Chapter 7
After working a record eleven evenings straight and being caught by old Mr. Reed's recurring nightmare about World War II seven of those eleven evenings, Naruto collapse on the couch and kicks his shoes off. By the number of empty bottles on the ring-stained coffee table, he assumes his mother is in her bedroom, down for the count.
Ino lets herself in. "Can I crash here?" Her eyes are rimmed red.
Naruto sighs inwardly. He wants to sleep. "Course. You okay with the couch?"
"Sure. Thanks."
Naruto relaxes. Ino, on the couch, would work fine.
Ino sniffles loudly.
"So, what's wrong?" Naruto asks, trying to put as much sympathy in his voice as he could muster. It's enough.
"Dad's yelling again. I got asked out. Dad says no."
Naruto perks up. "Who asked you out?"
"Shikamaru. From the body shop."
"You mean that old guy?"
Ino bristles. "He's twenty-two."
"You're sixteen! Ad he looks older than that."
"Not up close. He's cute. He has a cute ass."
"Maybe he plays Dance Dance Revolution at the arcade."
Ino giggles. Naruto smiles.
"So. You got any liquor around here?" Ino asks innocently.
Naruto laughs. "There's an understatement. Whaddya want, beer?" He looks at the bottles on the table. "Schnapps? Whiskey? Double-stuff vodka?"
"Got any of that cheap grape wine the winos at Shelby Park drink?"
"At your service." Naruto hauls himself off the couch and looks for clean glasses. The kitchen is a mess. Naruto has barely been here the past two weeks. She finds two sticky, mismatched glasses in the sink and washes then out, then searches through his mother's stash from her cheap wine assortment. "Ah, here it is. Boone's Farm, right?" He unscrews the bottle and pours two glasses full, not waiting for an answer from Ino, and then puts the bottle back in the fridge.
Ino flips on the TV. She takes a glass form Naruto.
"Thanks."
Naruto sips the sweet wine and makes a face. "So what are you gonna do about Stu?" He thinks there's a country song in that sentence somewhere.
"Go out with him."
"Your dad's gonna kill you if he find out.
"Yeah, well. What else is new?" They both settle on the creaky couch and put their feet on the coffee table, deftly pushing the mess of bottles to the center of it so they can stretch out.
The TV drones. They sip their wine and get silly. Naruto gets up, rummages around in his bedroom, and returns with snacks.
"Gross-you keep Doritos in your bedroom?"
"Emergency stash. For nights such as these." 'Since Mother can't be bothered to buy any actual food at the grocery store when she goes there for booze,' Naruto thinks.
"Ahh," Ino nods.
12:30 a.m.
Naruto sleeps on the couch. He doesn't dream. Never dreams.
5:02 a.m.
Naruto, forced awake, catapults into Ino's dream. It's the one by the river. Again. Naruto's been here twice since the first time, when they were thirteen.
Naruto, blind to the room his physical body is in, tries to stand. If he can feel his way to his bedroom and close the door before he starts to go numb, he might get enough distance to break the connection. He feels with his toes for the bottles on the floor, and goes around them. He reaches out for the wall and finds his way into the hallway as he and Ino are walking through the forest in Ino's dream. Naruto reaches for the door frames-first her mother's bedroom (hush, don't bump the door), then the bathroom, and then his room. He makes it inside, turns, and closes the door just as Ino and Naruto approach the riverbank.
The connection is lost.
Naruto breathes a sigh of relief. He looks around, blinks in the dark as his eyesight returns, crawls into bed, and sleeps.
9:06 a.m.
When he wakes, both his mother and Ino are in the kitchen. The living room is cleared of bottles. Ino is drying a sink full of dishes, and Naruto's mother is fixing her homemade morning drink: vodka and orange juice on ice. On the stove is a skillet covered by a paper plate. Two pieces of butter toast, two eggs over easy, and a small fortune of crisp bacon rest on a second paper plate, next to the skillet. Naruto's mother picks up the piece of bacon, takes her drink, and disappears into her bedroom without a word.
"Thanks Ino-you didn't have to do this. I was planning on cleaning today."
Ino is cheerful. "It's the least I can do. Did you sleep well? When you go to bed?"
Naruto peeks in the skillet, thinking, discovering hash browns. "Wow! Um…not long ago. It was close to daylight. But I was so tired."
"You've been working ridiculous hours."
Naruto. "Yeah, well. College. One day. How did you sleep?"
"Pretty good…" She hesitates,. Like she might say something else, but doesn't.
Naruto takes a bite of food. He's famished. "Did you have sweet dreams?"
Ino glances at Naruto, then picks up another dish and whips it with a towel. "Not really."
Naruto concentrates on the food, but his stomach flips. He waits, until the silence grows awkward. "You want to talk about it?"
Ino is silent for a long time. "Not really. No," she says finally.