Leading Lines

by Chantel Guertin

  “Wow. So that’s it?” I take a sip of hot chocolate. “I’m impressed. You’re so much stronger than me when it comes to relationships.”

  “Shut the front door. You are stronger than you ever give yourself credit for. And anyways, that’s kind of my point. Like, I think I made a mistake. I’m miserable. I really like him and instead of fighting for him I took the chicken way out.”

  “Then you have to follow your heart. Don’t give him the easy way out by breaking up with him. Tell him you want to be his girlfriend and that he’s going to have to deal with his friends if he wants to be your boyfriend.”

  “You’re right,” Dace says with gusto. “Good pep talk. OK, let’s get to work. Actually, wait, one more thing.” She leans over and grabs her phone off the desk. “Want to see some of the shots from the Nordstrom shoot?”

  “Of course! I’m sorry—I didn’t even ask you how it went.” I hunch over her phone.

  Dace scrolls through a few shots. “Everyone was really cool to work with, and the feedback’s been good, so hopefully it becomes a semi-regular thing. Looks cool though, right?”

  “Really cool. Ooh, I love this skirt on you,” I say, pointing at a knee-length fuchsia eyelet number.

  “Me too. Totally wanted to steal it from the shoot.” We reach the last pic, and she pushes herself off the bed and goes over to the desk, then flips open her laptop.

  I turn back to my homework. We work away silently. After a while, I stand to stretch and realize we’ve been at it for nearly two hours; it’s been nice to have company after being alone for the past few weeks.

  My phone dings and I swipe at the screen to see the Instagram notification. Ramona tagged me in a photo. I heart it, then she writes back instantly, Miss you roomie. Miss you too, I reply. Out of habit, I go to Dylan’s page, then flip to Muse’s. There’s a photo of two plates on red plastic placements and the caption: Dumpee diner date with my non-boyfriend. She’s tagged DylMc.

  I show Dace. “So now they’re bonding over being dumped. Wow, I’m so glad I gave him something else to have in common with Muse,” I say sarcastically.

  Dace squints at the screen, then grabs the phone from me. “It doesn’t mean anything. She says right there he’s not her boyfriend.” She hands my phone back.

  “That’s exactly what you say when you’re flirting and trying to make a point, like, Hey why aren’t we together?” I shake my head. “It feels hopeless. I’m gonna go,” I say, tossing my phone in my bag and slinging it over my shoulder. “Thanks for trying to cheer me up. And I’m sorry I’ve been a bad friend lately.” She follows me down the stairs and watches as I pull on my coat and boots.

  She buttons my coat, then holds my face in her hands. “You’re my best friend. That’s what I’m here for. You’re going to get through this. And hey,” she says as I turn to go, “don’t shut your mom out either, OK? I bet she wants to be there for you. It’s easier to let her than to fight it.”

  I nod. Mom’s been trying to get me out of my funk for weeks too, leaving my favorite foods—mac ’n’ cheese with crushed chips on top, hot chocolate with a scoop of peanut butter, Cheetos—outside the darkroom or my bedroom door, switching shifts so she can be home when I get home from school, filling the empty air with idle chatter, and I’ve given her nothing but that one sobfest in return. I couldn’t bear to get into the whole thing with her that night and haven’t wanted to since.

  The walk home is snowy, but the air is warmer than it’s been in weeks. The moon is nearly full and visible in the dark, late afternoon sky. I grab the mail on my way inside, tossing it on the table inside the front door before bending to pull off my boots. A white envelope escapes the rest, and I pick it up, then notice the return address. D. Westerly. I turn it over. Mom’s name is handwritten on the front.

  I should just put the envelope back on the stack and pretend I never saw it, but I can’t. I have to know what he’s sending her. Is this some old-school romance? “Mom?” I call, my voice wavering. But the house is empty. I look at the envelope again, and then run up the stairs to the bathroom, where the lighting’s best. I flip on the overhead and mirror lights, then hold the envelope up in the air. For a split second I thought the idea would be silly, that I’d have to resort to steaming the envelope open, like they do on TV shows. Or putting whatever’s inside into another identical envelope and forging his handwriting. But the slip of paper inside the envelope is as clear as if there wasn’t even an envelope.

  It’s a check. Made out to Holly Greene, in trust for Philadelphia Greene. For a lot of money.

  CHAPTER 17: TEN DAYS UNTIL I’M OVER HIM

  Despite my one get-out-of-the-darkroom day, I head straight back home to the basement the next day after school. I still haven’t talked to Mom about the check, but I will. First, I need to finish the album. A few hours later, I add it to the cart on the photobook site where I’d already uploaded the Greene Family Yearbook. I enter our address and complete the order, then push Dad’s chair back and get up.

  The door closes solidly, and I tuck the key in my pocket.

  Upstairs, I find my phone under a pile of papers on my desk. David answers on the third ring. My heart’s pounding so loud I can barely hear myself speak.

  “Hi. David? It’s Pippa.” I sit down on the edge of my bed.

  “Pippa.” He sounds genuinely happy to hear from me, and my heart starts to slow its rapid rate. “I’m glad you called. I’m in the middle of a nightmare shoot, and I could use an excuse to get away from these maniacs. What’s up?”

  I’ve been thinking about telling him for weeks, and now I finally am. I take a deep breath and plunge on before I lose my nerve. “I … know. Um, I … know you’re my biological father.”

  Silence. I can hear him shuffling around, and he tells me he’s going into the hallway for privacy. The sound of the metal door to his studio closes and he exhales. “OK that’s better.” Pause. “About knowing. I’m glad. I really am. God, it was so hard not to say anything when you were here in New York, asking a million questions about your mother, about Evan. About your father.” Pause. “This is hard on the phone. But I … want you to know I’m sorry I did what I did. I’m sorry I abandoned your mother. God, I was an asshole. And I’m sorry I abandoned you.”

  “It’s OK,” I say, because I don’t know what else to say.

  He sort of half-laughs. “No, it’s not OK, but I appreciate you saying that. And I’m so grateful to Evan, because he was the father I never could’ve been. So thank god for him, but I’m not off the hook. I failed. Big time. I’d like to say I’ll make it up to you, but I can’t make up 16 years.” David pauses, and I hear him talking to someone else. I slide off the edge of my bed until I’m on the floor, my back against the bed frame. His words settling. A minute later, he says my name. A question.

  “Hi. I’m still here.” I pick at a tuft of carpet.

  “Your mom suggested maybe I could see you again sometime, play a role in your life somehow. Not to replace your father. Just be a guy who cares. Who thinks you’re a really cool girl. And a goddamn great photographer.” He pauses. “A daughter your parents must be proud of.” There’s a hint of sadness in his voice, the way he says “parents,” not referring to himself.

  “OK,” I say. Which is pretty much the shortest answer I could possibly give, but it’s all I can muster at the moment. Noncommittal, but not closing the door either. He doesn’t mention the check, and neither do I.

  “I should go,” I say, but then I pause, not going, and so David asks how school is, and I say OK, and then I tell him about the reunion project I’m working on but not really working on, and then in that pause, because I can’t bring myself to tell him I’ve been locked in the darkroom for weeks, he asks how my boyfriend is.

  And I start to cry, which feels like all I’ve been doing lately.

  I think about telling him what happened, or didn’t ha
ppen, but I can’t talk at all. Finally, I catch my breath.

  “I bet that feels better, huh?” he says, finally. And I laugh.

  “What does your mother think?” David asks.

  And suddenly I don’t know why I haven’t talked to her about it.

  • • •

  Mom’s in her bedroom, changing the sheets on her bed. A laundry hamper sits at the foot. All the furniture’s still slightly pushed toward the center of the room, away from the walls. They’re still half peach, half white, the paint long put away, as though she’s resigned herself to this new décor. Which means what—that I win? I don’t want to win anymore, because it just feels like losing her.

  “Hey,” I say, suddenly feeling nervous as I edge open the door.

  “Hi.” She holds a pillow with her chin, wriggling the fresh pillowcase over it.

  “I talked to David.”

  She gives the pillow a couple of good shakes and then tosses it at the headboard. “Want to sit?” She nods at the bed.

  “Not really. I was thinking maybe, I could help you fix this?” I gesture to the wall closest to me.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I want to help. I feel like it’s my fault you stopped painting.” I roll my eyes. “OK, I know it’s my fault.”

  “Right now? I don’t have any other paint. Just the peach.”

  “Then we’ll paint it peach. Like James.”

  She grabs the comforter off the floor and I help her pull it over the sheets. “I haven’t thought about that book in forever. Your dad and I used to read it to you at bedtime; he’d do all the voices.”

  “So can we?”

  She opens the closet door and pulls out all the painting stuff. “Good cleanup job, right?” she says, then hands me one of Dad’s big shirts. “So you don’t wreck your clothes.”

  “Thanks,” I say, pulling the dress shirt over top of my sweater dress and rolling up the sleeves. I pull my hair into a ponytail, securing it with the elastic on my wrist. “Want one?” I say offering her another elastic. She takes the elastic and puts her hair up too.

  “We should listen to music,” I say. “Everything should be set to a soundtrack.”

  “You’re going to have to be in charge of that.”

  Dad always handled music in the house—I don’t think Mom even has an iTunes account. But when he died, we got rid of his cellphone. And with it, his music.

  That’s the thing about death you don’t really consider. What do you do with someone’s cellphone? Their Instagram account? Their email address? Seems other people don’t really know either—Mom spent hours on the phone with the cellphone company, arguing about discontinuing his plan. You’d think they’d waive the fee for breaking the contract when someone dies. We never took down his website. I’m sure his inbox is full of wedding requests from soon-to-be married couples, wondering why that great photographer they heard about hasn’t replied.

  My phone’s in my room and I return with it and my iPod dock, which I set up on Mom’s dresser and press shuffle. Mom starts covering up all the furniture again, using the drop sheets. The paintbrush feels heavy in my hand, then heavier after I dip it into the paint.

  “I don’t hate the peach,” I say awhile later, once I’ve trimmed the length of one wall.

  Eventually, I tell Mom about Dylan. The details. About Muse. And then I tell her about Savida. The girl in our group, a senior from New York, who I found on the roof of David’s building, during his party, kissing David, the guy who’s supposed to be a father figure to me. And how that was a big part of my reluctance to call him. To let him back into my life, when it was so much easier to just have him out of sight, out of mind now that I wasn’t in New York.

  Mom listens as I tell her everything. There are breaks where we’re not talking, just painting opposite walls. And then I’ll think of something else to say, another anecdote to share. Through it all, she listens, and then she surprises me. She doesn’t offer her advice or an opinion or try to discount anything I’m saying, or even try to agree with me. Instead, she lets out a deep breath and then says, “You’ve had to deal with a lot this year.”

  “I saw the check,” I add.

  “From David,” Mom clarifies.

  “Yes.”

  “I probably should’ve told you. But I … well, I didn’t want to sway your feelings about him, or make you feel obligated to him in any way. You were right to feel how you felt about him, and I was already asking a lot of you. But after meeting you, well, I think it really hit home with him, that you were his daughter. That even though he hadn’t been a father to you, he was your father. Is your father. He wanted to send some money. For your future.”

  “For Tisch.”

  “For whatever you choose to do. He actually just wanted to send me money to help out with”—she waves her hand around—“life, but I told him no. He insisted and then we agreed only if it was in trust for you. So that it had to be spent on tuition or your first apartment or something you need.”

  “Why didn’t he tell—” I don’t finish my thought.

  “He didn’t want you to know it was coming from him.”

  We paint in silence some more. At some point my playlist ends, and the only sound is the whishing of our roller brushes.

  “Can I ask you something?” I say. “How long did it take for you to get over breaking up with David?”

  “Oh honey,” Mom says. “I’m so sorry about you and Dylan.”

  “I broke up with him, but it’s like every single day I want to be with him. I keep checking my phone to see if he’s texted, and I can’t stop looking at his Instagram page, for what? A clue that he misses me? It’s pure torture. Especially because I think he might have already moved on.”

  Mom puts down her paintbrush and comes over and hugs me. She holds me like that for longer than she needs to without saying anything, and I’m glad. Then she pulls away and looks at me. “You still love him, sweetheart. You broke up with the guy he was being, but you still love the Dylan he used to be. You’re mourning the loss of that guy. Am I right?”

  I nod. And then I get it. That’s what it was like for her and David.

  “I don’t want to say anything that makes you think I wasn’t totally, completely in love with your father. Because that wouldn’t be true. What your father and I had, we grew into. A slow, great love. But it doesn’t mean there wasn’t this period—and remember, I had just had you, my hormones were raging—where I missed David and our relationship. That love made you.”

  I sigh. “So how did you finally get over him?”

  “Time,” she says simply. “I had you, and you took up a lot of my focus, but as you started to grow, your father, you and I became this family. And I forgot David was ever really a part of it. Of me.” She pauses. “The other thing was, I had no way of checking up on David. Remember this was way back before email, texting, tweeting, Instagram. He was out of sight, and eventually out of mind. And that really did help me to forget about him.” She puts an arm around me. “What if you tried to go old school? Take a break. Log out of your Instagram so you’re not tempted to look at his page. Or leave your phone at home some days? Is that even possible?” Her eyes bug out, and she laughs.

  I laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

  She offers a small smile. “I don’t want to see you lose yourself in your heartbreak, Pip. Just remember that you have always been more than just someone’s girlfriend.”

  “Thanks, Mom. For everything. I know I haven’t exactly been the easiest person to live with lately.”

  Mom grins, then claps her hands. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “How about Pete’s? We could get takeout, bring it back here and watch a movie.”

  It’s been ages since we’ve had Pete’s. After Dad died we had to cut back on
a lot, and that meant terrible frozen pizza instead of takeout from Pete’s. But I think it wasn’t only about pinching pennies: Mom also couldn’t bring herself to go on doing the things the three of us used to do. But it’s kind of like how I feel with the yearbook—I don’t think either one of us wants to lose all our traditions, along with Dad.

  I grab the takeout menu from the corkboard beside the fridge. It’s where we keep all our important emergency numbers. Mom hasn’t updated it in, like, seven years—it still has Anita’s number, the babysitter who used to watch me until I turned 10 and Mom and Dad determined I could stay home by myself.

  “You want to drive?” Mom asks. I look at her in surprise. She never lets me drive.

  • • •

  Pete’s always smells like a mix of spiciness and sweetness, just like the Hawaiian pizza we ordered. The décor hasn’t been updated since it opened decades ago—the top half of the walls are deep red, the bottom half wainscoted in dark wood. Somehow the black linoleum floors are still shiny after all these years.

  I walk up to the counter and recognize the back of the guy in front of me. I tap his shoulder.

  “Hey,” Ben says, grinning when he sees it’s me. “You’re alive!”

  I roll my eyes.

  “I was about to start flyering the town with your face. Who are you here with?” He looks around. The guy at the counter hands him a wad of brown paper napkins.

  “My mom. She’s in the car. I’m just picking up our pizza. Who are you here with?”

  “Yeah, my mom too. It’s her birthday, so the boys and I are taking her out for pizza. My stepdad’s away on business.”

  The guy at the counter looks at me expectantly, and I give him my last name. He tells me the pizza’ll still be another five minutes.

  “The boys?” I say, and he points to a table with a woman, who I guess is his mom, and two boys, about five or six.