By the time I made it downstairs that afternoon, Mom was at the table doing a crossword puzzle, wearing her signature bathrobe. The TV was on, and I was surprised to see Dad plopped in front of it, lounging in his La-Z-Boy with Gunther curled up by his feet. My faithful dog snored loudly.
“Dad, don’t you have work today?” I asked.
Mom coughed and muttered something about the puzzle she was doing. “He’s sick too, baby.”
Right in front of him on the TV tray was a bowl of the same soup Mom had made for me.
“Well, look who’s finally up,” Dad said. He spun in his chair to face me, and we locked eyes for a moment. Father and son, two hungover, useless bastards. If someone had wanted to paint a portrait of our family lineage, this would’ve been a good place to start. “What are your plans for today, Mr. Mysterious?”
“Heaven only knows,” Mom sang from her spot at the table. “You don’t look so well, Jack. Maybe you should go back upstairs and get some more rest. I could bring you up a crossword puzzle. They’ve got some good ones today.”
“Thanks Mom, I’m fine,” I mumbled, and I hurried out the door.
“Mr. Mysterious,” said Dad.
I took the bus to the Strip where Connor said he’d meet me. It wasn’t too crowded since it was a Sunday—a lazy, humid Sunday, people in shorts and flip-flops, the bus blasting AC so cold I thought I might freeze to death. I watched beat-up cars drive by, cars with two different colored doors. Homeless men and women wandered up and down the streets. At a red light, I watched a woman so big and heavy she could barely waddle out of Goodwill pushing a shopping cart stuffed with baby supplies. She had three screaming kids trailing after her, and an infant strapped to her chest. Her face was tomato red, and she was sweating and panting from the exertion. A knot formed in my throat.
I don’t know why, but I wanted to reach out and take her hand and lead her away from here, guide her to a place that didn’t smell like burning pavement and gasoline and exhaust fumes. Maybe somewhere by the ocean with a cool, balmy breeze. I wanted to make sure her kids got presents every Christmas, nice ones that lit up and made cool sounds, presents all the other kids would be jealous of. Not presents from the Goodwill that were probably broken and smelled like mothballs.
But by the time the bus coughed me up and I saw Connor, leaning against the old movie theater, smoking a joint, I forgot how to breathe, how to think straight. I forgot about the waddling woman and her kids and my parents and the homeless people on the sidewalk.
I shuffled up to him, hands in my pockets, wishing I hadn’t worn jeans on such a hot day. He was cool as a cucumber in cargo shorts and a t-shirt that gripped at his biceps.
“Finally,” he said when he saw me. “I waited as long as I could to light up.”
I checked over my shoulder for cops, but all I could see was a woman with dreadlocks sitting on the curb with her pit bull, holding up a cardboard sign that read: Hungry and pregnant. I wanted to toss her a quarter, but Connor was watching me, and his pull was too magnetic to resist.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. He took a long drag on the joint, then handed it to me.
“Like shit,” I said. “You?”
“Not too bad,” he said. “Of course, I didn’t drink nearly as much as you did. I didn’t even know it was possible for a human being to drink that much.”
He was grinning, but I turned away.
“Sorry, did I say something wrong?”
I shook my head.
“Are you still pissed about that girl at the party, Skye, or whatever her name is?”
I must have looked surprised, because he laughed. “I saw you eyeballing us from across the room. I swear, we didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, whatever, man.” As soon as the marijuana filled my lungs, a calm rush took over my body. I handed it back to him.
“You don’t believe me? I had to do something while you were downstairs chasing after chicks.”
I snorted. “That was them, not me.”
He took a long drag and held out the joint, but when I reached for it, he pulled it away. “Then how come all I’ve heard these past twelve hours is how Jessica Velez is now in with Skye Russo’s group because they all think you tried to force your tongue down her throat last night?”
I coughed so hard I thought my lungs might burst open. “What? What are you talking about?”
He shrugged. “Word travels fast. Apparently, they feel so bad for her that they’ve taken her under their wing, whatever that means.”
Skye and Jess had been good friends in middle school. But the summer before high school, Jess went to visit family in Colombia. She came back confused about the rules and the convoluted new social hierarchy of Burro Hills High. She would cry to me every day while I tried my best to listen. There would always be a new fumble she’d made; the humiliating mistake of wearing a sparkly Hello Kitty backpack, singing Disney songs to herself in the halls, or raising her hand too often in class. It made me dizzy to hear it all. How did girls come up with these rules? Soon the whispers started, just low enough so the teachers wouldn’t pick up on it, but loud enough so that Jess could hear. I wanted to stop it, but there wasn’t anything I could do. I didn’t understand why these girls who’d once been her closest friends were now treating her like the enemy. Notes were passed, rumors started about her being a secret slut,
