Tell Me Three Things(71)

The bell rings; my head lifts up. It’s become Pavlovian. Please don’t be Liam, I think.

Fortunately, it’s not.

Unfortunately, it’s my dad.

“So this is where you work,” he says, and looks around, his fingers brushing spines, just like mine do. He isn’t the reader my mom was, but he still appreciates the magic of books. When I was little, he would read to me all the time. He was the one who introduced me to Narnia. “It couldn’t be more perfect. I’m so happy for you.”

“I like it,” I say, and wonder if that’s how we are going to do this. Pretend that we never fought in the first place. That we haven’t gone something like fourteen days without speaking.

“Beats making smoothies, I hope?” My dad’s wearing his plastic tag, his name printed under the words How may I help you? The way it dangles on a steel clip makes me feel tender toward him, as if he came in here with a milk mustache.

“Yeah. Though the Smoothie King has Scar. I miss her.” He nods. We haven’t even talked about my trip home. He hasn’t asked—well, that’s not quite true; he texted and I ignored him, and I still haven’t said thank you. Maybe Theo is right: I’m turning more Wood Valley than I realize. I wonder if Scar’s mom called him afterward and reported back. I don’t think she heard me throwing up or knew we were drinking in the basement. The few times I saw her, she gave me big hugs and said, “I missed my other daughter,” which was sweet, so it doesn’t really matter if it was only a tiny bit true.

“I know.” He quickly looks around, sees that we are alone. Nods as if to say Then we can talk. “I miss everything.”

“Everything” means my mom. Funny that we can’t just say those words out loud. But we can’t. Some things are harder to say than others, no matter how much truer.

“Can you believe it’s ninety degrees in November here? That’s just not natural,” my dad says, and settles on the floor with his back against the Get Rich Quick shelf, his knees bent in front of him. “Never thought I’d miss the cold, and I don’t, really. But this weather is…unsettling. And the pizza sucks. Pizza should not be gluten-free. That’s just wrong.”

“Lots to get used to,” I say. Should I give him more? Should I get this party started? Say: Dad, you moved us without even asking me. Just plopped me into a new school, a new life, said “Ta-da!” and then abandoned me to the wolves.

I stay quiet. Let him make the first move.

“Listen, I know it’s been hard. And I was so wrapped up in trying to adjust myself, make this work for us, I didn’t do my job as your dad. I thought it would be easier. Everything. I was naive. Or desperate. Yeah, that’s it. Not naive but desperate.” He delivers this to the bookshelf in front of him, the children’s section—which has always seemed a weird arrangement to me and yet so LA, money directly across from the kids. My dad is staring at the cover of a book about crayons going on strike, the primary colors annoyed at being overworked by their owner.

I shrug. I wish we could have this conversation on paper, or better yet, on a screen, in back-and-forth messages like I do with SN. It would be so much easier and cleaner. I’d say exactly what I want to say, and if the words didn’t come out right, I could just edit them until they did.

“Do you want to move back to Chicago? If that’s what you want, we can do it. I wouldn’t want you living at Scar’s. We’d rent a place or something, and you could finish out school, and then I’d move back here when you go to college. If you were okay with that, of course. Rachel and I would figure it out. You’re the most important thing in the world to me. If you’re not happy, then I’m not happy. I know it hasn’t seemed like that the last few months, but it’s true.” I think about last weekend. Scar and Adam, her new life without me. How we’ve all moved on—forward—and how in some ways, moving back would just be moving backward. It’s not like my mom is there, and I guess memories, as much as they can be held on to, are portable. Granted, Chicago would mean never having to feel bullied, a huge bonus, but Gem’s not quite scary enough to make me flee the state.

I think about the life I’ve built here. SN and Ethan, or maybe SN/Ethan, Dri and Agnes, even Theo. Liam too, I guess. How my new English teacher said I’m one of her brightest students, which is a huge compliment, considering I go to a school that sends five kids to Harvard each year. How Wood Valley may be filled with rich brats, but it also has a beautiful library, and I get to work in a bookstore, and I’m reading college-level poetry with a boy who can recite it back to me. In a strange way, thanks to Rachel, LA has turned out to be nerd heaven.

I think about Ethan’s smile, how I want to see it every day. No, I don’t want to move back.

“Nah. I mean, I think about Chicago all the time, and for a minute there, all I wanted was to go home, but that’s not what I’m mad about. It’s not like it would even really feel like home, anyway. I just feel, you know—” My eyes fill, and I look at the cash register. The 9 button is wearing thin. I hate that I don’t know how to say what I want to say.

“You know you can talk to me about anything, right? I don’t want you to ever feel alone.” And there, he said it for me, so I can say it out loud now.

“Dad, you kind of orphaned me. Like I lost both of you guys, and Scar too. You left me to figure it all out on my own.”