“To be ignorant. Or mean. Or insensitive,” Mrs. Browning said, her voice shaking a little as if she might cry. Something about her didn’t strike me as a crier, though, and Dad’s expression tough cookie crossed my mind.
Finch and I made eye contact for one second before he turned to Dad and said, “Mr. Volpe, do you think I could talk to Lyla alone for a moment?”
Dad looked speechless for a beat, then said my name in a question as if asking for my permission. I nodded, keeping my eyes lowered.
“Okay,” Dad said. “Nina and I can step outside for a minute….” His voice trailed off as they both stood. She followed him to the kitchen, then out the side door to the backyard.
When I heard the door close, I raised my chin and looked at Finch. He gazed back at me with those sick blue eyes. When he blinked, I could see the curl of his blond lashes. It made my chest ache, even before he said my name, as a low and whispery question.
“What?” I said softly, my face on fire.
Finch took a deep breath, then said, “I’ve been debating this…but I really think I need to tell you exactly what happened that night….”
“Okay,” I said, eyeing the back door and feeling sick to my stomach. I couldn’t see Dad or Mrs. Browning but pictured them sitting together at the picnic table.
“So, you know how we were playing Uno?” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, Polly and I got into an argument at one point. Did you notice?”
I shrugged, even though I had.
“Well, we did….And it was over you.”
“Me?” I said, shocked.
“Yeah. You.”
“Why?” I asked.
“She was jealous. You looked so hot in that black dress….She saw me looking at you…accused me of flirting…and she got pissed.”
“Oh,” I said, a mix of emotions washing over me. Confusion that Polly would ever be jealous of me, worry that I had caused an argument, but mostly just a strange, warm tingling at hearing him call me hot. In the past, a few boys had said as much in the comments of my Instagram posts, but no one had ever said it so plainly to my face.
“Anyway,” he said. “One thing led to another….” His voice trailed off. “Are you following?”
I shook my head, confused by his one thing led to another. Was he talking about his fight with Polly? Or about me? I fleetingly wondered if something had happened between us. Something physical. But there was no way. I would have remembered that. I remembered every look Finch had ever given me.
“Listen, Lyla,” Finch said, leaning toward me, saying my name breathlessly. “I wasn’t the one who took that photo of you. I wasn’t the one who wrote that caption. And I wasn’t the one who sent it to my friends.” He bit his lower lip, then ran his hand through his wavy blond hair. “Do you follow me?”
“What? No. Not really,” I said, my mind and heart both in a dead sprint. Suddenly, a realization washed over me. “Wait. Was it Polly?…Did she have your phone?”
He slowly but distinctly nodded. “Yes. She took it because she thought you and I were talking…texting.”
“Why would she think that?”
“Because of the way we were looking at each other.”
“But we weren’t texting, were we?” I said, remembering that my dad had gone through my messages. Maybe he had erased a thread? Was that possible?
He shook his head. “No. I mean, I wanted to….If I had had your number, I might’ve…but no, it was just eye contact….But Polly could tell. Women’s intuition or whatever.”
I nodded. Because of course I could tell, too.
“So I got buzzed and kind of lost track of my phone….”
“And she used it to take that photo of me?” I asked, wanting to make absolutely certain I was hearing him right.
“Yes,” Finch said. “That’s exactly what happened.”
“Wow,” I said under my breath, mostly to myself. “What a…bitch.”
“I know….I mean—she’s not usually that kind of a person. She’s really not….She’s just going through some things.”
I looked at him, feeling skeptical. What issues could Polly possibly have? She was rich and beautiful—the female equivalent of Finch. Plus she was dating him. She had him. So what if he flirted a little with me? That meant nothing compared to their long-standing relationship. Or did it?
“Anyway. We broke up over it,” he finished.
“You did?” I said, my voice cracking. “Because of me?”
“No. Because of what she did to you.”
My head spinning, I said, “Does your mom know? That Polly did it?”
He shook his head and said, “No.”
“Does anyone?”
“No,” he said again.
“Why not? Why haven’t you told anyone the truth?”
Finch sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know….It’s hard to explain, and I just can’t get into everything….But…let’s just say Polly has a lot of issues.”
“Like what?” I said.
Finch sighed and said, “I can’t really say.”
I stared at him, suddenly remembering rumors I’d heard earlier in the school year about an eating disorder and cutting. A very small, ugly part of me had sort of hoped they were true, if only to believe that nobody’s life was that perfect. But a bigger part of me assumed that the rumors were lies, born from the same jealousy I felt when I scrolled through her glittery, glamorous Instagram. Now I believed them—and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. More because she’d lost Finch than anything else. I told myself to get over that. She’d made her own bed. She didn’t deserve my sympathy.
“You have to tell the truth,” I said. “At your hearing. You have to tell them that you didn’t do this. That she did.”
He shook his head, adamant. “No, Lyla. I just can’t do that to her….Beyond her…issues…she’s been in trouble before. This would be her second offense….She’d definitely get thrown out. I don’t want that on my conscience.”
I glanced toward the backyard again, wondering how much time we had before Dad and Nina returned. “You can’t take the blame for this,” I said.
“Yes, I can,” he said. “Please respect my decision.”
“But you could get suspended or expelled. You could lose Princeton.”
“I know,” Finch said. “But I don’t think that will happen.”
“What do you think will happen?”
He sighed, shrugged, and said, “Well, hopefully, I go through this honor process, and take the blame for the picture….But somehow I don’t lose Princeton. And…Polly gets help….And you don’t hate me….” His voice was soft and sweet—the way boys almost never sound except in the movies with slow, romantic songs playing in the background.
“I don’t hate you,” I said, my heart skipping random beats.
“Really?”
“Really,” I said.
“Okay. So…given that you don’t hate me…” He hesitated, dropping his eyes. “I was wondering…if you might like to hang out sometime?”
Light-headed, I tried to process what he was asking. Surely it was only a theoretical question. “You and me?” I said.
“Yeah. You and me,” he said.
“When?” I said.
“I don’t know…soon? Are you free tonight?”
“I’m not sure my dad would be cool with that,” I said. A huge, huge understatement. “Besides, aren’t you grounded?” I asked, having heard the rumors of his harsh punishment. That he wasn’t allowed to leave his house for the rest of the spring and summer.
“Yeah. But given the circumstances, I’m betting my parents might make an exception here,” he said, just as the side door opened and my dad and his mom reappeared.
“Was that enough time?”
Mrs. Browning asked, peering over at us.
“Yes,” Finch and I answered in unison.
She looked hesitant, but returned to her original seat on the sofa, as my dad stood nearby and offered coffee again.
This time, Mrs. Browning said, “Sure. I’d love one, thank you.”
“Cream or sugar?”
“No, thank you. Black’s fine,” she replied.
Dad nodded and walked toward the kitchen, while the three of us just sort of sat there. I caught Mrs. Browning giving me a once-over, and then smiling at me.
“I love your top,” she said.
“Thank you,” I said, pleased. “I got it at a vintage shop.”
“Oh? Which one?”
“Star Struck. On Gallatin. Do you know it?”
“Of course,” she said.
“It’s a little pricey. But sometimes you can find deals.”
Mrs. Browning smiled and said, “Yes. Shopping can be a very strategic enterprise. Sometimes I think it’s the hunt I like more than the actual purchase.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean,” I said. Then I added, “I really like your shoes.”
She did a little Dorothy there’s-no-place-like-home heel tap and thanked me as Dad returned with her coffee, handing her the mug.
It fleetingly occurred to me that Mrs. Browning was being too nice—and I felt a dash of suspicion. What if she and Finch had come here with the goal to win me over? A “good cop, bad cop” thing, though this was two good cops. I told myself that I was being crazy as Mrs. Browning looked at Finch and said, “So? Did you two…talk?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding.
“And?”
“And…it was good, Mom,” he said, his voice loud and clear.
Mrs. Browning looked at me, as I dumbly echoed Finch. “Yeah. It was good,” I said.
Dad frowned. “Good how?”
“Good…in that…he’s very sorry for what happened,” I stammered.
“Yes. And I’d love the chance to talk with Lyla a little more,” Finch added. “If that’s okay with you, Mr. Volpe?” His voice rose along with his eyebrows.
“Now?” Dad asked.
“No,” Finch said. “Not now. But maybe another time…Lyla and I could get together and talk?”
I held my breath, watching Dad process the request. “Are you trying to ask my daughter out?”
“Well…actually…yes, sir,” Finch said.
“On a date?” Dad said, his voice getting louder and his face redder.
“Dad,” I said, mortified that he was trying to label it. “He didn’t say a date.”
But Finch rose boldly to the challenge. “Yes, sir. On a date. I want to get to know her better. And I want her to know me. I’m just asking for the chance to prove that I’m really not a bad person. Although I know I’ve done nothing to deserve that chance.”
I cleared my throat and made myself speak up. “Yes, you have,” I said, my heart racing. “You coming here today means a lot to my dad and me. Right, Dad?” I said, prompting him, wondering if he was going to be a total hypocrite and recant everything he’d said about giving Finch a chance.
It took him another few seconds to finally answer. “I guess,” Dad grumbled, shifting his gaze from me to Nina, then back to Finch. “But you know this changes absolutely nothing about your hearing next week?”
“Of course. Yes, sir,” Finch said. “Besides. Even if I wanted to get out of it, my mom would never let me….” He smiled.
Dad didn’t smile back.
“But I don’t,” Finch added. “Want to get out of anything. I know I have to face my punishment.”
Dad nodded, his jaw relaxing a little. “Okay,” he said.
“So I have your permission to ask Lyla out?” Finch asked. “At some point?”
Dad rolled his eyes, then took a deep breath. “I can’t stop you from asking her out,” he said. “But I’d be very surprised if she said yes.”
“How do you feel?” I asked Finch on the way home from the Volpes’ house. We were in my car, but he was driving.
“I feel great,” he said. “Really great. I’m so glad we did that.”
I felt a wave of relief as I said to my son, “Doesn’t it feel good to do the right thing?” The question was a little heavy-handed, but I couldn’t help myself.
“Yeah,” he said, glancing over at me. “It really does….And Lyla? She’s a cool girl….”
He bit his lip, smiled, and slowly shook his head, the way he did when watching an amazing play in a football or basketball game. It was in stark contrast to Kirk—who always got up and clapped and yelled at the television.
“Yeah. She is,” I said, thinking that there was something about Lyla that seemed lacking in other girls I knew through Finch, Polly in particular. A certain genuine quality. Polly was always perfectly polite, saying all the right things to me, making eye contact and fluid small talk. Yet there was something about her that seemed almost too polite, scripted even.
“Mr. Volpe was nice, too,” Finch said.
I nodded, thinking of our conversation on the back porch. We’d talked about Finch and Lyla, wondering how it was going inside. But we’d also discussed kids today in more general terms. How they hid behind their phones, saying things that they’d never say directly to someone’s face—whether mean or sexual or just plain bold. We pitied them, and pitied ourselves as their parents. Tom never let Finch off the hook for what he’d done to Lyla, but he’d definitely softened since the coffee shop.
Finch slowed at a yellow light, then came to a full stop. His foot on the brake, he looked at me, big-eyed. “So, Mom. I think I am going to ask Lyla out at some point….You heard Mr. Volpe say I could, right?”
“Yes,” I said, still surprised Tom had left the door open on that possibility. “But you also heard him say she probably wouldn’t go….”
He nodded, now staring up at the light, waiting for it to change. “Yeah. Well. Maybe I’ll just call her. I really want to talk to her some more,” he said as the light turned to green.
I understood the feeling—I wanted to keep talking to Tom, too. Conversation felt healing, and we all needed that.
“In any case, I think you should wait until after your hearing,” I said, part of me worried about how it would look: Finch manipulating the situation. On the one hand, I was tired of worrying about appearances, sick of making decisions based on what others might think. But on the other, this just wasn’t a good idea.
“Yeah,” Finch said. “I got it.”
“Also, just so you know, I’m going to tell Dad about our meeting and your apology,” I said. “As soon as he gets home…”
“Okay,” he said with a shrug.
“Your father and I have had some differences lately, but we need to be a united front. Especially when it comes to you.”
Finch glanced at me knowingly, then nodded, as if he, too, had noticed the sea change in our home and marriage—which seemed to have begun when Kirk sold his business.
I thought about that time now. At first, the three of us were thrilled—giddy. But things quickly turned tense, even ugly, during the winding-down period, which included parting ways with his top executive, Chuck Wilder. Chuck had no real piece of the business, as Kirk had put up all the capital and had one hundred percent ownership, but Chuck put in a lot of sweat equity over the years, giving up more lucrative jobs because he believed so much in Kirk’s vision. I think he’d also had an expectation of being included in the massive payout, and in my view, it wasn’t an unwarranted one.
But Kirk flatly refused, even after Chuck’s wife, Donna, showed up on our doorstep, confiding that she was extremely worried about her husband’s “mental state.”
“It’s not personal,” Kirk had said. “It’s just business.”
“But it is personal,?
?? Donna had said. “Y’all are friends.”
“I know we’re friends, Donna. But I have to separate that from my business decisions,” Kirk had replied calmly and coldly.
I remember feeling shocked, but also not. It was in keeping with Kirk’s attitudes toward tips. He was perfectly capable of leaving a paltry amount, and in extreme cases nothing, if he deemed the service bad. And effort didn’t count; ineptitude was ineptitude. In any event, Donna, just like a waitress or two along the way, ended up in tears. Kirk was unyielding.
In the hours and days that followed, I had searched for signs of remorse, but Kirk’s only reaction was indignation. How dare Chuck put Donna up to this shameless attempt at manipulation? He’d paid Chuck a great salary for years and owed him nothing further.
“But we made so much money,” I remember saying. “Why can’t we just throw him a bone? A hundred thousand dollars or something?”
“Hell, no. Why would I do that? That’s not the way things work. It was my capital.”
His use of the word my instead of our made me uneasy, as I’d noticed that the more money Kirk made, the more likely he was to call it his. But I also remember telling myself that it really didn’t matter. Because he always had the best interests of Finch and me at heart.
I compared our current situation to that one, and at first blush, they felt similar. Our family was still first.
But as Finch stopped at another traffic light, I thought of a rather significant difference. With Chuck, Kirk had operated under a completely rational set of rules. Fair was fair. Rules were rules. But those same reasoned principles went out the window when they conflicted with Kirk’s best interest. Suddenly things weren’t so clear-cut; his black-and-white world had turned gray. In Kirk’s mind, Finch was a “good kid” who had saved up enough points to be given some leeway. He had essentially earned one free pass—or more precisely, a fifteen-thousand-dollar pass.
“So what time is Dad coming home?” Finch asked now, clearly thinking about Kirk, too.
“Sometime this afternoon,” I said, pulling my phone out of my purse to check the flight information, just as a text came in from him that read: Hey, do we have anything on the calendar tonight?