“She’s the best Drew could hope for.” My hot mug felt good in my cold hands, and I hunched down to let the steam bathe my face. “Listen, I’m glad you both waited up for me, because I need to talk to you about something.” I sipped slowly, aware of their unsettled silence. “I think I need to start driving again.”
My parents were wearing coordinating pajamas. Probably not on purpose, but it seemed too coincidental to be pure chance. Mom’s were moss-green flowers on a butter-yellow background, and Dad’s were butter-yellow with moss piping. They looked like people from one of those comfort-living catalogs that sell pj’s along with wind chimes and chenille throw rugs. Mom and Dad had been married forever, and it was hard to imagine what they’d been before they morphed like cookies in the oven into this warm, sweet pair. Yet they were incomplete without me; I was their Everything. I sometimes felt like each hug came with their assertion in my ear:
“Ember, you are everything we dreamed you’d be!”
“Ember, we love you more than life itself!”
It had always been a weight on me. A loving weight, but heavy anyhow.
And it made conversations like this extra hard. I could feel both my parents’ instant, snap-to-it attention at my mention of driving, and I’d have bet anything they’d been wrestling endlessly with this topic in private for a while now, of how I hadn’t expressed any desire to drive since I’d come home.
“See, because I think the longer I go without driving,” I continued, “the harder it will be for me when I do.”
“Absolutely! If you think you’re ready! Let’s get you back in the saddle!” Dad’s voice was loud, to cover his all-too-evident doubts.
I nodded along with him. “I’d like to take it out Saturday. If that’s okay.”
“Where are you going?” Mom was pushing a spoon around and around like a windup toy in her cocoa. Hydration was not helping her on this one. “And just to point out, you’ve never handled the Prius. Wouldn’t you like me to go along with you? We could test-drive together, and work up to a big trip.”
Maybe that wasn’t such a bad plan. Mom had taught me to drive the first time around, and she’d be a steady presence in the passenger seat. “Sure, tomorrow would be good,” I decided. “I should probably get in some practice before Saturday.”
“Wonderful.” Mom beamed. “Does that mean you and Holden are going somewhere Saturday?”
“Uh, yeah.” It’d be easier to let them think that I was spending Saturday with Holden. Though my parents’ worry practically had tentacles. Sweet as they both were, their protective instincts were like a monster they’d expertly conjured together. I could almost see those waving arms reaching for me through the air, plucking me up, curling around to hold me in a lock, and then my parents whispering in my ear that I was their very best thing, and that I must never, never leave home again, ever.
“You and Holden! I can’t say I’m anything but glad about that!” Dad’s voice was cheerful enough to scare the neighbors.
“He’s a good guy.”
“And he must have walked you home tonight, yes?” Mom looked over her shoulder, as if half hoping that even though I’d been home alone for twenty minutes, Holden might suddenly materialize in the doorway.
I colored, half nodded. After I’d been tossed from the St. George, I’d checked my texts, only to find a smattering of notes from Smarty. Nothing from Kai, and of course there’d been no new messages from Holden. No matter how hurt he was, Holden wasn’t the type to push for extra rehashing of what had just happened between us. If I said I wanted time, then time was what he’d give me.
“So what special thing are you two doing this Saturday?”
“Not sure yet.”
“But you know that you need the car,” Mom said, arching a brow.
“Where are you going in general?” Dad squinted at me.
I was starting to squirm. I made myself stare at him directly. “We were planning to take Jolly out to the beach, if it’s not too cold.”
Dad liked that answer. They both did. They also figured I meant a day trip to Lawrence Beach, out in Rockaway, where we’d always gone as a family, and a route I had practiced on back when I’d first gotten my learner’s permit. A very smooth, safe excursion up the Belt Parkway.
I’d let them think it. Spare them the anxiety.
Kai or no Kai, a driving test had to be conquered.
Up in my bedroom, I checked my phone one last time.
One more from Smarty. Nobody else. Not that I was expecting different.
22
She Knew, and She Pitied Me
“Howdy, stranger. You should have come out last night.” Rachel had pulled up abruptly beside me as I walked down the hall. Despite Smarty’s chirpy tone, there were thunderclouds in it, a warning of her temper.
“Sorry about that. Thanks for covering for me.”
“Sure, no problem. But I also left you a few messages. Did you get those?”
“Uh-huh.” Three, to be exact. The first—hey where are you, I want to go to Floyd now. The second—just checked my text, why are you making me cover for you, are you showing up here later? The third—oookay, fielded your mom’s call, so you’re good. But you’re not coming to Floyd at all tonight, huh? Holden’s here and he looks depressed. What happened? Call me back! And then a couple of missed calls.
“But you didn’t answer any of them.” Rachel was waiting for an explanation that made sense.
“I was tired.” I fell in with her deliberately slower step as we moved down the hall. At the end of the stretch, which felt like it was thirteen miles long, I knew that Rachel would hook right for AP Biology, and I’d turn left for the Friday yearbook meeting.
“Tired,” she repeated.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. Except that “sorry” wasn’t cutting it. And she was right, anyhow. It had been strange and rude to just drop out on our plans.
“It’s just I thought we’d agreed on Floyd.”
“I know; you’re right. We had.”
“So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think it was totally not cool that you didn’t show up.”
“Smarty, I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to kill your night. I needed to be alone. Don’t you think it would have been worse for me to come out with you all if I wasn’t up for it?”