Free I.D. by Vicki Grant Page B

didn’t like me holding up the line.
    I didn’t want to have to ask one of my buddies for some cash.
    Then I remembered.
    â€œSorry,” I said. “I forgot I put my money in my back pocket.”
    I took out the black wallet and handed Joe a ten. “Keep the change,” I said.

Chapter Three
    Alexa gave me her phone number. She didn’t want to at first. She said her parents didn’t like her giving out personal information to boys they didn’t know.
    â€œIt’s just in case I have a homework question,” I said. I winked. She smiled and went all blotchy again.
    â€œYou wouldn’t want me to get in trouble with The Dork again, would you?” I said. She sort of laughed at that. She tore alittle piece out of her notebook and wrote the number down. I put it in the wallet. Something feels so great about slipping a girl’s number in between a couple of twenties. It made me feel like I was the type of guy who’d have a car parked out front.
    I hung around talking to Alexa until she had to go study. I missed my bus. It took me forty-five minutes to walk home. It was pouring by the time I got there. I was soaked.
    You’d think I’d get some sympathy.
    Right.
    My mother went ballistic. I didn’t even have a chance to get my jacket off and she was screaming at me.
    â€œWhere were you?” She slapped a pot down on the stove and spaghetti sauce splashed all over her store uniform. My sister took off upstairs.
    Mom was screeching at me. “I told you! I told you fifty times you had a job interview today! My boss didn’t want to stay late today, but he did. He’s a busy man, but he stayed late because I put myjob on the line and I begged him to. Why? Because I didn’t want you to have to miss any more classes. I begged my boss to stay late in order to make things easier for
you
. Not me.
You
.
    â€œThen you don’t even show up! You don’t even bother calling! How could you possibly miss your interview? How could you humiliate me like that? What’s the matter with you? Are you lazy? Are you mean? Or are you just stupid?”
    She stared at me as if she actually expected me to answer. I turned away so she couldn’t read my lips and hung my jacket on the bannister.
    â€œAnd don’t leave your clothes all over the place!”
    She ran over and threw the jacket on the floor.
    I couldn’t even pick it up. She was about six inches away and yapping at me like some little bulldog.
    â€œI am so sick of you and your mess and your screw-you attitude! It’s time you grew up. It’s time you started paying your ownway, contributing to this family. And I know the perfect place for you to start. I just got a letter from the school asking for twenty dollars for graduation fees and saying you still owe thirty-two bucks for that history textbook you lost last year. Well, we’re not paying for them. You are!”
    That’s when Ron walked in the door from work. “Paying for what?” he said.
    Mom clearly didn’t expect him home that soon. She handed me my jacket and said, “Oh, nothing,” like we were just having a friendly little chat. Ron wasn’t going to take that for an answer. He slammed his lunch box on the kitchen table.
    She told him.
    I knew it was going to be bad. He didn’t say anything for a while. He just stared at me and took these long slow breaths.
    â€œSorry,” I said. “I forgot.”
    He went nuts at that.
    â€œForgot?
Forgot
!” According to him, I’d forgotten everything they’d ever taught me. Manners. Common sense. Discipline. Respect for authority. Ambition. He went on and on.
    All I could think was, “Yeah. Some fat-assed truck driver talking to me about ambition.”
    I couldn’t take that kind of two-faced crap anymore. I picked up my jacket and started to walk out.
    Ron pushed my mother aside and started coming after me. “You’re