Maybe This Time(39)

Gunnar sat up and leaned against me instead of Andrew. I put my arm around him, and we all watched the fireworks together in silence for a while. We were quiet for so long that Gunnar’s head drooped onto my shoulder and got heavier and heavier. His nerves had obviously made him exhausted.

“You know,” Andrew said, “your Southern accent gets thicker when you tell stories.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Probably because I was talking about my mom. She’s Southern through and through.”

“Speaking of. What’s too big for your britches mean?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I know, someone at the party said it.”

“Let’s see, how can I explain it? I guess it means you take yourself too seriously or think you’re more important than you are.”

“Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed.

I smiled to myself. “Don’t worry about it. People are a little prejudiced against city folk around here.”

“They weren’t talking about me,” he said.

“Oh.” Then it occurred to me. “Wait, were they talking about me?”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Thanks,” I said, feeling a bit defeated.

“I thought it was a good thing.”

“Who said it?”

“Your mom.”

I probably should’ve been more offended about that, but I actually felt the opposite. Maybe because I already knew my mom felt that way about me.

“If she doesn’t like your plans for your future,” Andrew asked after a minute, “what does she want you to do instead?”

“She wants me to be something more practical. Like a schoolteacher. Or a dentist.”

“Your mom wants you to be a dentist?”

“They have job security. People will always have teeth.”

Andrew laughed. “True. But you want to move to New York and be a designer?”

“I mean, first I want to go to design school there, but yes, eventually I want to be a designer.” I heard my voice as I said it, and it didn’t sound as convincing as it normally did.

“A fashion designer?”

“Yes.”

“Says the girl who couldn’t stand my designer suit.”

“Says the girl who knows when designer suits are appropriate.”

A smile touched his lips. He looked down at his phone and pushed a button on the screen. His flashlight went off. Now we could see the fireworks even clearer.

“What about you?” I asked. “What do you want to do?”

“I honestly have no idea. My dad wants me to be a web designer. I guess I already know how to do that and it feels like people will always need that kind of service.”

“But you don’t want to do that?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “It works for now.”

“What about pictures?”

“What about them?”

“You seem to enjoy that aspect. Maybe you could do photography.”

Andrew shrugged again. “My dad is like your mom in that way. He’s told me all the reasons that photography is not a very stable career choice.”

“Your dad is a chef! That is a dream-fulfillment career if I’ve ever heard of one.”

“I think that’s part of the problem.” Andrew fiddled with his phone. “He knows how hard it was to break in, to stay in. He doesn’t think it was worth the stress.”

The firework finale began, one explosion on top of another, and we fell silent to watch what we could through the opening. Then everything was still, and I swore I felt the fireworks still rumbling in my chest.

“Do you have an actual camera or just your phone?” I asked.

“My phone is an actual camera,” he said.

“I know but …”

“No, I don’t have a fancy camera. Website pictures don’t need to be blown up or anything, so a really nice phone camera works perfectly well.” He leaned his head back on the wall. “One time I saw this camera. It was one of those older ones where you had to hand wind the film. I wanted it so bad, but my dad pretty much controls my bank account.”

“So you didn’t get it.”

“No.”

I wasn’t sure what to say in response to that. I’d already said many times what I thought about his dad. I didn’t think that would help right now.

Andrew nodded toward the hole in the ceiling. “That’s kind of like a picture. We only get to see a part of the whole.”

“Except in this case the part is picked for us.” I tilted my head to try to see more of the sky. “How do you ever decide which part of the whole you’re going to include in an actual picture?”

He turned his phone light back on and held up his hands, creating a square with his fingers. He gestured for me to do the same. I did, then he moved my arms until my hands were pointing at a section of the paddle boat. “You just find the part that stands out the most or makes the most interesting shapes or tells the best story.”

Through the square made by my fingers, I could see the pedals of the boat. One was barely attached, dangling as if about to fall, the other in perfect working order.