Chapter Forty-Five
MOLLY IS WONDERING what to do about this guy Tobias. He called her again, asking her to come over and “chill” with him. She doesn’t call him back. Instead, she calls her friend Mike and asks if she can come over.
“Of course.” White Mike is glad she is coming over, but he has to switch modes.
White Mike and Molly have been friends since that Bahamas trip. And Molly was at the funeral for White Mike’s mom, but she never saw White Mike cry. She saw Charlie cry about it, though, and White Mike’s father. And Molly spent the night at White Mike’s house once when her parents had one of their huge marathon fights. White Mike is always surprised by Molly’s beauty and, for some reason, is glad they didn’t go to the same school. He tidies the house before she arrives.
“How’s working with your dad going?” Molly wants to know. “Glad you’re taking the year off?”
“Yeah. It takes up all my time, but I’m learning a lot. I think I know how to run a restaurant.”
“What do you do? Like, what’s your day like?”
“I work late.” He hates this. “But the nice thing is that I can sleep late, right, so I go in at around one, and then I’m, like, my dad’s assistant. I do errands and bookkeeping and stuff like that, and then at night sometimes I’ll be the host, or help out the waiters or be a bar bat or whatever. Then I help close up and get home at around three, and read for a while and then go to sleep.”
“But you have Mondays off?”
“Not really, but Mondays and Tuesdays are the slowest,” he says, not looking at her. “How about you? Still the smartest girl in school?”
“Think you’re going to go to college next year?”
“That’s not what you came over to talk about.”
Molly throws her hair. He knows her so well.
“Well, there’s this guy,” she says. White Mike smiles as Molly laughs and shifts in her chair. “Yeah. He invited me to this big New Year’s Eve party. As his date, I guess, I’m not even really sure.”
White Mike runs through all the parties he knows are happening. “Where’s the party?”
“Chris somebody and Sara Ludlow.”
White Mike tries to keep his face straight. “What’s the guy like?”
“He’s actually a model. Tall, brown hair, kind of long. Really handsome.”
“Well, what’s the problem?” I know the damn problem, thinks White Mike. The guy’s a pothead. And an asshole.
“Well, I don’t know, I’m sort of suspicious of those parties, you know. And models are jerks.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“No, I’m serious, I don’t know, he just doesn’t seem like the kind of guy I’d like. I don’t know.”
“Well, those parties can get weird.”
“Have you ever been to one?”
“Mostly they’re not really even parties, just a bunch of kids getting wasted, listening to music, flirting with each other.”
“I think I might go. You should come too.”
“Maybe I’ll stop by.”
He tells Molly it is his father at the restaurant when his beeper goes off. I am those parties, thinks White Mike.