“You know me,” Amanda said, and they walked out onto the Avenue.
“The boys had a tee-ball game,” Madison said. “We all had to go.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, he came, too.”
“I wasn’t going to ask,” Amanda said.
“No, I know, but you were thinking about it, right? We all went.”
“That seems good.”
“Maybe. I didn’t see him actually speak to my mother.”
“Well, how often have you gone out in public, so far?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“They’re probably just nervous, you know? I mean, I don’t know if he gets nervous.”
“He does,” Madison said, and she was nearly whispering. “People always act like this. Or I mean, used to. Like just because my dad is scary and yells and everyone who works for him is always terrified—I mean, that’s not his real personality. That’s a performance. It’s not like he’s scary with us, like we’re all tiptoeing around him. He has normal emotions when he’s at home.”
“I know he does,” Amanda said.
They were walking past the park, then the bank, still walking up the hill. They’d moved in the exact opposite direction from where Isabel was waiting for Madison’s return, and this knowledge made Amanda anxious. Even now, she thought, I don’t want Isabel to dislike me. It’s kind of pathetic. After this whole year, I don’t want to be any kind of wedge between the two of them.
“Are you going to the party next week?” Madison said, and Amanda shuffled names and dates frantically in her mind. When it dawned on her, she almost laughed.
“The museum benefit? Suzanne? I think I got plenty of that house at Halloween,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve gone since I was little.”
“Right,” Madison said. “I wasn’t sure. We ran into Suzanne a while ago, in the city, and she made it sound like it would be bigger this year, like she’d invited way more people, so I thought maybe.”
Amanda let this pass, let her yogurt mass at the roof of her mouth before she swallowed it. She knew Madison hadn’t meant anything by it.
“You don’t have to go,” she told Madison. “If you don’t want to go, don’t go. What are they going to do to you?”
They crossed the street and began moving back down the hill. Amanda knew that soon, they’d be at Le Pain, and she hadn’t yet done anything she couldn’t have done months ago. She hadn’t learned anything in all this time they hadn’t spoken.
“I need to ask you something,” Madison said. “You’d be a good person to ask.”
“Doubtful, but go ahead.”
“What if you knew they were doing the wrong thing? Jake and Lori. Like, you knew they were just too upset about something to think clearly, but they weren’t asking for your opinion even when they probably should. What if you were actually a big asset and they didn’t get it.”
“You’re describing my daily routine, but okay.”
“I mean, no one’s going to listen, right? Nobody’s going to listen to us. But what if someone would, and you could explain it better, because those are your parents. Like, nobody watches our parents as much as we do. Right?”
“I guess,” Amanda said. “Tell me what you mean. Give me an example.”
“There’s no example,” Madison said, shaking her head, looking beyond Amanda down the Avenue. “But would you trust your own judgment? More than theirs?”
Amanda bit her lip, and looked down at the empty yogurt cup. The yogurt had liquefied, gathered itself in the seams of the paper cup. When this conversation had started, she had thought maybe they would commiserate, that they’d complain about their parents in generic, normal teenage ways. That maybe if it seemed like forgiveness was really coming, she could even tell Madison about the Riverdale boy she’d met at the swim team weekend retreat in the city last week, or something. And Madison, in turn, could fill her in on what, if anything, had ever happened with Chip. That was the conversation she’d thought they might have. Just, for once this year, a conversation that wasn’t about their fathers.
Madison put her hand to Amanda’s arm, and they looked at each other.
“I would trust your judgment, I guess,” Amanda said. “I always would, Mad. You’re the smartest D’Amico by a long shot.”
Madison didn’t smile, but somewhere back behind the face she was showing to Amanda there was a small turn, the recognition of banter, of closeness. Of insulting their own tribes as a show of loyalty toward each other. Amanda squeezed Madison’s hand.
“But if you had stuff people wanted to know about,” Madison said, again. “You’d want people to know, right?”
“I’ve never had access to anything important,” Amanda said. “Come on.”
“It just seems like there are better ways to handle most of it. I’m sick of waiting to see if something’s going to happen. I’m sick of waiting for it to get worse.”
“Understandable,” Amanda said. “Just tell me what you’re worried about. Maybe I can help.”
THIRTY-NINE
Madison noted with pleasure that Gabriel Scott Lazarus looked almost nervous when he spotted her near the back of the darkened bar. He stood just inside the street door for a moment, shaking the rain from his pea coat. It was too big for him. When his eyes met hers, he put one hand into the air, as if it wasn’t clear that she was already looking right at him. He walked back along the length of the bar.
She didn’t know anything about this place, Corner Bistro, but she’d heard Lily mention it once as having the best burger in the city. She figured straining to choose somewhere chic, somewhere Zo? would approve of, ran the risk of tipping him off to how little she felt she controlled the situation. This place, quite clearly, wasn’t a move made to impress him with her street smarts or her prowess.
“I love this place,” he said. “You’ve been before?” She reminded herself that she shouldn’t fire back some tart dismissal of the way his voice was smooth with condescension, of how carefully he was trying to show her that he knew she seemed older than she was, wise beyond her years. She just smiled, as if she came to this bar all the time. Like he should have known it without asking.
His glasses were fogged, and he took them off and slipped them into an inner pocket of the pea coat before slinging it over the back of his chair. When he sat down, the chair rocked him forward. For the remainder of their conversation, he would totter back and forth like this, on the uneven legs of the chair.
“Are those fake?” she said. His face scrambled for a moment before she saw him realize she’d meant the glasses.
“Not at all. If you were standing on the other side of the room, holding up cue cards, I’d definitely need them. But the situation we’re in, I think just my own eyes will do.”
He smiled at her again. This is someone who doesn’t really have a problem flirting with a fifteen-year-old, she reminded herself. This is relevant information to consider when you’re talking to this person.