Now my mother has started to cry, too. “Sweetheart,” she says, holding out her hands in supplication. “Please don’t do this. Please.”

“No,” he shouts. “Let’s say it all. Let’s get it all out.” Scot keeps going. “She’s so smart, and all we hear from her, all year long, is about how stupid everybody else is, her teachers, how stupid they are, how stupid the town is, my town—this is my town,” he shouts, jabbing his thumbnail into his chest, “and I have to listen to this, and now she’s too smart to pass her dumb classes, and how does that make you look, Dr. Pentz, with your PhD? Like the laughingstock of the whole Valley, that’s how! You think the school board is gonna hire you now?”

“Sweetheart, I really don’t think—”

“You think they’re gonna hire you now?” he repeats. “I wouldn’t. You want to raise the standards for the whole town, but your own daughter—” He stops abruptly. “People are known by the company they keep, and that’s all I’m gonna say.” He leaves and slams the door. Zack and Nora run at my mother and cling to her leg and cry.

“It’s okay,” she says to them, with a hand on each of their heads. “Daddy’s just having some feelings.”

Then Scot comes back. “I don’t want her watching my kids anymore,” he shouts. “Maybe you don’t care about your kids, but I care about mine. From now on, hire a babysitter, and make sure it’s somebody who’s smart enough to keep them safe.” Then he leaves again. We stand there, hear him slam the door again, start his BMW, and drive away, probably to meet Nanci Lee at the Crossways Tavern.

“That’s ridiculous,” I protest to my mother. “It’s not dangerous at the Grimshaws’. And they’re not trash, either. They’re my friends.”

“Serena,” my mother says, rubbing her forehead, “do you think you can speak to Scot without a sneer in your voice?”

“Well, do you think it’s right, what he said about them? It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“Just go,” she says. “Just go away.”

“So can I sleep outside tonight?”

She gets up and starts to leave the room with Zack and Nora. “I don’t care where you sleep.”

“Fine,” I mutter. “If you don’t care where I sleep, maybe I’ll sleep with the football team.”

It comes out a little louder than I intend. She turns around and stares at me. “Get out,” she says. “Get out of my sight right now.”