The Good Boy (12 page)

That day, it was fun until Kink called out a car and the driver saw Joel and the driver
was
911—a cop.

As he told the judge about the bust, Joel’s mom sat at the table and shook her head at him, or else it was at the Easter-dinner-size meal she’d cooked that was going cold while he told the stupid story. Joel couldn’t help it, though: no matter how detailed the detail, the judge kept smiling at him. Like somebody was tickling her.

Then she asked, “Your friend’s name is
Kink
?”

Joel didn’t understand why that was relevant, but everybody else laughed. Then his mom passed the potatoes.

After dinner his mom offered the chocolate ganache tart she bought from the fancy bakery by the train station. Joel asked the judge if she knew that
ganache
was the French word for
jowl,
a fact he looked up when his mom couldn’t tell him the definition. The judge seemed impressed by that, and also by the tart, but she said, “Looks delicious, Sarah, but I don’t do desserts,” and opted instead for one more glass of wine. Then, while his mom served everybody else a piece, the judge asked if they’d mind if she slipped out for a minute. Nobody minded, so his dad directed her to the back porch. When she was out there, it didn’t seem right that she was by herself, so Joel asked if he could join her. His mom looked at his dad and his dad said the
oh
but not the
kay
and Mike looked at Joel and he didn’t know what the heck was going on so he just got up and went out.

The judge was smoking a cigarette, one high heel kicked off, her bare foot on the deck. Joel didn’t know what to say, but he felt like saying stuff, so he asked if she knew smoking was bad for her, and was she going to quit? She said yes and no. That even if the evidence was stacked against her, smoking wasn’t illegal, and if she wasn’t hurting anybody else, a once-in-a-while cigarette was her risk to take. Besides, she said, stress was going to get her before cancer.

Joel said his grandpa had cancer.

She said that cancer was the most unfair trial of them all.

Then Joel wanted to know how she’d have ruled in his case. Wasn’t being grounded for two weeks over a game a pretty stiff sentence?

She said she wouldn’t overrule his dad. “But,” she said, “there could be conflict of interest there. If you ever get in a jam again, come talk to me. I promise I’ll get you a fair trial.” Then she put out her cigarette on the bottom of her high heel and asked what other words he knew in French.

“Joel,” Mike says. She’s typing faster now, if that’s possible.

“Who are you talking to?”

“I’m talking to you, Spacey!”

“I mean on the computer.”

“Oh.” The steel in her eyes goes soft, to nickel. She looks up. “A boy.”

Joel wishes he had steel in his eyes or better yet, in his backbone. Is it Zack Fowler she’s talking about? It takes all his guts to ask, “What boy?”

She gets up. “Time to go.”

“Is it Zack Fowler?”

“
It
is none of your business. Come on.” She takes his legs out from underneath him, sets his feet on the floor.

“He called you last night, I know you weren’t talking about homework—”

“Jesus, Joel, give me a break. I feel like you’re mom
and
dad sitting here.”

The upstairs air shifts as the front door opens downstairs.

Mike says, “Speaking of. Sarah’s home.” She pulls Joel up off the bed pushes him out into the hallway. “Seriously, get out, I have to—” The click of the door’s lock finishes her sentence.

Joel stands outside the door and hears her rummaging around, probably changing clothes again. It’s probably better she didn’t tell him anything; the secrets he already has are hard enough to keep. Today, he nearly told his dad about finding her in the garage—there was a second there when he thought it would be okay—but then he realized he’d have to confess a whole bunch of other secrets just to explain how he knew the one. Like why he’d been outside in the first place. And how he’d been spying on his parents before that. And eavesdropping on McKenna because he was hiding in his room because he lied about his headache … before he knew it he’d have told about Felis Catus. No way Mike’s trip to the garage is worth Zack and his bat.

Joel goes back to his room and looks in on Butchie, dreaming, exhaling in quick bursts, eyelids twitching, paws going
pfit, pfit, pfit
—nerves working instead of muscles. Joel lets him be, hoping he’s after a dreamed-up squirrel.

Downstairs, Joel finds his mom in the kitchen, her attention split, and not very equally, between fixing dinner and talking on the phone. Apparently she hasn’t spoken to the person on the other end of the call in a while, because the macaroni noodles on the stove are already going to goo right along with her when she says, “It’s been a tough summer.”

Joel swallows his hello and thinks about bailing on dinner; summer wouldn’t be nearly as tough anymore if she’d just stop talking about it already.

“Jo Jo’s come down for dinner,” she says, her sixth mom-sense leaving him no escape. “No—my god, it’s been too long since I’ve heard your voice.” There’s a half-full hard-water-stained wineglass next to the cutting board, which is one good reason why she’s getting all sentimental.

Another good reason is what happened on June 7: her brother Ricky died. She went by herself to Long Beach, California, to say goodbye; nobody else could go because his dad declared the last-minute airfare too high. Joel didn’t really care—it was the beginning of softball season—until his mom told him Disneyland was right down the freeway from Ricky’s apartment. It was a cruel thing to do.

“It’s true,” his mom says to the phone.

It’s probably better that Joel didn’t go with her; there’d have been no time for Tomorrowland. Anyway, Joel only ever met Ricky a few times and that was when he just showed up and made his mom real upset. She got upset whenever he called, too, and then she’d call just about everybody else she knew and use words like
crazy
or
tricky
or
nutstick
before his name, same place Joel would use
Uncle.

Then, on June 1, somebody who knew Ricky called, and his mom called everybody else to tell them
apeshit
Ricky went off his medication and disappeared. A week later, she called them again to say that Ricky was gone, and that things would never be the same.

That last part has been hard for Joel to understand because many things are very much the same. Case in point: since the day of Uncle Ricky’s death, including tonight, she has served macaroni for dinner exactly twenty-three times.

“I can’t say I’ve noticed,” she says while she microwaves a plate of hot dogs. Joel seconds her statement; if she hasn’t flipped about the huge dent he and Butchie put in the side of her car when they were playing fetch last weekend, he’d be surprised if she noticed an extra finger.

She takes a gulp of wine before she says, “Like I said, we had a tough summer.”

Joel sits at the table and wonders how much soggier a noodle can get.

“Oh my god,” Mike says, making her entrance, “I am not eating that again.” She’s dressed in outfit number three: this one skinny jeans that probably give her hips blisters and a black top that matches the rings she painted around her eyes. She looked so pretty, before.

She marches across the kitchen, says, “Had a few, have we, Sarah?” looking for Joel’s reaction as she tips an invisible glass to her lips. Joel ignores her; he hates it when she acts like a know-it-all.
Sarah.
The name sounds worse than any bad word from her lips. He hates that she calls their parents by their first names. He wonders why they let her.

Mike roots through the junk drawer, says, “What a fucking mess.”

Mom strains the macaroni, says to the phone, “It’s hereditary.”

Joel studies the curled edges of his placemat.

Mike slams the junk drawer, says, “Fuck it. Sarah? A couple of people are hanging out at this kid’s house. I’m going. Call me if you care.”

Mom says, “Just a second,” either to the phone or to Mike, but by the time she turns around, Mike is already out the back door. She looks directly at Joel as she says to the phone, “I have learned that when you know someone is not okay, you cannot believe a thing they say.”

Joel puts one cheek to the table, looks at the world that way. The flowery wallpaper. The stupid wooden sign that says
HOME
with somebody’s painting of somebody else’s home on it. The calendar that’s still on June, like they’re stuck in this tough summer forever. McKenna is right: he wishes he had a life, too.

Eventually, his mom puts a busted-open hot dog and some sticky macaroni in front of him, and all of a sudden Butchie is there, under his feet. Joel eats the whole plate and goes for seconds even though he’s as tired of the menu as he is of listening to his mom’s memories of Uncle Ricky—especially since they seem to get better with every telling. Ricky wasn’t always “an amazing talent,” or “completely misunderstood.” He was a fuck-up. A box of mixed nuts.

Then again, it could be that whoever she’s telling doesn’t want to hear the truth.

She’s poured herself some more wine and started preparing another meal, frying onions and garlic in a pot, the start of some sauce she’ll probably bring to someone from the old neighborhood like Sophie, her friend who had a baby, or Bill, Dad’s friend who is going through a divorce. She’s always doing nice things like that, even though she acts like she has to, which kind of takes the nice out.

“Sometimes the signs are there,” she says, stirring the pot. “We just refuse to see them.”

Joel sneaks the rest of a hot dog to Butchie, then lures him out from under the table to lick the remaining cheese from his plate; after that, the dog follows him back upstairs.

But only as far as McKenna’s door. Butchie stops there, drawn to whatever he smells through the crooked gap. Could be the floor’s crooked, not the door, but whatever the case, there’s just enough space for his nose.

“What’s up, Mr. O’Hare? Something die in there?”

The door is locked, of course, but the locks in this house are easy to pick so long as you have a penny or a paper clip. And what can Joel say—being grounded makes a kid curious about what he
can
get away with.

“I’ll see.”

He takes off Butchie’s collar and uses his rabies tag to open the door and then recollars the dog and slips in without him; he knows better than to let an accidental dog hair get him busted.

Once inside, Joel maneuvers around the wreckage of her fashion hurricane and locates one source of stink: Mike’s perfume, an overpowering combination of vanilla cookies and citrus packed into a tiny diamond-shaped aquamarine bottle that sure doesn’t look like it could knock over a room, but oh boy, it does.

On the glass dressing table next to the perfume, Mike’s flat iron is still on, and its flashing red light should be an alarm; maybe it’s what Butchie’s careful nose picked up.

Mike probably wouldn’t be too broken up if the house burned down, she’s said as much, but Joel doubts she’d want to be the one responsible, so he unplugs the iron. He wishes he could unplug the perfume.

After he pulls a few drawers and discovers disaster is tucked in those, too, Joel’s interest wanes. He doesn’t even know what he’s looking for, except maybe something to do.

Then he sees her computer. Asleep, its white light winking,
come see.

He shouldn’t. He doesn’t need any more secrets to keep.

But. She’s the one with the life, and he wants to know what it’s like.

He opens the laptop and the screen comes alive.

He’s afraid to touch anything, any keys or the trackpad, but what’s there is a page headlined
TWEETS
.

In a glance, the rest reads like code, everything abbreviated and punctuated with @s and #s. Joel thinks he recognizes some names through snips, like Mike’s friend Heather Baum, listed by her nickname HBomb, and Tina Lipinski, Lisa’s gossipy senior-year sister, listed
tipinski.
He doesn’t understand much else.

But there is one thing at the bottom of the page that comes through, and all too clear:

Zack Fowler
@ZeeFowler

“Oh.” Joel says. “No.”

He sets two fingers to the trackpad, scrolls down. Has to. The name repeats there, like this:

Zack Fowler
@ZeeFowler     1hr

@Lil Cee hustle on over ha ha letz do this bitches we got the hookup #letzgetfuckedup

1 hour ago

And this:

Zack Fowler
@ZeeFowler     1hr

Well look whoz here ladies its @John-Wayne wearing his bigass party hat bit.ly/lbvY3e

And this.

Zack Fowler
@ZeeFowler     2hr

Hey @McKennaM we waiting u got the doggy treats or what? u know I luv u so #letzgetfuckedup

Mike. The garage: Butchie’s locker.

And Zack Fowler.

Joel’s got to do something.

He closes the computer, tramples over the mess on Mike’s floor and lets himself out to where Butchie sits, waiting.

Joel takes him by the collar.

“Come on, boy. I’m going to need backup.”

7

Pete is stationed on the balcony, stage left VIP, watching the kids on the floor watch the opening act. Actually, he’s watching, but the kids aren’t; they’re slamming beers or talking to one another or working their backlit phones. Used to be, the crowd watched the show.

“Murphy,”
Rima radios from the other side of the balcony. She’s the one in charge tonight. She usually is.

“What’s up?” Pete asks, easily picking her out at the rail because for one thing she defines the word
knockout
and for another, she is completely bald.

She says,
“This band sucks.”

“Roger.” Pete would not declare himself a fan, either, the music all in minor chords, the singer more of a sad mumbler. Rima isn’t giving him her opinion so much as her warning, though: when kids don’t like the band, they tend to drink more, get brave, and start shit. That last part is why Pete—and the other six guys working for Rima tonight—are here.