For Keeps by Natasha Friend Page A

is what I’m asking myself on the ride home, which is dead silent, like a hearse full of guilt.
    But then I think, No.
    They did move back here. Big Nick did come into the store. These are the facts. And if my mother can’t handle it, that’s her problem. It’s not my job to tiptoe around her. She’s thirty-three years old. She’s an adult .
    My mom pulls into the driveway, and we both get out. We say nothing to each other on our way to the house, or after we get inside. We just walk upstairs to our separate bedrooms and shut our separate doors.
    I sit at my desk for a long time, trying to study. After a fruitless hour or so, my cell phone rings. My stomach jumps. I let it ring once, twice, part of a third time before I answer. “Hello?”
    “Josie?”
    “Yeah?” I say, like I can’t quite place the voice.
    “It’s, uh, Matt. . . . Rigby.”
    “Oh,” I say. “Hey.”
    “Hey. What are you doing?”
    “Nothing. Studying.”
    “Oh. Do you want to go?”
    “Definitely not ,” I say.
    And he laughs. It’s the best sound I’ve heard all day.
    “How was your game?” he asks.
    “We won. Three-two. You guys?”
    “Us too. One-zip.”
    “Nice.”
    “Yeah. It came down to penalty kicks. Pretty intense.”
    “I love those kind of games.”
    “Yeah. Me too.” There’s a pause. Then he says, “So . . .”
    “So . . .”
    “So, what else about your day?”
    “What else about my day ?”
    “Yeah. Tell me something about the great Josie Gardner.”
    “Like what?”
    “I don’t know. Something deep and revealing . . . like . . . what did you have for lunch?”
    I smile. “PB and J.”
    “A classic. White or wheat?”
    “Neither. English muffin.”
    “Real-ly.”
    “Yup.”
    “Interesting. OK. . . . Something that made you laugh.”
    “Liv’s outfit.”
    “Right. The top hat. Very nice. . . . Something that pissed you off.”
    “Seriously?”
    “Yeah.”
    I hesitate, then say, “My mother.”
    “Your mother,” he repeats.
    “Yeah. It’s . . . kind of a long story.”
    “Well,” he says. “I’ve got time.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Tell me. . . . I mean, if you want.”
    “I don’t know. . . .”
    “That’s cool. No pressure.”
    “OK,” I say.
    And then I spill.

Nine
    SOMETIMES, NOT OFTEN , a miracle occurs. Like every morning for the past week, Riggs has been waiting at my locker. How is this happening? I ask myself each time I see him. There must be some mistake—some glitch in the system. Maybe Cupid got drunk and shot the wrong two people with his arrow. One of these days he’ll show up in the cafeteria with his wings askew and brandy on his breath, saying, “Oops! Sorry about that,” and snap us out of it.
    So far that hasn’t happened. So far, things have been . . . well . . . very cool. We talk on the phone almost every night. Not just chat, but really talk. About real things, like my mother, who continues to act like someone I don’t know; and Jazzy Jonathan, who continues to bug me; and Matt’s parents’ divorce; and his psycho stepsister; and the fact that Paul Tucci’s father keeps showing up at Fiorello’s. Not that my mother would know. Because she hasn’t asked. Because ever since I told her about the Tuccis moving back, she has been completely mute on the subject. So I haven’t said a word. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
    “I have to meet him,” Liv announces one day after practice. “The famous Big Nick. It’s time.”
    “No, it’s not,” I say.
    “Yes, it is. When are you working tonight?”
    “Six to nine.”
    “You have wireless, right?”
    “Yeah, but—”
    “Good. I’ll bring my laptop.”
    “Please don’t come,” I say, even though I know it’s pointless. You can’t tell Liv not to do something, because she’ll just laugh and do it anyway. Take College Boy Finn and this booty-call arrangement they have going. A few days ago I raised my concerns—you know, as a friend—and what did Liv do? She laughed. She laughed and dismissed it with