What Happens to Goodbye(79)

“Yeah?” She smiled, then looked back over at her dad, who was pumping his fist in the air.
“Yeah. Thanks for the invite.”
“No problem. Thanks for the help.” She reached into the water, drawing out a soapy bowl, then handed it to me to rinse. As I did, I looked at the window in front of me, where I could see the TV reflected, motion and light as the game moved past on it, the announcer calling every play. It made me think of my mother, suddenly, and I wished in that moment she could see me here, in a real home, with a family, just like she wanted. Maybe it wasn’t ours. But it was still good.
Twelve
“Okay,” Opal said. “Be totally honest. Angel Baby or Calm Waters? ”
“What happened to just blue?” Jason asked.
She looked down at the two color swatches she was holding. “I don’t know. It’s too boring, I guess. And they’re both blue.”
“I like this one,” Tracey said, flicking her finger at the lighter color on the right. “It looks like the ocean.”
“So does the other one,” Jason pointed out. “I honestly can’t tell the difference.”
“The other one has higher hues, more white in it. This one”—Tracey picked up the swatch on the left, flipping it over—“Angel Baby, has darker notes going to lighter, but it’s more of a mix.”
Opal and Jason just looked at her as she turned the swatch back over, sliding it back in place. “What?” she said. “I’m into art, okay?”
“Clearly,” Jason said. “That was impressive.”
“So we’ve got one vote for Angel Baby, and one no opinion. Maybe I should go back to the yellows.” Opal sighed, picking up a stack of swatches and flipping through them, then looked up and saw me. “Hey! Mclean! Come tell me what you think.”
I walked over to the bar, dropping my backpack onto a chair. “About what?”
“Colors for the new-and-improved upstairs alfresco dining area,” she said.
“You’re going to reopen the second floor?” I asked.

“Well, not right now. I mean, there’s the model, and we still have to get the restaurant on a better footing.” She laid out the two swatches. “But now that Chuckles has spared us, he might be open to some ideas for expanding and improvement. He’s supposed to come in tonight, passing through town, so I’d thought I’d just plant the idea in his head.”
“I do not like the idea of having to go up and down stairs to my tables,” Tracey said.
“And there’s the question of keeping food warm during the trip,” Jason added.
“Where is your sense of adventure? Of change? This could be really, really good for the restaurant. A return to its past glory days!” Opal said. They just looked at her, and She laghed, flipping her hand, then turned her attention to me. “Okay. Mclean. Pick one.”
I looked down at the colors. Two blues, different and yet so similar. I couldn’t see notes of white, or various shading, and didn’t know the language Tracey used to describe the most subtle of nuances. These days, though, I was sure of one thing: I knew what I liked.
“This one,” I said, putting my finger on the one on the right. “It’s perfect.”
It was now March, and my dad and I had been in Lakeview for almost two months. Anywhere else, those eight weeks would have followed a routine pattern. Get moved in, get settled, pick a name and a girl. Unpack our few, necessary things, arranging them in the same way as the last place, and the next place. Start school while my dad got a line on whether his restaurant had slimy lettuce or great guacamole, and plan my own moves in terms of joining clubs and making friends accordingly. Then, all that was left was following the signs so I’d know when to pull back, cut for good, and get ready to run.
Here, though, it was different. We’d come in the same way, but since then everything had changed, from me using my real name to my dad starting to date even with no next move in sight. Add in the fact that I was actually on decent terms with my mom, and this was officially an entirely new ball game.
Since I’d agreed to go to Colby for spring break, as well as committed to four other weekends between April and June, my mom and I had reached tentative peace. She’d called her lawyer and withdrawn her custody-review request, and I’d explained the plan to my dad, who was relieved, to say the least. Now, I had the third week in March circled on my calendar in Angel Baby or Calm Waters or just blue, and we had something to talk about that was not a loaded subject. Which was kind of nice, actually.
“Now, the ocean’s going to be freezing, obviously,” she’d said to me the night before, when she called after dinner. “But I’m hopeful that the hot tub will be working and the pool heat up and running, although it might not happen. I’ll keep you posted.”
“Your house has a hot tub and pool?” I’d asked her.
“Well, yes,” she said, sounding kind of embarrassed. “You know Peter. He doesn’t do anything halfway. But his place was a great deal, apparently, a foreclosure or something. Anyway, I can’t wait for you to see it. I spent hours agonizing over the redecorating. Picking colors was a nightmare.”
“Yeah, I bet,” I said. “I have a friend who’s doing that right now. She wanted me to help her, but all the blues looked the same.”
“They do!” she said. “But at the same time, they don’t. You have to look at them in the daylight, and afternoon light, and bright light. . . . Oh, it’s nuts. But I’m really happy with how it turned out. I think.”