by Nina Beck
“I already did.”
“What?” I say, screeching. Ew—I made out with Tim for no reason?
“I like him. I really like him,” she says. “And I told him that if he goes within two feet of you again I would have my daddy get him blacklisted at all the Ivy League schools with crew teams.”
I’m shocked by the laughter that erupts from my mouth; so is she—she smiles at me, almost shyly.
“Good for you,” I say. “Are you going to rat me out?”
“No,” she says.
“I think we should go to Starbucks and grab a latte. Just the two of us.”
She nods.
Why do I feel like everything and everyone has changed in the six days since I left Manhattan and then returned? Perhaps because it has. Marley gets up and gives me a hug and walks away, down the street to her place, and I watch as she goes until I can’t see her behind a tall guy wearing a beaver hat who is walking behind her.
I take stock of the situation. I’m a smart girl. I should be able to figure out how to find the guy I like. I’m fabulous. After finding the guy I like, I should be able to figure out how to seduce him.
How hard can it be to seduce someone you’ve already fooled around with?
Now that my self-confidence is boosted (too bad I don’t have my iPod with me, I could be playing the Rocky theme song), I decide I have to talk to him. I try calling again but his cell keeps going straight to voice mail. This might take a bit of a sacrifice.
I sit on the stoop a little while longer, thinking about what I want from Eric and what I want from D and what Marley wants from me. Which still blows my mind. I don’t know if I can ever be friends, real friends, with Marley—but who knows, she was my best enemy. Perhaps there is more room for change there?
I get up and walk into the house, opening the front door with my spare key.
“Finally decided to come in?” My dad is sitting in his chair, facing the front hall so that he could see me as I walked by. I scream, so surprised am I to see him and Elizabitch sitting there on a Saturday morning.
“Dad…uh…”
“Riley, come in and sit down.”
He motions toward the seat to one side, which I climb onto, tucking my feet beneath me and curling into the overstuffed leather chair. “What’s going on?”
And I start crying again. Elizabitch looks at both of us and excuses herself from the room. As she walks by, she puts her hand on my shoulder and gives me a light squeeze.
Seriously, what is happening to NYC? Is there something in the water? At least her hair is still a frizzy mess, so I know aliens haven’t come down and taken control of her body.
My dad doesn’t say anything. I don’t know what he could say—he’s never been really good with crying women. I mean, I don’t cry around him, but Elizabitch always cries and it usually gets her what she wants. I bet she cried about getting married and that’s why he proposed.
So he doesn’t say anything, but instead he gets up and comes around to me, pulling me out of the chair and wrapping his arms around me. I cry into his shirt and tie, which are probably going to be ruined, but I can’t stop. These are not small tears. These are those sobs you get when you are little, when you can’t seem to contain the amount of emotion releasing itself from your body. I am two shades away from breaking down completely, or throwing up on the Oriental rug.
He sits down in the chair, pulling me onto his lap.
“I’ll crush your legs,” I tell him, my hand on the arm of the chair.
“Come here, I’m not old and decrepit.”
He settles me into his lap, and has his arms around me, and laughs a little when I say, “Well, you’re not decrepit.”
After a few minutes I relax and my crying stops. A few minutes later I am breathing normally again. A few minutes after that, I get up and sit on the floor, where I feel more comfortable.
“Want to tell me what happened, pet?” he asks, his hand on my head.
“I met a boy.”
“A boy?”
“Yeah, at New Horizons. He is the headmistress’s son.”
“And?” I can feel his hand tense, but I don’t look up. It’s embarrassing enough to have this conversation with my own father, let alone look him in the eye while doing it. But I have to do it, I have to get back to Eric and make this right.
“His name is Eric. He’s shorter than I am. And blond. And paints his nails.”
“Black?”
“Blond.”
“No, what color does he paint his nails?”
“Red.”
“Hmm. OK, go ahead.” He motions for me to continue.
“He’s not at all my type, but he told me that maybe my type was wrong for me,” I say.
“I like him.”
“Dad, I didn’t finish the story,” I cry.
“Sorry, go ahead.”
And I do. I tell him the whole story, a little more honestly than I told D. I mean, D’s my best friend. But this is my dad. I tell him how I was scared that I love him and why. I tell him about how I don’t want to lose him and how I want to go back. I tell him that my cc was canceled.
“Oh, that I know.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I closed it.”
“WHY?” I howled.
“Perhaps because of a three-thousand-dollar charge for Dahlia’s Day Spa?”
I have the decency to blush like a bright red tomato.
“So, now you think you didn’t hate it there?”
“I mean, I hated it there. Or at least I think I did. But I love him. And I love everyone else there. And I’m not sure if I can learn anything or if I want to change. I mean, I don’t think I need to change. I like how I look.”
I stop automatically. It’s just not OK for a girl who is overweight to like how she looks. I mean, I can tell myself that I do, and I can tell my friends that I do, but I don’t know what my dad will say. He’s the one who sent me, after all.
“I didn’t think that you needed to go either. Elizabeth thought it would be good for you.”
“Figures,” I say. So I was right, she was trying to get me out of the way.
“She had gone when she was your age. She says she made her best friends there and it helped her to be OK with who she was. No matter what. When I told her I was worried about you, she suggested that it might be a good solution,” he admits. “I didn’t really know what else to do.”
“You were worried about me?” I ask, looking up at him. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I didn’t know what to say, which sounds like a load of bull poop right now.” I roll my eyes at the lack of profanity, but he ignores me and keeps going. “But sometimes you’re not the easiest person to talk to.”
“I could say the same thing for you, Mr. CrackBerry.”
He nods. “Let’s both make an effort to fix this.”
“Fix what?”
“Our relationship. I mean, there are a lot of things that you should come to me to discuss. And the things you can’t, well, you can always go to Elizabeth.”
“Um, pass.”
“Riley,” he says. “I do love her. I want her to be part of our family—but…But if it’s not something you can see through, then it’s not going to happen. I’m not sure if that’s right or not but, well, we’ve already pushed off the date for over a year because I wasn’t sure if you were ready for a stepmother.”
“You pushed off the date? I’m sure Elizabeth loved that.”
“It was Elizabeth’s idea.”
Damn and damn.
“I don’t know. I mean, I’m OK with you marrying her. I don’t care. But I don’t know if I can like her,” I say, and he looks thoughtful. “But if she’s open to it, I’m willing to try again. On Switzerland.”
“Switzerland?”
“Neutral ground.”
“I see,” he says. “That’s fair.”
“And what about…”
“Well, if you want to go back and you think
it’s for more than just…I’ll go with you to the station.” I jump up and hug him tightly as he laughs. This is what having a dad feels like.
“Don’t think you’re not grounded, because you are. The minute you get home, you’re really, really grounded.”
Damn.
“I thought we were finally bonding,” I say, smiling sweetly. “Let’s not ruin it with talk of punishment or grounding.”
“And you’re going to work off the money you spent and wasted in chores or a part-time job after school.”
Double damn.
I am so excited on my way back to upstate NY (seriously, I can’t believe I said that. Seriously, I can’t believe I meant it) that I am jittery in my seat. The guy sitting in the seat next to me, holding a newspaper, gives me a really dirty look when I jostle his shoulder. I smile as sweetly as I can, but he still huffs. Grump.
When I am thirty minutes away from the station I call the only person who I know has a car and who I thought would actually pick me up.
Ms. Wilhelm is waiting for me on the platform when the train pulls in. She smiles and waves as I walk up. I still feel a little awkward, but she talks right over any potential awkward silences and pulls me in for a one-armed hug at her side as we walk to her car.
“A Toyota Corolla.”
“Yup,” she said, unlocking the doors as I step in. I miss the minivan. “Eric got back a few hours ago.”
“Oh?” I say, trying to appear nonchalant.
“Yup.”
“And…”
“And what, Riley?”
I huff, “Is he OK? Did you see him? Did his mother kill him?”
“Yes. Yes. No.”
“You’re doing this on purpose,” I say, giving her a slightly dirty look.
“Yup,” she says, starting to laugh. “Tell me about Eric.”
“You know Eric,” I say.
“Tell me about the Eric you know.”
We drive the rest of the way to the New Horizons campus. I talk about the Eric I know and how he isn’t my type, but how I don’t even know if I have a type anymore. And how he is so different and how he makes me feel so comfortable with who I am.
“You know what it’s like?” I begin. “It’s like great friends make you see who you really are and great love makes you see who you want to be. D saw me for whatever I am, and accepted that. I think that Eric sees the same stuff that D sees, but he loves me for it and thinks it’s wonderful and that I’m wonderful. And so I want to be wonderful for him. I just feel like I’ve known him forever.”
“I think that’s a lot to think about,” she says. I make a face, because she sounds like a therapist, and she shrugs. Old habits are hard to break, I suppose.
“He’s mad at me,” I say. “I think he thinks I don’t like him.”
“I think that’ll be an easy thing to fix, as long as you’re honest.”
“Yeah,” I say as we pull onto the drive and up in front of the administration building.
“Well, after you talk to Mrs. Hotra, you’ll be able to get settled back in. I know you have at least two friends who are excited that you’ve returned.”
“Does Mrs. Hotra know?”
“Know what?” She gives me a blank look.
“That my aunt didn’t…I mean, that I don’t…” I want to be honest, but I’m not sure how much honesty is a good idea here. Does therapy have the same confidentiality as lawyer-client privilege? Does it count if it’s in a Toyota?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, and then winks, and I start. Oh, OK. I smile and thank her for the ride. She says she’ll see me around and pulls away in her car, probably headed home…to what, I wonder. To where? There is so much I don’t know about her, or about a lot of people. She’s got this entire life that I know nothing about; she might even have a boyfriend. She might be in love with someone. Crazy.
I walk into the administration office and Abigail smiles at me and tells me to “go right in.”
“You’ve decided to return to us,” Mrs. Hotra says.
“Mrs. Hotra, I just want to say…I know. I mean, I kind of feel like I’ve lied to everyone and it’s gotten me nowhere. But I don’t know if I can change just like that, but I do want to try. I want to stay. And I love your son.” I scrunch up my eyes so that if her head pops off or explodes, I won’t be witness to it.
“Unfortunately, Ms. Swain, I feel that the original issue that we discussed is still a concern.”
I look up and she’s marking something in her calendar and not paying attention to me at all.
“Mrs. Hotra? Is there any way I can change your mind?” I ask.
“Unfortunately, I’ve already discussed this with your father, earlier today.”
“You did?” I ask. “But I talked to him and he didn’t mention anything to me.”
“He thought it might be helpful for you to return and fix your own problems.”
“What?” I ask.
“Well, unfortunately, the rules here at New Horizons necessitate that we ask you to leave for the remainder of this session.”
I nod.
“But I think you’re a nice girl, Riley. I think you’ll be fine.”
I blush at that.
“Please feel free to spend the rest of the day on campus saying your good-byes.”
Um. OK. I start to leave and have my hand on the doorknob when she calls me back. “I think he likes you a lot, Riley.” I blush. This is his mom—I mean, you would blush too. “I think you need to talk to him and make him listen.”
“I will, Mrs. Hotra. I will.”
I head back to the dorms, without my bags. I knock on the door to my room and Sam opens it, then screams.
“Oh my God! You’re back.” She rushes over and grabs me into a hug. “How was it? What happened? What’s going on?”
“Eric is mad at me. D and I are friends. I had a good talk with my dad. Ms. Wilhelm isn’t crazy and Mrs. Hotra definitely is crazy.”
“Sweet, you’re back?”
“No, I’m still suspended, but I was told that I could say my good-byes, if I wanted to…” I let my voice drag out.
“I’m glad you’re back—even for a little while. I didn’t have a chance to write down all your information, and when I’m home over Christmas we can see each other.”
“What? Where’s home?”
“My parents live in the city,” Samantha says, pulling out some paper.
“You’re from the city?” I say, gawking.
“Yeah,” she says. Well. That’s a shocker.
We walk arm in arm to the dining hall. My eyes float around looking for Eric, but I only spy Jenny, who mutters, “You’re back?”
“You’re observant.” And we keep walking and sit down with Allie, who is in the middle of a crazy story about David Bowie; her hands are waving and she jumps up and plays some air guitar while the rest of us just shake our heads at her.
Everything seems great. I’m among friends again.
But…something is missing.
“Riley, Eric,” Samantha says, pointing over my right shoulder and out the front window. He’s sitting down in the back of the buildings underneath the trees that we had been sitting under before.
“I’ll be right back, guys,” I say, and then walk out the building to meet him, but he’s no longer there. But I have an idea where he might have gone.
I approach the dock and see his back silhouetted against the lake and sky. I walk up quietly, scared that if he really hears me coming, he might jump up at the last minute and make a mad dash for it.
He doesn’t move, even when I stand next to him for several minutes, so I sit down on the planks next to his, happy for my Diesel jeans—that I can be comfortable. It’s chilly out and I’m snuggled up in a Columbia sweatshirt, despite the flip-flops I’m hoping won’t fly off my feet into the murky water. But Eric is sitting there, his legs crossed under him Indian-style, looking out at the water.
I am preparing what I want to say,
filing the right thoughts and the right words into the right order, prevaricating, really.
“Why’d you come back?” he asks softly.
“I wanted to lose those last twenty pesky pounds.”
He looks at me. OK, not the moment for joking.
“I had unfinished business,” I say.
“So you’re back?”
“Actually, no. Your mom kicked me out.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah, but she also said you like me.”
“Mothers are known to say crazy things.”
“Yeah.”
He’s still looking at me. Boring his eyes into me. “That’s all?”
“No, I missed Samantha and I think she needs me. Her wardrobe, at least, really needs me.”
“Is that all?”
“No, I really wanted to try cottage cheese.”
“Riley…”
“I think I love you.”
“What?” he says, his eyebrows springing up and then burrowing together again.
“I think I love you, although I’m not really sure. See, I thought I was in love with D—but it turns out that I just thought I was and it wasn’t real. But I didn’t know for sure until I kissed him. And realized that I didn’t love him. But then I didn’t know what to do, but he’s just my best friend.”
“You needed to stick your tongue in his mouth again to know that?”
Ouch.
“Look,” he says, “I’m glad you’ve had an epiphany when it comes to whether or not you love D, but I’m not sure what that has to do with me.”
“It means that I didn’t realize I didn’t love him, couldn’t love him, until I realized that I might love someone else. You,” I say. “I mean you. I mean, I think I could love you. It’s just that we’ve only known each other for such a short time, and I feel like I’ve lied to you this entire time.”
“Um,” he says.
“I know that’s a weird thing to say, but I’m a little scared that I don’t know the difference.”
“Actually,” he says, looking out over the water, “I have a small confession to make.”
“Huh? What?”
“We’ve known each other for a few months now.”
“Oh yeah?” I laugh, but he’s not laughing. He’s serious. “What do you mean we’ve known each other?”
