Tonight the Streets Are Ours

“Drugs.”


Arden’s father showed no obvious reaction. He didn’t sigh, or put his head in his hands, or yell at her. Only a daughter would notice the slight droop in his shoulders, the minor widening of his eyes.

“What classification and quantity of drugs are we talking about here?” he asked in a measured tone, a lawyerly tone.

“An eighth of an ounce of marijuana,” Mr. Vanderpool replied.

Arden’s father sighed impatiently. It was an on-purpose impatient; Arden recognized that. “That’s hardly a criminal quantity. Clearly it’s not enough for you to peg my daughter with intent to deal.”

Mr. Vanderpool fussed with his flamingo-print tie and rearranged the impressive metal pens on his impressive oak desk. Arden could not understand why he had so many pens. Surely he, like everyone else in modern-day America, did most of his work on the computer.

“I never accused your daughter of planning to sell drugs, Mr. Huntley. But as I’m sure you’re aware, we have a zero tolerance policy here at Allegany High. That means no type of controlled substances, of any sort, in any quantity, on school property.”

Arden doubted that her father was aware of this particular detail about the rules of her school—he wasn’t the sort of parent who sat around at night and read through the school handbook—but he nodded like he was. “Arden”—he turned to her—“is this true? Did you actually bring drugs to school?”

Lying to her father was harder than lying to the principal, but both were important. Arden would need to lie to everyone about this, she realized in that moment, and she would do it without breaking. This would be a secret between her and Lindsey and no one else.

“I wasn’t thinking,” she admitted to her father, lowering her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

“This isn’t like you,” her father said. But his confidence in that statement served only to annoy her, because for all he knew, maybe this was like her. Maybe she’d been doing this for years and just never been caught before today. Arden imagined that was probably what Marie Baker’s parents said when she told them she was pregnant two months into junior year, or what Dean Goddard’s parents said when he broke a teammate’s nose in the locker room after football practice. This isn’t like you. As if parents know what their kids are like, day in and day out.

Arden’s father turned back to the principal and said, “Look, I agree with you that Arden should be disciplined. And she will be. But I can take that over from here. This is an issue for her parents, not for the school. As I’m sure you’re aware, Arden is a responsible student, with a 3.4 GPA, and she is an asset to the Allegany school community with her contributions to the theater program.”

Arden twisted in her seat to look at her father. Her GPA was actually 3.5, but he got close, and that alone was surprising. She didn’t know he ever looked at her report cards, and he hadn’t attended a play she’d worked on in years.

“Furthermore,” her father continued, “Arden has difficult extenuating circumstances, which I’m sure are causing her to act out right now.”

Principal Vanderpool looked blank and fiddled with his pens. Arden immediately felt bad for him, this man with his sad, trying-too-hard necktie. Somehow he had not been briefed on her extenuating circumstances. Somehow this news had not made it into her file, or whatever Vanderpool had referenced before calling her in here, and now he was going to look like he didn’t know what was going on with his own students.

Arden spoke up just to spare him the embarrassment. “My mother left,” she explained. “Four weeks ago.”