The Van Pact

11: Stevie

I spent Saturday afternoon doing my homework. First chemistry, then anatomy, then calculus (I love chemistry, I like anatomy, I can tolerate calculus). When I was finishing the last of my derivatives, I heard our screen door slam shut.

"Stevie!" my dad called from the living room. "When were you planning on mowing the darn lawn?" Janey Mac, I thought, he's trying to quit smoking again. He only gets pissy like that when he tries to quit smoking. Don't get me wrong, he's miserable most of the time, but usually that misery is self-contained. If he starts complaining about the way I sweep the kitchen or the timetable for my chores, it's almost a hundred percent because he's craving his nicotine fix.

"Sorry!" I shouted. "We had our first football game last night and I had a lot of homework today!"

"You don't need to scream."

I looked up. My dad leaned against the doorframe of my bedroom, and tousled his straw-colored hair with his hands.

"Sorry," I lowered my voice. "I'll mow the lawn, let me finish these derivatives-"

"It's already sunset," my dad's tone softened. "You'll do it tomorrow, alright?" Evidently he hadn't come to my room to yell at me, because then he added this:

"Uh, I wanted to let ya know. I'm going out for dinner tonight."

"With Joe?" I picked up my pencil and returned to my calculus. "Could you save me the pickles from Chili's?" I love the pickles from Chili's. I could eat an entire jar of them. My dad sometimes brings his home for me, but only if he remembers. I make it a point to remind him.

"We're not going to Chili's," My dad mumbled.

I dropped my pencil. My dad's best friend Joe only ever eats at Chili's. He point-blank refuses to go anywhere else. He'd probably have Chili's cater his wedding, if his girlfriend would ever agree to marry him.

"How did you convince Joe to-"

"I'm not actually going with Joe."

"Oh, so you're going with Mr. DiPaolo?" Mr. DiPaolo is my dad's other best friend. They'll go to baseball games a lot, but they don't eat out together all that often because Dr. DiPaolo likes to have "family dinners."

"Not Vinnie, either," My dad said, and his shoulders fell in the way a dam might collapse when overrun with water. "I, uh, got a date."

A date? I'm pretty sure my dad hadn't as much as looked at a woman since my mom left him for Dave, five years ago. What's worse is that Dave was my dad's douchebag boss. My mom didn't come out with the affair until after Dave got head-hunted to be the manager of the Connecticut branch of the software company my dad still works quality control for. Of course, she wanted to live with Dave. Connecticut is a long distance from Pennsylvania, so for my adolescent sake, my parents let me choose where I wanted to live. Mom tried to win me over with pictures of my potential new neighborhood. A straight-from-the-farm creamery and soda fountain in biking distance of brick-faced, two story houses with four car garages and stainless-steel-everything kitchens, nicer than even the DiPaolo's- and Dr. DiPaolo is a doctor. Roads paved freshly by the county every year- no potholes, no cracks, no sidewalks split by unearthed tree roots or ruptured pipe lines. A small, 'everybody-knows-everybody' school district, equipped with smart boards and boosted by stellar standardized test scores. Impossibly-attractive, genetically-superior students who smiled with straight, whitening-strips commercial teeth in every promotional photo. And all of that less than thirty minutes away from the white sand beach.