For Keeps

I AM IN the waiting room, waiting. There are two other people in here: a skinny blonde in Spandex and an iron-on cat sweatshirt, and a sketchy-looking guy with long, greasy hair. I can feel him staring at me, but I am avoiding eye contact.

My mom texted me to say that she and Jonathan are still two hours away; there’s a pileup on I-95. Liv will be here any second. That is, unless she’s picking out the perfect emergency-room outfit, in which case it’s anyone’s guess.

I’m not remotely hungry, but here I am in front of the vending machine again, considering the Cheez Doodles. No cheese in there, really. Cheez. Which can’t be good for anyone.

I walk to the corner of the room, perch myself on the edge of a hard green chair, one eye locked on the door to the hallway. Stay where you are, Tuccis, I think. Just stay exactly where you are and don’t move. Down the hall, I know, in some antiseptic room, the five of them are gathered.

Is Mrs. Tucci saying my name out loud? Are lightbulbs going on over anyone’s head? Gardner. . . . Gardner. . . . Hey, Paul, remember that girl you dated back in high school? Whatshername? . . .

No. They are too focused on Big Nick right now. On how he’s doing. Big Nick in a hospital bed, hooked up to needles and tubes. There’s no reason for them to be thinking about me at all. I could be anyone. Just another teenage girl in a ponytail, perched on a hard green chair, waiting.

I stand. I can’t help it. I pop straight out of my seat like a jack-in-the-box. Is it them? Paul Tucci and his brothers?

I yank my hair loose from its elastic, pinch my cheeks to make them pink. Cat Sweatshirt and Greaseball are both staring at me, but I don’t care. I am picturing the yearbook photo I’ve seen a thousand times: Paul Tucci at seventeen. His baseball hat, his Tom Cruise nose, his white lopsided grin. If Paul’s mom told him about the girl who called 911, he could be coming to meet me. I have to be prepared. I have to be ready to—

It’s Liv, rounding the corner. Liv, in a JUST ADD WATER T-shirt, holding out her arms. “Oh my God, Josie.”

“Thanks for coming,” I mumble into her shoulder. Liv’s hug is as familiar to me as the scruffy patchwork quilt on my bed—the one I’ve slept with since I was three.

“Of course I came! How could I not?” We walk over to the window, scoot two chairs together. “Well?” she says, leaning in close.

“Shhh,” I say. “I don’t know. I think in Big Nick’s room, with everyone else.”

I tell her I don’t know; I didn’t get a good look. Anyway, there were three of them and they were all wearing hats. I couldn’t tell which was which.

“I do. A hat can say a lot about a person. Like if he’s wearing one of those puffy John Deere tractor caps he could be some right-wing nutjob, but if it’s just, like, a plain black stocking cap—”

“Liv, I didn’t notice. OK? I was a little preoccupied with, you know, the whole my-dad-showing-up-out-of-nowhere thing.”

She nods. “I know.” She reaches into her back pocket for something. “I brought Altoids.”

“I hate those things. They always sound like a good idea. Curiously Strong Peppermints. But then you eat one and it burns the taste buds right off your tongue.”

“Paul Tucci is in this building right now. My father is in this building right now.”

You say what you say.Of course. This is the perfect advice. So organic, so natural. You say what you say. . . . Right.

While I am pondering this, Liv brings me hot cocoa from the nurses station. It tastes horrible, like chalk and battery acid, warmed to a nauseating fifty-five degrees.

For the next hour and a half, every hair on my body is standing at alert. My ears perk every time someone walks down the hall. Whenever we hear a male voice, Liv sprints to the doorway, peeks out. Then she slinks back in. “Just a doctor,” she tells me. Or, “Just some dude with a mop.” Then, the fifth time: “Holy shite.”