The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson Page B

“The two of you?”
    â€œYeah.” Palmer almost looked defiant. “We went out. To the T.G.I. Friday’s near the mall.”
    Pete was not contributing to this part of the conversation, May noticed. Instead he seemed to be asking himself whether or not the two sides of his body quite matched up. He looked at his hands side by side. Then he grabbed the zipper of his sweatshirt and began pulling it up and down.
    May flicked her eyes in his direction and he glanced away.
    â€œOkay…,” she said. “Well, I’ll be in the kitchen.”
    A minute later, as she dug around the icy, uncharted territory in the back of the freezer, May heard someone come into the room. She retracted her head and peered around. Pete was standing in the kitchen doorway.
    â€œYou took Palmer to dinner?” she asked. “What, was she complaining about my cooking again?”
    â€œNo. She just seemed kind of lonely.”
    â€œOh,” she said simply. “That was nice of you. I’ll pay you back for whatever you spent.”
    â€œDon’t worry about it.”
    May disliked the thought of Pete giving them money, so sheleft the freezer door open and reached for her purse anyway.
    â€œNo, really,” he said, more insistently this time. “She was just upset because of today.”
    â€œOh, right,” May said. Pete pulled out a chair and sat down. May pried a frozen dinner from a pack of unidentifiable meat and shut the door.
    â€œBrooks really looked kind of bad,” Pete said.
    â€œShe was out last night.”
    â€œShe looks like that a lot.”
    â€œShe goes out a lot.”
    Palmer turned on the TV, and the kitchen wall began to shudder. May deposited the frozen lump on a baking tray.
    â€œI got a call about this summer job I applied for,” Pete said. “It would be really cool. It’s at a golf course, just inside the city, about fifteen minutes from here.”
    â€œThat’s great.”
    May shoved the snowy brick into the oven. She could feel Pete’s eyes on her as she did this.
    â€œMy dad…,” Pete said slowly, rubbing at his chin. “I don’t know if you heard this, but he’s sponsoring a bench at the softball field, the one over by the middle school. It’ll have your dad’s name on it.”
    â€œA bench?”
    â€œI know,” Pete said. “It’s just a bench. And it’s going to take them four months or something to install it—don’t ask me why. But just so you know…”
    â€œThanks.” May nodded.
    â€œHow are you?” he asked.
    â€œMe? I’m fine.”
    â€œAre you guys going to be doing anything?”
    â€œNo,” May said. “You know us, we’ve never been religious or anything.”
    â€œI thought you might have a dinner or a service or something.”
    â€œWe’re not a dinner-and-service kind of family.”
    May had nothing more to say about this. She looked down at the floor. There was a blotch of something dark and sticky by her foot.
    â€œSo Nell tells me that you two are going to the prom,” she said.
    â€œYeah. I…you know. Asked her.”
    â€œI figured that.”
    Neither one of them seemed to want to push this subject any further, either.
    â€œMonday still good for a lesson?” he asked.
    â€œMonday’s fine.”
    â€œI guess…” Pete looked down the hall. “I should go.”
    â€œOkay. Thanks again.”
    After he’d let himself out, May spread her books on the table. She hastily flipped through a four-page biology lab report that she had to complete. She felt like she had lived this moment a hundred times over—making dinner for herself in the middle of a messy, empty kitchen with a pile of homework on the table. Feeling the walls rumble from the television. An endless, deadly cycle.
    â€œTurn it down!” she yelled to Palmer.
    The volume went up.
    Before, she could