“Okay,” I answered like the dork she often accused me of being.
“You can start off to the register. I just remembered Adobo seasoning. I don’t know if your chef has that at the house.” She started off in the opposite direction. Zoey called over her shoulder, “Don’t wait for me. I can pay for the seasoning!” She winked as she sashayed, I’m sure purposely, for humor.
On the way back to the house, the snow started coming down. It brought out an animated Zoey. After putting away the groceries, we found our way to the formal living room, in front of the fireplace, roasting s’mores. It was something I’d never done, but had always seen on television. And my determined Zoey, had my ass holding marshmallows and Hershey’s chocolate bars in between two graham crackers, laughing my ass off.
She sat with her legs crossed, this time in tights, a long t-shirt, and thick socks. Her eyes were big and smile was bright as she made jokes about the annual women’s retreat at her church and how Angela would put melted chocolate in the elderly women’s beds, making them think they shitted themselves in bed at some point in the night because they somehow never found the chocolate when going to bed. The stories didn’t stop and neither did the laughs. My cool Zoey was back.
“So, tell me: What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?” Zoey asked. “I think for me it was letting Kaleemah Brown cheat off my math test for the whole school year in high school. I never had the heart to tell her no. Angela scolded me for that all year until she convinced me to trick Kaleemah during our finals.”
“What did you do?” I lifted a brow, genuinely interested.
“So, I started writing down bogus answers and equations, giving Kaleemah the perfect view of my paper so she could copy it. Then when she was finished recording them, she handed in her paper. I stayed behind, waited until she left the room and told the teacher I needed a fresh exam paper because I’d confused all of my equations for different applications.” She shrugged. “He believed me, seeing I was an honor student. And of course, I turned in the correct answers.”
“What happened to Kaleemah?” I asked as I bit into my third s’more.
“It was the end of the school year. For all she knew, I flunked along with her. She didn’t fail that semester, but she did flunk out of the honors program because our finals counted for such a high percentage of our grade.”
Zoey reached over and wiped my mouth. “You’re just s’mores’d out, Stent. Your turn. What was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?”