Please Ignore Vera Dietz(26)
Author: A.S. King

Oh man. What a dork. “No. Last night was our first ‘date,’ if that’s what you mean.” I brought my fingers up to make the quotes around date.

“He’s twenty-three.”

“And I’m eighteen. And he’s a nice guy, so who cares how old he is?”

“I do,” he says. “And before you get all high-and-mighty—‘I’m eighteen and can do what I want’—with me, you might want to consider your options.” He’s so calm, it’s starting to spook me out.

“My options?”

“You live under my roof, which means you still have to do what I say.”

“Geez. Are you going to take away my allowance next and ground me for a month? For liking a boy?”

I push my plate aside and stare at him. He’s serious.

“My main concern at the moment is your work schedule. Can you work with this man and stop being friendly with him?”

“Oh my God—can you please stop being so weird?”

He sighs. “I’m not being weird. I’m your father and it’s my job to make sure you—you, uh”—he looks around the kitchen for his next word—“it’s my job to make sure you don’t make any mistakes.”

I laugh. “Oh, come on! Who doesn’t make mistakes?”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I know everyone makes mistakes,” he says. “But you know. The same mistakes we—your mother and I—did.”

I really can’t believe he just said that. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

He shrugs. Inside my head, there are a million angry monkeys.

“No. Seriously, Dad, think about it. Was Mom working a full-time job and saving up for college when she was eighteen? Was she making good grades? Or was she too busy picking dollar bills out of her G-string to study?”

“Don’t—”

I cut him off. “I’m not YOU. Okay? I’m not MOM. I’m ME.”

He breathes deeply through his nose. I see his diaphragm move. In. Out. In. Out.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he says.

I stare at him until he repeats it. “Can you continue to work with this man and control yourself?”

Inside, the monkeys are Kubrick monkeys. Inside, I’m saying, Control myself? CONTROL MYSELF? But when I open my mouth, it says, “Okay—fine. I won’t hang out with James anymore. No problem. For God’s sake, Dad. I’m not some sex-crazed tramp. He’s just a friend and we grew to like each other.”

“Stop making it sound innocent.”

“It is innocent.”

“Not if he’s twenty-three, it isn’t.”

He walks over to the coat rack and pulls something out of his coat pocket—a handful of pamphlets—and brings them over to the table. Two cardinals balance on the bird feeder behind him.

Teen Drinking. Talking to Your Child About Alcohol Abuse. DUI. Drinking and Driving. Making Responsible Decisions. Peer Pressure. Teens and Drugs.

“Will you read these?”

Is he serious?

“Vera, I don’t know how long you’ve been drinking and I don’t know if you understand how bad it is for your body or how susceptible to alcoholism your genes make you, but more important to me, you planned on driving home last night. You can never do that. Never. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“You’re smarter than that.”

“Yes, Dad.”

“Especially after that Brown kid last year.” Kyle Brown. Fifteen. Killed by a drunk college kid while he walked home from his neighbor’s house.

“Yes, Dad.”

“I’m not raising another one of these senseless, irresponsible idiots!”

“I know. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“You weren’t thinking. That’s the problem,” he says. “You can’t ever let that happen again.”

“I won’t.”

“And you can’t drink anymore. Obviously. I mean, you’re not even legal, Veer.”

“I know. It was stupid.”

He takes a deep, disappointed breath and it’s over. Thank God. He putters around the den, tidying, and I read the brochures. Stuff I learned in grade school, when the D.A.R.E. cops used to come around and teach us about the so-called war on drugs. Alcohol kills brain cells. Alcohol causes depression. Alcohol causes memory loss. Nowhere does it say, “Alcohol causes your dead friend to show up in the form of inflatable two-dimensional aliens.”

Nowhere does it say, “Alcohol numbs the pain.” But I know it does.

Two hours later, after dinner, after I memorize the rest of my Vocab words (ephemeral, exacerbate, jettison, vacuous, gumption) and after I vacuum the upstairs and clean both bathrooms, Dad takes me to Pagoda Pizza to pick up my car.

“Can I tell Marie that I’ll be back to work tomorrow?” I ask this because I’m really not sure of anything. He seems to be a new person. Robo-Dad. I ask this because James’s car isn’t in the lot, and he could be back any minute, and I want to see him.

“Of course.”

“You can go,” I say, before I shut the door.

“Nah,” he says, “I’ll follow you home.”

So I tell Marie that I’ll see her tomorrow while Dad watches me, and then I get into the car and drive down the hill and onto the main strip. Dad drives behind me the whole way home. I ask Charlie, “If I tell him now, will you leave me alone?” not knowing what I want the answer to be.

FOUR WEEKS LATER—SUPER BOWL NIGHT—FOUR TO CLOSE

Every driver we have is here, even drivers I never knew existed. This is the craziest day in pizza delivery.

We’ve been folding extra boxes all week, but still, all the part-timers are back on the steps folding more. Marie is sweating, but that’s only because BMW-driving Greg is coming in—to help. Oh boy. Last time he came, he snafued half the runs because he didn’t know there was a road connecting Butter Lane and Lisa Avenue, and he got upset when he splashed sauce on his beige preppy dickhead wide-lined corduroys.

When I see him pressing the lock button on his keychain for the Beemer in the parking lot (where it would never get robbed), a bunch of recent Vocab words come to mind.

Here’s me using exacerbate in a sentence. Greg thinks he helps on busy nights, but really, he only exacerbates the problem.

Here’s me using dickwad in a sentence. Greg is such a dickwad, he locks his car in the Pagoda Pizza parking lot. (No. That isn’t a real Vocab word.)