Free Roomies by Sara Zarr, Tara Altebrando Page B

send it. But what else am I supposed to do? Forty days.
    Forty.
    I start to count forty seconds, real slow, with the Mississippis and all, out loud in my car. And though it seems nutty—like something only a crazy person would do—I force myself, even when I want to quit at nineteen and again at thirty-one, to count the whole way up to forty. Like that will somehow help. Like that will make the rest of this day—and the rest of summer—more bearable.
    Then I head to the beach. Alex is waiting. He’s waiting to end it, waiting for it to end. In that way, at least, he’s an awful lot like me.

FRIDAY, JULY 19
    SAN FRANCISCO
    Mom and Dad decide, kind of at the last minute, to go on a Friday-night date. Leaving me with all five of the kids.
    “Seriously?” I’m leaning in the bathroom doorway, watching Dad smooth his hair down while he checks himself out in the mirror. Marcus stands on the toilet, patting his own hair the same way. It’s somewhat adorable. Still. “I couldn’t get a little more warning?”
    “You’ve got plans?” Dad asks the mirror.
    No. But I could maybe make some. Get out of the house, get together with Zoe and tell her what happened with Keyon.
    “Honey.” He turns and gives me his full attention. “If you’ve got plans, you need to write them on the family calendar. We checked and didn’t see anything.”
    “Because I don’t have any.” Hugely surprising, I know.
    “Well, Mom found this coupon for Villa d’Este at the bottom of a pile of mail and it expires tomorrow so we thought we’d better jump on it.”
    I picture them laughing, having a glass of wine, speaking entire sentences without interruption. Zoe probably wouldn’t be free, anyway. “Bring me home some garlic bread. Mom can sneak it into her purse.”
    “Daddy, shave my face,” Marcus says. My dad does this thing where he puts shaving cream on Marcus’s face and then pretends to shave it off with the edge of his finger.
    “No time, kiddo. You’ll have to live with your five o’clock shadow.” Dad says to me, “Francis and P.J. are already asleep. All you need to do is get some food into the rest of them and get them off to bed.”
    “No baths?”
    He makes a fake-serious face, then suddenly picks up Marcus and turns him upside down, holding him by the ankles. Marcus screams with delight. “Lemme take a sniff,” Dad says, burying his nose in Marcus’s bare feet. “Stinky toes! This one definitely needs a bath.”
    “Gross, Dad.”
    After I turn to go back down the hall, I smile, Marcus’s giggles floating after me.

    Keyon calls during dinner, while Gertie and Marcus and Jack are eating their franks and beans in a relatively civilized fashion. When I see it’s his number, I consider dodging. We’ve gotten through the week all right so far, but neither of us has said more than two unnecessary words and I still feel awkward.
    On the other hand, it could be nice to talk to someone who presumably doesn’t have beans mashed onto his chin like my siblings. “Hey,” I answer, standing to take the call.
    “Lauren. Yeah, so, um.”
    Uh-oh.
    “What’s up?” Chipper!
    “Huh? Oh, right. My dad said I should call you.”
    His dad? Am I about to get fired or something?
    Of course the second I can’t give Jack my full attention, he starts singing the “beans, beans, good for your heart” song, causing me to rue the day I taught it to him. “Jack,” I say sharply. To Keyon, “Does he need me to… change my schedule?”
    Keyon pauses. “No. I mean he said I should call you. To talk.”
    Jack’s about to sing another stanza. I get to him in one lunge and put my hand over his mouth as what Key says sinks in. “You told your dad? About what happened at the party?” So fired. The last thing Joe probably wants in his place of business is me groping his son.
    “Yeah, I needed advice.”
    I’ll never be able to look Joe in the eye again. “And he said to call me.”
    Then Jack sticks his bean-goo-covered