Good For You

“John Huston? I love it.” I don’t tel him that this film adaptation of an amazing James Joyce story is one of Nick’s and my favorites.

“Yeah? Me, too.” He sounds like he’s smiling.

***

“We don’t want you spending any more time with him.” I stare at my parents, Mom across from me, Dad adjacent at our smal kitchen table. They sit watching my reaction, each of us exhausted from propel ing ourselves into work and volunteer efforts until there are no moments to spare in which we might have to think about Deb or ponder why God left her alive but al owed her identity, her personality, to be stripped from her.

“I don’t understand,” I say final y. “Nothing happened.

Nothing wil . We just hung out and talked. We’re friends, I guess.”

Dad stares at his hands, clenched on the table like he’s praying. Or begging. “We’re only saying we don’t trust him.

This is not an appropriate connection for you, Dori. You must know it can’t go anywhere that’s… suitable. And as long as you’re living here—”

I gasp. “Dad, really? ‘As long as you’re under my roof’?

Mom?”

“Dori, there’s no reason to be difficult over this if he’s as unimportant to you as you say.” Her voice is logical, which I’m used to, and clipped, which is whol y unfamiliar and sounds wrong coming from the woman who’s loved and cared for me my whole life.

My face runs hot and I feel and hear the blood pounding in my ears. My parents have been unreasonable so few times in my life that I can almost recal them al . Making me to floss nightly seemed unreasonable when I was nine. SPF

45 sunscreen seemed unreasonable at eleven. Not al owing me to see movies with even hypothetical sex or cursing seemed unreasonable at thirteen. I wonder if there wil be some future point when I’l look back at this discussion and realize that what they were asking was sensible. That it was me who was being irrational.

“I don’t recal saying he was unimportant,” I say, quietly.

“Dori,” Dad begins, and I open my mouth to argue my point but Mom cuts both of us off.

“We’re not discussing this further.” She scoots her chair back and stands, the decisive scrape across the floor jarring. “You wil stop seeing him, Dori. He’s not part of our world.”

I look up at her, incredulous. “What world is that?” She turns and leaves the room without answering, motioning for Dad to fol ow. Just when I didn’t think my life could get any more bizarre, I’m wrong again.

Chapter 40

REID

I’m at John’s when I get a text from Dori: We need to talk.

I don’t like the sound of that. I text her back that I’l cal her in a few, grab a beer from the fridge and head onto the balcony. The lights of downtown look like a celebration in progress from this height. I wish Dori was standing next to me, because this view is amazing, and people are easier to read face to face, and I’m way more persuasive in person.

I’m constantly off-balance when it comes to this girl.

“What’s up?”

Her initial reply is a soft sigh, and I think Shit. And then I wonder if I’m going to surrender that easily.

“This is embarrassing,” she says, and sighs again, shoring up for whatever she’s about to say. I’m confused, but I wait like I’m patient, which I definitely am not. Even stil , I didn’t push her when we went out. I didn’t even kiss her when I dropped her off. Maybe the paparazzi stuff freaked her out. “My parents have forbidden me to see you.”

“What, like, tomorrow?” We’d planned to see The Dead at the historical y renovated theatre Mom and I frequented before she started drinking. The classic movies we watched there during my childhood were responsible for lighting the acting fire in me.

“No. More like ever.”

I’ve been doing what I damn wel please since I was fourteen. I ignore any barrier that doesn’t make personal sense, and shove past anyone who stands in my way. I understand the notion of lines I shouldn’t cross, etcetera, but I’m nineteen and holding a beer right now for chrissake.

The idea that my parents would have told me who I could be friends with five or even ten years ago is unfathomable. A year ago? No way.

“Aren’t you eighteen?”

“Yes.” She sighs again and I don’t know if she’s exasperated with me, or the situation, or what.

“This doesn’t make sense.” I sound like a petulant kid.

“I know. And I’m sorry.” Her voice breaks just the slightest bit at the end, and my hand clenches the railing.

We’re both silent, but my brain is going ful -throttle, determined to find a way through this maze. “So. Question.

How do you feel about tel ing them you’re out with someone else?” This is a no-brainer to me, but I know how she feels about lying. “I can’t tel you how many teen movie plots revolve around just this scenario.”

She’s quiet for a moment. Considering, I hope. “Don’t some of those end disastrously?”

“Yeah. But I’ve been in a dozen of them. I know all the common pitfal s.”

She laughs and my whole body hums. “I… I don’t know.

What about the photographers?”

Damned paparazzi. “They’re stil fol owing you around?”

“I think they’re starting to lose interest. Especial y after five hours of trailing me al over Los Angeles a couple of days ago during my Meals-on-Wheels deliveries, with nary a celebrity in sight.” I laugh again at the mental picture that generates. “But even if they stop fol owing me,” she says,