Invisible(22)

    As Jake had predicted, she got invited out on a date by a boy in one of her classes, and she turned him down. She said she had too much studying to do, but she wasn’t interested in him anyway. Her excuse had been true.

Lara came downtown to have lunch with her after she’d been there for four weeks. The time had flown, and she had gotten A’s on two of her papers, and was excited about it. She hadn’t heard from her father, but didn’t expect to. Lara wanted to be sure she was coming home for Thanksgiving, and Antonia promised she would. She was having too much fun and was too busy at school to go home before then, which Lara understood. After years in isolation with her father, Antonia was loving the college experience. She had joined a study group and liked the people in it. The students were a diverse group from all over the country and all over the world, and it was a whole different experience from being an outcast in high school with no friends. It didn’t matter anymore. She loved NYU. It was the right school for her.

Jake was loving it too. He was going back to San Francisco for Thanksgiving, and told her she had to come with him sometime. Their friendship was well established, and there was an unspoken agreement between them that it wasn’t a romance. They liked being friends, and a romance might be short-lived.



* * *



—

She felt like she was traveling to another country when she went home for Thanksgiving, and was surprised to discover that her father had turned her bedroom into an office for when he worked at home on weekends. Lara had been uneasy about it, and afraid that Antonia would be upset. She said she wasn’t, but Lara sensed immediately that she felt displaced. Her bed and her furniture were still there, but he had moved everything around so it worked better for him. It made her feel like she didn’t belong there anymore and it was someone else’s room. Lara thought they should move it all back for the Thanksgiving weekend, but Brandon didn’t want to. It made Antonia feel invisible again. The waters had closed over her quickly as soon as she left. Not so much with Lara, but with him. This was what he had waited for, for years.

    Lara set a beautiful table for Thanksgiving, and they had a delicious meal, as they always did, and her father was talking about going skiing in Aspen over Christmas or right after. It wasn’t clear if Antonia was invited or not. They were meeting friends of Lara’s there, and Antonia wasn’t sure that was how she wanted to spend her Christmas vacation.

“Nothing is decided yet,” Lara said firmly, with a meaningful glance at Brandon, who didn’t get it, or pretended not to. He was finally a man without a child underfoot, and acted like it. He was enjoying the empty nest, but officially Antonia still lived there. It was her home too.

They asked about her classes, and she told them how much she liked NYU. Her father was impressed by some of the guest lecturers, who were important filmmakers. They had told her at school that they were expected to find summer jobs in the film industry, and the employment office would help them. She was excited about it, and her father said maybe they’d go to Greece that summer instead of renting a house again, particularly if she wouldn’t be there. They seemed to have alternate plans that didn’t include her for every occasion. She felt as though she were being pushed out of the nest, instead of spreading her wings.

    Lara scolded Brandon for it when they went to bed that night, and it almost started an argument between them. “She doesn’t come home anyway. She hasn’t been here since we set her up in the dorm two months ago. What does she expect?” he said. But Lara knew he’d been planning to set up the home office anyway.

“She’s been busy,” Lara said fairly, “but she still expects to have a place here. This is her home.”

“We haven’t moved. It’s all here. Her bed is still in her room. She’s sleeping there, isn’t she?”

“Yes, under the window, with your file cabinets all around her. How would you feel?”

“Like an adult. She’s moving on, and we have a right to enjoy our freedom too. Aspen would be fun for Christmas, and I’ve always wanted to go to Greece with you. And Water Mill is boring. She’s going to be working this summer anyway.”

“She could join us on weekends if we rent a house again. I don’t want her to feel that we’re shoving her out the door. That wouldn’t be right. She’s only eighteen.” Their relationship had just started to get warmer, and he was being insensitive again. It upset Lara, and Antonia was crying in her room that night, looking around her, at the office furniture her father had crammed into the room, and no one had warned her. It had been a shock when she opened her bedroom door and saw the state it was in. Lara understood it perfectly. And as usual, Brandon didn’t.

She and Lara went to the movies on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and saw a terrific new film, Steel Magnolias, with a star-studded female cast. It was deeply moving, they were still talking about it when they got home. The three of them went to Elio’s for dinner on Saturday and had a good time. It was less stressful than Thanksgiving had been, and Antonia was used to the mess in her room by then. But she had no place of refuge anymore. Her bedroom had been turned into an office supply depot. She couldn’t even get into her closet and was living out of her suitcase.

    She left Sunday morning after Lara made breakfast for them. She saw Jake when he got back from San Francisco that afternoon. He had been eager to get home, after a 7.6 earthquake in October. Their house had only been slightly damaged, but he wanted to see the city. And an entire segment of freeway had collapsed, and many people had been killed. He’d been watching the World Series when it happened, and saw the screen go wobbly and then black. His family had reached him quickly to tell him they were okay. But it was reassuring to see the city again.