The Challenge(38)

Juliet and her mother went to the Tippet Rise Art Center, and they had lunch in town. There wasn’t a lot to do, but there was enough to keep Beth busy for a short visit. She bought cowboy boots for herself and a matching pair for Juliet before she went back to New York. She enjoyed her mother’s company. It was different staying with her father. They did things like riding, bowling, and fishing. She had always enjoyed girl time with her mother too, and her mother had mellowed after nearly losing Juliet.

They stopped for lemonade after they bought the cowboy boots, and Juliet looked at her.

She was nervous, but dove in. “I want to ask you something.” Beth was suddenly panicked that it might be about birth control. She didn’t want her getting serious about a boy at her age. A crush was fine, but more than that wasn’t, at fourteen. “I want to stay and go to school here,” she blurted out. Beth was stunned and stared at her.

“Is this about Peter?” she asked, looking at Juliet intensely. Juliet shook her head.

“No, it’s more about school, and Dad. I like it here. I don’t like the school we picked in New York.” It was one of the best schools in the city, and very demanding academically. Juliet had always been a good student, but the school Beth had pushed for was extreme, to get their students into the best colleges. But it had been her mother’s choice, not Juliet’s.

“You haven’t even tried it yet.”

“I like the kids here, Mom. And the way people hang around home, and spend time with their families. I can see why Dad likes it.” She sounded like him when she said it.

“So can I,” Beth admitted. But Juliet had taken her breath away. She couldn’t imagine her own life if Juliet lived in Montana with her father. Their apartment in New York, and Beth’s life, would be empty without her daughter.

“Would you ever consider spending time here? You could work from here too,” she pointed out to her mother. It sounded like her arguments with Tom a year before.

“Did your father put you up to this?”

Juliet shook her head again. “I didn’t tell him I was going to ask you. I have friends here now.” She felt a special kinship with the boys she had survived the mountain with, but Beth knew that might dissipate in time. It had just happened.

“You might not get into the same kind of college if you go to school here.”

“I will if I take AP classes and get good grades. I’d just like to try it. I like the way people live here. New York is so tough sometimes. That school felt more like college than high school when we visited it. I want to have some fun too.”

“I don’t know.” Beth was too shocked to make a decision. “I have to think about it. And I have to talk to your dad. It would be a big decision to let you stay here.” For all three of them. Suddenly Beth was about to lose a husband and a daughter all in the same year, and she wasn’t ready for that. She realized now that the divorce had been the right move, but letting Juliet stay in Montana would be a huge change for her too. “We have to decide soon. You start school in four weeks.”

“Thank you for thinking about it. I could come to New York to see you every month.”

“You won’t want to,” her mother said. “You’ll get busy with your friends once you start school. And you’ll be snowed in here all winter. Think about that too.”

“Best of all would be if you’d spend time here too,” Juliet said with a pleading look, which reminded Beth of Tom again. She was her father’s daughter. Beth was quiet when they walked back to the hotel. After Juliet left, Beth called Tom and told him. He was as shocked as she was.

“She hasn’t said anything to me. I don’t know if that would be the right decision for her. Do you think it’s about Peter?” He sounded more worried than pleased.

“No. She likes it here. He’s probably part of it, but not the whole thing. I think getting stuck on the mountain and surviving it with her friends affected her. They feel related to each other now.”

“I don’t know, Beth. I’m not sure it’s such a great idea. It’s one thing for me to decide to get off the merry-go-round. She hasn’t even gotten on it yet. It’s a little soon for her to be giving up New York.”

“A year ago you wanted all of us to move here,” she reminded him.

“I know, but that was crazy. I realize that now. I can’t see you living here, and I don’t want to take her away from you. That was never what I had in mind.”

“Me neither. Well, let’s both think about it and talk in a few days.”

“Maybe she’ll change her mind,” he suggested, but Beth doubted that she would.

“That’s not how she operates. Once she gets an idea, she hangs on to it.”

“I wonder who she gets that from,” he teased her.

“Both of us,” Beth said, and he laughed.

“That could be true. I have to admit, I’m stunned. She hasn’t said a word to me about it.”

“I think it’s a new idea. All those boys she’s hanging out with are starting high school in a few weeks. She wants to go with them. It would be fun for her, but I don’t know if it would be the right thing academically, or in any other way. She has a lot of opportunities in New York she wouldn’t have here.” It was part of the reason Beth had fought so hard against their moving there.