“Son,” he said, “you monkeyed up.”
“I know.” I put off the rest of this conversation by running after the football again. But when I returned to my starting spot, he was still there.
“Now, I’m not going to send you to military school just because Trevor McGillicuddy has his panties in a wad.”
“Thanks,” I said.
BANG.
He raised his voice. “But the reason I will send you is the reason your mama and I were discussing it in the first place. You have absolutely no monkeying self-control.
None.”
“Thanks for nothing.” I ran down the ramp to retrieve my football.
“at’s a prime monkeying example,” he shouted after me. “You’re in trouble and you’re still talking back. People like you end up in jail, son. Nobody is going to help you out then. Trevor’s already so mad at you he could spit, and I’m not wasting my boat money paying for a lawyer to defend you for a crime you’re likely guilty of anyway.”
I walked back up the ramp, tossing the football from hand to hand. I tucked it under one arm and slapped my dad on the back. “Your confidence in me is heartwarming.
Makes me want to return all the money I stole from the little old ladies and kick the heroin.” He gave me the same look he’d sent my way that morning in the kitchen. I had gone too far.
I raised both hands and one football. I had no defense and nothing else to say.
“Why can’t you stay the monkey away from her?” he burst.
“Because.” This was impossible to explain. I didn’t understand it myself. I put my hands down in defeat. “It’s Lori.”
“I know,” he said. Shockingly, he sounded halfway sympathetic.
“And she’s beautiful,” I went on.
He nodded.
I pointed the football through the trees, toward her house. “And she’s right there!”
“I know, son, and it’s going to earn you a tour through the ass end of the South’s finest secondary schools for monkey-ups.” I bounced the football on the side of my head in frustration. “What do you want me to do?” He pursed his lips and eyed me in the dusk. “Show me you have one iota of self-restraint.”
“I will,” I said quickly.
“Stay away from her.”
“Okay.”
“Keep your hands off her.”
“I’ll try.”
He scowled at me.
“I will,” I said.
He wiggled his fingers at me. “And it might help public relations with Lori’s pop if you put on a shirt and quit walking around here like sex on a stick.” I rolled my eyes. He did make me feel self-conscious about my bare chest, though. I wanted to fold my arms. Instead, I threw the football as hard as I could at the warehouse door.
BANG.
“Nice arm,” Dad called after me as I chased the football. “Ever thought about throwing against the rock wall of the house? You’re making a dent in my door.”
at was the point. I liked making a dent. I liked watching it grow bigger with every throw. I didn’t say this, though. As I walked toward him, spinning the football on one finger, I did admit, “The metal door makes a more satisfying noise. Like fireworks. I can feel it in my chest.” He reached out and stroked my cheek with his fist. “What’s this scrub you’re working on?”
I batted his hand away. “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” I yanked his beard.
He feinted toward me.
I bounced the football off his chest and caught it again. “I could so take you, old man.”
He chuckled and headed past me, up to the house. “You do what I said,” he called over his shoulder.
“I will.”
“I would hate to see you go.”
I watched him walk all the way up the yard, hands on his knees when he got to the steepest part, until he disappeared into the house.
en I looked toward Lori’s house again. It was big, but all I could see between the thick tree trunks was wooden corners and white lights. It looked exactly like it always had from over here, but I felt so much different about it now.
In my earliest memory it was a scary place, because Lori and McGillicuddy’s mother had died. Later it was a mysterious and wonderful place, like the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. I didn’t go to their house often, but when I did, McGillicuddy’s room was full of model airplanes still intact because he had no older brothers to break them on purpose, and Lori was liable to pop around the corner, treating me to a little thrill.
Lately I’d hardly dared go over there because I was sure Lori would know I liked her. When I did have an excuse to visit McGillicuddy, I walked through the halls holding my breath. e little thrill had grown into something much stronger, something that made me want to steal Lori away from McGillicuddy and get her alone. And now…
Now I just hoped she hadn’t gotten in too much trouble.
Keep my hands off her. Right. I waved fireflies away from my face and threw the football at the warehouse as hard as I could.
BANG.
As the doorbell rang, I was dumping potato chips into a bowl. is was something one did when having one’s friends over for lunch. is was, in fact, the only thing I could think of that one did when hostessing a lunch.
At the sound of the bell, I glanced toward the door and tried to slow my pulse. It was not Adam, miraculously freed from the wrath of his parents (and my dad). It was Tammy and Rachel, who’d agreed to come over again today to help me figure out what to do. They were conniving, like all girls but me. I figured they could troubleshoot.
“Heeeey,” I wailed.
Tammy and Rachel made unfamiliar girly noises of sympathy and wrapped me in a group hug. “Oh, no!” Rachel exclaimed. “Have you been crying?”
“I’m all cried out.” My voice was muffled against Tammy’s T-shirt—which was safe from stains, because I never wore makeup to work. I wished I could have enjoyed the group hug and taken them up on the implicit invitation to cry my eyes out all over again. is was why they’d driven out here on my lunch break. is was what girls did.
But I really had depleted my store of tears, and probably lost five pounds of water weight in the process, while dusting the marina showroom with Sean this morning.
Plus, weird as it had been to show my emotional side to Sean, it would have been even stranger to cry in front of my brother, who would be back any second. Now that he and Tammy were together, I supposed he would listen in on all my girly confabs. Not that I’d ever had any of those before.
Plus, now that I’d rid myself of the initial hysteria at getting Adam in even more trouble, I couldn’t concentrate on crying. I was thinking too hard about my plan for getting us out of this mess.
e girls and I detangled ourselves from one another and stepped into the kitchen, shutting the door on the midday heat. “It’s so romantic,” Rachel said. “Like Romeo and Juliet!”
“Romantic, no,” I said. “Like Romeo and Juliet, yes, except that it’s real. With suckage.”
“Give us the scoop.” Tammy slid into a chair in front of the bread and sandwich meat I’d piled on the kitchen table. “Did your dad convince Adam’s parents to punish him?” She glanced around the kitchen as she said this. I knew she wasn’t as interested in the scoop on Adam as the scoop on my brother’s whereabouts.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “McGillicuddy’s supposed to be down at the gas pumps, finding out from Adam right now. I worked with Sean and Cameron this morning, but neither of them knew anything. They weren’t around when Adam got in trouble. They asked him later what happened, and he told them to screw off.”
“Poor thing.” Rachel, who was still standing next to me, slipped her arm around my waist.
I shot a sideways look at her. “Poor thing” was right. I felt awful for Adam. But I didn’t necessarily want Rachel feeling awful for him—not when she’d been dating him two weeks ago. I was not schooled enough in the arts of girls to know whether she was bullshitting me or not. I was about to call her on it when McGillicuddy walked in.