The Best Possible Answer(36)

We haven’t planned anything this year. Mila said she doesn’t want one, since Dad’s not here. When I asked my mom what we should do for Mila, she recommended that I bring her down for an afternoon swim so she could put some streamers around our apartment for a little afternoon surprise party.

She didn’t say anything about my birthday.

I don’t really feel like celebrating anything anyway. In addition to our birthdays, we’re supposed to be celebrating independence and the pursuit of happiness, but I feel anything but free, anything but happy. I am trapped in this knot of isolation and lies and secrets. I can hardly even look my mom in the eye without wanting to cry. I thought I could never experience shame worse than what I experienced with Dean, but knowing my father is already with another woman somehow feels a thousand times worse.

“No plans,” I say. “At least not yet,” I add, so as not to sound completely lame.

I think maybe she’s going to invite me to do something, but I’m not really in the mood to go out, even if it is the night before my birthday.

Instead, Vanessa tells me that she has to go to a barbecue on the North Side. “It’s going to be boring. Just my family, hanging out on lawn chairs, eating cheap hot dogs and watching the fireworks.”

I don’t say anything in response. I don’t say how perfect that sounds, or how much I miss cheap hot dogs and fireworks and boring family parties.

Instead, I turn my attention to the next family in line and scan their IDs.

*

I clock out and head upstairs to get Mila. I expect her to be panting at the door, raring to go, but instead, she’s slumped on the couch, watching National Geographic and sucking on her pinkie. My mom’s at the dining room table, working on the computer, as usual.

“Happy day, birthday girl!” I force this out, and then pick up the remote and click off the TV. “Are you excited to be going swimming?”

Mila leans toward me, takes the remote from my hand, and turns the TV back on. “No.”

“No? What’s wrong?”

“You know what’s wrong. Daddy’s not here.”

“I know,” I mumble. I try to take the remote from her hands, but she holds on tight. “I’m sorry. But don’t you want to go to the pool? We can still celebrate your special day!”

She puts her pinkie finger in her mouth and sucks on it. I haven’t seen her do this in years.

“Come on, Mila. I’m going to get my suit on. I’ll take you out for ice cream after.”

My mom looks up from her computer. “Yes, Mila. You have to go.” My mom winks at me. “I have a conference call I have to take, and I need the apartment to myself.”

“But it’s my birthday and I want to be with you.” Mila starts to cry. “I don’t understand why you have to have a call on a Saturday. On my birthday? I mean, why do you have to work so much?”

I think that maybe my mom will bust out with the truth that she’s just trying to get us out of the apartment because she has a surprise for Mila, but she sticks to the story. “I’m sorry, Mila. I have certain responsibilities. One day you will understand. One day you will have to act like a grown-up, too.”

This seems harsh. I want to call my mom out on her unnecessary guilt trips, especially on Mila’s birthday, but I figure it will just lead to another fight, and the only thing I can really work on right now is getting Mila down to the pool.

“Come on, Mila. We’ll go down for a little bit, and then when we come back upstairs, maybe there’ll be a surprise for you.”

That perks her up. She takes her finger out from the corner of her mouth. “What kind of surprise?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be a surprise if I told you. Now go get your suit on!”

Mila jumps off the couch, runs to her room, and reappears in less than two minutes fully decked out in her purple bikini, goggles, a snorkel, and flip-flops.

We head downstairs and snag a shady spot next to a potted plant.

“Is Evan here?” Mila asks as I spray her with sunscreen. “Are you going to kiss him again?”

“What are you talking about? I’ve never kissed him.”

“Yes you did. That day during the tomato attack. You kissed him while we were under the umbrella.”

“I—how—how did you see that?”

“I’m not blind, you know.”

“Well—turn around, let me spray your back—I haven’t kissed him since and I’m not going to kiss him again. Anyway, it’s none of your business.”

“I like Evan.” Mila peers around toward the pool. “Is he here?”

“Yeah, probably somewhere.” He was working earlier when I was here, but we didn’t speak to each other, partly because it was so busy, and partly because I’ve put up a wall that he knows not to cross.

Since that day in Professor Cox’s apartment, I’ve had only a few days when Evan’s been working, and each time, he’s tried to talk to me with whispered apologies and questions.

As he leaned over the desk to grab his whistle: “I didn’t realize Sammie liked me.”

While I swept the deck: “I’m so sorry you guys aren’t talking now.”

As I counted money: “Why won’t you talk to me?”