“Dude. Come on. Seriously?”
“Okay, well, what else do you know?” Might as well size up the competition.
“He’s from New York but he’s a freshman at Hadley and I think his parents have a summer house near Saugerties,” Zach rattles off. “Oh, and he went to private boarding school in New England.”
So he’s rich. Mick thinks of the wealthy -people—-most of them from New York City—-who have homes in the area. Back on Columbus Day, he served a middle--aged Manhattanite who called his a “country estate,” which you’d think would make him a big tipper, but he left ten percent. Jerk.
“When you say going out,” Mick says to Zach, “do you mean she’s going to go on a date with him in the future? Or going out like boyfriend and girl—-”
“I hate to break up your little chill sesh back here,” Jiffy Pop herself interrupts, “but my mother’s looking for you guys.”
Zach follows her back out into the dining room as Mick goes back to his dessert order.
Tiramisu . . .
Biscotti . . .
Which reminds him of the crazy package that came in the mail today.
The way his mother reacted, you would have thought someone had sent her a severed human head instead of just a bunch of burnt cookies.
Mom tried to cover up how freaked out she was, though. First she claimed it was probably from her Secret Santa after all. But he reminded her that it wasn’t exactly a present and anyway, she’d said that didn’t start until next week. Then she said it was just a joke, and that one of her old college friends had sent it.
He didn’t believe that for a second.
She didn’t seem amused. She seemed terrified.
Even more troubling: she told Mick not to tell his father about it.
“You want me to lie to Dad?” he asked, just to be clear.
“No! I don’t want you to lie. Just don’t mention it unless, you know, he asks about it.”
“So, like, if Dad comes walking in and says, ‘Hey, by any chance did someone send Mom a weird package in the mail today?’ then I can say—-”
“Don’t be a wiseass, Mick.” She was almost her usual self in that instant, but in the next, she was digging through the box like a Survivor contestant digging for the hidden immunity idol.
That’s what Mick told her, adding, “That’s a simile. Pretty good, huh?”
She failed to appreciate his literary genius, which wasn’t like her. She just told him to go get changed for work. And when he returned to the kitchen ten minutes later, she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Are you all right?” he asked as she pressed a hand to her chest like she was having a heart attack.
“I’m fine.”
But she wasn’t. She was totally pale and jumpy, and she locked the house when they left. She never bothers to do that.
“Why don’t you want Dad to know?” he asked her when they were in the car heading toward the restaurant.
“Know what?” she asked, even though he knew she knew exactly what he was talking about.
“About that package.”
“Oh, because my friend Carolyn sent it, and . . . you know Dad doesn’t like her.”
Mick barely knows who Carolyn is, other than that she went to the University of Buffalo with Mom and lives outside Rochester. “Why doesn’t he like her?”
“He thinks she talks too much.”
“He thinks all your friends talk too m—- Look out!”
Mom slammed on the brakes. She’d almost driven right through a stop sign into oncoming traffic.
“Geez, Mom, you could have gotten us killed,” he said mildly.
“I’m sorry! Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” She just sat there for a second with her forehead resting on the steering wheel. Then someone honked behind them and she drove on, but he could see her hands shaking and she kept biting her lip.
Mick is sure there’s a lot more to that box of burnt cookies than a stupid joke. Too bad he can’t mention it to his father.