But I say nothing. My mother scares me in a way. I don’t want to be too vulnerable in front of her because I don’t think she can handle it. And if I break down and cry, tell her how I really feel, let it all pour out, she’ll fall apart. She’ll beg me to understand her side. To talk to me endlessly about her mother and her father. About her sister who died ten years ago. I don’t always want to understand her side. I just want to be a person who doesn’t have to take care of, or worry about, her mother—but I don’t get that option.
I want to call Ali. Isn’t that strange? That pull I have toward her? Suddenly, there’s some connection between us. Because this is something Ali would understand—especially about mothers—that no one else would. Even Donnie, who I turn to for everything. Her mother and father, they’re still together. Her mother is a scientist! Dr. Alperstein, the famous scientist.
And just like that, Donnie, Cate, and Suki are at my house. I lock the door behind me and text Rosita: Let me know when you get to the house.
I’m outside so fast. There’s Donnie with a cigarette, her hand hanging out the car window, her silver cuff around her wrist sparkling in the sun. I cram in the back seat next to Suki. Cate’s got shotgun, and usually I’d fight her for it, make her get in the back. Today I don’t care. Can’t get out of here, away from my mother, fast enough.
Donnie hands me the cigarette. Deep inhale. Smoke in my lungs. Exhale smoke rings. “Where’s your little friend?” Donnie says. “I thought you’d be walking to school with her. Maybe holding her backpack.”
“You sound jealous.”
“I, for one, don’t care who you’re friends with, but I also am kind of curious,” Suki says. “Is this an actual friendship? I thought this had something to do with Sean.”
“It does have to do with Sean. At least it started that way. But I like Ali.”
Cate turns around from the front seat, shoots a look at Suki, and they laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
They laugh more. There’s nothing funny. It’s a game they want to play. They’re scared that they’re going to slip from my fingers and they’ll have nothing for me to hold on to. Maybe that I’ll trade them in for Ali.
“Playing with fire, gonna get burned,” Suki sings, making up her own song.
“Ali? She’s innocent. What could she do to me?”
“Not her,” Suki says. “Sean.”
“He’s a baby,” I say. “You didn’t see him crying that night. You guys don’t understand how I pick up the pieces for him. How that’s part of our friendship now. He doesn’t come to you like he comes to me.”
Especially lately. That was a job Dev and I both handled. But now, it seems to be just me. The other day in the hallway. I need someone to set me straight. And then, Sometimes when I’m with you. I haven’t told anyone about that. Kept it hidden, all the way down.
“Crying about what, B? That he broke some other girl’s heart? That’s his MO,” Cate says.
“Oh, and what guy’s not a player?” I say.
“Dev’s not a player.”
“Maybe that’s why Sean hangs out with Dev and looks up to Dev. Because he wants to be more like him.”
But I have no idea if that’s true at all. It feels like it could be.
“You guys have never seen him cry like I have. You’ve never seen him spilling his guts like I have.”
“About what? His hair?” Suki says.
“His SAT scores?” Donnie says. “He has a soft side. You guys don’t understand.” Donnie, mocking me.
“That soft side is his pretty face,” Suki says.
I slump down into the back seat, my knees up against the passenger side. I close my eyes. I can see his face right in front of me. The way he looked that night. I would never hurt anyone.
He wouldn’t, would he? Not purposefully. Right?
16
ALI
It’s been two weeks since I first met Sheila the She Woman. Two weeks since that night.
My dad wants me to meet her again. The right way.
“You mean, not with her ass sticking out?”
I try not to laugh. I love teasing my father. It means everything to me.
“Alistair.”
“Dad.”
“You seriously have got to get a handle on that mouth of yours.”
So Sheila is coming over for dinner. My father is cooking. This means he bought a rotisserie chicken and is microwaving frozen broccoli. If he really wants to charm her, he’ll open a can of beans and chop up some cilantro.
Sheila comes in with flowers for me. A dozen orange roses, which is sweet actually.
“They’re from an organic farm in West Jersey,” she says.
“I thought roses came from a florist,” I say, deadpanning.
“Jesus, Ali. Give it a rest!” my father yells from the kitchen.
“Your father told me about your great sense of humor,” she says. She’s smiling. She’s not so offended.
* * *
* * *
At dinner Sheila wants to know about my interests.
“Boys.”
This used to be a funny joke in my family before Sean Nessel. Before my father thought I was a slut. Before I had to go to a gynecologist. Before my aunt delivered Plan B to me. It slipped out of my mouth too fast. My father stares at me like he’s going to slap me from across the table.
“New answer,” he says, gritting his teeth.
I sit up in my seat. Serious now. “I write a little. I also make collages. I guess I do a lot of things.”
She tells me that she writes too. That she used to be a journalist. Now she just teaches more than she actually writes.
“What made you become a journalist?” I say.
She perks up. Surprised that she caught my interest.
“I saw a movie on Woodward and Bernstein. Ever hear of them?”
I shake my head.
“They’re the journalists who uncovered Watergate. The reporters who found out that President Nixon had hired his men to break into the Democratic National Committee offices that were in the Watergate building to steal information. That he lied to the country and then resigned. They ended up uncovering layers of Washington secrets about the president that no one was willing to talk about.”