Page 44 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind

Don’t think about it,I tell myself firmly.Don’t think about it, don’t remember it, don’t imagine it—

Ha. Fat chance. That moment will be burned into my memory for the rest of my life. It will linger on the surface of my mind until it eventually seeps into the cracks and folds and becomes a fundamental part of who I am.

A simple, accidental, less-than-romantic kiss has done all that to me. What would it be like to kiss her for real?

My hands tighten on the steering wheel once more, and I force myself to take a deep, steadying breath. “What are you going to say?” I ask. Then I frown. “And what’s this guy’s name?”

“His name is Phil.”

“Phil,” I say, trying not to picture the satyr fromHercules.

“Yeah,” she says with a nod. “Phil. Like the little goat guy inHercules.The Danny DeVito character.”

I rub one hand over my scruff, hiding my smile. “All right. And how are you going to approach him?”

“I’m going to feel it out, to be honest,” she says with a sigh. “I’ll see how he’s doing. Even if Carmina was unpleasant, he’s still her son. My parents were divorced, and I didn’t see my dad much, but when he died I was still devastated.”

“How old were you?” I say. I knew her dad had passed, and I knew her parents had divorced, but she’s never mentioned details.

“I was little when they divorced; three, I think,” she says, running her hand through her hair. “And then he died when I was six.”

I nod but don’t say anything, and after a few seconds of silence, she says, “Aren’t you going to ask how he died?”

“It felt rude to pry,” I say.

I look over in time to catch her smile.

“I don’t mind,” she says. “He was killed by a drunk driver.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “That sucks. Do you remember him much?”

“No,” she says, and her smile has faded into something sadder. “Not really. What I remember is good, though.”

I nod, my mind turning to my own family. “My dad is one of those gruff, emotionally constipated types,” I say. “He wanted me to be a lawyer.”

“Is he a lawyer?” Heidi says. “And your mom stays home, right? Am I remembering that correctly?”

“Yeah,” I say as a little bubble of happiness floats in my chest. I like that she remembers what I tell her. “You remembered right. And yes, my dad is a lawyer.” A lawyer who thinks man buns, face masks, and writing books are all for pansies.

AKA, my father thinks I am a pansy. I gave up trying to please him a long time ago, when I realized it wasn’t possible. No matter what I do, he’ll find something to criticize.

May as well do what makes me happy. If he wants to be part of my life someday, he knows where to find me.

The streets of Maplewood are winding and lined with trees, with cheerful flowers beginning to bloom in neatly curated beds. We pass a clubhouse with a fenced-in pool and a tennis court, and across from that is a pond. The subdivision branches in two shortly after that, and after consulting the GPS on my phone, I take the left fork. A few hundred yards later it becomes clear that this branch is where the townhomes are located; the absence of any single-family homes makes me think that those would be found if we had turned right.

“I think I would really dislike living here,” Heidi says, her voice musing as we continue to wind our way through the neighborhood. “The landscaping is pretty, but the buildings are so close together.”

She’s not wrong; the cookie cutter duplexes are squeezed into cramped lots, and you could easily throw a stone out the window of one duplex and shatter the window of the next.

We wind around a few more curves before my phone announces that our destination is on the left, and I slow down, pulling up in front of the duplex and then parking. I don’t want to block anyone’s driveway; if the residents here are anything like in my neighborhood, they’re picky about that kind of thing.

“This is it?” Heidi says, peering out the window and looking at the duplex we’re in front of.

“Looks like it,” I say. “That one, I think.” I point to the unit on the left.

“I walked a dog that lived down there,” Heidi says, pointing down the street. “A Schnauzer named Lady Madonna.”

“Mmm,” I say, my lips twitching as I unbuckle. “And what was the Poodle’s name?”

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