The Sweetheart Deal by Polly Dugan

Author:Polly Dugan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Published: 2015-05-19T04:00:00+00:00

Christopher

In April, Ben turned seventeen. When he was a kid, his family had moved from Denver to Portland, and to help with the transition, his parents had made him repeat kindergarten. I never knew he was a year older than the rest of us until middle school. Since he had already had his driver’s license for a year, for his birthday he had told his mom, told Colleen, he wanted to drive us all downtown and go to the movies, and she said he could. That night we all met at Ben’s house.

All seven of us were there with presents and cards, some of those that played a song when you opened it, and we sat in the living room waiting for Ben to open them all before we left. Everybody was cracking up at the cards. Colleen lit candles on the mantel over the fireplace and sat next to Mr. Maguire on the couch, and they kept looking at each other and smiling with each present Ben opened, and smiled even more and laughed when all of us hooted at what he got. You could tell they were like, Our baby is seventeen, all grown up, can you believe it. I’d seen the same look on my mom’s face.

I couldn’t look at either of the Maguires. I was standing between M.H. and Meredith, and as we stood there watching, I could feel Meredith move closer to me. I couldn’t really move away from her because M.H. was on my other side. If I had moved, I would have done the same thing to M.H. that Meredith was doing to me, and that wouldn’t have been good, so I just stood there. I felt pinned between the girls. I had to do something. I wanted to sprint from being in the same room with Colleen and Mr. Maguire and Meredith.

“Mrs. Maguire,” I said. “Can I go get a glass of water?”

“Sure, Chris,” she said. “Help yourself. Any of you guys, help yourselves. Ben, you guys are going to have to leave soon if you’re going to make the movie.”

“I know, Mom,” said Ben. “I just have two more.” He was having a blast. He was all right, really he was, but looking at all of us there in his living room, knowing that I had brought him into the group not because of him but because of Colleen, I felt like shit.

The kitchen was through the dining room and around a corner. I was glad to get away from feeling like Meredith was trapping me between her and M.H. I half expected Meredith to follow me, and since I couldn’t see the living room from the kitchen, I listened for her, for anyone, but I didn’t hear anything. The Maguires had those water and ice dispensers in the door of their refrigerator, and I picked up a glass from the dish rack beside the sink and filled it. I pretty much wanted to leave and get going to the movie

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