Earnestly, Jeremiah said, “Laurel, I swear to you it’s nothing like that.”
My mother ignored him. She looked only at me.
“Then what is happening here? Where is this coming from?”
My lips felt really dry all of a sudden. Fleetingly, I thought of what had led up to Jeremiah’s proposal, and just as quickly the thought flitted away. None of that we’ll always have summer · 107
mattered anymore. What mattered was that we were in love. I said, “We want to get married, Mom.”
“You’re too young,” she said in a flat voice. “You’re both far too young.”
Jeremiah coughed. “Laur, we love each other, and we want to be together.”
“You are together,” my mother snapped. Then she turned to Mr. Fisher, her eyes narrowed. “Did you know about this?”
“Calm down, Laurel. They’re joking. You two were joking, right?”
Jere and I shared a look before he said in a soft voice,
“No, we’re not joking.”
My mother swallowed the rest of her champagne, emptying her glass. “You two are not getting married, period. You’re both still in school, for God’s sake. It’s ridiculous.”
Clearing his throat, Mr. Fisher said, “Maybe after you two graduate, we can discuss it again.”
“A few years after you graduate,” my mother put in.
“Right,” Mr. Fisher said.
“Dad …” Jeremiah began.
The server was back at Mr. Fisher’s shoulder before Jeremiah could finish whatever it was he was going to say. He just stood there for a moment looking awkward before asking, “Do you have any questions about the menu? Or, ah, are we just doing appetizers today?”
“We’ll just take the check,” my mother said, tight lipped.
I was right before. This was a mistake, a tactical error of epic proportions. We never should have told them like this. Now they were a team, united against us. We barely got a word in edgewise. There was all this food on the table and no one was touching it, no one was saying anything.
I reached into my purse, and under the tablecloth, I put my engagement ring on. it was the only thing I could do. When I reached for my water glass, Jeremiah saw the ring and squeezed my knee again. My mother saw too—
her eyes flashed, and she looked away.
Mr. Fisher paid the bill, and for once my mother didn’t argue. We all stood up. Quickly, Steven filled a cloth napkin with shrimp. And then we were leaving, me trailing my mother, Jeremiah following Mr. Fisher. Behind me, I heard Steven whispering to Conrad. “Holy shit, man.
This is crazy. Did you know about this?”
I heard Conrad tell him no. Outside, he hugged my mother good-bye and then got in his car and drove away.
He didn’t look back at me once.
When we got to our car, I asked my mother very quietly, “Can I have the keys?”
“What for?”
I wet my lips. “I need to get my book bag out of the trunk. I’m going with Jeremiah, remember?”
I could see my mother struggle to hold her temper.
She said, “No, you’re not. You’re coming home with us.”
“But Mom—”
Before I could finish, she’d already handed the keys to Steven and climbed into the passenger seat. She closed the door.
I looked at Jeremiah helplessly. Mr. Fisher was already in his car, and Jeremiah was hanging back, waiting. More than anything, I wished I could leave with him. I was really, really scared to get into the car with my mother.
I was in trouble like I had never known.
“Get in the car, Belly,” Steven said. “Don’t make it worse.”
“You’d better go,” Jeremiah said.
I ran over to him and hugged him tight. “I’ll call you tonight,” he whispered into my hair.
“If I’m still alive,” I whispered back.
Then I walked away from him and climbed into the backseat.
Steven started the car, his napkin a white bundle in his lap. My mother caught my eye in the rearview mirror and said, “You’re returning that ring, Isabel.”
If I backed down now, everything was lost. I had to be strong.
“I’m not returning it,” I said.
Chapter Twenty-two
My mother and I didn’t speak to each other for a week.
I avoided her, and she ignored me. I worked at Behrs, mostly to get out of the house. I ate lunch and dinner there. After my shifts, I went over to Taylor’s, and when I got home, I talked to Jeremiah on the phone. He begged me to at least try to talk to my mother. I knew he was worried that she hated him now, and I assured him that he wasn’t the one she was mad at. That was all me.
One night after a late shift at the restaurant, I was on my way to my room when I stopped short. I heard the muffled sound of my mother crying behind her closed door. I was frozen to the spot, my heart thudding in my chest. Standing outside her door, listening to her weep, I was ready to give it all up. In that moment I would have done anything, said anything, to make her stop crying.
In that moment she had me. My hand was on the doorknob, and the words were right there, on the tip of my tongue—Okay, I won’t do it.
But then it got quiet. She’d stopped crying on her own. I waited a little longer, and when I didn’t hear anything more, I let go of the doorknob and went to my room. In the dark I took off my work clothes and got into bed, and I cried too.
I woke up to the smell of my father’s Turkish coffee. For just those few seconds right in between sleep and wake-fulness, I was ten again, and my dad still lived with us and the biggest thing I had to worry about was my math homework. I started to fall asleep again, and then I woke up with a start.
There could only be one reason my dad was here. My mother had told him. I’d wanted to be the one to tell him, to explain. She’d beaten me to it. I was mad, but at the same time I felt glad. Her telling my father meant that she was finally taking this seriously.
After I showered, I headed downstairs. They were sitting in the living room drinking coffee. My dad had on his weekend clothes—jeans and a plaid short-sleeved shirt. And a belt, always a belt.
“Morning,” I said.
“Have a seat,” my mother said, setting her mug down on a coaster.
I sat. My hair was still wet, and I was trying to work my comb through the tangles.
Clearing his throat, my father said, “So, your mother told me what’s going on.”
“Dad, I wanted to tell you myself, I really did. Mom beat me to the punch.” I threw her a pointed look, and she didn’t appear the least bit bothered by it.