Free Me You Us by Aaron Karo Page B

complete my one and only duty, setting the circular kitchen table with plates, place mats, and utensils. We don’t stand on ceremony after that: We all go to town and start making our own tacos.
    â€œDad, you think maybe you could put your shirt back on now?” I ask.
    â€œWhy? This is natural.”
    â€œYeah, but one of your chest hairs is in the onions.”
    â€œPeter,” Mom says.
    Dad, on cue, reluctantly puts his shirt on.
    â€œShane, I’ve barely seen you the past few days,” Mom says. “I need to hear some updates, please.”
    The last time I talked to my parents about girls in any real way was in the rubble of my breakup with Voldemort. Theytried their best to console me. To be fair, Mom never really liked Voldemort. She caught one glimpse of the bar code tattoo on the back of her neck and decided she was no good for me. To be fair again , Voldemort usually kept it covered up pretty well, and I thought it was really hot. I guess the moral of the story is this: Listen to your mother, not a sixteen-year-old girl you met at a high school football game who has a tattoo she got illegally when she was underage.
    I shrug and try to avoid my mom’s request for news, but I know I won’t be able to stall for long.
    â€œI have an update,” Dad chimes in. “I spent a hundred and twenty dollars on lottery tickets yesterday.”
    â€œNo you didn’t,” Mom says.
    â€œI did.”
    Mom doesn’t look my dad in the eye, which is her way of telling him she’s peeved. Dad’s occasional reckless spending on lotto tickets and renovating the house is a sticky issue. I’m pretty sure my mom outearns my dad, which might chafe my dad, who fancies himself old school.
    â€œWhat?” Dad says, in response to Mom’s silent treatment. “It was Powerball. Three-hundred-million-dollar jackpot!”
    â€œWell, did we win?” Mom asks.
    â€œYes, Kathryn, we won three hundred million dollars and I didn’t tell you. I’d be halfway to Belize by now with my second family.”
    I laugh at this but Mom doesn’t.She’ll come around.
    My parents met at a “cocktail party” in New York City in the early nineties. “Cocktail party” in quotation marks because I’m pretty sure it was a rave. One day I plan on getting the real story out of them.
    â€œWhat about you, Shane?” Mom asks. “Anything to report?”
    â€œYeah,” Dad adds. “Any gals at school we should know about?”
    My dad, in his infinite wisdom, occasionally refers to women as “gals.” I don’t know if it’s an old-school throwback or just something to tease my mom with, but it’s become a running joke in the family. Which was why, when I needed a snappy name for a formula about girls, I knew right away what to call it: the Gal gorithm.
    My parents, of course, have no idea that I moonlight as a dating coach. Keeping that secret requires a delicate balance of meeting my clients when my parents aren’t around and taking advantage of their lenient curfew when I have to, say, run to the freakin’ beach on a weeknight. But even outside of my consulting duties, when there’s a gal, er, girl, I’m interested in—Tristen, presently—I no longer tell my parents about her. I’m too afraid that if I tell them about a girl I like, the next conversation we have will be me explaining to them that we broke up. It was hard enough with Voldemort—­especially since she never gave me a reason—and I never want to go through that ordeal again.
    â€œSo?” Dad repeats. “Any gals? Anything?”
    â€œUh . . . ,” I begin to stammer.
    â€œOh no!” Mom exclaims suddenly. “I forgot Yvonne’s birthday yesterday!”
    â€œNo. That’s your best friend,” Dad says.
    â€œYes. I know. Oh my God, I have to call her right now. February twentieth!”
    I feel