“I don’t need to check with dad,” she said, surprising me.
That was very unlike her… but then this call was very unlike me. Maybe we had both gotten so ingrained in the roles we thought we had been forced into that we forgot that we had the power to break them.
“Will you come?” mom asked.
I nodded silently, and then realized she needed verbal acknowledgment. “I… yes,” I nodded. “Of course I’ll come.”
“Excellent.”
“Mom?”
“Yes?” I wondered if it was my imagination or not but her tone seemed softer somehow.
“Do you mind if I bring a friend with me?” I asked.
“Do you mean Zach?” mom asked. She knew that he was my buffer… he had always been my buffer where dad was concerned. He took the focus off me so that dad didn’t have to try too hard to be nice to me.
“Actually no,” I said. “This is someone different. Actually… she’s more than just my friend. She’s my girlfriend.”
“Is that right?” mom asked.
“Her name is Zoey,” I said.
“Zoey,” mom repeated her name. “What does she do?”
It was the first question my parents asked about anyone. That was how they sized someone up. What a person did said a lot about who they were. I suppose that was always why they hated the fact that their son became an unemployed artist trying to push his paintings like some common street peddler.
“She’s graduating from Columbia University in a few weeks with a degree in music theory.”
&nb
sp; “Well,” mom said, and that one word told me she was impressed. “Columbia is a fantastic university.”
“It is.”
“What instrument does she play?”
“Mostly piano,” I replied. “But’s she’s very good with the guitar and the violin too.”
“That’s wonderful,” mom said. “We have a grand piano in the main living room. She can play for us on Saturday.”
“I’m sure she’d love to,” I nodded.
“Well then… we’ll see you and Zoey then.”
“Ok,” I replied. “Bye, mom.”
“Bye, Devlin.”
I hung up and let out a deep breath. I had done it. I had called my mother and made the first step. And again… I felt better because of it. Zoey had been right… as she was about so many things. If I wanted something to change then I had to make the necessary steps to change it.
I drained my pasta, and I was tossing some olive oil through it when I realized that introducing Zoey to my parents on Saturday meant telling her the truth sooner. I was pretty sure that neither mom or dad would bring up my community service in front of their haughty friends; they would want to hide that at any cost. But I also didn’t want to take the risk of anything slipping and having Zoey find out in the middle of a party with my parents around.
I would need to tell her… immediately. Today was Thursday, which meant I had very little time left. I thought about the last bit of pot in my closet, and I closed my eyes.
“Fuck,” I groaned out loud to my empty apartment.
I had wanted to be able to tell her that I was done dealing. How could I do that with pot still in my closet? Maybe I could unload it before I told her, but that put me on a strict deadline since the party was on Saturday.