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for a ride home without worrying
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    about him hitting on me. The mathematics of that equation multiplied by the chemistry of how I would sneak inside my house without my mother noticing and get right into the shower to get rid of the smoke and beer smell and, yeah, possibly puke out all this beer while I was in the bathroom anyway, well, all this head work was literally making my head spin.
    I looked down from the red exit sign I'd been staring at, wondering if I had enough cash for a taxi home, when I saw exactly the last person--besides maybe some evil dictator like Stalin or Pol Pot--that I could possibly want to have standing in front of me at the table ledge, glaring at me like I was busted, big time.
    Alexei the Horrible said, "Well, if it isn't the Little Hellion. Let's see, if memory serves, last time I saw you was about two summers ago when you conned me into taking you to a movie and I didn't find out until later the only reason you wanted me to go was because the movie was rated R and your mother had forbidden you to see it. That would make you how old now?" Alexei wrote a fake equation in the air with his index finger. "Oh yeah, still not old enough to be in this pub."
    Since Alexei the Horrible has been away at college or I was away at boarding school, it's been my privilege to erase the unfortunate fact of his existence in the long time since I've last seen him. He is Fernando's godson, practically Fernando's son because Alexei's dead father was Fernando's bestest friend in the history of the world, like a brother to him. My stepdad, Sid, about wishes Alexei were his godson too. He thinks Alexei is the most promising young man, fine upstanding blah blah blah Ivy League undergraduate since
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    like the dawn of time. Sid-dad wrote Alexei's college recommendation letter, he helped Alexei get the big scholarships to finance the fancy education. Sid-dad is apparently not aware, as I have been since age eight when Alexei kicked me off my own new trampoline when no one was looking because he said I was a spoiled little princess and didn't even know how to use my own toys properly, that Alexei is, in fact, an overconfident overachiever uptight driven faux intellectual stuck-up suck-up (everything Shrimp is not).
    But he also might be able to save my ass. 'Alexei," I said. "Please, please, please, can you give me a ride home?"
    It was funny to watch a guy as big as Alexei squirm. He was a state champion wrestler in high school and is one of those people who downs protein shakes like they actually taste good. Alexei said, "What's in it for me?" Luckily I didn't have to answer because Alexei added, 'Actually I told Fernando I would stop by to help him move some furniture around. But still, helping the Little Hellion out, I don't know."
    Fernando has moved into the apartment at the side of our house now that Leila, who used to be our housekeeper, moved back to Canada. Fernando's always been more like an uncle than a family employee, anyway, just one who knows the back streets to the freeway and makes kick-ass empanadas. Fernando has a long red scar running down the side of his leather face that he got during the civil war in Nicaragua, and I think that's why Sid-dad originally hired him, because Fernando is kind of scary-looking, until you find out Fernando's this close to being a Care Bear--that is, unless he's major pissed at you for having to retrieve you in the middle of the night from your boyfriend's. My stepfather
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    is the CEO of a company with thousands of people working for him, but I think Fernando is the only employee Sid-dad actually trusts. I also think that while technically Fernando is the family driver, less technically but not officially, Fernando's status of driver is just a cover-up that saves Sid-dad from acknowledging that he has hired a security-type person for our family, while at the same time saving Sid-dad the trouble of having to find parking spaces.
    I jumped off the bar table and stood eye