Saugatuck Summer (Saugatuck, #1)(5)
I sniffed and lifted my nose. “I most certainly did not come.”
“Ew! Topher! Don’t you ever, ever link that word to my father in conversation again!” I laughed as she shuddered theatrically, then let my head roll back against the headrest and looked out the passenger-side window at the whitecaps on the waves below. It was on nights like this that I felt bad for people who went to schools with three-term years instead of semesters. Some colleges wouldn’t be letting out until early June. But here we were, free for an entire month longer. It was a gorgeous May evening, still a little chilly, but mild enough that after dinner, we’d taken a quick driving tour and stopped at a coffeehouse for lattes. Then we’d gone down to the boardwalk and looked at the boats in the marina there on Kalamazoo Lake. Now we were headed home, the back seat full of groceries, a couple Redbox DVDs, and a bottle of white zinfandel.
Brendan—Mr. Gardner. He’s Mr. Gardner. Mo’s dad. Mo, your BFF. Totally off limits. Straight. Married. No chance in Hell, so don’t even think about getting too familiar. It’s Mr. Gardner and never anything else—was in the living room with his laptop when we got back to the house, but he closed the computer and helped us put away the groceries. Then he leaned against the island cutting block as Mo poured two glasses of wine and microwaved the popcorn.
“So what are your plans for the summer, Topher?” he asked, snagging one of the glasses of wine out of her hand. “Thanks, sweetie.”
Mo rolled her eyes and poured a third.
I shrugged, pondering the question as I accepted my glass from Mo. “I’ll probably try to find a job around here to save up enough money to reenroll this fall, though I imagine most of the seasonal job openings have been taken by now. It’ll need to be something that still lets me swim twice a day. My scholarship isn’t a full ride, and between training and classes, I don’t know if I can balance having a job during the school year, too, at least not without my grades taking a nosedive.”
Mr. Gardner nodded as if this were familiar information, and I wondered what all Mo had told him. Had it just been about the need to live cheap and make money, or had she told him why I was in danger of losing my scholarship? She had been the one, for over a year after my mom’s suicide attempt, to drag me out of bed when I’d spiraled down too far to get myself moving. She’d been the one to convince me to finally go back to my psychiatrist and get my meds adjusted.
Did her dad know that about me? Did he know that this whole mess was almost all my fault? Well, not really—obviously I hadn’t been well—but I blamed myself anyway. Would he be like my family and think the depression was a cop-out? That I was lazy? Hadn’t been trying hard enough? He was a psychology professor. He’d know better, right?
It doesn’t matter. We’re not giving a f*ck what anyone thinks of us, remember?
“Your family doesn’t help?” he asked, interrupting my self-lecture.
“Don’t be nosy, Dad,” Mo cautioned in a singsong voice.
I pulled the popcorn out of the microwave, my determined disregard of anyone else’s judgment stamped firmly into place, and tossed a snort over my shoulder. “Oh, please, girl. Like I got any secrets.”
She laughed and inclined her head in a semi-bow, acknowledging the point. Twelve years of nearly nonstop psychotherapy had accustomed me to talking openly about deeply personal stuff with near strangers, which sometimes meant I lost track of boundaries and gave people more information about myself than they really wanted. Besides, if my family was going to accuse me of being a drama queen—which they’d done pretty much from the time I was able to talk—I might as well actually be one.
Mo handed me a large bowl and I dumped the popcorn into it, then met Mr. Gardner’s eyes to answer the question he’d asked before Mo had tried to warn him off.
“My mom’s sister and her husband were helping me. I lived with them from the time I was in middle school. But I’m not going to ask them for anything anymore. My family is weird about money. Anyone gives you a cent and they think they have a right to weigh in on everything you do from there on out, and I get enough of that already. I don’t really want to be accountable to people who consider me an embarrassment.”
“That’s my girl.” Mo slung an arm over my shoulder, squeezing as she dug into the popcorn with her other hand.
“Ah.” To his credit, Mr. Gardner didn’t look a bit put off by the turn of the discussion toward my being gay. Not just gay but, like, two steps short of a RuPaul. “They’re religious?”
“Not really, but a lot of their friends are. You know, the Grand Rapids area being the seat of the Christian Reformed Church, which is just about as conservative as it gets. I mean no shopping on Sundays, that sort of thing. I once saw a groom’s family up and leave his wedding reception because there would be dancing after supper. My family attends, mostly just because it’s the done thing, though. They’re not so much true believers as they are very . . .” I drew a deep breath, trying to figure out how to word it politely. “Image-conscious.”
It was a better word than posers, which wasn’t a very nice thing to say. And yeah, okay, I couldn’t help but be bitter about it, and I’m sure he could hear it in my voice. My senior year in high school, I’d endured a three-hour lecture about how my behavior harmed the family because I’d been seen leaning my head on my first boyfriend’s shoulder. Not groping, kissing, snuggling, or even holding hands. Just a moment when I’d nudged Matt for making a bad joke.