Kids These Days A Novel by Drew Perry

Author:Drew Perry
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2014-01-03T22:00:00+00:00

5

Delton ran away. She wanted to get a second tattoo on her other arm, and what Mid and Carolyn said was no, absolutely not, not while you’re living under our roof, young lady, and Delton took them at their word, waited until they were both out of the house, packed up her things, and moved in with Nic. I am not running away, her note said. That’s not what this is. Please remain calm. Carolyn and Mid showed it to us that evening at the house. We’d gone over to stand nearby during tragedy. The note was on Nancy Drew stationery. I was surprised Delton even knew who that was. “She ran away,” Carolyn said, folding the note back up again. She was crying. She was drinking wine.

“She didn’t run away,” Mid said.

Carolyn put her head down on the kitchen table. “I can’t believe she ran away.”

The crisis had brought Mid back home, at least temporarily, which I’d tried to say was a good thing. Alice wasn’t having any of it. “There’s nothing good going on here,” she said on the way over, and then she turned up the news. For the rest of the ride, we listened to a report on chamber music affecting or not affecting cognitive ability in skinks.

Alice sat with Carolyn. Mid and I stood in front of his giant television. Golf was on. The TV was so large that the close-ups were much bigger than life-size, which made everything feel off. “I guess you’ve got to give her this,” Mid said. “I didn’t see this coming.”

I didn’t say anything about how she’d already stolen the car and come down to the condo. I didn’t say that even I’d sort of seen it coming, now that I looked at it.

Mid said, “She’s too young to be moving in with a boy, probably.”

“Probably,” I said.

“It’s at least too soon. It’s got to be too soon.” He looked over at Alice and Carolyn like he was making sure they were still there. “Don’t have kids,” he said.

“Good advice,” I said. “Timely.”

“It’s a goddamned merry-go-round. Maybe if we kept them in a pen in the yard, never taught them to read or write—”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Shit, this kind of thing probably won’t happen to you. You guys’ll do a better job. And even if you don’t, you’ve got a few years to get ready.”

“That helps,” I said.

On TV, a golfer took several practice swings. “We’re going to have to go get her,” Mid said.

I said, “Anything you want. I’m here to help.”

He said, “What I want is for her to wipe that shit off her arm and come back home.”

“That seems sound.”

He said, “Sometimes it gets a little hard to tell.”

The one guy never did hit the ball. The coverage shifted to somebody in pink argyle pants, and then they went to a blimp shot. It was a different time of day where they were. There was a lot of green grass, green trees. Big houses. You wanted to be

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