Z O E Y
My mom had the day off today, so she let me take her car to school. This almost never happened because mom never had any days off during the week, but the diner she worked had been forced to close for the day after a pipe burst in the kitchen. Mom had pretended to be worried when her boss told it to her over the phone last night but laughed as soon as she got off the phone. Apparently, she had warned them about that pipe before.
"Karma is a bitch," mom had said last night, putting on another episode of the crime show she had been watching, and sending me off to bed, since one of us still had an early morning. Not so early though, since I could take the car, and not my bicycle.
Still, off to bed I had gone, where I had read a chapter of the book I had picked up from a garage sale last weekend, and then another one, and another one, and another one. School the next day had been a struggle obviously. I had paid attention to almost nothing at all. All I wanted was to lay my head down and sleep. I didn't do that. I still remembered my mom telling me she wouldn't sit in front of any of my teachers again to explain why I slept through their classes every other week.
So, instead, at the end of the day, I laid my head back against the car seat and finally closed my eyes. I had told Daisy I would give her a ride home but given how long she usually took to get out of Germain every week, I probably had a few minutes until she made it to the school's parking lot.
I was just about drowse off when someone knocked on the window next to me. I opened my eyes. Outside the car, standing in his crutches, Jason looked very unimpressed with my sleeping arrangements. I rolled the window down and rubbed my eyes.
"You were sleeping with your mouth open," he said. "Everyone could see you."
I looked around. The parking lot was full of students crowding around cars, cramming into school buses, or unlocking bicycles. No one was looking at me.
I shrugged, "How was your day?"
He rolled his eyes, "Shit."
"Why?"
"The guys wouldn't shut up about the fucking ski trip I didn't go to this weekend. It's like they actually wanted to rub it all over my face."
"Kinky." I smiled.
"Fuck you," he said, which I guessed I deserved.
"Do you want a ride home?"
He seemed surprised I asked, "Are you sure?"
"Yeah, why not? I'm giving Daisy a ride, so I might as well give you one too."
"Right, but I've seen you drive. You're â"
"That was one time, Jason!" I stopped him before he could go on about how I had almost driven his dad's car against traffic. We had all learned how to drive at the same time, Jason, Daisy, and I. Their dad had taught us. Daisy had been immediately good at it, Jason not so much, and me not at all, mostly because I was terrified of crashing their car with their dad in it. The day I drove on the wrong side of the road, Jason had been in the car too, so I had been even more nervous. Stephen had been very nice about it, probably because I had started crying almost immediately, but, of course, not Jason. Jason wouldn't let me forget it.
"That's already one too many times," he said as he struggled to get in the passenger's seat, almost dropping one of his crutches outside before closing the door.
He was putting on his seatbelt when someone knocked hard on the windshield, and said, "That's my seat, Jason!"
I smiled at Daisy in her bright overalls, and said, "He had a bad day."
She bent down over herself to laugh, and then very seriously, said, "I don't care."
"You're such a bitch," Jason said in turn, crossing his arms over his chest, and showing no intentions of moving at all. Daisy opened the door. He closed it again.
"Can we not do this right now?" I asked when she opened the door yet again. They were going to break it if they kept doing it.
Daisy showed Jason the middle finger and moved to the back seat instead.
I said, "Thank you."
"Anything for you." She smiled, right before, "Also, can we give Luke a ride too?"
To my surprise, Luke had been standing next to Daisy the whole time, hands on the straps of his backpack, some anime t-shirt on, and an apologetic smile on his face.
It actually wasn't so much a surprise, since these days, I really couldn't see one without the other. They were always talking about something I didn't know about, a movie I hadn't watched, a show I hadn't finished, a book I hadn't read, a joke I wasn't in on. In truth, these days, I didn't have time to watch or read much of anything, so watching them together came as a relief to me. They were like an episode of a feelgood sitcom. I hadn't told Daisy any of this, and she hadn't asked. Her closeness with Luke went on unspoken, and I would keep it that way until she decided she wanted it any other way.
Now, behind the wheel, I showed Luke a smile and told him to get in. He said thank you more than once, and moved inside, leaving the middle seat between him and Daisy empty, and putting his seatbelt on. I started the car.
"The guy you babysit is coming this way," Jason said.
"He goes to our school?" Luke asked.
"You mean Tristan?" Daisy said.
"I don't babysit him," I said.
"She babysits my brother," Tristan said, stopping outside of my window, both hands on the pocket of his jeans, and a look of boredom on his face, "Zoey."
"Tristan."
"Can I get a ride home?" he asked. I opened my mouth and closed it again. "It kills me to ask this, but it's gonna rain again soon, and you're going over to mine anyway so â"
"How do you know it's gonna rain again?" It had been raining all day, but there were no more clouds in the sky.
"My knee hurts," he said, looking at the backseat, where Daisy and Luke were ready to go. I shrugged, and told him to get in too, and he opened the door, and waited for Daisy to move over closer to Luke, so he could take the seat next to the window.
I waited for him to put his seatbelt on. When it was obvious he wasn't planning on doing it, I told him to, and he laughed.
"Just let him die," Jason said, turning to him right away to add, "No offense, dude. She's just really shit at driving. Without a seatbelt, your chances of coming out of this alive are low to none."
"Good," Tristan said.
"Just put your seatbelt on, please," Daisy said next to him. "I have places to be."
Jason laughed, "Like where? Your bed?"
"Yes, actually," she said.
Tristan rolled his eyes, put on his seatbelt, and said, "Just get me out of here."
I got us out of the parking lot and into the road. Jason changed radio stations until he found something he liked, a disgusting hip hop song he knew all the words to, and turned the sound almost all the way up. When I turned it down, he turned it up again. I rolled my eyes and gave up.
We made it to Daisy and Jason's place just as the song ended. Luke opened the door, so Daisy could get out, but didn't get back in.
"I'm actually staying over," he told me when I looked confused at him.
Daisy smiled, "You don't understand. I'm obsessed with the sad horse show. We're doing a marathon. Luke says it just keeps on getting better and better."
I hadn't actually watched the sad horse show because I had been sleeping for most of it, but Jason had, and Jason was upset. For one reason or another, Jason was always upset.
"You better be fucking kidding," he said, slamming the door open. I rolled my eyes again.
"Didn't you finish it already?" Luke asked as Jason struggle to get out.
"Fuck you. I'm not talking to any of you anymore."
"Great. Don't," Daisy said, turning to me after, "We'll talk later. Love you."
I smiled and watched her turn around to walk up to her front porch. Luke lingered to say thank you again but followed her immediately after. Jason lingered for something else entirely. His eyes were on Tristan, who had taken it upon himself to move to the passenger's seat now that Jason wasn't in it anymore.
"Since you're here," he started. "Do you think I can get the same thing as last time?"
I watched Tristan stop just before bending down to get in the car and smile, "You're the guy who punched her in the face, right?"
Jason shrugged, "It was an accident. You can ask her."
"No," Tristan said.
I was very confused. So was Jason.
"No, you're not gonna ask her, or no, I can't get the same thing as last time?"
"Both."
Jason's face fell, "Why not?"
I asked, "What are you talking about?"
Tristan said, "Actually, you can get the same thing as last time, but the price just went up. It's twice as much."
"Well, fuck you then."
Tristan shrugged and sat down on the passenger's seat, but before he could open his mouth again, I opened mine.
"What is happening?" I was looking at Jason in absolute shock, "Are you trying to buy drugs from him?"
"Not anymore, I'm not." He shrugged, turning around with his backpack barely hanging from his shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow, Zoe."
I opened my mouth again, but he was already walking away, so I turned to Tristan instead.
"Are you a drug dealer?"
"No, but he thinks I am."
I started the car again, and asked the obvious, "Is it because you sell drugs?"
"I sold him and his friends weed a few times last semester because they asked me to. I don't think that makes me a drug dealer â"
"That's exactly what makes you a drug dealer."
He shrugged, "I'm done with this conversation."
"Do you think he has a problem?"
"With weed? No."
"How do you know? You just said you sold it to him a few times last semester and he's asking for more this semester. It sounds like a problem to me."
"They asked for a one gram every time, Zoey, which they paid way too much for, by the way, cause I'm great at doing business. He doesn't have a drug problem. Trust me."
"Weed is a gateway drug â"
"So is life."
"That makes no sense."
"Yes, it does," he said, pointing at the road in front of us. "Also this isn't the way to my house, Zoey."
"Right," I admitted. "I'm not actually babysitting Sam today â"
"Since when?"
"He has extracurriculars â"
"Sam doesn't have extracurriculars."
"He joined the arts club. I know you didn't want him to, but I think it was a great idea â"
"Of course you do. You probably think bullying builds character."
"I think pursuing your interests builds character."
"At what cost?"
"I could ask the same thing to you." I said. A life lived in fear didn't seem like a life lived at all. Tristan rolled his eyes. I went on, "Anyway, I'll drive you home, don't worry. I just need to make a stop first. You can wait in the car."
"What makes you think I wanna go run errands with you? Why didn't you just tell me you weren't babysitting? I don't understand."
"Well, cause Daisy thinks I'm babysitting." I wasn't proud of this, of course.
"Why?"
"Cause I told her I was."
"So you lied to her."
"Nothing gets past you, does it?"
"Fuck you. Where are you taking me?"
"Home. I just need to make a stop first â"
"Yes, but where?"
"It's complicated. You don't wanna know."
"You don't know me."
"So you wanna know about my life?"
"Fuck no."
"There you go."
I got us into the highway. Tristan changed radio stations one, two, three times, until he gave up and just turned it off entirely. Outside the car, rain started to fall, like he said it would. I turned on the wipers.
He leaned back against his seat, looked at me, and said, "Just fucking tell me."
I thought about it, "I don't know if I want to."
"Why not? When have I ever judged you?"
"When have you not?"
He looked at the road ahead, "But you don't care, do you? I could say the worst thing anyone has ever said to you, and you wouldn't care, would you? You don't care about anything I say."
"Yeah, I don't," I lied.
His eyes opened wide, "So tell me!"
I rolled mine, "Why do you even wanna know?"
"Cause you lied to your friend about it," he said. "You're God's favorite. Do you know what God's take on lying is? It's that it's a sin. You've sinned, Zoey, and something tells me you're about to sin even more, so yeah, I wanna know all about it. I want front row seats to your fall from grace."
"I'm God's favorite?" I was not impressed.
He groaned, "Just tell me."
"Fine," I said, only because I knew he wasn't going to stop asking me about it, and I would have to keep thinking of reasons not to tell him, only to realize what I already knew, which was that I was ashamed of what I was on my way to, because of how selfish it made me, and if I thought any further about it, I would have to hide from the daylight. So, I decided I was going to tell him. I needed to get it out of me. I had seen Tristan's look of disapproval so many times before, one more couldn't hurt.
I took a deep breathe, and started, "I have no idea who my dad is. All I know is my mom met him when she came to study in the States. She got a part time job at a newspaper in her sophomore year. He was the editor-in-chief. I don't know the name of the paper, but I know it was around her old college campus â"
"So you're looking for your father."
"I just wanna know who he is."
This was a lie. I knew who he was. He was the man who had fired my mom after getting her pregnant at a work party. Mom, who had left Mexico all by herself to pursuit the American dream. Mom, who only realized she was carrying me after it was too late. Mom, who dropped out of college to be my mom, who had told me all this, except who the man behind it all was.
"Does he know you exist?" Tristan asked.
"Yes."
"But he pretends he doesn't."
"Yes."
"So he's a piece of shit."
"Yes."
"So you know exactly who he is."
"Yes."
"So what are you doing?"
I shrugged, "I don't know."
"What are you gonna do if you find him?"
I shrugged again, "I don't know."
"This is terrible idea, Zoey. Turn around."
We were out of the highway already, the sky was getting darker and darker, and rain was still falling everywhere around us. We were almost there. I wasn't going to turn around.
"It's not a terrible idea." It was a terrible idea.
"You know I'm adopted, right?" he asked. We were stopped at a red light. I looked at him, confused, and he shrugged. "Richard doesn't like me talking about it because he likes to pretend we're your typical family next door, but I was in the system until I was twelve. I don't know who my real parents are, and I don't wanna know. You shouldn't either."
"Are you serious?"
He frowned, "No, I'm lying to you."
"You're not."
He frowned some more, "Of course I'm not."
"I'm really sorry."
"Shut up."
So Tristan was adopted. He called Mr. Young by his name because Mr. Young wasn't his dad, and he didn't act like someone who had grown up rich, or happy, because he hadn't. He had grown up in the system. I wanted to reach over and hug him. I had grown up an inconvenience, the abortion my mom couldn't have, the reason she dropped out of college and ended up working too much at a diner that paid too little, the reason she never went back home to her family, or barely ever called them. I had grown up the worst mistake of her life, but a well loved one. Despite all of this, my mom still loved me. She had wanted to be an artist when she left Mexico, and she had become one in the end. She had made love an art. I didn't think anyone had done that for Tristan growing up.
Still, I didn't reach over and hug him. Mostly because he would have hated it. Instead, I stopped the car in front of a tall building with the words The Patriot Newspaper built in metal over big glass revolving doors and unbuckled my seatbelt.
"I won't be long," I told him as I opened my door to get out. "I promise."
He rolled his eyes and opened his door too, "Well, I'm going with you."
"You don't have to."
"I know."
"Then just stay in the car."
"No."
"Fine," I said. I didn't want him to come at all, but I didn't have it in me to convince him to stay. All I could think about was what I would say to my father if I saw him. I had tried many newspapers over the past few months. Once I got my driver's license, it was easy to get on the highway and retrace my mom's steps. It had never amounted to anything. It was always the wrong place. I was running out of options, perhaps for the best. I hadn't told my mom any of this. I hadn't told anyone but Tristan.
He was standing on the sidewalk, under the rain, hands in the pockets of his leather jacket, his eyes on me, and the look of disapproval in them. I locked the car and rushed over to the revolving doors. He followed me.
Before going in, however, I turned to him and asked, "How do I look?"
He shook his head, "I'm not gonna answer that."
"Why not?"
"Let's just fucking do this."
We went inside. The receptionist looked up from her computer as soon as she saw us coming in, and in an irritated voice, said, "We're not taking any new interns."
I smiled, "Oh, sorry, we're not looking for an internship."
"Okay," she said, still irritated. "How can I help you then?"
"I was wondering if we could talk to the editor-in-chief."
"Why?" Still irritated.
"It's for a school paper," Tristan said behind me. He was standing so close to me I could feel his breath on the top of my head.
"Mr. Baron's obviously busy," the woman said.
"Right, sorry, could we perhaps ask you some questions then?" I had my best smile on.
She rolled her eyes, "Go ahead."
"Thank you," I said.
"How long has Mr. Baron been working here for?" Tristan asked before I could.
She thought about it for a while, and then said, "I don't know, decades probably. What's your paper about?"
I didn't know what to say. Tristan did.
"Office Porn: understanding the sexual power dynamics of the corporate world," he said, still standing behind me. I could feel a teasing smile in every single one of his words. I wanted to roll my eyes but couldn't.
In front of us, the woman's face fell, "Excuse me?"
"We can send you a copy of it once it comes out," he said.
"I think you should leave."
Once again, I didn't know what to say, but maybe I didn't have to say anything at all. Maybe I could just leave. His name was Mr. Baron and he had been an editor-in-chief for decades. The newspaper was half an hour away from my mom's old college campus. This was probably the place she had worked at. I could just go home and look him up online. I could just leave.
"Right," I said. "I'm really sorry. Thank you."
"For nothing," Tristan added before turning around and walking for the door. I said sorry one more time and then followed him. The walls were covered in pictures of the staff standing next to big-name politicians and multi-millionaire businesspeople, and next to the revolving doors, so that people knew exactly what they were walking away from as they left, there were all the awards the newspaper had won over the years.
Tristan was holding the door for me, and behind him, on the street, rain kept on falling. He didn't say a word as we walked back to the car. I kept thinking Mr. Baron had probably become a big shot editor that made hundreds of thousands every year while my mom hadn't even finished her degree and owned hundreds of thousands in debt instead. I kept thinking I hated him.
"She was a bitch," Tristan said once we were out of the building, holding his arm over his head to cover himself from the rain.
"I don't think I'll ever forgive him," I said.
He looked down at me, "You don't have to."
"My mom said I should, back when she told me about him," I said. "For my sake."
"Fuck that." He frowned, rain dripping down his face. "What did that man ever give you other than that anger? You're telling me you're supposed to give it away? Fuck no. It's yours. It belongs to you."
I had a lump in my throat, but I swallowed it to ask, "Is that how you feel about your life?"
"We're not talking about me," he said as he watched me get the car keys from my pocket and unlock the car. I watched him open the passenger's door. Then he said, out of nowhere, "Let's go get something to eat."
I almost dropped the keys on the sidewalk, "What?"
"I know a place. Come on."
I didn't know if I wanted to have dinner with him, or why he wanted to have dinner with me, but mom had gone for drinks with friends, and so the only other option was to go home and eat leftovers alone in the dark, thinking about everything that was wrong with the world, and probably cry a lot about it.
We got in the car. I turned on the heating, and he turned on the radio and changed stations until he heard the host say Fleetwood Mac was up next. I didn't say anything and neither did him. I followed his directions to a pizza place tucked between a laundromat and a nail salon back in town, then to a table in the corner, under bright fluorescent lights.
The next thing I knew, we were sharing a greasy peperoni pizza. He asked for beer, and the waiter pretended he didn't look like he was underage, and brought it to him, one, two, three times. Eventually I lost count, sipping from my cold iced tea, trying to make it last, trying to make everything last. The streetlights outside reflected everywhere, on the drops of rain hitting the windows of the diner, on his face, red from the alcohol. It was possible that I was just very hungry or that this was the best pizza I had ever had.
"Thank you," I said after a while. "For this."
He finished another beer and narrowed his eyes at me, "Who are you again?"
I smiled. He put the empty bottle down, the sad face tattoo on his middle finger looking right at me, his leather jacket hanging on his chair, dripping to the floor, a cigarette he had asked the waiter behind his ear, teeth playing with his lip ring, and the absolute look of apathy in his eyes.
"It must be exhausting," I said.
"What?"
"All the effort you put into cultivating that sense of danger of yours."
His lips became a tease, "Do you like it?"
"No." Yes.
"Right, I forgot you're into jocks."
My mouth fell open, "Excuse me?"
"Yeah, hypermasculine guys riddled with mommy issues to the point they'll make you their mommy girlfriend and then hate you for it."
"Right, fuck you, Tristan."
His lips remained a tease as he said, "That's not very nice of you, is it?"
"I'm not trying to be nice."
"You're always trying to be nice."
"You're drunk."
"You're so fucking nice all the time," he went on. I wished he wouldn't. He was going to say something to hurt me. Perhaps to remind me where we stood when it came to each other. Perhaps to remind himself. "What do you think you have to make up for exactly? Being born?"
"I don't know what you're talking about it." Except I did.
On he went, this time with, "Did your mom ever finish college?"
"Don't do this."
"Just answer the question."
"No."
"Cause she got pregnant with you, right? Did he get her fired? He probably did. I doubt he wanted people to know he knocked up a girl half his age, who, worst of all, worked for him," he said. I didn't answer any of his questions, but then again, I didn't think he needed me to. "Did she give up everything to have you? She did, didn't she? So now you go around thinking you have to make up for it, thinking you have to give something to the world, so you can be in it. You think if you're not an inconvenience to anyone ever again, at least not in a way that matters, then it's fine. You're fine."
"Are you done?" The lump was back on my throat, and my eyes were burning, and so were my cheeks, but there was no place for me to hide, no place at all.
"No," he said, smiling, except it was a terrible smile. "I used to be jealous of you."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. The waitress cleared our table and then brought us the bill. Tristan put his jacket back on. I tried not to cry.
Eventually, he said, "We didn't ask to be born, Zoey. We don't owe the world shit. That's what I'm trying to say."
I opened my mouth again. Closed it again. Tristan got up to go to the toilet and I didn't move. I just sat there in the corner, cross-legged in the incandescent light, trying not to cry, trying to disappear into thin air.
When he came back, the cigarette was on his lips instead of behind his ear. He looked me in the eyes and said, "Ready?"
I got up, put my jacket on, and followed him out the door. The tug of war in my throat kept me from speaking, but as soon as I stepped out, I remembered something. We hadn't paid. The waiter had brought the bill, but we hadn't paid it.
"Did you pay?" I asked before he could cross the road to the other side.
He was lighting up his cigarette, but stopped to say, "Don't worry about it."
"You did? How much was it? We'll split it â"
He rolled his eyes, told me to just forget about it, and turned his back at me to cross the road.
I walked up to him, and said, as seriously as I could, "I don't need your charity."
"It's not fucking charity."
"It is," I said, reaching for my wallet. "And I don't want it."
He grabbed my hand, the cigarette burning between his lips, "Stop."
I looked at his hand on mine, and then at him, "Why?"
"Just stop."
I started crying. He let go of my hand and I covered my face with it. It didn't help. I just went on crying. I couldn't stop. I couldn't breathe. The streetlights blinded me, and the headlights of the passing cars, and the neon lights of the pizza place across the street, and the spark on Tristan's cigarette. It all felt like a spotlight on me, and I was offering a sad performance, if any performance at all. I was not ready. I had been brought to the show by accident and I had kept to the sidelines ever since. I was not ready to be center stage.
When I said I was sorry, Tristan laughed. I kept wiping my eyes, pressing my fingers against its corners, as if in an attempt to keep the waterworks in. He took another drag of his cigarette and threw it away into the nearest trash can.
Then he turned to me, "What the fuck are you sorry for?"
I meant to say for all the crying, but he didn't let me. Instead, he took a step closer and wrapped his arms around me. I didn't have time to move my hands from my face, and so my arms got pressed between the both of us, my head buried in the crook of his neck. He moved his hand for the back of my head, and I cried some more. I was a mess in his arms, but he didn't move them away. He kept on holding me and I kept on crying and rain kept on falling and we were going to be sick.
When I told him that between sobs, he shrugged, and said, "I'm already sick."
I moved away so I could look at him, "You are?"
Tristan shrugged again, "I think I had too much to drink."
I smiled, "Yeah, you probably did."
He smiled too, a genuine smile, "You're gonna have to drive me home."
I got the car keys from my pocket, "Let's go."
We didn't say a word about what happened until I finally stopped in front of his house. I spent the whole ride there thinking about whether or not I should just let what had happened go on unspoken, unexplained, a hole in the plot that was him and me, but when he stepped out of the car, I couldn't help myself.
I said, "Thank you."
He closed the car door, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Why do you have to make everything harder than it needs to be?"
"I wasn't raised right," he said, shrugging before turning his back at me and walking away.
It took me a while to get rid of the feeling of being under a spotlight that night. Only later, when I crawled into bed with my book, did I feel it move away from me. Still, I couldn't fall asleep after I put the book down. There was a new grief in me, a strange discontent. To have gained the weight of such light, and then lose it, just like that.