She called Rufus herself. He sounded surprised by the request—chain-saw artists are rarely asked to babysit—but before she could say never mind he had declared the idea to be rad.
“Thank god,” said Zoe. “I was afraid you’d think it was gnarly.”
“You’re making fun of me, I know,” said Rufus, laughing, “but tell my man Jonah to prepare himself for an epic hang.”
Twenty minutes later, Rufus’s van could be heard negotiating the mountainside. Zoe saw the wooden bear affixed to the roof as it rose above the treetops, waving like the queen.
At last she was free. She drove the decrepit Struggle Buggy to school as if it were a race car. Every nerve in her body seemed to be humming. Every song on the radio seemed to be about X.
Zoe’s and Jonah’s schools were nestled next to each other in Flathead Valley near a dense settlement of chain stores (Target, Walmart, Costco) and beef-slinging restaurants that Zoe’s mom referred to as the Cannibal Food Court (Sizzler, Five Guys, House of Huns). Students were allowed to eat lunch at the mall once they became juniors. For everyone else, it merely shimmered across the highway like an unreachable promised land. Zoe was a junior, but the thrill of eating in the Cannibal Food Court had lost its shine. It was partly because her mother’s ethics had sunk in over the years—Zoe wasn’t a vegetarian, but she felt a cloud of guilt whenever she ate meat—and partly because House of Huns was where she’d told Dallas she didn’t want to go out anymore.
Val had begged Zoe not to see Dallas in the first place. She thought he was cocky and kind of a douche. But Val’s relationship with Gloria was so intense that she had a skewed idea of what was generally possible in 11th grade. Zoe loved that Dallas was a caver like her and her dad, that he was fun and uncomplicated, and that—so sue her—you could see his triceps through almost any shirt. When she told Val that she was going to give him a chance, Val said simply, “I weep for you.”
They began dating in September, and Zoe soon discovered that there were many sweet things about Dallas: His favorite color was orange. He still slept in pajamas. He used a photo of his mom for the wallpaper on his laptop. Val didn’t want to hear any of it. Once, when Zoe and Dallas passed her in the hallway, Zoe sang out, “Still dating!” Val nodded, and sang back, “Still weeping!”
In November, when her dad died and she was crying constantly and everything was so raw and dizzying that she felt like she’d been thrown out of a moving car, Zoe decided to strip away everyone who wasn’t essential to her life. And Dallas just wasn’t. She broke the news to him at House of Huns, which was a Benihana-type place where shirtless men grunted like barbarians in front of a massive circular grill. At first, Dallas flatly refused to be dumped. He told Zoe she was in too messed-up a state to be making “mega-life-altering decisions.” Zoe had face-palmed—she couldn’t help it—and said, “Dude, this is in no way a mega-life-altering decision. I know what a life-altering event is, okay? My father just died.”
“I’m sorry,” said Dallas. “I didn’t mean to compare this to—to that. To your dad. I just think you’re a badass. And you’re hot. And those are, like, the two best things.”
Dallas asked if they could still hang sometimes—as friends, or whatever. He said it very simply and genuinely. Zoe said of course. Dallas grinned and told her that there was another girl at school he was kind of into anyway—and that he was pretty sure if he asked her out she’d say yes. He said Zoe was probably “too complicated” for him anyway. The air cleared, Dallas then turned his attention to the comments card and the miniature-golf pencil that had been left on their table: How was your meal? Let us know! Dallas reflected for a moment, and wrote, Solid salad bar! When Zoe left, he stayed behind to apply for a job.
Today, Zoe swung the Struggle Buggy into the parking lot that connected the schools. She was an hour late, thanks to Jonah’s meltdown. She gathered up her books and bags, and slammed the car shut—a complicated process that involved pulling the handle up and to the right because the door had been sideswiped by a snowplow and now sagged several inches too low.
No one at Jonah’s school even looked at Zoe sideways when she told them that he’d be out sick. Everyone knew that Zoe’s family had slipped into a dark tunnel. She’d always been an A student, but lately her grades had been sliding. Given the awful stuff that had happened, she found it harder and harder to believe that there was really an earth-shattering difference between an A and a B, or even between a B and a C. Today, Jonah’s vice principal, Ms. Didier, asked if Zoe was doing okay with so much compassion—with so much eye contact—that Zoe knew rumors must be circulating about what had gone on at the lake with Stan. God only knew how the story had been twisted in the retellings.
“I’m okay, yeah,” Zoe told her. “Jonah’s kind of … not.”
“Well, look,” said the vice principal, “this is incredibly scary, upsetting stuff. There’s no handbook. But we will do whatever your family needs. Let Jonah know we’re thinking about him. Who’s with him now?”
“Our friend Rufus,” said Zoe.
“The chain-saw guy?” said Ms. Didier.
“Yes,” said Zoe. “But he’s—”
“Oh, no, no, I love Rufus,” said Ms. Didier. “I didn’t mean to sound critical. He made a moose for me.”