Charming as Verb: Chapter 27–Epilogue

My mom trusted you in our home, and now she has this, this
 nonsense red mark in her file about being a liability because her
 daughter’s boyfriend hacked her email account?

“Man, when it rains Haltiwangers, it pours,” comes Lion’s 
voice as he manifests out of the sliver of the closet door that
 briefly reveals itself from the wall behind him.

He lets out a wry cough and then leans forward and hawks 
a spit at the city below.

I can blame my dad as much as 
I want, but at the end of the day, this was my fault. I wrote that
 email. I sent it. The fallout is mine to bear.

“If you’re going to risk everything, don’t get caught,” he con
tinues, ignoring the quip.

Maybe it’s the city lights, but there’s a
 gleam in his eyes that’s as arresting as the skyline.

She’s always been impervious to my smiles, genuine or 
trademarked.

“Four syllables that cover everything and 
prevent any introspection or itemization. So I’m asking: what 
are you sorry for in this instance?”

From the corner of my eye, I catch a glimpse of the little
 devil and angel pair through the hallway mirror, pointing and
 stifling their laughter at me.

Her tone isn’t quite disdain as much as resentment for the
 level of high school nonsense I inadvertently brought into her
 life.

“By the way, I explained the whole thing away as much as
 I could. It’s standard policy for Columbia to contact an applicant’s other schools at signs of ‘moral turpitude,’ as they call it,
 but as far as I can tell, this indiscretion won’t be shared with the 
other schools you’re applying to.”

What I
 am writing to convey is my admiration for his work 
ethic and the character he has showed as a neigh
bor and dog walker to my family. His character is 
unimpeachable, and in a short time, he has become 
a trusted friend of the family.

Credit
 where credit is due, she would make a phenomenal despot.

Before I know it, the sun is beaming through my window,
 and it looks like we're in for one of those perfect-weather
 Saturdays that feels particularly vindictive from the universe 
right now.

There have been nine more 
texts since I woke up, and they’ve devolved into a full stream of 
consciousness about pastries.

He holds one finger up to interrupt me and raises his voice 
an octave as he continues to sing. Way too loudly, incidentally.

I don’t think Ming even has time to take in the rest of the apart
ment before he indiscriminately begins to forage our fridge.

The
 upside of a school that traffics in rumors is that it takes a lot for
 consensus to hit critical mass.

Your standard Black household des
serts will give you a full coronary by age thirty-seven, but there’s no denying the addictive factor.

Not that I actually fear Ming would caption a photo “Henri
 Halti’s decrepit living space” for the world to see at this point.

After an impromptu photoshoot that tallies at thirty-eight
 photos, by the sound of his phone’s shutter sound, I can feel
 Ming settle on my desk chair and look my way, waiting for me
 to say something.

“I’m just saying. I just don’t rub them in your face because 
that would be gauche.”

The sight of Dad didn’t used to come with an ominous gong,
 but everything’s haywire lately.

When I first started walking dogs after school, he or Ma
 would walk with me. For both my safety and the dogs’ as well. 
After all, a twelve-year-old losing a four-thousand-dollar Eng
lish golden retriever named Montgomery would likely result in
 a debilitating family lawsuit.

Before I can rectify the situation, Dad gets down to one 
knee and expertly untangles him, scratching him behind the 
ear as he confidently fishes out the gross bone from his mouth
 and then wipes his hand against his pants.

“When you do it the right way,” he quickly adds, as if to
 prevent future indiscretions on my part.

There was 
the sneaker heist gone wrong...and the one where my parents
 had been caught trying to bribe the Ivy League into accepting 
me with $500,000 donations and photoshopped pictures of me 
in a rendition of Macbeth.

“It’s senior year. People get
 nostalgic and just start to lean into school activities.”

The heart-to-heart with Dad was not, as it turns out,
 adequate punishment for my transgressions.

They laugh and throw their arms around us, juxtaposing
 trophies, and posing for photos.

FATE conserves energy by adopting a greener, automated ambient light system after hours.

“I’m...on a forced hiatus from the device that lets you 
receive text messages.”

Now that the debate is over, all that’s left between us, I real
ize, are the loose strands of this weird friendship we’ve built
 alongside all the competitions, elocution exercises, and mental
 gymnastics we’ve been throwing at one another for months.

“Is it the breach of privacy and, er, online impersonation?”

“Will you please be my
 friend?”
“Sure,” I say glibly, holding back a snort that would be very 
rude right now and that she doesn’t deserve.

Trains have steadily been regaining their appeal for me. For a while, between the Montreal subway, the MTA
 subway whenever I’m back home, and the Adirondack 
railroad in between, I was spending a sizable chunk of existence 
in tepid motion and developing an allergy even to toddlers 
wearing jumpers with smiling trains all over them.

Occasionally, there’s a kerfuffle at the border because


 someone is trying to sneak into Canada or America with an
 expired passport, and you end up sitting without power, but it’s
 mostly time to sleep, catch up on assigned reading, homework,
 or just doodle shoe ideas.

How a Haitian bakery ended up in Saratoga 
Springs is a testament to the American dream.

She reaches out and pokes at my cheek in admonishment.

“My friend Aaron thinks there’s something incredibly 
messed up about the fact that we haven’t broken up yet. Statistically, it is an anomaly,” she says.