by Eric Walters
I turned into the parking lot and pulled into a spot beside the ice-cream store. “Luke said I was too predictable. He said I was boring, that I acted too old.”
I expected Ella to defend me. She didn’t.
“Soph, you know you’re my best friend. You know I love you.”
“And the but in this sentence is…?”
She continued to look at me, as if arranging her words and gathering the courage to say them. It had to be serious for Ella to be thinking before speaking.
“You are very, very, very responsible,” she began.
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Sometimes it’s a very good thing. You’re always the designated driver, the person parents are happy that somebody is going someplace with because they know you’ll take care of things. But it’s not just that you’re like a big sister or even a mother. It’s like you’re my old-maiden aunt.”
For the second time that day, I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach.
“I’m not saying this to hurt you.”
“Then I guess you didn’t succeed, because you did hurt me.”
I climbed out of the car, and Ella jumped out and came after me. “Let me explain!” she called out.
“I think we’ve talked enough. Let’s just get some ice cream.”
I reached for the door of the store, and she grabbed me and spun me around. “Soph, I’m sorry if I hurt you. I just thought we were good enough friends for me to be honest.”
“I’ve had too much honesty today. I didn’t know my taking care of people was such a problem.”
“It isn’t. It’s one of the things that makes you such a special person.” She paused. “It’s just that you always want to do the responsible thing, the right thing, the—”
“The boring thing,” I said.
“I wasn’t going to use that word,” she said. “I was going to say the safe thing.”
Safe and boring sounded like the same thing to me.
“Come on, let’s get ice cream. It will make everything better,” she said as she pulled open the door and ushered me inside.
I doubted that ice cream could make it better. It was bad enough to be dumped by my boyfriend for being boring, and worse to find out my best friend thought of me the same way.
“And what can I get for you girls today?” the man behind the counter asked.
“I’m thinking,” Ella said. “So many choices.”
“While she’s thinking, I’d like a single scoop of chocolate on a—”
“No she doesn’t!” Ella exclaimed.
“Yes I do. You know how I always get chocolate—”
“Yeah, on a waffle cone. Everybody in the world who knows you knows that. Today you don’t want chocolate.”
“But—”
“No buts. Chocolate is what vanilla people order when they’re too chicken to even admit that they’re vanilla people.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“I’m right.” She turned to the man behind the counter. “You know I’m right, don’t you?”
“She has a point.”
“Maybe I just like chocolate.”
“More than every other flavor?” Ella asked. “More than every other flavor you’ve never tried? You know the guy has thirty-one flavors, right?”
“Plus we have sherbet,” he added.
“I like chocolate.”
Ella pointed at the tubs of ice cream. “More than Baseball Nut ice cream? More than Cherries Jubilee or Caramel Turtle Truffle? More than the Amazing Spider-Man ice cream—it even has the word amazing in its name. Do you like chocolate more than Candy Corn?”
“That sounds disgusting.”
She shrugged. “That does sound disgusting, but how about the classics, like Pralines ’n’ Cream or Rocky Road?”
“Isn’t chocolate a classic?” I turned to the man for his opinion.
“I guess in that case you should just have vanilla. It is the classic and really boring.”
Great, I was being ganged up on by the guy selling ice cream. Maybe Ella should text Luke and ask him to come here as well.
“What have you got to lose by trying another flavor?” Ella asked.
“She’s right,” the man added.
“You have nothing to lose except predictability. Well?” Ella asked.
“I’m not even sure what I should have,” I said.
“It doesn’t matter as long as it isn’t chocolate,” Ella said. “Or something like, well, chocolate chip or German chocolate or mint chocolate. It’s time for something completely different.”
“Tell you what, ladies. This one is on me. No charge. What will it be?” he asked.
I looked at the flavors. There were so many choices—and then I saw what I had to try. I pointed.
The man laughed, and Ella clapped. “One triple scoop of Wild ’n’ Reckless sherbet coming up.”
DAY 2
“Sophie, get up!”
I opened one eye. Ella was towering over me, standing on my bed.
“What time is it?” I asked sleepily.
“Nine thirty. You slept in. It’s time to get up!”
Ella started jumping on the bed, giggling and laughing, going higher and higher, her head almost hitting the overhead fan. Then she bounced off the side and hit the floor with a thud.
“Are you all right?” I struggled to get out of the bed, my feet tangled up in the sheets, and I practically tumbled on top of her before I kicked myself free.
“Better than just all right,” she said as I helped her to her feet. “It’s the first day of summer break, and there’s so much to do. It’s going to be a fun summer.”
“There’ll be time for fun, but I have some work to do as well.”
“Did you get a job that I don’t know about?”
“Not a job, but I got the reading list for my courses in the fall semester, and I’m going to have most of them read before school starts.”
Ella screamed—long and loud.
“I take it you don’t approve of my plan.”
“It’s a simply terrible, terrible plan. Maybe the worst plan in the history of the world.”
“The worst plan, really?”
“Okay, overly dramatic, I admit. What if I had a better plan for you?”
“Eating ice cream, going to the beach and hanging out isn’t really a plan, if that’s what you’re going to suggest.”
“Actually that’s a very good plan, but I have an even better one than that.”
“I’m listening.” I’d listen, but doing it was another thing.
“First things first. Breakfast is waiting,” she said.
“You made me breakfast?”
“Your father and Oliver made you breakfast.”
“Yeah right, my father and brother made me breakfast.”
“They did. It’s waiting for you,” she said.
“But neither of them knows how to cook.”
“It’s breakfast, not cooking. Come on, or it’ll get cold.”
“I’ll be down in a minute,” I said.
She left. I had to do a couple of things first. I quickly made my bed, making sure the pillows were properly positioned and then placed my bear—Snowball—against the pillows. It was wrong not to make your bed when you got up—something neither my father nor brother seemed to get. I headed downstairs.
Before I reached the kitchen I could hear them. My father was laughing and my brother was yelling, and I knew Ella was probably responsible for both. My father and brother liked Ella a lot. In fact, I was pretty sure my brother liked her more than he liked me.
The three of them were on stools around the counter. “Wow.” The table was completely laid out—toast, juice, a big pot of coffee, sausages and pancakes.
“You made sausages and pancakes?” I asked my father.
“We made three types of pancakes,” my father said. “And good morning to you.”
“Um…good morning.”
I gave my father a hug. At eleven Oliver was far too old to be hugged by his sister, so I only did that when I wanted to bug him.
“There are blueberry, chocolate-chip and peach pancakes,” Oliver said.
I saw three piles of irregularly shaped pancakes. “They look, um, good.”
“Don’t judge them by their appearance,” my father said. “Come, sit down.”
“Sorry I slept in. For some reason my alarm didn’t go off.”
“I turned your alarm off,” my father said.
“What?”
“I figured it would be easier to fix breakfast if I didn’t have to fight you for the spatula.”
My brother got up and started putting things on my plate.
“Okay, what’s happening here?” I asked.
“Can’t I just be kind to my big sister?” Oliver asked.
“You could, but that’s not likely. Again, what’s happening here?”
“We just figured that we sort of owe you a breakfast or two,” my brother said.
“Or two thousand,” my father added.
The math was probably about right. Ever since my mother had died—ever since she’d gotten sick—I’d made breakfast for everybody almost every weekend and on some weekdays. And to add to that, I often made lunch and basically any dinner that wasn’t takeout, ordered in or eaten out.
“We thought it would be a nice thing to do before we head off and leave you alone,” my father said.
“Your father just told me that he and your brother will be going to your aunt’s place to visit for a few weeks,” Ella said.
“Oh, didn’t I mention that to you?” I asked.
Of course I hadn’t. Telling Ella I would have the house to myself for three weeks was a recipe for disaster.
“You’re still more than welcome to come with us to your aunt’s,” my father added.
“I thought it was just going to be the two of us and we were going to be doing some guy stuff,” my brother protested.
“Don’t worry—I’m still not going. I just want to stay here and relax, do some reading. Besides, somebody has to stay here and take care of the house.”
“How responsible,” Ella said.
I knew from the tone of her voice she might have said responsible, but she was thinking predictable or boring or old.
“Don’t worry about Soph when you’re gone,” Ella said. “I’ll be around to take care of her. In fact, I have some plans.” She looked directly at me. “We’ll talk.”
“I told one of my co-workers I was leaving my eighteen-year-old daughter home alone for a few weeks and he thought I was crazy,” my father said. “I told him you were more responsible than almost all the adults I know.”
Responsible. There it was again. Had my father and Ella talked about me being too responsible? I took a bite of the pancakes. “These are pretty good.” I’d worked at ignoring the pieces of eggshell that had found their way into the mix.
“Don’t sound so surprised. I do know how to cook,” my father said. “Even if you don’t let me do it very often.”
“Let you?” I said.
“I thought I better get back in the habit, with you going off to college.”
“I just assumed you and Oliver would be getting takeout every night.”
“That’s what I was hoping for,” Oliver said.
I got up, taking my plate.
“We’ll take care of that too,” my father said as he got up and took it from me. “We have to learn to get by without you. It’s not like we’re expecting you to come home from college each night to do the dishes. Right?”
“Right,” I agreed.
I’d talked to my father about going to the local college so I could stay at home. I’d thought he’d be happy. Instead he got angry. I’d hardly ever seen him so angry. He’d told me that it was my decision to make—to turn down a full scholarship at a prestigious college—but he wasn’t going to let me live at home, so I might as well go away to school.
I’d known he was right, that I needed to go away, but still, how would they get along without me? I guessed that’s what they were trying to show me right now. It would take a lot more than a few pancakes filled with bits of eggshell to do that.
“In fact, Oliver and I have something to announce,” my father said. “Sophie, we know you’re worried about us taking care of ourselves. So we’ve decided that starting now, you are not allowed to make us a meal, do work around the house or care for Oliver.”
“You want me to do nothing?” I asked.
“Nothing. We’ll take care of ourselves,” my father said.
“Do you know how hard that’s going to be?”
“We can handle it,” my father said.
“And you’re agreeing to do that much more work?” I asked Oliver.
“I’ll agree to almost anything that includes you not telling me what to do. You’re awfully bossy.”
“Soph, we just want to show you that we’re not helpless,” my father added.
“I never thought you were helpless.” Fragile, yes, I thought, but kept my mouth closed.
“So Sophie suddenly has lots of free time this summer,” Ella said.
“I’ve still got things to do,” I warned.
“But you have lots and lots of free time that you didn’t even see coming,” Ella said. “I think I might know how to fill that time.”
I felt nervous. Very nervous.
Ella and I returned to my room while my father and brother cleaned up after breakfast.
“Do you believe that sometimes the stars just align themselves in the right way?” Ella asked.
“Are you asking if I believe in astronomy or astrology?”
“Don’t you think it’s an amazing coincidence? You and Luke being through and you being freed of all motherly tasks for the summer happening at the same time as I have a plan?”
“What exactly is your plan?”
“You have no idea where this is going, and that’s why it needs to happen so badly.”
“That makes no sense, you realize,” I said.
“It makes perfect sense. It’s cosmic, karmic, hand-of-God stuff.”
“Now you’re just making me more nervous.”
“That’s because you need to be in control and know what’s happening all the time.”
“So now I’m a control freak too,” I said.
“Not a control freak, but you are a fish that swims in a sea of predictability.”
“Until yesterday I’d never thought predictability was such a bad word,” I said.
“With you it is a bad word. It’s your way of playing it safe. As part of my plan you have to agree to avoid predictability and, more important, be willing to relinquish control.”
“I don’t need to be in control—I just need to know that things are controlled by somebody.”
“And that somebody will be me,” Ella said. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course I trust you,” I said hesitantly.
“Your words said yes, but your tone said no. Before I go any further, what did you think of your Wild ’n’ Reckless sherbet?”
“It was okay.” I almost said almost as good as the chocolate but didn’t.
“I’m glad you liked it, but even if you didn’t, it was exactly the prescription you required.”
“It was a scoop of sherbet, not medicine.”
“It was both. Change is good. New is good. Adventure is good.”
“I don’t think eating a different type of dessert can be classified as adventure,” I said.
“For you it practically is. At least it’s the start of an adventure—or a series of adventures.” She paused. “There are ninety days between the end of high school
and the start of college. That’s ninety chances to do something different.”
“I don’t think there are that many flavors of ice cream or sherbet available,” I joked.
“There are actually hundreds of flavors, but this isn’t about ice cream or sherbet. I want you to do lots of other different things this summer.”
“What kind of different?”
“All kinds of different.”
“I’m afraid I’m too predictable and boring to ever come up with a summer full of new things.”
“Please leave sarcasm to an expert. Besides—and this is the truly beautiful thing—I will arrange everything for you. All you have to do is show up.”
“And what do you have in mind?”
“I can’t really tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Partly because it’s going to be a surprise and partly because I have no idea yet what things I’m going to arrange. I want you to think of this as the Surprise Summer of Sophie.”
“It does have alliteration. I’ll give you that much.”
“You also have to give me your word you’ll do what I arrange.”
“And why exactly should I do this?” I asked.
“First off, it’s going to be fun, hilarious, amazing.”
“And unpredictable,” I practically whispered.
“Yes! Unpredictable and completely out of your control. Soph, how are you feeling about going away to college?”
“Great. Well, good…well, a bit nervous, a little anxious, sort of hesitant, maybe a little uneasy, but that’s mainly, you know, about leaving my brother and father alone.”
“You know that you’re going to do wonderfully, that you’ll get great marks. You’re scared about it because it’s different.”
“I’m not really scared.”
“Then we’ll go with nervous, anxious, hesitant and uneasy. Do all those words work?”
I nodded. All of them, including at least a little scared, fit.
“You’re always nervous about anything new because you can’t control it and you can’t predict it. This summer is going to be about unpredictable, out of control. Change is like everything else—the more you do something, the better you get at it. So what do you think?”
I wanted to say no. I wanted to chase Ella from my room and jump back into my perfectly made bed and pull the blankets over my head, but I knew she was right.