Candy Everybody Wants. Josh Kilmer-Purcell

caught on that Tara was mocking him, he ceased ‘counseling’ her. This, surprisingly, seemed to disappoint Tara. ‘He was entertaining,’ she told Jayson, ‘in a creepy, jacking-off-in-his-car-by-the-playground way.’

      Neither Jayson nor Tara saw much of Trey. His after-school athletics meant that he didn’t take the bus home with them anymore. On the rare occasion he was home before supper, he would leave quickly afterwards, driven off by junior and senior level friends into nights filled with what Jayson and Tara imagined were sepia-toned high school memories in the making.

      Jayson was grateful that Trey was more or less absent from his life. He wasn’t sure what they would say to each other now that Trey had exposed him.

      The night of the Oconomowoc High School Homecoming Dance, Jayson and Tara were sitting in their usual spot in front of the television in Jayson’s room, watching an hour-long special episode of One Day at a Time. Jayson had long ago given up wishing he had a perfect mother like Florence Henderson or Shirley Jones. Now he’d be more happy with a sassy single mom like Bonnie Franklin. He’d even live in the ghetto with the stalwart Esther Rolle. He wasn’t sure what the ghetto was, but it seemed very homey in a hardscrabble way.

      Franck’s head appeared in Jayson’s doorway just as Ann Romano had an overly dramatic breakdown over her oldest daughter’s new druggie boyfriend. ‘Dammit, Julie!’ It was the first swear word heard spoken on television