Page 23 of The Delivery

I smile a little at him and use my sleeve to wipe my cheek. I can’t help but giggle even with the tears flooding my face.

“You’re a pain in my ass is what you are. A certified stalker. We’re not even on the same team.”

“I could give you a hug and maybe you’d feel better.”

“I’m not allowed to hug clients,” I say, bringing my arms across my chest. My green sweater is scratchy, and I want to dig inside my grandmother’s old coat and tear at my skin.

“We’re not at Pathways. We’re in Motor City, and no one will see us. I followed you here because I like you Lana. A lot. And I think you like me, too, even though you won’t admit it.”

I spin on the pavement and march to the other side of the car, trying all the door handles even though I know they’re all locked. The tears are falling again, making me feel so out of control.

“I don’t even have a house, Mozey. Don’t make me lose my job, too!” I can see my words reflected in the little puffs of air that let me know the temperature is quickly dropping.

When I look up my mom and dad are hobbling down the steps of the diner. My mom’s hip has been bad for years, but now my dad really has to sustain her. Mozey rushes over to help them, and it makes me even angrier.

I wipe away the tears and plaster on a fake smile to hide my pain from my mom. She doesn’t need more to worry about. She’s just lost everything she ever owned.

Later that evening I help my mom pack up pictures. We wrap them in her silk scarves, something she’s got maybe fifty of. She takes out a bright purple one and wraps it around my head.

“Your eyes,” she says. Brushing the back of her hand along my temple. “Purple brings out green,” I say, and she smiles and nods. My father is at the kitchen table with Mozey and Lex, going over

finances. Really it should be me down there because I basically support my parents, but in my house we adhere to sexist gender roles for the most part, no matter how antiquated or ridiculous.

“Mozey, eh? Eh?” my mother says, smiling at me.

I blush so hard my face is probably more purple than the scarf on my head. My mother and I DO NOT discuss men. Or sex, or even menstruation for that matter.

“Handsome boy,” she says, nodding her head.

I screw my face up at her. I’m mortified. Of course she saw right through our cover.

“He’s Alexei’s friend.” I shrug my shoulders at her. “Should we move onto your jewelry and hair combs?”

She keeps nodding at me like we have a secret, and it’s completely annoying. I go to her dresser and yank out the top drawer. It’s velvet lined and contains every treasure she’s ever collected.

I have childhood memories of when she’d let me look at and touch these mysterious things. They seemed to hold so much power to me when I was small, the way they shimmered and glistened and made my mother beautiful when she wore them. I remember thinking she was magical with these charms, and it made me want to grow up fast and become a woman.

Sometimes she would put a scarf on me or a necklace or a comb in my hair. I’d walk around like I was balancing a book on my head, refusing to even move my neck and shoulders.

But then I grew up into a tomboy and then a hippie and then an activist, right in that order—I was never a glamor girl. I never even got my ears pierced. Now that I think about it, Lex and I probably both disappointed the hell out of our parents.

I lean in and give my mom a kiss on the cheek, something I rarely do with her is initiate affection.

“You’re right, Mom. Mozey is smokin’ hot! But he’s way, way too young.”

She probably doesn’t understand me, but I feel the need to share this, to speak it out loud. She wants me to have a love life, so I can pretend. Besides, I’ve got to tell someone how attractive he is, and I can’t even tell Janey he’s here let alone detail the description of his freakishly beautiful face and his stupid gorgeous body. Guys shouldn’t be so pretty. Mozey’s face and body are a crime against humanity for making us feel lesser than.

Her green eyes that mirror mine sparkle at my comment, and for a minute, I wonder just how much she plays dumb when it comes to understanding us.

We drink a toast of vodka before bed with my dad because he’s Russian and he’s a lunatic and he vehemently believes in ceremony, no matter how painful or embarrassing. Now Mozey knows my whole crazy family intimately and our finances and apparently that guarantees him an honorary spot in my dad’s weird rituals.

We drink out of a crystal decanter that’s been in the family a long time. Dad makes a toast in Russian, and we all clink glasses. My mom and I each take two, but then the guys keep going. We head to the kitchen to pack some final things, and we can hear all three of them laughing and clinking. At least it brings some warmth to the house, and at least they’re not drinking in sorrow, they’re bonding and singing. My dad is teaching Mo to toast in Russian, and my mom and I giggle when my dad bellows “Na Zdorovie” and Mozey repeats it with a terrible accent.

I’m the first in bed. The house is freezing. I put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt and climb in under the covers. This is the last time I’ll sleep in this bed. A place where, as a child and then an adolescent, so many dreams and nightmares, so many of my thoughts were processed here. It’s a strange feeling, your last night in your room that is no longer your own. The spot you grew up staring at on the ceiling that was the starting point for so many beginnings. It’s what your eyes saw day after day when you woke up in the morning. If there’s one place you know you can always return to—it’s your parent’s house to your childhood bed. It’s your ground zero, your home base, and your personal nook of security. I fall asleep thinking about how a lot of the kids I work with never had this spot, that comfort is a luxury that too many of us take for granted.

Mozey probably never had a comfort spot like this; he left his home early to immigrate to the States. Then his mother never replaced the comfort spot when they got to wherever they were going. He came all this way to comfort me—comforted all of us over the last couple of days, and it breaks my heart he doesn’t have a place like this to return to. There is a simple solace of knowing your own origin. I wish I could give him a comfort spot, is my last thought before sleep.

I awake in the middle of the night with a start to the familiar squeak of my childhood bedroom door closing. A dark shadow drifts across the floor.

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