Stirring Up Trouble

by Juli Alexander

  Dad pulled into the driveway and cut the engine.

  “We’re going in?” I asked.

  “Just for a few minutes,” Dad said. “Long enough to eat some ice cream. I don’t want to just hand Jake the carton and kick him out of the car.”

  I looked at Jake. I think he would’ve been okay with that.

  We all started toward the front door. I suspected Jake would run for his room the second he got inside, leaving me with the parents.

  We went in the door, and Indiana greeted us excitedly. Jake grabbed a leash from the banister. “I should probably take Indiana around the block. Do you want to come?”

  “Yes!”

  Dad was walking toward the kitchen looking for Sheree. I called to him that we’d be back.

  Indiana was in a frenzy now that Jake had the leash. “I try to walk him at least two miles a day,” Jake said. “He’s getting fat.”

  Indiana dragged Jake down the street, and I walked along beside them. We’d gone several blocks through the fresh night air without talking. Finally, I had to say something.

  “What are you thinking about?” I regretted it as soon as I said it. I didn’t really want to know, and he probably didn’t want to tell me.

  “Our parents,” he said. “I was thinking about what they’ve been doing while we were at the movie, and what they are probably doing right now.”

  Right now. No! “You think they’re all over each other? With us right down the street?” Surely not. They were old, and they were eating ice cream.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

  I took that to mean he thought they were all over each other.

  “What do you want to talk about?” I asked. Not Anya and Brad.

  “Nothing,” he said. Then he said in quiet voice, “At first, I thought it was horrible that John was your dad. But now, it’s kind of cool to have a friend dealing with the same thing.”

  The kiss of death. He only saw me as a friend. I’d known that when the night started. I’d just forgotten somewhere along the way.

  I didn’t answer, and he didn’t say anything else. I got used to the silence after a while. I started thinking about Anya again. I was afraid to think about the kisses or my crush. I blinked back images of our parents together, and then I started thinking about the toad slime substitution.

  We got back to his house, and I reached for the doorknob. Maybe beef jerky would work. Could I liquefy it somehow?

  “Wait,” Jake said. “We should make some noise.”

  Yuk. Having Anya’s shocked expression burned in my mind was one thing. Seeing Dad and Jake’s mother doing God knows what, could kill us. Or make us wish we were dead.

  We made a lot of noise opening the door and walking to the living room. Jake unhooked Indiana’s leash and he ran ahead of us. Even with all that, Jake’s mom’s blonde hair was totally mussed and they had guilty looks on their faces. I didn’t see dishes of ice cream anywhere. I really felt like I was going to vomit. It was my night to have an awesome kiss, not my dad’s. He’d had his chance years ago when he was still young.

  Jake glared at my dad. He really did. Just glared right at him like he hated his guts.

  “Well that was fast.” Sheree said, smoothing her hair and trying to act like everything was normal.

  Fast? She would know.

  “Right,” Jake snapped. “We’re back now.” He looked at my father when he said it, and it was pretty obvious he meant “Get away from my mother.”

  I felt really torn. Whose side should I be on? Other than my own, of course. I wimped out and leaned down to pet Indiana.

  “I guess we should go,” Dad said, standing up. “Thanks for the great dinner.”

  “Anytime,” Jake’s mom said.

  I really hated to think mean thoughts about her, but come on! Anytime? How totally slutty.

  Jake already had one foot on the stairs. “Bye, Zoe. Mr. Miller.”

  I waved. Jake had kissed me, which should have been great, but things were such a mess that I wanted to cry.

  On top of everything else, I had to make uncomfortable small talk all the way to my dad’s crappy apartment and then try to sleep on the futon on the living room floor while my dad’s snores pounded my head like the artillery in one of his WWII movies.

  Mom says I have a kind of persecution complex. She says that Zeus’s curse has made me think I’ll be punished for anything I do wrong. But, she also says that I should learn to cope with it. She says most of the stuff I feel bad about like selfish thoughts and stuff are part of being human. I hope she’s right.

  Guilt was eating away at me. Anya was going to hate me. And worse, I still wasn’t happy. I had no idea how Jake felt about me. I’d turned my cell off after she saw us kissing. I hadn’t even checked my email. I wasn’t ready to deal with Anya.

  Without it, I felt detached and isolated. Saturday with Dad was totally awkward. We’d finally settled on the rented recliners in the stark white living room, each reading a book and otherwise ignoring each other. I told him I wanted to sleep at home on Saturday night because I had a stomachache. I promised to hang with him next weekend instead.

  I know it hurt his feelings, but I was miserable.

  He took me home, and I went to the refuge of my bedroom. Mom had redone it three times for her show. I loved it this time. I had fluffy pillows all over my bed, and the periwinkle walls were calming without being depressing.

  Mom got home within an hour and came up to check on me.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it,” I said, cuddling the softest pillow.

  “Okay.” She started to leave but I stopped her.

  “Stay. I want company,” I admitted. “I just don’t want to talk about everything.”

  “Okay,” Mom said, flopping down on the bed with me.

  “Your wart’s already getting smaller,” I said.

  She reached up to touch it. “Thank goodness.”

  “How many hours have you done?”

  “Forty,” she said dropping her arm. “I’ve worked harder this week than I usually do. So much for a vacation.”

  “Can we go somewhere?” I pleaded. “Somewhere far away.”

  Mom shook her head. “That bad, huh?”

  “I kissed Jake.”

  “What!” Mom shot straight up into a sitting position. Her face lit up. “When? How?”

  “Last night. But I don’t know if he did it because he likes me or because he wanted to make Anya jealous.” I said with a frown.

  “Was she there?” Mom asked, clearly not ready to write off the kiss just yet.

  “Yeah. And there’s more. Dad is going out with Jake’s mom.” I braced myself for her reaction. I didn’t want her any more upset that she had been.

  Her mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.” I gave her a weak smile. “I’m not.”

  “How can he possibly be dating the mother of the one guy in the whole world you have a crush on?” She leaned over and hugged me.

  “It doesn’t seem possible does it?” I asked morosely. I rested my head on her shoulder.

  “I’ll talk to him,” she said. “I’ll tell him he’s done enough to screw up your life and he has to stop seeing her.”

  “No, Mom. I’m not sure that would help.” I shrugged out of her hug. “I don’t know how Jake feels about me anyway.”

  “How was the kiss?” she asked trying to lighten the moment.

  “Really, really good,” I admitted. I refused to meet her eyes. The woman could read me like a book.

  She studied me for a minute. “You’ve got it bad, don’t you?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “And what does Anya have to say about all this?”

  “I haven’t talked to her since she saw us kissing. After she made out with Brad for two hours in the movie.”

  “No wonder you’re upset. You need to talk to her and get it over with,” Mom suggested.

  “It’s not going to be p
retty,” I said, burying my head in the pillow.

  “Why not? She has someone else. She’s your friend. You’ve always been there for her. She should be happy for you.”

  I released the pillow. “Of course you say that, Mom. You’re my mother.”

  “Well,” Mom said crossing her arms. “She’s your friend.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  Anya, never one to avoid confrontation, rang the doorbell an hour later. Mom sent her up to my room.

  “Well, hello, boyfriend stealer,” Anya snapped, standing in the doorway. She looked as pretty as usual in her cream top and miniskirt.

  I went over to sit in my desk chair where I felt less vulnerable. I was glad I’d resisted putting on my pajamas. “Oh, Anya. He’s not your boyfriend anymore.”

  I was really glad I’d never told Anya the secret about me being a witch, because the way she was glaring at me, I knew she’d probably do anything she could to hurt me right now.

  “Why would you kiss him?” she demanded with hands on her hips, her bracelets clanging with every move. “What were you thinking?”

  “Anya,” I said in what I hoped was a calming voice. “You were kissing Brad.”

  “I like Brad,” she snapped. “I was on a date with Brad. What were you doing with Jake?”

  I leaned back and crossed my legs. “We ditched our parents and went to the movies,” I explained. I was free and clear on that part.

  “So he kissed you to make me jealous?” she asked, her voice still angry.

  “Pretty much,” I said. At first anyway.

  She paused, considering my answer. “Why’d you let him?”

  Now, I was getting mad too. “Maybe because you were being really mean rubbing Brad in his face like that.”

  She had the decency to blush. “So you felt sorry for him.”

  “Something like that,” I muttered.

  “I really didn’t like you kissing Jake,” she said.

  “Because you still want Jake or because you don’t want anyone else to have him?”

  She tilted her head to the side. “I think I really don’t want you to have him.”

  Well, that was worse, especially considering how much I wanted to go out with him. “That’s pretty mean,” I said. Not to mention selfish.

  She shrugged. “Well that’s just how it is.” And with that, she stomped out of the room and down the stairs.

  “How’d you meet Sheree anyway?” I asked Dad later on the phone.

  “I met her at the grocery store.”

  I sat at my laptop, checking my email while we talked. “Like in the produce section?” Please say no.

  “Yeah,” Dad said. “I know it sounds like a cliché, but Zoe, I really like her.”

  “Is she the only woman you’ve picked up in the produce section?” I asked.

  “Um. Well, one other, but that one didn’t last past the first date.”

  I groaned. I could see my dad loitering in Kroger and making suggestive comments about a woman’s melons.

  “Listen, Zoe.” He sounded serious. “I know it might be hard for me to date the mother of one of your friends. I remember what it’s like to be a teenager.”

  He was still a teenager if you asked me. A balding teenager with a paunchy belly and wrinkles around his eyes. “It’s fine, Dad. Date whoever you want.” My life would suck anyway.

  “Well, Sheree seems to think you guys got into some kind of argument.” The way he said her name really creeped me out.

  “We didn’t,” I said. “We’re fine. Everything’s fine.”

  “Zoe,” he said. “I think I might end up marrying this woman.”

  “What?” I rolled my eyes. He couldn’t see but it made me feel better. “Dad, you just met her. You’ve known her for like two weeks.”

  “Four,” he corrected.

  “And she just ended an eight-year relationship,” I went on. “And you’ve only been divorced for a year. You can’t marry her yet.”

  “I’m not saying we’re getting married this week. I wanted to give you some warning that this is more than a fling.”

  My stomach rolled. Not only should my father never have a fling, but he should never say the word “fling.” Gross.

  Later, I asked my mom, “Did Dad ever do the grocery shopping when you were married?”

  She looked at me funny. “No, why?”

  “No reason,” I said. At least he hadn’t turned into a total freak until after the separation.

  I distracted her by telling what happened with Anya. She sided with me, of course. She is my mother. She has to side with me.

  Since the Anya outburst had already happened, I went ahead and turned my cell back on in hopes that Jake had tried to call me. He hadn’t.

  Camille called but I didn’t feel like I could tell her anything. I mean Jake had totally planned to hook up with her, not me. Camille and I had been friends since fifth grade when the totally cute, witty, Asian-American girl had sat next to me in Mrs. Hudson’s class.

  Then she crushed my heart to bits.

  “What’s the deal with Anya and Jake anyway?” she asked. “Because he called me today.”

  Pain. Sharp pain right in the heart. “He did?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I think he’s going to ask me out.”

  Be cool. The only thing worse than a broken heart would be if everyone knew my heart was broken. “You do?”

  “Would Anya be mad?”

  “Yeah,” I said. I knew that for a fact. “But does it matter?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Camille said. “I like someone else, too.”

  “Well, I guess you better figure it out.”

  When she finally hung up, I went upstairs to bed.

  “Zoe,” Mom said, walking towards my bed at two thirty Sunday afternoon. “Are you going to stay there all day?”

  “Yeah,” I said, glancing down at my ratty t-shirt and shorts. Seeing her all perky and fully dressed only made me feel like more of a loser.

  “Do you feel any better than you did when you went to bed last night?” she asked through freshly applied lipstick.

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Will you feel any better if you stay there until tomorrow morning?”

  “No.” I pulled the pillow over my head. The truth was that my Modest Mouse CD had been on continuous play for so long that I almost couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “We could go see a movie,” she suggested. “How about that Zac Efron movie again?”

  I just groaned.

  “What?”

  “That’s where Jake kissed me,” I muttered. “In the movie.” Now, I had about as much chance with Jake as Zac, and in case you don’t know, that’s zip, zero, nada.

  “Okay,” she said, trying to sound cheerful, despite her faltering smile. “No movie then. How about shopping? I need a new outfit for this week’s taping.”

  “No. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not brushing my hair. I’m not taking a shower, and I’m not getting dressed.”

  I guess I pushed her too far because she said, “I don’t have the energy for this.” Then she left and didn’t come back.

  At around six, I started to get really hungry. I went downstairs, made a sandwich, and turned on the television. Our cat, Jasmine, looked at me funny. I hissed at her, and she ran off. I’d make it up to her another day; now I wanted to be alone.

  I found “Sleepless in Seattle” on cable and cried along with Meg Ryan for two hours. Well, she got the guy and quit crying, but I didn’t.

  The cat never came back.

  When Mom got home, she rolled her eyes at me. I hate it when she does that.

  “You’re pathetic,” she said, lugging her shopping bag up the stairs.

  “You have a colossal wart on your chin.”

  We didn’t talk the rest of the night.

  Chapter Five

  By Monday morning, I was ready for human contact. I planned to ignore Anya and Jake and focus on my other friendships.
/>   Anya came up to me outside of school. “Are you going to stay away from Jake?”

  “Did you break up with Brad?” I asked, mimicking her snide expression.

  She stomped off.

  Things went a little better with Jake in homeroom. Odd that I was now on better terms with him than with Anya. He actually spoke to me and didn’t yell.

  “My mom is really into your dad,” he said. He watched for my reaction.

  I gave up and made a face. “I know. I think we’re in big trouble.”

  “They really gross me out,” he said.

  “Has my dad been back over there?” I asked, not wanting to know but somehow needing to.

  He nodded. “All day yesterday. We had” —he flinched— “a cookout.”

  “The three of you?” Poor guy.

  “Yeah. Why weren’t you there?” He leaned back in his seat and stretched out his legs. “I thought it was his weekend.”

  “I was with my mom. How bad were they?”

  He wrinkled his nose. “They were flirting and holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes.”

  “Yuck.” What a disgusting image.

  “Exactly,” he said. “I hid in my room most of the day playing SoulCross 11, but I couldn’t get them out of my head.”

  Then he glanced around us, leaned closer, and whispered. “I can’t get those kisses out of my head either. You know…ours.”

  I looked around to see if the giggling trio of girls behind us had heard. Luckily, they were the self-absorbed type. I never expected him to say that stuff out loud. “In a good way, or a bad way?” I asked.

  “A good way,” he assured me. He leaned over to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “A really good way.”

  That was good, right? My heart thumped. “I wasn’t sure what you thought.”

  “I thought we should maybe study together after school.”

  That came out of nowhere. “Seriously?”

  His grin turned a little bit wicked. “Yeah.”

  “You’re not just…” I wasn’t sure how to say it. “You’re not just interested in me because I’m around. Are you?”