@Robertopancake: A Story About a Boy

Chapter Four

I roll over and feel around for my buzzing phone. It's somewhere on the floor and I can't quite reach it without taking my head out from under the pillow. This irritates the shit out of me. Even with my fuzzy morning eyes, I can see the room is pretty hammered: clothes hang over every upright object, and several crushed or half-full cans of orange soda are lined up on the desk like I'm about to take target practice from my twin bed.

My eyes focus on the phone. Almost noon. And there's a text from Deenie.

Deenie: Do you miss me yet?

Me: Of course. It's been ages since we've seen each other.

Deenie: What are you doing?

Me: I'm in bed.

Deenie: Quit jerking off while you think about me.

Me: You wish.

I turn red, even though she can't see me. Put the pillow back over my head. Try to stop thinking about jerking off.

Deenie: Wanna meet me today?

This also makes me feel a little randy in the nether regions.

Me: Where?

Deenie: Skate park.

Figures. The woman I'm in love with is basically asking me to be her fucking wingman.

Me: Ummm...I hate to break it to you, but it is seriously uncool for a non-skater guy to hang out there.

Deenie: But you'll be with me.

Me: I'll look like your gay friend. What if Skylar chooses me over you? Then what?

Deenie: Shut up. If you don't want to go, I can just text him and see if he wants to meet me somewhere else.

So I can basically suck it up and go play chaperone, or I can sit home and imagine Skylar feeling my woman up in a movie theater. I've been given a plethora of enticing choices here.

Me: What time?

Deenie: 2?

Me: Fine. Meet you at your house.

I stumble into the hallway. I can feel my hair standing on end and I am in a pair of gym shorts and no shirt, tripping my way toward the shower in a half-vegetative state. The smell of tobacco burns my nostrils. My mom is in the laundry room, smoking a cigarette with her back to me. She's facing the little window with no screen that opens up over the side yard, one hand on her hip, one hand on the sill with her cigarette dangling out over the edge.

"What's up with the cancer stick?"

"Rob!" Her face is a mask of parental guilt. I sense her formulating a "do as I say, not as I do" lecture. "I'm just...I was, uh..."

"Smoking?"

"Well, I don't do it very often," she says defensively. "You know Pat hates it." She looks back and forth between me and the cigarette and I can see she wants to take a drag on it badly. It's one of those odd juxtapositions: she's a workout fiend who loves yoga and salad, but she puffs like a chimney when she thinks no one is looking.

"Hey, he won't hear about it from me." I shrug. As if I really had no idea that my mom was sneaking smokes. Why is it that parents generally underestimate the mental capacity of their own children? Do they really think we're that dumb? That we won't find their cigarette stash inside an empty box of fabric softener sheets on the shelf in the laundry room, and then secretly smoke them ourselves inside the half-constructed homes on the other side of the neighborhood?