My mom tipped her head to the side and considered my question. “I guess I’d tell her that being nice doesn’t get you hurt. Being human is what gets you hurt, and you can’t exactly help that.”
I knew she wouldn’t give me the answer I was looking for, which was that the situation called for a nicely written apology note to make it all better.
“Hey, why don’t you go take a hot shower,” she suggested before patting my leg and standing up to leave. “Maybe it will make you feel a little better.”
I seriously doubted that good personal hygiene would make my situation any better, but it was about the only option I had.
An hour later I was clean, shampooed, and smelling like freesia bath gel, but no less depressed. I figured as long as I was going to be miserable I may as well be well fed. But on my way downstairs I noticed the faint, fuzzy light of the TV coming from my mom’s room. I stopped and knocked on her door.
“Come on in,” she told me.
“I was going to get myself something to eat, do you want anything?”
She shook her head no and patted the empty spot next to her. “I’m just watching a movie. You can watch with me, if you’d like.”
Watch a movie or attack a pint of Ben & Jerry’s? While the Ben & Jerry’s would taste awfully good going down, I knew I’d hate myself tomorrow. Besides, we probably only had sorbet anyway. I crawled onto the bed and staked out the vacant spot my dad once occupied.
“What are you watching?” I asked.
She didn’t answer right away, and when she did there was an ironic grin on her face. “My Fair Lady.”
“How appropriate.”
“I promise it’s just a coincidence.”
I knew it was, it’s not like my mother has control over the televised programming of cable stations, but it was still impeccable timing. A commercial had just ended, so we both stopped talking and lay there quietly while we watched Professor Henry Higgins try to turn Eliza Doolittle into someone better, even if there was really nothing wrong with her to begin with. She just didn’t fit his view of what a woman should be like.
My mom never said a word, but I knew what she was thinking: that I was Henry Higgins without the accent. And Luke was Eliza Doolittle without the flower cart and corset.
When the movie was over, neither of us made an attempt to move.
“I’m so cozy,” I told her, burying myself even deeper under the comforter. It smelled like fabric softener, and I couldn’t help but wonder what my father’s new bed smelled like. There was no way it smelled this good.
“You know, I went by the old house,” I told her, leaving out the part about Luke taking me there. “Remember that huge tree where Dad hung the rope swing? The one in the side yard?”
“I sure do. I remember when your dad hung it up there. He almost killed himself.”
“They took down the tree. It’s gone.”
“The Dutch elm disease probably finally got it. We should have cut it down years ago, but you guys loved that swing, so we kept it up.”
“So you knew it was sick?”
“Yeah. For a while. I kept telling your dad to take it down but he refused. He said you and TJ enjoyed it too much to cut it down.”
“So he kept it up for me?”
She nodded.
“Then why isn’t he here?” I asked. “Why’d he stay in Chicago?”
My mom turned on her side and faced me. “I think that’s something you should ask him.”
I shrugged. “At least you could have told him it wasn’t okay for him to stay.”
“You know, Emily, I’m not perfect. Your dad isn’t perfect. Nobody is.” My mom reached for the remote control and turned off the TV. “Do you have any plans for tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “Nope.”
“Why don’t you come into the city with me and after my seminar we can go out for lunch or something?”
I knew she just felt sorry for me, but so did I. “Sure.”
My mom smiled. “So, here we are.”
“What’s going to happen to us?” I asked her, not really knowing if I wanted an honest answer.
“I think we’ll make it,” she assured me. “Good things happen to good people, right?”
I nodded into the pillow, hoping that old saying still applied to me.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Guy’s Guide Tip #100:
There are only two places women really wear thong bikinis—Brazil and music videos. The last time I checked, we weren’t in Rio, and you weren’t the king of hip-hop.
My mom used to take me to the Park Plaza Hotel when I was little. We’d go there for afternoon tea in Swan’s Café so she could observe lapses in etiquette for future article and book ideas. I used to love dressing up like a “lady,” as my mom called it, and sitting behind the gilded railing overlooking the lobby. With the starched table linens and fine china, I couldn’t help but feel like I was supposed to sit perfectly still, my shoulders thrown back. Even now, I immediately sat up a little straighter, aware of my shoulders and chin (imagine a piece of string running up your spine through your head and into the sky, and then imagine pulling the string until you’re sitting absolutely straight—weird, I know, but it works).
I used to pretend I was a princess, although without the fabulous wardrobe and prince standing below my window calling my name. But right now there definitely wasn’t a prince who wanted to be within one hundred miles of me.
On the ride into the city I kept thinking about what my mom said last night, how she’d never even told my dad that she didn’t want him to stay behind while we moved.
“Don’t you want Dad to come home?” I asked.
“Of course I do,” she answered.
“So why don’t you call him and tell him that.”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, Em,” she told me. “One phone call isn’t going to make everything all better.”
Even though she didn’t give me a reason, I knew why. She was afraid of looking foolish or seeming desperate or, even worse, hearing the answer she didn’t want to hear.
“It can’t hurt,” I encouraged. “Just tell him how you really feel. What’s the worst thing that can happen? He’s already not here.”
My mom didn’t answer right away. “I’ll think about it.”
While I was dispensing some well-earned advice to my mom, I figured I may as well take it myself.
I held on to the door’s armrest and prepared for my mother’s reaction. “I don’t think I want to go to Brown.” There, I’d said it.
“Did you get in?” she asked, as if she’d missed something.
“No, the letter hasn’t arrived yet. But even if I do, I don’t want to go.”
She flipped on her blinker and changed lanes. “Okay.”
Wait a minute, did she really just say okay? “Okay? Didn’t you want me to go to Brown?”
“I want you to go where you want to go. I thought you wanted to go to Brown, so I was all for it. Where are you thinking of now?”
Her reaction threw me for such a loop I wasn’t prepared to answer. “Maybe Smith. I don’t really know, I thought I’d wait and see before I decided.”
“That’s probably a good idea. Whatever you choose, I’m sure it will be the right decision.”
“What about you?” I asked.
“What about me?”
“Have you made a decision about calling Dad?”
She glanced over at me and smiled. “Emily.”
“Okay, you don’t have to tell me now,” I assured her. “But whatever you choose, I’m sure it will be the right decision.”
After the seminar and lunch, Mom dropped me off at home and went to the grocery store to do some shopping.
“Isn’t there anything to eat around here?” TJ asked, opening and shutting kitchen cabinet doors. “I’m starving.”
“Mom just went to the store.”
“Why don’t you just call Luke?” TJ asked, peering into the nea
r-empty refrigerator.
“Just call him?” I repeated, expecting TJ to turn around and provide a more detailed explanation for this bizarre suggestion. “You mean, just pick up the phone and say, ‘hey, what’s up,’ like nothing’s happened?”
TJ nodded, still looking into the refrigerator and not at me, and reached for a carton of lemonade. “That’s what I said. I know you think he’s a dick, but last night I ran into Luke at the movies and he wasn’t looking all that happy. He even asked me how you were doing.”
“He did?” A slew of emotions swirled through me. Relief. Excitement. Confusion. But the one that I clung to the hardest was hope.
God, I hoped TJ wasn’t mistaken. “Are you sure?”
TJ rolled his eyes at me. “I think I can remember a conversation I had less than twenty-four hours ago, Emily. Just because I’m not on the honor roll doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”
“I never said you were an idiot,” I replied, to which TJ just rolled his eyes again and started drinking out of the lemonade carton. “So, what did you tell him?”
“I told him the truth.” He stood there gulping down the last of the lemonade while I waited for his answer. Finally he put down the carton and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. “Look, I’m not the bad guy here. You’re angry at Dad, you’re angry at Sean, you make a freaking guide outlining in detail everything that’s wrong with the male species. Why can’t you just admit you were wrong?”
“I was the one who threw away the guide,” I reminded him, sounding more defensive than I’d intended.
“Why can’t you just admit that there doesn’t always have to be somebody to blame? That sometimes it’s not as easy as picking who’s right and who’s wrong?”
“I don’t do that.”
TJ just rolled his eyes at me, as if to say, “Yeah, right.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Guy’s Guide Tip #101:
It’s called “The battle of the sexes” for a reason, but that doesn’t mean we can’t call a truce. Sometimes that’s the only way to avoid casualties.
“What are you doing here?” I stopped in the kitchen doorway and thought maybe I was seeing things. It was Sunday morning and there was my father standing at the kitchen counter with a package of Thomas’ English muffins in one hand and a jar of jelly in the other.
“I got in late last night. I didn’t want to wake you or your brother up. Do you want an English muffin?” my dad asked, pushing down the toaster knob. “I’m making one for your mom.”
The father who had been absent for four months was now offering to make me breakfast. “Sure.”
“Eggs, too?”
“Why not?” I nodded, not exactly sure what was going on. “I think I’m going to go upstairs and get dressed. I’ll be right back.”
I went upstairs, but I didn’t get dressed. I went to find my mom.
“What’s Dad doing here?”
“Moving in.” My mom continued making her bed, as if she wasn’t the least bit surprised that my father was in our kitchen wielding a spatula and toasting English muffins.
“And how did this happen?” I asked.
“Why don’t you ask him?” she suggested and I headed downstairs to do just that.
“So, your mom tells me you’ve had quite a week.”
I took a bite of my English muffin and nodded. I made sure to lean over my plate so the grape jelly didn’t land in my lap, and I couldn’t help thinking of Josie.
“I’m not sure I’m done being mad at you.” I glanced down the hall, looking for my dad’s suitcase.
“The rest of my stuff is being shipped,” he told me. “And I know you’re angry with me.”
I took a deep breath and forged on. “Why didn’t you move with us? Why did you decide to come home now?”
He put down the paper and looked up at me. “I’m more than willing to tell you, Emily. I only wish you’d given me a chance to explain.”
I put down my juice and waited. “I’m listening now.”
“I don’t know if this is going to make any sense to you, but things change, people change, and sometimes that’s hard. You’re about to go off to college, and TJ will be gone, too, in a couple of years. Your mom and I thought a change of scenery would be good, but when it came time to move, I think we both realized that it wasn’t where we lived that made a difference. It wouldn’t change the fact that things were going to be different no matter where we were.”
“And?”
“And I guess I’m sorry that I didn’t explain that sooner. When your mom told me to stay in Chicago and figure things out, I just—”
I cut him off before he could finish. “Mom told you to stay in Chicago?”
“Well, yeah,” he admitted. “She thought that maybe some time apart would make things clearer.”
One thing was definitely clearer. “So Mom’s to blame for all this?”
“Nobody’s to blame, Em. There doesn’t have to always be a finger pointed. Sometimes life is like that.”
Sounded eerily like he was telling me that “shit happens.”
I took a sip of my juice and considered what he’d just told me. “Well, I guess I’m sorry I didn’t give you the chance to explain.”
“Now it’s your turn,” he told me.
“My turn?”
“Your mom told me what’s going on with Lucy and Josie. Any chance you can talk to them? Explain what happened?”
“I don’t know,” I told him, even though what I was thinking was, Probably not. “I blew it. They hate me, Luke hates me. They’ll probably never forgive me.”
“Well, why don’t you go see Lucy and give it a shot? It can’t hurt, right? It sure beats sitting around here wondering.”
Still, wondering if my friends would ever forgive me was way better than learning for a fact that they wouldn’t.
“I don’t know.”
“Sometimes you just have to take a chance and hope that people will make the right decision—Mom did and look what happened.” He held up his English muffin. “You get my famous English muffin and eggs and you didn’t even have to ask.”
I reluctantly nodded. “I guess so.”
“There’s no guessing about it. Go.” He pointed to the door. “Go tell them exactly how you feel.”
He was right, I knew he was. This wasn’t just going to blow over, and I wasn’t willing to give up on my best friends just because they seemed ready to give up on me.
I pushed my chair back and stood up. “I’ll give it a shot.”
My dad smiled. “Good.”
Before I turned to leave, I grabbed my remaining English muffin to take with me. “And Dad? Thanks for not cutting down the tree.”
My dad tipped his head to the right like he didn’t quite understand what I was saying, but I guess he wasn’t willing to question a thank you from someone who’d been holding a grudge against him for months. “You’re welcome, Emily.”
“What are you doing here?” I stared at the guy who answered the door, thoroughly confused. “Where’s Lucy?”
Owen stared back at me. “We were just hanging out. She asked me to get the door.”
“Who is it?” I heard Lucy call from down the hall before she poked her head around the door to see who Owen was talking to. “Oh.”
Sometimes events conspire to make a person feel like she’s just had enough. First the Luke thing, then Josie, my dad shows up, and now Lucy and Owen.
Looking at Lucy standing there next to Owen, it was almost like seeing her for the first time. Really seeing her, not the girl who’d been my best friend in sixth grade, but the girl who was my best friend now—at least I hoped she still was. And by seeing Lucy, I saw all of us—the three of us. Lucy wasn’t just the girl who was going to Duke on a soccer scholarship, Josie wasn’t just the girl who carelessly went through guys, and I wasn’t just the girl who was nicer than everyone else. Lucy liked Owen, Josie had really cared for Luke, and I was the girl who was capable of hurting he
r best friends.
“I wanted to talk to you,” I told her. “I didn’t know you’d have company.”
Lucy stood there deciding what to do. “Do you want to come in?” she finally asked.
Lucy led us into the family room. “So, what did you want to talk about?”
I didn’t answer. Instead, I glanced at Owen.
“Whatever you have to say you can say in front of him,” she told me, crossing her arms over her chest like she was preparing for a fight. “He knows what happened.”
Obviously.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I never meant to hurt you or Josie.”
Lucy thought this over before responding. “What I don’t get is why you just didn’t tell us you really liked Luke.”
“I don’t know. I guess I was afraid you’d be mad at me.”
Lucy grimaced. “Well, it seems that happened anyway, doesn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
She dropped her arms to her sides and I took that as a sign that she was softening.
“I never would have lied to you if I thought it would turn out like this,” I continued.
“How did you think it would turn out?” she asked.
“I don’t know, just not like this.”
Lucy bit her lip. “You know, we probably would have understood. I just wish you’d been honest with us, Em.”
“Me, too,” I conceded. “Believe me. If I could do it all over again, it would all be different.”
“You really need to talk to Josie,” Lucy told me. “You meant a lot more to her than Luke ever did, you know.”
I hoped that was true.
We all stood there silently for a few minutes, and I could tell that Owen wished he could disappear. I knew exactly how he felt.
“Well,” I began, not sure what I should say, “I guess I should get going.”
“I’ll walk you to the door,” Owen offered, following me out of the room.
“Is Luke still pissed at me?” I asked him, not sure I wanted to know the answer.
Owen nodded and opened the front door for me. “What you did was shitty,” he said. “Luke didn’t deserve it.”