Kids These Days

Chapter 4: Andy

I'm in trouble. Again. This time, it's for letting my ankle-grabbing cousins watch Raiders of the Lost Ark-- which is rated PG, goddammit-- and forgetting to take the chicken out of the freezer to defrost. Apparently, the whole household is going to starve, and it's all my fault. Also, the ankle-grabbers will be traumatized for life, because senile Uncle George didn't think to make them close their eyes when the bad guys melted into goop.

My stepmother pulls me into a separate, less crowded room. Our house is always overflowing with various friends and family, and the occasional stranger who confuses the commotion for an estate sale. (It used to be a Bed and Breakfast, but now it rarely contains either. Our poor three-bedroom Colonial is practically bursting at the seams with shrieking children, rattling telephones, and leaky taps that can't be fixed. Breakfast is microwaved leftovers if you're lucky, and a blown fuse if you're not.) This house must be haunted, too, because it always reeks of cigarette smoke, even though my stepmother swears she quit.

"Andrea Hill," she prefaces. Oh, how I hate it when people call me by my full name. (I'm Andy to everyone but my stepmother.) Andrea is basic and boring enough, but what's the point of Hill? It's just overkill. Maybe my real mother-- who had the misfortune of dying young and beautiful-- meant it as an introduction; Andrea, a Hill. I'm not sure why, though. Nobody's ever proud to be a Hill.

"Yuh-huh," I reply. This always annoys the shit out of my stepmother. Just because we live in the middle of nowhere, she likes to preach, doesn't mean we're nobody people. (I think she got that out of a Lousie Hay book.) "What's up? Did Annabel microwave tinfoil again?"

"Don't yuh-huh me, young lady," my stepmother says. Right on time. "The matter is you're crowding up this entire house. Little Annabel won't stop crying about Nazis, your Uncle George claims his blood pressure is spiking, and now I've got the neighbors calling about tire tracks in their lawn-- your tire tracks, I assume."

"Sorry ma'am, but I don't own a pair of loose tires."

"Not loose tires, Andrea, attached tires!" My stepmother's cheeks flush Kool-Aid red. Normally, I'd feel bad for agitating her, but I've been in a mood lately. Isn't this what teenagers are supposed to do? Act up, make trouble, give your second set of parents hell? I'm just doing my job, same as Joyce Hill is doing hers. "Mrs. Krazcel is saying you were doing doughnuts in her yard. With that-- that trailer park girl, whatever her name is!"

"Glass houses," I point out. "We've been one missed rent payment away from a trailer home in Lourdes Park for years. Also, her name's Kirsten, and she's very respectable. You wouldn't believe the turns she can do with a stick shift--"

"What I want to know is, why do you insist on hanging out with the worst type of people? Kirsten is a bad influence on you, and that's a fact." This is one of my stepmother's favorite sayings-- and that's a fact. As if she gets to make decisions on behalf of reality. (Also a fact-- Kirsten is a phenomenal kisser.) "I don't want you seeing her anymore. That trailer park is full of white trash and methamphetamine, and I will not risk getting your cousins hooked on drugs until they're in high school and we can blame it on your aunt. I know you're fond of your female friends, but maybe find one that's not as..."

"Gay?" I offer.

"Delinquent," she corrects. I have to admit, for all my stepmother's quirks, she's quite tolerant of having a raging lesbian for a daughter. "I don't care who you find attractive, Andrea, I'm just not interested in paying your bail. Now, out! Find something productive to do for the rest of the afternoon. I think I'm going to have a migraine..." She presses a hand to her forehead and swoons, like an extra in Dallas. "I'm losing my mind, and that's a fact. Here. Take this." She flings a handful of sweaty money in my direction. "Get your brother, and get out of the house. Go see a movie, swim at the Y. I don't care. Just stay out of my way until your cousins are gone."