by Clare Hutton
Emma thought of Tomás and Mateo’s disgusting competitions—the food definitely wasn’t the worst of it, she’d caught them arguing over who had the biggest boogers—and Natalia’s snoring, and the way that Zoe always hogged the bathroom and made everyone run late for school.
“I think I’m okay with being an only child,” she said. Then she thought of how funny and cute Mateo and Tomás were a lot of the time, and how much fun she and Zoe and Natalia had together, and added, “But cousins are good. I like cousins. I mean, we’re almost like sisters.”
At Sweet Jane’s, Emma and her mom went to the far end of the shop and sat on pink chairs on either side of a wobbly little white-topped table.
“What do you want with your hot chocolate?” her mom asked, looking over the menu.
“Hmm.” Emma considered. She almost said cheesecake, which would be rich and creamy and satisfying, but then she saw, in the bakery case nearest to them, rows of crispy little sandwich cookies in all the colors of a pastel rainbow. “Ooh, definitely macarons.”
“Sounds good,” her mom said. “Maybe we can take some back for the other kids.”
“Sure, they’ll love them,” Emma said. “Zoe likes hazelnut best, and Natalia likes raspberry. The boys will eat anything.”
When the hot chocolate came, it was topped with a puff of whipped cream swirled with chocolate syrup, and it was delicious. Emma spooned the whipped cream off the top, letting it melt in her mouth. When she was done with the whipped cream, she alternated sips of the sweet rich hot chocolate with small bites of crispy macaron.
“Alison and I talked to a florist this morning,” her mom told her. “If we start off doing events like weddings and parties before the B and B opens, we’ll need connections like that. I’m thinking that, even when we’re not doing events, we should have fresh flower arrangements in the entryway.”
“Classy,” Emma said. “Seaview House always smells like flowers in the summer anyway.” She could have roses in her own slanted-ceiling attic bedroom every day during the summer, she thought, and smiled.
“You seem happy. School was better today?” her mom asked.
“Yeah,” said Emma. “We got a lot done on our English project, and at lunch Caitlin actually spoke to me. By Christmas, I’m sure we’ll be the best of friends.”
Emma’s mom laughed. “It seems like you’re really settling in here,” she commented.
“I guess I am,” Emma said, slightly surprised. “It took a while, but I think Zoe and Natalia and I are going to have fun together at school.” She thought her plan was working—Zoe and Natalia were fighting less, and they were both having fun with the Birdy scene.
She had felt like such an outsider at the beginning of school, and that hadn’t really been very long ago. But now she was more comfortable. She’d like to meet more people, though, people who liked the same things she liked. Zoe had the right idea: You loved your family and you counted on each other, but you needed other people, too. “I think I might try out for the soccer team,” she said.
“Good idea,” her mom said. “We should try to find you a new swim team, too.”
“I’m not sure I’ll feel all the way at home until Dad’s here, though,” Emma said softly. She glanced up at her mother, feeling weirdly nervous. “When is he coming?” Her voice came out softer and more anxious than she’d wanted it to.
Her mom looked a little flushed. “I don’t know, Emma,” she said. “I’m sure it’ll be soon. Please don’t worry.”
Anxiety uncurled and expanded inside Emma like some kind of growing vine, stretching all the way through her limbs. Why was this taking so long? Was this normal? It had been weeks and weeks since her dad had been supposed to come out.
Is he really coming?
She tried not to think about it, but her mouth felt dry from nervousness, and she took a deep swig of her hot chocolate. Her mom kept talking about the bed-and-breakfast, and about how this weekend they should figure out what they needed for the downstairs rooms. Her mom thought maybe they should put up some wallpaper, and Emma made noises to show that she was listening. But really, one worried thought kept circling through her mind: Maybe we’ll never all be together again.
When the hot chocolate and macarons were all gone, her mom got to her feet. “I’m just going to run to the restroom before we go,” she said, and Emma nodded.
Alone at the table, she looked at her mother’s phone, sitting beside her empty plate.
It was wrong to snoop on other people’s phones.
Emma did it anyway.
There was nothing much in her mom’s email: messages about the contractors, receipts and shipping notices for stuff she’d ordered online, a long chatty email from a friend of her mom’s back home that didn’t say anything important. Glancing up to make sure her mother wasn’t coming back yet, Emma closed her mom’s email and opened her text messages.
She found it almost at once. A short text exchange between her mom and her dad. It felt like something that came right after a fight.
From her dad: What do you expect me to do, then?
From her mom: I just realized you’re NEVER coming out, are you?
Emma stared down at the phone. She felt shocked and yet like she’d known it all along: Her dad was never coming. They were never going to be that tight little family unit—never, never, never again.
Emma pressed her face against her air mattress in the twins’ room, hot tears running slowly down her cheeks, dripping off the sides of her nose.
“Why didn’t you ask your mom about it?” Natalia asked softly, patting her on the back.
“I don’t know.” Emma turned to the side to look at her cousins miserably and wiped some of the tears away with the back of her hand. “I didn’t want her to know I’d been snooping on her phone.” Another fat tear forced its way out, and she choked on a sob. “She might not tell me the truth anyway. When I asked when he was coming, she just said she didn’t know.”
Zoe was sitting on the floor next to the air mattress, rolling the fringe of the rug between her fingers. “But you don’t know that for sure, do you? I mean, what she wrote sounds like something someone might just say in a fight because they’re frustrated.”
Emma shook her head slowly, the air mattress squeaking under her. “I don’t see how I could have misunderstood. It was really straightforward.” She closed her eyes and another tear slipped out. Her eyes felt red and raw, and she was tired of crying.
Her cousins sat next to her, Natalia’s hand on her back, Zoe staying nearby, and Emma felt a little stronger with them there. Having Zoe and Natalia comforted her. She wasn’t alone.
After a while, she stopped crying and just lay there, feeling weak and washed out with tears. “I don’t know what to do,” she said dully.
“Nobody can think straight when they’re this upset,” Zoe said. “Here”—she handed Emma a box of tissues—“blow your nose, and then go wash your face with cool water.”
Emma blew and, with what felt like an enormous effort, got to her feet and went into the bathroom. In the mirror, her eyes were bloodshot and her face blotchy with tears. The cool water, though, was refreshing on her hot skin.
When she got back to the twins’ bedroom, they were standing by the door waiting for her. Zoe had a couple of sketchbooks under one arm and some pencils clutched in her hand.
“Come down to the beach with us,” she said. “When I’m upset, I go down there to draw, and it really helps me. It’ll clear your mind.”
“I’m not an artist,” Emma said reluctantly, but Zoe grinned.
“Everybody’s an artist,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s just for fun.”
Natalia whistled for Riley, and the dog trailed behind as they crossed the road and scrambled down the hill to the beach. A breeze off the bay lifted Emma’s hair and cooled her cheeks. It was late afternoon and the beach was partly sunny, partly in shadow. There was no one there but them.
“What do I do?”
Emma asked, feeling awkward.
“Come on,” Zoe said. They walked down to the edge of the water together, and Zoe found half a clamshell, ridged like a fan. Sitting down on the sand, Zoe laid the shell between them.
“Your clothes are going to get all sandy,” Natalia warned, but Emma shrugged and sat down, too.
“Now we draw,” Zoe said, handing Emma a sketchbook and a pencil. “Don’t worry about whether it’s good or not, just draw what you see.”
Hesitantly, Emma put the tip of her pencil on the sketchpad. The shell had little corners next to the point, she saw, almost like a bow tie. She tried to draw the shape and got what she thought was a pretty good approximation. The lines on the shell, she thought, they’re deeper near the rounded end, and she tried to draw that, too.
“I’ll look for more stuff,” Natalia said. She called to Riley and ran down the beach, too full of energy to sit and draw.
Emma and Zoe stayed where they were, and drew and drew. Sometimes Emma peeked at Zoe’s paper to see how she drew something, how she made contours and shadow on her paper. Her drawing wasn’t as good as Zoe’s—nowhere near as good—but it didn’t matter. Zoe was right, Emma thought, when she was really concentrating on her drawing, her brain and her eyes and her hand were all connected, and too full and busy to think about anything else. And Zoe was a warm, comforting presence beside her.
Natalia brought back the best of her finds, laying them in the sand next to Emma and Zoe, and they flipped over to the next pages in their sketchbooks and drew them, too.
They didn’t talk much, although when Natalia triumphantly brought over an empty turtle shell, Zoe looked up long enough to say, “She brought a dead horseshoe crab over to me once. I wouldn’t draw it, though. It smelled.”
“I was young and foolish then,” Natalia said. “I wouldn’t touch one now. But I still think it would have been cool to draw.”
Gradually, Emma felt her mind clearing. Even the motion of drawing—the pencil’s strokes on the paper—was soothing. And, even though she was worried about her father, it was satisfying to see Zoe and Natalia working together.
A gull screeched overhead, and then another, louder screech came from more nearby. A screech that, somehow, didn’t sound quite right. Emma looked up to see Natalia poised on top of a heap of sand, the remains of someone’s sand castle. Natalia stared at her and screeched like a gull again, poking her head forward like one of the birds. She flapped her arms and hopped a little, and Emma, to her own surprise, choked back a laugh. An hour ago, I felt like I would never laugh again. “Weirdo,” she said affectionately.
Pleased with herself, Natalia hopped off the sand castle and sat down next to them. Riley came and flopped down in the sand, panting loudly.
The shadows were getting longer. It must be getting close to dinnertime. Emma closed her sketchbook.
“I’m okay now,” she said. She looked at Zoe. “Thank you,” she said, and Zoe nodded. “But now I have to figure out what to do. I can’t—I can’t pretend I never read those messages and just wait to see what happens.”
“No.” Natalia wrapped her arms around her legs, thinking. “I know,” she said. “We can go undercover and find out your dad’s plans!”
“What are you talking about?” Emma asked skeptically.
“We could call Harvest Moon pretending to be restaurant reviewers or something,” Natalia suggested. “And we could ask about if they’re getting a new chef. That way, we’d know if your dad’s planning to stay there or not.”
It might work, Emma supposed. Whatever they said at the restaurant, it would be a clue to her parents’ plans.
Zoe, though, cocked an eyebrow. “I’m not sure that’s such a great idea,” she said slowly.
“Yeah, maybe not,” Natalia agreed. “It’s a little too wacky sitcom.”
Looking at Emma, Zoe said softly, “You know what you have to do.”
Emma nodded. “I have to call my dad and find out the truth.”
“Okay, then,” Natalia jumped to her feet and reached down to help Emma up. “We’ll come with you.”
Warmth filled Emma’s chest. Whatever happened, she would have Natalia and Zoe. Zoe took Emma’s other hand, and Emma squeezed both her cousins’ hands gratefully.
Emma and her cousins walked along the beach to get back to Natalia and Zoe’s house. With every step, Emma felt her stomach tighten and her heart sink. Soon, she would know the truth about her parents. If it was bad—if her parents were really separating—well, maybe she didn’t want to know any sooner than she had to. Yet, if they weren’t, she definitely wanted to know right away. And soon they would know the truth about her, because she would have to tell her dad that she had snooped at his text on her mom’s phone. And that meant her mom would find out, too. Emma couldn’t bear to think how disappointed her parents would be in her.
As they got closer, they could hear Aunt Alison calling them from the house, sounding impatient. Zoe and Natalia glanced at each other. “Oops,” Natalia said, grimacing. “I think we’re late for dinner.”
Emma wiped her sweaty hands against her shorts. She felt dizzy and panicky, not at all hungry. She couldn’t imagine sitting down with the big, noisy family and pretending everything was okay. “I don’t think I can eat. I just want to talk to my dad. But you guys go ahead, I don’t want you to get into trouble.”
Natalia twined their arms together. “Don’t be dumb, we’re not going to leave you. You’re more important than dinner.”
“It’s not like there won’t be any food left,” Zoe agreed. “Mom always makes enough for an army. We just have to sneak in without them seeing us so you can make the call.”
Zoe led the way, slipping through the front door and up the stairs so quietly that no one saw or heard them from the crowded dining room. Emma’s cell phone was sitting on a shelf of the bookcase closest to her air mattress. She picked it up and looked at it, her heart pounding hard. “I don’t think I can do it. I’m scared.”
Natalia knelt down on the air mattress to peer up into Emma’s face. “You can do it, Emma. I’m sure everything is okay, but you can face the truth, whatever it is. Besides, if it’s bad, there’s no point in putting it off,” she said.
Zoe paused and then said, “And … even if it is true, you’re not going to lose your dad. Even if he ends up staying in Seattle, he’d never abandon you. I know that for sure.”
Emma knew that it was true. Even if she had to fly back and forth across the country every summer or something, her dad would never stop loving her. Thinking of that made the ball of anxiety inside her loosen a little bit. “Okay,” she said, picking up her phone. “I’m ready.”
As it rang, she imagined what he might be doing—it was three thirty in Seattle, the lull between the lunch and dinner rushes at Harvest Moon. There had been plenty of afternoons when she’d come back after school at just about this time. Some of the cooks would be prepping their stations and others would be grabbing a bite to eat before they had to prepare for the first wave of dinner customers. She almost expected to feel homesick thinking of it, but it was just a good memory that felt a long, long way away.
It was the quietest and emptiest time of the day in the kitchen, a good time for the conversation she needed to have.
Her dad picked up the phone, and she could hear the low noises of the afternoon kitchen behind him. “Emma?” he said, sounding pleased. “How’s it going?”
“Hi, Dad,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”
“Hang on,” he said, sounding more serious, and she heard a door shut and the kitchen noises disappear. “Okay, shoot.”
“I looked at Mom’s texts,” she blurted out. “She said you weren’t coming here.”
There was a pause. “Oh, honey. Oh, no,” her dad said. “No, that isn’t true at all.”
Emma’s breath caught in her throat. “It’s not?”
“Your mom and I were fighting because we were stressed out at being so far apart. She said that out o
f frustration, because it was beginning to feel like it would never end. But I am coming. I never wanted you to have to worry about that. I’m sorry.”
He paused, and Emma said, just checking again. “But it’s not true?”
“No.” His voice warmed into happiness again. “In fact, Harvest Moon has hired a chef for a trial period, and that’s it—whether he works out or not, I’m done. I’ve booked a flight and I’m coming next week.”
“Are you sure?” Emma asked. There was nothing she wanted more than for her dad to come to Waverly, but he always talked about not burning bridges. “They won’t be mad if it doesn’t work out and you still leave?”
“At this point, they know I’ve done more than they could have expected,” he said. “Harvest Moon and I are on very good terms.”
“Oh, good,” Emma said. She hesitated, then asked, “Are you going to miss Harvest Moon?”
“Yes,” her dad said. “But you know what’s going to be even better? Seaview House.”
“Really?” Emma said, beginning to smile.
“Absolutely,” her dad said. “When I’m falling asleep in our empty apartment every night, I make up breakfast menus.”
“Crepes?” Emma asked.
Her dad made a considering sound. “Definitely. And I just found a really interesting fruit soup recipe.”
“Soup for breakfast?” Emma said doubtfully. “Dad, I think maybe people would rather have something more breakfast-y.”
“Fruit is breakfast-y,” her dad said, sounding slightly defensive, and Emma laughed. “Anyway,” he added. “One thing you can count on, an absolute promise, is that I’ll be there for Seaview House Bed-and-Breakfast’s grand opening.”
When Emma hung up, her cousins both looked at her expectantly.
“Well?” said Natalia. “Was I right? Everything’s fine?”
“Yup, Natalia, it’s all about you,” Zoe said, but she was smiling, and her voice didn’t have the bite in it that it sometimes did when the twins argued.