You'd Be Home Now (41)

He works his jaw. “Yes.”

“Really?” I look over at him, shocked. “With who!”

“You don’t know her. It was last spring. She doesn’t go to Heywood. I met her at a party.”

“Was she your girlfriend, or just, like, a one-time thing?” Joey never brought a girl to the house or mentioned anyone to me. I wonder how much of Joey I don’t really know about, even though I thought I did.

“Why are you asking me this?” He’s frowning.

I look out the window. I could never tell him about Gage. I’m positive he wouldn’t get it.

“I don’t know. It just seems like everybody knows how to do this stuff. Like it’s easy for them. To talk to people. Flirt.” I think of Liza and Jeremy leaning their heads together. Priscilla with her hand on Gage’s arm in the cafeteria. Romeo and Juliet, pained and desperate and aching. All the kids holding hands in the halls.

He takes a deep breath. “We met up a lot,” he says, eyes pinned on the road. “At people’s houses. She was there…that night. That was the last time we hooked up. Before we got high together. I don’t know, we just started talking one time and she was really pretty. But we were also high all the time, so I don’t really know what it’s like to meet somebody when I’m sober. That’s why it was nice to talk to Amber. It felt natural. Nice. I guess that’s what it should feel like. Natural. Like you’re meant to be talking to that person. You shouldn’t feel like, I don’t know, that you’re trying to get them to like you. They just should.”

He clears his throat. “You should probably talk to Maddie. I mean, she probably has better advice for you. About girl things. Girl parts.”

    He gets red again. “Don’t tell Mom about Amber, okay? It’ll just start something, and then she might get me a different tutor, okay?”

“I won’t.” He’s right. That’s exactly the sort of thing Mom would put a stop to.

When we pull into the garage at home, he turns to me.

“Listen, Emmy, you’re a really nice girl. You’re smart, and kind, and really cute. Anybody would be lucky to hang with you, okay? If there’s somebody you like, just kind of feel it out. That’s really all I think I know.”

“You really think somebody would be lucky to be with me?” I ask softly.

“Oh my god, yes. But you have to be careful, because Mom has trained you to go along with people, you know? You’re not like Maddie. You have to learn to speak up. You have to learn what you want.”

It’s like he’s giving me the spine talk that Liza gave me at lunch, the spine I haven’t quite figured out how to use, even though it’s sitting right inside my body.

But I wonder if I could. If I could be the kind of person, like Priscilla, who doesn’t think anything of asking someone to a dance. It’s just something she’d do.

“But if somebody hurts you, tell me, because I will go all out, and I mean, all out, in making them pay,” he says.



* * *



—

I’m sitting on the front porch on Saturday afternoon when Max deVos skates down the sidewalk, his thin body weaving effortlessly on the board. He stops at the foot of our porch and kicks his board up, holds it in both hands against his chest like a baby.

“Joey around?”

    I shake my head. “He’s upstairs getting ready for work. At Hank’s Hoagies. It’s his first day.”

“He got a job? You guys, like, have money up the wazoo, what’s he need a job for?”

“My mom thought it would be good for him. Keep him busy.”

Max snorts. “Most people get jobs for money. Your family gets jobs for, like, character.”

“Well,” I say sharply. “He has a job and he’s leaving soon, so he can’t hang out.”

Max tugs his gray knit hat down his forehead. “Damn, well, what time does he get off? Maybe I can come back and hang with him.”

The front door opens and my mother steps out, pulling her cardigan closed. She looks first at me, then at Max.

“Can I help you?” Her voice is pure Mom: chilly, assured.

“Mom,” I say. “It’s Max. Max deVos. Joey’s friend.”

“Hey, Mrs. Ward. I just came by to hang with Joe,” Max says. He’s back to holding the skateboard in front of his chest again, but less like a baby and more like a shield. I wish I had a shield I could use against my mom sometimes.

“Oh. Yes. Meryl’s boy.” She slides the mail out of the box, sifting through letters and catalogs. “But I’m afraid Joey is busy at the moment.”

“I can come back after he gets off work.”

My mother straightens her back. “Joey isn’t having visitors at the moment, Max. He needs to concentrate on his recovery and if I recall correctly, most of what you and he did revolved around drugs. Am I incorrect?”

My mother’s particular brand of chilly enunciation gives even me the shivers, and I feel sorry for Max, who practically shrinks before us.

    His face goes red. “Oh, no, Mrs. Ward, I just came to hang out.” Max puts down his skateboard. “I haven’t been high in days.”

“I don’t want Joe to be around temptations, Max,” my mom says. “His recovery is very important, do you understand? He could have died.”