Free Nature of Jade by Deb Caletti

friend and special protector, I come to you with full confidence in my present necessity. In your overflowing generosity you hear all those umo turn to you. Your influence before the throne of God is so effective that the Lord readily grants Jauors at your request, in spite of my unworthiness.
    Or, for the Spanish among you, Santo Glorioso Anthony, mi amigo y protector especial, Vengo a usted con confianza completa en mi actual necesidad. En su generosidad . . . You get the idea.
    The grammar isn't always the best, but who cares. It's like Cliffs Notes for praying. You light one up, and if anyone is listening and in need of a lot of flattery, voila.
    It's tricky to choose, because I don't really have any candles for Intrusive Mothers Who Can't Live Their Own Lives. So I pick Saint Philomena, Patron Saint of Lost and Desperate 65
    Causes. Anyway, her picture is one of my favorites. She seems like a really nice person.
    I move a few other saints over on my dresser (saints wouldn't mind) and put Philomena front and center and light her up. Hopefully, the match won't set off the fire alarm, causing Mom to come running in with her hair just done from the hairdresser's, and her nails all long and glossy. That, I do not want.
    I wave my hand around to dissipate the small poof of smoke. And then I have this realization, and that is, I just don't want to be here at all as Mom is getting ready to go. I know she has to leave early to help set up, but I still have a good hour and a half or more where she is bound to come out and want me to take her picture and admire her and be excited for the fun she's going to have at my senior-year homecoming. I know I should be a bigger person about this, but that knowing and what I feel are in enemy camps. Maybe I'm just an awful person, but I'm not in the mood to be one of the mice that helps Cinderella before the ball. Abe says I have to stop trying to please everyone, so fine.
    I watch Philomena burn for a while as I figure out what I want to do. I know there's a little piece of me already working on the possibility of going back to the zoo in the hope that the red-jacket guy just missed one day and isn't really gone after all. It isn't like stalking or something if I go back again, is it? My brain starts negotiations. If I go, I can't torture myself with humiliation and embarrassment if he isn't there. If I go, I can't get all invested in the idea of seeing him. Besides, I do want to go to the zoo, just because I admire and appreciate the zoo.
    Something about this still seems obsessed-fan like, so I cut
    66
    and-paste the plan. I won't exactly go to the zoo again, I decide. I'll just take Milo for a walk.
    Past the zoo entrance. Past the zoo entrance he'd have to go through, right around the time he'd have to go through it. I check the clock. I'll have to hurry if there's going to be a coincidence.
    Milo is so thrilled when he sees his leash that he leaps around and starts barking, tripping over himself with excitement. It makes me feel a little guilty because, honestly, he's just being used.
    His little black lips are smiling. His pudgy rear end is waddling back and forth, back and forth with joy.
    I clip Milo to his leash and escape out the door. I don't even check to see how I look before I leave, so I'm really not even expecting to cross paths with the boy in the red jacket, and that way I'll hardly be disappointed when we don't. I've discovered this about things you look forward to or dread. Fate likes the surprising detour, the trick ending. When you're really excited and looking forward to something is when it turns out ho-hum or completely and devastatingly horrible. And when you think you are about to have the worst day of your life, things generally turn out okay. So I play this trick, and when I'm excited about something, I tell myself it's going to be lousy, and I think of all that might go wrong. Which is what I didn't do last time when I was going to meet the boy in the red jacket.