TWELVE
I was doing the recycling one day when I saw Digby on my neighbor’s lawn, scribbling in his notebook. I knew better, but I walked over anyway.
“Dumb question, but why haven’t you been coming to school?” I said.
“Looking for me, huh? I’ve been around. I’m there even when you don’t see me. And you won’t see me unless I want you to.”
“Unless you want me to? Did you want me to see you sneak onto the football team’s bus? I’m pretty sure those guys would’ve pounded you if they’d seen.”
“You saw that? Hmm . . . that’s not good.”
“It’s really not.”
“I had to look before they unloaded their bags. You know what those guys’re doing? They—”
“Please don’t tell me. I don’t wanna know.”
“But they—”
“I don’t. Last time you told me something that was none of my business, I ended up nearly getting arrested,” I said. “And, by the way, Mom’s driving me crazy, trying to weasel out of me what happened.”
“So tell her already.”
“Mom thinks your influence turned me into a criminal. She calls me Scarface now.” I pointed at the scar on my chin.
“How is Liza?” he said.
“Oh, great . . . just great. All she ever wants to do now is talk. How was school? Are you meeting people? She ends our gab sessions with ‘good talk, honey’ and pats my head.”
“What’s with the hostility? That sounds nice.”
“That sounds nice to you?”
“I thought you were mad before because she was oblivious. Well, now she’s interested.”
“But she won’t stop asking questions now. She’s still broken, just the other way,” I said. “Seriously, though, why are you here?”
Digby pointed at the window of the house we were in front of. A tiny old lady was walking around her living room.
“Do you know Mrs. Preston?” Digby said.
“Um . . . no,” I said. “Why do you know Mrs. Preston?”
“I was taking a walk and got in a conversation with Mrs. Preston.” Digby read from his notebook. “Apparently, while she was watching Magnum P.I., she noticed the Dumpster in the alley behind her house was on fire. Again. Apparently, it happens a lot. She called the police, but they didn’t do anything.”
“I refuse to believe you’re interested in Dumpster arson,” I said.
Mrs. Preston paced back and forth in her living room.
“Why is she wandering around in there?” I said.
“She’s looking for her notes. She wrote down a description of the arsonists,” Digby said.
In the window, Mrs. Preston waved a piece of paper at Digby.
“Oh, she found it. Let’s hope she doesn’t stroke out from the excitement.” Digby shouted toward the house, “Take it easy, Mrs. Preston.”
Mrs. Preston shuffled out to us. “Here it is! I knew I’d written it down.” She read from the paper. “Two men, both tall, one of them rode a bicycle.”
We waited for her to go on, but then we realized that, in fact, that was all she’d written. I saw the title on the page was “For the Police!!” Yes, two exclamation points.
“Thanks, Mrs. Preston, I’ll make sure the neighborhood watch looks out for these guys,” Digby said.
Neighborhood watch? I studied Digby’s face. Not even a twitch when he lied.
“Good evening, Mrs. Preston.” It was the amazon from the mansion, calling out as she crossed the street. Her black bell-shaped skirt completely covered her feet, so she appeared to be levitating. Mrs. Preston pulled her cardigan closed as the amazon got nearer.
“Children.” The amazon talked like a strict Victorian nanny in a black-and-white movie.
She loomed over Mrs. Preston and didn’t try to hide that she was reading Mrs. Preston’s notes.
“The police? Oh, dear, Mrs. Preston, more problems in our neighborhood?” The amazon stared at me when she said “problems.”
“Boys are setting fires in the Dumpsters behind my shed,” Mrs. Preston said.
“And you’re sure they weren’t girls? The way some girls dress nowadays, you can hardly tell.” The amazon gave me another sharp look.
“Are you saying I don’t know a boy from a girl? I got a perfect score on the DMV eye test, you know,” Mrs. Preston said.
“Not at all, Mrs. Preston,” the amazon said.
“It’s a fire hazard. The police won’t do anything, but now the neighborhood watch will patrol.” Mrs. Preston pointed at Digby.
The amazon’s eyes narrowed. “The neighborhood watch? Do you have any literature? That’s something my boys should be involved with.”
“We’re still printing them up. I’ll drop some off when they’re ready,” Digby said.
“They’re not . . .” My voice came out high and squeaky. “They’re not all your boys, are they?”
“They are not my offspring, no,” the amazon said.
“So you’re . . .” I said.
“I am their keeper,” the amazon said. “They are my flock.”
I mean, really, what can you say to that? But poor Mrs. Preston tried anyway.
“Mealtimes must be interesting in your house. So many to feed,” Mrs. Preston said.
“Quite. Very much like feeding a small army every day,” the amazon said.
“A small private standing army. A militia, even,” Digby said.
The amazon’s lips pulled over her teeth in a snarl she tried to cover with a smile.
“Please. Bring the information about the neighborhood watch when you can. I will be sure to tell my boys about it,” the amazon said.
She floated footlessly across the street and into the mansion.
Mrs. Preston sniffed. “I don’t care for that woman’s outfit.”
“Me neither, Mrs. Preston,” Digby said.
“And those boys of hers are no kind of Christians I’ve ever seen. I saw one of them kick the Haggertys’ cat,” Mrs. Preston said. “Now, that stupid cat eats my tulips and throws them back up on my driveway, but that doesn’t mean it deserves to get kicked.”
“Could you tell me which one?” Digby said.
“The yellow ones mainly, but sometimes the orange ones too,” she said.
“Not which tulips, Mrs. Preston. Which boy did the kicking?” Digby said.
“The tall one.” Mrs. Preston stared at Digby and me with the expectation we’d know who that cat-kicker might be based on her description. It occurred to me then that because Mrs. Preston was tiny, everyone looked tall to her.
“Okay, Mrs. Preston. We’ll look out for these guys,” Digby said. “And the boy who kicked the cat too.”
“Good. This was a nice neighborhood when me and my Sid, God rest, moved in. I hate seeing it go downhill. I heard the new people who moved in”—Mrs. Preston lowered her voice—“divorce.”
So Mom and I were the talk of the block. I hate this town.
Mrs. Preston said, “That’s how it starts.” She looked at her watch and jumped. “Oh! I have to go. My program’s on. I don’t even listen. I just watch that delicious Anderson Cooper’s lips move.”
We watched her go back in.
“You know she’s not totally there, right?” I said.
“Doesn’t mean her Dumpster isn’t being set on fire,” Digby said. “You going in to dinner?”
We walked back toward my house. “Yeah . . . sorry I can’t invite you in.”
“Your window looks out on that alley, yeah?”
“Um, so I’m supposed to . . . what? Watch out my window all night every night? You know people are saying we’re some kind of crime-fighting posse.”
“Which reminds me. I have something for you.” Digby pulled out a black mask. “It’s more Hamburglar than Batman, but
you get the idea.”
The mask was satin and, actually, very pretty. I tied it on and hit some kung-fu poses.
“Too fun. I’m keeping this.” Of course, when I turned around, Mom was on the front lawn of our house with a betrayed expression on her face.
“Looks like mealtime will be interesting at your house tonight,” Digby said.
“I told her I wasn’t talking to you anymore. I should go.”
“If she gets on you, remember—there’s at least one other person in your life who she hates even more than she hates me.”
“No, there isn’t.” As I walked away, I thought he said something else about tonight, but I was focused on Mom’s rarely seen but greatly feared throbbing forehead vein. “Yeah . . . okay . . . see you later.”
“What was that about?” Mom was playing it cool.
“Just . . . neighborhood stuff. Someone’s vandalizing Dumpsters,” I said.
“I see you met Zillah.”
“Who?”
“The high priestess of our neighborhood cult. Her name’s Zillah. Wanna hear something weird? I mean, beyond the obvious?” Mom said. “I’ve been watching them clean and so far, I’ve seen a dozen different girls.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think they’re being trafficked or anything. They, like, play in the yard and stuff,” I said. “Although . . . Digby pointed out they could have Stockholm syndrome.”
“Digby. That boy’s trouble, Zoe. Trust me, I know trouble. I married trouble,” Mom said.
Digby’s comment suddenly made sense. There was one other person in my life who bothered Mom more than Digby.
“So, speaking of . . . when should I tell Dad?”
“You still haven’t told him you got arrested?”
“I’m gonna tell him when he calls on Sunday.”
“And since we’re talking about your father, he e-mailed me about Christmas. He and Shereene are taking you to her parents’ in Aspen. Do you have skis and boots, he wanted to know. I told him yes but we left them in our Switzerland house because we’re tired of flying that stuff back and forth every weekend,” Mom said.
“I don’t even really know her and now I have to hang out with her parents?”
“I bet he’ll make you sit for a group portrait. Remember those? How he used to make us sit for those tacky Christmas notes?”
“How excited do you think they’ll be when they realize I’m now officially in the system?” I said. “In the system and in their Christmas photos.”
“Oh, Zo, thank you. The bright side. But, seriously, will you be okay?”
I hadn’t really thought about it much, and now, horrifyingly, my eyes started to tear up. “Yeah, whatever . . . I don’t even listen to Shereene half the time.”
“No?”
“No. I zone out and make up shipper fanfic stuff. I just say uh-huh every few minutes.”
“Really?”
“Easy Bella/Harry Potter stuff when I’m feeling lazy or some Bella/Hermione when I need a challenge,” I said. “What will you be doing this Christmas?”
“About that.” Mom sipped her wine and avoided eye contact. “So, yes . . . about that . . .”
“Just say it, Mom.”
“I’m seeing someone. And . . . I want us all to go out sometime but it’s early and I don’t want to jinx it but he’s a good man and I don’t want it to be weird for you . . .”
“Mom. Please. Don’t ask my permission to date. That’s even weirder. Look, I don’t need to meet anyone until you decide he’s gonna be my new daddy.”
“I didn’t just screw you up, did I, Zo?”
“Ugh, Mom . . .”
“Because I don’t know what to tell you and what not to. I like us talking, but if I tell you everything . . . I don’t want to make you cynical.”
Make me cynical? Typical Mom. Always late to the party.
THIRTEEN
That night, I dreamt it was Water Safety Day. The girls lined up on one side of the pool and boys along the other. When the whistle blew, we were supposed to jump in and tread water. But suddenly, everyone was staring at me, mocking me. My swimsuit was totally see-through. Digby was there, wearing his usual black suit. His were the only words I could make out. He pointed at my privates, shaking his head, and said, “That’s the ugliest thing I ever saw.”
I woke up, feeling sick. I thought I heard a noise, but it stopped. I rolled over to go back to sleep.
A voice cut through the dark. “Whoa . . . until I saw this.”
I tweaked my back sitting up so fast. How I controlled myself from screaming, I don’t know. I was terrified. My toes buzzed with adrenaline. I turned on the light and there was Digby, standing with a huge pile of my stuff on the floor in front of him. He had my five-fingered running shoes in his hand.
“What the yuck are these?” he said.
“Uh . . . I was briefly into running . . . What are you doing here?” I said.
“And ugliness propelled you down the track?”
“Shut up.”
“And what’s this?”
“My ewer?”
“Oh, so when pitchers are super fug, they’re called ewers? Why do you have this thing?”
“I made it. I had a pottery phase—”
“Anyway. You’re not a jock.” He threw my shoes and hit a deflated basketball sitting on the pile, a relic of the brief moment when I was the tallest girl in seventh grade. “You’re not an artist . . .” He carelessly threw the ewer so it broke on top of the pile of my stuff. “You’re not an emo philosophy nerd.” He opened a Kierkegaard reader and loudly cracked the spine for the first time. He picked up a whip and leopard fur handcuffs. “And you’re definitely not—”
“Those were a gift . . . a joke,” I said. “And they were locked away.”
“Behind a four-pin padlock. Those look tough but only take, like, ten seconds to pick,” Digby said. “The one on your locker at school too.”
I said, “What are you doing here? I know you have boundary issues, but this is stalker creepy.”
“What are you talking about? I told you I was coming. You said, and I quote, ‘Yeah, okay, see you later.’”
Oh. I guess that’s what he’d said on the lawn this afternoon.
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t say you could go through my stuff. Which is so freaking rude, by the way.”
“I’m getting to know you.”
“Most people do that with conversation.”
“This is so much quicker.”
“Instead of snooping around, why don’t you just ask?”
“Ask.”
“Yeah, ask.”
He picked up a pair of silicone bra inserts. “Do you use these every day or just on special occasions?”
“O . . . kay . . .”
He held up my athlete’s foot cream. “This is why you should be glad you aren’t a jock.”
“Digby, this is not a conversation.”
“What we should really talk about is this.” He held up a clipping from the local paper profiling Henry and his college prospects. “Because this is not going to happen. Sloane would kill you dead first of all.”
“Wait. That was in my diary. You read my diary?”
“I didn’t read it . . .” His weasel tone didn’t sell his denial. “. . . much. I skimmed it. You know, you’re way ahead of the game. Most people don’t have their identity crisis until their forties. You’re wrong, by the way,” he said, and he quoted: “‘Medium-length brown hair, brown eyes, medium height. All I see in the mirror is a medium brown blur.’”
I lunged at him.
“You don’t really think that, do you, Princeton? Because that makes me wanna cry. And also . . . Henry gets ‘hero handsome’ and all I get is ‘Jehovah’s Witness’?”
I jumped at him and this time, after elbow
ing him in the gut, I got my diary back.
There was rustling in the tree outside my window and Henry’s head popped into my room. I checked my breath. Still minty.
“Hey, Zoe.” Henry climbed in and knocked over a pile of my books. The three of us shushing each other was louder than the books hitting the floor.
“Twilight? Princess Diaries? The It Girl?” Digby looked through the books on my desk. “That explains ‘hero handsome.’”
“Shut up,” I said.
“Sorry I’m late, guys. The baby wouldn’t go down, so I couldn’t leave . . . then my bike got a flat . . .” Henry said.
“Seriously, you sound like a middle-aged accountant with your problems,” Digby said.
“What are you doing here?” I said.
“Digby told me to come,” Henry said. “Hey, people in school are calling us the Enforcers.”
“And my room’s the clubhouse?” I said.
Digby rifled through my drawers.
“Hello? Can I help you find something?” I said.
“I’m starving. Whoa, what’s this?” Digby pulled something out of my drawer and traded nasty-boy looks with Henry.
“Morons. It’s a flashlight. It’s Swedish, so it’s all design-y.” I flicked it on and off to put an end to that idea. “Check the bottom drawer.”
“By the way, Digby, nice move eating my baby sister’s Mum-mums. She was teething last night and Mom melted down when she realized you ate the entire box,” Henry said.
“I was starving. You know, for a family that runs a restaurant, your kitchen at home’s pathetic,” Digby said.
“But what was really excellent, though, dude, was how you put the empty box back on the shelf so the people who went to the store didn’t know they needed to buy more. I learned a whole new level of Greek cursing,” Henry said. “So, what? Val’s cooking still crappy?”
“Yeah, still crappy . . .” Digby pulled more stuff from my drawers. “Wasabi peas. Digestive cookies. Plain. Candied ginger. Bottle of soda water. Princeton, you eat like my great-aunt Ruth. Only thing missing is denture cream and . . . oh, wait! This is close enough to dentures. A retainer . . . with a dust bunny and paper clip stuck to it.”
Trouble is a Friend of Mine Page 8