Trouble is a Friend of Mine

‘Actually, he’ll be thirteen soon, and if you shave your armpits, then it won’t be an issue,’ Digby said.

‘I’m not asking Felix to the dance. That would be even worse than going alone,’ I said.

‘Oh, you wouldn’t have to ask him. He’d ask you,’ Digby said.

‘It’s not who does the asking that’s the problem. It’s the whole turning up together at the dance that’s the issue,’ I said.

‘So you’d say no if he asked you?’ Digby said.

‘Yeah. I’d have to say no,’ I said.

‘You can look in that sweet little kid’s face and crush him if he asked you to the dance?’ Digby said.

‘That’s cold,’ Henry said.

‘I’d do it nicely, but yeah, I can look him in the face and tell him nicely that no, I can’t go to the dance with someone who still can’t get on the good rides in Six Flags,’ I said.

‘Okay, you can’t do that,’ Digby said.

‘What do you mean?’ I said.

‘You kinda should say yes,’ Digby said.

‘What? Why do I have to say yes?’ I said. ‘Oh, God, he’s not dying of cancer or something, is he?’

‘Cancer … I should’ve said he had cancer. But no, he doesn’t have cancer,’ Digby said. ‘You have to say yes because I sorta said you would so he’d agree to do this.’

‘You what?’ I said.

‘I offered all kinds of other stuff, but the heart wants what the heart wants,’ Digby said.

‘But I’m not yours to give away,’ I said.

‘Oh, hey … it’s not like that. I didn’t promise you’d go with him. I said you probably would and that I’d put in a good word,’ Digby said.

‘I don’t understand why you didn’t just offer to get the bullies off his back, for example,’ I said.

‘Yeah, I’m already working on that. He’s doing something else for me for that,’ Digby said. ‘Anyway. I guess you don’t have to say yes. He’s going to ask you and of course you could say no. And if you said no, you’d go alone, Felix would stay home, and it’d pretty much be a lose-lose, but hey, you can totally say no.’

‘What if someone else asks me?’ I said.

‘If it ain’t happened yet …’ Digby said.

‘Dude, that’s cold,’ Henry said.

‘Fine. I’ll think about it,’ I said.

‘That’s all Felix and I are asking,’ Digby said.

‘So when do you want to go to Marina’s house?’ Henry said. ‘I’m working after school all week.’

‘So Saturday?’ Digby said. ‘And, Princeton, wear something prissy.’

‘Prissy?’

‘Yeah … you know, uptight.’

‘Uptight?’

‘Like the sweater thing you wore on Tuesday,’ Digby said.

That outfit took me an hour to put together. And, no, uptight was not the look I was going for.





NINETEEN


So, when you’re a minor and you get busted, the cops send notifications to both your parents, not just the one with custody. I was not aware of that.

I found this out from the all-caps hate-mail I got from Dad calling Mom a ‘LOUSY MOTHER INCAPABLE OF SETTING RULES.’ He signed off with ‘DON’T BE ONE OF THE PATHETIC SHEEPLE,’ and then, inexplicably, ‘MOO.’

I’d gotten the e-mail on the way home and when I walked in the house, I heard Mom in the backyard, yelling into her phone. In many ways, it was like old times, with Mom sputtering and struggling to finish her sentences.

‘Of course I’ve met –’ she said. Pause. ‘You can’t ground a six—’ And then, ‘I know you would, but she’s practically –’

He thought I should be grounded? It didn’t bode well for our living arrangements if I were to get in to Prentiss.

‘Mom. Give it to me!’ I didn’t mean to yell, but I was feeling mean and I didn’t want to lose any of the energy I’d built up by taking the time out to be polite to her. I took her phone. ‘Dad.’ I hated the quaver in my voice. I mashed the phone tighter against my ear and soldiered on. ‘It’s me. Zoe.’

‘Zoe?’ My father’s enraged voice made my ear ring. ‘Is this true about you vandalizing a –’

‘Dad.’

‘– an anti-social bottom feeder’s crime –’

‘Dad. Stop.’

‘Don’t you interrupt me –’

‘You asked me a question. Do you want me to answer it or not?’

What I then found out over the next five seconds was that Dad’s silence was just as scary as his shouting.

‘Well?’ he said.

‘It’s true. I did it. Now I need a lawyer.’

The ranting response that followed was ugly. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want him to know that I’d started to cry sometime after he’d called me a ‘rude, spoiled little pig’ and accused me of humiliating him. When he ended his sermon by screaming that he’d be coming down the following week to ‘straighten out the mess I’d made with my life,’ I didn’t have the strength to say anything more than ‘Fine.’

Mom and I just stood there, staring at each other in shock after I hung up. Then, finally, she climbed atop the back patio bench, reached around the top of the trellis, and retrieved a pack of cigarettes in a Ziploc bag from amongst the trumpet vines.