Mom is doling out spaghetti in heaping bowls while I take notes on José Saramago’s Blindness for AP Lit and try not to think about how Maddie was still giving me the silent treatment at school. Dad’s on his way home from work. Harrison is taking his computer time. Bette is under the table, cutting out construction paper shapes for god knows what. Davy is also under the table, playing a game she likes to call “Little Mermaid,” where she wears one of Mom’s bras, collects all the forks, and doesn’t talk, only gestures at things with wide eyes unless you pour water into her mouth.
Davy tugs on my jeans, pointing at her bowl of spaghetti, then at Mom near the stove, and then at me.
“What?” I ask. “That’s your spaghetti.”
She points at mine, which is covered in sauce, and shakes her head.
“Oh, no sauce?”
She nods fervently.
“Mom,” I say. “Davy wants to make sure you don’t put sauce on her spaghetti.”
“I don’t play Little Mermaid,” Mom says, sitting down to dig in. “Not after the toilet incident.”
Once, Davy had been so committed to Little Mermaid, she wouldn’t tell Harrison where the toothpaste was, so he splashed her with water from the toilet. Davy looked at me with pleading eyes.
I took a little from my glass of water and poured it on her head. Davy gasped.
“No sauce, please!” Davy said, giggling, wiping the drips from her eyes.
“Can I have a fork from your collection?” I asked.
She took one from the floor. I wiped it on my jeans. Clean enough.
Bette’s voice rose from under the table. “Who’s Stuart?”
I ducked down. She was cross-legged, holding my phone, as casual as could be.
“Give me that.” I reached out.
Bette giggled, shaking the phone. “Stuart says…” she started, staring at the screen. “How about you come to the Canoe…”
“Who’s Stuart?” Mom asked.
“Give me it!” I yelled.
“You don’t have to raise your voice,” Mom said.
“Fine…” Bette said, and tossed the phone on the ground.
I shoved the phone in my pocket. We ate in silence for a while. I thought they had forgotten until Harrison yelled from the other room.
“Who’s Stuart?”
Stuart: How about you come to the Canoe Club while I work tomorrow night? It’s a Tuesday so it’ll be slow. You could sit at the bar and do your hw. Keep me company.
Me: Yeah!
Later, I ask Mom and Dad while they’re reading in the living room, Mom’s feet propped on Dad’s lap.
“Can I go to the Canoe Club tomorrow night?”
Mom turns her head to look at me. “Will there be a trained first responder in the building?”
I consider this. Technically, most people who work at restaurants are, like, legally required to be first responders.
“Yes,” I said.
“Who?”
I’m terrible at lying. God, I’m awful. Whenever I try to lie, my tongue dries up. I’m like a messed-up version of Pinocchio. I hope you get over this, Future Sam. I am not unaware that lying is part of the legal profession. I just always hoped that it never had to come to that.
“Whoever the manager of the Canoe Club is,” I say.
“Who is that?” Dad counters.
“I don’t know, but whoever it is, that person is legally required to be a first responder.” Then I add, “I think,” very quietly, because my tongue was starting to get dry again.
“I don’t think so,” Dad says, looking back at his Stan Grumman novel.
“What, you think I’m going to have a seizure in the middle of the Canoe Club? Come on.”
“Yes,” Dad says without glancing up from his book. “That’s the risk.”
Not my best, I’ll admit it. I regain composure.
“Sammie…” Mom sighs. “Don’t you want to concentrate on school?”
“Yes, but I also don’t want to be a robot who has one week of high school left and will graduate having never gone on one date.”
This time, both parents turn their heads. Mom is smiling. Dad is not.
Everything else out of my mouth sounds like I’m trying to sell a curling iron on late-night TV. “I’m just doing homework while my friend works! He said it’s slow on a Tuesday! I was going to walk over there after school! You can pick me up right after!”
“Okay,” Mom says, and starts nudging Dad with her elbow.
“Really?”
“Yeah!”
“Gia…” Dad says to my mom quietly.
I clear my throat. Of course, I had saved a little tidbit as the clincher. “In the event of an emergency, the medical center is closer to the Canoe Club than it is to this house.”
“True!” Mom says, elbowing Dad again.
“Ow!” Dad looks at me. “Fine.”