Kids These Days by Drew Perry Page A

lighter. “Come on, Liv,” Mid said. “At least don’t smoke in the goddamn car.”
    Delton took a long drag, then knocked on the glass with one knuckle. “These windows back here don’t open or something,” she said.
    Mid reached his hand back. She gave him the cigarette like it was a wad of gum. He rolled his window down, dropped it out, and almost immediately a pickup flashing green lights pulled up behind us, blocked us in. Security. Mid looked in the rearview. “Give me a fucking break,” he said. Delton giggled. I wondered if maybe she’d been smoking more than cigarettes. A kid got out of the pickup, walked to Mid’s window. He said, “Excuse me, sir?”
    Mid said, “Yes?”
    â€œI was just wanting to ask if this was your cigarette.”
    Mid leaned out the window and looked at the ground. “It is not,” he said.
    â€œI believe I just saw you drop it out of your window.”
    â€œYes,” Mid said, and that seemed to confuse things. The kid stood. We sat. It was a standoff. Then he noticed Delton.
    â€œOlivia?” he said.
    â€œHi, Ellis.”
    He looked back at Mid and me, frowning. “Is everything alright?”
    â€œThis is my dad,” she said. “And my Uncle Walter.”
    â€œOh,” he said, clearly relaxing. We weren’t homicidal kidnappers. Probably. He reached his hand in. “I’m Ellis,” he said. “Olivia and I had PreCal together last spring.” Mid shook his hand.
    â€œMrs. Newell,” Delton said.
    â€œRemember how she wore that same sweater every day for two weeks?” Ellis said.
    â€œYes,” said Delton, but not really to him. It was pretty clear what the score was: Delton was several rungs up the social ladder from Ellis. They were math class friends. Associates. Out of math class—at the grocery store, say, with her jailbird dad—she wanted less to do with him.
    Ellis said, “You know what? How about I just pick this up this one time, and we go on about our business?” He was magnanimous. Dauntless. He already had the cigarette in his hand.
    â€œGreat,” Delton said.
    â€œThank you,” said Mid.
    â€œWe’re supposed to enforce the regulations,” the kid said, by way of apology. “You know, rule of law, that kind of thing. Society on the brink of collapse.”
    â€œWow,” Mid said.
    â€œIt’s serious business,” he said.
    Mid said, “It won’t happen again.”
    â€œOlivia,” Ellis said. “Maybe I can text you.”
    â€œMaybe,” she said.
    â€œAwesome,” he said. He was wearing a white short-sleeve polo. He had acne. He had a blue baseball cap with the logo of the security company on it—a lock and a dog. Finally he gave us what was probably supposed to be a wave, walked over to a trash can by the building, dropped the cigarette in, got back in his truck, and left.
    Mid tilted the rearview so he could see Delton. “He seemed nice,” he said.
    â€œDad.”
    â€œHe’s got a job. Tucks his shirt in. Talks like a senator.”
    â€œDad. Seriously.”
    We went inside the grocery. It was catastrophically well lit. The store was running some kind of promotion having to do with a new deli counter, which looked exactly like any other deli counter I’d ever seen, but they were excited about it, had arches of red and orange balloons up everywhere in all the bright light, stations where free deli samples could be had. It seemed late at night to be having a deli party. Delton broke away, started making the circuit of samples. I hung back with Mid. We watched her eat sliced turkey, sliced ham. “What’d you say to her back there?” I asked him. “In the parking lot?”
    â€œI told her we were getting ice cream.”
    â€œShe knows about you and Carolyn?”
    â€œEverybody was right there when she went apeshit.”
    â€œBut