My voice came out muffled against her chest. “I reserve the right to complain constantly moving forward. I’d sound like a monster if I said no and you know it. Not that I had a choice, did I?”
As Mom let me go, she gave a brief laugh. “No, God no, but I appreciate the cooperation all the same.”
“At least you’re honest.” I forced a smile, and Mom hopped off the stool to start lunch preparations.
“We will make it work, I promise,” she said as she clattered around in the crisper to retrieve some tomatoes and lettuce. “Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the people we love, right? It might not be ideal, but we may as well do it with a grin.”
I nodded absentmindedly and went back to my phone. At least the first problem was solved. This totally counted as a good enough reason to send multiple text messages.
Now he’d have to reply, right?
2
Wednesday, 6:05 PM
Hey. So. Funny story. I’m
moving to NC for a while.
I’m going to be living in
Collinswood. Any chance
that’s near you?
Unread
I was joking about the aliens thing, but it was starting to seem like the only plausible explanation. Who doesn’t touch their phone for twelve days? No one, that’s who. Seriously. Since I sent that text, I’d:
• Packed.
• Left the lake house.
• Flown home.
• Packed up my entire house.
• Said good-bye to all my friends.
• Consumed three milkshakes of pure misery. One with Ryan, one with Hayley, and one more with Ryan because he had a late-night craving after already officially saying good-bye to me.
• Flown to freaking Collinswood, A.K.A. Podunk Nowhere.
• Unpacked my entire house.
• Cried in secret twice.
• Cried a little bit in front of my parents once.
• Made a blood vow with myself to stop freaking crying.
• Taken a tour of Podunk Nowhere and cried on the inside a bit when I realized all my shopping was going to have to be online from here on out.
• Watched Frozen three times. Twice, with my cousins in the room. Once, on my own because it was already in the DVD player and I couldn’t be bothered to change it.
And in all that time, not one message from Will? Screw that. I was officially over it.
Not so over it that I didn’t want to vent, though. And tonight was my chance. After several failed attempts, Ryan, Hayley, and I had finally found a time we were all free to Skype. I’d intended to take the call in my room, but Mom decided at the last minute that she needed me in the kitchen to peel the cucumbers for the salad. So I multitasked, with the laptop on the dining room table and a cutting board beside it.
Mom and Dad were cooking a special dinner to celebrate the grand opening of our new kitchen. Trouble was, our special meals were usually takeout, since we never had people over for dinner and therefore had no one to impress but ourselves. And pad thai from the restaurant down the street had historically impressed all three of us without fail in San Jose.
By the time Dad cracked (no pun intended) and pulled up a Gordon Ramsay tutorial on YouTube to copy from, tensions were running high. To make things worse, joining us in the kitchen were my very bored and crabby cousins, Crista and Dylan.
Basically, the house was chaos, and adding a Skype call into it all didn’t help.
“It’s a little loud on your end,” Ryan said, making a face into the camera. On the bed beside him, Hayley burst into giggles.
“Right, sorry. Just try to ignore it,” I said. I had to speak on an angle in order to peel the cucumbers.
Ryan said something in response, but he was drowned out by Crista’s whining.
“Aunt Catherine? Aunt Catherine? Aunt Catherine?” She followed Mom around the kitchen, holding onto her bowl of apple slices and cheddar cheese, while Mom pretended she couldn’t hear.
“Sorry, what?” I asked the screen.
Ryan and Hayley gave me matching amused looks. “I said, have you unpacked yet?” Ryan yelled.
I opened my mouth to reply, but ended up with an apple slice shoved unceremoniously in my face. “Don’t like the skin,” Dylan said in a firm voice, waving the apple around.
“It’s a little late for that, buddy,” I said. “Just eat around it.”
“The skin.”
“I’m busy right now, I’m peeling something else. It’d get cucumber juice all over your apple. Go get Aunt Catherine to help you.”
“Aunt Catherine” gave me a warning look, and I ducked behind my laptop.
Hayley’s face had taken over the screen, so close I could almost count her pale blond eyelashes. “So, we wanted to tell you in person, but we’ve been asked to play at Nathaniel’s!”
My mouth dropped open. “Wait, really?” Nathaniel’s was the dream when it came to underage gigs. Sure, it wasn’t exactly our audience, but the people who went there tended to be pretty open-minded when it came to music. If anything, we’d be likely to end up with a bunch of new fans who’d never heard of us.
Well, not “we,” I guessed. They. They would end up with new fans.
“Ollie, Ollie, Dylan wants you to cut the skin off his apple,” Crista said, appearing at my side out of thin air.
“I heard him. I’m just trying to talk to my friends right now.”
“Your hands are free, aren’t they?” Mom asked from across the kitchen. “Can’t you grab a fresh knife?”
“Be right back,” I said to Ryan and Hayley, but Hayley held up a hand.
“No, look, we can barely hear you. Go hold the fort. We have to practice, anyway. We’ll tell you more when we can talk properly.”
But I hadn’t even had a chance to tell them about Will. Or Collinswood. Or how Aunt Linda was. “Oh. Oh, okay. Sure. We’ll Skype soon, then, I guess?”
“Yeah, when we’re all free. Soon.”
I wrapped up the call, then dutifully removed the offending apple peel, to Dylan’s delight.
Over by the stove, Mom hovered behind Dad, helpfully critiquing his cooking choices. “There’s some more room in the skillet,” she pointed out, leaning against the counter. “Why don’t you put it all in? It’ll speed things up.”
“Gordon says if I put too much meat in the pan it’ll cook unevenly.”
“Well, God forbid you disobey Gordon.”
“Woe betide the fool that tries, Catherine.”
Outside, a car engine rumbled up the driveway. Crista and Dylan perked up as one, and, abandoning their snacks, sprinted to the front door, with me following after them. “Mama’s here, Mama’s here, Mama’s here.”
Aunt Linda had barely walked through the door when she was barreled over by two pint-sized missiles. “Ooff! Oh my gosh, I was only gone for a few hours.” She laughed, pulling them in for a hug.
Tonight, she looked weaker than usual. She’d lost her thick black hair a while ago, and while I was used to seeing her bald, tonight she still wore the paisley scarf she wrapped around her head when she went out. Weirdly, the scarf reminded me how much things had changed more than the hair loss did. Maybe it was because Linda had been so anti-headwear for longer than I’d been alive. I couldn’t even picture her in a sun hat, or beanie, or anything.