“Hey, what’s going on with the Flaggs?” I ask Mom. We’re out on the porch, using brooms to sweep the cobwebs from the rafters above us. “Marley hasn’t been over this week, has she?”
“No.” Mom pokes at a particularly dirty corner of the ceiling. “She and Bryant are going to counseling, so I think things are getting better.”
“Did he cheat on her?”
“I can’t…That’s not a question I should answer.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“It’s not a no,” she tells me.
“Oliver doesn’t know, right?”
“I don’t think so,” she says. “Marley says he hero-worships his dad. She doesn’t want to jerk the rug out from under him. Besides, it doesn’t really have anything to do with him.”
I personally think it does have something to do with Oliver, but I guess it’s not my business. Besides, if Marley and Bryant are working it out, then hopefully this will blow over and Oliver will never hear about it. I know how Oliver idolizes his father. This would kill him.
“You and I really shouldn’t be talking about it,” my mom says.
“I know.”
I’m curious, but promises have been made.
It would be better if I didn’t know anything at all.
But I do, and I said I’d keep my mouth shut.
I’m weaving through the crowded hall on my way to calculus when Zoe Smith grabs my elbow and pulls me to the wall by the lockers. “I need you. Save me.”
I look around but don’t see any dragons or people with guns. “From what?”
Inexplicably, Zoe bursts into a gale of laughter that goes on way too long. She beams at me. “You are totally right!” she says in a super-loud voice. “He does do that with his tongue!”
“What?” It comes out as a horrified hiss, under my breath. It doesn’t quiet Zoe at all. Her laughter scales up in volume.
“That’s so funny!” she screams.
Maybe Zoe has gone crazy.
“I didn’t say anything funny,” I tell her, but she’s stopped laughing. In fact, her smile is gone completely and she’s gazing at something beyond me. I turn to see that Itch is down the hall, walking away from us. He’s holding hands with…
“Liesel Glassman,” Zoe tells me. “They’re dating now.”
Wait.
“Weren’t you guys together at bowling like a week ago?”
“Yep,” Zoe says. “I thought everything was fine, but apparently it wasn’t. He broke up with me on Saturday and here it is, five days later, and he’s already dating Liesel.” Her hands fly to her hips. “Do you think he was cheating on me?”
“I have no—”
“Did he ever cheat on you?”
“No!” I am completely out of my element in this conversation. “Well…not really. It’s murky.”
“I knew it!” says Zoe. “God, I hate men.”
“Me too,” I tell her, although it’s not true.
“Thanks for helping. You’ve been screwed over by him, too, so I knew you’d do it.”
“But he didn’t—”
“Catch you later.”
And she’s gone.
High school is ridiculous.
Shaun completely disagrees with me about Oliver’s parents. “You should tell him.” We’re huddling together, alone on the bleachers. “If someone knew a secret about my family, I’d be really pissed if they didn’t tell me. It’s not fair that Oliver doesn’t know if you do.”
“But my mom thinks—”
“Of course your mom wants to make your decisions for you. She’s a parent. It’s her job to control everything you do.”
I narrow my eyes at him. Shaun’s lips are pressed together in a thin line and his shoulders are hunched. “Are you okay?”
“No.” Shaun slumps. “My parents won’t let me visit Kirk over spring break.”
“What? Why?”
“They’re saying they don’t know his parents, so I can’t go.”
“Can’t you set up a phone call between them or something?”
“I tried that.” Shaun heaves a deep sigh. “Dad says it would force him and Mom into deception. Kirk still isn’t out to his parents, so any conference call or whatever would mean Dad and Mom pretending that Kirk and I are just friends, when they know we’re more than that. Dad says they’re not going to lie to other parents about their own kid.”
“That sucks.”
“I get it,” says Shaun. “It’s not fair. None of this is fair. The thing is, the only reason lying is even on the table is because of Kirk. He could end this right now by just telling his parents he’s gay.”
“You’re mad at Kirk.”
“Yeah.” Shaun sighs again. “But only because I’m crazy about him.”
“Sorry,” I say, and tilt my head against his shoulder.
The base of the school flagpole is a warm line up the center of my back. I’m leaning against it while I wait for Mom. Even though Shaun is still pouting about Kirk, and even though I just found out I got a mediocre grade on a physics test, and even though I miss talking to Oliver, today is glorious, because it finally feels like spring is coming. The sky is the clearest of blues and crocuses are coming up along the edge of the sidewalk. I’m wearing a black scoop-neck ballerina top over a dark gray wrap skirt, and for the first time in months, I don’t need a sweater.
Mom is already on spring break, so she’s driven me every morning this week. I see Oliver at school, of course, but it’s not the same as having that alone time with him every day. Yesterday, I overheard Theo ask him if we’d ended our little exchange—transportation for me, sexual favors for Oliver—and Oliver told him to shut it.
When Mom pulls up, I lope over to her car and slide inside. She’s scribbling on a piece of paper held against her knee. “Green apples,” she mutters. “Candied pecans.”
“What are you doing?”
“Marley’s coming over for dinner and I didn’t get to the store this afternoon…got a little lost in painting.”
“I can tell. Your right eyebrow is pink.” Mom hands me the paper and pulls into the street, absently rubbing at her face. “Is Marley coming by herself?” I say as casually as I can.
“Yes. Bryant’s at a conference in Atlanta.”
Just to be clear, Bryant isn’t who I was asking about…but of course Mom doesn’t know that.
I glance over the shopping list. “What else is on the menu?” It’s a reasonable question, given that all I see are salad ingredients and feminine hygiene products.
“Cash is grilling steaks and corn on the…Oh heck, can you write down aluminum foil, too?”
Good thing I asked.
Mom and I do a mad dash through the closest grocery store and manage to find everything except for the foil. Mom makes a solemn vow never to shop here again, because what kind of store runs out of something so basic? Then she sends Cash a text message to pick up some on his way over. “You know what’s great about Cash?” Mom says as we’re walking out to the car with our bags. “He’s stable. If he says he’s going to pick up an item from the store, I know he’ll do it.”
I’m not sure if it’s merely an observation or if it’s intended as a veiled slam against Dad, so I don’t answer. Mom and I have a much better relationship than most of my friends do with their mothers, but I sometimes think she’s jealous of the connection I have with Dad. He gets me in a way that she can’t quite understand, that she’s not really a part of. Like the note he sent with the flowers on my birthday. Sweet, but also specific.
Mom, with the way she bounces from thought to thought, and with wares from friend to friend…nothing about her is direct. Nothing is specific.
But we have a life together that works anyway, so I can’t complain.
Cash arrives right on time with steaks and corn and aluminum foil. Marley shows up half an hour late with three bottles of wine and a slow cooker full of zucchini soup. “I thought you were bringing dessert,” Mom says.
Marley sets the bottles on the kitchen counter. “This is dessert.”
“I’ll make brownies,” I tell them, and Marley gives me an approving smile.
“You raised her right,” she says to Mom. “Where’s your wine opener?”
Mom eyes the bottles. “I don’t think we need all three of those.”
“Probably not,” Marley agrees. “However, they’re the three best bottles in Bryant’s collection, so we’re going to at least taste them all.”
Mom laughs. “You’re terrible.”
By the time dinner is over and I’m pulling brownies out of the oven, all three of the bottles are open…and one is empty. Cash only had a glass and I was given a tiny sip of each flavor (although I couldn’t tell the difference between them). The rest was all Mom and Marley. Now they’re taking turns between the other two bottles while huddled over one of their phones, looking through photos on some sort of social media site and occasionally cackling.
Cash gestures to my pan of brownies. “I’ll take one to go. This is feeling more and more like a ladies’ night.”
“You can stay!” Mom calls out, and blows him a kiss.
“I know.” Cash winks at me. “But I’m still going to go.”
I can’t exactly blame him, especially when Marley leaps off her stool, knocking it over. “Indigo Girls!” she calls out. “Let’s listen to the Indigo Girls.”
As the moms start comparing playlists (apparently this isn’t something one grows out of), Cash swings around the counter and picks up the stool. He sets it in its place and looks at me. “My advice is go up to your room, close the door, and put on some decent music.”
“You got a suggestion?”
“Something loud,” Cash says. “I’d go with Petty, myself. Tom.”
“You and Mom belong together,” I tell him, and watch as his face cracks wide open into the happiest of grins.
“Thanks, June.”
“Have a good night, Cash.”
Cash kisses my mom and says good-bye to Marley. He’s almost to the front door—which I know because he’s a stompy walker—when he turns around and comes back into the kitchen. “Hey, June.”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t let them drive anywhere.”
“Closer to Fine” blares to life from the living room and I nod. “Good call.”
And it is a good call, because an hour later, while I’m up in my room listening to the Pogues, there’s a knock on my door. I open it to find my mother standing there, waiting to deliver a world of justification to me. “You should know that, yes, Marley and I are drinking, but it’s okay because it’s rare and because we are adults.” All her words are very clear and she almost wouldn’t seem drunk, except she points at me when she says “rare,” and her right elbow clonks into the doorjamb. “Ow.”
I’ve seen my mother buzzed a couple times before, so I smile at her, because I know that’s what she wants. “It’s fine, Mom.”
She counts on her fingers. “One: we would never get behind the wheel of a car in this condition. Two: we would never make sexual decisions while inebriated. Three…dammit. I had three a minute ago.”
“I got it, Mom. You’re in your house and you’re over twenty-one, drinking with your best friend. Seriously. It’s fine.”
“I love you,” she tells me.
“I love you, too.”
“And I have to tell you something,” she says. “You gotta learn to drive, baby.”
My insides twist. “What?”
“Marley wants to go home.”
By the time Oliver arrives, Mom and Marley have moved on to The Jesus and Mary Chain. When we walk into the kitchen, the moms are wild dancing to “Between Planets.” They have their eyes closed and they’re waving their arms in the air while they bounce around. Oliver shakes his head and goes to Marley, catching her arm in mid-gyration. “Hey, Mom.”
“Ollie!” She beams up at him and then immediately gets super serious, like she’s just gotten busted. “I understand you might have some questions about why your mother needs to be chauffeured….”
Except she says “needsh.”
My mom elbows her in the ribs. “Marley, chill. Our kids are cool.”
Marley looks at her and then back at Oliver. He nods. “We are, Mom. We’re really, really cool.”
He glances at me and I hurry to back him up. “So cool, Mrs. Flagg.”
“Let’s go, Mom,” Oliver says.
“I’ll walk you out!” my mom singsongs, and we all start toward the door together.
We’re almost there when I remember Marley’s slow cooker. “Your mom left something,” I tell Oliver. “I’ll be right back.”
The big pot is in the sink, right where my mom put it. It’s mostly scrubbed out, so I make the executive decision that in this case, half-assed is better than no-assed. I shove it into a grocery bag before trotting back through the house and out the front door onto the porch.
Oliver stands patiently by his car while Mom and Marley—their arms linked together—sway toward him, singing a Prince song. I’m pretty sure it’s the dirty one. Oliver and I trade amused glances and I head to the rear of his car. I set the grocery bag on the ground so I can figure out how to open the behemoth’s trunk. I’ve just found the button under the handle and yanked up when I hear Oliver shout.
“Don’t! Stop!”
I look up, startled. “Stop or don’t stop?” I ask him, but he doesn’t answer, because he has run over to me and is now looking all big-eyed and blinky. I follow his gaze into the behemoth’s trunk.
Aluminum foil.
His trunk is packed with boxes of aluminum foil. Completely full. All different brands.
The first thing I say is “No wonder the store was out!”
The second thing is “What the hell?”
Oliver shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
And the thing is I might not have worried about it if he hadn’t said that. As it is, my hands fly to my hips and I glare at him. “What’s going on, Oliver?”
At least he has the grace to look chagrined. “It’s for the prank.”
“The senior prank?”
“Is there another one?”
My glare intensifies and he withers under it. “What is this?” I say.
“Don’t get mad.”
“That’s what people say to someone with a legitimate reason to be mad.”
“It’s tonight. The prank is happening tonight.”
“What?” Indignation blazes up inside me. “Why don’t I know about this?”
“Why would you want to know?”
“Because I’m a senior!”
“But you’ve dismissed it since the beginning of the year,” he reminds me. “You hate it. Why would anyone think you’d want to be involved? Why would we think you wouldn’t narc us out?”
We.
That’s all I hear. If there’s a “we,” it means there is an “us” and a “you,” and I’m the “you.” I’m separate. I’m not one of us.
I stare at him, my mouth open but nothing coming out, because I’m so offended. No, I’m not offended. I’m angry.
I’m sad.
I’m about to say something—I don’t know what, but something—when a loud blast of the behemoth’s horn makes us both jump. “Our mothers are out of control,” Oliver says as we hear a gale of giggles from the front of the car.
Oliver slams the trunk and heads to the passenger side. I follow and watch him settle Marley into the seat. Once she’s buckled, he looks at me. “I’m taking her home and then I’m driving to school. I’ll come right past your house, so if you change your mind and actually want to be a part of it, call my cell.”
“I’m not calling you.”
“Well, you should.” He says it quietly, but it lands hard.
“If you really thought that, you would have told me about the prank in the first place.” Hurt threatens to close my throat. “I’m not part of this. I’m not a part of anything.”
Oliver stares at me for a long moment. “Don’t move,” he finally says. He closes Marley’s door and then nods to my mother, who is standing nearby, looking super happy and super buzzed. “I need to talk to your daughter.”
“Go ahead,” says Mom. “I might not remember it tomorrow anyway.”
“Cool,” says Oliver.
“Cool,” says Mom, shambling off toward the house.
I feel like I should say something, too, but “cool” doesn’t seem appropriate.
Oliver walks over and stares down at me. Even by moonlight, those eyes are lethal. “Here’s the thing: once we’re out of here, we won’t come back. Most of the time, we won’t even remember who we used to be.”
“I’ll remember.”
“No,” he says. “You won’t. Trust me on this one. I’ve seen it.”
This time, I don’t answer, because I don’t know what to say.
“When we get those few chances to remember, this will be the time we come back to,” Oliver tells me. “It’ll be now, tonight. Do you know why?”
I wish I had a smart-ass comment, but I only shake my head.
“Because we’re young enough to break the rules. This is one of our last moments of freedom, and guess what.”
“What?” It comes out in a whisper. Oliver leans down to me. He’s close—so close that even though we’re in the moonlight, even though I can hear his mother singing from inside his car and my mother tromping around on the porch, I am viscerally aware of the warm, minty smell of his breath and the hard angles of his jaw.
“You get to taste it,” he tells me, also whispering. “You get to live it.”
I stare at him, and all I can see is his goodness. Because Oliver Flagg is good and real and true….
“Get in the car,” he tells me. “You know you want to.”
He’s right.
And still I can’t.
I’m standing in the front hallway, looking out the window, when Oliver drives back past my house. I see the behemoth cruise down Callaway. It slows down, almost coming to a halt, and then finally speeds up. It keeps moving and disappears down the road.
Pain rises inside me. I can’t explain it, can’t define it. It’s something that makes no sense whatsoever. It’s loneliness. I miss something I’ve never had.
Crap.
I lean my forehead against the glass, aching for Oliver’s brake lights, which have receded into the distance, when I hear my mother’s voice. “You should go.”
I turn to look at her. “You’re encouraging vandalism?”
Mom leans against the wooden storage bench, smiling at me. “It’s not like you’re going to kill someone. It’s a prank.”
“I don’t even know what it is,” I tell her.
“I do,” she says, and I stare at her, not sure if I’m pissed or upset or amused. My freaking mother gets to know about the prank, and I don’t? But then Mom shakes her head. “Not the details. I have no idea what you kids are up to, but I do know it’s okay to be involved in something bigger than yourself, even if it’s just a goofy joke with a bunch of teenagers you might never see again after graduation.”
“But why?” I say. “Why should I do it?”
Mom walks over to me and I can tell she’s moving slowly so she won’t wobble. She reaches out to stroke my hair. “June,” she says in a voice that is all kinds of loving and gentle. “I think the real question is, why not?”
Yet again, I don’t know how to answer. Mom smiles at me. “I’m going to bed,” she tells me. “Do what you want but just know that, tonight only, you have no curfew.”
I watch her walk up the stairs before I turn to look out the window again, and what I realize as I stare into the blackness is that I wish I could still see Oliver’s headlights approaching, because if I could, I would run out into the night and flag him down.
But unfortunately, there are no headlights.
There are no lights at all.