Since what normally happened was that you hooked up with someone while in the apartment complex (as B and B and LaTanya and Derek did), lived with them there then moved to the housing development across the street when you got married, the community was also kind of incestuous. If you lived there long enough, everyone knew you and you knew everyone.
I didn’t move there to be a single in a singles nirvana. I moved there because I liked the look of the place. It was quiet, close to the mall and downtown, the apartments were spacious and the units had lots of green space between them. I also moved there because I loved pools and had a freakish need to be tan for as long as I possibly could be, weather permitting. Me tan slid me up to a Three Point Five, or at least I fancied it did.
“You wanna tell me what we’re walkin’ into here?” Mitch broke into my thoughts to ask a pertinent question.
“My cousin’s name is Bill,” I answered. “And he has a nine year old son and a six year old daughter and their names are Billy and Billie. Billy, the boy, with a ‘y’ and Billie, the girl, with an ‘ie’.”
I felt Mitch’s eyes on me before I felt them leave me and he flipped on the turn signal.
“You aren’t laughing,” he remarked after he’d turned out of the complex and I’d said no more.
“I’m not laughing because it isn’t funny and it isn’t funny because I’m not joking,” I replied.
“Shit,” he muttered, already knowing exactly what kind of mess Bill was.
And Mitch was right. Bill, Billy and Billie’s names said it all.
“Anyway, Bill isn’t a great Dad so occasionally Billy packs up Billie and they run away. They usually don’t go very far and once they get there, they talk someone into calling me. I go get them. We have a chat. I get them food because their Dad doesn’t remember to feed them. I take them back to their Dad. Then I have a chat with Bill, leave and come home.”
This was most of it, not all of it. I didn’t share that every time I left, I considered kidnapping my cousin’s kids. I also considered a phone call to Child Protective Services. And lately, I considered that I lamented the fact that I hadn’t kicked their drunk, stupid, lame Dad’s ass before I left.
“So they ran away, they’re at the Stop ‘n’ Go and they called you,” Mitch deduced.
“Yep.”
“Where’s their Mom?”
“Moms, plural and they’re both long gone.”
Mitch had no reply to that.
I decided since he’d been pretty angry and I wasn’t certain if he was still angry but I was guessing he was that I would share a little more. Maybe being forthcoming would shear the edge of his anger.
“They have no family in Denver and Bill is my only family here so I’m their only family here. That’s why they call me.”
“That isn’t why they call you,” Mitch returned immediately and I turned my head to look at him.
“Pardon?” I asked.
“That isn’t why they call you,” Mitch repeated.
“I heard what you said,” I told him. “I just don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, you’re a brother and sister with two different Moms, both who took off, a Dad that’s such a mess at nine years old you’re runnin’ away and your Dad’s cousin is a woman whose smile lights up her whole face and her laugh ignites a room, you want that in your life. So you run away and call her in hopes that she’s gonna give you that light and warmth to fill your life.”
I stared at his profile as he drove and I felt my heart beating in my throat but my stomach had clenched so hard I found I couldn’t breathe.
I didn’t recall ever smiling at him, not a real, unabashed smile and I definitely never laughed around him.
“I’ve never laughed around you,” I blurted stupidly.
He glanced at me then back at the road before saying, “Sweetheart, you’re with Brent and Bradon or LaTanya and Derek, I can hear it through the walls.”
Ohmigod!
“So you’re saying I have a loud laugh,” I noted.
“No,” he said with what sounded like extreme patience. “What I’m sayin’ is you have a gorgeous laugh. I’ve heard it. I like it.”
Ohmigod!
That couldn’t true. He was just being nice and since I couldn’t deal with him being nice…er we needed to move on.
“My smile doesn’t light up my whole face. It’s wonky,” I informed him.
“It isn’t wonky.”
“It is.”
“Mara, it isn’t. You don’t smile at me like you mean it because you’re always too freaked out to let yourself go. But I’ve seen you at Derek and LaTanya’s smiling like you mean it. I’ll take your smiles even when you don’t let yourself go because they work really fuckin’ well. But I’ll tell you, when you let yourself go, they’re fuckin’ fantastic.”