Page 32 of Tempted By the Safety

Here’s the thing I should do, which is lie.

“Two hundred in January,” I say, because apparently my mouth has decided today is the day. “Three fifty in February, but that was actually two separate ones. Six hundred in March, that was a car thing, allegedly. April I skipped because I didn’t have it. May, five hundred. And a hundred fifty the morning I moved into your house, which he asked for as two hundred, and I want credit for the negotiation.” I do the addition twice, hoping for a different answer. “So. Eighteen hundred.”

Eighteen hundred dollars. My rent was fourteen fifty.

“Great instincts, right?” I say. “Really strong portfolio. I should be advising people.”

He doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t say anything either. Doesn’t tell me I’m an idiot orwe’ve all been there. He just drives. I’d rather be called an idiot.

Then, on the Expressway, he says, “What happens if you say no?”

I look over at him, but his eyes stay on the road.

“What?”

“If you don’t send it. What happens?”

I go looking for the answer and there isn’t one. I’ve got twenty-two years of data on what happens when I say yes and a blank file on the alternative.

“Traffic’s pretty good,” I say.

He lets that stand for about a mile.

“Yeah,” he says. “It is.”

***

The courthouse smells like floor wax and old coffee. The light comes down out of the ceiling, fluorescent green, and everybody under it looks like they’ve been sick recently. The floor’s scuffed pale in two tracks where feet have gone the same way for fifty years. There’s a line along the wall of people who’ve been here since morning. A woman with a toddler asleep across her lap. A guy in a suit that fit him once.

My mother finds me before I find her, comes at me with her purse in both hands, and hugs me so hard I lose air, and says my name into my shoulder about six times.

When she finally lets me go, I get an arm back.

“Ma, this is Spencer. Spencer, this is my mom, Mrs. Shaw.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Shaw.”

She gets his hand in both of hers and holds on past where a handshake ends. Her chin goes up and keeps going.

“Oh,” she says. “Hello. And how do you know Milo?”

Spencer clocks my hesitation. “I’m his friend. I gave him a ride.”

“Oh, okay.”

“Ma.”

“I’m saying hello.” She pats the back of his hand twice before she lets go. “Thank you for bringing him. He never lets anybody bring him anywhere.”

“He didn’t have much say in it,” Spencer says.

She laughs, and then she looks at me around his arm with her eyebrows halfway up her forehead. I study the floor.

She takesfriendat face value. I told her weeks ago I was working for a football player, but she has never watched a football game, so the man standing in front of her never turns into that man.

Then she’s got my arm and she’s steering us toward the elevators, telling us both what the officer downstairs told her.

Spencer keeps his cap on. He doesn’t take it off in the elevator and he doesn’t take it off in the hall.