The Years Between Us

by Stephanie Vercier

  “But,” she interrupts, “you are growing into an adult, and your father and I won’t force this if you can find alternative accommodations that we can be comfortable with.”

  I take a moment to allow what she’s just said to sink in. As divorce attorneys, my parents love to win. I know for a fact, based on many years of overhearing their discussions, that they find moderation boring. They enjoy destroying the ex-husbands and wives of their clients. Losing is the most hated word in their vocabulary.

  “So I don’t have to go if I can find another place to stay for the two months?” I ask warily, looking at Danielle when I say this, escape looking like a real possibility as long as this isn’t just some trick.

  But where and with whom could that be? While I have a few names of high school friends in Seattle at the tip of my tongue, I’m not sure any of them would pass muster for my parents. And even if I’d kept in closer contact with Jocelyn and she wasn’t spending her summer in New York after her first year at Columbia, my parents never liked her—she’d be a definite no. Maybe Danielle will save me and think of someone here in Pullman that I’m unable to conjure up on the spot.

  “Yes, dear. If you absolutely insist on ignoring us for two months, then I’ll accept that as long as I know—.”

  “Stay with me,” Danielle says before I can hear the rest of what Mom has to say. “It won’t be a problem, not at all.”

  “I can stay with Danielle, my dorm mate,” I immediately tell Mom. I’m surprised and thankful for the offer that I’m not sure I could have just come out and asked for without thinking the question itself would have been unfairly expectant and rude. But now that it’s out there, I’m filled with excitement at the prospect of spending two months with the girl that has become my best friend if only Mom will allow it.

  “Danielle Prescott?” Mom sounds startled, like she hadn’t expected me to come up with a name at all.

  “Yes, you’ve met her. Remember how much you liked her?” I’m smiling at Danielle and crossing the fingers of the hand that isn’t wrapped around my phone. I’m euphoric with the drug of independence being dangled above my head like a carrot.

  There is a pause on the other end of the line, and then Mom says, “She was delightful, a business major if I remember correctly?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And her father, some kind of tech guru. The mother was on the passive side but seemed decent. I assume you’ll be staying with them?”

  “Yes,” I say, even though the “them” part is a lie.

  “Remind me where it is they live?”

  While I’d missed meeting Danielle’s divorced mom and dad when they came to the same parents’ weekend my own parents somewhat resented having to attend, I feel like I know them in a way. I also have a pretty good idea of Danielle’s polar opposite feelings for each of them. Her mom lives in some small town on the Washington Coast, and Danielle hopes that when the big earthquake finally comes, the tsunami it triggers will do the world a favor and wipe her mother out right along with it.

  Harsh, but it tells you all you need to know.

  Her dad, who she does not wish a life ending tsunami on and who she has only talked about in the most glowing of terms, lives in a small town nestled on the eastern slope of the Cascade Mountain Range called Echo Ridge. And unless there had been some sort of major reconciliation with her mother, she and I will most definitely be staying with her dad.

  “They live in Echo Ridge, north of Cle Elum,” I reply to my mom.

  “Yes, that’s right,” she says, her voice relaxing. “And her mother does what exactly? I don’t seem to remember.”

  I shrug, look over at Danielle, then just say, “I’m not sure actually.”

  What people do or don’t do is very important to my parents. Mom especially tends to think anyone without a degree and a correspondingly good profession—like that of being a high profile divorce attorney—is a loser.

  “Well, I suppose it’s not so important if I didn’t glean it during my short interaction with her,” Mom says, somewhat uncharacteristically. Then another short pause and a sigh before, “I’ll want an address and a phone number and proof that you’re there when you arrive. I would assume Danielle will be driving the both of you?”

  I look over at my friend who appears to be ready to say yes to anything I throw at her. “Yes, Danielle will be driving me. Remember she was going to take me to the airport in Spokane?”

  “I’ll have to see if we can get that ticket refunded,” Mom says, going right to finances. “But I guess if I trusted her to get you to Spokane, I can trust her to get you to Echo Ridge.”

  “She’s a great driver,” I tell Mom, and Danielle just shrugs and smiles.

  “Okay, dear. Remember, address, phone number and proof. Otherwise, I’m not afraid to postpone Florida to come and collect you. Don’t make your father and I regret this.”

  “Of course. Love you!”

  After hanging up, I’m a ball of excitement and perhaps still a little unbelieving this isn’t some ruse and that Mom will call back and tell me she’s changed her mind. But I decide to embrace the hope that this is for real.

  “You weren’t just saying that, were you? I can really stay with you for the next two months?” I ask Danielle, wanting to make sure her invite wasn’t just about giving me a cover until I could figure something else out.

  “I totally meant it,” she says, jumping up and giving me a hug.

  “So, you are staying in Echo Ridge with your dad all summer?” I ask after our embrace. When we’d talk about our summer plans, she’d just say she was going “home,” and I just need to be sure that’s what I think it means.

  She laughs. “Where else would I be staying?”

  “Well, I know you don’t like your mom, but—”

  “More like I hate her, Claudia, but you are going to love my dad!”

  “I’m sure I will. I feel like I kind of already know him from everything you’ve said, but I still wish I’d met him when he was here, you know?”

  “Well, you can blame that on Professor Wilkes.”

  “Yeah, Wilkes… him and his stupid fucking hard copies.”

  Nervous about my mom and dad being in Pullman for part of parents’ weekend, I’d forgotten I had to print out my paper for his class and then walk it to his in-box and drop it off before he’d promised to collect them at 5 p.m. on the dot. So, I’d been running across campus when Danielle’s mom and dad had come… and gone. Not only had I missed them, but forgetting something as simple as how to properly turn a paper in had not looked good to my parents—they already saw WSU as a huge step-down from Harvard and Yale where they’d gone and had wanted me to attend as well.

  “My poor excuse for a mother didn’t want to wait around for you. I think she was like thirty seconds away from a panic attack or something, so of course we went off to dinner before you could get back.”

  I sit down on my bed, folding the last of my sundresses and blouses while Danielle pushes one of her suitcases closed and begins on another.

  “My mom thinks your parents are still married.” That small confusion is something that could cause a real problem.

  “Well, they sure as hell aren’t. Thank god!”

  “It’s just my mom’s kind of old school in that way, which is funny considering her profession, so hopefully she won’t rescind her blessing if she finds out they aren’t.”

  Danielle shrugs. “She must have seen the ring on Isabelle’s finger—that’s my mother’s name. She’s remarried to a total asshole, just like her.”

  “Well, for whatever reason, my Mom seemed to like her.”

  Danielle makes a face. “In short spurts, she can behave herself. But I can assure you by the end of the evening, my dad realized what a mistake it was in bringing her.” Danielle’s eyes go dark for a moment before brightening right back up. “Anyway, I’m so excited! Pack up so we can get going!”

  The fact that Danielle dislikes her mother so much
should make me feel bad, but it doesn’t. If anything, it makes me feel more normal considering how strained the relationship with my own parents can be at times.

  With renewed vigor, I strip the last of my belongings from our room and pack them up. I’d gone from dread to exhilaration in less than ten minutes. And as long as my parents focus on their Florida trip and not the fact that I’ll only be staying with Danielle’s dad, then I have a good feeling that this is going to be a summer I’ll never forget.

  Chapter Two

  CLAUDIA

  The nearly four hours that it takes to get to Echo Ridge go by in a flash. I hadn’t really been nervous about Danielle and I getting on one another’s nerves since we’d done fine in our small dorm room, but considering something always went wrong whenever I traveled with my family, I’d climbed into her Range Rover with a small degree of caution.

  But neither of us tired of the other one bit as we sang along to our favorite songs, made jokes that bordered on crude and even flirted with a truck full of guys who I think were probably heading home from WSU as well. The sun was out, the road open, and for the first time in maybe forever, I’d actually felt really carefree.

  Eventually, the long stretches of flat highways and interstates, surrounded by either farmland or desert, had begun climbing into the Cascade Mountains, the scattering of trees becoming more dense until forests and mountains surround us.

  “This has been really fun, Danielle.” We’d exited the freeway some miles back and are on the last miles of the two-lane highway toward Echo Ridge, my shoes off and my bare feet up on the dashboard, the window down and my arm halfway out soaking up the sun.

  “So much better than driving this thing alone,” she agrees. “I usually get totally bored by hour two and start calling random people just to have someone to talk to, so it’s nice having someone in person… actually it’s just better having you.”

  “I totally feel the same way. I think you’re the best friend I’ve ever had in my life. Just saying.” Even better than Jocelyn who I’d loved like a sister but who had gone her own way after high school and hadn’t ever really looked back.

  “The best? Wow, your standards must be low,” she teases.

  “Nope, they’re pretty high,” I assure her. “And I still can’t believe you and your dad are letting me stay with you. It’s beyond nice.”

  She hasn’t been quiet the entire trip, but she gets quiet now, staring ahead at the ribbon of concrete highway ahead of us.

  I don’t think anything of it at first, but the way she quieted after me mentioning her father’s hospitality has me worried. Like, maybe she only cleared a week or two tops with her dad, and then I’ll either have to find another place to crash or go to Florida and suffer.

  “Danielle? Is your Dad not as cool with this as you said?” She’d called him when I’d taken a last potty break before we packed our stuff up and left WSU, or at least I thought she had. She told me he was totally okay with me staying.

  She sighs. “He will be. I promise. You know how cool my dad is.”

  Will be? I slide my bare feet off the dash and straighten up in the passenger seat. “I actually don’t know how cool your dad is other than what you’ve told me, and it’s kind of sounding like he has no idea I’m coming.”

  She looks over at me sheepishly. “Okay, I sort of lied. He doesn’t know.”

  “Danielle!” If I could punch her on the shoulder without feeling supremely guilty about it, I probably would. We’re almost to her house, and as far as I know, we might just have to turn back around when her “cool” dad tells me I can’t stay.

  “It’s going to be fine,” she assures me. “The house is big, and we’ll basically have our own side of it, our own kitchen and bathroom and everything. He won’t even notice we’re there, and he’ll probably be glad for me to have the company.”

  I’m annoyed, like really annoyed, and for a minute I want to cuss her out and tell her to take me back to the nearest town with a bus station. But then what? Call my parents or grab a bus home, only to be shipped off to Florida for two excruciating months?

  “I don’t want to feel like I’m intruding,” I tell her, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “You won’t. I promise.” She takes one hand off the wheel and grips my arm with assurance. “It’s going to be great. You’ll see.”

  I just nod and hope that she’s right.

  Even though I’d thought about making Danielle turn around and take me somewhere else, I don’t think it now. Echo Ridge is the most adorable mountain town I’ve ever seen. It’s small, but not too small, with at least three blocks of a main street with old buildings that all appear to be occupied, many with restaurants and others with day spas or small, quaint hotels. There are bed and breakfasts in some of the large, ornate old homes just past the main row of businesses and more houses climbing up hills that eventually give way to deep, unaltered forests.

  It’s a shame I’d never been here considering it’s maybe only an hour and a half from Seattle, but when my family vacations, it’s to far off places like Hawaii or South Africa, Paris or London… or Florida. Echo Ridge is just too close and quaint for my parents’ tastes.

  I’d been waiting for Danielle to turn down one of the tree-lined streets in town, but she continued driving along the highway, traveling another five or ten minutes north, eventually turning down a long, paved drive that I figured had to be at least a half a mile long.

  “Wow… this is your house?” The super long driveway had prepared me that we wouldn’t be encountering just some ordinary home, but I really couldn’t have imagined what I’d actually see once she pulled up to the circular driveway, stopped and turned off the ignition.

  “I know. It’s kind of over the top, but it’s home,” she says, popping the hatch of her SUV. “You ready?”

  “Sure.” I unlatch my seat belt and slip out of the passenger door, all the while keeping my eyes on what looks like a huge log cabin with giant windows that must offer great views of the trees and the larger, more distant mountains that surround the town and its vicinity.

  “You’ll get used to it,” she assures me when I meet her at the back of her Range Rover and pull out my suitcases. “I mean, isn’t your house in Seattle pretty posh too?”

  My house in Seattle is angular and blocky and stuffed in between other angular, blocky newer houses that have been crammed into old neighborhoods, most of the yard sucked up by the giant footprint of a house that is at least twice as big as what was there before. It does at least have a view of Elliot Bay and the islands of the Puget Sound, but, in essence, my family’s house is ugly. Danielle’s is definitely not.

  “They don’t really compare,” I say, still admiring.

  She laughs. “Well, if you’re going to be all awestruck, then lets get you inside and get it over with.”

  Awestruck doesn’t fully define what I feel when we pull our suitcases through the threshold. It’s like we’ve just walked into a hotel and not a private home. The entryway with slate tiles opens up to this giant living and entertainment room with area rugs over a hardwood floor and a huge stone fireplace directly across from where we’re standing. The ceiling above the room is vaulted all the way to the gabled roofline and criss-crossed with heavy wooden beams at the second-floor level. With lots of big, comfy furniture, the room is big and inviting enough to host huge parties if huge parties happen to be your thing.

  “Come on.” Danielle laughs again, and I feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland. “I’ll give you the full tour later, but lets head up to our rooms.”

  “Is your dad around?” I ask, not seeing or hearing any evidence of his proximity and really just wanting to get the part where we beg him to let me stay for the summer done and over with.

  “He’s probably outside on a hike or something—he does that a lot.”

  “Doesn’t he know you’re coming home today?” I ask, pulling my suitcases behind me while she leads me to the left and down a long hallway, wi
ndows allowing lots of natural light in.

  “I like to surprise him,” she says with a giggle. “I told him I’d be getting here later, which I would have if I’d taken you to the airport in Spokane. He’ll see my SUV and come and find us when he gets in.”

  I’m a little jealous of the easy relationship she obviously has with her dad. If I showed up early at my house, Mom and Dad would find a reason to get pissed off about it, telling me that phones were meant to be used to communicate schedule changes.

  “This can’t be an elevator,” I say when she presses the button for what definitely is an elevator at the end of the long hallway.

  “It’s only for times we need to move something heavy up to the second floor,” she says in defense of it, eyeing our suitcases that definitely fit the bill.

  “No, I can totally see it for that,” I say, not wanting to sound snotty or make Danielle feel like her house is over the top, even though it kind of is. But from what I’ve seen, it’s at least comfortable and functional without the obnoxiousness of my house back in Seattle.

  Stepping in, it’s just a short ride up, and when the elevator doors open again, the second floor is similar to the first except there are even more windows up here, light filtering in between the huge evergreen trees that surround us.

  “We’re just down here.” She beckons me down a hallway until we reach a very big but very cozy room.

  “Is this all yours?” I stand by my luggage while I eye the space. It’s like a big studio apartment, a modern kitchen with stainless steel appliances on one wall, a bar counter separating it from the living area with a big comfy couch and a loveseat, a fireplace and a huge TV mounted on the wall. And just to my right is a dining room table, small, but big enough to have four chairs around it. That doesn’t account for the entryway to the left that must lead to a bedroom and bathroom.