Another Monday, and I am run into the ground. I feel totally defeated. Tonight, everybody’s meeting up at Coby’s for dinner. I guess they figured it was only fair if everybody’s household took a turn as cook and host. I’m trying to pick up as many extra hours as I can, so CJ and I can leave. God hasn’t said anything to me about my plan, and He hasn’t given me another one. I’m saving up money so we can get out of here as soon as possible.
“It’s complete madness when we get together for these!” Morgan exclaimed as she elbowed her way through Bryan’s apartment. It was smaller than the rest, so there was never enough room for everybody to fit comfortably.
“Madness,” Aaron cackled from the stove where he was stirring his huge pot of chili. “That should be patented. From now on, every one of these is gonna be Monday Madness.”
“Dude, when’s the food gonna be ready?” Jon complained, reluctantly arranging place settings around the table.
“Emily was doing swears to the ducks!” Christian tattled, very upset. “And she called them pigs because one was eating all the bread. And that’s not nice to call ducks names. It hurts their feelings.”
Libby snickered in spite of herself, watching Jess tell Christian he was right, but that sometimes people lose their tempers and say things they don’t mean. She had seen with her own eyes, Emily throwing entire pieces of bread into the pond after they had played with Christian at the park. All the ducks had eaten hungrily until Emily snapped, “Just eat the whole damn loaf, you pigs!” So Libby couldn’t help but laugh. The girl was hilarious.
“Well they really were pigs,” Emily mumbled under her breath. She sat down in the living room, ignoring the others who were helping set the table.
“Get off your butt, woman!” Legend snapped good-naturedly. She hauled Emily to her feet and into the kitchen. “Everybody else is helping get dinner on the table.”
“We got anything to eat with the chili?” Bryan asked, opening cupboard doors.
Aaron turned from the stove. “Since when is chili not a meal by itself?” he asked, as Bryan found a bag of Fritos and tossed them on the table.
Coby was just about to take Christian out to play catch when Aaron decided the chili was ready.
Actually, Aaron didn’t really know if it was done or not, but he knew he had hungry people who were waiting for him to get supper on the table.
Legend‘s cell phone rang then, and she picked up, before passing it off to Jess. She knew Jess had given out the number to her boss in case of emergencies when Jess might not be home.
Quickly, Jess took the call, and hung up. “I don’t know why they sent me home at all…” she muttered.
“What’s up?” Legend asked as she took her phone back.
“They need me back at work to cover the dinner rush. I said they could call if they needed somebody.” Jess kept herself busy, putting her hat back on and avoiding Legend’s gaze.
“You mean you’re missing chili?” Christian asked, feeling sad about it. He already knew he was going to eat all his chili so he wouldn’t have to have another peanut butter sandwich, and so he could get dessert. He wanted to show his mom the good job he was going to do eating all his food up.
Jess looked at him regretfully, knowing she was missing some of the only uninterrupted time she had to spend with him. “Sorry, baby,” she apologized, giving him a kiss. “I’ll be home before you’re in bed, okay?”
“Okay,” Christian pouted, as Aaron put the big pot of chili on the table.
“Hey, kiddo,” Coby said, noticing Christian looked upset. “Did you know me and my sister made this table?” Coby knocked on it, trying for a good distraction.
Christian looked at the table and then at Coby. “How many is your sister?” he asked. He didn’t know if Coby was telling a joke or not. He never heard of anybody building tables before.
Coby grinned. “She’s eight. Her name’s Riley.”
Christian pressed one finger to the table to see if it would break, but it was good and strong. “You mean you made the wood and everything?”
Laughing, Coby kept Christian involved with the conversation, explaining that the table had come in pieces at a special store, and all he and Riley had to do was put the pieces together. He nodded goodbye to Jess as he saw her grab her coat and head for the door.
--
Since Nathaniel was just arriving, and Liam wasn’t yet there, Jess took the opportunity to avoid Liam and hopefully spend a pleasant few minutes with Nate instead of weird strained silence with Legend or somebody else.
She was still not happy about Liam butting into her personal life, and wasn’t ready to see him yet. And it made her vaguely sick to think of leaving Christian in his presence when she wasn’t around.
Ever since the movie the day before, Jess had been edgier than usual. Her nightmare last night had been more a flashback than anything else. She had woken up outside the apartment, and had to use the skills of her rebellious youth to sneak back inside, though their open apartment window. Jess shook her head to clear it, knowing she didn’t have time to think about all that now. She approached Nate, who sent her a smile.
“Nate, can I get a ride to work? I know you just got here, but if I don’t leave now I’m gonna be late.”
“Sure,” he nodded.
Before he left, Nathaniel stuck his head in the kitchen to let everyone know he would be right back. “I’m just dropping Jess off,” he explained. “And Liam’s running a little late, but he’ll be here.”
--
“Thanks for doing this, Nate,” Jess said apologetically. She was glad she hadn’t bothered to change out of her uniform. “I offered to cover if anything came up, but I didn’t think they’d need me an hour after I got off.”
Nate smiled. “No problem. You need me to come back here and pick you up?” He got out to open her car door.
Jess shook her head. “I can get a ride,” she assured him.
He nodded. “All right. But if something comes up, call us.”
Promising she would, and knowing she wouldn’t, Jess went inside, and prepared for a few more hours on her feet.
--
When Aaron put the bowl of chili down in front of Christian he picked up his spoon. He was going to do what his mom always said. If you don’t like something, but you just eat it anyway, it gets over faster. So even though Christian didn’t like spicy things that much, he started eating it as fast as he could.
It burned his mouth the same way pepperonis and Mom’s tacos did, and a little worse, but Christian still ate it. He was glad there was milk to drink too. He didn’t know what there was for dessert, but CJ already knew it must be very good. For dessert when his mom cooked the yucky tacos, there was strawberry shortcake, and Christian didn’t get to have any that night because he didn’t eat what was for dinner.
Legend took her seat at the table when Aaron called them all. As she did with everything he cooked, Legend investigated it thoroughly before she ate it. Aaron was distractible on his best day. That wasn’t a good thing, in the kitchen.
Junior year of high school she and Jess had come over for cookies, which Aaron had baked all by himself. Both girls had tried them and instantly gagged. When Jess, who was pregnant enough to burst with Christian, asked him how much salt he’d put in, Aaron told them he’d done just what the recipe said, and added one cup of salt. Legend read that part of the recipe out loud and informed him that one teaspoon would never equal one cup.
Sniffing the chili, she sneezed. Bravely Legend licked a tiny bit of it off her spoon. It was lukewarm at best, even though it just came off the stove. Her mouth and ears burned hot. She knew Aaron liked his food spicy, though, so that could be intentional. Probably because Jess was in food-service, and made her anal about checking stuff like this, Legend found herself cutting into a mammoth piece of ground beef. When it was pink inside, she spoke up, comically screaming, “Abort! Abort!”
Morgan startled, and ended up with a spoonful of chili down her front. “Awesome,” she said dryly. “Can I borrow a shirt?” she asked Bryan.
“Sure,” he answered. Getting up from the table, he walked to the living room where a basket of his clean clothes remained unfolded. He plucked out his green polo shirt and tossed to her.
“Thanks,” she answered, going deeper into the living room shadows, where she stripped off her dirty shirt and gratefully put on Bryan’s clean one.
Liam stared as Morgan reentered from the next room in a guy’s shirt. “Did you just change out there?” he asked quizzically. He’d gotten there a little late, but apparently not late enough.
“Yeah, so what?” Morgan shrugged.
“Aar, you didn’t brown this all the way,” Legend accused, holding up the meat as proof.
He shrugged. “Yeah, it was a little pink, but so what? I mean, it wasn’t pink on the outside.”
“Do I get dessert?” Christian asked in a little voice. His belly didn’t feel good but he still wanted some.
Emily laughed. “Um, you guys? I think Short Stuff inhaled his chili.”
“Oh, no…” Legend moaned. “Are you okay?”
Christian nodded, being quiet.
“We don’t have dessert,” Aaron added sheepishly.
Morgan stood. “All right. Everybody come over to our place. We’ve got a coupon for pizza. And I bought this great tiramisu the other day,” she bribed, looking straight at Nathaniel, who had come back in time for the announcement to abort on the chili. She knew they shared an equal love of coffee and any dessert that could be eaten with it.
“I’m in,” Jon stood. If he waited for everyone else to make a decision, he’d starve.
--
Thirty minutes later, they were all enjoying a few large pizzas at Grand Central.
“I’m so sorry, guys,” Aaron apologized around a bite of pepperoni and sausage.
Emily stared at her pizza smiling vaguely. “Aw, guys, this reminds me of Buddy.”
Morgan raised an eyebrow at her, “And why would that make you smile?”
She had met Buddy once. He wasn’t the type that inspired a fond tone of voice. Something about the creepy way he looked at her made her more uncomfortable than she’d ever been. She made a decision then and there to avoid Pizza Piazza or anywhere around the food court. They had plenty of food at home.
“Because, he always seems like he’s so lonely but he tries so hard to help everybody! I think he’s sweet.”
Nate ducked his head. He didn’t add that he also knew who Emily was referring to. Libby had told him about the guy, and sure enough, Nate met him. He liked to bring Nate his dishes after he was done eating in the cafeteria. Then, he liked to linger a long time and just stare. It gave Nate a gross feeling he couldn’t describe.
“Can I go potty?” Christian asked. He was bored by all the grown-ups talking and eating when he was already full. He was glad when Legend pulled his chair out and let him get down.
--
Christian didn’t end up going potty. But his belly did sort of feel funny inside. He was washing his hands at the sink because he liked the soap that came out like a big puffy cloud, when he looked out the bathroom door. From there, you could see very good into Libby and Emily’s room if the door was open. And right now it was open. The light was on, too.
Those silly girls should remember to turn lights off when they went out of a room, Christian thought. He dried his hands off on his jeans and went over to turn the light off for them. But that’s when he saw some of Libby’s paint stuff out. She had an easel just like there was at his school, and Christian walked very careful over to look at the painting. Libby always did the pretty kind of paintings that Christian loved to look at. This one had all different colors, like the sunshine and a rainbow and some purple stars all got mixed up together.
Taking a giant step back, Christian made himself not touch Libby’s picture. Putting your art on somebody else’s art was never okay unless you asked them first and they said yes.
But on his giant step back, CJ stepped on something. It was a paintbrush. He knew it was okay to paint if it was on your own paper. So he found paper right where Libby always kept it. In her notebook from school.
Now, he looked in Libby’s special art box and found some paints. These ones looked like different finger paints than he used before, but Christian still opened them, and did some paint on the paper. He was going to surprise Libby and give her this picture to put up by the other ones they did together, and Nate’s.
The floor was making his belly hurt more, so Christian brought the notebook and all the paint over to Libby’s bed and set it down. But when Christian climbed up, the yellow and red and blue all spilled out on Libby’s white blanket on accident.
Christian bit his lip. He was going to get in trouble now. He ran back to the bathroom and got the washcloth off the sink to try and wash the paint off Libby’s bed. Only that made a big colorful mess. It would probably look nice for a painting, but it didn’t look nice for a blanket.
Finding a really curly piece of hair, Christian twirled it, until he noticed his hand still had paint on it. He wiped it off on his shirt. Then, he looked over at Emily’s bed.
She had a very colorful blanket, so you couldn’t see messes that good. Hurrying fast, Christian picked up the paints that he moved to the floor and brought them to Emily’s bed with the paper.
Except once he was over there, Christian saw the special tiny bag that Emily kept all her make-up in. The one Christian was never allowed to touch. He put his eye very close to where it was a little ways unzipped and looked inside. He couldn’t see anything, so he opened it up, and dumped all the stuff on the bed.
He saw lots of the same stuff his mom already had. Christian didn’t know what was so special about Emily’s make-up that he couldn’t touch it. She had lipstick and cover-up and lots of that eye-stuff. Christian tried it all on because he knew how.
But CJ saw a bunch of stuff his mom didn’t have too. Some of them were little baby metal things, like what Mom used one time to take the hot dogs off the grill only different. Then, he saw the best part that made him very excited.
It was called nail polish!
Christian turned his hand over. His nails were still clean, so he took off the cover from the green nail polish. He coughed because it smelled stinky. And then, very careful, Christian painted his nails.
The bottle for the nail polish didn’t stand up very good, and that spilled too. So Christian got the washcloth again, but it still didn’t work. He put it back in the bathroom. On the way back from there, Christian decided he didn’t even know how good he looked yet. So he went back in Libby and Emily’s room and shut the door, so he could look in the mirror on the other side of their door. He found one of Emily’s pink hats on the doorknob and put it on.
Christian had to giggle, even though his belly didn’t feel that good. He looked so silly with all different colors of paint in his hair and face and shirt and hands. Plus, girl-make-up on his lips and eyes and face. He even had green fingernails, like a monster.
He was busy making monster faces at himself when the mirror moved. That was because Jonathan was coming inside. He looked at Christian and started laughing.
All Jonathan had planned to do was take a leak and then get back to his pizza. But the sight of a paint-covered washcloth dripping down the front of the sink, and the sound of the kid giggling, made him curious enough to want to see what was up.
“Hey, girls!” he called. “Come check out what the kid’s been up to! He looks like a clown!”
Christian smiled, excited to show the girls his best clown face.
His friend, Legend, got there first. Her eyes got very big when she saw how clownish he looked.
“Libby and Em! Come here!” she yelled.
Before they got there, Legend turned back to Christian and started talking to him in a voice like his mom used sometimes when he was in very big trouble. That’s when he remembered the mess on the beds.
“You had better wipe that smile off your face right now,” she said in a scary voice that matched her face.
Legend had to force herself not to grab him right that instant and take him over her knee. He was obviously acting out for attention or something. But honestly, Legend didn’t have a clue about kids, including why they did what they did.
Christian already wiped his smile off, and he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do. He waited, feeling his belly hurt very bad.
Libby and Emily both got to the doorway at the same time. When Emily screamed, it sent the rest of the guys running, too.
--
Jess walked into the apartment feeling like she was ready to drop. True, she had only worked a few hours, but on top of her earlier shift, and without dinner, it had taken its toll. She rubbed her temples at the sound of Emily’s scream and the general commotion. Couldn’t she ever live in a normal place? Jess wondered moodily as she picked up a slice of the forgotten pizza and took a bite.
She sat down gratefully, making up her mind right now that she was not cleaning this up. Jess had spent her whole night - her whole life - cleaning up other people’s messes, and she wasn’t doing it anymore. She didn’t care how long it sat there.
--
“Oh, my God!” Emily’s hand went to cover her mouth as she gaped at the huge mess their room had become. Her make-up was everywhere, her compact was broken and so was her eyelash curler. There was green nail polish all across her bedspread.
Libby’s mouth dropped open as she took in the sight. At least fifty dollars worth of her acrylic paint was now smeared across her white comforter, and her Spanish notebook.
“Why would you do this?” she asked Christian. Libby felt like she might cry. She could feel Liam at her side. He put an arm around her then, and she needed it.
To say Liam was shocked would be an understatement. Here was Christian, stained with paint, and wearing a pink hat, lipstick, Caucasian foundation and eye make-up. On closer inspection, Liam made out green nail polish on his hands. This was a red flag if there ever was one. What kind of mother would allow her son to dress up like a woman? But then, Jess wasn’t home. Maybe she didn’t know he did it. Oh, but how could she not know? This was pretty obvious. He couldn’t stop himself from staring at Nathaniel, who was watching events unfold quietly. Liam saw him glance over once, and Nathaniel knew Liam was staring. Nathaniel’s ears were red. Liam wondered if this was how it started with him. Could it start this young? Liam hadn’t thought it was possible.
“I don’t know,” Christian whispered. He didn’t want them all to be mad at him. He just wanted to surprise them, that was all. In the corner of his eye, CJ saw Jonathan laughing, and it made his smile come back.
Legend pursed her lips. She took Christian by the hands and stared hard into his eyes. “It’s not a joke to disrespect people’s property like this. You know better than to come into anybody else’s room other than yours without knocking first, don’t you?”
Christian nodded, feeling scared again.
“That’s what I thought,” Legend said grimly. “You’re getting a swat for disobeying.” Without giving him time to protest, Legend brought him over her knee and swatted him once, decisively, on his backside.
--
When Jess noticed Bacony left beside Christian’s chair, she realized no one, not even her son, had come back from whatever they were doing. So, Jess went down the hall to investigate. She never thought that she would see Legend raising a hand to her child through the crowd of people blocking the doorway.
--
Christian cried when Legend swatted him. It hurt his butt really bad. But it hurt his feelings more because all the big boys and big girls saw it. It made him feel extra bad inside.
“I want my mom!” Christian wailed. He cried so much that it made his belly hurt very bad, and his mouth threw up. CJ didn’t know what to do, so he kept crying. Legend never hurted him before, and now she did. He couldn’t see his mom anywhere, and now his friends Libby and Emily were mad at him too. Christian felt sweaty hot and his mouth tasted bad. He wanted to hide behind the big door and have nobody know where he was.
“Oh, that’s just sick!” Jonathan spat, to hide his fear, having watched Christian get so worked up that he actually made himself puke. He hated vomit, especially since his aunt Beth had been so ill. Now, it was all down the kid’s shirt, on his shoes, and on the floor. It filled the place with that rank smell that reminded Jon of hopelessness. He couldn’t watch Christian just stand there crying like that. It was too much. Especially since no one was making a move to help him out.
Turning to go, he ran directly into Jess, and backed off. He could see the same mother’s fury in her eyes that had been in his own mother’s, when she found out that Kyle had made Jonathan smoke pot with him, when Kyle was sixteen and Jon was only ten. His mom still wasn’t over that. He wondered if Jess would get over somebody else - her good friend - raising a hand to her child.
Jess pushed her way through the crowd of people angrily. She deftly stepped around the mess of throw-up and rainbow colored paint to shield her son. Jess knew they couldn’t stay here anymore. Jonathan thought it was all a joke, and no one else had moved to defend Christian when Jess couldn’t reach him.
“What the hell is going on?” she demanded, grabbing Christian, and holding him tight - vomit, make-up, paint and all.
“What’s it look like?” Emily exclaimed, infuriated. “Your kid just cost Libby and I a butt-load of money! He wrecked both our comforters, got paint everywhere and wrecked all my cosmetics!”
Jess glared at her, and then turned on Legend. “I don’t care what he did!” she seethed. “Not one of you has the right to raise a hand to my son!”
Vibrating with fear and fury, Jess rushed down the hall to the room she shared with Christian and set him down long enough to grab his backpack and stuff whatever she could reach into it.
“Get Bacony, CJ,” she urged, crying, and not caring.
Legend came in behind them - anger, hurt and shock all evident on her face. “What are you doing?”
Ignoring her, Jess shoved her way past Legend and into the hall. She stopped briefly by the kitchen table where she dropped her purse. With CJ safely in her arms, Jess hurried out the door. Grabbing her bike, she secured Christian in the little seat on the back, and took off.
--
“What the hell, Legend?!” Morgan exclaimed. Tears had sprung to her eyes, and she was nearly nose-to-nose with this tiny woman. “Where do you get off?”
Legend narrowed her eyes and held her ground, despite feeling scared that Jess and Christian were out on their own somewhere late at night.
“What he did was wrong! Don’t tell me if he was your kid you wouldn’t have done the same thing!”
“I would have, yes! But I would never be okay with someone else disciplining my child physically!” Morgan shouted.
Emily shoved her way in front of Legend. “Morgan, she wasn’t wrong! He, went beyond normal bad behavior! Somebody needed to do something, and Legend did it!”
Morgan took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. She knew how easy it would be to lose her head and turn this into a brawl. “Stay out of this, Em.”
Emily’s eyes flashed so dark they were nearly black. “Stay out of it?!” she demanded. “That little brat wrecked our room!”
Bryan stepped in. “Okay, okay. Morgan, go cool off. Emily, come with me. This isn’t doing anybody any good.”
“Isn’t anybody going to do anything?” Coby demanded. “Jess and Christian are out there! We should go after them! It’s late! They have no protection, no transportation!”
“She would have taken her bike,” Legend realized, and checked outside the door, where it was usually propped against the wall at their end of the hall. It was gone.
“Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m calling the proper authorities,” Liam said, ignoring Libby’s tears.
Morgan planted herself in front of Liam. “You sure as hell aren’t,” she threatened. “You go home. You pray. You do whatever you do. But if you make life anymore difficult than it already is for Jess and Christian, I’ll kick your ass. And that’s a promise.”
Liam backed away, believing easily that Morgan would follow through on what she said. She was a woman of her word. Liam wished he was a man of his own.
Libby retreated to her messy room and slammed the door, hating all the conflict. She loved Jess so much. She was like a second mother, even though she was only a couple years older. And Christian was like a nephew. The fact that they were out somewhere in the dark was terrifying to her.
Coby went to the kitchen to grab his jacket off the back of the chair, and found Jonathan at the table, calmly eating a large slice of tiramisu.
“What?” he asked, not flinching under Coby’s menacing glare. “It was melting.”
Coby was halfway to the door, and most of the crowd had migrated from the hall to the living room when Aaron stepped forward to stop him.
“You need to let her go,” he said seriously. He laid a hand on Coby’s shoulder firmly.
When Coby brought a hand back with intent, Nate flinched, even though nothing came of it. He wished they weren’t blocking the only exit.
Finally, Nate retreated to Libby’s room, where he cried with her, and together, they did what they could to clean up the mess left behind.
Libby hated seeing Nate upset like this. She hated seeing anyone upset, but seeing Nathaniel cry was like torture. He was hunched over a bucket of water he had come in with, and was kneeling in front of Christian’s sickness, wiping it up with a rag as he sniffled.
Nate could feel Libby watching him and purposely didn’t look up. He preferred to be alone when he was upset, but if he had to be with somebody, Libby was the one he would pick. He glanced up quickly, but one look at his best friend had him sure he’d seen enough.
Libby’s eyes were red, the blue in them intensified with the emotion of the moment as she pitifully swiped at her comforter with the washcloth from the bathroom sink.
Eventually, Libby gave up, putting the rag aside. She crawled over to Nathaniel and lay her cheek against back, letting tears track down her face.
Nate turned, so they were facing each other, and laid his head on top of Libby’s. Together, they took comfort in one another while they gave it.
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