no," she said right away.
"I mean-" He took a deep breath, leaning his torso back as he held onto the picnic table, stretching. He straightened up. "If I? Asked you out?"
Her fingers stopped in mid-roll. "What?" she asked sharply, not sure what she was hearing.
"I mean, hypothetically," he said in a rush.
"Eddie-" She looked at him, studying his face, which seemed to be avoiding eye contact still.
"You wouldn't say anything? Tell Ryan, I mean?"
"You mean like go out with you? And not tell him?" She couldn't believe what she was hearing.
Eddie searched for the word. "...Yeah."
She shook her head, still amazed. "That's different, Eddie. That's so different – you're not some guy. You're – I mean, you're Eddie."
"I'm not askin' you out, though. I'm just askin', what if?"
She fixed him with a stare. "Then what if we told Ryan?"
"It'd piss him off," Eddie said matter-of-factly, without even thinking. Maybe because he'd already spent a lot of time thinking about it. In fact, Theresa had the distinct feeling that he had.
"It's not like he owns me, you know," she pointed out, feeling defensive.
"It'd still piss him off."
She shrugged and reached for her napkin again. "Maybe."
"Okay." He shifted in his seat. "How about this? Forget Ryan Atwood for a second. Just you. If I asked you out, would you... say yes?"
She shredded methodically at the napkin, quiet for a moment. "Eddie-"
"Forget Ryan, Theresa."
She looked up at him. "I can't." She licked her lips. "I can't forget Ryan. And you're right. He'd flip his lid. And I can't lie to him. So no, Eddie. No."
She held her breath, not wanting to see her hear his reaction. But he covered his disappointment well, pressing onward. "And in a world where there was no Ryan Atwood?"
"C'mon, cut it out. Look. I care about you. You know I do. But things are complicated enough."
"They don't have to be," he muttered.
"Eddie-"
It was too late. He pushed back from the table, standing up. "I'll see you later."
This was wrong. She leaned forward, reaching for Eddie's arm. "Wait. No. Sit down, please-"
Lily burst through the door, carrying a plate in her hands. "Turkey sub?"
Eddie reached for the sandwich and peered at it. "Mayo?" He peeled the top layer off, exposing the white cream on top of the sandwich. He glared at Lily. "There's mayo on here!" he exploded.
Theresa rolled her eyes as she rose to her feet.
"Here!" Eddie shoved the sandwich at her. "It's yours anyway."
Theresa caught the plate. She felt Lily approaching her side as Eddie stormed through the parking lot to his truck.
"He okay?" Lily asked with only mild interest.
Theresa glanced down at her sub. "He hates mayo."
"Apparently," Lily nodded in agreement.
"I'm not hungry," Theresa said. "You want?" She held the plate out.
But Lily was shaking her head, wide-eyed. "I can't."
"Right." Heaven forbid she should put on an ounce of fat by actually eating something. "Manny'll eat it. C'mon."
Theresa held the door open and let Lily slip past her first. It was time for them to get back to work now.