Trouble is a Friend of Mine

I touched my earlobes. I’d been self-conscious when I’d removed them after getting off the phone with Dad. It wasn’t like removing them was some grand gesture, because I knew, of course I knew, that even if Dad had been there physically watching me take them off, he wouldn’t have cared whether or not I wore them beyond the fact that he thought I’d lose them if they weren’t in my ears.

‘It’s good. They were a little … “To-my-suburban-soccer-mom-wife-on-her-fortieth-birthday,”’ Digby said.

‘Thanks for the fashion advice but what the hell? Aren’t you Suzie Bear?’ I said.

‘Not always. Sometimes I’m Angelo the Duck and I peel shrimp for Cajun Connection on Thursdays,’ he said.

‘You have three jobs, you go to school, and you still have enough free time to get me in trouble.’

‘Hey, this was all you, Princeton. And I think I just got you out of trouble.’

‘Right … thanks for that. I don’t need an assault charge on top of everything else. I owe you one.’

I regretted it as soon as I said it because, of course I knew what Digby wanted from me at this point.

‘Funny you say that,’ Digby said. ‘Felix will be wearing a red cummerbund, so stick to black, red, or white. Wait, not white … you might look like his nurse nanny or something.’

And that’s how my first date in River Heights (first date anywhere, actually) ended up being with an almost-thirteen- year-old.

Later that night, at 8:30, Mom was running late, still upstairs getting ready, when, usually, she would have been gone by then. Digby had been coming over basically every night since he realized on the night of the Dumpster fire that in my house, as he said, ‘There’s food lying around everywhere.’

I peeked out the glass in the front door and saw Digby jogging down the street toward our walk. I waved for him to stop. We had a frustrating pantomime exchange for a couple of seconds until he finally understood that I was telling him to wait by the side of the house.

I started clearing the dinner table to kill time until Mom left.

‘Zoe, could you come upstairs, please?’ Mom said.

I went up to her room. ‘Yeah, what’s up, Mom?’

Mom was dithering over her collection of black boots. ‘I think black’s too … middle-aged? Don’t you have some dark brown ones? Can I borrow them?’

‘Hang on.’ I went into my room and after rooting around on my closet floor, I found the boots. I got the scare of my life when I stood back up, though, because suddenly there Digby was, sitting on my bed. ‘God. You scared the crap out of me.’

Digby caught the boot I threw at him. ‘What?’

‘I meant wait by the tree, not climb it, you idiot –’

Digby lobbed the boot back to me and shushed me right as Mom said, ‘Zoe? What did you say?’

I heard her footsteps approaching, so I grabbed Digby and threw him in my closet. ‘Don’t touch anything.’ I slid the closet door shut just in time.

‘Oh, I meant the other brown boots. The ones with the stacked heel.’ Instead of leaving, Mom hovered in the doorway.

I couldn’t think of a way to get her out of my room that wasn’t shady, so I prayed Digby knew what a stacked heel was, cracked open the closet door, inserted just my arm, and flailed around. When I took my hand back out of the closet, I was shocked to see I was actually holding the right pair of boots. ‘Holy cow. These are the boots!’ I checked my excitement. ‘Here. Have a great time.’

‘Okay. What?’ Mom said.

‘Nothing.’ Then, to underscore the fishiness of my response, there was a huge crash from inside my closet.

‘What was that?’

‘The tension bar in the closet must’ve given out again,’ I said.

‘Tension is right … what are you so nervous about?’

‘Nervous? I’m not nervous,’ I said. ‘When will you be home tonight?’

It was Mom’s turn to be nervous. ‘I’m not sure. What time are you going to bed tonight?’

Game on. Mom had been sneaking her mystery man into our house late at night and sneaking him out super-early the next morning. I’d been letting them think they were fooling me because it was fun listening to her obviously big-boned boyfriend tiptoe on our creaky floors. Sometimes, to freak them out, I groaned and pretended to wake up.

‘I don’t know. I have a lot of homework. It could take hours. I could be up all night,’ I said.

Mom hesitated, pretending to take her time getting in the boots. I could see her trying to decide whether tonight was the night I’d meet the mystery man. Finally, she said, ‘Try to save the all-nighters for college.’

I walked her downstairs. Just before she walked out, she said, ‘Would you put away the chicken, Zoe?’

‘Um, yeah, I actually think I’m going to eat a little more later,’ I said.

‘Okay, but you’re going to leave me some for my lunch, right?’

‘I’ll try, but …’ Who was I kidding? Digby was going to pick that bird clean. ‘But you know I like to eat while I study.’

After Mom left, I got a pie-plate from the kitchen and loaded it up with basically all the leftovers. Upstairs, I found my clothes dumped out onto my bed and Digby gouging away at the plaster of my closet wall with his pocket knife.