Save the Date(48)

J.J. and I groaned, and over the phone, I heard Linnie do the same. “Can we not do this now?” Mike asked.

“Well, I think it’s nice when people stay together from high school into college,” my mother said, even though I knew for a fact she felt the exact opposite. “It shows an impressive level of commitment.”

“So you were at Corrine’s,” J.J. prompted, taking a bite of his cookie. “Proceed.”

“Well. Um. So we were . . . hanging out . . .” There was a long pause, and then we all seemed to realize what he meant at the same moment.

“God,” I said, shaking my head.

“I really didn’t need to hear this,” my dad said.

“Anyway,” Mike said, his face going a duller and duller red, like he was slowly morphing into a brick, “Corrine’s parents are really strict, so when they came home early, I kind of . . . climbed out the window.”

“Naked,” Siobhan clarified helpfully, and Mike looked down at the floor like he was hoping it might swallow him up.

“So Corrine tossed my phone and keys and clothes out after me,” Mike said, speaking very fast now, like he was just hoping to get to the end of this. “And I got the keys and the phone. But my clothes ended up . . . stuck in a tree?”

My mother made a kind of snorting sound, and I looked over and saw that her chin was trembling, like she was trying very hard not to laugh. “Well. Michael. You are an adult now and can make your own choices. But we still don’t approve.” She looked at my dad, who nodded, even though I could see he was fighting a smile.

“Yes,” he said, then cleared his throat. “You shouldn’t . . . shouldn’t . . .”

“Shouldn’t jump out of windows without your clothes on?” Linnie finished, then started giggling.

“It’s not funny,” Mike said, shaking his head, and that was enough to set me off.

“Oh my god,” I said, laughing, “what—what did you do on the drive home? Were you just driving around naked? What if you’d gotten pulled over?”

“Have a cookie,” Siobhan said, pushing the plate over to him.

“Yeah,” J.J. said. “You deserve it.”

“Thanks,” Mike said, coming over to sit next to J.J. “If we could never mention this again, ever, I’d be really happy.” He reached for a cookie.

“So . . . are your clothes still up in the tree?” Linnie asked, still chuckling.

Mike nodded. “My shoes, too. I guess . . . Corrine will try to get them down in the morning?”

I started giggling again as I reached for a cookie, broke it in half, and held out the other half to Siobhan, who took it.

“But seriously,” Mike said, turning to our mom. “This doesn’t go in the strip.” My mother hesitated, and it was like I could see it playing out on her face—she was already lining up the panels and the punch lines in her mind. “Really,” Mike said, not a trace of a smile on his face any longer. “Corrine’s parents are super strict.”

“That must be nice,” my dad said under his breath.

“They’d freak out if they knew I was over there when they were gone,” he said. “Mom? Promise?”

“Mom won’t put it in,” Linnie said around a yawn. “Well, this has been fun, but I think we’ll say good night now.”

“Night,” we all chorused, and a second later, my screen went dark.

“And if we could also not tell Danny?” Mike asked hopefully.

“Scoff,” said J.J.

“I think it’s going to be hard to keep this one under wraps,” my dad said, shaking his head. “But it’ll stay just in the family.” Siobhan cleared her throat. “And Siobhan.”

“Well,” Mike said, getting up and edging toward the stairs. “I’m going to bed and to try and forget this ever happened. Night.”

“Don’t forget to put the floor mat back in the car,” my dad called after him.

“And maybe clean it first?” J.J. called, which started me laughing again.

I had thought that would be it—Mike went to Evanston to begin his winter term, J.J. went back to Pittsburgh, and I returned to being the only kid left in the house. It was about seven weeks later, in February, that Mike called when I leaving school, juggling three separate canvas bags and a stack of books, cursing the fact that the junior parking lot was so much farther away than the senior lot.

“Hey,” I said, tucking the phone under my chin after I answered it. “What’s up?”

“Have you seen today’s strip?” Mike asked, his voice tight.

“No.” I stopped walking. “What about it?” My mom had just wrapped up a storyline about Lindsay and Lawrence (the name of Rodney’s doppelg?nger) in a fight with their neighbors, so I had no idea who she was focusing on next—she tended to rotate the storylines between characters.

“Read it.” Mike’s voice was serious enough that I set my bags down, put him on speaker, and pulled up the Sentinel website on my phone. Feeling my eyes start to get blurry from the cold, I read it. The panels intercut between me spending the night at home watching TV, with Waffles and a bowl of popcorn, and Mark, home from college, carefully getting ready and then finally showing up on the doorstep of his girlfriend, Alice. Alice had long been a fan favorite, and my mother had put her in the strip right around the time Mike started dating Corrine. But even though Alice physically looked like Corrine, she was the complete opposite personality-wise. Alice was sweet, nicer, and got along great with the family, like my mom was trying to will into being the girlfriend she wished Mike had.