“Goddammit!” Stomping off into one of the two bedrooms, he releases a few more curses and then yells at me. “Don’t fucking leave. I’ve got another delivery for you.”
“Jesus. Fine.” Because I’m well acquainted with Malcolm’s hair-trigger temper being expressed primarily through slammed doors and shouts but no real violence, I take the opportunity to rifle through Malcolm’s refrigerator, which is surprisingly well-stocked for a bachelor’s. He has cold pizza, cold Chinese food, and sandwich makings. “Can I have the leftover shrimp fried rice?” I yell.
He mumbles something that I assume is agreement. After the contents of the box are heated, I unhook the sides and lay the cardboard flat on the table. Malcolm and I discovered the magic of the Chinese takeout box when we were teens and have never eaten leftovers any other way.
He must have heard the completion ding of the microwave because he stomps out of the bedroom he uses as an office. Jerking out a drawer and grabbing another fork, he huffs into a stool next to me and starts eating the leftovers. It’s like we are twelve and fourteen again, back before testosterone overtook Malcolm and turned him into an asshole.
Before then he was a Skylander-playing, Pokémon-loving goofball. Somewhere around the end of fifteen, on the cusp of sixteen, he left it all behind to become this woman-hating, amoral jerk. Twelve years later, he’s perfected what he started—only now he’s a criminal, woman-hating, amoral jerk. I wonder idly whether Malcolm fits the profile of a sociopath.
“How’s Sophie?”
“She’s…” I start to say “fine,” but she’s not and I don’t know why I would pretend with him. “She’s hanging in there.” I push the food around.
“I can get Sophie some good weed. I’ve got a nice shipment in,” he offers. At my raised eyebrows, he shrugs. “I don’t hate her. Not anymore, I guess.”
Malcolm’s dad left his mom for my mom. If I’m objective, I can understand his dislike for us. But who the hell is rational when it comes to someone you love? Not me and not Malcolm either. Neither of us pay much attention to Mitch Hedder anymore. He walked out on my mom when I was sixteen and Malcolm was eighteen. The old man is a shiftless piece of work who inveigles his way into women’s lives and then ruins them.
I guess Malcolm thinks relationships are for suckers. He might be right. I’ve never been able to keep a man in my life.
“I found a place but I need a co-sign for the apartment application. The on-the-books money I make isn’t enough to convince the landlord I can make rent and I won’t make rent without the job.”
“Should’ve thought of that before you left Kerr’s, Tiny.”
I shift uncomfortably on my stool. I don’t want to go back to see Ian and not for any reasons associated with Malcolm's situation. Ian Kerr is a danger to me. The only way I will stay safe is to maintain distance. In a city this big, with our massive economic differences, that should be pretty easy so long as my mother's health doesn't rest on a return visit.
“Sophie’s pretty sick,” I tell him. “She wants to stop the chemo and just . . .” I can’t say it. These last four weeks have been rough. “I need that money, Malcolm. If we had an elevator and she could go outside for a few minutes, it would make all the difference in the world.”
“Get Kerr to sign the papers then.”
“He said you’ve sent three others to him and he’s turned them away.”
“Did he?” He shovels more food into his mouth.
I'm getting frustrated. “What is the big deal?”
“Don’t know,” Malcolm mumbles around some food. “But I figure if I had his signature on something, I could blackmail him in the future.”
“Jesus, Malcolm.” I hiss an indrawn breath. “What the hell? That sounds like a quick way to get yourself dumped in the East River.”
“Back at ya, sis. You’re a fucking hypocrite. You’re always busting my chops like working for me is totally beneath you, but you sure like the dough.” He pushes me another padded envelope and a wad of cash wrapped in a rubber band.
“It’s for my mom,” I protest.
“Please, save your situational morality for someone else. We all got mommy problems.” Malcolm scoffs bitterly. “Get Kerr’s signature and I’ll get you any damn apartment you want.”
There’s nothing else for me to say. I choke down the rest of the food even though I’m not hungry anymore. Returning to Ian’s place after he wrote “Fuck You” on the papers seems like a lost cause.