“Well, congratulations. That honor belongs to you.”
“How do you feel? Older? Mature? Too cool for fifteen-and-eleven-months-old guys?” I heard Jolene shifting, and for some reason I imagined her flipping around on a bed I’d never seen with her legs propped up on a padded headboard.
“I don’t know. I’ve been sixteen for like a minute, so maybe? Although I’ve always been too cool for you, so definitely yes to the last question.”
“I would take issue with the use of the word always in that statement, but come morning, I’m not going to be able to argue with a driver’s license when I’m stuck riding a bike. You’re still going, right? Gabe is taking you?”
“Yeah, we were going to blow off first and second periods, but there was some damage to the roof from the snowstorm over the weekend so there’s no school tomorrow. Want me to call you after?”
“No. I mean, yes, normally I would want that, but my mom decided we should take an impromptu drive up to Lancaster for a couple days to visit my grandparents. We’re leaving in the morning and they’re conservative Mennonites, which is only a few steps away from being Amish. They don’t go for a lot of technology around the farm. My mom wants us to leave everything with a battery at home. I know, I know,” I said, forestalling a predictable remark from Jolene. “It’s like traveling back in time instead of driving a couple hours away.”
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“I think it’s nice that your mom is being so thoughtful of your grandparents.”
“Okay,” I said. “Age is definitely making you more compassionate. I don’t know what to do with you if you aren’t making fun of me.”
“Is that how you see me? As the mean girl who insults you all the time?”
Age was also making her more sensitive, apparently. “No. I wouldn’t be calling you on your birthday or wanting to hang out with you all the time if that’s what I thought. I’d be hanging out with that other girl, the one I broke up with because I’d rather be friends with you.” And then I added, “Is everything okay? I mean, you just turned sixteen. Why aren’t you happier right now?”
“Do you remember me telling you about Mrs. Cho, my housekeeper?”
“Sure,” I said.
“My mom and I got into a fight tonight, and afterward she called Mrs. Cho and fired her. She told Mrs. Cho it was because we couldn’t afford her anymore, but that’s not why. It’s not even because she caught me eating the birthday cake that Mrs. Cho left me, or that Tom broke up with her because I refused to spy on my dad for them. I was happy for a split second, and she couldn’t have that. So she fired the only person who ever cared about me, just because. She even tried to tell me it was for my own good, a way to teach me that caring about people who can’t get you anything is stupid.”
My hand clenched around the phone and so much blood rushed to my face that it seemed to seep into my vision. It didn’t seem possible that Jolene had come from two of the most miserable and worthless people who’d ever lived.
“I’ve been lying here trying to sleep,” Jolene went on. I could hear her too-fast breathing through the phone, and the sound was a fist tightening around my heart. “But all I can think about is that I’ll probably never see Mrs. Cho again. And maybe my mom was right. She said Mrs. Cho didn’t ask about me on the phone.”
“Your mom is a liar,” I said, raising my voice. “I don’t believe for a second that she didn’t ask about you. And neither do you.” When Jolene’s end of the line stayed silent, I felt a weird wash of anger crash over me—not toward her, but toward the people who were responsible for the way I knew she looked, sitting in her room miles away. Like she wanted the earth itself to swallow her. “You’re amazing, you know?” But she didn’t, and that was the problem. “Jo, I—” I didn’t want to tell her on the phone that I loved her.
“Adam, I’m kidding. Obviously. I mean, it’s not even really just my birthday. Every year I’m alive is like a gift to the world.”
She was trying to deflect from the rare honest words she’d let slip, and I knew I couldn’t let her. “Remember my prediction for our future?”
“The one where I win an Oscar? Um, yeah.”
“I started it too late. Before you get into college and you’re crying over leaving me at the airport—”
“Uh-huh. Let’s see who ends up doing the crying.”
“—you submit an incredible application to that film program, and to no one’s surprise but your own, you get in. After a single summer, you start realizing that all the crap your parents have made you think about yourself all these years is just that. Even when you come back home, it’s not as bad as it’s been, because you don’t just tell other people what an amazingly talented, beautiful, and funny person you are, you actually believe it. It’s not just some joke that only you’re in on.”
The silence on the phone made me worry that I’d gone too far and she’d hung up. I pressed the phone harder against my ear. “Jo?”
“Yeah?”
My eyes fell shut in relief. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then tell me you know I’m right.”
But she didn’t, and I realized that she couldn’t, not after everything that had happened with her mom and Mrs. Cho. I was going to keep telling her though. And I’d show her, too. “I am right. About all of it. Even you sobbing as I leave to catch my flight.” I told myself that that last part made her smile. “And I’m sorry about Mrs. Cho.”
Jolene let out a sigh that was an acknowledgment of the sympathy I offered, but not much else. I probably had pushed her too far and, more than anything, when we hung up, I wanted her to feel better than when I’d called her. I wasn’t doing a great job of making that happen yet.
“Leaving aside your wretched mom, you know that Mrs. Cho isn’t the only one who cares about you just because, right? I mean, I’m right here on the phone. At least wait until we’ve hung up before you dismiss me out of hand.”
Jolene laughed a little. “I forgot about your fragile boy emotions.”
“And we’re back to making fun of me.” I hoped she could hear me smiling.
“You want an ego boost?”
I wanted anything she wanted to give me. “Sure.”
She laughed again, but when she started talking, she sounded completely serious. “I like that you’re such a huge nerd that you sat up watching the clock so you could call me the second it was officially my birthday.”