by Sarah Dessen
“Frankly, no,” I said. “I like walking.”
“When we move, you won’t be able to walk everywhere, like you do now.”
“So I’ll take the bus or use GetThere.”
He sighed again. I felt like I understood my dad pretty well, a by-product of it just being us two for so long. But I didn’t get why, ever since I’d turned fifteen, it was so freaking important to him that I get my license. He’d relentlessly pushed me to take driver’s ed and get my permit, then made a big deal of me getting my provisional license, followed by my full one six months later. I stuck it in my wallet, intending to forget about it, but then he was always wanting us to go out driving together, when he’d spent the entire time I was behind the wheel gripping what Bridget’s dad called the “oh shit” handle over his window and pounding an imaginary brake. The whole thing just amplified my anxiety, even before I’d backed into a neighbor’s SUV in our underground parking deck, which had scared me so badly I’d burst into tears.
“Dad,” I said now. “Maybe I’m just not meant to be a driver. Not everyone is. Think of the accident rate.”
“Driving changed my life, though,” he said. “Do you know I bought my first car, a used red Audi—”
“A4 with a sunroof and leather seats,” I filled in for him. This story was as familiar as one of my mom’s.
“—right before I came to Lake North to work my first summer?” He sighed once more, this time happily. “Stocked shelves at AllDrug nights and weekends my entire senior year to save up for it, and drove it off the lot and straight here to my job at the Club. Or, you know, there.” He nodded at the left side of the window, and the lake. “I just don’t want you to miss that feeling. That you can go anywhere. It opens up the world.”
I rolled my eyes. “Dad, I’m about to spend three weeks in a place that for all intents and purposes I’ve never been to before. Gotta say, the world seems pretty wide right now.”
“Yes,” he said, “but with your license you’d be free to see even more of it. Like Lake North, for example.”
“Where I’d probably back Mimi’s car into another, more expensive SUV. Is that what you really want?”
This was a good point. I’d hit a Range Rover in that fender bender: it hadn’t been cheap. “Okay, fine. But once I’m back, we discuss. Deal?”
“Deal.”
That resolved, he got to his feet, coming over to join me where I was standing by the window. “So, look,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “Be honest: You okay with this arrangement? It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“I’m fine,” I said, although now that his time left here was dwindling, I was feeling a slow simmer of anxiety I could only hope wouldn’t reach full boil. Did I want to change my mind?
The panic, now hitting medium high, said yes. But I had learned, over time and with various therapists we’d consulted, that it did not get to speak for me. I could do this. And I would, for my dad and Tracy first and foremost, but also, in some small way, for my mom. I worried so much about forgetting her as the years passed. Maybe spending a month in the place she came from would help me remember.
We walked downstairs, back into the kitchen, which was now empty. Peering down the hallway, I could see Mimi outside, talking to the pregnant girl out by the cleaning cart over at the motel. As they conferred, a car zoomed past on the road, beeped, and she waved her hand.
“Still the same table,” my dad marveled as we passed the big wooden one against the windows. I, of course, could only see all those dirty dishes, still untouched. “But that toaster’s new.”
“Toaster?”
He gestured at the corner of one counter, by the sink. Sure enough, sitting there was a huge shiny silver toaster, the kind with multiple bread slots and various dials for settings. “In a place like this, you notice change,” he said to me, starting down the hallway. Appliances, too, I thought, before following behind him.
“Leaving already, Matthew?” Mimi asked when we got back outside. “You just got here!”
“He has a plane to catch,” I told her. “The honeymoon awaits.”
She stepped forward, giving him a hug. “Have a wonderful time. And don’t worry a thing about this girl, she’ll be fine.”
She said this so confidently, as if she knew me, as well as the future. The weird part was how much I wanted to believe she was right.
“Thanks, Mimi,” he replied. “For everything.”
She smiled at him, then gave me a wink before turning and pulling open the office door. I felt a blast of cold air before it closed behind her.
“Still feel weird about this,” he said when it was just us again. “It’s not the way I planned to be leaving you.”
“I’ll be fine,” I told him. “Go. Sail. Honey that moon. I’ll see you in three weeks.”
He laughed. “Honey that moon?”
“Just go, would you?”
Finally, he got in the car and started the engine, backing out slowly as I stood there. I made a point to wave at him, smiling, as he pulled onto the main road. Then I turned around to face the house and the lake, taking a deep breath.
As I started walking, the pregnant girl was still outside the last unit, now sitting in one of the plastic chairs, looking at her phone. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel her watching me, so I picked up my pace crossing the grass, as if I had a solid plan. No matter where you are, home or the strangest of places, everyone wants to look like they know where they’re going.
Four
“Well, shit.”
I opened my eyes at the sound of voices, the first I’d heard since crawling into my bed after my dad left and falling asleep. It had still been morning then: now the clock on the bureau, analog with tiny numbers, said 3:30. Whoops.
“Why is there no bread in this house?” a woman was saying in the kitchen, the question accompanied by the banging of cabinets. “I just brought a loaf over here two days ago.”
“I’m not hungry,” a voice that sounded like a child said. “I told you that.”
“You’ll eat something if I make it.” Footsteps, then a door—the screen one downstairs, I was pretty sure—slamming. “Mama! What happened to all my bread?”
“Your what?” That was Mimi.
“My bread! I’m trying to make Gordon a sandwich.”
“Honey, I don’t know. If there’s bread, it’s in the regular place.”
“But that’s not my bread, that I bought with my money, for my family to eat,” her daughter replied.
“I’m not hungry!” came again from downstairs.
“I’ll remind you that we are all your family,” Mimi hollered, “and if you want to get picky about it, then you can stop drinking all my Pop Soda and not replacing it.”
Silence. But the heavy kind. Meanwhile, I thought of my mom, who was the only person I’d ever known who had heard of Pop Soda, much less drank it. It was like a generic Diet Coke, heavy on the syrup. It had been years since I’d had one, but I could still remember how it made my teeth hurt.
“Mama, all I am asking is where is the bread,” the woman said, sounding tired. “If you have some other issue with me, let’s get into it, by all means, the day hasn’t yet been long enough.”
Mimi responded, although at this point they were apparently close enough not to be yelling, so I couldn’t hear it. But I was up now, so I grabbed my toothbrush and navigated the way to the tiny bathroom at the end of the hall. Once rid of nap breath, I finger combed my hair, took a deep breath, and went downstairs.
At first the kitchen looked completely empty. Only when I’d started to the cabinets for some water—again noting all those dirty dishes, how could you just leave them like that?—did I notice a little girl standing just inside the opening to the hallway. Until she reached up, adjusting the glasses on her face, she’d been so still I’d assumed she was part of the wall.
“Oh,” I said, startled. “Hi.”
She studied me, her face serious. While he
r appearance—dark hair in a ponytail, denim shorts and thick plastic clogs, a purple T-shirt that said #AWESOME—was young, the expression on her face reflected the world-weariness usually seen in a much older woman. “Hello,” she replied.
I glanced down the hallway, to the screen door. “Are you looking for Mimi?”
“No,” she said. “Are you?”
“No,” I replied. “I was actually trying to find a glass for some water.”
Another beat as she studied me. Then she turned, crossing into the kitchen and standing on tiptoe to open an upper cabinet. She pulled out a plastic tumbler with a gas station logo on it, holding it out in my direction. “If you want ice, it’s in the bucket in the freezer.”
“I’m good,” I said, taking the glass. “Thank you, um . . .”
“Gordon,” she said.
“Gordon,” I repeated. “I’m Emma.”
She nodded, as if this was acceptable. Then she watched as I went to the sink, filled my glass, and took a sip. “My real first name is Anna,” she said after a moment. “But nobody with two names ever uses the first one.”
“I do,” I said.
This seemed to intrigue her. “Really?”
I nodded. “I’m Emma Saylor, technically.”
“And you get to be just Emma?”
“Well, yeah.”
She looked wistful for a second. “Lucky.”
The door banged again, and I heard footsteps approaching. A moment later, a woman in jeans and a polyester uniform top that said CONROY MARKET entered the kitchen. She had long blond hair pulled back in a headband and wore tall wedge sandals of the sort Nana would call ankle breakers.
“Well, it looks like you’re having a quesadilla, Gordon, despite the fact I just bought—”
She stopped talking when she saw me, her blue eyes, lashes thick with mascara, widening. I put my glass down on the counter, thinking I’d overstepped by helping myself.
“Oh, my God,” she said softly, putting a hand to her chest. “You look just like . . . Waverly?”
Her voice broke on the word, and I saw now she was pale, like she literally had seen a ghost. “No,” I said quickly. “I’m Emma. Her daughter.”
“Emma?” she repeated.
“Saylor,” Gordon offered. “That’s her other name.”
The woman moved her hand to her mouth, still staring at me. “I’m sorry,” she managed finally. “I just . . . I just didn’t expect you here.”
“It was kind of last-minute,” I told her. “My dad was leaving the country and I didn’t have any other place—”
Before I could finish, she had crossed the short distance between us and was pulling me into probably the tightest hug I had ever experienced. It felt like she was squeezing the breath right out of me.
“Oh, my God,” she said again. Over her shoulder, Gordon observed our embrace, chewing a thumbnail. “You’re her spitting image—I saw you there and it was like she was back for a second.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Now, finally, she pulled away, and I saw tears in her eyes. They were so blue, like Mimi’s. Like my mom’s. And mine. “Do you even remember me?”
I paused, not wanting to hurt her feelings. “I—”
“Celeste,” she told me, putting her hand back on her chest. “I’m your aunt. Do you remember? And Gordon there, she’s your cousin.”
“Oh,” I said, glancing at Gordon again, then back to her. “Right. Hi.”
Celeste blinked, a tear running down her face. “Oh, God, you must think I’m a total psycho, look at me.”
“You’re fine,” I said as she reached over to a roll of paper towels and ripped one off, dabbing at her eyes. “I’m sorry you weren’t warned.”
“Well, that’s Mama for you,” she said. She blew her nose with a honk. “We’ve only talked on the phone three times today already. Are you hungry? I was just about to make Gordon something.”
“Oh,” I told her, “you don’t have to do that. I can just—”
“Sit,” Celeste said, gesturing to the table. She handed me my water. “Now, let me find those tortillas . . .”
I went to a chair, doing as I was told as she opened the fridge and began taking things out. A moment later, Gordon joined me, bringing a thick paperback book along with her.
“What are you reading?” I asked.
“Oh, Lord,” Celeste groaned. “Don’t get her started about those damn gorillas.”
“They are chimpanzees,” Gordon said. From the annoyance in her voice, it was clear this was a common exchange.
“Can I see?” I asked, nodding at the book. She pushed it toward me and I flipped it over. The Allies, Gathering Two: Justice Begins, it said in thick raised print on the cover. The illustration was of, yes, a chimpanzee, but with very human features, staring into a red-and-yellow-streaked setting sun. “Oh, the Allies series. I remember these. There are, like, a million of them.”
“Twenty in the first gathering, fourteen so far in the second,” Gordon replied. “And that’s not counting all the extra editions and compilations, plus the manga and graphic novels.”
“It’s like she’s speaking another language,” Celeste added from the stove, where she was now heating up a frying pan. “I gave up trying to follow years ago.”
Gordon, unfazed, flipped the book back over and opened it to a bent-down page, then started to read. After a moment, she reached up, twirling a piece of hair around one finger.
“She’s gone,” Celeste told me, tossing a tortilla into the frying pan. “Gets lost when she reads. Thank God for it. I give her a hard time, but I was never good in school. She is.”
“What grade is she in?”
“Starting fifth in the fall. She’s in accelerated reading and math,” she replied, sounding proud. “Clearly not my child, but I will take some of the credit.”
“Oh,” I said. “I thought she was—”
Celeste looked over her shoulder at me. “What? Oh, no. Her mama’s your cousin Amber, from my daddy’s side. She lives in Florida right now.”
Amber, I thought. The name was familiar, but only faintly so. “Was my mom close with her?”
“Thick as thieves,” she replied, pushing the tortilla with a spatula. “But we all were, back then. Growing up here, family was everything. It had to be. We only ever had each other.”
It occurred to me that at some point I would need to draw up a family tree to really understand my place in all this. But as long as I had Celeste here, it was worth getting started.
“So you have . . . how many kids?” I asked her.
“Three,” she said, flipping the finished quesadilla onto a nearby plate and starting another one. “There’s Trinity, who you may have seen earlier, she’s pregnant right now. . . .”
I thought of the girl with the cleaning cart, eyeballing me as I passed. We were first cousins? So much for family being all you had. She’d acted like she hated me. “She works at the motel, right?”
“Yes,” Celeste allowed with a sigh, “but only in the broadest definition of the word. Mostly she’s on her phone complaining about how her feet hurt while Mama does both their jobs because she’s a damn softie.”
“Right,” I said.
“Then there’s my son, Jack, he’s three years older than you,” she continued, shaking the frying pan over the burner, “and finally Bailey, who is your age.”
“She’s seventeen?”
“Both your birthdays are in April. Your mama and I were pregnant at the same time, our due dates just weeks apart. We spent a lot of time on the phone complaining to each other, now that I think about it. I probably shouldn’t be so hard on Trinity.”
She finished up the second quesadilla, then brought both plates over to the table.
“Thank you,” I said as she put one in front of me.
“You’re very welcome,” she replied. “Silverware and napkins are—”
Before she finished saying this, I was reaching like it was a reflex t
o the rattan basket across from me, pulling it closer to retrieve a fork, knife, and napkin. Huh.
“Well, never mind,” she said with another smile. “Gordon. Put the book away and eat.”
“I can eat and read,” Gordon replied, picking up her quesadilla and taking a bite, her eyes still on the page.
Celeste rolled her eyes and went to the fridge, retrieving a can of Pop Soda. Then she sat down, opening the can before kicking off her shoes, first one, then the other. “What a day. It’s only early season and I’m already exhausted.”
“You work at a market?” I asked.
She looked surprised I knew this, then glanced down at her uniform top. “I forgot I had this thing on! Usually take it off the second I get in the car. Yes, Conroy Market. Only grocery store in North Lake. I’m an assistant manager.”
I took a big bite of the quesadilla: I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I’d begun eating. “This is really good,” I told Celeste.
“You want another one?” She started to get to her feet. “It’ll only take a second.”
“Oh, no,” I said quickly. “I’m fine. Thank you, though.”
While I ate, I could tell she was trying not to stare at me, my presence still so surprising. Finally she got to her feet, taking my now-empty plate and Gordon’s. “I can do those,” I said as she started to run water into the sink, crammed with all those dishes.
“Oh, no,” she said. “You’re a guest.”
“I want to,” I said, wanting to add that it had been driving me crazy all day. “You cooked, I clean. That’s the rule in our house. Please?”
Celeste looked at me for a second. “Okay,” she said finally. “But know this: you start washing dishes in this house, you’ll never stop.”
In response, I stood up and walked over to the sink, pulling the faucet aside and turning it all the way hot before beginning to sort everything into categories. I knew I probably looked like the weirdo cousin, but as I added soap to the water, finding a scrub brush in the nearby dish rack, I felt more in control than I had since that call in the dark from Bridget twelve hours earlier. I was in a strange place, feeling strange even to myself, but this task was one I knew well, and I took comfort in it. So much so that when I finished, I turned to see both Celeste and Gordon had gone, leaving the Allies book and the lake as my only company.