I rolled my eyes and started eating, figuring that the less I spoke, the less opportunity there would be for me to spark some horrible chain of comments that would lead to any of the many Awkward Subjects I was hoping to avoid. Eventually, though, it became too quiet and it was a relief when Digby opened the mineral water and pierced the silence with the explosion of carbonation.
“So,” Digby said. “How’s it going?”
Mom sighed and said, “Thank you. Zoe said we weren’t allowed to talk and I was starting to think I’d have to sit here just listening to you all masticating for the rest of the night.”
Digby smiled and said, “She told me not to talk too. I can’t tell if she was worried about me offending you or you offending me.”
“Zoe?” Mom said. “Which is it?”
I shot the two of them dirty looks and ladled myself some more soup. “You’re both equally offensive,” I said.
“‘Equally’?” Digby said. “Well, since you’re already offended . . .”
“I think she just declared the season open,” Mom said. She and Digby smiled at each other across the table.
“Lightning round?” Mom said.
“Five apiece?” Digby said.
“Hit me,” Mom said.
“Oh, God,” I said.
Digby said, “Did you ever want to be anything besides a professor?”
“No. I went to grad school because I like reading and I didn’t know what else to do after college,” Mom said. “Come on, kid, you can do better than softball questions like that.”
Digby said, “Did you ever think Zoe’s father was your soul mate?”
Mom said, “Not even for a second.”
Digby said, “Then why did you marry him?”
“Because he took me on an all-expenses-paid trip to Turks and Caicos but he wouldn’t pay hotel shop prices for condoms,” Mom said. “I got pregnant.”
Cooper did a spit take with his soup and had to go to the sink to clean off his shirtfront.
Digby said, “Do you regret it?”
“No, because from that, I got this beautiful creature who brightens every single one of my days . . . and will, hopefully, wipe off my drool when I’m senile,” Mom said.
“Does it bother you that she and I are together?” Digby said.
Mom smiled and said, “So it’s official now?” She took a deep breath. “No. It doesn’t bother me that she’s with you. Austin was very hot . . .”
“Mom,” I said.
“But he used to pronounce cojones ‘cow-jones’ and he used to say ‘yous guys,’ so I knew it was doomed,” Mom said. “This is actually a better fit.” She waved at Digby and me. “Okay, that’s five. Now switch. First question . . .” She reached over, took Digby’s hand, and gave it a squeeze. “Are you doing okay?”
Digby nodded, blinking at the break in the tone. “Uh . . . I’m okay.”
Mom took her hand away from Digby’s and the interrogation resumed. “What are your intentions with my daughter?”
Digby said, “All honorable but still fun.”
“Have you two . . .” Mom wiggled her eyebrows.
“Mom. You could’ve asked me,” I said.
“Okay, Zoe, are you and Digby having sex?” she said.
“That’s none of your business,” I said.
Mom threw up her hands.
Digby said, “No. We have not.”
Mom looked relieved. She said, “How serious are you guys?”
“We’re still figuring it out but . . .” Digby pulled a piece of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolded it. I was instantly horrified. Digby was holding my MRS. ZOE DIGBY doodle. I’d forgotten the garland of hearts and flowers I’d drawn around it.
Mom clapped and yelled, “Oh, Zoe . . .”
“Princeton, I just wanted to say . . . yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times, yes,” Digby said. I snatched the paper out of his hands.
“And, finally, an easy but important one,” Mom said. “Okay, Digby, as far as I can tell, your life is a hot mess—”
“Mom.”
“But I’d like to think there’s a plan under all this,” Mom said. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Actually, I didn’t know how Digby would answer that. And apparently, he didn’t either, because Digby put down his spoon and thought long and hard before saying, “I think this might get my street certification revoked but I plan on going to college, doing, like, a combination computer science and actuary degree . . . then heading out west after graduation . . . if there’s anything left out there after the robots take over . . .”
“So, you’re saying ‘there’s a great future in plastics’?” Mom looked as unimpressed as I felt.
“No one under forty knows that movie, Liza,” Cooper said. “I actually think that’s a good plan, Digby.” He patted Digby on his back.
“Wow. I would’ve thought you’d be happy because I didn’t say art thief or conman,” Digby said.
“I just didn’t expect you to say something so bourgeois,” Mom said. “I mean, going from your current lifestyle . . .”
“It’s not like I chose the hard-knock life, Miss Finn,” Digby said. “The hard-knock life chose me.”
I tried to imagine Digby in a nine-to-five and it thoroughly baked my noodle. For the next few minutes, I watched Mom, Cooper, and Digby talking easily and felt like an alien at my own dinner table. I was so thrown off that when Digby told me he couldn’t stay for long because he needed to help his mother with her nightly medication ritual, I actually felt relieved.
NINE
I was at my locker the next morning, trying to use the “almost there” Thursday feeling as motivation to get through the day, when Sloane sidled up.
“Hey, are you all right?” Sloane said. She sounded so worried, she got me going too.
“What do you mean? I put on makeup. I even kind of did my hair,” I said. “I thought I was doing well.”
“That is what I mean. You almost look happy,” Sloane said. “Clearly, you are still not looking at your social media. Because they are dragging you through the garbage today . . .”
“Did you come over here just to bum me out?” I said.
Sloane said, “No, actually—”
“Oh, God, here comes Bill,” I said.
Then, just in case there was any doubt that she was coming for me, Bill folded her hand into a finger gun and shot it at me. As she’d calculated, some of the people milling around in the hallway noticed and started to stare at me, waiting to be entertained by my reaction.
“That’s, like, a level-two lookalike firearm violation. She’d be suspended if we told,” Sloane said. “But she’d probably love it. She could cry on camera about her constitutional rights. She probably already has an outfit all picked out and good to go because she thinks a CNN interview is, like, her destiny.”
“I can’t even look at her,” I said.
The second I turned away from her direction, though, Bill yelled out, “Zoe. We need to talk.”
Now everyone in the hallway was looking at us. I saw phones go up to record and some people made the loathsome and yet entirely predictable series of cat hisses and growling.
“Ugh. They want a catfight,” Sloane said.
“I just cannot deal with this girl right now,” I said.
“Then don’t,” Sloane said.
It was lucky my locker was already locked because Sloane suddenly grabbed my hand and took off running down the hall with me.
“Sloane?” I said. “Where are we going?”
“Who cares,” Sloane said. “Away from her.”
Bill got closer and we heard her bleat, “Come back, you guys. Wait.”
“Ew . . . she’s catching up,” Sloane said.
Sloane pushed me through the doors of the woodshop
room. We ran through, out of breath from running and laughing now too.
“I think we lost her,” I said.
Bill again called out, “You guys. Zoe?”
“She’s getting closer.” Sloane pointed at the open window and we started running. We were almost at the window when Sloane slid on a grease patch. She would’ve hit the deck hard if I hadn’t caught her. More adrenaline surged through us, which meant more uncontrollable laughter. By the time we rolled ourselves out the window onto the lawn outside, we were laughing so hard, we couldn’t talk. We walked around to the other side of the building to catch our breath.
“That was a little mean,” I said.
“Seriously?” Sloane said. “After what that girl has done to you, you can’t even hold on to a grudge?”
I laughed. “Digby said exactly that to me about you.” I immediately regretted saying it.
Sloane’s laugh died down. “Right.”
“Sorry. Another thing I can’t hold on to is a feel-good moment,” I said. “Hey, how are things with Henry?”
“I informed him he was on boyfriend probation, I yell at him all the time, and he really feels lousy about what he did, so . . . things are going according to plan,” Sloane said. “The training continues.”
“Wow . . . that sounds super healthy,” I said.
“I think your judgey tone would get to me if we hadn’t just climbed out of the window to get away from one of your relationship casualties,” Sloane said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “What do I know?”
“I don’t feel like going to civics,” Sloane said. She gasped. “We should go to the mall.”
“I want to . . . but I feel like I’ve been cutting a lot of classes lately,” I said.
“Who hasn’t?” Sloane said. “They just teach the textbook—”
The window beside us opened and Miss Riddell, Principal Granger’s secretary, leaned out and said, “Zoe Webster, right? You’re wanted in the conference room.”
“Ugh. Shop blocked,” Sloane said.
Miss Riddell had already retreated back into her room but popped out again, “Oh, wait. You too, Sloane Bloom. Conference room.”
Sloane rolled her eyes. “I am so done with high school already.”
* * *
• • •
We opened the conference room door and found Digby sitting alone at the long table. Our faces all changed when we saw each other.
I closed the door behind me and said, “We thought we were getting called in for cutting classes. You don’t think this is about Musgrave, do you?”
“Are the police here?” Sloane said.
“I doubt it,” Digby said. “The police don’t usually put out cookies for an interrogation.”
“What cookies?” I said.
He pointed at a plate of crumbs in the middle of the conference table.
“I read that the CIA gives torture victims Big Macs to get them to talk,” I said. “It makes them relax their defenses.”
“Well, that is effective, because all I can think of now is how I could go for some milk,” Digby said. “God, I would kill for a cold glass of milk.”
“Should we worry?” Sloane said.
The sound of footsteps approaching shut us up. All three of us sat back in our chairs and steeled ourselves to what might come through the door. Soon, we heard whispering voices and the doorknob started turning.
“So, to be clear . . .” I said.
“Deny deny deny,” Digby said. “As usual.”
I heard Sloane’s sharp inhale when the door opened. But it wasn’t the police at all.
Allie stepped into the room, saw my face, and physically recoiled. She turned around, tried to run, and plowed into Austin and Charlotte, who were walking in right behind her.
“Oh,” Austin said when he saw me.
“Oh,” Charlotte said when she saw me.
Austin ducked back around and checked they’d gone to the right room.
“No, buddy. This is the place,” Digby said. “Have a seat.”
Clearly, Digby had felt the same relief, because he’d gone right back to being a jerk. I unclenched my fists and mentally unwound.
From under the table, Digby kicked out the chair across from us and sent it sliding toward Austin . . .
. . . who caught it, carried it back to the table, and pushed it under Allie, before doing the same for Charlotte.
I turned to see Digby watching me notice what Austin had done and felt self-conscious.
“You know, they say Jack the Ripper also had excellent manners,” Digby said.
“What’s wrong with you, man? It’s over. You got my girl,” Austin said. “All the rest of us are moving on.”
“Look at us . . . I miss this,” Digby said. “I miss us.”
Austin looked at me and said, “Are you having fun, Zoe?”
“Hey, Zoe,” Allie said. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in years.”
That’s because you’ve acted like I was invisible every time we’ve crossed paths for the last four days, I thought. But instead, I said, “Things have been crazy.”
The door opened again and our guidance counselor, Steve, came in. Steve wore the acid sweet I-care-so-much expression on his face that set my teeth on edge as he guided—who else—Bill into the room and to the seat next to him.
“Hello, all,” Steve said. “Is everyone comfortable?” We didn’t answer but anyway, he said, “Good. Because we are about to get real today. Everybody ready?”
Digby muttered to me, “This is what I get for coming to school.”
“You’re not being punished, Philip,” Steve said. “And if I do my job well, we will all leave here today feeling great.” He clapped his hands. “This is going to be a positive experience.”
Charlotte put her hand up. “Steve? Is this going to take a long time? I have an algebra test in half an hour.”
“I’ve spoken to your teacher and got you an excused absence, Charlotte,” Steve said. “You can arrange to take the test later.”
“I can’t believe I actually studied for it,” Charlotte said.
“Maybe we should get to the point of this meeting,” Sloane said. “Is this about you?” Sloane pointed at Bill.
Bill slid pink referral slips across the table to Sloane and me, and said, “I was trying to give you these when you two took off running.” She sneered at us. “How immature was that?”
Sloane flipped Bill the bird.
“So.” Steve put his hand on Bill’s shoulder and said, “As she just said, Bill requested this guidance session—or actually—I would call it a guidance intercession . . .” He laughed a little at his pun and made us wait while he wrote it down in his notebook. “But before we start . . .” Steve handed out little booklets. “Here are some guidelines to make sure we create a safe space for our conversation today.”
The first page was a list of rules like be respectful, don’t single out any one person, no cross-talk, no accusations—
“Steve, it says here ‘Don’t be defensive’ but it doesn’t say anything about being offensive,” Digby said.
“Well, I think that’s implied.” Steve started flipping the pages of his booklet. “Or maybe you’re right. Maybe I should write an addendum about that . . .”
I kicked Digby under the table and whispered, “We’ll be here forever if you don’t stop it.”
Sloane raised her hand and held up her pink slip. “Is this going on my record as a referral?”
Steve snapped back to attention. “Anyway. Let’s not get off track. We are here today because Bill has pointed out that some hurtful and abusive comments have been posted online—”
“By her,” I said. “She’s posting hurtful and abusive things about me.”
Steve held up the booklet and said, �
�We’re trying to build a no accusation zone here, Zoe, so maybe let’s rephrase that?”
“I can’t really think of another way of saying it because there were posts. She made the posts,” I said. “The posts are against me.”
“No one knows who posted those,” Bill said. “Tons of people here have access to the yearbook account—”
“Oh, please,” Sloane said.
Bill started sobbing. “And now everyone is blaming me—”
I said, “You did that to yourself, and now I have to sit here and watch you act like you’re somehow the victim—”
Steve said, “Actually, this is precisely the kind of unproductive—”
“Well, maybe I did do this to myself in a way because I let myself get into it with him.” Bill pointed to Digby.
“I’m just sitting here,” Digby said.
“Oh, please, Bill,” Sloane said. “You are milking this soap opera—”
“Milk,” said Digby.
Steve said, “Sloane, why don’t we let Zoe and Bill negotiate their conflicting perceptions.” From his booklet, he read, “People view the same incident in dramatically different ways—”
“This is a stupid waste of time.” Steve gasped as Sloane ripped her booklet to little pieces.
“Wait. If this is about me and Bill, what are they doing here?” I pointed at the other side of the table, meaning Allie, Charlotte, and Austin.
“They’re here because this morning, one of them put this up.” Bill showed me her phone. The screen showed a photo of Bill with her shirt lifted provocatively. Nothing crucial was actually showing but the face she was making was probably embarrassment enough.
Charlotte rolled her eyes and said, “Like I told you already, we don’t know whose account that is.”
“Where did that photo come from?” I said.
“She sent that to me while I was going out with you, Zoe,” Austin said.
“What?” I said. “You didn’t tell me she did that.”
“I didn’t want you to get upset,” Austin said.
“That was private,” Bill said.
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