But really, it just sucks to hear Conrad ask a variation on the very question I spent most of the summer asking myself: What would a hot guy like Jamie Forta ever see in someone like me?
“I think the real question is how did you end up in a pool with the swim team trying to drown you?” Tracy asks.
“Oh, please. I saw the YouTube video of your initiation last year, pretending to be Beyoncé in your bra in the freezing cold after homecoming. You don’t need me to explain a damn thing to you.”
Tracy didn’t see that coming. Conrad is giving her a real run for her money, and she’s not used to it.
“Dancing in a parking lot and practically being killed by your teammates are kind of different, don’t you think?” I ask.
“Being straight in Union and being me in Union are kind of different, don’t you think?” he mocks in a high, girly voice that sounds nothing like me. Then he sighs, more annoyed than defeated. “Your ex went the extra mile with me because the thought of me looking at him naked in the locker room scares the panties off him. God, what a fucking cliché.”
Tracy doesn’t respond. Neither do I. Ms. Maso would not be pleased with our inability to be supportive of someone who just came out to us. Even if he did do it in a way that was carefully crafted to make us feel as stupid as possible.
Conrad misinterprets our silence. “I’m gay,” he says with exasperation.
“We know,” Tracy responds with ice in her voice.
“You mean someone in Union actually has gaydar? Shocking,” Conrad grumbles. “Although if anyone would have it, it would be the girl with back issues of GQ and Vogue in the trunk of her Prius. Everything about Union is so typical.” Conrad slouches down, jabbing his knees into the back of my seat. “So, Rose—that’s your name, right?—are you and Jamie together or is he just doing his usual dark-and-brooding, now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t thing where he shows up at your door every once in a while and does something sexy just to make sure you’re still dangling on the line, waiting for him?”
Tracy and I are both stunned into silence, for different reasons. I’m sure she’s not surprised by my inability to keep up with Conrad, but it’s pretty rare for Tracy to be without a good comeback. I’m also marveling at Conrad’s ability to go right for the sweet spot and stick a knife in it. It’s a gift. Must run in the family.
Suddenly, I’m angry. Sure, it’s true that Conrad was just humiliated in front of half of Union High, but that’s no reason for him to take it out on me, especially after I just dove, fully clothed, into a pool for him. Well, okay, I was pushed. But the whole reason I was close enough to get pushed was because I was going to dive in.
Snark doesn’t come naturally to me, but I just happen to have some deep inside. I take a breath and let it fly. “I have no clue what’s going on with Jamie because we haven’t talked since your batshit-crazy sister had him arrested for committing the apparently horrific felony of attempting to take someone like me to the prom.”
Tracy takes her eyes off the road to look at me. She stops just short of giving me a thumbs-up. I feel Conrad’s knees in my back again.
“So, Jamie didn’t call you once this whole summer? After standing you up for the prom?” He lets out that angry laugh again that sounds like it should come from someone a lot older. “Wow, that is cold. Well, he was busy chasing after ’Gina in summer school.” Conrad pauses, knowing full well that this is information I didn’t have. “Of course, she was busy throwing herself at that puck-head Anthony, just to drive Jamie crazy. And it worked. He totally wants her back. ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave.’ Is that Shakespeare? I think that’s Shakespeare.”
“Sir Walter Scott,” I correct, trying to sound unfazed although my brain is reeling.
So Jamie was avoiding me all summer and hanging out with Regina. That’s fantastic. Well, at least now I know why he doesn’t want anything to do with me. Apparently, the way to Jamie’s heart is to have him arrested. I’ll have to remember that.
But what about Anthony Parrina? If Regina just wanted Jamie back and now Jamie wants Regina back, what is Regina still doing with Anthony?
This is all so far over my head it’s not even funny.
“Where am I going?” Tracy asks Conrad impatiently.
“Take Hill to Barry and turn left. My house is halfway down the block. Next to the Fortas,” Conrad says pointedly.
All three of us fall silent, which is kind of a relief. We leave the fancy part of Union, where all the houses are huge with perfectly edged bright green lawns, and we drive into the next neighborhood, where the houses are smaller—some nice, some not so nice. We pass one with dark metal siding and an American flag hanging over the front door, with a “Support Our Troops” banner tacked up beneath the windows, practically glowing in the dark because of all the floodlights trained on it. If Conrad weren’t here, I’d ask Tracy to stop so I could take a picture for Vicky, who likes to post photos of troop-support banners from all over the country on her son’s memorial site.
Kathleen hates it when I say it, but Vicky is my friend. Her son, Sergeant Travis Ramos, was one of the people who died with my dad when the convoy they were traveling in blew up. I discovered Travis’s memorial site last fall, and it inspired me—eventually—to start designing the one for my dad. One night when I couldn’t sleep, I posted a comment on Travis’s site, explaining who I was and asking for advice about how to—and whether I should—launch my site. And that’s how I met Vicky.
She emailed back right away, full of reasons why a memorial site is a great way to honor someone. It was Vicky who suggested I launch the site on the first anniversary of the explosion, and Vicky who later contacted everyone on her mailing list to let them know that there was finally a site up for Alfonso Zarelli, which is how I ended up getting tons of posts on the anniversary. And how I learned that my dad had decided to stay in Iraq for a year, when he’d promised me that he was coming home after six months.
I kind of got a little obsessed with the posts for a few days, but Vicky and I emailed a lot, and she helped me. She understood what I was going through.
The day after the anniversary, my mother came to my room and flipped out about Vicky, claiming that I didn’t need to expend my “emotional resources” on a grown woman who was grieving. I knew right away my mother had been reading my emails, which wasn’t hard for her to do—she’d set up my account for me in middle school, and I’d never changed the password. I’d never thought I needed to.
She doubled our therapy sessions that day.
To be honest, I think my mother was jealous that I’d said more to Vicky about missing my dad than I’d said to her. That’s probably why I didn’t change my password right away after I found out she was reading my email. In a way, I sort of liked that she was jealous.
Sometimes it’s just easier to talk to people you don’t really know.
When we pull up in front of the Deladdos’ place, it takes exactly one second to figure out which house is Jamie’s. The house to the left of the Deladdos’ is perfectly maintained and lit up like the Fourth of July. I can see a TV on the wall and a dog bouncing up and down on the couch, barking and wriggling furiously as we idle on the street in front of his territory.
The house to the right of the Deladdos’ is small and rundown. The lawn is scraggly with bald spots where grass refuses to grow. Brown shutters droop on their hinges and white paint has peeled off the house and landed in half-dead shrubs, creating a dirty-snow effect. The gutters are bursting with dead leaves and branches that look like they’re sprouting from the house itself. There are no lights on and no one seems to be home.
This is where Jamie lives with his dad.
Jamie turned eighteen this summer. Technically, he doesn’t