Up for Air

by Laurie Morrison

  On the bus, Annabelle tried to call up some good memories of her dad. She grabbed onto a few: Dad staying home with her when she was sick, bringing her apple-sauce and cinnamon toast and watching game shows with her on TV. That swim out to the buoy the summer they went to the Jersey Shore. Dad carrying her around on his shoulders at the Labor Day parade so she could see and riding the teacups with her over and over at the carnival afterward.

  But then she remembered the rest of that Labor Day. It was after he’d lost his real estate job. Mom had gone in to work—she had to work even more once Dad didn’t anymore—but Dad was supposed to take Annabelle to the parade and the carnival.

  Annabelle had gotten dressed in the pink polka-dotted tank top and blue shorts Mom had laid out for her, and she’d waited outside Dad’s room, softly knocking every so often, until he finally got out of bed.

  He had to carry her on his shoulders because they were so late that they were stuck at the back of the crowd, and they only saw the last few floats. They missed the high school soccer team’s float, and that was the part she’d been most excited about. Her favorite babysitter was the goalie, and she’d promised to save watermelon Jolly Ranchers to throw to Annabelle as she passed by.

  Dad let Annabelle ride the teacups for ages to make up for missing so much of the parade, and then he bought her so much funnel cake and cotton candy that she threw up on the way back to the car.

  She grasped for more good memories, but the good ones were like fine grains of sand, sliding right through her fingers even when she closed her hand. And now the worst one came back, from that swim team practice in fourth grade, and she couldn’t fight off the thought she usually managed to block out.

  That her dad was supposed to protect her—that’s what dads did—but he’d been about to put her in danger that day. It was her coach who had protected her, and then Mom and Mitch. Not Dad.

  But that was a long time ago. Things were different now.

  The bus wound through neighborhoods and then past gas stations and strip malls, and she thought of Jeremy taking this same drive to Boston a few days before, watching this same scenery pass by and still being mad at her. It was silly to think she could make anything better just by sending him a video to make him laugh.

  But then she remembered: Connor was going to make the trip, too. Today.

  That’s what Jordan had said at the party, before . . . everything with Caroline. Probably not this early, since they were going to a concert at night. But maybe Annabelle would take the T back to the bus station in Boston right when Connor and Jordan’s bus was getting in. She imagined Connor’s grin widening as he saw her.

  “Hummingbird!” he would call.

  And she’d be hesitant at first, after Saturday night. But Connor would leave the others and walk over to her. He’d put his hands on her arms like he had when she’d stumbled into him at the pool the day Colette had asked her to swim up with the high school team. And he’d tell her how sorry he was that he hadn’t told her about Caroline. How he and Caroline had been together for a long time, and he didn’t want to hurt her, but he couldn’t help the way he felt about Annabelle.

  That happened sometimes. Mia’s cousin—the same one who had told them about how liking somebody is like looking at them through 3-D glasses when the rest of the world is in blurry 2-D—had been dating someone else when she’d started hanging out with the boyfriend she was always texting with. But it turned out she liked the new guy even more.

  Annabelle rested her own hands on her upper arms, where she imagined Connor placing his, and she rubbed them up and down as she shivered in the bus’s blasting air-conditioning.

  It was dangerous, letting herself imagine this when she’d already felt the icy-sharp stab of finding out Connor was with Caroline. It was like getting into the water on a too-cold day. It was never comfortable, but the initial shock was the worst part, and if you got out and then had to get back in, you felt it all over again. But she couldn’t help herself.

  By the time Annabelle got on the T, her stomach was growling. She hadn’t eaten in ages.

  What if her dad wasn’t working today and wasn’t at his apartment? Would someone else at his coffee shop give her food if she said they were related?

  A guy wearing a Patriots T-shirt wanted to sit down next to her, so Annabelle had to pick her bag up off the seat for him. When she lifted it, she felt something hard in the outer pocket.

  The rock she’d picked up the night of the bonfire, when she’d burrowed her hand in the sand as she waited to hear what Connor was going to tell her. She’d held on to it without realizing and slipped it into the pocket of her bag on the bus ride home that night.

  It was a salt-and-pepper granite. Not as pretty as pink or white quartz. Not even white and black like salt and pepper, really. Just light gray with darker gray speckles. It was sort of an oval, but with one fat end and one skinny one, and the skinny end had a pointy bump. She gripped the rock in her good hand and rubbed her fingertip over the point.

  She tried again with the happy memories. Dad made the best mac and cheese, and he’d made it week after week if she asked for it. He laughed as hard as she did at the cartoons they watched on the weekends, and he taught her how to ride a bike when she was six. And . . . she couldn’t remember much else. It was Mitch who ruffled the top of her hair and made waffles on weekends and cheered the loudest at her swim meets. She kept trying to call up a memory of Dad and getting one of Mitch instead.

  But she’d been living with Mitch for years now, so no wonder she had fresher memories with him. That didn’t mean anything, really. She could make all sorts of new ones with Dad now. In her head, she recited all those questions from his email, the ones she hadn’t finished typing out answers to but could answer in person instead.

  The train approached his stop, and she took her three deep breaths.

  She could start making new memories right now.

  Chapter 29

  Dad’s address wasn’t too far from the T stop where Annabelle got off. The neighborhood was sort of in the city but sort of not. Over her head, tall trees stretched their green branches over the sidewalk, shading her from the afternoon sun. Old houses—some in good shape and some with peeling paint and dried-out brown plants in window boxes—sat right smack next to each other, sharing walls. Every once in a while, a little store or restaurant interrupted the row of homes.

  Pretty soon, she saw it. Beans and Books Café and Bookshop.

  Bookshop?

  Dad, who had stood up for her when Mom was always nagging her about reading, was working at a coffee shop that sold books?

  The bells on the door jangled way too loudly as Annabelle went inside, and the thick, slightly sharp smell of coffee hit her. The coffee shop part was to the left—a long counter with a chalkboard menu hanging on the wall, a glass display of baked goods, and ten or twelve little tables. Then to the right was the bookstore. You had to go up two stairs, and a chalkboard sign announced BOOK NOOK in perky, brightly colored letters.

  In the coffee shop part, a few people were working on laptops, and a kid—probably about nine or ten—sat at a corner table, turning pages in a giant book Annabelle recognized. One of the fantasy novels Jeremy had been into a couple of summers ago.

  There was a woman behind the counter with lightly freckled skin and hair that color of red that was almost definitely dyed—all one shade and red-red, not the orangey-brown or orangey-blond people called red. She was steaming milk in a little silver pitcher.

  The milk hissing stopped, and then the redhead adjusted the green bandana that was attempting to hold back her hair. “Darn. I made your mocha full-caf instead of half-caf, Jenny,” she announced. “Anybody want a free drink?”

  The boy reading the giant book perked up, and she gave him a quick head shake.

  “Anybody old enough to have coffee want a free drink?”

  One of the guys behind a laptop held up his hand to claim it.

  Maybe Dad wasn’t wo
rking today. Relief washed over Annabelle, as if she didn’t want to see him after all.

  But that had to be leftover from what things had been like before. She did want to see him now. That’s why she’d come all this way!

  Her stomach growled loud enough that the free drink claimer looked at her.

  “What can I do for you, hon?” the redheaded lady asked.

  Annabelle scanned the price cards nestled among the pastries. A dollar and eighty cents wasn’t enough to buy anything. Maybe she had more change?

  She took out her wallet and balanced it in her bad hand as she rummaged for nickels and dimes with her good one.

  And then he came out of the back room, humming along to the music. Her dad.

  She set down her wallet on a nearby table, not even bothering to close it.

  His hair, almost the same shade as hers, was cut shorter than she’d ever seen it, and she’d never seen his face so tan. She would have assumed his skin didn’t really get tan, like hers didn’t. And she didn’t ever remember him humming. He locked eyes with the redhead, and there was something about the way they looked at each other—as if they were having a whole conversation with their eyes. Annabelle was positive: She was the “friend” he’d moved with. And she wasn’t just a friend.

  He was balancing a tray of pastries on one arm, and he went out of his way to pass by the kid’s table and ruffle his hair the way Mitch ruffled Annabelle’s.

  Her heart ached, suddenly, for Mitch’s hair-ruffling and blown kisses and strategizing sessions. And for Mom’s clinking bracelets and jasmine perfume and extra-tight hugs. Even for her annoying habit of getting everything monogrammed.

  She didn’t know this man who was humming and winking and carrying pastries. Not really—not anymore.

  He hadn’t spotted her yet. She could leave.

  “Did you decide, hon?” the redhead asked.

  Then there was a clang as Dad set the tray of pastries on top of the glass display case. The tray tipped forward, and the redhead reached out to steady it. A cinnamon roll fell to the ground.

  “Annie,” Dad said.

  Annabelle didn’t like it, the way the old nickname sounded out loud.

  “Annie” was a little girl who lived in New Jersey and barely knew Mitch and had no idea she needed tutoring and learning plans and accommodations. Or that she’d break all the pool’s under-fourteen butterfly records, either.

  “What—what are you doing here?” he sputtered.

  “You’re Annabelle,” the woman said. “My God.”

  “Who’s Annabelle?” asked the kid with the book.

  The redhead gave Dad a little shove, and he finally came around to where Annabelle was standing. As he hugged her, she had a flash of being a little kid just barely able to grab onto his middle. Now her chin fit over his shoulder and his stubble scratched her cheek.

  “Look at you,” he said. “Wow.”

  Annabelle had never understood that expression. It sounded like an instruction, but she couldn’t look at herself right at that moment, even if she wanted to. Instead, she looked over Dad’s shoulder at the menu written on a chalkboard on the wall.

  There were two salads, a bunch of drinks, and a few sandwiches.

  GREG’S GRILLED CHEESE! was written in the same cheerful handwriting from the Book Nook sign. NEW! PEACH, BRIE, AND BACON.

  Not the kind with strawberries and goat cheese. The sandwich he’d made for Annabelle wasn’t even on there anymore. And she hated brie. The crusty white stuff on the outside grossed her out.

  “Who’s Annabelle?” the kid with the giant book asked again.

  This kid—the redhead’s son, he had to be—Dad had never told him about his daughter?

  Dad didn’t answer. His eyes darted from the kid to Annabelle and back.

  His letter had said he missed her every day. His email had said he was thrilled to hear from her. That he wanted her to visit—that she was welcome any time!

  But now that she’d come, he just stood there. He wore a navy T-shirt with gray trim that she actually recognized, but it was frayed around the collar. Last time Annabelle had seen it, it had still been new.

  He cleared his throat. “Can I get you something? A . . . hot chocolate? Or a cookie? On the house.”

  “I’ll take a cookie!” the kid piped up.

  “Finn,” the redhead warned, but Annabelle’s dad smiled at the kid. And as he did, his face relaxed.

  This boy read enormous books for fun and could make her father smile for real. A comfortable smile. A smile that said this was all part of a routine, this kid asking for a treat he wasn’t going to get, even though he knew he wasn’t going to get it.

  And this boy didn’t even know Annabelle existed. Annabelle usually corrected people when they thought Mitch was her dad. But her dad hadn’t even told this kid her name.

  How much could he really have missed her, then? How important to him could she actually be?

  “I’m sorry,” Annabelle said. “I can’t stay.”

  “But you came all this way,” the redhead said.

  Not Dad. Dad didn’t tell her to stay. Dad didn’t say anything.

  It wasn’t the same as that time when he’d shown up drunk at swim practice and then left without apologizing. But in a way, it wasn’t all that different. He wasn’t stepping up and doing anything. He was just looking at her as if he didn’t know how to handle the fact that she was there. As if it would maybe be easier for him if she wasn’t.

  And here she’d let herself believe he moved to Boston to be close to her. How clueless could she be?

  “I—I didn’t think you’d come so soon,” her dad said. “Without any notice.”

  He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. She’d forgotten that he did that.

  So he hadn’t meant it when he said she could visit anytime. He had his own life now, and he needed “notice” to make room for her.

  “I’m here for a concert,” she lied. “With my friends. I just happened to be right nearby. I should get back to them.”

  She didn’t wait for a response. She turned to bolt and nearly collided with two girls who were approaching the counter. Her bag slipped down her good arm as she ducked out of their path. The salt-and-pepper granite rock skittered across the tiled floor, landing under a table where nobody was sitting. And even though it was only a silly rock and there were tons more like it on every single beach on Gray Island, she didn’t want to leave it here, so she got down on her knees to pick it up. She forgot that she couldn’t push off of her right hand as she stood back up, and pain shot up her arm as she dashed toward the door.

  “Annabelle, wait!” a voice called.

  But it was only the redhead again, so she kept on going, out the door with those cheerful bells that jangled when it opened.

  “You don’t have to go!” the redhead said, rushing out to follow.

  Dad followed, too . . . sort of. But he stood a few steps behind the redhead, all wide-eyed and hesitant, holding the door open but not actually coming outside.

  He looked a whole lot like Jeremy had last summer when he and Annabelle and Mia had stood in line for the biggest roller coaster at an amusement park, and then he’d decided he didn’t actually want to go on when they finally got to the front.

  But Jeremy was a kid, and Dad was supposed to be an adult. Dad was supposed to welcome her and know what to say and what to do, not stand there all freaked out.

  “I really do have to meet my friends,” Annabelle insisted.

  Dad cleared his throat. “We’ll . . . see you soon, I hope,” he said.

  Right. It was obvious he didn’t really hope that.

  Annabelle took off toward the T stop, and when she turned around to check one last time, the door to the coffee shop was closed and the redhead had gone back inside. The sidewalk was completely empty, with the bright afternoon sun perched high in the sky, as if nothing had happened at all.

  Chapter 30

  The T came right away, s
o at least Annabelle didn’t have to wait there in her dad’s neighborhood. If she hurried, she could make the next bus to the Cape. There wasn’t any real reason to rush back when all that waited for her on Gray Island was her worried, probably furious mom and a whole bunch of people who were glad they weren’t as pathetic as she was, but still. She wanted to be back at her house or at the little beach down the road, where she could walk up and down the shore, picking up shells and rocks and listening to the familiar swish of the ocean—in and out, high tide and low tide. A little rougher some days and calmer other days, but always vast and moving and there.

  What had she been thinking, showing up to see her dad out of nowhere as if she could fit herself into his new life like the last piece in a puzzle?

  When the train pulled into the station, Annabelle pushed through the crowds, apologizing as she cut off a hobbling older lady. Once she got to the bus terminal, she hurried to line up in the right place.

  Then she dug into her purse to get her wallet, where she’d left her bus and ferry tickets to keep them safe. Her hand hit her phone, the rock, her house keys, a pack of gum, and a ChapStick.

  No wallet.

  Her CharlieCard had been in the pocket of her shorts, but her wallet was gone.

  Over the loudspeaker, a voice with a strong Boston accent announced that the bus to Hyannis was boarding. Annabelle’s throat went dry.

  She’d had her wallet out at the coffee shop when she was counting her change. She could see it now, sitting open on that table, a few coins in the change purse and her Gray Island Academy ID card peeking through the clear slot. She hadn’t picked it up before she left.

  “Miss? You in line or not?” asked a man behind her.

  “I can’t—I don’t—” Annabelle stammered.

  “Sweetheart, you’re right in the way,” a woman said. “If you’re not going to Hyannis, you need to get out of the line.”