by JD Hawkins
“Wyatt,” my mom smiles, putting down the lemonade pitcher she was pouring from and coming to hug me.
I receive the hug and watch my dad get up from the sofa to come over.
“Thanks for coming, son,” he says, as we shake hands.
I meet Cody’s eye—he’s slumping back in the armchair casually—and we nod a quick greeting to each other.
“Sit down,” my mom says, “I made lemonade. Or we can go outside, but the porch is a little messy.”
“This is fine,” I mumble as I sit down on the chair perpendicular to the couch.
My mom pours me a lemonade but I’m more interested in the way she sits next to my dad, the way he puts his arm around her and smiles like he’s posing for a photo.
“Are you still upset, sweetie?” she asks.
I try to choose my words carefully. “I still think this is a bad idea. Yeah.”
“We thought you’d you be happy, Wyatt,” Dad says, and it sounds like a plea.
I sigh heavily. Without the anger and shock of first seeing them, it’s a lot harder to express how I feel, a lot harder to say what I think in the calmness of my mom’s house.
“I wish I was,” I say. “But all I can think about is how bad you guys treated each other when you divorced. I’ve got more childhood memories of you at each other’s throats than being happy together. And this just seems out of the blue, and not thought-through.”
My parents look at each other, all pursed lips and frowns, as if I’m a bad kid they’ve been invited to see the principal about.
“What would have made me happy,” I continue, “would be seeing you two move on with your lives. No more arguments, no more petty squabbles, no more making everyone else feel awkward whenever you’re in the same room together. Maybe you could’ve found partners better suited to you, instead of rushing back into something you already know doesn’t work. What’s gonna be so different this time around?”
There’s a heavy silence, a tension too thick to properly think in, until Cody asks, “How did you guys even end up getting back together?”
My parents smile, a sense of tension relieved now that they can talk about something positive.
Mom starts, “Well, about six months ago—”
“When Wyatt first said he was coming back to California,” my dad interrupts.
“Right,” Mom continues, “we decided to meet for a coffee.”
“It was your mom’s idea.”
“Yeah.” She nods, blushing. “It was interesting.”
They smile at each other, affectionate and intimate, heads tilting in a little, and I have to look away. This is so different from any interaction I can remember them ever having in front of us kids that they seem like entirely different people now. None of it makes sense.
“It was as if,” Mom says, “we’d spent so long not talking, that we were meeting for the first time again. We had so much to talk about, to tell each other and catch up on.”
Dad shrugs. “We met again the next week. And the next.”
“And the next.”
They laugh together.
I say, “Did you talk about all the things that went wrong?”
They stop laughing and pause for a moment, looking at me, then at each other.
“Actually, yeah…” my dad says.
“We’ve had a lot of time to think. To see things the way they actually were. And how they should have been.” Mom looks off into the distance, and I see the regret there.
“To swallow our pride a little,” Dad adds.
“And to recognize all the mistakes we made.”
“The truth is,” he says in a heavier tone, “as much as we hurt each other, we’d never been as happy as we were together also.”
“Not since, either.”
I let out a sigh and hang my head a little. When I raise it, it’s to look at Cody. I’m expecting him to be struggling with this as much as I am, to find some semblance of confusion on his typically-stoic face. Instead, my brother is beaming the kind of smile he’s been too cool to wear since he was six.
Looking around at my family, I feel something in me give, and say, “All I wanted was to see you guys happy. All of you.”
“We know,” Mom says. “And if there’s one thing that we could take back about all of this, it would be the hurt we caused both of you.”
Dad says, “We can see how much it affected you kids. Especially you, Wyatt. How much it stopped you from your own happiness, in a way.”
Mom clears her throat and adds, “We’d hate for this to get in the way of you and Melina.”
I drop my jaw and stare at them, trying to replay the last three seconds to make sure I heard their words right, and that it wasn’t just my overactive and over-stressed imagination. I glance over at Cody, and he’s looking at me with the same kind of anticipation I’ve been wearing since I arrived.
“Me and Melina?” I repeat slowly.
“Of course,” Dad says. “We’re not blind, son.”
I look over at my brother for some kind of backup, but Cody just shrugs at me.
“I’m going to check on the lasagna,” my mom says, as if everything that needed saying has already been said.
“I’ll come give you a hand,” Dad offers.
I watch incredulously as they walk away, then turn back to Cody. “Did you…?”
“I’m not a kid anymore,” he says, as if reading my mind. “I could see what was going on between you two the first day you came back.”
“There’s nothing ‘going on’ between me and Melina,” I say instinctively. “Not anymore, anyway…and how the hell did we all end up talking about me here? I came over so we could talk about Mom and Dad.”
“It’s all connected, bro,” Cody says, still laying back on the chair nonchalantly.
“No it isn’t.”
Cody snorts. “What you saw Mom and Dad go through made it so you never committed to anything yourself,” he says, as matter-of-factly as if he were explaining an issue with a bike engine. “It’s like you were always afraid it would happen to you.”
“The hell are you talking about, Cody? You don’t know what—”
“Wyatt!” Mom calls from the kitchen. “Can you set the table, hon? And Cody, why don’t you come help your father with the salad.”
Cody and I get up, dinner obligations kicking in like they did when we were kids. And just like that, it’s as if nothing has changed. As if my parents were never apart, as if the past six years since they divorced were just a bad dream.
When we sit down to eat we don’t talk about the past anymore—we just talk. And laugh. And share. Cody tells us stories of the odd jobs he’s still doing around town while he finishes his mechanic’s apprenticeship, somehow making each story a funny slice of life that leaves us all smiling at each other. My mom mentions some news story about driverless cars and we end up in a big debate. The lasagna tastes as good as it always did, and I rib my dad about his new Volkswagen.
It feels like home, like a family. I never knew until now that I missed this so badly.
Seeing how my mom and dad act now, it’s hard not to swallow my words, not to feel like I was wrong. He doesn’t sulk at every off-handed comment like he used to, and Mom doesn’t make everything about her like she used to. In fact they seem to joke about it, self-deprecating and self-aware as if they actually learned something from how they used to be.
Before I know it, the sun is setting. I’ve spent hours here, and no idea where the time went. Cody says he’s heading out for a gig, and I say I’d better get going too. I hug my mom and my dad claps me on the back and says he hopes we can all do this again soon.
I walk to my car feeling ten pounds lighter. I open my car door and I’m about to get inside when I hear Cody’s voice.
“Hey.”
I turn to see him wheeling his bike toward me.
“Hey.”
“Listen, I um…” Cody shuffles on his feet a little, looking down as if searching for
something lost. “I wanted to say thanks.”
“Thanks?”
“Yeah. All this…it got me thinking about the past. Everything we went through. Everything you did. For me.” He looks at the house. “For them.”
I shrug. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, you did. You kept us all together. You didn’t take sides—you never let me get inthe middle of things. You made it so they could still talk to each other, so they could still both go to barbecues at the Buchanans’… Hell, you’re the reason they’re back together—as much as you don’t like it.”
I laugh gently and look back at the house.
“I don’t mind them getting back together,” I say. “I just don’t want to see them hurt each other anymore.”
“Everyone gets hurt though, right? It’s whether you can fix it that really matters.”
I turn back to look at Cody, and he’s smiling wryly, as if we’re not just talking about our parents now. He lifts his leg and mounts his bike.
“Maybe you should give things with Melina another chance,” he says, revving the loud engine into life. He offers his hand and I clasp it. “You deserve a little happiness.”
He takes his hand from mine, tugs his helmet over his head, and jolts off down the street to the thunderous sound of his engine, as if there’s nothing more to say, nothing more to it than that.
I’m starting to wonder if maybe there isn’t.
21
Melina
It’ll be my last day. Over emails with HR I establish that I’m happy to just come in, sign forms, give the last of the photographs to them, and never have to turn up again. I’ll get only half the month’s pay, but not having to spend two extra weeks with the double-awkwardness of being around both my ex-colleagues and ex-boyfriend is worth it.
For the last time I park outside the building, and for the first time when I get to the register I actually take a minute to think about what I want to put down.
Liberated but a little scared, I write, and push it back across the desk.
My body’s tense, sensitive to any stares or whispers that might be directed at me as I go upstairs and make my way through the desks, though nobody seems any more aware of me than usual. Some even say hello, and I figure MESS is such a mess that nobody even knows I’m effectively gone.
Surreptitiously I glance over at Wyatt’s office and see his door is ajar and that he’s not there. I’m half disappointed, half relieved. Still debating when—or if—I should reach out to him again. But as agonizing as it is not knowing if things between us will ever be okay, I try to trust in all the things my sister told me, especially about me being strong. I look around for Jenny, the HR manager supposed to give me the forms, but I can’t seem to find her, and figure she’s in the grounding room or something.
Just as I’m unloading my bag onto a desk to wait, a preppy teenage boy who looks barely out of high school draws my attention.
“Are you Melina?” he asks, in a tentative voice.
He points at my camera bag. I notice the camera around his neck.
“Yeah…” I say slowly. “Who are you?”
“Sam,” the boy says, without offering his hand. Then he looks back at an equally gawky and young girl a few desks away. “That’s Evie.”
I notice that she’s also fiddling with a camera on the desk, but when she glances up and meets my eyes, her face transforms.
“We love your work!” she gushes. “It’s insane. I mean, we’re always taught we should treat even the most irrelevant project like it’s important—but your work here is just next level. The shots you took at the Disney Concert Hall could be an exhibition—they’re so much more than anyone else is doing with social media marketing.”
“Uh, thanks.” I nod, still confused. “Are you guys…”
Before I can ask, Sam blurts, “We’re the ones replacing you.”
“Replacing me?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, oblivious to my incredulity. “We’re supposed to get all the social media passwords and stuff from you. A handover. I don’t know how we’re going to keep up the standard you’ve set—but we’re gonna try.”
I stare at him blankly, stunned for a few moments into silence.
When Wyatt fired me, I figured it was a typical cutback. An expense-saving tactic for a part of the company Jim never had any respect for anyway. The first in what would probably be a series of cutbacks until the company inevitably crumbled.
But to be replaced… As if I hadn’t been doing good work, as if they could do better… Suddenly I feel like this is even worse than being treated carelessly, that this is an insult.
“So…” Sam says, awkwardly trying to fill the silence, “what happened? Did you find a better gig? I bet you got an offer from someone huge, right? A designer? Or a magazine?”
“What?” I say, emerging back into the present.
“You know. Like…a real job, that pays? Isn’t that why you’re leaving?”
I frown at him.
“Wait. Are you not getting paid?”
“No...” Sam says, starting to look as confused I am. “This is an internship, right? To build up your resume?”
The laugh that comes out of me is brief but drenched in disbelief and exasperation. So this is why I’m facing poverty and humiliation—because even interns are cheaper than the peanuts I was getting paid.
It shouldn’t surprise me—hell, it shouldn’t even bother me at this point—but it’s that one straw too far, that nudge over the edge. The final piece that makes me realize just how unfair it all is, just how unreasonably I’ve been treated for far too long.
I feel my body get hot and tight with anger, thoughts growing sharp and dangerous. It happens too quickly for me to do the usual thing, to back away and spend some time alone to lick my wounds. No space for me to process, to take it all inside myself. I’m pissed, and I’ve had enough of dealing with it.
Especially when I see Jim emerge from his office.
“Hey!” I shout. Marching toward him as everybody pretends not to look in my direction. It’s rare to hear a voice raised like that in the office—especially mine. Jim freezes, fixed in my glare and my stride.
“So you’re replacing me with interns?”
“Melina,” he says, trying to sound smooth, his palms up to placate me, “no need to get hysterical now. You understand how it is—”
“I understand alright,” I say, voice still loud enough to seize the rest of the office’s attention, “I understand that you’re a selfish and arrogant man with zero integrity, who’s built a company around his vanity and a pile of marketing research. I understand that you’ve filled this place with your nephews and nieces—who, I might add, get paid way more than I ever did for doing half the amount of work—and yet you still put all the blame for the company’s failures on the few of us who do try to do good work.”
He sputters for a moment, his face going redder than a boiled lobster. “You can’t talk to me like—”
“I’ll talk to you how I want,” I shoot back, stepping closer, “now that I’m not yours to boss around. Your drink sucks. This company sucks. Most of all—you suck. With your PowerPoints and stupid meetings and faux-hippie bullshit. You’re not fooling anyone—we can all see you’re just an egotistical suit pretending to give a damn. Do you seriously expect anyone to buy your disgusting kombucha when you can’t even stand to try it?” The office goes dead silent, every breath held, every pair of eyes widened in disbelief. I hold my hands up and nod at my ex-colleagues, a smile on my face. “Good luck, you guys. I’m out.”
When I turn around I see Wyatt there, standing at the back of the office, but I ignore him as I march back to the desk to grab my things.
Jim calls out behind me.
“You can forget about the last month’s pay, Melina.”
“And you can forget about rescuing this sinking ship of a company,” I reply, as I sling my bags onto my shoulder and march through the parting crowd of my former c
o-workers.
I make my way down the stairs and through the lobby, my head high, my step firm, feeling glorious. Knowing that this is the last time I’ll see this place, and knowing that I’ll never have to see Jim again, to have my work dismissed by him again, to have to fight tooth and nail for creative freedom with him again. I’m almost ecstatic as I push through the doors to the parking lot outside.
But I slow down as I head toward my car, my head lowering as other thoughts start to intrude upon my triumphant emotions.
Half a month’s pay was bad enough, but no pay at all makes it impossible for me to make the rent I need by next week—and my landlady isn’t the kind to wait.
And as bad as MESS was, I did get a chance to spread my wings a little bit lately—especially since Wyatt started working there. It’s not like I’ve forgotten how competitive it is to be a photographer—Christ, this is L.A. There are almost as many photographers as there are wannabe actors. Jobs only come in two types here: Unpaid or through connections, and god knows I’ve never been good at making connections.
A company like MESS was about as good as it got for me. A troubled start-up with a small chance—very small, albeit—of actually going big and paying me a decent salary.
By the time I get to my car, all the glory and satisfaction I felt telling Jim where to shove it is gone, replaced by a future full of uncertainty and dread.
“Melina!”
I turn to find Wyatt running after me, long, athletic strides. His hair bouncing gently and his blazer whipping behind him. “Hey!”
I stop and fold my arms in a semi-defensive posture.
“Please don’t try and talk me into going back in there,” I say firmly.
“I couldn’t get you back in there if I tried.”
I shrug. “Yeah. Jim’s not the forgiving type.”
“No…not because of him,” Wyatt says, getting his breath back a little. “Because I quit too.”
I take a moment to study him, to wait for the wry smile or the glint in his eye that’ll reveal that was a joke, but he looks at me so seriously that I realize he isn’t kidding.