“It’s coming from Shelly’s room,” she said.
“Who could be with her?”
Rory looked toward the stairs. “Does she have any male friends?” he asked.
Daria shook her head.
“None that she should have in her bedroom,” she said.
“God, Rory, what if it’s someone she picked up? Some stranger?
She befriends everyone. What if it’s some psychopath? “
“Calm down,” Rory said.
“The likelihood of that is pretty slim. But… maybe you should go check on her, anyway.”
“I don’t want to humiliate her,” she said, looking toward the stairs, “but I’d never forgive myself if somebody was hurting her.”
“I’d say her safety is more important than her pride right now,” Rory said.
Daria stood up.
“Call the cops if I start screaming,” she said, walking toward the stairs.
In the upstairs hallway, she knocked on Shelly’s door.
“Shelly?”
There was an ominous silence from behind the door, then hushed voices and the rustling of sheets.
“Shelly, are you all right?”
She heard footsteps, and the bedroom door was opened a few inches. by Zack. Daria could see Kara in Shelly’s bed, the sheets pulled up to her chin, and she was too surprised to speak.
“I’m not Shelly,” Zack said with a sheepish grin.
“Shelly said we could use her room while she was out on a walk.”
Daria heard Rory’s footsteps on the stairs. It sounded as though he was taking them two at a time, and Zack’s grin faded. “Is my dad here?” he asked, eyes wide, and Daria nodded.
“Zack?” Rory called as he neared the top of the stairs.
“Oh, shit.” Zack started to shut the door, but Rory had already reached the hallway. He pushed past Daria to hold the door open with his hand.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he said to his son, the question so idiotic and unanswerable that Daria almost laughed. She remembered having asked the same thing of Shelly years earlier, when she’d caught her in bed with one of the sleazy guys she used to see.
“Shelly said we could use her room,” Zack said weakly.
“Well, I think you two better get dressed and get out of here,” Rory said.
“I’ll see you at home in a few minutes.” He pulled the door shut, ran his hands through his hair, then looked at Daria.
“Yikes,” he whispered, and she stifled a laugh.
She followed him down the stairs.
“I apologize for my sister’s lousy judgment,” she said.
Rory opened the livingroom door and looked up at the ceiling.
“What do I do now?” he asked, although he didn’t sound as though he actually expected an answer.
“Be understanding,” Daria said.
“Be kind. Be all the things I wasn’t when I caught Shelly doing the same thing.”
Rory smiled.
“I’ll try,” he said. He turned and left the Sea Shanty.
Treat Zack with the same kind of sympathy you so easily lavish on Grace, she thought as she watched him walk across the cul-de-sac and into Poll-Rory, where he’d wait to have it out with his son.
it was nearly forty-five minutes before Zack dared to come home, and Rory was waiting for him in the living room, still not sure what he was going to say.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Dad,” Zack said as he walked past him toward the bedrooms.
“Well, I do.”
Zack stopped walking and turned around, a look of resignation on his face, and Rory noticed for the first time that his son was nearly as tall as he was. When had that happened? “Did you at least use a condom?” Something told him that was not the best way to start this conversation, but the words slipped out before he could stop them.
“Kara’s on the Pill,” Zack said.
“A fifteen-year-old girl on the Pill?” Rory asked.
“That says something about her right there, doesn’t it?”
