Confessions of an Almost-Girlfriend. Louise Rozett

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      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 have to live here anymore. And considering what his father did to him when he got arrested, it’s hard to believe that he’d want to. But I’d be willing to bet that Jamie won’t leave his dad alone unless he has to.

      Jamie can be loyal to a fault.

      I wonder what Jamie’s mother would say about his father leaving him in jail overnight.

      I saw Jamie’s father from a distance last Thanksgiving at a restaurant, and he seemed way more interested in the football game that was on than in talking to Jamie. I don’t know a lot about him—I know that he’s a cop, and that he went a little crazy for a while and Jamie actually had to live with the Deladdoses for a few months, which I try not to think about because it drives me crazy.

      But I know even less about Jamie’s mother. Only that she didn’t live with Jamie and his dad because she was in some kind of institution near Boston. I also know that it was soon after she died that Jamie got kicked off the hockey team.

      Which is when he became one of my mom’s patients.

      Yes, I am the very lucky daughter of an adolescent psychologist who is in therapy herself. No wonder I avoid conversation with her at all costs.

      It drives me nuts that my mother knows more about Jamie than I do. Although, at this point, that would be true of anyone who actually had a conversation with Jamie this summer—the cashier at the grocery store, the guys he worked with on the road crew, his probation officer.

      Regina.

      “What do you want me to do with this blanket?” Conrad asks, unbuckling his seat belt. Before Tracy can answer, the Deladdos’ front door opens. A woman looks out at us, her hand hovering over the screen-door handle as if she’s unsure what to do. She shields her eyes against the glare of the light above her front steps in order to see us better.

      “Shit,” Conrad mutters. He runs his hands through his hair and looks down at his ruined pants and his red shirt, which now looks vaguely tie-dyed.

      “Just leave it there,” Tracy answers.

      Without another word, Conrad gets out of the car, slams the door too hard and starts up his front walk. As I watch him, he seems to physically transform, like he’s trying to become invisible. He ducks his head and looks at the ground, pulling his shirt down as far over his pants as he possibly can СКАЧАТЬ