Barefoot: A Novel

“Maybe you should go back to school.”

Didi raised her face. She looked like a zombie from Night of the Living Dead. “Now you sound like them.”

Josh kicked at the ground. He wanted to go home and shower. He was hungry; he was making quesadil as tonight for dinner. “What do you want from me, Didi?”

“I want you to care!” She was screaming now. “You never cal me anymore. You didn’t show up at Zach’s party—”

“I had to babysit,” he said.

“You’re probably in love with that woman with the kids,” Didi said. “You’re probably sleeping with her!” This accusation was flung out there with such wild abandon that Josh didn’t feel the need to respond. He didn’t like having Brenda or Vicki or the kids brought into the conversation, especial y not by Didi. She knew nothing about them or about his time with them. If Brenda and Vicki, or even Melanie, could see him now, they would shake their heads. Poor girl, they’d say. Poor Josh.

He grabbed the car door. “Get in,” he said. “I’m taking you home.”

Didi did as she was told, making Josh believe that he was in control of the situation. But once Josh started driving, Didi started up again, bombarding him with nonsense. “You’re sleeping with her, just say it. . . . You don’t love me—you used to love me but now you’re a real hotshot, a col ege-boy hot shit, think you’re better than . . . They don’t pay me shit, and after taxes . . . They took the car with my Audioslave CD stil in it . . . My own mother won’t have me.” Tears, sobs, hiccups.

For a second, Josh feared she was going to vomit. He drove as fast as he possibly could, saying nothing because anything he said would be twisted around and used against him. He thought of Brenda in her nightgown with her notepad, her thermos of coffee, her briefcase for her old first-edition book. Brenda was a different quality of person: older, more mature, way past al this self-generated drama. Who needed fabricated drama when they were living through the real thing? Vicki had cancer. And Melanie had some kind of husband problem. Didi didn’t even know what trouble was.

He swung into her driveway. “Get out,” he said.

“I need money,” she said.

“Oh, no,” he said. “No way.”

“Josh . . .” She put her hand on his leg.

“I lent you money,” he said. “And you promised you’d leave me alone.” He picked up her hand and dropped it into her lap.

“I only need—”

“The answer is no,” he said. “And don’t forget, you stil owe me. Just because you asked me again and I said no doesn’t mean you don’t owe me from before. You owe me two hundred dol ars, Didi.”

“I know that, but—”

Josh got out of the car, stormed around to the passenger side, and opened her door.

“Out,” he said.

“You don’t love me.”

So needy. Al the time. Nothing had changed with Didi since senior year in high school. Her T-shirt caught his eye again. Baby Girl. That’s right, he thought. He reached across Didi and unbuckled her seat belt. Then he took her arm and pried her from the car. He was gentle but firm, just as he would have been with Blaine. He knew how to handle Baby Girl; he dealt with children every day.

“I only need five hundred dol ars,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t help you.”

“You’re NOT sorry!” she screamed. Her nose was running and she was crying again and hiccuping like a cartoon drunk. “You’re not one bit sorry, you don’t care what happens to me!” Her voice was shril and hysterical. It was like she wanted her neighbors to peer out their windows, sense a domestic disturbance, and cal the police.

“Hey,” he said. He looked at the house where Didi rented her apartment; he checked the yard and the woods around him. Now he wished someone would come out, ask what was going on, and help him deal with her, but there was no one around. “You just can’t scream like this, Didi.

You have to get ahold of yourself.”

“Oh, fuck you,” she said.

“I’m leaving,” he said.

“I need the money,” she said. She put her fists by her ears and shuddered until her face turned red. Josh watched her with disbelief. She was so far out of bounds that Josh thought maybe she was acting. Because hers was the kind of behavior Josh had only seen on soap operas; it was the behavior of the poverty-stricken, downtrodden, and criminal y inclined people on COPS.

“Didi,” Josh said. “Go inside and get a glass of water. Take a shower. Calm down.”

She looked at him in a way that was both cunning and desperate. “If you don’t help me,” she said, “I’m going to kil myself.”

He reached out and grabbed her chin. “You forgot who you’re talking to,” he said. “That isn’t funny.” He was real y angry now, because he could hear the calculated tone of her voice. She did know who she was talking to. She was trying to use his mother’s death to her advantage. That was the kind of serpent Didi was; that was how she operated. Now Josh was the one with clenched fists. But no—in getting this angry, he was letting her win. Didi may have sensed that she’d crossed a line because her voice changed to a plea.

“It’s just five hundred dol ars. I know you have it, Josh.”