Today? Like right after she robbed Ms. Milner? I couldn’t believe I was thinking that. “How do you know?” I asked Prairie.
“Where is she?”
“She called me,” Prairie said. “From a phone booth. She s-says she’s quitting school, too.”
“What? She can’t quit. It’s against the law. Isn’t it? It’s almost the end of the year. She can’t quit now.” My brain was
combusting, and all the cells were crashing and colliding, just like pins at the bowling alley. She must’ve been caught. “What
happened, Prairie? Did she tell you?”
“Yes,” Prairie said. “But she asked me not to t-tell you guys.”
“Why?” I said. “We’re her friends. We don’t care if she’s—” I let it dangle. The sentence finished itself in my head: “a criminal.”
“I know.” Prairie sighed. “She just has some s-stuff to work through.”
My head fell against the wall. Poor Max. What if she was convicted? What if she went to jail? What if I never saw her again?
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Prairie said. “Maybe we can figure something out.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said, feeling weak and helpless. “And thanks, Prairie. Thanks for telling me.”
“You’re welcome,” she said.
Since Kevin hadn’t arrived yet, I immediately called Lydia and told her. She just kept saying, “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” In
the background, Lydia’s mother exhorted, “Lydia, please stop saying that. What’s going on?”
“I better go,” I said.
Lydia got in one last “Oh, my God” before hanging up.
Behind me Mom, Dad, and Vanessa were all standing in a row. Drooling for details. Suddenly it struck me—the reason our family
togetherness was getting to me. No one had any privacy. Everyone knew everything about everybody. Not buying Vanessa and me
our own phones to speak to our own friends in the privacy of our own rooms was borderline child abuse. Ask anyone.
“What’s going on?” Dad asked.
“Nothing.” My jaw clamped. “Geez, can’t anyone have a private conversation around here?”
The phone rang. I yanked it off the wall. “Hello!”
“Can I speak to Jenny?” Kevin coughed in my ear.
“Uh, speaking.” My heart crashed against my ribs.
“What’s up?” he asked.
Clutching my chest to keep my heart from heaving right out of the rib cage, I lied, “Not much.” The leeches behind me were
sucking up every word. Directly into the little receiver holes, I said secretly, “You still coming over?”
“Naw, I can’t,” he said. “My mom wants me to help my aunt Rachel move some stuff into storage.” He hacked again.
My body sagged. “So, what did you want to give me?” I said.
“I can’t tell you. Then it wouldn’t be a surprise.” A surprise. Oh, boy.
“Kevin, I’m leaving right now!” his mom bellowed behind him.
“I gotta go,” Kevin said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Tomorrow I might be at the jail, visiting an inmate. After we disconnected,
I turned around. Mom, Dad, and Vanessa all had the same sappy smile on their faces. “Not only do I want my own phone,” I seethed
aloud. “I want my own house, my own car, and
my own life!”
L
ydia and I both attacked Prairie on the playground. “I d-don’t know anything.” She fended us off with a stiff-arm.
“Oh, my God.” Lydia hyperventilated. “What if she’s living on the street? What if she becomes a homeless person? What if she
ends up standing on the street corner with a sign that says, ‘Will work for food’?”
I curled a lip at Lydia. But the possibilities worried me, too.
Prairie said, “She’s not living on the street.”
“Where is she?” Lydia and I asked in unison.
Prairie hung her head. Her cheeks turned pink. “I can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”
Lydia was jerking around, whimpering and shaking her hands as if they were on fire. “Get a grip, Lyd.” I pulled her hands
down. “At least Max is in touch with Prairie and she’s okay. Right, Prayer?” I looked at her.
“Right.”
“And if Max wants us to know what’s going down, she’ll tell us. Right?”
“Right. Only—”
Lydia and I stopped and stared at her.
Prairie bit her lip, which had started to quiver. Her eyes welled with tears. “It’s not f-fair,” she said. “She didn’t
do
anything.” In a hurry, she hobbled off toward the temp.
“Oh… my… God.” Lydia deflated visibly. My spirits sank, too. With a thud.
By Friday word had gotten out about Max splitting. You can’t keep that kind of stuff quiet. On our way to lunch, Ashley bustled
by, purse protuberant, and said, “Busted.” She sneered over her shoulder.
I wanted to beat her up so bad. Lydia tried to kick her, but only got air, then fell on her rear. It made everyone around
us laugh at Lydia. So what else is new?
After lunch Lydia said, “Look, you guys. We need to talk.” Just then Hugh called to Prairie from the bleachers, while Kevin
dribbled a basketball over from the blacktop. “Jen, can I talk to you?” he asked.
I looked at Lydia. Made a sorry face.
Lydia exhaled exasperation and stomped off. Kevin looped an arm around the ball at his side.
“What’s with Max? I heard she’s on the run. Living with homeless people down at the bus station.”
My jaw cracked the sidewalk, I’m sure. “Where’d you hear that?”
He shrugged. “Around.”
I could just picture Max, pushing around a grocery cart, guarding her meager possessions, and living off Dumpster digs.
“You going to be home tonight?” he said, bouncing the basketball at his side. “I might drop by.”
It made me remember he never did give me his surprise.
He added, “I tried to call you last night, but your phone was busy.”
Ooh. I’d kill Vanessa. Right after I murdered Dad for talking to Uncle Ralph for an hour. Of course, after Dad’s conversation,
I was on the phone with Lydia until she had to hang up at nine o’clock on the nose. Then I called Prairie to see if she’d
heard anything else about Max, which she hadn’t, or couldn’t reveal.
“I should be home all night,” I told him. Then I remembered—this was Friday. As in, family fun night.
Kevin smiled. “See you,” he said.
The smile lingered. See you, too, I vowed. Somehow.
During dinner I persuaded Mom and Dad to move family fun time to Saturday. “It’s been a rough week,” I told them, which was
a mistake because Mom wanted details.
“Nothing specific,” I told her. “School is just exhausting. I’m ready for summer vacation. Couldn’t we stay home tonight and
watch TV together? Maybe go to a movie tomorrow?”
“Fine with me,” Dad said, a little too hastily for Mom’s liking.
Vanessa looked relieved. Now she could practice her clarinet until her lips turned blue.
At the very same instant, the doorbell buzzed and the phone rang. I raced for the door. The woman standing on the porch, grinning
at me, said, “Do you have the Lord in your life?”
“Let me check,” I said and closed the door.
Dad came in to take up his usual evening position, lounging in the La-Z-Boy, legs up. “Who was it?” he asked.
“Another Bible bunny,” I said.
“Huh?”
Vanessa yelled from the kitchen, “It’s for you, Jenny.”
Taking the phone from Vanessa, I told her, “I forgot to get a leaflet. Sorry.” Turning away from her, I said, “Hello?”
“Jenny, it’s me.”
My shoulders sagged. Not that I didn’t want to talk to Lydia.
“Prairie called,” she said. “She told me she talked to Max and she agreed to tell us what’s going on. They want to have a
Snob Squad meeting tomorrow. I told her we should clear it with you since you’re the leader. I have a doctor’s appointment
in the morning, then I have ballet from two to three-thirty, which my mom won’t let me skip, so could we meet after that?”
“Tomorrow,” I answered automatically. “Yeah, sure. How ’bout like four?”
A hand clamped over my shoulder. Mom said, “Don’t make plans for tomorrow. It’s family day, remember?”
“All day?”
“No, just for a couple of hours,” Lydia said. “I have to be home by dinner or else I’ll get grounded.”
I cupped a hand over the phone. “What time’s the movie?” I asked Mom.
“We haven’t decided what we’re going to see yet,” she said.
Oh, right. That could take a year.
Mom added, “Just make yourself available.”
Geez, is it possible to auction your family off on eBay? To Lydia I said, “Look, something’s come up. I’m not sure I can meet
tomorrow.”
She clucked. “Does it have to do with you-know-who?”
“Maybe,” I lied. “Anyway, why don’t you guys go ahead and meet without me. But call me afterwards and fill me in. And tell
Max not to quit school.”
“Okay, I’ll try,” Lydia said. “But she won’t listen to me. And if she insults me, I’m holding you personally responsible for
my actions. Good-bye.”
She hung up. A smile warmed me from within. It was good to feel needed. Now the only other thing I needed was for my one true
love to turn up.
I hung around the kitchen for a while, opening and closing the fridge, the pantry, the cookie jar. Testing the sharpness of
the knives on the rubber dish mat. Watching the clock. After the third trip back from the front picture window, I felt a presence
behind me. Dad said, “You’re wearing a path in the carpet. I’ll come and get you the minute he comes.”
“Who?” I said.
He cocked his head.
See? No privacy. I didn’t want to confirm the fact that Kevin was actually coming over. “If you don’t get me my own phone,
I’m… I’m going to kill myself.” I removed a butcher knife from the chopping block.
Dad wandered across to the fridge. “Don’t get blood on the tile grout,” he said. “It leaves a permanent stain.”
I shoved the knife back in its slot and stormed out of the room. And when a fat girl storms, you can feel the shock waves.
Maybe the surprise was that Kevin was kidding. Kidding about coming over. Kidding about liking me. Kidding about any future
together. See why I hate surprises?
It might’ve been the ringing in my ears from my bedroom door slamming, but I swear I heard the phone.
“Jenny!” Dad bellowed down the hall. “It’s him.”
I raced back to the kitchen. Yanking the phone away from Dad, I rested the receiver against my heaving chest. Dad just stood
there, grinning like a goon. “Don’t you have somewhere to go, someone to meet, something to launder?” I said to him.
He chuckled and returned to the living room with a bottle of root beer. After hearing the La-Z-Boy creak, I lifted the phone
to my ear. “Hello?” I said all breathy, and not faking it either.
“Hey, Jen,” Kevin said. “What’s up?”
My blood pressure, I almost said. “Not much.” My heart raced. “You still coming over?”
“I can’t again,” he said. “Can you believe it? My mom forgot to tell me we had a birthday party for my cousin Kimmy tonight.
She’s making me go. But, uh, you busy tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? N—” My breath caught. All the life went out of me. “Why?”
“I was wondering… you wanna, you know, do something?”
Yes! I almost flew through the ceiling. “Like what?” I said.
“I dunno. Go to a movie?”
“Together?” My voice rose an octave.
“No,” he said. “I thought we’d go alone. You sit in front and I’ll sit in back. I can throw popcorn at you.”
I giggled. He was so adorable. “Okay,” I said, “but you’re buying the popcorn.”
With a smile in his voice, he said, “Serious. I could meet you at the mall.”
The mall. How romantic. “What time?”
“What movie do you want to see?”
Who cares? I doubt I’d be watching anything after the snack bar commercials. “You pick,” I said.
“Okay. How about
Bloody Tuesday: The Amputation?”
“Yes! I’ve been dying to see that,” I said.
“There’s a show at one-thirty,” he said. “Or…” A newspaper rustled in the background. “Four o’clock.”
“I guess the one-thirty. Hold on a minute.” Covering the phone with my hand, I whirled around. No one was there, surprisingly
enough, so I hollered into the living room, “Dad, could we do our family junk on Sunday instead?”
Mom’s head appeared around the corner from the basement stairs. “Would you like to rephrase that?” she said.
“Okay. Can we move our family junk from tomorrow to Sunday?”
Mom gave me her extremely annoyed look. Dad appeared in the doorway. “We all agreed on tomorrow, which, I believe was your
suggestion. So, no,” he said. “Tomorrow is our family day.”
Mom smiled at him. A current of warmth passed between them. Great, I thought. They choose this moment to be joined in holy
wedlock.
So much for my first, and last, date. I pounded my head on the wall, hoping for an aneurysm. The blows must’ve whipped up
a brainstorm. “Kevin, you still there?”
“Yeah. What’s up?”
“I just remembered, tomorrow is out. Could we do it on Sunday?”
“Sure. Oh, wait,” he said. “I can’t Sunday. We’re going up to my uncle’s cabin in the mountains. One of those family things,
you know?”
Did I ever. He had a bigger family than the Bradys.
I sighed.
He sighed. “I have to see you, Jenny,” he said softly. “I have this present for you.”
My fingers froze to the receiver. “What is it?” I managed to say without croaking.
“I can’t tell you. You know…”
“I’ve never been big on surprises,” I informed him. “You can tell me. I’ll act surprised.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Finally he said, “Naw. I’ll just give it to you on Monday.”
Monday? Monday was a lifetime away.
G
ood thing we had all day Saturday for our family fun time because that’s how long it took us to decide on a movie. Mom wanted
to see a four-hour-long sweeping epic about some poor family who immigrates to America, strikes it rich, then loses everything
and spawns another generation who makes all the same mistakes. Proving that history repeats itself and is as boring as
Barney.
Dad wanted to see a western. Yeehaw. Vanessa didn’t want to go, and I voted for
Bloody Tuesday: The Amputation,
thinking I just might run into someone I know and love.