Ink is Thicker Than Water (Entangled Teen)

by Spalding, Amy

  I get out my phone and check to see if I missed any texts. (I did.) And it isn’t one from Kaitlyn (sadly, my dream scenario #1) or Sara (I guess at this moment my dream scenario #2, for some kind of explanation or prep info about Camille so I feel less nervous about meeting her), but it is from dream scenario #3 at least. Hang out soon? This week? I respond right away: yes!! It sounds really eager, I know, but Oliver sounds eager, too. I’m not worrying about any of that dumb dating stuff. We like each other. This can be great and easy. Right now I’m so glad to have something great and easy.

  Dad and Sara are already at the restaurant when we walk in, and Dad holds his finger to his watch as we walk up to them outside the restaurant’s front door. He’s always so eager to be the only prompt one in any situation that involves Mom or me.

  “It’s six till, Clay,” Mom says. “We’re all on time. Sara, you look gorgeous.”

  She does, too, in a deep blue dress and these patterned heels that contain the same blue that’s in the dress. When I try things like that, I end up looking like the “before” photo in a makeover article, but on Sara it works.

  “She’s here,” Sara says instead of thank you, and the three of us follow her line of vision to a metallic gray Audi. Camille looks almost exactly like I thought she would, from combining what’s in my head with what Sara has told me. She’s nearly as tall as Sara, with darker blond hair, and of course she has Sara’s cheekbones. I did figure she’d be in a suit or something, but she’s wearing a tailored brown leather jacket over a deep blue sweater, brown pants cut like jeans, and boots that put mine to shame. Fashionable is even scarier than super professional.

  “Hi,” she says to Sara. “I’m Camille Jarvis,” she says to Mom and Dad.

  Mom and Dad shake her hand, while I feel about Finn’s age for getting overlooked.

  “This is Kellie,” Mom says.

  Camille shakes my hand. “Hi, Kellie.”

  I follow everyone inside. The restaurant isn’t like a lot of Dad’s usuals—dark and straight out of a business-deal scene from a movie—but brighter and more open. If this place is straight out of a movie, it at least isn’t a mob one.

  That’s vaguely comforting.

  The maître d’ takes us to a table right in the center of everything and hands us menus. To him I’m sure this looks like a very normal meal and not one of the weirdest of our lives.

  Camille asks Dad a few polite questions about his law firm before it happens. “And you’re a paralegal, Melanie?”

  Mom is midsip on a glass of red wine, and I can tell just how close all of us come to getting doused in it. “Oh, wow, no, I haven’t been a paralegal since the girls were little, way back when Clay and I were still married.”

  When I see the way Sara’s eyes widen, then shut, I know in some ways she’s no better than Dad with his secret divorce and then secret girlfriend. This is not the kind of thing I want to learn about my sister, that she thinks our family has to be edited and polished before anyone hears about us.

  “You’re divorced?” Camille asks, then turns to Sara. “You didn’t tell me that.”

  “I didn’t think it was important,” Sara says, which makes both Mom’s and Dad’s eyebrows shoot way, way up. “In the context of telling you about me. We’re all well-adjusted and—”

  “The agency gave me a short profile,” Camille says, directed at Mom. “That’s how I knew you’d been a paralegal. Sara hadn’t said anything to—”

  “I think we’re all well aware Sara doesn’t lie,” Mom says with a smile. “To answer your original question, sort of, my husband and I run a tattoo shop on South Grand, The Family Ink. It’s our dream and the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”

  Mom can’t talk to someone for longer than ten minutes without saying something goofy like that.

  “You’re remarried,” Camille says, piecing it together. “Do you have other children?”

  “Russell and I have a four-year-old boy,” Mom says, still smiling, now with that glazed look she sometimes gets when telling someone how fantastic her life is.

  “What about you, Kellie?” Camille asks.

  “I don’t have any children,” I say. “Though I do have my own law firm. We’re Dad’s biggest competition.”

  Only Mom laughs at that, and I’m sure it’s only to encourage my self-esteem.

  “Do you attend Nerinx Hall as well?”

  “No, Mom and Dad let us pick where we went, so I go to Ticknor Day School.”

  “I’ve heard Ticknor’s a very good school,” she says.

  “If she applied herself, she’d get a lot out of it.” It’s the kind of thing Dad says a lot, but it really never stops feeling like having a bucket of cold water thrown on me.

  “Kellie’s on the school newspaper staff.” Mom squeezes my hand under the table because she isn’t big into calling Dad out on his shit, not since the divorce at least. Before the divorce I was too little to pick up on the intricacies of their relationship; also, it was tough being truly disappointed in someone under the age of six, so I’d had it easier then.

  “Oh,” Camille says. “Are you a writer?”

  I make sort of a psssh noise and fidget with my salad fork. Everyone seems content to let it stand at that, but it hits me that I wish I would have said yes. For maybe the first time it sounds good to be anything other than nothing, and not just because of Dad.

  Mom and Dad ask Camille a bunch of questions about her work, while I zone out and dip bread into olive oil. Camille’s mystique alone isn’t enough to make me suddenly care about physics.

  “I did hope to talk to the two of you,” Camille is saying by the time our salads are being delivered by our extremely hot waiter who is built tall and lean like Oliver. I guess that means I have A Type. Anyway, since conversation seems to have left science behind, I tune back in. “Next weekend I’m attending a conference in the Bay area, where—as I think you know—Sara’s biological father lives. The two of them are really looking forward to meeting, and my work will pay for Sara’s plane ticket and hotel room.”

  “It should be fine,” Mom says, because isn’t everything okay with Mom? Hi, Mom, I’m joining a cult! I’m going to clown school! I’m experimenting with drugs and alcohol! All probably fine in the name of letting us be us, right? “But we’ll have to discuss it first, of course.”

  Dad makes a face that I bet he makes a lot regarding Mom’s decision making. “Right, we’ll have to discuss it, Camille.”

  “If you could just let me know within a few days,” Camille says. “I hate to put a rush on it, but considering there are travel arrangements to be made…”

  “Oh, I understand,” Mom says. “We’ll let you know as soon as we can.”

  After dinner with Camille, Sara is forced to ride home with Mom and me because she forgot to take her laptop to Dad’s. It is a very silent car ride.

  Home, though? Another story.

  I chase Sara into her room. “You’re worse than Dad!”

  “I am not, and you wouldn’t understand.”

  It stops me like a force field because Sara doesn’t say things like that, even though in reality of course there are so many things I wouldn’t understand. I’ve never gotten straight As or been Dad’s pride and joy or effortlessly looked like an easy-breezy Cover Girl ad.

  “I know I haven’t gone through this,” I say. “But I’d never lie about my family.”

  “Do you have any idea how hard it was for her?” Sara asks, and for some dumb reason, I think she means Mom. “She didn’t want to give me up, but she had to. And she’d picked Mom and Dad from all the profiles she’d read because she liked that they were professionals who worked together and had this great marriage. Her parents were divorced when she was little, and she didn’t want that for me.”

  “But…we didn’t go through any angst or drama over the divorce. And Mom’s so happy with Russell—and we wouldn’t even have Finn otherwise!—and I guess Dad’s happy enough with Jayne. If Mom and Dad wer
e still married, we’d probably all be miserable.”

  “That isn’t the point,” she says.

  “I don’t know how that can not be the point.”

  Mom leans into the room. “Kellie, can I have a minute with your sister?”

  “Fine.” I retreat to my room, where I change my new-Kellie outfit for an old-Kellie one, pajama pants and a Woodstock T-shirt, with my lip gloss blotted off and my hair in a messy ponytail. Though who knows how classic Kellie that actually is? I guess it wasn’t very long ago I didn’t think about how I looked at all. Now I care at least a little.

  I get through my homework, as well as chatting with Adelaide, Mitchell, and Chelsea, and am thinking about sending Oliver a text when Mom knocks on my door.

  “Hey, baby.” She sits down on my bed, and even though Mom isn’t a nosy type, I still close my laptop, knowing the current message on the screen is from Adelaide with a link to some sex-education site she swears will simplify my life. “Just so you’re in the loop, Sara’s going with Camille to San Francisco next weekend.”

  “After she lied about us? Like us weirdos are something to be ashamed of?”

  “You know that isn’t why she did it, baby,” Mom says. “And of course she’s going. It’s what Sara wants.”

  “Okay,” I say, even though I have ten billion more questions for Mom.

  “Thank you for being so understanding, Kell-belle.”

  “So what did everyone think about my trial run at the shop?” I ask. I’m not above using nice moments for personal gain. “I didn’t mess anything up, and all the customers seemed to like me. So I was thinking—”

  “Just don’t let your grades slip,” she says. “Or your newspaper responsibilities. And you should still go out with your friends and have fun whenever you can. And—”

  “I get it, Mom. That means I’m hired, right?” I hug her again, triumphant this time. “Be happy, now you’re my boss and my mom.”

  “I’m always your boss!” she says, which makes me laugh because that isn’t exactly the parenting manual Mom follows. “And I am happy. You earned this. I hope you’re happy, too.”

  I want to be, and I beam at her like I really am. But all I can think of is Sara, on a plane, flying away from us.

  Chapter Twelve

  I go to Dad’s after school on Wednesday, since it’s a night Sara and I had already agreed on. I’m hoping we can have a normal, non-snappy conversation, but when she gets there, she just waves to me before shutting herself in her room. Luckily, after I get a bunch done on my first newspaper column and while I’m struggling through geometry on my own, Oliver calls. I pause the TiVo and click on my phone. “Hey.”

  “Hey, what’s going on?”

  In general I’m a texter not a caller, so I rarely come up with good answers to questions like that. “Just homework. Nothing exciting. You?”

  “Same here. Listen, my friend’s band is doing a set on campus tonight, you want to come? I think you’d really like them.”

  I trust Oliver about music, plus meeting him at school means there is a likely chance we can go to his room and make out again, so I let him know I’ll ask Dad as soon as he’s home. If having a boyfriend is mainly about going to concerts and haunted houses and dinners, followed up with lots of making out, I am very much onboard.

  Dad is home at his usual time, and I greet him while still trying to look casual.

  “There she is. What sounds good for dinner, kiddo? I can make something, or we can go out, your choice.”

  “Actually, if it’s okay, I thought I might go to this presentation at SLU tonight.” I’m thrilled with my own quick thinking. I’m not sure if Dad would be okay with me going out with a guy, and I don’t feel like finding out right now. “Is that okay?”

  “Presentation on what?”

  “Modern music.” Nicely done, self.

  “I don’t see anything wrong with that,” he says. “Is Sara going?”

  “Just me. I won’t be out too late.” Success. I duck into my room to call Oliver, who tells me I can come over right away.

  It’s kind of weird, walking into his dorm room and feeling this warmth in my gut, like a good panic attack, if that is even possible. Only a few days since I saw him, and seeing him again is a very good thing.

  “I have a lot of homework,” someone says, and I realize his roommate is in there, practically hidden behind stacks of textbooks and his laptop.

  “We’re going anyway.” Oliver walks me into the hallway. “That guy makes me crazy.”

  “I probably wouldn’t like getting kicked out of my own room so people could make out,” I say. “To be fair and all.”

  “If you can’t handle that, don’t go to college.” Oliver laughs and leans in to kiss me, and it literally takes my breath away. We are getting really good at this. “It’s great seeing you.”

  “You, too.” I kiss him back, and before long we’re the kind of obnoxious people I hate, making out in the hallway like suddenly that isn’t tacky. “We should probably…”

  “Yeah.” He takes my hand and leads me through campus on tree-lined paths until we reach a tiny stage haphazardly set up outside. A few totally nondescript dudes with longish hair and ironic T-shirts are setting up their equipment with a very descript girl with platinum-blond hair and perfect black eyeliner (how do people do that, anyway?) and a patterned blue-and-black dress that the new Kellie would kill for. I really never get jealous of girls like that; I just wonder what it’s like to be them.

  “Which one’s your friend?” I ask, like I can even tell the dudes apart.

  “I know them all,” he says. “And Sophie’s my ex, but we’re still cool and everything.”

  Oh, hell no. “Your vegetarian ex?”

  “My vegetarian ex, yeah.” He laughs. “I’m not into her anymore or anything. I just think you’ll like their music.”

  I do like their music, jangly guitars and pop melodies and all that other stuff that is probably why I listen to the oldies station nearly exclusively. Oliver is wonderful to know this is exactly what I needed, and I decide to be mature and not jealous of The Amazing Sophie.

  After they play, I tag along while Oliver says hi to all of the guys. Apparently, he and Sophie aren’t cool and everything enough to actually speak to each other. She catches my eye while Oliver and the drummer are talking about some professor they hate, and I find myself turning to face her.

  “You guys are really good.”

  “Aw, thanks,” she says, and I think maybe she’s pulling some aw, shucks faux-modesty crap. But then she grins like the sincerest creature to ever accept a compliment. “You’re Oliver’s new girlfriend?”

  “I guess I am,” I say, because he can’t hear me from where he’s standing, and because it might be true. “And you’re the old one?”

  She laughs as she winds up a cable that had connected her guitar and amp. “You might say that. I’m glad Oliver met someone. He—”

  “Sophie, I’m going to bring the van around,” the drummer tells her.

  “Oh, great.” She turns back to me, slipping the cable over her arm like a purse strap. “He does better when he’s with someone. Good to meet you, thanks for coming.”

  I step back, rejoin Oliver, and we walk through campus in the direction of his dorm, though we stop a few buildings over where there is a little bench. We sit down, and I stretch my feet across him so they dangle off the edge. It’s fun being cozy even with what The Amazing Sophie said on my mind.

  “How’d you know I’d like the band?” I ask.

  “Well, they sound a little sixties,” he says with a grin. “And since I don’t think there’s one band listed in your favorites on your profile that still plays shows…”

  “Not true. The living members of The Who still tour sometimes.” I laugh. “You have a point. Do you think it’s weird?”

  He shrugs, circling one of his hands around one of my ankles, rubbing it just a little under my jeans. Why the heck that feels so good—I
mean, it’s my frigging ankle—I don’t know. “Maybe. Weird’s not bad.”

  “Truer words were never spoken.” I lean forward, and he follows my lead and kisses me. “Do you want to read my first newspaper column?”

  “Right now?”

  I laugh and shake my head. “I can email it to you. If you want.”

  “Definitely. I’d send you that Kant paper I’ve been working on, but I don’t think you’d find it very interesting. I definitely don’t.”

  “What part of philosophy is interesting, then?” I ask. “I figure you like it or you wouldn’t major in it. It’s not like people make millions off philosophy.”

  “Yeah, suddenly you sound like my dad.” He grins at me. “I just like thinking about life, reasoning it out, putting order to things. Does that make any sense?”

  “I guess so.” I shiver a little and wind my striped scarf (knitted by Russell’s mom) more tightly around my neck. Fall is really here. “I have no idea what I’ll major in. Dad says I need to figure that out this year.”

  “You really don’t. You’re only a junior, and you could be undeclared for a while anyway. Your dad seems a little…”

  “Assholey?”

  “I was gonna say ‘intense,’” he says. “I know Sara feels like a hard act to follow.”

  “‘Feels like’? So it’s not my imagination.” I feel bitchy all of a sudden. “Sorry, I—”

  “Trust me, I get it.” He leans over to kiss me again. Late at night his chin is scratchy with stubble. “Like I’ve said, Dexter’s younger, and it still feels the same way sometimes. One day he’ll be running the country and I’ll be—”

  “Philosophizing?”

  We both laugh really hard at that. It’s funny; whenever I’d thought about meeting a guy or having a boyfriend or whatever, I’d thought about the making out and the possibility of sex, but I hadn’t counted on knowing a guy who’d just get me like Oliver does. Get me and care. A good combo.

  “What about writing?” he asks. “You’re on the newspaper and all.”

  It’s nice he finds me capable of things. “I don’t know, it’s new. Maybe I won’t be that good at it.”