What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin Read Free Book Online Page B

the back, crossed her arms over the waistband. “Sure,” she tried, though she couldn’t quite remember the question now.
    The radio said, a weem a woppa weem a woppa. Mom’s shoulders surged to the beat, her hair flopping. She wore faded jeans, an oversize, pale blue men’s shirt that must’ve come from her most recent ex-boyfriend—a banker who, as it turned out, had both a wife and little kids. Kelly spotted a long sweat stain, running down the back.
    Mom said, “I got a call from your school.”
    â€œHuh?”
    Mom stopped scrubbing. She sat back on her heels and looked up at Kelly, a shiny lock of hair falling across her forehead. Her natural color was the same as Kelly’s—“ash blond” she called it—but she dyed it a brighter shade to look good under the lights at I. Magnin. It reminded Kelly of a goldfish. It was the same color Catherine’s had been. “It was the principal’s office, Kelly. You had detention today and never showed up for it.”
    â€œOh . . .”
    Mom stared into her eyes, so sharp a stare that Kelly could feel it—as though she were trying to bash into her brain, read her thoughts . . . Can she tell I’ve been smoking? Does she know about what I did with Len?
    â€œThat’s all you’re going to say, Kelly? Oh ?”
    Kelly took a breath, wrapped her arms tighter around her waist. Just sound normal. “It was my science teacher.” She said the words very carefully. “I didn’t know the answer to a question. He got mad at me. He told me I was on detention but I thought . . . I thought he was just saying it. He’s mean. He doesn’t like me and . . .”
    â€œThey said he’d marked down that you were insubordinate.”
    â€œI wasn’t, Mom,” Kelly said. “I swear. He just . . . he doesn’t like me.”
    Mom let out a heavy, rattling breath. “Go on to bed,” she said quietly. “It’s late.” Kelly left the room, relief flooding all over her, through her. I’m free . She let her thoughts wander now because she could. She recalled what had happened in Len’s Trans Am, all of it. She imagined herself on the phone with Bellamy, receiver pressed to her ear, her voice a thin whisper.
    Guess what? I have another secret .
    She wished she could call her. But it was 2:00 A.M ., and she had school tomorrow and besides, the phone was in the kitchen. Right next to the bananas. Man, Kelly was hungry. Her stomach gnawed at her.
    Kelly couldn’t think of food anymore and so she made herself think of other things, of Len again, his bucket seats that reclined all the way back and how he’d said, “ Sorry, ” afterward. How he’d handed her a Kleenex, which was sort of gentlemanly in a way . . .
    â€œKelly,” Mom called out. “Stop dawdling!”
    â€œI’m not!”
    Dawdling. What an old-lady word. Mom had an old-lady name too—Rose Lund. It didn’t match her looks at all, but it suited her personality, especially in the past two years. She never laughed, hardly ever smiled when she wasn’t with a boyfriend. And even with her boyfriends, Mom’s smiles looked fake, like someone posing for a picture. She said things like “stop dawdling” and “don’t you sass me, young lady” and spent her whole life working and cleaning and smoking, not enjoying any of it, dating boring men with boring jobs she thought could “get us out of Hollywood once and for all.”
    Mom hadn’t always been this way. Kelly had dim memories from back when their dad still lived with them—one in particular, a chicken fight in some fancy pool, Catherine on Mom’s shoulders, Kelly on theirdad’s. They must have been about six years old. Mom had been wearing a hot pink bikini and was laughing so hard, tears streamed down her cheeks. She may have been drunk, now that Kelly thought about it,