by Sarah Dessen
“Again?” she demanded. “What is your father thinking? How can he possibly think this is good for you?”
“Mom, it’s a consulting job,” I told her for the umpteenth time. “The work doesn’t come to you. You go to the work.”
“He goes to the work,” she replied. “You should be here, in the same school, until you graduate. It’s ludicrous that we’re allowing you do to otherwise.”
“It’s my choice,” I said, repeating what I considered my mantra.
“You’re a teenager,” she told me. “I’m sorry, Mclean, but by definition, you don’t know how to make the right choices!”
“But if I stayed with you,” I said, trying to keep my voice level, “that would be the right choice?”
“Yes!” Then, realizing my point, she exhaled, annoyed. “Honey, anyone would tell you that living in a stable home with two responsible parents and a well-established support system is infinitely better than—”
“Mom,” I said. She kept talking, so I repeated, louder, “Mom.”
Finally, silence. Then she said, “I just don’t understand why you want to hurt me like this.”
It’s not about you, I thought, but then she was crying, which always took the fight out of me.
If we’d just left it at that, it probably would have blown over. Instead, though, she’d gone back to her lawyer, who in turn called my dad making all kinds of subtle threats about “filing paperwork” and “revisiting our current agreement in light of recent events.” In the end, nothing happened, but the whole thing made me decide to cut her off until I felt calm enough to talk. And I didn’t, not yet.
This entire issue, our issue, had been further exacerbated for the last few months by my college applications. When I’d just started junior year, she’d sent It package in Petree via FedEx containing a stack of books with chapters with titles like “Hot Ink: How to Write a Power Essay”; “The Wow Factor: Reaching Admissions Officers”; “Play Your Strengths: Presenting Yourself in the Best Possible Light.” It wasn’t until I called to thank her—we were on decent terms at the time—that I began to understand her sudden, passionate interest in my collegiate future.
“Well, I figured you could use it,” she said. I could hear one of the twins near the receiver, fussing. “Defriese early admission is coming up fast.”
“Early admission?” I said.
“I’ve been doing some reading, and I really think it’s the way to go,” she continued. “That way your application is in their pool for the longest possible time, even if you don’t get in the first group accepted.”
“Um,” I said, shutting the book slowly, “actually, I haven’t really decided where I want to apply yet.”
“Oh, I know you haven’t made any final choices. But of course Defriese will be on the list.” She shifted whatever baby she was holding, the crying fading out. “You could live at home, even, and not have to deal with the dorms.”
I froze, there in my Petree kitchen, looking at the stainless-steel fridge. “Mom,” I said slowly. “I don’t think I want to do that.”
“Well, how can you know? ” she asked, her voice rising. “It’s only the beginning of your junior year.”
“Then why are you sending me these books?”
“Because I wanted to help you!” She sniffled. “And I don’t see why you wouldn’t want to come back here and live with me and Peter and the kids.”
“I’m not making my college decision based on what you want, Mom,” I said slowly.
“Of course not!” she said. Now she was crying. “When do you ever care what I want?”
In the end, I stuck the books under my bed and tried to forget about the entire thing. When the actual time came to think about school, though, I dug them back out and scanned the tips, which were actually pretty helpful. In the end, I did apply to Defriese, although not early admission, and only as a peace offering. I had no intention of going, unless I got in nowhere else. The last resort of last resorts.
“Mom,” I said now as I peered down the row of nearby lockers, finally locating number 1899. “I really need to get ready for first period.”
“It’s only been two minutes.”
I didn’t say anything. What can you say to that?
“What I mean,” she said, quickly regrouping, “is that I haven’t even had a chance to talk to you about the beach. That’s the whole reason I called. I have really exciting news!”
“What?”
She sighed. Yet again, I was not saying my lines with enough punch. “Well,” she began, ignoring my lack of enthusiasm, “we just got word that the remodel has passed all its inspections. The decorator has the painters in as we speak. And you know what that means.”
I waited.
“You can finally come down with us!” Clearly, this was the Big Finish. “I mean, I know how much you love the beach, and we have such great memories of going there together. I can’t believe Peter and I have had this house for two years and you’ve never even seen it! We’re planning to go check it out next weekend, and then try to get down as often as we can. Now, I’ve been looking at your school calendar, and I noticed—”
“Mom,” I said, cutting her off mid-breath. “I really have to go to class.”
Silence. Then, “Fine. But will you promise to call me later? I really want to talk to you about this.”
No, I thought. Out loud I said, “I’ll do my best. I’ve got to go now.”
“I love you!” she said, scrambling to get in these last three words while she could. “It’s going to be fabulous! Just like—”
Click.
I reached up, grabbing the handle of my locker too hard and yanking it. It flew open with a blur of pink, barely missing clocking me in the face. When I grabbed the door, steadying it, I saw there was a mirror still attached inside, bright raspberry colored and decorated with pink feathers. The word SEXXY was written across the bottom of the frame. I was staring at my face in it, speechless, when Riley popped up behind me.
“Already decorating?” she said, eyeing the feathers.
“It’s not mine,” I told her, lacking the energy after my mother to explain further.
“Sure it isn’t.” She smiled, her face friendly as I opened my bag, stowing a couple of textbooks on one of the empty shelves. “Hey, I need to ask you something.”
I had to admit I was surprised. We’d met just twice, and the second time only because of Heather’s intervention, or act of charity, whatever you wanted to call it. I shut the locker, feathers blurring past again, and started walking toward my homeroom. “Okay.”
Riley tucked a piece of hair behind her ear—I noticed her tattoo again, that simple circle—then fell into step beside me. The halls were still packed with people and noise, all that energy of a day that hasn’t quite started yet.
“It’s about Dave,” Riley said as we sidestepped two girls carrying guitar cases. “Was he on the bus this morning?”
“The bus?”
“To school,” she said. “You guys take the same one, right?”
“I take the city bus,” I told her.
“Oh, right. Okay.”
This seemed like it should be the end of our conversation: question asked, question answered. But she still kept walking with me, even though my Spanish class was the only one on the dead-end hallway we were on. “I did see him, though. His mom brought over some brownies.”
“Oh, boy.” She raised her eyebrows. “Let me guess: no nuts, no gluten, no sugar, and no taste.”
“Pretty much,” I replied. “How’d you know?”
She shrugged. “Experience. Dave’s house is not the place you want to ooking for a snack. Unless you’ve got a real yen for wheat germ and veggie jerky.”
“Veggie jerky?”
“Dried vegetables,” she explained.
I raised my eyebrows.
“Yep. It tastes just like it sounds.”
“Poor Dave,” I said.
“I think that’s why he likes wor
king at Frazier Bakery so much,” she told me as a guy wearing headphones bumped me from the side. “The sugar and chemicals abound there, and he’s got a lifetime of making up to do.”
We were at my classroom now. Inside the open door, I could hear Señor Mitchell greeting people in his cheerful immersion-or-else Spanish. “His parents seemed nice, actually. I was kind of surprised.”
“Surprised?” she said. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” I shifted my bag to my other shoulder. “You and Heather made them sound super-strict.”
“Oh, right,” she said, nodding. “Well, the truth is, Dave’s changed a lot since he transferred here. I think it’s a good thing, because he’s, like, a real person now. But it freaks his folks out. I think they liked it better when he was just like them, completely under their control.”
“Yeah. I get that.” I was thinking of my mother as I said this, the pleading, desperate tone of her final words before I’d hung up on her. Stop trying, I wanted to tell her, and make her understand. Stop forcing it and I just might come to you. I just might. “But you can’t help it if you change, I guess. It just happens.”
“Yeah, it does.” She smiled. “Hey, I’ll see you later, okay?”
I nodded, and she turned around, stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets and starting back down the hallway. I thought of her sitting on that bench a few days earlier, leaning forward to listen as Dave stood with his parents and the administrators. I couldn’t even imagine anymore what that would be like, to have so much—or anything at all—invested in a friendship. It was hard enough just taking care of myself.
The bell rang, and Señor Mitchell turned, seeing me. “Hola, Mclean!” he said, beckoning me toward him, like we hadn’t just met, and only the day before. Odd how it was so easy for a stranger to assume such familiarity. Especially when those who were supposed to know you best often didn’t, not at all.
My phone, zipped away in my backpack, buzzed twice during Spanish. When I scrolled through the screen on my way to second period, I saw only one name, two times: HAMILTON, PETER. I stuffed it back in, deeper this time, picturing my mother watching the clock as she wondered how, exactly, I defined later. Minutes? Hours? Maybe she was calling to ask me. I wouldn’t be surprised.
I couldn’t believe she was bringing up the beach again. Ever since Peter had bought her that house for a wedding gift—because houses are standard gifts, right?—she’d been pushing me to come there for a visit. Before now, it was always too difficult, involving at least one flight and possibly two, far enough away from everything that I could argue my way out of any invitation. Now, though, not only was I only four hours from Colby, the town where the house was, but also right smack on the route that took them there. Lucky me.
I had nothing against the beach. In fact, there was a time when I loved it more than just about anything. Because my dad was always at the restaurant, real family vacations were a rarity: it was like disaster could sense every time he ventured outside of city limits, and struck accordingly. But my mom had grown up at the coast, in South Carolina, and she loved nothing more than to take off on impulse and just drive east until she saw the ocean. It didn’t matter if it was the hottest day in July or the dead of February. I’d come home from school, or wake up on a Saturday morning, and she’d have that look on her face.
“Road trip?” she’d ask, but she knew I wouldn’t say no. The car would already be packed with our pillows, a cooler, warm clothes in winter, beach chairs in summer. We never wanted to spend the money for the nice hotels, even off-season, which was how we’d found the Poseidon, a ramshackle, 1960s-era motel in North Reddemane, a tiny town just down from Colby. The pool was lined with cracks, the rooms smelled just enough like mildew to notice, and everything from the taped-up bell at the front desk to the bedspreads had seen a million visitors and much better days. But the views were incredible, the screen doors of each room opening pretty much right into the sand, and it was walking distance to the other two businesses in town, which happened to sell everything we needed. After we stayed there once, we never went anywhere else.
We spent our days either walking on the beach or sunbathing, with breaks for food at Shrimpboats, which, as the only restaurant in North Reddemane, served breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Beside Shrimpboats, there was Gert’s Surfshop, a clapboard shack and gas station that sold bait, cheap souvenirs, and basic groceries. My mom and I, however, were partial to the handmade rope bracelets, decorated with seashells and weird-shaped beads, with GS written in Sharpie marker on the backside. We had no idea who made them, only that they were always on display by the front register and we seemed to be the only ones who ever purchased them, something we did on every trip down. My mom called them Gerts, and there was a time when my wrist never sported fewer than two or three of them, in various stages of wear and tear.
This was my mother as I liked to remember her, hair in a sloppy ponytail, wearing cheap sunglasses and smelling of sunscreen and salt. She read terrible romance novels during the day (her guiltiest of pleasures), and at night, sat with me on the rickety chairs outside our room and pointed out constellations. We ate fried shrimp, watched bad TV, and took long walks, whether it was bitter cold or the perfect summer day. At the end of the weekend, we’d drive back as late as we could, arriving home to find the house pretty much just as we’d left it, my dad having been there only to sleep, shower, and grab a bite to eat now and then. I don’t remember him ever being with us at the Poseidon, and that was okay. It was our thing.
Now, though, like everything else was since the divorce, the beach would be different. And the truth was, those weekends, spontaneous and shabby, were some of the best times I’d had with my mom before everything fell apart. I had enough that was separated into distinct Before and Afters: my home, my name, even the way I looked. I didn’t want all my memories remade, redone, remodeled, like her fancy beach house. I liked them as they were.
My mom, though, clearly had other ideas: by lunch, I had four messages. I got a cheap and soggy grilled cheese and went ell the wall, taking a bite before playing them back.
“Honey, it’s me. Just wondering when you might have a break between classes. I really want to talk to you about the house! Call me back.”
Beep.
“Mclean, it’s me. I’m going to take the kids to the grocery store, so when you call try me on my cell. If I don’t pick up, it just means I’m in that dead spot just before town, so leave a message, and I’ll call you back just as soon as I get it. Can’t wait to make plans! I love you!”
Beep.
“Mclean? Um, hi. This is Opal, from the restaurant? I’m here with your dad. . . . He’s had a little accident.” A pause, at the worst possible time. I heard an intercom, some buzzing. “He’s okay, but we’re at the hospital, and he says his insurance card is at the house, and you’d know where it was. Can you call me back at this number when you get this?”
Beep.
“Hi, honey, me again. I’m back from the grocery, saw you didn’t call yet, so when you do, just try the home—”
I fumbled with the phone, hitting the END button once, twice, trying to clear the screen so I could call out. My heart was suddenly racing, those words filling my head: accident, hospital. And behind them, harder to see: okay. Okay. Okay.
My phone took forever to dial, each beep seeming like an eternity as I looked around the full courtyard in front of me, seeing nothing. Finally, an answer.
“Hello? ”
“Opal,” I said. “It’s Mclean. I just got your message, is my dad okay? What happened? When did he—”
“Whoa, whoa,” she said. “Take a breath. Mclean? It’s all right. He’s just fine. Here.”
Now I could hear that I was breathing hard, almost panting. The sound, primal, filled the phone for the next few seconds and then, like a dream, my dad was suddenly there.
“I told her not to call you,” he said. He sounded bored, like he was waiting in line at the post office. “I knew yo
u’d totally freak.”
“I am not freaking,” I told him, although we both knew I was. I took a breath as instructed, then said, “What happened?”
“Just a little knife slip.”
“Really?” I was surprised.
“Not mine,” he said, sounding offended. “It was one of the prep guys. I was teaching a little fillet class . . . things got out of hand.”
My heart was finally starting to beat normally again as I said, “How out of hand?”
“Just a few stitches,” he replied. “And a puncture of sorts.”
“I’m surprised you even went to the hospital,” I said, which was the truth. My dad’s hands were covered with scars from various accidents and burns, and usually, unless he’d hit a vein or something, he’d wait until after work to deal with it, if he did anything at all.
“It was not my idea,” he grumbled. “Trust m a bront>
“You have to go to the hospital when you cut open your hand!” I heard Opal say in the background. “It is company policy. Not to mention common sense.”
“Anyway,” my dad said, ignoring this, “the upshot is that I need my insurance card. Which I think is at the house . . .”
“It is,” I said. “I’ll get it.”
“But you’re in school. I’ll just send Leo.”
I thought of Leo, big and gangly, banging around in the file box where I kept our important papers. “No,” I said. “I’d better do it. Look, I’ll be there soon.”
“Wait,” he said just as I was about to hang up. “Don’t you need a ride?”
That, I hadn’t thought about. I was about to tell him this when I happened to look across the courtyard to a single bench by the entrance to the gym. There a girl sat, a green floral purse beside her, wearing a green raincoat with matching green earmuffs, sipping a Diet Coke through a straw.
“I think I’m covered,” I told him, getting to my feet and picking up my bag. “I’ll be there soon.”
“This one time,” Deb said as she edged her small, tidy car into the right-turn lane, “my mother spilled an entire cup of boiling water on her stomach. You know, like the kind you get at a coffee shop, to make tea with, superhot? We had to take her to the emergency room.”