Free Stuck in the 70's by Debra Garfinkle

eat a thing. Finally, she says, “I c an’t get a job, Shay. I’m a wife, a mother.”
    “Oh, sure you can. Tyler and Heather are in school all day anyway. I could help you find a job.”
    “My husband w ouldn’t want me to work.”
    “What do you want?”
    “She wants what Dad wants. She wants to make him happy.” Tyler clenches his fork in his fist. “ We’re supposed to be a happy family.”
    Mrs. Gray gets up from the table, taking her plate toward the kitchen. “Girls, can you clean up after dinner?” Her voice wobbles. “I’m going to rest in my room.”
    “Mom?” Tyler says.
    “Are you okay?” Heather asks.
    “I’m fine.” But she sounds even more miserable than usual.
    “See what you did?” Tyler spits out.
    “Me? What I did? You know, with your attitude toward women, you w ouldn’t last a day in 2006.”
    “I d on’t need to. It’s 1978.” He gets up from the table.
    “At least clear your plate,” I tell him.
    “That’s women’s work.”
    I follow him as he heads for the stairs. “Are you telling me when your genius friend Evie grows up, she’s not allowed to be a physicsologist or whatever?”
    He turns around. “Physicist, Shay. Sheesh. And Evie’s not really a girl. I mean, I d on’t think of her that way.”
    “News flash, Tyler. Evie’s a girl. And she should be allowed to do whatever she wants. Just like your mother. Gawd.”
    We d on’t speak for the rest of the evening. The only person I talk to is Heather as we clean in the kitchen, and that’s just to say things like, “Can this go in the dishwasher?” and “Which sponge should I use?”
    Later, I lie in the trundle bed in her room, listening to her steady breaths while I struggle for sleep.
    I picture my bedroom at home. I miss my things. My laptop, my cell phone, my mini fridge. I hope someone’s watering my fern. Probably Mariel is, if my mom hasn’t fired her yet.
    I try to conjure up Mom’s thin face, her eyes, lighter than mine and narrower. Supposedly, my dad is a dark-eyed, married millionaire. Mom met him in a hotel bar. We get big checks from Texas every month. Mom says t hey’ll stop when I turn eighteen, so that’s why she still hangs out in bars. I imagine my mother’s hair, dyed sunkissed blond and lengthened and thickened with $1,500 extensions, the butt she firms with Buns of Steel workouts four times a week, her stiletto heels, which she walks on like t hey’re sneakers, her weak warning of “ Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” which leaves my options wide open, as she rushes out the door.
    I let out a little moan. Gawd, I hope Heather’s asleep.
    “Shay?”
    I never catch a break.
    “Are you okay?”
    I switch my thoughts from Mom to happier ones. I picture the bent back of Mrs. Gray, her ruffled apron with its thick bow that I tied for her today. “I’m fine, Heather.”
    “I want to say I’m sorry. For calling you Shake, and stuff like that.”
    “It’s okay. Thanks for sharing your room.” I picture Heather now, her scraggly hair and pale, angry face. “I was watching you tonight, Heather. You’d look great in bright colors, especially near your face. Something with a red collar, or maybe, like, a turquoise scarf.”
    “You have a problem with my clothes?”
    “No, but you could do even better.” I know I sound fake as hell. “I could show you makeup tricks too.”
    “I’m going back to sleep.”
    “Okay,” I whisper. But I ’ve ruined the moment. It’s not okay. Nothing’s okay.

13
    “I can’t stand riding this bus,” Shay says. “You have to get me home.”
    “Why should I help you? You complain about the school bus like you’re better than everyone else. You tell my mother she should get a job even though my dad doesn’t want her to. You promise me a makeover, but all you do is pull out half my eyebrows—in a highly painful manner, I might add.”
    “Gawd. And you say I complain a lot. What the hell do you want from me?”
    “For one thing,