There I sat, like a vegetable, on my living room couch with Ray, wasting yet another perfectly good Friday evening. Of course, its not likely that two lowly sophomores like ourselves would be doing anything worthwhile anyway. Neither of us had a girlfriend. Neither of us had a car. Even if we did have a car, neither of us had license.

We were ultimately bored. There was nothing to watch on the tube except cheesy reality shows. And there was absolutely no way we were going to do our homework before we absolutely had to! I mean, procrastination is a tradition with my homework and me. Who am I to break tradition?

Brrinnnng!

I picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“Yes, hello. Is Maggie Radborne there?” A man from the other end of the line asked with some weird accent I’d never heard before.

“Yeah,” I held the phone out in front of me. “Mom!”

I should take a moment to tell you a little about me. I live with my mom and Mackay, my kid brother. My best friend is Ray Ashford. That’s all. So you can see I’m just a perfectly ordinary guy with a perfectly ordinary life. Well, as ordinary as you could get for a broken home, I guess.

“What, Jackie?” My mom poked her head out of the kitchen, a little annoyed that I was yelling across the house.

“Phone’s for you.”

“Who is it?” I shrugged my shoulders. Mom walked to the living room and snatched the phone away, aggravated.

“Hello?” She waited. Then her whole mood shifted entirely. “Oh, hi! How are you?” She walked out of the room with the phone in her hand chatting away.

Ray shoved a handful of potato chips into his mouth. “You wanna go shoot some hoops?” Little pieces of chip showered out of his mouth as he spoke.

“Sure,” I said, glad for something to do.

“Who was that on the phone?” Ray asked when we were outside in my driveway.

“I dunno.” Ray bounced the ball off the backboard and I rebounded it. “Probably Mom’s new client.” My mom was a successful fashion designer and made a good living off of it, I guess. I mean, we’ve never had to worry about money or anything like that.

“Oh, ok.” Ray always wants to know what’s going on, so he never stops asking questions until he thinks he’s heard all there is to hear. “Just wonderin,’ cause, I mean, she sounded all happy to hear ‘em and stuff.”

“Yeah, whatever you say, Ray,” I shot the ball and it bounced off the little square and into the hoop. Ray has an astoundingly small vocabulary.

“No really,” Ray kept pushing it. “At first she was all, like, ‘what do you want?’ And then she was, like, ‘Oh hi!’ I dunno, I just thought it was weird.” The pitch in his voice fluctuated to fit my mom’s moods.

I think Ray is weird! I’m not quite sure why Ray is like that. Maybe he was dropped on his head to many times as a small child. Maybe he was switched at the hospital and is not really Mr. and Mrs. Ashford’s son. Maybe he was just weird. Whatever the reason, we’re friends because I need him and I guess he needs me. But there was no need to actually tell him that.

“Jack!” My mom stepped out of the back door.

My reply was slow and drawn out. “Yeah?”

“Do you mind watching your brother tonight? I’m going out to dinner. You can have Ray stay the night if you want.” Why do parents always ask ‘if we mind’ babysitting, because even if you say you do mind, you still have to do it anyway.

“Sure.”

“Cool,” Ray said and followed my mom inside to call his parents.

I stayed outside and shot a few lay-ups. A black convertible pulled up in front of my house. I looked at it wistfully, picturing myself owning a car like it when I was able to drive. A tall man with curly blond hair and a business suit stepped out of the car. He looked like any other businessman that worked with my mom, but there was something slightly different about this one. I just couldn’t tell what it was.

I keep shooting until my mom came out of the house in an evening dress. The man escorted her down the sidewalk and to the car. I watched him let my mom in, let himself in, and then drive away. I still couldn’t figure out what was different about this one.

“Hey, Jackie! Get in here!” Ray yelled from somewhere in the house. I sighed and went back into the house.

Ray was watching some movie with two people making out in a hot tub and probably a little further than that too. I was disgusted.

“That’s nice, Ray, real nice,” I said annoyed. I left the living room and Ray to his own perverted pleasures. Maybe I shouldn’t wait to do my homework until tomorrow. I drifted upstairs to my room. There was nothing else to do, except maybe watch Ray’s sexy-fast-car-hardcore-fighting-punching-kicking blow-everything-in-sight-up movie with him.

The big, red numbers on my alarm clock blinked 7:45. Reluctantly, I pulled out the Algebra book that I loathed so much. Numbers and letters scrambled my brain for about an hour before my eyes started to get heavy. All the Z’s I kept writing across my paper, a hundred times over, seemed to mesmerize me. The last thing I remember was trying to figure out five times six, divided by half to the seventh power....

Chapter 2

“Jack? Are you awake?” Mackay, was shaking me.

“What? What do you want?” I groaned.

“Hey Jackie, wake up!” Ray shoved my shoulder so that my head rolled around on my Algebra book. The light shining through my window literally blinded me.

“Aaah!” I shielded my eyes from the blinding light with my arm. “I am awake! Now go away!”

“Ha ha, very funny. No, seriously. Get up.”

“Ok,” I grumbled and slid off my chair onto the floor. Ray pulled out some clean clothes from my dresser and threw them at my face.

“C’mon. Hurry up and get dressed.” Ray was already dressed.

“What? Is it Monday?” I said groggily and started pulling off my shirt from yesterday.

“Huh, no. But with the way you were sleepin’ I wouldn’t have been surprised if you’d slept clear through Sunday! Now c’mon, get up. ”

“What’s the rush? Where are we going?”

“Well, you just have to know everything, don’t you?” Ray said exasperated.

“Uh....”

“Well, if you must know, we’re going to the mall to see a movie with your mom’s new boyfriend, or whatever the hell he is.” I didn’t mind when Ray swore around me, just so long as he didn’t cuss every other word. That sometimes gets annoying.

“Oh.” I tried not to pout while I finished getting dressed. I didn’t want Ray to think I was a crybaby, but I really hated it when my mom made us spend time with her new boyfriends so we would like them more.

They were always weird and didn’t stick around all that long anyway. Since they were all businessmen, they had other- more important- things to do rather than be with my mom. I didn’t mind it that much. I mean Mom switching boyfriends and all that. I knew she would never find the ‘right guy for her’, as she likes to call it. So I never really had anything to worry about.

“Hurry up and eat! It’s ten o’clock in the morning! We need to hurry if we want to catch the showing before twelve so we can eat afterwards,” Mom hustled me around when Ray and I came downstairs into the kitchen for something to eat.

“Whoa! Back up a minute. Showing? What showing?”

“Cosmo is taking us to a movie and lunch.”

“Cosmo?” What kind of a name was Cosmo? My mom could never date a guy named Cosmo! That was the type that enjoyed going to those lame cowboy gun shows or for a living, is a video game tester. Not her type.

“Yes, Cosmo,” my mom said putting the last bowl away from the dishwasher. “He’s my new client.” She sounded strange the way she said client. I don’t know how, but she sounded like there was something else there that she was purposely keeping from me. Maybe is was just my paranoia of my mom actually meeting the ‘right guy’ before I had a chance to intervene and make sure that he had second thoughts about ‘keeping this one for a awhile.’

“A new client? Mmmm hmmm,” I drank the juice that was sitting at my spot on the table. I didn’t sit down and I didn’t touch the eggs, bacon, and sausages that were also there. Ray didn’t take any notice of my absence at the table, he plopped down and started shoveling eggs into his mouth.

“He is, Jack. I’m serious. I wouldn’t be dating anyone without telling you first.”

“So what’s so special about this ‘client’ of yours?” I said, unbelieving.

“Special? What do you mean?” my mom laughed absurdly. “There’s nothing different about this one.”

“Well, you went out to dinner with him. All dressed up. You never did that with any of your other clients.” I wasn’t trying to be sneaky. She really didn’t go to formal restaurants with any of her other clients.

“I’ve been out to dinner with several of my clients, thank you very much! This time just happened to call for a nicer dress. That’s all. Y’know, most big name designers eat only at formal restaurants. Did you know that?” Mom snapped. I wondered if she mean to or if she was just getting impatient with all my stupid questions.

“Well, I do now!” I growled. I hated this! I did not want to waste a perfectly good Saturday spending time with some loser trying to butter me up.