One Lonely Degree (24 page)

“How was the movie?” she asks.

“It was okay.” I dig into the cupboard for a late-night cookie fest as Mom sips her diet soda. “Did you walk Samsam?”

“Oh.” Mom’s voice sinks. “I forgot.” She stares at me with penitent eyes.

No wonder he was extra excited to see me. “I’ll do it.” I don’t like walking him alone at night, but it’s not the first time.

“I’ll get changed,” Mom offers. “We can go together. Just a short one, okay? I’m exhausted, and I don’t want to leave Daniel too long.”

So we walk Samsam briskly around the block together. A couple of kids are skateboarding at the bottom of our road, and they make me think of Jersy. Everything makes me think of Jersy. I almost told Nishani what happened between us at the barbecue, but it’s not the kind of thing you should reveal to a new friend. Slapping Kevin doesn’t make me a bad person, but kissing my best friend’s boyfriend does. The worst thing is that I’m not over it. I
know it was a mistake, but I keep playing it back in my head, adding bits on.

“What’re you thinking about?” Mom asks, keeping pace with me.

“This summer’s weird without Audrey.” The air smells like freshly cut grass and flowers. It’s a good summer smell.

“But her absence is giving you a chance to make new friends and spend some time with other people,” Mom points out.

My head snaps around to look at her. Classic Mom. She must be feeling better. Dad obviously still hasn’t mentioned his fall plans.
“New friend,”
I correct. “Just the one.” Two if you count Aneeka.

“Jasper and Maggie?” Mom says. “Didn’t you say you were going to see them too?”

“Maybe.” I hand the leash to Mom as I bend to tie my running shoe. “I haven’t called them yet.”

I look up at Mom, waiting for her to spur me on to action. She hands me back the leash and says, “We should hurry back. I don’t like to leave Daniel alone in the house.”

“I know.” No directions on owning my height or struggling against my natural instinct to live like a quasi-hermit. I’m almost disappointed.

We scurry back to the house, and Mom gives me a good-night kiss. She pauses on the stairs like she has something else to say. Then she turns and waves goodbye over her shoulder. The phone rings just after she disappears. It stops after two rings, so I know she must’ve picked up. A second later it rings again—and rings and rings. Finally I answer.

“Finn, it’s me,” Jersy says. “Your mom said to hang up and call back.” She was too lazy to come downstairs and get me. I don’t blame her. This is a late night for her.

“We were walking Samsam.” Now that we have that out of the way, I’m all shy and stupid, like the new kid in kindergarten.

“Mm,” Jersy hums. “I tried to get you on your cell earlier. I was just wondering how you were doing, you know, after Sunday.” He pauses like he’s giving me a chance to answer, only I don’t. “I didn’t know what to say when you told me about Adam,” he adds.

“It’s okay.” My stomach’s up in my throat. I’m a giant-sized frog that used to be a girl.

“I shouldn’t have said that about liking you before Audrey,” he continues. “That was probably the last thing you wanted to hear.”

“I liked you too,” I confess. It feels so good to say it that I could cry. “I’ve just been really messed up.”

Jersy’s quiet for so long that I jump off the couch and start to pace. “Are you still messed up?” he asks.

My heart’s bouncing under my rib cage like a rubber ball. “Yeah,” I say truthfully. My skin’s tingling in amazement and I can’t breathe. “And I still like you.” My words are so low that they seem to take on added depth. I’m in awe. I’ve never heard my voice sound like that before. I tug at my ear and pace wildly.

I am still messed up and I still like you
.

I feel tremendous and terrified. What am I doing?

“Me too,” Jersy says. “So what does that mean?”

We haven’t even mentioned Audrey. “I don’t know,” I tell him. “Do we have to know that?” Samsam’s watching me. I see him out of the corner of my eye. All my pacing’s making him nervous.

Jersy laughs lightly. “I don’t know. I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“I’m the one who’s messed up,” I say, smiling uncontrollably into the phone. “How am I supposed to know?” I slapped Kevin’s face, kissed my best friend’s boyfriend while she was three
hundred miles away, and still don’t want to speak to my father— who I’m having dinner with tomorrow incidentally. I don’t have one single thing figured out.

“I’m messed up too,” he says. “Just in different ways.”

It’s awful the way we’re avoiding Audrey’s name, but I can’t make myself say it. Things are complicated enough. “So can we still hang out at least?” Jersy asks. “In this weird gray area?”

“When?” I shiver. My voice is doing that magic thing again.

“Tomorrow?”

“I’m seeing my dad tomorrow,” I remind him.

“Right.” He pauses. “Saturday?”

“I’m working Saturday, but I can do Saturday night.”

“Okay,” Jersy tells me. “Hey, your situation at work—is that under control?”

“We’re not really speaking. He thinks I’m a freak.”

“Who cares what he thinks,” Jersy says. “He’s a loser.”

“You don’t even know him.”

“Anybody who would think you’re a freak is a loser,” Jersy says confidently.

If he were here, I’d crush my lips against his and breathe in the smell of his sweatshirt. A tickle’s snaking down my chest and budding between my legs. It’s been so long since I felt like this. Jersy’s so sweet and beautiful that I don’t care about anything else.

I don’t trust myself to speak. I’m frog-girl. Crazy-happy frog-girl with a crazy-happy tickle.

“So should I come there or do you want to come here?” Jersy asks.

“Come here,” I tell him. My brain’s doing its dirty translation bit again. I blush into the phone and add, “It doesn’t really matter.”

“It’s all a gray area, right?” Jersy says. “I’ll be there around eight.”

“Cool, I’ll see you then.” I hang up and do a little spin. My face is warm and I tickle all over. I don’t want this feeling to end.

Dad snares Daniel and me in a three-person hug outside the front door. He’s tanned and clean-shaven, and he turns to wave goodbye to Mom, aiming a generous smile at her. “What’s everybody in the mood for?” he sings, so happy to see us that nothing could get him down. “Italian? Chinese? Greek?”

“Swiss Chalet,” Daniel yelps. Hand the boy a plate of fries and he’s happy.

“I could go for that,” I say. My stomach rumbles its approval. For once I’m on the same page as the Anti-Me. I could drink the Chalet sauce out of the bowl. Pure delicious.

“If that’s what you both want,” Dad agrees. He passes the local Swiss Chalet in favor of the newly renovated one across town. This get-together is supposed to be something special. It’s a reunion, after all. “Any movies you guys want to check out after?”

My brother mentions the Aidan Lamb action flick. It’s PG-13, but my father would agree to anything today. “Sound good, Finn?” Dad asks.

“Yeah, fine.” At least we don’t have to talk during the movie. I don’t want to hear any more about how much Dad misses us and how great it’ll be when we can sleep over at his new place in the fall. I don’t want two bedrooms, two Thanksgivings, and two birthdays. I don’t want to worry about how Mom will keep herself busy while we’re with him or whether he’ll be lonely when we’re with her. How can any of that be great?

In the restaurant Daniel talks nonstop about camp. I play with my straw and soak everything in Chalet sauce—chicken, french fries, and bread. Every now and then Dad cuts in and tries to draw me into the conversation. He’s so obvious that it makes me cringe. He wants to know what’s going on with me, but things have changed so much in the past month that he can’t even get the questions right.

When Daniel excuses himself to go to the bathroom, the conversation grinds to a complete halt. Dad and I glance at each other over our sauce-coated food. He swallows ice water and anxiously touches his chin. I spear soggy fries and let them melt in my mouth. I can go longer than him any day. Talking doesn’t help anyway.

“You know,” Dad says quietly, “I was hoping this was going to go a little smoother.” He wipes his mouth with his napkin. “We’ve always been close, Finn. I don’t want that to change. These past few weeks have been tough on all of us, but—”

“This was your choice,” I tell him, anger thickening my voice. “None of us had a choice. Mom didn’t want you to go. I didn’t want you to go. Daniel didn’t want you to go. You got to decide for all of us, and now you’re trying to tell me that not only did you get to decide but that I have to like it!” I dig my fingernails into my knees and glare at him. “I don’t want to hear about how you want things to be. What about what I want?”

Dad presses his fingertips into his cheek and stares at me, bewildered. “What do you think?” he says. “Do you think I haven’t tried?” I stare back at him, my face falling. He sounds lost and lonely. This isn’t my father talking. “Do you think this is what I had in mind for my life? Starting over at thirty-eight?”

I push my plate away and chew my lip. I can’t listen anymore. I won’t feel sorry for him. Mom’s lonely too. I don’t know if she can do it all without him.

“You have to trust me on this one, Finn,” he pleads. “I have tried;
we’ve
tried. Staying together would be worse for all of us. I’m not trying to take the easy way out here. I’m not going anywhere; I’m not leaving your lives.” He leans towards me over the table, his eyes bloodshot. “I know this is painful for you. I know how hard you take things and I’m sorry it has to be this way, but there are some things I can’t change.”

Dad stares at me until a lump forms in my throat. I couldn’t speak now if I wanted to.

“I’ll always be around for you guys,” Dad says. “I hope you know that.”

He repeats himself as Daniel slides back into his seat. My brother looks embarrassed and grabs a chicken leg. He munches on it zealously, avoiding everyone’s eyes.

Dad and I keep watching him. It’s easier than looking at each other. When our eyes finally connect, I don’t look away. The look hurts so deep that I blink double fast. “I know,” I whisper. “But that doesn’t make it easy.”

Daniel glares at me from across the table like I’m ruining everything. Dad nods gravely and says, “I know.” I want to blurt out everything about Mom’s marathon sleep schedule, her unplucked eyebrows, the horrible thing I’m doing to Audrey, and how I slapped Kevin so hard that his cheek turned red. “But we’ll all be okay,” he promises.

I want to trust him. I do. But you can’t make yourself believe something just because you want to. I put my elbows on the table, fold both hands around the back of my neck, and swallow the lump, again and again.

Across the table Dad clamps his hand on Daniel’s back. The Anti-Me stares at his half-eaten chicken leg like he’s going to bawl. His bottom lip quivers and he swipes at his sweaty forehead
with one hand. If he picks this moment to lose it, I’ll kill him, I swear.

I shovel mushy fries into my mouth and concentrate on the top of his head. His hair’s blonder than it was only three weeks ago, but his arms are dark. He’s stock-still in his chair, Dad’s hand glued to his back, and I can’t take the silence a second longer.

“Daniel,” I say, kicking him under the table.

His cheeks are shining red like a little kid off a baby-food jar, and he pouts at me as he looks up. “What?”

“Are you gonna eat those?” I point at his fries.

Daniel eyes me cautiously from across the table. He divides the remaining fries into two piles with his knife. “You can have those,” he says, pointing to the smaller pile. He sets his knife down, picks up his chicken, and bites slowly into it.

I sit up straight in my chair, owning my height. Relief flows through me as I reach for my fork and dig into my pile. I catch a grateful look from Dad and without a second thought begin to tell him what this summer has been like without Audrey. I tell him about Nishani and Aneeka and what I hate about stocking shelves. I tell him that sometimes I hang out with Jersy, even though we don’t have a lot in common. The waitress brings free refills of our drinks, and then Daniel starts talking about the Mikulskis’ pool and I don’t have to speak so much anymore. It’s my turn to listen.

I DO
n
’T
n
OTIC
e
Kevin much at work the next day. I’m too hung up on eight o’clock and what Jersy and I are supposed to do at my house later. He’s used to people and noise on Saturday nights, and I spend my weekends e-mailing Audrey, downloading MP3s, and redesigning my Web site.

By the time my shift’s over, I’m convinced tonight is a mistake. He’ll be bored. We won’t have anything to say to each other. I’m a temporary distraction while Audrey’s away. I’m a Judas and a moron and I hate it when I think like that. Other girls don’t blame themselves for things and think they’re freaky. They get their ears pierced with six holes, have their pubes pulled out by the roots, and hook up with whoever they want, even if that happens to be their best friend’s boyfriend.

Anyway, if tonight is a mistake, I’ll find out soon enough. Because I’m not phoning him to cancel. Maybe that means I’m like other girls after all.