Please Ignore Vera Dietz(23)
Author: A.S. King

KEN DIETZ’S FLOW CHART OF DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR

MONDAY, JANUARY 2ND

Here’s me not using fainéant in a sentence.

My Vocab teacher, Mrs. Buchman, looks concerned. I failed. I didn’t even try to guess. My head hurts and no matter how much gum I chew, my mouth is like a highway in lower New Mexico.

“Vera, I’m concerned,” she says.

“I just forgot. I don’t know what got into me,” I say, but what I mean is: Who gives Vocab words over Christmas break?

“This might lower your grade,” she says. But I don’t care, because all I can think about is James and whether I’ll ever see him again. I imagine him in the small police station over in Mount Pitts getting his mug shot taken. I imagine him having to leave Pagoda Pizza. I imagine him leaving me no note, no number, no word. Like, maybe the universe is trying to save me from my destiny now that I’ve given up on saving myself.

Still, I walk around cocky all day. I have a secret life. All these idiots are caught up in their stupid sports or their college choices. They’re caught up in trivial fashion or who’s getting laid or who’s snorting coke or who likes what music or who’s going to the prom with who. And I have a full-time job, a twenty-three-year-old boyfriend, and a secret binge-drinking problem.

I arrange a ride to work from Matt Lewis—my Vocab partner. He drives a VW Beetle—a vintage one. He has self-decorated the entire interior with Sharpie marker manga-style drawings and it is the coolest thing ever.

Right before the end-of-day bell rings, the secretary comes on the intercom and makes the usual announcements. All the kids who did something dumb to get detention today (Bill Corso and Jenny Flick and their minions) are called to the assistant principal’s office. Then she says, “And will Vera Dietz please report to the office. Vera Dietz to the office.”

As I approach the glass-enclosed office, I see Dad there, waiting, leaning over the front counter, talking to the secretary. When I walk in, he turns to me and says, “Are you ready to go?”

“Go where?”

“Work.”

“I have a ride, Dad. Really—you can go.”

“Go and get your things. I’m here.” He’s cold and weirdly robotic.

“But I have to tell Matt not to wait for me.”

“That’s fine. I’ll be here.”

So I go to Matt’s locker and tell him I don’t need a ride. Then I go to my own locker, pull out the books I need, and head back to the office. I see Dad through the glass wall, still talking to the secretary, and I sit down on the padded bench outside the door until he’s finished.

When we get to the car and I click my seat belt into place, he says, “I got you the night off.”

He’s freaking me out. He’s too chipper. He’s like a happy maniac.

“From work?”

“Marie says she’ll see you tomorrow.”

My whole body goes a little bit numb when I hear that he talked to Marie. I want to ask him if he asked Marie about James. I want to ask him if he knows where James is and if he’s okay. But I don’t ask him anything, because he’s driving with that weird fake-happy look on his face, as if he’s about to chop me up into little pieces and feed me to a tiger.

When we get home, he gives me a bowl of dried fruit and granola and a glass of milk. Talk about weird. This was my favorite after-school snack when I was a little kid. Before I can comment about how weird he’s acting, he hands me the phone and a phone number scrawled on a sky-blue piece of notepaper. Cindy Sindy—702-555-0055. My mother. She changed the C to an S when she left us.

“I’m not calling her.”

“Yes you are.”

“How is this a good idea?”

He puts his hand up, as if nothing I say will change his mind. Because nothing I say will change his mind. “I’m going outside to clean up some branches. You talk to her. She’s smarter than you think.”

Smarter than I think? Do I think she’s dumb? Huh. Yeah. I guess I do. Wow. Well, let’s see just how smart she is, then. 1-702-555-0055. Rings once. Rings twi—

“Vera?”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Don’t you ‘Hi, Mom’ me. What the hell are you doing? Trying to kill your father?”

“Whoa. Hey. Happy New Year to you, too.”

“Don’t be impudent.”

Wow, she just used impudent in a sentence. Awesome. Now I don’t know what to say. I haven’t talked to my mother in six years—since the day she left—and now she’s yelling at me as if she cares?

“Did you hear me?” she says.

“Yeah.”

“So? Let’s hear it. I don’t have all day.”

I can’t seem to harness my hate for her, and it seems she’s having the same problem. I am instantly aware that she left us because she never wanted to have me. I am instantly aware that I don’t want her to come back, either.

I say, “What did Dad tell you?”

“You were out drinking with a twenty-three-year-old man last night and were lucky not to lose your goddamn license because of it.”

“Oh.” So he knows I was drinking, and he knows how old James is.

“He also told me you were planning on driving yourself home. Is that true?”

“I guess,” I answer, still computing the information that my dad knows way more than he lets on.

“Are you that stupid?”

“Charming, Mom.”

“Seriously, Vera. Are you that hellishly stupid?”

I don’t say anything.

“Are you there?”

I don’t say anything. I notice I’m tearing up a little.

“Look, I know when your boyfriend died it was hard on you, but—”

“Charlie wasn’t my boyfriend.”

“Well, whatever he was. I know you took it hard.”

I don’t say anything. I hate her. She doesn’t even know me. She doesn’t know what happened. She doesn’t know about Zimmerman’s. Or about Jenny Flick. Or about the screaming parakeets. Or about any of it.

“You don’t know anything about that, Mom.”

“I knew Charlie, Vera. I did live there for twelve years.”

“Not like that counts anymore,” I say.

Surprisingly, she doesn’t answer this. There’s silence on the phone, and I munch on the dried fruit Dad gave me. Is it just a coincidence that I am eating a ten-year-old’s snack and simultaneously feeling like a ten-year-old because I’m talking to my mother?