Making sure the lot’s empty, I transfer a half-dozen cases of Miller to Dan Silverstein’s SUV, grab my cash from the trunk, and head out. Thumbing through the thin leaves of twenties, loving the smell and feel of them, I cross the green at a jog. It’s ridiculous, the profits I make, with a couple of extra dollars per case as commission. People always want the same stuff: beer that’s basically sugar water and enough weed to sedate a bull elephant.
The only vaguely difficult part of this was getting hooked up in the first place. For the liquor, I called in a favor from back in New York to get a fake ID sent to me here, since fakes in town are way overpriced and way unconvincing. Now, with my magic piece of plastic, my secret identity is local superhero Anderson Lewitt, a twenty-two-year-old from Vermont who always buys in bulk.
I got lucky with the weed. The guy who used to deal to our school moved away six months into my freshman year, and I networked my way into replacing him. My supplier is a morbidly obese thirty-six-year-old named Phil who prefers to go by “Teezy.” He has never explained this to me.
The bell rings. “Crap,” I mutter, stowing my wallet deep in my pocket. I take the last bit of the green at a run, shoulder through the door, and skid into the Spanish room. Se?or Muniz-Alonso gives me a hawklike glare, and I respond with a sheepish grin, scurrying to my table.
“Luciano . . . tarde,” Muniz-Alonso says, like a death sentence. “Y fuiste tarde ayer también. ?Ten cuidado! No quiero darte una detención . . .”
I try to translate the words, but they slip away the second he says them. “Sorry,” I say, sitting down.
“En espa?ol, por favor.”
“Uh,” I say. “Lo siento.”
Muniz-Alonso goes back to writing irregular conjugations on the board, and I relax.
“Yeah, Luke, ten cuidado.” My tablemate, Herman, elbows me. I elbow him back, grinning. Herman swims backstroke, and of course, the second he joined the team, people nicknamed him Merman. He has such long, thick hair that some people call him Mermaid instead, but I don’t know. I’m into the idea of mer-dudes drifting through the ocean, straggly hair wafting down to their waists.
Muniz-Alonso starts another conjugation chart. I wait for him to finish, stretching my arms out. Herman eyes my wrist. “Yo,” he says, “nice watch.”
“Thanks,” I say. Before I can restrain myself, the brand slips out. “Movado.”
He looks mystified. “Huh?”
I clear my throat. “Knockoff,” I lie.
“Oh. Thought you were conjugating on me there.”
I grin, rubbing my thumb across the watch face. I don’t mention the price tag: most of August’s profits. I want to regret spending nearly a thousand dollars on a watch—I could be saving the money for my car fund or, hell, helping my parents with the bills—but I can’t regret it, as much as I try. With something this valuable wrapped around my wrist, I get a thrill every time I glance down. I’m already thinking of my next buy, Gucci or Citizen, stacked up by the dozens in my online cart.
Muniz-Alonso steps back, revealing the conjugation charts. Sounds of copying break the air, pencils scratching on notebooks, a few fingertips tapping laptop keys. I take my pencil from behind my ear. I bought myself a new laptop last Christmas, but when it comes to notes, the feel of writing satisfies me more.
“Yo, Mer,” I say quietly, starting to copy. “Anything happening tomorrow night?”
“Not much. I heard some of the team’s doing a surprise birthday party for Layna.”
“Probably at Bailey’s house, huh? You think they’d mind if I showed?”
“I don’t think it’s open, man.” Herman copies a conjugation chart from the board, brushing his hair out of his face.
“So what else’s going on?” I ask.
He lets out a laugh. “You’d know better than me.”
“Okay, so nothing,” I say, scribbling down tendré, tendrás, tendrá. “Know what? I’m gonna get some of the guys together. Nothing worse than a quiet Friday night.”
“Dad, come onnn,” Herman says, pitching his voice up to a whine. “Give the team bonding a rest.”
I chuckle. They can rest when I’m dead. When you move every few years, you live with shallow roots. I’ve been getting ripped up all my life, and I’m done with it. Time’s accelerating. I’m not aiming to end up with nobody and nothing.
Teenage years are the best years of our lives. They keep saying that. I don’t know, though. I keep grasping for people, hunting for them. I take people and I write them down, and I think about the ones I want to keep. And sometimes I find people, and I wonder—I don’t know. I wonder, are these really the best people we’re going to be?
“PUNCTUAL AS ALWAYS, MR. JACKSON,” SAYS MR. GARCíA, opening the door.
Matt Jackson slouches into our English class a full ten minutes late, a new record, looking unapologetic. “Sorry,” he mumbles, the cherry tips of his hair dipping into his eyes. “Got in a car accident.”