I’m glad that my dad loves me so much, but seriously. “I’m not just some thing you trusted him with. I’m your daughter.”
The three of them are quiet for a moment, and then I hear Ben trying to hold back a laugh. He fights it for as long as he can, but then it finally erupts.
“What’s so funny?” I ask him.
“I don’t think he was talking about you, Izzy.”
I look at their faces and can tell that he’s right.
“Then what was he talking about?”
“His surfboard. He trusted me with his surfboard.”
“Black Beauty is the thing you love most in the world?” I say, with all the outrage I can muster while laughing.
“I’m sorry, baby,” Dad says. “I thought you knew.”
Now Ben is really losing it, and I realize that I’ve never seen him laugh this hard. He’s like a kid having a good time, and it dawns on me that this is the thing he’s been missing. Maybe it’s even the thing he thought he’d never get again. His family is breaking apart, and there will never be any dinners like this where his mom and dad are sitting around the table telling jokes and giving him a hard time.
The rest of the meal is filled with funny stories and new insights. For example, I learn that in college he’s hoping to major in English—another swoon from my mother—and that he’s terrified of roller coasters—more chop busting from my father.
Originally I was thinking we might go out after dinner to catch a movie, but instead I suggest he get a taste of the übercompetitive cage match that is our family game night.
“The game is charades,” Dad says as we move to the living room. “Lucas-style charades.”
“What’s Lucas-style?” Ben asks me.
“Lucas-style is when your parents are both teachers and they like to take everything that’s fun and turn it into something that’s educational and maybe a little less fun. Like at my fifth-grade birthday party, where instead of Pin the Tail on the Donkey, we played Pin the Beard on the Civil War General.
“It was one of those big bushy beards,” Dad tries to explain to Ben. “But it just didn’t translate.”
“No, it didn’t,” I say.
“And how do you do Lucas-style charades?” Ben asks.
“The categories have more of an Advanced English and AP American History vibe,” I answer him. “Instead of TV shows and celebrities, we’ve got categories like Underappreciated Authors, Historic Battlefields, and my personal favorite, Politicians of the Nineteenth Century.”
“Those were good clues,” Dad says rehashing a sore spot from a past game. “I was pretending to ‘fill’ the cups and get ‘more’ of them. Fill . . . more. Millard Fillmore.”
“Those clues are only obvious to you,” I say.
“Well, today you don’t have to worry about my clues,” Dad says. “That’s because this is a battle of the sexes—Mom and you against Ben and me.”
And, then, as if gender supremacy wasn’t enough, he raises the stakes just a little bit more and says, “Winning team picks what flavor ice cream we get from the Islander.”
“You’re on!” I say, in a growl that would make a professional wrestler proud.
Ben lights up as we break up into teams, and I can tell he really needs some family time. When it’s time to play, I’m up first, and I pull “William Shakespeare” out of the hat.
“We got this,” I say to Mom as I get into position.
Dad hits the stopwatch and signals me to go.
I do the signs for “writer” and “second word” and start shaking side to side. Ben and Dad laugh hysterically, but I ignore them.
My mom starts shouting out answers. “Twist. Shimmy. Shake.”
I signal that she’s right with “shake” and move on to the next part of the word. I pretend to throw a spear, and it takes her a moment to figure it out, but then she gets it.
“Shake . . . spear. William Shakespeare!”
Dad hits the stopwatch and announces our time. “Twenty-three seconds.”
Mom and I high-five. We feel pretty confident, and I can already taste the mint chocolate chip ice cream I plan on selecting.
Ben’s up next and draws a name from the hat. Since I’m the timekeeper, he shows it to me, and I see that it’s “J. D. Salinger.”
“This round’s all ours,” I assure my mom. “No way they’ll beat twenty-three seconds.”
“Ignore that,” Dad says, trying to encourage Ben. “I trust you with my recipe and I trust you with my clues.”
Ben thinks for a moment and finally decides on his plan. “Okay,” he says. “I’m ready.”
I signal him to go. He does the sign for writer and then squats like a baseball catcher and holds up his glove.
“J. D. Salinger!” screams my dad.
I hit the stopwatch and look down at the number.
“How fast?” asks Dad.
I shake my head. “Seven seconds . . . but it doesn’t count.”
“What do you mean, ‘it doesn’t count’?” asks Dad.
“You cheated,” I say.
“How did we cheat?” asks Ben.
“I don’t know how, but I know you did.”
“What do you mean?”
“All you did was squat. How is that J. D. Salinger?”
They both look right at me, and at the exact same moment say, “The Catcher in the Rye.”
That’s when I realize that they didn’t cheat. Even scarier, they’re totally in sync with each other.
“Oh my God,” I say, turning to my mom.
She says exactly what I’m thinking. “We’ve created a monster.”
What follows is the most intense game of charades I’ve ever played—and, in my family, that’s saying something. Ben and Dad make a great team, but Mom and I keep it close. We finally lose it with Politicians of the Nineteenth Century. That category always kills me. I draw a blank trying to act out “Ulysses S. Grant,” and Ben somehow gets “Zachary Taylor” from my dad pretending to sew.
“It’s a Taylor, like a tailor,” he says, trying to explain.
Even though we play competitively, we don’t really take it seriously, and I feel a deeper connection with Ben than I did before. I never realized how important it was for me that he get along well with my family.
“As the champions, we get to pick the ice cream flavor,” Dad announces. “And as our MVP, you get to make the decision for us, Ben. What flavor do you want?”
Ben thinks about this for a moment and says, “Mint chocolate chip.”
“No,” Dad says, as though he’s just suffered the ultimate betrayal. “You’re picking that because it’s Izzy’s favorite flavor.”
“It is?” he says, playing dumb as he shoots me a wink. “I’m picking it because it’s my favorite flavor.”
“The whole point of winning is so you can rub the loser’s nose in it after the competition,” says Dad.
“It really is hard to believe they let you coach children,” says my mom. “Come on, let’s go get the ice cream. I’ll let you be as obnoxious as you want the whole car ride over.”
“You will?” says Dad. “That’s really sweet. That Zachary Taylor hint was amazing, wasn’t it?”
Mom and Dad leave and, for twenty minutes at least, I get to be alone with Ben.
“So now you know what game night is like,” I say.
“It was a lot of fun,” he says.
I walk over to him and wrap my arms around his waist. “I guess you deserve a victory kiss.”
“I would think so,” he says.
We kiss for a moment and everything seems good. Unfortunately, that moment does not last.
“I need to tell you something,” he says, pulling back. “I didn’t want to do it in front of your parents, but I got a call from my mother right befor
e I came over here.”
“Is everything okay?”
He shakes his head. “The divorce is getting uglier, and now they’re arguing about custody rights. My mom wants me to be with her all the time, but my dad wants to split custody so that I’d go back and forth between them.”
“Well, that’s good that your dad still wants to be part of your life, isn’t it?”
He thinks about it for a moment and seems sadder than I’ve ever seen him. “Maybe if that were the reason. But he doesn’t really want me around. I think he just wants to make sure she doesn’t win and to make it so that he won’t have to pay as much in child support.”
Once again I am so grateful that my parents are happily married.
“Anyway,” he says, “the judge wants to talk to me.”
Now it dawns on me.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
“I have to fly up to Wisconsin,” he says. “I leave on Sunday.”
Now I really panic. “You’re coming back, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
I breathe a sigh of relief and ask, “How long will you be gone?”
“A week.”
Even though we never talk about it directly, I always know exactly how many days there are until Ben’s supposed to leave at the end of the summer. At the moment I have exactly thirty-one days. My plan is to use each one of them carefully, and now I am going to lose seven just like that.
“Seven days . . . ,” I say softly.
“I know,” he says.
“That’s not fair.”
I look at him and realize that I am being totally selfish. He’s losing seven days too, but during that time he has to meet with a judge and pick one parent over the other.
“But even worse, it’s not fair to you,” I say as I give him a hug. “I’m sorry you have to go through this.”
He rests his head against my shoulder, and I think I hear the faint whispers of him crying.
I swap my Saturday shift with Nicole so I can go watch Dad and Ben at the Rocket Run, and then on Sunday I get Sophie to drive Ben and me to the airport. His uncle was going to do it, but I’m trying to get all the time with him I can. To say the least, my mood is a little down, and there are extended quiet periods on the ride.
“The surf contest is just a few weeks away,” says Sophie, trying to generate any sort of conversation. “We’re going to get a lot of practice in while you’re gone.”
I expect Ben to respond, but he doesn’t. He just bites his lower lip, lost in thought. He’s concentrating, but I have no idea about what.
“Is something wrong?” I ask.
He turns to face me in the backseat. “Parks and Rec is sponsoring the surf contest,” he says.
“Right?”
“And I work for Parks and Rec.”
“Okay.”
“It wouldn’t be right if I used that position to give you an advantage. Ethically, I mean.”
“Of course not,” I say.
Sophie raises her hand partway. “Are we sure about that?”
“Yes,” I say, slapping her hand down. “Of course we are.”
“I was just checking.”
“We don’t want you to cheat for us, Ben,” I tell him.
“Right,” he says with a smile. “But it wouldn’t be cheating if I told you that it is a good idea to read the rules. I tell that to everyone when they pick up an entrance form.”
Sophie shoots me a look in the mirror, and both of us are wondering where this is going.
“And since you know that I am a lawyer’s son and was taught to read everything carefully—and, by everything, I mean . . . every . . . single . . . word—then unlike other people who just ignore it, you might take that advice to heart.”
He stops there and we share a look. I have no idea what he’s getting at, but I do know that he’s trying to give us a little help. I also know that, for the moment at least, that’s as far as he’s willing to go.
“Well, my boyfriend is going out of town,” I say. “So I have plenty of free time this week, and I was planning on reading through the contest rules very carefully.”
He smiles and nods. “And you’re going to do that before you turn in your entrance form?”
I nod. “Absolutely.”
The car is quiet for a moment.
“Okay,” Sophie says. “That was . . . weird . . . but we’re here. So why don’t I drop the two of you off? Izzy, I’ll come back around and pick you up in twenty minutes.”
“Thanks,” I say as I reach forward and clasp her on the shoulder.
“I know, I know, I’m amazing,” she says, and although she’s joking, it’s completely true.
Ben and I get out and things are pretty quiet. He doesn’t have to check his bag, so once he picks up a boarding pass, we walk over to the security line. It’s killing me and he’s only going away for seven days. I can’t imagine how it will be in four weeks when we come back here and he’ll be going away permanently.
We stand there for a little while and just silently hold hands. Then, when it’s time for him to go, he gives me a kiss and a hug that linger longer than I expect.
“Good luck,” I tell him. “I’ll be thinking about you the whole time. Especially on the day you see the judge. It’s going to be all right.”
He nods and gives me another kiss.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” he says.
One more hug and then he walks away and gets in line.
“I meant what I said,” he says as he turns back. “Read every word.”
“I will,” I say, trying to put on a brave face.
I watch him walk away, and although I know he can’t hear me, I just have to say it aloud, so I whisper.
“I love you.”
August
I’m pathetic.
I know this. But knowing it and being able to do something about it are two totally different things. It’s been five days since Ben left, and no matter where I go, I’m constantly reminded of him. Right now we’re closing up the shop, and as I lock the front door, I notice the poster he brought in the first day we met. Just the sight of it makes me want to cry, so you can guess how much fun I’ve been to be around. Nevertheless, Sophie and Nicole have not wavered in their repeated attempts to lift my spirits. You have to love their tenacity.
“Ladies, the dance floor is ours,” Sophie announces as she turns up the volume on the sound system. “Let’s crank it.”
Sophie is obsessed with nineties dance music, and she loves to blast it while we clean up. As a result, she’s gotten Nicole and me hooked too. The first song on the playlist is another example of how she keeps trying to make me smile.
Right about now, the funk soul brother
Check it out now, the funk soul brother
Despite the fact that it is basically just the same two lines repeated over and over and that its name is completely baffling, I love “The Rockafeller Skank.” I know, it makes no sense, but the beat is irresistible. Which is no doubt why Sophie is leading off with it.
Sophie sings along behind the counter as she sorts the day’s receipts, and Nicole busts a shoulder shimmy and dances with the push broom while she sweeps the floor. I, however, maintain my groove-free status as I mope and restock the clothing racks.
“Who’s up for Mama Tacos tonight?” Sophie asks, raising her voice but still moving to the beat. “I could destroy some nachos.”
“Count me in,” says Nicole. “How ’bout you, Iz?”
I shake my head and mumble some excuse that gets drowned out by the electronic rhythm.
“What?” she says, this time raising her voice.
I try again, but they don’t hear me.
Finally I just blurt out, “No thanks!”
Sophie presses stop. The room goes quiet, a
nd suddenly our fun little surf shop becomes one of those cop show interrogation rooms.
“Why not?”
“I’m just not very hungry,” I say defensively. “And I’ve got to get up early to train.”
“Which is it?” asks Nicole.
“What do you mean?”
“You gave us two excuses,” she says as she stops sweeping. “Which one’s the real one?”
“First of all, they’re not ‘excuses.’ They’re answers. And both happen to be real.”
Nicole turns to look at Sophie; they share a brief psychic-twins moment. Then she turns back to me and says, “You’re shutting us out, Izzy. I don’t know why, but you are.”
“Just because I’m not in the mood for nachos? That means I’m shutting you out?”
“Now you’re ‘not in the mood.’ That’s excuse number three. Who are you trying to convince? Us or you?”
She walks over until she’s standing just across the rack from me. “You haven’t hung out with us once this week. We get that you’re busy when you’re with Ben. We’ll cut you that slack. But since he’s out of town, we thought the three of us would do some stuff together.”
“Yeah,” says Sophie. “We kind of figured we could cheer you up.”
“I don’t need cheering up,” I say curtly. “I’m fine.”
Nicole goes to reply, but instead she just shakes her head and resumes sweeping. “Whatever.”
“What is it?”
“I’ve known you forever,” she says. “Whatever this is, it’s not fine.”
“Well, you’re entitled to your opinion.”
She looks at me and nods. “And you disagree?”
“Very much so.”
“Then why don’t we take this to the register.”
I cannot stress how much I am not in the mood for having my love life taken to the register. “Let’s not. The last thing I need right now is the two of you ganging up on me.”
“Excuse me,” says Sophie. “You feel terrible. We understand that. But if you think we would ‘gang up’ on you, then we’ve got real problems, because that’s not who we are.”
I know she’s right and I regret saying it, but the truth is there’s nothing they can say that will make me feel better. Plus, I worry if I tell them everything that’s on my mind, it will only make things worse.
Pulled Under (Sixteenth Summer) Page 14
