Chapter 15 #2
“It’s not going to be about anything if you don’t stop distracting me.
” His fingers tap against his leg as he seems to reconsider his brusqueness.
“Sorry, it’s just that I don’t really like telling anyone except my agent what I’m working on until it’s finished.
I’m... superstitious like that, I guess. ”
I have to admit I’m strangely pleased by this further evidence of how different Hollis is from Josh.
If you asked Josh what his book was about when he started writing it, he said stuff like, It’s a modern take on Dostoyevsky, exploring the nature of suffering and attraction in a post-industrial society.
Which it turns out is pretentious literary bro for: It’s about an accountant whose melancholia is eclipsed only by his desire to bang the barista at the coffee shop near his office, and it takes place in 2009 for some reason.
“Interesting,” I say slowly, peeling off the wrapping of a Reese’s Cup and shoving it whole into my mouth. “And don’t pretend you don’t like it when I’m distracting.” The words come out as an unintelligible string of vowels—aa oo e e oo o ii ii ee i iaoi.
“Just drive, Millicent.”
We’re several miles farther south and two candy bars, one bag of chips, and a small box of mini donuts down when my phone vibrates in my backpack.
It continues on at a steady beat that announces a phone call.
And then another, and another. My first instinct, even after two months, is that it must be Mrs. Nash calling from the old rotary phone in her living room.
My stomach dips at the thought that I’m too far away to help her if something’s wrong, then bottoms out when I remember that both she and the rotary phone are gone now.
But someone sure is eager to get in touch. “Check that for me?”
Hollis reaches down to the bag beside his foot and finds my phone in the front pocket as it begins to ring again. “Your dad,” he says. “Want me to answer for you?”
“Oh god, no. Do you know how freaked out he’ll be if a strange man picks up my phone? Put it on speaker.”
Hollis complies, and my dad’s voice is already shouting, “Hello? Hello?” before I can say a word.
“Hi, Dad,” I say. “Is everything okay?”
My father’s thick Long Island accent that somehow never faded despite thirty years of not living there now fills the car. “Is everything okay? You tell me, Millie. What on earth is going on?”
“Not much. Just driving.”
“Your mother has been sick with worry.”
“Oh, don’t blame Millie just because I’ve been practically bedridden wondering if she’s all right,” my mother says.
Bubbe—my paternal grandmother—could’ve guilted a fish into walking on dry land, and I’ve always found it fascinating that she somehow managed to pass some of her talent on to her daughter-in-law.
“There’s really nothing to worry about. I’m fine. Like I said in my text.”
“Nothing to worry about?” Dad says halfway between question and exclamation. “We don’t hear from you for days and then see you sucking face with a stranger, wearing broccoli in your hair in the middle of nowhere. And then you ignore our multiple inquiries—”
I don’t understand why my father starts sounding like a bill collector whenever he’s concerned. “Again, like I said in my text, I didn’t have my phone on me.” To be precise, I didn’t have my phone at all. But they don’t need to know that.
“You didn’t tell anyone where you were going, who you were with—”
“I told Dani.”
“You could’ve been dead in a ditch for all anyone knew, Millie.”
“I wasn’t, though,” I point out. “You can tell by the fact that you are currently having a conversation with me.”
“But you could’ve been ,” I hear Mom say from farther away. Based on the loud whirring noise in the background, she must be using the blender.
“Well, I’m definitely not now,” I say. “I’m just on vacation.”
“A vacation?” Dad sounds incredulous. “A vacation is lounging on a beach, Millie. Exploring a national park. Not taking part in some produce parade and doing the PDA with a stranger.”
“Doing the PDA?” Hollis mumbles. “Now I see where you get your way with words.”
“Who was that?” Dad asks. He’s a bill collector with the hearing of a bat, apparently. “Who’s that with you?”
“That’s Hollis,” I say. “He’s the guy in the video. And he’s not a stranger. We’re friends.”
“Oh, friends, huh?” Dad says. “Maybe I’m too old-fashioned, but in my day a man didn’t kiss a woman like that if he thought of her as just a friend.”
“Welp, that’s what we are. So.” I bite my lip, knowing my face must be beet-like at this point.
Part of me wishes Hollis would jump in and save me somehow, but I also know if he did I’d be annoyed that he thought I couldn’t handle my own parents.
Besides, what could he even say to get them off my back?
Something like “You’re right, sir. I was balls deep inside Millicent this morning, so ‘just friends’ may not be the most accurate representation of our current relationship?
” That would go over well. Besides, based on what I know about Hollis, having sex with someone and being just friends with that someone aren’t mutually exclusive in his view.
“Are we on speakerphone?” Dad asks, startling me out of my thoughts.
“You are,” I confirm.
“Good. Hollis, tell us: Why should we trust you with our daughter?”
“Oh my god.” I groan. If I weren’t driving, I would cover my face with my hands. This is worse than when my father gave my prom date a brochure on proper condom usage. Like then, I know he means well, but...
Hollis clears his throat and sits up straighter. “You don’t have to—” I begin, but he lays his hand on my thigh and says, “You should trust me with Millicent because she’s decided she trusts me. That should be enough.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” my father concedes. “And Millie is a wonderful girl, don’t get me wrong. But she’s too kind-hearted, easily manipulated—”
“She’s an adult who can make her own decisions,” Hollis says. “She knows what she’s doing.”
“Ha.” Somehow all of Dad’s intense disagreement with Hollis’s claim manages to fit inside that tiny word.
It feels like someone tugging down on my heart, testing to see how much it can stretch before it tears.
“If she knew what she was doing,” he continues, “she wouldn’t have wasted three years on that schmuck Josh. ”
Hollis’s fingers curl into a fist against his leg, and I have a sneaking suspicion he’s about to say something really rude to my father.
I know I need to end this conversation right now before it gets even more out of hand.
So why am I instead on the metaphorical edge of my seat waiting to hear my new friend with benefits defend me?
But before Hollis can give Dad the dressing down he probably deserves, blue and red lights appear in my rearview mirror.
“Sorry, gotta go,” I say, throwing on the turn signal.
“Oh shit,” Hollis says, seeing the police cruiser behind us at the same time its sirens let out a woop woop . He gives my thigh a squeeze. “They’ve found us. Floor it, Millicent.”
I whack Hollis on the arm with the back of my hand. He smiles at the rising panic in my mother’s voice as she asks what’s going on, and I can barely contain the bark of laughter building in my chest.
Hollis holds the phone closer to his mouth to ensure my parents hear him. “Faster, honey, faster. I can’t go back to prison.”
“Millie!” my parents shriek in unison.
“Talk to you later, loveyoubye!” I say in a hurry as I pull over. And I’m pretty sure the last thing my parents hear as Hollis ends the call is me cackling like a cheap, animatronic witch decoration.