Afterparty(41)

? ? ?

This year is no different. By the time the red-eye we take to get out of Quebec begins its descent into L.A.—after I’ve spent six hours in near-silence sitting next to my dad, who feels the need to protect me from the plane’s R-rated movie but not his sister’s mastery of insults—my need to talk with someone who’ll get it more than outweighs how upset with Siobhan I am.

“No way,” she says when we’re sitting in her Jacuzzi comparing vacations, and hers wins. Even though all Burton did in Barbados was sit in a chair and sleep, which made life in the villa less than amusing.

“Explain to me why you go back to that lake,” she says, plying me with screwdrivers.

“Because my dad is a glutton for punishment?”

“You have to stop going there,” she says. “They call you names. Is shiksa like the n-word?”

“Not really, not that bad, but from them, it isn’t good. It’s like, ‘We’re us and you’re you, and you could run the food bank at Beth Torah and be Good Emma forever, but you’ll never be good enough to be one of us, because your mother sucks and your dad doesn’t even think you’re good enough to take to temple.’&?”

“So it’s like a religion thing?”

“It’s like a my-dad-isn’t-in-Montreal-anymore-and-it’s-all-my-fault-for-existing-and-my-mom-was-Satan thing.”

“You can tell they’re stupid bitches, right?” she says, peering at me. “And you’re trapped in a cabin with them why?”

“Because my dad is a glutton for punishment! All right?”

“He’s the one sleeping through the punishment. You’re the one he’s subjecting to the punishment. Just say no.”

I point out that we cut those assemblies.

“Not all of them.” Siobhan shrugs. “We could do a pact where you yell at him. You know you want to.”

I do want to yell at him. I’ve wanted to yell at him from the moment he chucked my duffel bag through the door of that cabin right up to now. I have to force myself not to slam around the house and yell at him when I get home from Siobhan’s, and I don’t do that well with the not-slamming.

“Ems,” he says. “That’s bordering on rude. Do you have something to say?”

I say, “Sorry,” in a tone of voice that’s bordering on even ruder. And then I can’t stand it. I follow him into the kitchen.

“All right. I have something to say.” He looks up, perfectly attentive. I wish he’d just keep glazing the chicken and not see my face, which is pretty far past just bordering on anything he generally tolerates. “I don’t want to go to Lac des Sables again. Ever.”

I stand there during the second of silence, waiting for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

He says, “Are you sure?” He looks pained. If he says a word, one single word, about disappointment, I’m going to burst into flame and explode in a fiery ball.

“Completely sure. I’ve been completely sure for years.”

“For years?”

“Please don’t repeat what I say back to me, and don’t ask me if I’m exaggerating, and don’t ask me how I feel. I feel like, if you want to go, I’ll stay with Megan. Because I’m not going.”

He does not look back down at the chicken. “What I was going to say is, I wish you’d told me. I know Geneviève is difficult.”

“She’s a freaking witch! She hates me! Have you never heard what she says to me?”

He says, “That’s enough. I’ve heard. It’s done. We’ll go to Saint Barts instead.”

That’s it?

I am having a surreal, my God, why-didn’t-I-ask-for-a-pet-monkey-and-a-solid-gold-tiara moment.

He rests his head in his hands. He says, “I’m so sorry, Ems. I wish you could tell me these things before years go by.”

I say, “But you heard her. You know what she calls me. You were there.”

But apparently I have stumbled into no-talk territory. He goes back to glazing the chicken.

Me: I did it!!!!! I yelled at him.

Siobhan: Shit. R u walled in your room? Shd I call 911?

Me: Stop it. He was nice. Never going again. Going to St Barts next time!!!!!

Siobhan: No f*cking way. You so owe me.

Me: I know.

The next day, in the parental-guilt-so-deep-that-the kid-gets-the-pet-monkey vein, he gets me a car.

It’s the oldest Volvo still running in Los Angeles County. It belonged to Mrs. Loman-from-the-food-bank’s late husband, and it’s been on blocks in her garage for fourteen years. It’s canary yellow, a very poor color for sneaking around. The mechanic says it appears never to have been driven over forty miles an hour, or further than Ralphs market.

Mrs. Loman hugs me and tells me to drive it in good health.

My dad has me drive him home, to prove I can, and then back to pick up his car. We have a lengthy conversation during which I mostly say “Thank you” and he mostly says, Watch the road; no driving other kids for six months; no tickets or you’re toast; it’s a privilege; it’s 3,000 pounds of surging metal; it’s a canary-yellow instrument of death.

I cannot wait for him to get out of my car.

All I want is to drive all the way down Sunset to the beach, all the way up the coast to Point Dume. I want to drive up and down canyons with the windows open and the radio blasting. I want to lean toward the window so the wind messes up my hair, like a happy hound with windblown ears.