If I'm Being Honest(71)

To her credit, she doesn’t wither. Not even when a group of mothers in pantsuits and perfectly coordinated yoga outfits smirk and whisper as we walk by. I don’t have the mental capacity to worry about it.

Dad’s here.

Dad’s here.

Dad’s here.

The thought is an eclipse. Everything disappears behind it. We walk through campus, following the PTA signs pointing us toward the library, every step bringing us closer.

I try to remember when I saw him last. The beginning of summer, I think. He came out for a week, and we had dinner downtown and discussed my future. He mentioned his firm’s internship and told me I’d only be eligible if I took an advanced economics course. I grasped on to the idea. I knew it was the closest I’d ever receive to an invitation to be part of his world.

He and my mom didn’t get along that trip. I look at her now, how she’s brimming with eagerness at the outside hope of a date with him. She cried for three days when he left in June, and it’s as if all of that’s forgotten, swept aside by something as small as the mention of his name in a text message from Deborah Richmond.

Then again, the last time he and I spoke he told me I was pathetic, and here I am, stupidly excited to see him again. I guess my mom and I have that in common.

I don’t expect our relationship will be any different this visit. I can almost guarantee he won’t be kind to my mom in front of the school’s donors. He probably won’t be kind to me, either. Maybe if I get the internship, get into UPenn, maybe then he’ll see me for who I am.

Still, he’s my dad, and he’s here. I can’t help hurrying my step.

We walk into the library, packed with parents and teachers.

I pick him out of the crowd immediately. His hair is immaculately cut, if grayer than I remembered. He’s in a small group with the headmaster and a couple members of Student Government. Brad’s there, to his right. Dad holds himself higher than everybody else. He’s not taller than the rest of them, he just has a way of elevating his posture and squaring his shoulders in his perfectly tailored suit.

My mom grabs a seat directly in his eyeline. I know her play. She’s going to pretend she’s here for the PTA meeting, just like usual, and running into him—dressed the way she is—is a coincidence.

I don’t care about her plan. Unhesitating, I walk forward toward where he’s talking with the group. He says something, and everybody laughs, which throws me for a second. There are plenty of things I know him for, but humor’s not one of them.

I get a couple steps closer, and Brad notices me. “Hey, Cameron,” he says, pleasant surprise comingling with curiosity in his voice. I guess that answers the question of whether he’s giving me the silent treatment like Morgan and Elle.

Then my dad faces me. I falter for words. He grins, a grin he’s hardly ever given me, warm and intent. It’s incapacitating. The rush of emotions roots me in place. Surprise, well-worn wariness, and an awful, irrepressible strain of exuberance.

“Cameron!” he says, wrapping me in an unexpected sideways hug. “I’m glad you could make it.” He smiles, and I catch the careful angle of his phrasing. It must sound to everyone else like he’s invited me.

I can’t help it. I mirror his smile despite the resentment mounting in me and the yearning that he had invited me.

The headmaster asks Lisa Gramercy a question. I face away from the group and say to my dad under my breath, “How long are you in town?”

“Not long,” he replies. There’s the terseness I remember. “I leave tomorrow morning.” His eyes sweep the room, and finding my mom, he frowns. He pulls me a couple feet from the group. “What is she doing here? Why is she dressed like we’re in a nightclub?” he demands.

It stings to hear. Even though I was just thinking something close, it’s inexplicably worse to hear it from him.

“She’s not going to make a scene, is she? The board’s here. It’s bad enough she’s come dressed like this, but—”

Brad interrupts him. “Mr. Bright, the meeting’s about to start. I’m sorry, Cameron,” he says to me. “The headmaster said only Student Government can sit in.”

I nod numbly. Brad cuts me an apologetic glance, and it’s somehow worse that he understands he’s ousting me from a rare opportunity to talk to my dad.

“Of course, Bradley,” my dad says, and just like that, his generous grin comes back. “Weren’t you interning with Whitestone last summer?” He faces Brad, and I’m cut off from the conversation.

“I was,” Brad says. I remember him complaining every day over the summer on our group text about having to work with a venture capital firm when he wanted to go into law.

“Job like that for a kid your age, you’re going places!” Dad claps him on the back. “We’ll get coffee the next time I’m in town, discuss your career.”

I blink sharply. He’s never this friendly, not ever. I catch the way Brad’s face brightens. He’s only eager because he doesn’t know who my dad really is, I remind myself, fighting down jealousy. I want to tell him it’s fake, every bit of it—my dad’s charm, his camaraderie, his attention to personal detail.

Or maybe it’s not.

That’s the thought I really don’t want to be left alone with, to wrestle in the confines of my immaculate bedroom or outrun on the streets outside my house. That he’s not dismissive of and too busy for everyone else. That it’s only me he resents.