Coda 02 -A to Z

gonna keep seein’ him?” he asked incredulously. “No.”
    He turned to look out the window, but I could tell he was smiling.

    First thing Monday morning, Ruby came in. She seemed upset. “Zach, I’ve had a vision,” she said immediately.
    “Was it a dream,” Angelo began suddenly, with a wicked grin on his face, “where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?”
    Ruby and I both gaped at him. “Of course not,” Ruby said with disgust. “Why would you even ask such a thing?”
    “Just wonderin’.” He was looking at her, but he held up a DVD case, facing me. Real Genius . I had no idea what that was supposed to mean.
    Ruby shook her head at him then turned back to me. “There was a bird. It tried to land in your hands, but a giant horse scared it away.”

    As usual when Ruby announced her visions, I had no idea how to respond. I just smiled. “That’s fascinating.”

    She nodded sagely. “I hope you’re not planning any horse riding this weekend.”
    Before I could answer, Nero Sensei burst through the door, breathless. “Do any of you own the blue convertible parked in front of Jeremy’s?”
    Which meant another kid had puked off the balcony. “Hope the top wasn’t down,” Angelo said lightly.
    Sensei shook his head as he headed back out the door. “No, but it’s a soft top, and Tim had cranberry juice before class. It’s gonna stain.”
    Ruby followed Nero out the door. Angelo turned to me. His eyes were sparkling and he was grinning from ear to ear. “Best job I ever had,” he said, and I had to smile back.
    T HREE days later Tom came by the store. “Hey, baby. I missed you this weekend.”
    “I’m sure you did.” He didn’t seem to notice the sarcasm in my voice. He stepped closer and started to slip his arm around my waist. I took a step back, away from him. It didn’t seem right to have this conversation in front of Angelo, though. “Maybe we should go in the back and talk.”
    “ No! ” Angelo said, and there was something like panic in his voice.

    I saw a flash of anger on Tom’s face, and then the smile was back. “Sure, baby. That sounds like a great idea.”
    “No.” Angelo sounded calmer this time. Tom’s back was to him, and he mouthed the words, “Don’t trust him,” then said out loud, “I’ll go in back.”
    Once he was in the office with the door closed, Tom started to reach for me again. I sidestepped him. “Tom, I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”
    He froze with his smile still on his face. “What do you mean?”
    “I don’t think this is really going anywhere. We don’t have anything in common. We never spend any time together. What you want and what I want is obviously not the same thing.”
    His smile was gone, and he wasn’t handsome anymore at all. He looked furious. “This is because of him , isn’t it?”

    I was baffled. “Who?”

    He pointed toward the office. “ Him! Your little pet. What did he tell you about me?”

    That confused me. “Angelo has nothing to do with this.” “Bullshit!” He practically spat the words at me. “Whatever he said was a fucking lie.”
    “He never said anything about you at all.” That wasn’t exactly true, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t talking about Angelo calling him a dickhead.
“It was him . He’s the one who came on to me !”
    Nothing would have surprised me more than that. I knew without a doubt that Angelo would never have done anything of the sort. “You’re telling me that Angelo came on to you?” I asked skeptically.
    He looked triumphant. “Yes!”
    I knew he was lying. Yet with all that smoke, there had to be fire somewhere. I obviously couldn’t trust his version of events, though. “Hey Ang! Can I talk to you?” The door opened, and he came out, but I could tell he was surprised to see that Tom was still there.
    “What’s up?”

    “Tom is under the impression that you’ve told me something about him.”

    “You mean,” he said scathingly, “something other than that he’s a dickhead?”
    I couldn’t believe he said that, and I couldn’t help but smile. Tom turned about ten more shades of red and looked like he was about to start tearing the place apart. “Yes, apparently something more than that. Something about you coming on to him.”
    His eyes flashed with anger. But there was no guilt, as there would have been if Tom had been