Aftermath
Before my disastrous Saturday night, I’d agreed to Boris picking me up at our usual spot on his way home from church at eleven a.m. Sunday morning to make up for the time I’d missed on Friday. Since I was grounded, for God’s sake, and without a phone, I had to think of a way out of the house to let him know I wasn’t going with him.
Instead of making it complicated, I bundled up and told Karen I was going out for a run. The December deep freeze hadn’t set in yet, so jogging outside was still plausible. She didn’t try to stop me. Dad wasn’t around anyway. He was probably across the street in search of The Truth. He was best buds with Ryan’s dad.
When I got inside the Cadillac, Boris gave me the once-over. I wore gloves to cover up my shaky hands and sunglasses to mask the fact I had bawled well into the morning hours. Even though Playboy and his wolf pack had surely followed me last night, there was no way Boris could have known what had gone down after I got inside the house.
He waited for me to speak first.
“You don’t have to say it.” I held my hands up in surrender. “I can’t do anything right. Trust me, I hear it all the time.” My eyes welled up again.
Boris put his hand on my shoulder, and I caught a whiff of incense on him from church. “The boss is proud of you for making a good choice to stay out of trouble.” He patted me on the back in an attempt to calm me down or, possibly, be supportive.
I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my gray North Face jacket. “Kiki’s dad called my dad and busted my story. He said he can’t wait for me to move out so he doesn’t have to put up with me anymore.”
Boris tapped his rings on the steering wheel and stared at the handmade cross dangling from his rearview mirror. “You shouldn’t have lied to your papa.”
“If I told the truth, he would never let me leave the house. He still thinks I’m a little kid. I can’t wait until I move out. Besides, if I had broken down and told him about the party at the lake, I would have ratted out, like, fifty of my friends. You know I’m not a rat.” I appealed to his sense of loyalty.
“Your papa taught you a lesson?” He strangled the steering wheel.
“What?”
He pointed to my sunglasses. “He hit you?”
“Of course not.” I lowered my shades to show him my red puffy eyes. “I’m grounded,” I made air quotes, “but he didn’t say for how long. He took my phone, too. Will you tell Mr. Ivanov I’m sorry?”
His veins were popping out. I couldn’t tell if he was mad at my dad, me, or the situation in general. “Get home before you get into any more trouble.”
I jogged to work up a sweat to solidify my excuse for leaving the house. When I opened the door, Dad met me in the foyer. I slid around him to get to the stairs, but he blocked me.
“Hold on, Carter.” His eyes were rimmed in red like mine. “First, I’m sorry for what I said last night. I didn’t mean it. I was just mad, okay?” Dad’s apology was as sincere as a warning label on a pack of cigarettes.
I had always felt like a burden on my dad, especially after he married Karen and Megan was born. They were a family, and then there was me—the aftermath. “No problem. Sorry I lied.” I tried to escape, but he wouldn’t move his arm.
“Secondly, when we have an argument, it’s not fair to use your sister as a weapon against me. You’ve been to enough counselors to know better than that by now.”
Ouch. “My bad.” I went with what I was supposed to say rather than what I felt. I learned that in therapy, too, Dad. Check the right boxes and you don’t have to spend your Saturday mornings trapped in a shrink’s office.
Dad reeled me in for a hug. I didn’t hug him back. “Boris called a few minutes ago. Vladimir wants us to come over and watch the Bengals game today. Feel like going?”
Leave it to Boris to untangle my mess. “I thought I was grounded.” I stepped back.
“Karen and I talked about it this morning. We decided not to punish you. Ultimately, you stayed out of trouble.”
Ultimately, I’m not twelve years old. I clamped my lips, though. I was getting out. I suppressed a smile as I passed him to go upstairs.
“One more thing,” he called out. “Boris said to bring your tennis racquet and a bathing suit.”
I ran to my room, careful to keep the pep in my step down a few notches. Being at Vladimir’s house, soaking outside in the hot tub, and watching a Bengals game sounded like utopia compared to hiding out in my room all day at Dad’s—and I had Boris to thank for it. A reward for staying out of trouble? Maybe. I’d take it.