Britt waved back, but she was dubious. She had no reason to trust any man. All the ones who had entered her mother’s orbit were addicts with anger issues. Steve didn’t seem like that. His demeanor was gentle and kind. Some of them were like that at first, before they got comfortable enough to be their terrible true selves.
“Say hello, Britt,” her mom said with the giggly laugh that Britt only heard in these situations. Britt hated that laugh, the fakeness of it.
“She waved,” Steve said. “She doesn’t have to say hello if she doesn’t want to.”
“Well, it’s kind of rude, in my opinion,” Britt’s mom said.
Britt rolled her eyes. Her mom did this sometimes—criticized Britt in front of people, as if to demonstrate her own superiority.
“I was shy like that when I was her age,” Steve said.
He gave Britt a wink, and Britt couldn’t help but smile.
The problem was the transmission. When Steve reported this, Britt’s mom nearly collapsed in dramatic agony, saying how she knew the transmission was one of the more costly repairs. Britt saw one of the other guys at the shop watching her display and shaking his head. She tried to catch his eye so she could give him a shrug that saidI know, she’s crazy, I’m sorry. He wouldn’t look at her, though.
Steve pulled Britt’s mom aside and, in a whispered conversation, agreed to let her pay installments over time. Britt realized later that what had actually happened was that Steve fronted the money for the repair himself, expecting Britt’s mom to pay him back in those installments. Britt knew her mother never would have done this. She was the queen of accruing debts. It didn’t appear to upset Steve too much, because they started dating. He was the type to forgive andforget. That was the only reason they were able to stay together as long as they did.
It wasn’t long after they started dating that Britt and her mom were kicked out of their apartment. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Britt was well accustomed to landlords banging on their door, yelling about rent checks, threatening eviction. Britt’s mom took advantage of the fact that it was a notoriously long and difficult process to evict someone. This particular landlord did things the old-fashioned way—while they were out, he removed all their belongings from the apartment, placed them on the small strip of browning grass in front of the building, and changed the locks. “Well, fuck,” Britt’s mom said before calling Steve and asking if they could crash at his place “for a couple days.” That couple of days turned into a couple of years, and that couple of years was easily the best of Britt’s childhood.
Steve had a small one-story house that he had inherited from his mother, who had also been a single mother and was probably the reason why he took pity on Britt and her mom. His mother had died of lung cancer just a couple of years earlier, and he had framed pictures of her in every room of the house. Britt’s mom thought it was weird, but Britt thought it was sweet to have a mother you loved so much that you wanted to see her face at every turn.
The house had two bedrooms, one of which Steve used to store boxes of his mother’s belongings that he hadn’t sifted through yet. Britt’s mom moved her things into Steve’s bedroom, and Britt assumed she would have to sleep on the couch in the living room before Steve said, “Don’t worry, I’m going to clear out that other room for you.” Britt’s mom said, “Oh, you don’t have to do that,” but he insisted. Britt figured it might be an empty promise and told herself not to get her hopes up, but sure enough, by the end of that day, Steve had taken all the boxes to the garage and vacuumed up the dust before presenting the room to Britt.
“We’ll have to get you a proper bed and whatever else tomorrow,” he said, “but I have a blow-up mattress you can use tonight.”
While Britt’s mom got herself settled, unpacking and arranging her things, Steve got Britt settled. He didn’t have an extra set of sheets that would fit the twin-size blow-up mattress, but he gave Britt a blanket and throw pillow from the couch before telling her to sleep well.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You okay?” he asked.
Her unease must have been obvious.
“I just don’t understand, like, why you’re doing this.”
He looked at her, confusion all over his face.
“Nobody’s ever done this for me before.”
He put his hands on his hips likeI’m the new sheriff in town.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said. “I’m happy to help you feel at home, okay?”
She believed him. He seemed truly happy to help. Years later, she would look back on Steve and identify him as a classic rescuer. It was no wonder he gravitated to Britt and her mom. They needed so much rescuing.
Steve’s house was just one street over from Becky’s house, and Britt was so enamored with her new room that she began inviting Becky over instead of just going to Becky’s house. One Saturday, Becky arrived along with her mother, Rainbow. She usually came alone, was old enough to not need an escort, but Rainbow said she’d heard about Steve and wanted to meet him.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Steve said, extending a hand.
Rainbow acknowledged the hand with a nod but proceeded to hug him instead. Her usual greeting. Britt’s mom was sitting on the couch, watching the scene, and Britt caught the look of displeasure on her mother’s face. Of course her mother would be unhappy with Rainbow’spresence. Rainbow was beautiful in ways Britt’s mother would never be. She was thin and lithe, her face bare of any makeup yet still glowing.
Rainbow must have sensed the tension, because she said, diplomatically, “Hello there, Monica. How are you today?”
Every muscle in Britt’s body tensed as she watched her mother stand and go toward Rainbow. She got unusually close to Rainbow, just a few inches separating their bodies, and said, “Did you need something?”
“Mom, she’s just saying hi,” Britt said. She was so embarrassed.
“Well, she never came to say hi when we lived at our apartment,” Britt’s mom said. Then, to clarify: “Before I met Steve.”
