Chapter 7
Cooper
When I finished work, Mom wasn’t home. She’d told me she might not be, but I hadn’t believed her.
She’d left the school with Mr. Seibold around two o’clock.
It was seven thirty. Getting something to eat didn’t take that long, and there was no way they were discussing Madeline’s and my punishment for over five hours. What were they doing?
Claire had made mac and cheese with hot dogs for dinner and was working on her homework at the kitchen table.
“Have you heard from Mom?” I asked as I put the car keys away.
“Yeah, she’s still out with Mr. Seibold. She seemed pretty happy about it, so I guess your detention wasn’t all bad.”
Happy? This was not good news. Men like Mr. Seibold impressed and manipulated women with their money, and Mom might be more than a little susceptible to a wealthy man. Money was what she and my father always fought about.
I got a fork, sat down at the table, and started in on the mac and cheese. “She shouldn’t be anywhere with him. It’s too soon after the divorce for her to date.” That’s what she’d always said before when men asked her out.
“It’s been nine months,” Claire pointed out. Six months separated and three divorced. She said this like I might have forgotten how long it had been since Dad packed his stuff and left. I hadn’t forgotten. I’d been the one to drive him to the airport.
“Right,” I said, “they could still work things out.”
Claire fixed me with a pitying look. “They’re not going to work things out. That’s the whole point of getting divorced.”
Claire hadn’t been there when I’d dropped Dad off at the airport. He sat in the car, talking with me for so long that I thought he’d miss his flight. I’d hoped he would miss it.
He said he hated not being able to see the rest of my football games.
He told me to take care of Claire and my mother.
Then he got emotional. “This is her choice, not mine,” he said.
“She complained about me not having a job, and now she’s complaining that I have one.
I keep trying to get ahead, and maybe this time .
. .” He looked out the window and sighed as though even he’d stopped believing that this new career would work out.
Dad had never made much money. When my parents were first married, he joined the military and after he got out of that, he worked as a long-haul truck driver.
The company kept promising they’d move him up to management, but after years of being passed over, he got tired of being strung along and quit. He just walked out one day.
My parents had a big fight about that. He was unemployed for several months, and as the bills piled up, so did my parents’ arguments. That was when my dad decided to take a job on an oil rig in Alaska, and my mom filed for a divorce.
“I don’t blame her for being upset about my jobs,” Dad had said. “My luck has always been lousy. But I do blame her for not sticking with me when I’m trying my best.”
He seemed to crumple then. He put his hands to his face and his shoulders shook with tears.
I’d never seen him cry in my life and had no idea how to comfort him, no idea what to say.
I hugged him and babbled a lot of things I don’t remember.
The last thing I said, though, I remember that.
“You can convince her to change her mind.”
“I don’t know about that anymore.” He pulled away from me, scrubbed a hand over his face, and steered away from that topic. “You won’t have a problem with money,” he told me. “You’ll have more than enough in the NFL.”
That future might or might not happen, but I knew one thing for certain: whatever money I made would be too late to fix what I wanted it to—my parents’ problems.
Claire was still staring at me like I was delusional for hoping our parents could mend things.
“Mom shouldn’t date Mr. Seibold,” I said. “He’s rich and smarmy.”
“What’s wrong with rich men?” Claire asked. “I’d put up with a lot of smarminess for a convertible and the clothes Madeline wears.”
Well, probably not the clothes she wore today. “Don’t even think like that. I have two words for you: Madeline, stepsister.”
Claire tapped her pencil against her lips. “Is that three words? Is stepsister one word or two?”
I stabbed some macaroni with my fork. “Stepsister wasn’t the important word in that sentence. Madeline was.”
“Madeline isn’t so bad.”
I glared at Claire. I’d been doing battle with the drama queen for almost a year on Claire’s behalf, and now after I’d been hauled into the principal’s office, she’d decided that Madeline wasn’t so bad?
“Yes, she is. She’s spoiled and prim, and no one will ever get the lead in a play as long as she’s around—and she’s fine with that. ”
“You think she’s prim?” Claire asked, missing the important part of my last sentence too. “Man, this school has affected you if the word ‘prim’ is in your vocabulary now.”
Yeah, probably. The English teachers at Silver Creek were on a mission to teach us college-level vocab.
“Prim fits her. She’s just so obviously rich and pretty, the type who doesn’t think anyone is good enough for her.
” I stabbed more macaroni. “She only dates guys who are headed to Ivy League schools.” A group I would never belong to.
Claire studied me. “All those pranks you played on her . . . is that because you secretly like her?”
“Did you listen to anything I just said?”
“It’s okay if you do,” Claire said. “She has her good points.”
Well, that was loyalty for you. Claire was probably hoping for a fun big sister and a rich stepfather. “Not enough good points to tempt me.”
When I finished eating, I did my homework. Every so often, my eyes strayed to the clock. At eight thirty, when Mom still hadn’t returned, I checked her phone’s location. It was in some residential area, unmoving. She’d said she’d gone out to eat. What was her phone doing there?
After a lot of finger-tapping on the table, I checked my contacts for Madeline’s phone number. I’d gotten it from Claire’s phone a while back. The cast of plays always sent out group texts, and I figured Madeline’s number might come in handy for a prank someday.
I hadn’t ever thought I’d use it to check on my mother. I went into my bedroom, slumped on my bed, and called Madeline.
She answered after a couple of rings. “Hello?”
“This is Cooper. Hey, do you know where our parents are?”
“Oh yes,” she said in a tight, unhappy voice. “They’re at my house, outside by the fire pit.”
Not good news. “What are they doing there?”
“As far as I can tell, they’re swapping embarrassing stories about their children. I’ve heard several about you already.”
Whoa, whoa, whoa. No. “What?”
“We need to make a verbal contract.” She slipped into her lawyer tone. “I will never repeat any of the stories about you if you swear never to repeat any of the ones about me.”
“What stories did my mother tell you?”
“Do we have an agreement?” Madeline pressed.
I didn’t answer. She might be bluffing. Her father might only be telling stories about her.
She clicked her tongue. “One of yours involves getting locked out of your house in a pair of Spider-Man boxers.”
Nope, not bluffing. “Fine. We have an agreement. And I only wore those to sleep in because they were comfortable.”
“Right, Spidey. So there’s good news and bad news. The good news is our parents don’t seem to be upset with us anymore. When they first showed up, instead of giving me a stern lecture, my dad just asked how the painting went. Since then, he’s ignored me. They’re busy cooking s’mores.”
She didn’t add anything else.
“What’s the bad news?” I asked.
“The good news is also the bad news,” she said as though it were obvious. “They’re happily cooking s’mores together. You don’t just invite casual acquaintances to cook s’mores in your backyard.”
“Oh. I wasn’t aware that s’mores were the food of commitment.”
Madeline lowered her voice. “You need to have a talk with your mom. They’ve already made dinner plans on Wednesday, and she told my father he should take me to the football game on Friday. He said he thought that would be fun. Football, Cooper.”
“Yeah, I know what football is.”
“The point is she’s making a play for my dad. She needs to be stopped.”
“Her? Your dad is the one who invited her back to his place for commitment food. Why don’t you tell him to stop?”
I heard her low, frustrated breath. “You’re not taking this seriously. After the game, our parents think we should all go out for ice cream. Is that what you want—our families doing group activities? You’ll have to explain to your popular friends why you’re suddenly hanging out with me.”
“If our parents are dating, my friends will know why we’re hanging out.
” That wasn’t what concerned me. If Mom already had two dates planned with Mr. Seibold, she was more than just a little interested in him, and my father’s chances of mending things were taking a sharp dive.
The last thing I wanted was to be forced to watch Mr. Seibold make eyes at my mother Friday night.
I rubbed my forehead. “So talk to your dad and tell him my mother is off limits.”
“That might work if you give me incriminating information about her. Does she have any bad habits that will drive him crazy? Has she ever been convicted of a crime?”
“No.” Besides, I wasn’t about to give Madeline dirt on my mother. “My mom is great.”
“Well, that’s not really helpful.” She coughed in irritation. “I can’t believe this. How many times am I going to be stuck watching you play football?”
“I think the word you mean to use is lucky. You’re lucky to get to watch me.”
Claire popped her head into my room. “Are you talking to Mom?”
“No,” I mouthed. “Madeline.”
“Oh?” Claire’s eyebrows lifted in knowing suspicion. “You’re just sitting alone in your bedroom talking to Madeline? Why?”
I held my phone away from my mouth. “It’s adult stuff. You wouldn’t understand.”