Counting to Perfect

by Suzanne LaFleur

  “I love it here,” Julia said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  But a hard lump twisting in the pit of my stomach was making me feel like I should probably spend some time in the bathroom.

  Because I had told Dad that we would be home.

  And we weren’t home at all.

  We were far away and happy, at the top of a mountain.

  And nobody, nobody else in the world, knew where we were.

  The sunrise was beautiful, too. We were up with Addie. But we didn’t mind. We went back to sleep after that, until ten o’clock. We put everything in the car for checkout and went back to the fancy restaurant for breakfast.

  I read the menu a dozen times, looking for it.

  “No lumberjack today, Cass.”

  “I know.”

  “What should we have instead?”

  “French toast. It says it comes with strawberries.”

  “You do that. I’ll get blueberry pancakes.”

  “Done.”

  The food was so good.

  We piled into the car and just sat.

  “Where to?” Julia finally asked.

  The question hung in the air. Was she waiting to see if I would ask to go home?

  I pushed down the nagging voice of my conscience that said that Dad must be freaking out and Mom was probably having a nervous breakdown. They knew we were together. They trusted Julia, didn’t they?

  And didn’t they trust me? If I was trying to be a good sister to Julia and make this the fun escape she wanted, wouldn’t they want me to do that? To be supportive like they were always saying?

  Plus, I was mad at them.

  What about what I wanted? Would they even care?

  I was having a good time out with Julia. I wanted to be with her. I didn’t want to be at swimming with Liana and stupid Piper, and I didn’t want to be with Mom and Dad.

  So what if we were burning through my life savings and what Julia had earned from Grandma for being responsible and struggling to finish high school? So what?

  Julia was going to be a mom for the rest of her life and I was going to have to go back to school eventually. So…so what?

  I was the one who’d told her to go away. I was going to have to be the one to fix this.

  “You know what’s at the bottom of this mountain?” Julia asked.

  “What?”

  “Swap our pool swim for a lake today?”

  “Perfect.”

  * * *

  —

  Mom and Dad had taken us to a lake once, had rented a cabin for a week.

  I was ten and Julia was sixteen.

  In the mornings, Dad and I would swim or explore the lake in a canoe; Mom would park herself, with books, in one of the Adirondack chairs; Julia would take over the picnic table with her huge SAT prep guides. After a lunch of sandwiches, we’d play board games or go hiking on the trails around the lake, and come back for burgers and hot dogs cooked on the charcoal grill.

  It was weird to remember those days without Addie; I built her into the memories in a high chair by the picnic table, or strapped to someone’s chest for the hikes.

  Like in a way, Addie had always been part of us, even before we knew her.

  * * *

  —

  The lake was clear and smooth.

  “Here, take her in.” Julia handed me Addie. “Just don’t get water in her mouth. You never know if there’s bacteria or something.”

  “Okay.”

  After our paddle party, we lay out on beach towels on the sand.

  “You had towels in the car?” I asked Julia.

  She smiled.

  Before she could even ask, I wiped Addie’s hands and face and luscious toes with baby wipes, re-slathered her in sunscreen, and fed her a jar of carrots.

  “I’ll keep her,” Julia said, “if you want to go back in on your own.”

  “Sure.”

  “Stay out in the middle where I can see you. Don’t adventure too far.”

  “Okay.”

  I did some fast freestyle back and forth in front of the little beach area. It felt good to get my heart going. When I was winded, I stopped and waved to Julia. She waved back. Addie was cuddled against her, probably eating.

  I flipped onto my back and spread my arms wide, staring up into the sky.

  * * *

  —

  Dad and I had taken the canoe out.

  Most days, we went “adventuring”—my word for exploring all the inlets and secret passages that connected the lake to other lakes.

  But that day, arms aching from days of paddling, we just went out to the middle of the water, pulled our paddles in, and floated.

  “What perfect clouds,” Dad said.

  I tipped my head way back, so I could see them from under the visor of my baseball cap.

  They were, like in a movie.

  White. And puffy, puffy.

  “What do you see?” he asked.

  “A turtle.”

  “Ah, yeah, me too. What about that over there? It looks like a big bird.”

  “Maybe it’s the international swimming symbol. The wave with the person doing freestyle, side view.”

  “And look, two girls.”

  “I don’t see two girls.”

  “Right over there.”

  “Do you know they’re girls because they have pigtails and skirts?”

  “No. They don’t have pigtails or skirts.”

  “Oh. Well, I don’t see them. I see…I see…”

  As I waited for it to come to me, the last of the fluffy clouds drifted by and before long there was nothing at all but blue.

  “What do you see now?” Dad asked.

  “The sky.”

  “Try harder.”

  I leaned back farther. “This lake. Reflected.”

  “Ooo! That’s better.”

  “Infinity.”

  “Wow. That’s true, too.”

  “The sky goes on and on forever.”

  “Especially since you already said it was like a mirror,” Dad said.

  “What do you see?”

  “I still see two girls.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah. They’re everywhere.”

  “Dad—”

  “Center of my world. And my infinity.”

  I looked back down into the boat, at our water bottles and my rubber river shoes. “What about Mom?”

  “Well, that goes without saying. I wouldn’t have them without her….You hungry?”

  “Always.”

  “Let’s head back. I think I can get there on my own.” Dad, from the back of the canoe, picked up his paddle and alternated his strokes, aiming us back toward Mom and Julia.

  “You’ve been quiet,” Julia said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror.

  I shrugged.

  “You okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thinking too much?”

  “Maybe.” I wiggled the plastic keys in front of Addie. She reached for them. I lifted them higher, and she reached higher. Then I hid them behind her car seat. She turned to look. “Smarty-pants.” I dropped the keys in her lap. She picked them up and gummed them. “Where are we sleeping tonight?”

  “Probably somewhere out along the highway. I think we won’t get lucky again out here where it’s resorty.”

  I really wanted to take a shower after swimming in the lake. I felt sandy and sticky and somehow green.

  “So…we’re not going home?”

  “Do you want to?”

  I looked out the window some more.

  When Addie fell asleep, I climbed up to the front seat with Julia.

  “What?” she asked as I buckled.


  “What are we going to say to them?”

  “Who?”

  “You know who. Mom and Dad.”

  “Oh, Mom and Dad.”

  “They must be going crazy.”

  Julia pressed her lips together tight.

  “Couldn’t we call and make some kind of deal, like we can travel as long as we want if we call them every night?”

  “That’s like asking permission. I don’t want to ask permission.”

  I nodded. “I could ask permission. Like, for me. You don’t have to talk to them. Maybe if I did it would be enough, and at least they won’t call the police or whatever. Maybe we could have longer.”

  After five minutes, Julia said, “Plug your phone in.”

  I found my phone in my bag and plugged it in. My hands were shaking. What was I going to say to them? How much trouble would we be in?

  I turned the phone on.

  We sat in silence as a hundred texts pinged in.

  “Mom or Dad?” Julia asked.

  “Mmm…Dad. Mom might cry or yell or something.”

  “Good choice. It’s always been easier to make a deal with Dad….Once when I was really little, I made a deal with him that I could have a scoop of ice cream for every piece of broccoli I ate.”

  “Did he give it to you?”

  “Oh yeah. I fell asleep in the world’s biggest bowl of ice cream. He totally won, though. I was so full of broccoli, I hardly ate any of it.”

  I pictured her at the table, little, snoozing in a bowl of ice cream. There had been a time when our family was just Mom and Dad and Julia.

  In her memory, did it feel like I was there, the way I sometimes felt like Addie had been there before?

  Julia pulled off the side of the road at a gas station with some picnic tables. “Go.”

  I unplugged the phone, hoping the little charge would be enough, and went over to sit at an empty picnic table.

  He picked up, first ring.

  “Cassie?”

  “Hi, Daddy.”

  “Don’t you Hi-Daddy me.”

  He was right. I never called him Daddy.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “Um…” I peered toward the road, to see if there were any signs. “A gas station. Just making a pit stop. You know.”

  “Are you all okay?”

  “Yes, Dad, of course we are.”

  “Are you headed home?”

  “Not yet. We need more time.”

  “Time to do what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know? How can it be so important if you don’t know?”

  There are plenty of things that are important that you don’t know.

  Dad took in a breath and let it out like he was trying to be calm and patient, to think before he spoke. “Cassie, just come home, we can sort it out—”

  “You aren’t listening to me! You never listen to me!”

  Dad was silent. Maybe because he was mad at me for yelling, or maybe because he was trying to show he was going to listen.

  “Can we make a deal?” I asked.

  “A deal?”

  “Yeah. You let us have our vacation, and I’ll call you every night to say we’re okay.”

  He thought. Then he said, “You will call in the morning and at night. You will text the name and address of the place you’re staying. You will send a photo of the three of you every day.”

  I thought. “Okay.”

  “If you don’t, I’m coming to get you.”

  “How can you? You don’t know where I am.”

  “We’re tracking your phones.”

  My stomach went swoopy again.

  “So why did you ask where we are?”

  “I was giving you a chance to tell me.”

  My eyes stung.

  But what was the point of telling them things if they didn’t listen?

  “Dad? How’s Mom?”

  “She’s upset….She wants to know why.”

  I nodded. Not that he could see.

  “Do you need money?” Dad asked. “Because we don’t really—”

  “No. This is our thing. We’re paying for it.”

  “Can I talk to Julia?”

  I glanced over at the car. Julia was pretending not to watch. Probably because she saw me rubbing at my eyes. “No. She doesn’t want to.”

  “I need to hear her voice or the deal is off. I need to know she’s okay. And Addie.”

  “Addie’s sleeping.”

  “Julia then. And a picture of Addie.”

  “Yeah, yeah, okay.”

  I walked back over to the car. Julia leaned to peer through my window. I held out the phone.

  “You don’t have to take it,” I said. “Just say something.”

  “Pickles,” she said.

  I put the phone back to my ear. “Okay?”

  “Okay. And the picture. And you’ll call tonight.”

  “Yeah. Bye, Dad.”

  Before I climbed in the car, I took a pic of Addie sleeping and sent it.

  I got in the car, took a deep breath.

  “Hey.” Julia rubbed my back. “Thanks, Cass. I mean it. You’re ten times braver than I am….Though I did text Carter while you were gone.” Her phone was plugged in, turned off again but charging. “Said we were away, not to worry.” When I was breathing normally, she asked, “Terms?”

  “Calls morning and night. The hotel address. A picture of all of us every day.”

  “You do the calls. I’ll do the rest. Time limit?”

  I shook my head. “I just said we needed some.”

  “Perfect, perfect, perfect.”

  I looked over at her.

  She was smiling.

  My body relaxed.

  She started the car.

  * * *

  —

  Eventually the mountains fell away. The land looked a little flatter. Still hilly, just not as steep or tall. The trees were more spread out. Lot of farms. Some horses and cows. A few churches. Ranch houses set far apart.

  I was sitting with my feet up on the dashboard, absentmindedly playing with the anklet from Liana, when it broke.

  “Crap.” I held up the broken strands.

  “What is that?” Julia asked, glancing over.

  “Friendship anklet. Well, sort of. I mean, it was. I mean…”

  “That isn’t real, right?”

  My heart stopped. “What?” I looked out my window, but I couldn’t see anything scary.

  “A drive-in movie. Like from the old days. Like you pull your car up to the speakers.” Julia took the exit and drove along to the hill where they had the movies. “Just five dollars a car,” she read off the sign. “And it’s a double feature!”

  Julia drove up to the ticket booth.

  The older man inside looked at his watch, then at the clock on the wall of his booth, and sighed. “You’re three hours early.”

  “That’s okay,” Julia said. “We just wanted the best seat in the house.”

  The big, wide world of a house.

  We couldn’t stop giggling.

  “Is concessions open?” Julia asked.

  “Over there.” The man pointed to a little house nearby. “I’ll tell them to turn on the popcorn machine.”

  “Thanks.”

  Julia parked in a front-row spot and walked over to concessions. She came back with a huge bucket of popcorn.

  We sat in the front seat with our feet on the dashboard, hands meeting again and again in the slippery popcorn bucket between us.

  “Why haven’t you been hanging out with Liana and Piper?” Julia asked.

  “Why won’t you go out with Maya and Remy?”

  �
�Quit getting popcorn everywhere,” Julia said as I dropped half of my fistful.

  “You’re getting popcorn everywhere.” I threw the rest in my hand at her.

  “Hey!” She whipped a handful back at me. “You’re making—a mess—of my car!”

  When I grabbed the bucket, she was out the driver’s-side door in a flash. I jumped out on my side and ran around, throwing a huge scoop at her. She shrieked, but instead of running for it, she lunged for the bucket. Some of the popcorn spilled, but she managed to get a handful anyway.

  “Julia! EW!”

  She’d rubbed popcorn in my hair.

  I moved away, and as I spun to run for it, I threw the rest of the popcorn in her direction. It got all over her. The bucket hit the ground, and then we both leaned against the car, laughing and panting.

  “Don’t say you’re hungry later.” Julia picked up the popcorn bucket, peering inside to see how much was left.

  “You know what I am? So thirsty.”

  “Stay here,” she said.

  Where else would I go?

  She headed back to concessions and returned with two huge sodas, each in a bucket almost as big as the one for popcorn.

  “Coke.” She handed one to me.

  I slurped it so fast I sneezed.

  We climbed back into the car.

  I was so thirsty I kept guzzling that soda, all the way down to the bottom of the bucket.

  Other cars pulled up and it got dark out.

  Addie woke up crying. Julia changed her in the back and brought her around to the front seat to feed her. “The movie should start soon.”

  And it did. The screen lit up. People sitting on the hoods of their cars clapped.

  But I jumped out of my seat and out of the car.

  “Where are you going?” Julia called through the window.

  “I have to pee!” I shouted back, running toward concessions, hoping there was a bathroom there.

  Julia was laughing at me.

  When I got back in the car, she said, “Okay?”

  “Yep.”

  “You couldn’t have gone like, before the movie started? We were sitting here for hours.”

  “You sabotaged me with the world’s biggest soda.”

  “I know.” Julia laughed again. “I almost wish I’d done it on purpose.”