October 19
Twenty-Four Years Ago
10:30 P.M.
Leo and Arnold didn’t have to find Mish and Brooks; they found them. “There you are,” Mish said, her hands on her waist. “We were looking for you everywhere!” She had an accusatory tone in her voice that Leo did not appreciate. Brooks looked a bit embarrassed by the whole thing. “Hey, man,” he said to Arnold, who nodded.
“We’ve just been here the whole time,” Leo said. “What’s up?”
“Nothing . . . OH FUCK ME!” Mish yelled all of a sudden, and she scooted down, crashing into Leo.
“What? What’s going on?”
Mish pointed.
Leo froze.
Mish’s dad was standing against the back wall, arms crossed, eyes hooded, surveying the scene, smoking a blunt. “We have to leave. Now,” said Mish, agitated.
“Hey, chill,” said Arnold. He looked over to where the girls were looking. “Oh, fuck.”
“Yeah,” Mish said tightly. “Let’s go.”
“Why?” asked Brooks, who was oblivious to what was happening. “I just opened these bottles.”
“I thought this was your night to deal,” said Leo.
“Yeah, I did too,” said Arnold, his jaw clenched. “But whatever. Let’s go.”
“Babe? What’s going on?” Brooks kept asking.
Leo knew Mish didn’t want to explain, didn’t want to tell him the truth about her father. That he was at the club because he was dealing, just like Arnold. He was probably the other house dealer. Brooks didn’t know that much about Mish other than the fact that she was pretty, and that she was a sophomore. Sure, he knew she lived in a not-so-great part of town, but not what that entailed. And Mish didn’t want him to know that the guy standing against the wall of the club, with his tatted arms and greasy hair, who was so far from what his own parents looked like, was actually her father. He was so incredibly different from Donald and Judy Overton, with their fleece vests and hiking boots and dorky secret marital language complete with sickly sweet nicknames.
Mish liked to say the only nicknames her dad ever used were for his collection of firearms. Greta the German Luger, and Rosanne the rifle; oh but he was so clever.
How could Mish explain who that man was, and what he was to her, to someone who came from a loving and stable upper-middle-class household? It was too large an expanse to breach, and too humiliating.
“Let’s go, before he sees us,” whispered Mish, when Brooks turned away to set the beer bottles on a nearby table. “We can’t stay here.”
“Yes, let’s go,” agreed Leo, who didn’t look back. “Let’s get out of here.”
Mish shot her a grateful look. When Brooks returned, she said, “Let’s go to Stacey’s.”
“Really?” said Brooks. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Leo, you want to go, right? I mean, the night is young and so are we,” said Mish.
Leo turned to Arnold. “You want to come to Stacey’s?” she asked.
Arnold pulled her to a quiet corner before answering. “Who’s this Stacey chick? That kid from school? The snotty one?”
“Yeah,” she said. “But you should come with.”
Arnold shook his head. He laughed. “Yeah, me at Stacey’s. Sure.”
“Come on,” she said.
“Hey,” he said. He lifted her chin with his hand. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Yeah?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ll hit you when this place closes. But I got to work still.”
“Okay.”
He rubbed his thumb on her cheek. He leaned closer and so did she, and this time, when he kissed her, he didn’t just brush against her lips. He kissed her, and she kissed him back, tugging on his T-shirt to pull him closer.
“Later, okay?” he asked.
“Okay. You know where I live, right.”
“Yeah, I do.”
They said goodbye and she met her friends.
“Ready now?” asked Mish.
Leo laughed. There was nothing she’d wanted more than to go to Stacey’s all night. She said yes.