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Mom gives me a look that says Time for some tough love. It’s one of her most powerful looks, right after Don’t you dare take that tone with me.
That wasn’t the first time a buffoon has been handed an office he doesn’t deserve, and it won’t be the last.
anticipation is often worse than reality. I’ll bet today won’t be nearly as bad as you think.”
Bottom line: neither of them understand what it’s like to need a day off. Or even just a morning.
Here’s the thing about powerhouse people: you have no idea how much they take on until they can’t do it all anymore.
It’s not like I expect life to be fair. I learned it’s not seven years ago, when a drunk driver plowed into Autumn’s parents and walked away without a scratch. Still sucks, though.
Ma’s in front of me, snapping her fingers in my face. I didn’t even notice her move, so I must’ve been lost in thought for a while. Crap. That kind of zoning out worries my mother—who, sure enough, is peering at me like she’s trying to see inside my brain. Sometimes I think she’d yank it right out of my skull if she could.
He’s slouched low in his seat, but not low enough that I can’t make out his slicked-back hair and mirrored sunglasses. Would I hate Gabe less if he didn’t look like such a massive sleaze all the time? The world will never know.
I lift my hands and start a slow clap as Autumn joins me outside, staring between me and the car with a puzzled expression. “What are you doing?” she asks. “Giving it up for Gabe’s engine,” I say, clapping hard enough to make my palms sting. “Seems important to him that people notice it.” Autumn shoves at my arm, disrupting the applause. “Don’t be a dick.” “He’s the dick,” I say automatically. We could have this argument in our sleep.
Yes
I had a bad feeling, and not just because I hate kale.
Ha
“Focus on your friends for a change.” Yeah, right. Spoken like a man who’s never met my friends, which he hasn’t, because my Carlton High circle is one of convenience. We’re all people on the fringes of school who drop one another as soon as something better comes along, then go skulking back when it ends. The last time I had real friends was middle school.
Nobody should be that good at so many different things. It doesn’t build character.
I stick my hand in the air and wave it wildly. It’d be a dick move to ignore me, and Mateo—despite being the kind of guy who’d rather swallow knives than make small talk—isn’t a dick, so he heads our way.
“Where are you going?” “I was thinking we could start at Quincy Market? Lots of parking there, and places to get food and stuff. And the aquarium’s nearby if we want to head over there at some point. Check out the penguins, maybe.” “Penguins?” I echo. “I like penguins.” Cal’s voice has a wistful, almost uncertain quality to it. “I used to, anyway. I probably still do. That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that goes away, even if you haven’t seen a penguin in a while.”
“Okay,” I say, even though I can think of a lot of things I’d rather do than watch Cal choose between seventeen shades of green pencil.
Boney was always looking for ways to make money. In fifth grade, he was best known for buying cheap candy and selling it to us during lunch at a huge markup. Which I bought, obviously, because candy.
He has that Determined Mateo look I remember from the tail end of our friendship, when his dad hit the road to “find himself” as a roadie for a Grateful Dead cover band. Like Mateo had finally realized he’d been letting a useless person dictate half his life, so he was going to have to step up and…oh. Oh, okay. I’ve become the useless person that Mateo has to compensate for, and I both recognize and accept that in an instant. I’m relieved, actually. All I want is to follow someone else’s lead for a while.
Cal you have to get a friend for Gilbert. In Switzerland it’s illegal to own only one guinea pig because they get lonely. She had a good point about Gilbert. My guinea pig was a lot happier after my parents agreed to let me buy a second one. Except then George died, and Gilbert was so inconsolable that he died three days later—so. Not sure it was a win, in the end.
Somehow, it feels better to wait for information to hit me than to go looking for it.
“You’re as stubborn as she is, aren’t you? You’ll be the death of me.”
That’s Ivy for you; she has this way of making observations that seem like throwaways, but end up being weirdly deep enough that you think about them years later.
“Was Cal just holding hands with our art teacher?”
I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting Cal to deploy such deep denial, and it renders me momentarily speechless.
Remember that big potted fern next to your table?” I get a blank look in return, of course, because he was too busy staring into Ms. Jamison’s eyes. I could’ve tap-danced past them in a clown costume and he wouldn’t have noticed.
Mateo breaks in. “What did he mean, never mentioned it?” No, no, no. We do not have to relive this, or attempt to rewrite history. “Mateo, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it. It was so long ago. I don’t even think about that anymore.” Lies, all lies. I thought about it as recently as the ride over, when the train was crowded and we had to stand holding the bars above us. I kept swaying into Mateo’s arm, which has gotten a lot more defined than it was before high school, and felt echoes of the buzzing nerves that were my constant companion that summer. There’s no question that Mateo is even
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He smelled like Tide detergent and cherry Skittles, which I no longer hated even a little.
“Oh. I asked if you wanted to get king-sized ones at the Infinity War premiere.”
You can be right in principle and still wrong in approach, Mom used to tell me when I’d get frustrated that other kids in student government wouldn’t follow my lead. Nobody likes to feel steamrolled. I’d always brush her off, because I didn’t understand the point of mincing words or wasting time when you knew what had to be done.
Cal takes us to some weird-ass doughnut place where nothing is regular-flavored.
I don’t like doughnuts as a rule, and I like them even less when they’re covered with cereal, meat products, or, in one case, a whole cayenne pepper.
While I watched them at the café, it hit me for the first time how lonely Cal must be. He doesn’t have a brother or cousin at home like Ivy and me, and he hasn’t mentioned any friends all day. I’m starting to think he’s turned into the kind of guy who’d do whatever someone says and not ask questions, just so he could feel like he’s part of something.
Shove it down, Autumn’s voice says in my head. She and I have a running joke about my dad; how any time something happens that he doesn’t know how to handle, he just—doesn’t. He shoves it so far down in his mental space that it might as well not exist.
He seems more shell-shocked than angry, which is an improvement over the train.
“I heard about your classmate. What terrible news. Your father and I are both devastated.” Wes must’ve given Henry a heads-up before he called me, because no way would Henry come across this news on his own. He’s the opposite of plugged in, and still uses a flip phone.
Wes likes to say that Henry can’t talk about his feelings, so you have to pay attention to how he shows them. Mateo is the same way. “He likes you, too.”
It’s a pack of Sugar Babies, and she practically melts into the ground as she takes it.
My inner twelve-year-old doesn’t care about that, and is screeching in heart-eye emojis.
Problem is, once my cousin gets an idea in her head, it’s like she has tunnel vision. She sees the light at the end, and none of the mess she’s making to get there.
I’m not going to tell him that Autumn did the right thing, but he’s not trying to say that, either. She came up with a bad solution to a bad situation, and everyone loses.
“Why do you think she did that?” Charlie shrugs. “You’re the smart one. You tell me.” A trace of color returns to Ivy’s cheeks. Without realizing it, Charlie just gave her a much-needed shot of energy. Getting called smart is her own personal Red Bull.
Charlie sits up with more energy than he’s shown since he tried to gouge Mateo’s eyes out.
I can’t even be mad at Cal for not coming out with the Dominick name sooner. None of us have been our best, most straightforward selves today, and there’s no point in losing any more time arguing about it.
“Well, there you have it,” I say. Even though this is by far the worst puzzle I’ve ever tried to solve, there’s still satisfaction in watching a piece fall into place.
Somehow, though, my televised humiliation is slightly less horrifying the second time around. Maybe I’ve become used to bad news.
“So when she lost the election to Boney yesterday, she flipped out.” “Excuse me? I did not flip out,” I yell at the screen, so loudly that I almost miss Emily saying the exact same thing. “What did I tell you?” Charlie says approvingly. “Ride or die.”
“Can I ask a favor, you guys?” Cal asks as he turns a corner. “Can we not talk about anything terrifying until we get to the knife-sharpening place, and pretend we’re normal people listening to old-school soft rock?” “Normal people don’t do that, but okay,” Mateo says.
Yo, Danny boy! Daniel, over here! (The blond boy turns.) You wanna make a statement about your sister? (Daniel raises both middle fingers.) ISHAAN: Powerful statement.
hooked up
Not using that right but ok
“Um, if this is a declaration of love, I’m happy for you,” Cal says as he starts the car. “But it’s going to get super awkward for me.”
“Fine,” Cal says. “Let me activate invisible mode so the two of you can discuss nothing of importance in private.” He mimes putting a shield over his head, like the giant nerd he is. I love the kid, but he should lay off the comics occasionally. “You know you can still hear us if you’re invisible, right?” I ask. “Can’t hear you! Invisible!” Cal says, and I can’t help but laugh.
