Pasadena by Sherri L. Smith

the couch, staring at the cards. I flip over the one on top of the deck. It shows a picture of a man in a tunic with a hobo bindle over one shoulder, a dog at his feet, about to traipse happily off a cliff. Beneath the picture a caption reads “The Fool.”
    But the card is upside down. I’m going on a journey, and I don’t have a leg to stand on.
    A sudden movement in the window catches my eye.
    Outside, by the fire, Joey has joined the dance.
    â€œI’m glad you’re not here all summer,” Maggie said to me. She blew a smoke ring from her stinking Ukrainian cigarette and adjusted her sunglasses with a painted fingernail.
    We were decked out in swimsuits and cutoff shorts, cleaning out pitchers in the sink of her pool house, prepping them for a second batch of teenage hangovers and regrets. I washed while Maggie dried with one lackluster hand and smoked with the other.
    Outside, in her parents’ backyard, half the student body was partying, drinking spiked lemonade and strawberry daiquiris made from a cheap mix. Her parents and Parker were gone for some weekend church retreat and school had just let out for the summer.
    Next year, we’d all be seniors, masters of our universe. Maggie bought the vodka and let us splash in her pool, we provided the rest.
    â€œI’ll miss you, too,” I said back.
    â€œDon’t be a dolt. I’m gonna miss you, but you’re lucky.You see all those fools. Mark Draper just did a cannonball. Jesus. Does anybody do that anymore?”
    â€œApparently Mark Draper does.”
    Maggie pulled down her shades to fix me with a look. “That’s what I mean. This is the future of America, Jude. We’re college-bound and pathetic. Most of these guys are just looking to skate into UCLA or a CSU somewhere.” She looked out the window and shook her head. “Seriously, we’re killing off brain cells just looking at these idiots.”
    â€œWell, you have summer school, don’t you?”
    Maggie was infamous for taking extra classes at Pasadena City College every summer. I didn’t know why. She still sat next to me in AP English each fall, but it made her feel cosmopolitan, as she put it.
    â€œDo you see what I mean?” Maggie said, drawing deeply on her cigarette, then flicking it into the sink. I listened to it sizzle into a wet cinder beneath the soapsuds. “You get to go back east. I have to go to fricking PCC just to talk to anybody who isn’t a troglodyte.”
    â€œHey, I’d be happy to hang out all summer. Me leaving was your idea.”
    â€œYeah, well, not telling your mom about Roy was yours. Leaving is the next best thing.”
    To running
, I wanted to say. When things got bad in myfamily, my mom ran from my dad. I didn’t want to be like her, but there I was, packing to go.
    â€œYou need to work some shit out, Jude. See your dad. Curse him out, or give him a hug—whatever it takes. You can still hook up with Joey next year. He’d look good in a tux.”
    â€œProm? Really?”
    Maggie sighed. “You’re seventeen, Jude. Live a little.” She looked out the window and lit another cigarette. “I’ll try to do the same. Even with this lot.”
    She wasn’t wrong. It was my turn to sigh. “Well, these are
your
friends,” I pointed out.
    Maggie wrapped an arm around me. “You’re my friend. Joey’s my friend. Dane, Tally, Eppie, Hank, Edina. With a handful of exceptions, the rest are just”—she waved her free arm around me, her silver bauble bracelets clashing with the gesture—“extras. And not very good ones at that. Jesus.” She pointed out the window just in time for me to see Mark Draper dive back into the pool and lose his swim trunks.
    â€œCharming,” Maggie drawled.
    I laughed. “We are truly blessed.”
    â€œCome on,” she said. She yanked off her bikini top and dropped her shorts on her