“Dad, we can’t just pretend like everything’s normal and I tell you all about scooping ice cream and that Aurora learned the backstroke. It doesn’t work like that.”
“No, of course not. I just…I miss you.”
Why was it so hard to say it back when she felt the same in every cell of her body? She wanted to scream through the phone, tell him that she hated him but also loved him, and by the way, what the fuck was he thinking? But when she opened her mouth, she couldn’t make herself say the words.
“What do you think about me coming out there?” he asked. “So we can talk?”
“Can I think about it?” Her voice shook a little.
“Yes, absolutely. I’ll call you tomorrow and maybe we can set something up?”
Oliver walked back outside, smiling at something on his phone.
“Sure, Dad. Listen, I’ve got to run.”
“Okay, honey. I love you so much. Please don’t ever forget that I—”
“Love you, too,” she said gruffly, before the tears could start in earnest, and quickly hung up.
“You good?” Oliver asked, and in a very nice, gentlemanly way he walked around to the passenger side to open her door.
Max looked down at herself. She had a huge hot fudge stain near her right breast. “I’m wearing my uniform.”
“I am, too. Who cares?”
Max climbed into the passenger seat. Oliver slammed her door closed and got in the driver’s side. When he turned the key, Eric Clapton began playing from the speakers.
“You like Eric Clapton?” Max said. “I thought only my parents did.”
“I like all that old music. My dad made us listen to it when we were kids, and then I actually started to like it.”
They made easy chitchat on the five-minute drive to the Trivet, and Oliver got a spot right in front of the large-paned windows. As they walked toward the entrance, a long-haired boy sitting inside gave them the finger.
“That’s Aiden. He’s cool but can be a dick.”
Max walked through the door that he held open. “I know the type well.”
They walked over to the table. In addition to Aiden, there were two girls and another guy, and even though her mom always said that remembering people’s names was a learned superpower, Max immediately forgot all of them. Leni. One of the girls was named Leni, the one with the long blond hair that had at least three inches of Manic Panic blue on the ends.
The one who’d given them the finger scooted over in the booth and motioned for Max to take a seat. Oliver sat in the opposite bench and there was a beat of awkward silence.
“Well, I’d ask how you guys met, but it’s pretty obvious,” Leni said, laughing and shaking her blue-tinged hair.
“We’re not dating,” Oliver said, too quickly. Max knew he didn’t mean anything more by how fast he blurted it out, and she tried not to let it sting.
“I’m here for the summer,” Max said, to say anything. “I actually live in the city.”
“Wooooowwww, the city!” the other girl breathed. This one had a nose ring and a choppy, uneven bob, almost like she’d cut it herself. “I’ve never been but I’ve heard great things!”
“Really?” Max said, and knew instantly she’d been played.
“No, not really,” the girl laughed. “It’s a thirty-minute train ride away. We probably go every weekend.”
“Sorry,” Max said, feeling herself blush.
“No, it’s fine!” the girl said, with a wide smile. Max was relieved to see it was kind and not mocking. “Just giving you shit. It comes from a place of total insecurity, nothing else. I’ve lived in this stifling suburb my entire life, and truth be told, I’m totally jealous of anyone who hasn’t.”
One of the other boys—not Aiden or Oliver—asked Max where she went to school.
“Milford,” she said quietly, praying they wouldn’t hold it against her. “I graduated this year.”
“Tough place,” the boy said sympathetically.
“Brutal, actually,” Max said, and everyone laughed.
The boy spoke again. “My family just moved out here from the city. My brother got kicked out of Dwight and nowhere else would take him, so…suburbs.”
“Ah, Dwight,” Max said.
“The one and only,” the boy said. Then he and Max, at exactly the same time, recited, “Dumb White Idiots Getting High Together.”
The entire table laughed, and a warmth spread over Max’s chest.
The waitress came over and they ordered one of every fattening thing on the menu. Max tried to envision any of the Milford girls even thinking about eating the heaping plates of mozzarella sticks, cheese fries, and tater tots that soon appeared.
Leni gnawed on a chicken finger and looked at Max. “Why are you out here for the summer? I mean, like, why here and not the Hamptons or somewhere cool?”
“Oh, well, my aunt lives here, so we rented a house near hers,” Max said, carefully wiping her mouth after dipping three fries in ketchup.
“Sucks for you,” the other girl said. “It’s so boring out here.”
Max smiled. “It’s not so great there either, trust me.”
“Yeah, right!” the boy who had just moved to Paradise said. “You don’t know hell until you’ve lived in the suburbs.”
Max laughed. “But I thought you guys have crazy parties all the time. Like, every time someone’s parents leave the house, you roll in the kegs and invite two hundred people!”
“Not often enough,” Aiden said. “Everyone’s parents have cameras now. Mostly, we do this.” He gestured at the table.
“My father will be very relieved,” Max said. “You should hear him go on about the drinking and driving. Like, he’s positive that all kids do in the suburbs is get wasted and drive around. And offer innocent girls like me rides when they’re wasted.”
The other girl who wasn’t Leni nodded. “That’s not totally inaccurate. We should introduce our parents. A couple weeks ago I was going to a friend’s birthday party in the city and both parents sat me down and asked if I’d ever been to a ‘lollipop party’ because they read about it on Facebook. But seriously—Oh. My. God.”
“What’s a lollipop party?” Leni asked, and Max was glad she did, because Max had no idea, either.
“Well, according to my mother—who, by the way, was a virgin until she got married at twenty-six—it’s a super common party that’s going on, like, basically every weekend in the city, where the girls all put on different color lipstick and then blow all the guys in the room. Then it makes a rainbow!”
“Awesome!” Oliver said.
The girl rolled her eyes. “Yep. My mom actually said ‘perform oral sex’ in front of my dad. They were both very, very concerned about the city’s culture of constant blow jobs,” she said.
And that was it. In seconds all of them were hysterical. Max was laughing so hard that she accidentally drooled some Coke down her chin.
“Lipstick rainbows!” Aiden howled.
“Like, how do I possibly have time for studying or swim practice with all the blow jobs I’m giving?” the girl said, and all four of them laughed until they cried.
“My moms are convinced that I’m going to be sexually assaulted every time I leave the house,” Leni said. She turned to Max. “They’re lesbos.” Max nodded and Leni continued, “Their biggest regret in life is not sending me to an all-girls school, but they were too scared everyone would accuse them of hating men. But seriously, they do hate men. Or at least high school boys.”
“I don’t know, I feel like I can get over your moms thinking every boy is a rapist,” Oliver said. “They haven’t hung out with guys in, like, a hundred years. What bothers me is how my dad is convinced that I’m one step away from becoming a full-fledged heroin addict.”
Aiden nodded furiously. “M
ine too. They read something about how kids today all are stealing their parents’ Vicodin and oxy and then once they can’t find any more, they head straight to the needles. It’s like, chill the fuck out. Nobody does that.”
“My parents, too,” Max and Leni said at the exact same time, causing everyone to laugh once again.
The girl whose name Max still didn’t know said, “If I have to hear my parents use the words ‘gateway drug’ one more time, I’m going to kill myself.”
“Like, I almost wish I had a life as exciting as they think I do!” Max said. “I’ve smoked weed, what? Ten times? And the first three I didn’t even feel anything. Why do they all think we’re such junkie sluts?”
“It’s the Facebook, I’m telling you,” Leni said, pushing a blue and blond wave off her shoulder. “My mom can’t stop looking at it. Like, every second of every day. She belongs to all these moms’ groups and all they do is talk about all the crazy things that could possibly endanger their children. It’s insane.”
“Yep, my mom, too,” Max said. “She’s on it constantly. Half the time they’re telling each other where to get Botox and the other half they’re talking about us. I think it’s sad.”
Everyone nodded.
She had no idea why—she hadn’t planned on sharing it—but before her brain could process what she was doing, Max blurted out, “The real reason we’re out here is because my dad got arrested for, um, trying to buy my way into college and my mother likes to run away from her problems. But now it’s my problem too, because Princeton rescinded my admission.”
There was a beat of silence and then the girl with the nose ring said, “Parents really suck.”
Max felt a wave of something—relief, gratitude, the extremely rare sensation of feeling understood—and she shrugged. “If you knew my dad, you’d think it was impossible he did it. But the FBI doesn’t lie….”
“Have you seen him in jail?” The one boy whose name she couldn’t remember—not Aiden or Oliver—peered at her with curiosity.
“Lucas!” Leni and the nose-ring girl said at the same time.
But Max appreciated his directness. Not one of her so-called friends or classmates or whatever they were in New York had had the nerve to ask her directly about it. Instead, she could picture them perfectly, madly texting one another behind her back, all certainly outraged and delighted by the juiciness of the whole scandal.
“It’s fine,” Max said. “He’s not in jail now, although he might be soon. He stayed in the city. It’s pretty fucked.”
The waitress returned and brought them all Coke refills.
Aiden held his glass aloft and looked at Max. “To Max. Good to have you out here, even if it sucks for you.”
Max smiled at him.
“And of course, to rainbow blow jobs and heroin!” Leni said, holding up her own glass. “May we all have even a fraction of the fun our parents think we’re having!”
Max laughed. Everyone cheered and Oliver put his fingers between his lips and made a perfect cab-hailing whistle. Max looked around the table. These were definitely not the popular kids at Paradise High School. They kind of defied characterization, actually. They were a wonderful, weird mix, Max thought. Actually a lot like her.
21
Troop Leader
“Can you please pass the saag?” Isadora, the woman seated to Skye’s left, asked.
Skye hoisted the platter of chicken saag to Isadora. “The food here is delicious,” she murmured.
“Right?” Isadora asked. “I haven’t had great Indian in the longest time. I never thought it would be good in DC of all places.” Her posh English accent and meticulous table manners stood in stark contrast to her appearance, which included bobbed, platinum-streaked hair and a delicate silver septum ring.
“You were telling me what you’ve been doing since Uganda,” Skye prompted gently, both out of genuine curiosity and a desire to fill the silence.
Isadora brushed some loose hair from her cheek and scooped chicken onto her plate. “Right. So, after I left Uganda, Massimo emailed me to say that they were putting a team together for hurricane relief in Haiti and I said yes. I’m still not sure why. To say it was a hardship posting is an understatement. But in the two years I was there, our team rebuilt, staffed, and reopened twenty-six schools.”
“That’s incredible,” Skye said, sipping from her bottle of beer, trying not to feel envious.
“It was a very rewarding experience,” Isadora said, taking a small bite.
Skye knew that she would hear plenty of stories like Isadora’s at the conference. She was almost afraid to ask, but she forced the words out. “And now?”
Isadora set down her fork. “Now? I’ve been in Somaliland for the last thirteen months, trying to help write their new educational charter.”
“Somaliland?”
Isadora squinted at her.
Skye wanted to disappear directly into the restaurant’s shiplap walls. It wasn’t that long ago she could name every country, territory, capital, and region on the entire African continent. She could speak articulately on the challenges facing each country; she had intelligent, informed ideas on how best to help. But now? The only topic on which she could speak with authority was which online retailers offered free shipping and returns.
The whole weekend had been like that. No one was openly rude, but it was quickly clear that Skye’s life trajectory was very different from those of her former colleagues. Over a breakout-session lunch earlier in the day, Skye had listened to an old friend describe his work in Laos with Smile Train: the man traveled all over the insular, rural country looking for children whose cleft lips needed correction and then arranged for them to receive the free, life-changing surgery. Another colleague of Skye’s—one with whom she had shared an apartment in Kampala—was now based in the mountains of Bhutan, helping to implement a revolutionary family-planning and birth control program. A third was back stateside and overseeing the entire Teach for America program. It was incredible! In a few short years these people—her friends, her colleagues, her equals—had gone on to do astonishing things. It was inspiring and demoralizing and depressing, all at the same time. She remembered so clearly her own time in Uganda, when she’d worked with a local organization to increase access to education for children from rural villages. By the end of her three-year stint, they’d ensured twelve hundred additional students had access to schools. It had been the most gratifying work of her life.
Skye turned to the woman sitting on her other side and forced her way into the conversation. Her name was Amelie and she’d grown up in Cologne, Germany, but had lived in twelve countries since childhood.
Amelie nodded. “And you? I remember from the introductions during cocktail hour that you used to work in Uganda? Where are you now?”
“Paradise,” Skye said flatly. Then she laughed, loudly, like a crazy person.
Amelie peered at her, clearly confused. “I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with it?”
Skye leaned closer to Amelie, as though she were confiding something of great importance. “I’m a Girl Scout troop leader. Co-leader! Can’t forget the ‘co-’!” she said, before dissolving into a fit of giggles.
Amelie pulled away, looking at Skye like she was highly unstable. “Isn’t that lovely,” she murmured.
Skye couldn’t tell whether she was actually laughing or veering dangerously close to crying. “Excuse me,” she managed to blurt out before walking straight past the ladies’ room and out onto the sidewalk. The DC night was hot and muggy and her simple wrap dress clung to her damp skin. What was I thinking? Skye wondered as she looked around for a taxi. Did taxis even exist anymore? Or did everyone only use Ubers? These were things you didn’t know when you lived in Paradise, right along with the difference between Somalia and Somaliland.
After trying unsuccessfully to update both her password
and her credit card information on her Uber app, Skye decided to walk the twenty-five or so blocks back to the hotel. Why not? Her sandals were flat, it wasn’t raining, and she’d done nothing all day but sit in lectures and eat her way through breakout sessions. Besides, this might very well be the last time in her life that she returned to a hotel room after a conference of any kind. The next morning she would put herself and her ideas for the girls’ residence at the mercy of future benefactors, and she would do everything in her power to get the funding those girls deserved. Hopefully, she would find someone who related to her vision, who could see it like she could, as a small-scale equalizer in the midst of mass inequity in education. There were her ever-growing debts to be paid off, which was beginning to panic her, and families emailing her every day, wondering about the status of their daughters’ promised school. But then, following that breakfast—and regardless of its outcome—she would return to Paradise, to her loving family, and she would resume driving carpool and fundraising for Aurora’s school and volunteering to be a class mom. That was hardly so terrible, she berated herself as she trekked. It was a privilege, to live that life, one uncomplicated by illness or discrimination or crushing financial hardship.
And yet no amount of love for her daughter, her husband, or their shared life was enough to soften the blow of the realization—which had struck her tonight, at that hellish dinner—that she’d sacrificed herself and her own dreams. Skye pulled out her phone to call Gabe and saw that it was already silently ringing from a number with no caller ID. Without thinking, she swiped to answer the call.
“Hello?” said a familiar woman’s voice, but one Skye couldn’t quite place. “Is this Skye Alter?”
Suddenly she recognized the voice: it was their adoption case officer, Susan, who worked with an agency in Texas that provided birth mothers with housing and medical care during their pregnancies. She and Gabe had only met her once, but Skye still thought of Susan as one of the dearest people in her life, still sent her letters and pictures of Aurora and thoughtful little gifts at the holidays.
Where the Grass Is Green and the Girls Are Pretty Page 24