Pi Ice Cube Tray Part 2: After the Party

Mari gets picked up at the police station by her father. Please see the note at the bottom.

Criminal.

The word danced in Mari’s head, taunting her like an imp.

This isn’t a big deal.  It can’t be a big deal.

So far, she had tried eight different versions of the story in her head for fit.  One of them must be the perfect one to tell her father on the drive home.  Darkness encompassed the city.  It was cool, for a summer night.

The truly wild stories�"shootouts, handcuffs, insults�"were thrown out.  But still dreamed, almost for fun.  They kept Mari from paralyzing out of her fear.  Her hands were oscillating, slightly, as they rested on her thighs.  Her blinking pattern was abnormal.

The winning story would be the truth, as her father would appreciate.  However, there would be one key modification.  Or rather, one key omission.

“I just can’t believe it, Mari.”  Another counter in Mari’s head ticked to eleven.  “Just can’t believe it.”

Twelve.

“Is this what you do when I’m gone?  Just go out and party?  Has your mother ever had to pick you up?”

Mari turned her head out the passenger window.  She didn’t respond.

“Well?  Are you going to answer me?”  He seemed genuinely upset.  This was new for Mari.  She couldn’t remember her father being upset.  Ever.  His goofiness pervaded his demeanor.

“Jeez, Dad, what do you think?”  Mari’s voice was as quiet as she could keep it.

“I think I just picked my daughter up from the police station, and I want to know.”

Mari continued to stare out the window.  

Eddie sighed, audibly, trying to squeeze the answer out of Mari.  The air he exhaled filled the car.  Nearly suffocating from its weight.

“I just can’t believe it.”

The ride home remained quiet from that point.  The car meandered, slowly, through neighborhoods and around curves, tracing a line back to suburbia.  Eddie appeared, at least to Mari, to be taking a different way home.  It seemed longer than the usual method.

The radio was low, but it was Johnny Cash.  “Ring of Fire.”

The high beams of Eddie’s car rounded the corner of Mari’s street.  He turned into the driveway as the garage door raised.  Eddie killed the motor and sat for a moment, in silence.  Mari didn’t move.

“Your mother is going to be awake, you know that?”

“She’s not my mother.”

Eddie’s voice nearly exploded.  “That woman is all you have for a mother, and you will treat her like it, young lady!”

Still staring.  Mari tried to read the label on a can of paint on a shelf in the garage.  Her jaw set.  Her eyes watered.  She blinked fast.

“She’s awake because she cares about you!  She wants what’s best for you!”

Warning:  This product contains a chemical known to the State of Illinois to cause cancer.

Eddie sighed, twisting the steering wheel in his hand.  He breathed deeply.  “I’m sorry, Mari.  I didn’t mean to yell.”  His voice was retreating.

Mari’s eyes closed, and she shook her head.

“What happened?”  Eddie continued.

“Dad, nothing happened,” Mari said, turning forcefully.  “Nothing happened.  I was at the party, the cops came, and took me to the station to wait for you because Andrea’s parents weren’t there.  That’s it.”

“Were you drinking?”

“No, Dad, I told you, I don’t drink,” she said, growing frustrated.  “God, stop asking me.”

Eddie’s eyes were as frightened as Mari’s.

“Were you…” he stopped.

“Was I what, Dad?”

“Were you with a boy?”

Mari’s jaw dropped, and her shoulders sank down in disbelief at the question.  “No, Dad!”

“Well, then why did they take you to the station?”

“I told you, Dad, Andrea’s parents weren’t there.  They were out of town.  Said something about a new policy if you’re underage.”

“Did they arrest you?”

Mari thought.  “I don’t know, they told me to get in a car, that’s all I know.”

“Did they give you Miranda rights?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s a start.  No cuffs or anything like that?”  A glimmer of a smirk echoed across Eddie’s face.

“No.”

Eddie turned his head away from Mari and faced forward.  The headlights of the car were still on, trying to burn a hole through the wall.  The radio was still playing.  This time, it was Hank Williams.

Mari made up her mind.  She turned to her father and looked at him with the biggest eyes she could muster.

“Dad?  Seriously, I’m fine.  Just a little shaken up, but…I’m fine.  No one was hurt, I’m not in trouble.  They just took me down there to keep me until you could get there.  I’m fine.”

Eddie nodded shortly and slowly.  “Listen, Mari.  Bean.  I love you.  And I’m not used to you scaring me.  You’ve been so good for so long…”

“Dad, I was really just�"“

“No, let me finish.  I’m just…I’m nervous now, bean.  I know I’m not around much, and I don’t want to think that you’re someone that I don’t know.”

“I’m not, Dad,” Mari assured Eddie.  “I’m the same old girl.  I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I know.”  He repeated it:  “I know.”

Mari turned her head back toward the window slowly, as if it were motorized.  

“Now, what are we going to tell your mother?”

“We?”

“Well…”  Eddie thought.  “I figured I could stick up for you.”

Mari analyzed his words, searching for any fatherly double-talk.  She found none in his tone.

“Well, Dad, we can tell her the truth.  I’m not afraid of her.”

“I think that’s your problem,” he said, opening the door and removing his seatbelt in one swift motion.  Mari remained in the car for an extra beat before doing the same.  

Mari stepped into the house.  Evelyn was sitting at the kitchen table, looking out the breakfast window.  As Mari entered, she stood.

“Mari, I knew you shouldn’t have gone to that damn party!  What’s gotten into you?”

Mari just kept walking.  

“You need to turn around and speak to me, young lady.  Have you been drinking?  Where were Andrea’s parents?”

Mari just kept walking.  Toward her room.

“This is the last straw for you, young lady!”  Evelyn had stopped at the foot of the stairs, and was calling after her.  “You’re not going out again for a long time unless you get down here and explain yourself!”

Mari kept walking, and her bedroom door slammed shut.

Evelyn sighed, turning back into the kitchen slowly.  Eddie was standing in the middle of the room.  “What did they tell you?”

“She wasn’t drinking, Evie.”  

“Well, why in the hell was she at the station, then?”

“They took her in as a precaution.  Apparently Andrea’s parents weren’t there, and it’s some kind of new policy.  Some sort of wake-up call that the parents have to come down, I guess.”

“Hell of a damn wake-up call.  It’s two in the morning.”

She stepped into the kitchen and walked up to Eddie.  Her arms found their way underneath his and circled his waist.

“Just can’t believe it.”

“I know, Evie.  I can’t either.”

Evelyn listened to Eddie’s heart.  Then, she stopped and looked up at him.  “You aren’t upset with her?”

He shrugged.  “No, not really.  It sounds like we did a good job with her, if you ask me.”

“Good job?  Seriously?  How can you be so nonchalant?  You realize what just happened, right?”

“Yes, I do, Evie.  Our daughter was caught in the wrong place, and at the wrong time.  We can’t just keep her locked up in the house all the time.”

“Well, she’s going to be for a while.  No more going out.”

Eddie considered the proposal.  “I don’t know, sweetie.  We’ll talk about it.”

Evelyn acted incredulous.  “What is there to talk about?”

Eddie dropped his shoulders.  “Let’s just go back to bed.  I’m tired, and you are too.  We’ll talk about it later.”

Mari was lying on the bed in her room, watching her ceiling fan turn, when she heard Eddie and Evelyn go into their room and close the door.  She turned on her side and faced her computer, screen saver swaying and dancing in an invisible cyber breeze.

She thought about the party, and how everything had happened so quickly.  She recalled the officer questioning her, her fear when each additional patrol arrived, and sitting behind the cage of the car, in the backseat.  She remembered Candace, with Connor Reynolds all over her.  She remembered Andrea, when she finally saw her, in tears on the couch in the living room.

Most of all, though, she remembered Dmitri jumping the fence.  “Come on,” he had said.  

And what Mari Lennox did not tell her father�"the casual, yet key omission in her version of the night’s events�"were those two words.  And how close she was to obeying them.

Author's Note

The party itself is still in the final version. Of note in this version is Dmitri, a Russian exchange student with whom Mari spoke at the party, and the fact that this piece was written after the decision to make Evelyn into Mari's stepmother.

Thanks for reading!