Unteachable - Excerpt

Chapter Three

-3-

At seven Saturday morning I woke to Mom's voice, a raven screech ravaged from cheap alcohol and cigarettes.

"Babe! I made breakfast. Let's go shopping."

I pulled my pillow over my face, wondering if I had the discipline to suffocate myself.

"Get up, lazybones."

Curtain swish. Holocaust sunlight ignited my bed, seeping through the pillow.

"Go away," I groaned. I'd been having a weird dream about being chased through a cornfield by a wild dog. I couldn't see it when I looked back, just the ripple through the stalks. But when it growled I felt its breath on my neck, hot and toxic.

By "made breakfast," she meant bought McDonald's. At least it wasn't her usual liquid meal. I scarfed an egg sandwich and observed the woman who gave birth to me. Sunlight was not kind to her face. Her eye shadow looked greasy, not covering the dark circles so much as completing them. Her lipstick was thick and tacky. No one still wore magenta except ironically.

Once upon a time, this witchy skeletal creature was a teenage girl, like me. Her eyes were a clear peridot, her skin poreless alabaster. She was beautiful. Men and boys worshiped her.

I shuddered. I had the disturbing sense of looking into a mirror that showed the future.

"What do you need to shop for?" I said.

"For you, silly."

I eyed her suspiciously. "You never buy me things."

"It was a good week. We got some extra cash."

Translation: I sold a lot of meth to kids your age.

"And you're going to spend it on me." Not a question. A tentative statement.

"I can't stand looking at them ratty clothes. You need something nice."

Them ratty clothes were good enough for Mr. Wilke, I thought.

"You can just give me the money," I said. "I'll buy them myself."

Please, Jesus, don't go with me.

Mom smiled. Her porcelain caps shone brilliantly. The majority of her teeth were fake, the real ones rotted out by meth. "If I got to pay to spend time with you, I will."

Zip, thunk. Arrow right in the heart. It sank deep, quivering. I knew this woman cared about me in some delusional way. I just preferred when we both ignored that fact.

She chain-smoked in the van. I hung halfway out the window, texting Wesley. Please kill me. Girls' day out with Mom.

He texted back, Who's the girl?

Good old Wesley.

We drove through sleepy Carbondale, green lawns and campus commons, to the University Mall. Ice-cold AC, that soda pop smell in the slightly carbonated air. Mom took me straight to American Eagle. We passed a rack of pretorn, prefaded jean shorts, indistinguishable from what I was wearing except for the price tag. I raised an eyebrow. Translation: Told you so.

"Get what you like," Mom said. She held a mesh tank against her boobs, turning left and right.

"I'll meet you at the register," I said, slipping away.

Alone on the hardwood floors under champagne-colored lights, I'll admit it-I felt slightly glamorous. I couldn't stop looking at myself in the mirrors. I knew I was pretty. I'd never been one of those angsty girls who needed constant reassurance. When your mom's skeezy "business partners" hit on you when you're twelve, you learn fast. I'd been aware of male attention since before menarche. I knew I was desirable. I knew how to wield that as both a tool and a weapon.