The Art of Breaking Things, page 21
Dan comes over. “Should we be worried?” he says in a low voice. “Does she have location services on? Can we find her that way?”
“I don’t think we need to do that,” I say. “I’m sure she’ll be home soon.”
“Will all due respect, Skylar, I think the adults should handle this,” Dan says to me. He turns to Mom. “Beth, let’s see where she is.”
Dan has no clue what I’ve been handling since he’s been gone. I shoot off another quick text to Emma, this one warning her about the urgency of getting home as soon as humanly possible.
“It’s loading,” Mom says, staring at her phone. “Oh, and Emma just texted me. She’s at a friend’s house. She says she’s sorry and she’ll be home soon. Oh, thank God.”
Mom sets her phone on the table. “Can I get anyone a drink? I may need another one.” She laughs a little bit and takes a gulp of her wine.
“I’m glad she’s okay. How great that you can use the phone that way,” Judy says.
“Since we know Emma’s okay, can we eat? I’m starving,” I say.
“She’s not where she said she was in her text,” Dan says, holding Mom’s phone.
“What?” Mom says.
My stomach flips, and not in a good way. Dan holds the phone out to Mom and the screen plainly shows that Emma’s phone is in the middle of the woods, not at a friend’s house. Oh, shit.
“Maybe she’s walking home from her friend’s house,” I say, trying to cover.
Mom frowns, as though she’d like to believe that, but it doesn’t quite compute. There aren’t houses on the opposite side of the woods where we live.
“We’ll see what she says when she gets home,” Dan says.
“Oh, maybe we should leave,” Judy says to Mac. “This is a family matter.”
Mac nods and starts to get up.
“No, no, we got all this great food. Please stay,” Mom says. She hands Judy a wine spritzer and Mac a beer.
“I’ve got it all set up. Let’s dive in. Emma says she’ll be here any minute,” I say.
“Where are the forks?” Dan asks, surveying the table.
“We use chopsticks,” I say.
“Get some cutlery, please,” Dan says.
“No problem,” I say, to keep Dan appeased, even though I need to wait until he’s finished pouring himself a drink because he’s standing directly in front of the cutlery drawer. I place forks and spoons next to the chopsticks on the table, and everyone digs in.
We’re all starting to shovel food into our mouths when Emma bursts in, flushed. I don’t know if it’s from the cold air or from kissing Thomas. Dan sets his fork down and stands.
“Where have you been?” His voice booms.
Emma is all innocent eyes. “With Julia.”
“At Julia’s house?” Dan asks.
Emma must sense that she’s being baited because her eyes flick to me. I widen mine to warn her.
“No, Julia’s house is too far to walk.” She starts off with honesty. That’s good. “We were at . . . Tonya’s house.” If the phone hadn’t busted her, the hesitancy would have.
“No, I don’t believe you were,” Dan says, arms crossed over his chest.
“What?” Emma’s face shows that she knows she’s been caught, but she’s not yet sure how bad it is. I’ve been in her shoes a million times, though I know this is a first for her.
Dan holds up Mom’s phone, like he did just a little bit ago. “The GPS put you in the woods. Why are you lying?”
Emma’s eyes widen. “I . . . I . . .” She looks at me and then at the floor. “I don’t know,” she says honestly.
“Who were you with?”
“Some friends.”
“Then why the lying?” Dan presses.
Emma clears her throat. “There were . . . boys there.”
At this, Mom’s eyes snap up. “What boys?”
Dan says, “What are you doing with boys at your age?”
“Some boys from my class,” she says to Mom. “We were talking and hanging out,” she adds to Dan. “Nothing bad or whatever.” She looks at her shoes.
“Come here,” Dan says.
My stomach was flipping before, but now it’s threatening to come up through my throat. Emma walks slowly toward Dan as if she’s walking the plank.
“Young lady, you need to learn respect and honesty and I intend to teach it to you. The next time you think about going off without letting your mother know or lying about where you are, I want you to remember this.”
I remember how Dan disciplines.
“This is for your own good,” he says.
I push from the table.
Dan grips Emma’s shoulder.
I jump up and my seat clatters to the floor. “Don’t!” I say.
Five sets of eyes swivel toward me.
“Don’t what?” Dan asks, irritated. He’s holding the phone close to Emma. I thought that he was going to hit her. I was sure of it.
“Oh.” I back off a bit.
He turns to Emma. “Your mother pays a lot of money for you girls to have these nice phones. In return, you leave location services on so that we know you’re safe. If you think you’re smarter than us and you figure you’ll just turn off location services next time you want to go somewhere without permission, you lose the phone. Got it?”
I watch the interplay, relieved that Dan didn’t hit Emma, embarrassed that I made a scene, and irritated that he’s shunted Mom to the side and created rules of his own making.
Emma nods.
Dan sets the phone back on the table. “We understand each other?”
Emma nods again.
“I can’t hear a nod,” Dan says.
“I understand,” Emma says in a quiet voice.
Dan nods at Emma and I sort of wish she’d tell him that she can’t hear a nod either. But she doesn’t. Dan turns to everyone and rubs his hands together. “Let’s continue our dinner, shall we?”
Emma sits next to me and I squeeze her hand under the table. She squeezes back. Everyone is pretty quiet through the rest of dinner. Judy says she loves how spicy the pork dish is, and Mac says that spicy food is great with beer. It seems as if they are trying to fill the silence. Dan nods as he forks some fried rice into his mouth.
Mom, Emma, and I use chopsticks. It took a while to teach Emma, but she was determined to be able to use chopsticks right alongside us.
“I suppose this is fair for Americanized Chinese food,” Dan says.
Hunan Garden is our favorite—Mom’s and Emma’s and mine. We love the pan-fried dumplings and the hot and sour soup and the Kung Pao Chicken. When Mom got a raise, we ordered from Hunan. And when Emma “graduated” from fifth grade and when I got my acceptance to MICA too.
“We forgot tea!” Mom says. She gets up to make the tea that she always makes when we order Chinese. I get up to help her, and Emma follows. Mom leans down to hug Emma.
“Don’t lie, Butter Bean, okay?”
Emma nods into Mom’s chest and then says, “But don’t call me Butter Bean.” We all laugh.
“Also, you’re grounded.”
I cheer on the inside, not because Emma is grounded, but because Mom is still the boss of us.
“What?” Emma has the nerve to sound offended.
“You lied about where you were, you were with boys, and you were late. You’re grounded.”
“Fine.”
When the water boils, Mom pours the hot water over the tea bags in the delicate midnight-blue teapot. I carry the small matching cups, and Emma grabs some sugar.
“Is the teaching going well?” Judy is asking Dan when we return.
“I could teach these Freshman Comp sections in my sleep,” he says. “But I’ve put together a proposal for a Russian Lit class, and I’m hopeful that they’ll let me teach that next semester.”
“Russian Lit?” Mac says. “I’d rather shoot myself with a nail gun.”
Dan laughs a little too loudly. “It’s important to introduce students to Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. Not to mention Nabokov.”
He keeps talking about Nabokov, even though no one seems interested. Mom sets cups before everyone, but only she, Emma, and I drink the tea from the tiny cups. After a while, empty take-out boxes litter the dining room table.
“We have something for you, Emma,” Judy says. “Mac, could you grab it?”
Mac gets up and lumbers to the table by the front door to pick up a bag that I hadn’t noticed.
“We know we’re late for your birthday, sweetheart, but we didn’t want you to think we’d forgotten you.” Judy hands Emma the package.
“Thanks, Judy,” Emma says in that shy voice that means you know you’re still on thin ice. She unwraps the paper and smiles at Judy and Mac. “An origami kit. Thank you!” She looks at the box and turns to Judy again. “I love it.”
Emma looks at Dan. “May I be dismissed?” I’m impressed by how quickly she’s learning. He nods to her, and she disappears upstairs with the origami kit.
“Beth, how are the wedding plans coming along?” Judy asks after Emma leaves.
I start to collect the take-out containers.
Mom gulps her wine. “Well, our last location fell through.”
If the wedding is off again, this is the first I’ve heard of it. Mom sets her wineglass down. I put away the few leftovers and shove the empty boxes into the trash.
“What happened?” Judy is saying. “You were so excited about that venue.”
“You’re right, I was”—Mom pauses—“but it turned out to be too expensive. I had to let it go.”
I return to take the plates away.
“Thanks, honey,” Mom says, and I smile at her.
“It wasn’t the money,” Dan says, dismissing Mom’s statement. “That place was too bland.”
“Judy,” Mac says, “why don’t we let them have the wedding in the barn?”
Everyone seems to be inspired by ideas for this wedding all of a sudden. I start to wash off the plates, but I can still hear the adults talking around the dinner table.
“The barn would be great!” Dan says. “Rustic. None of those sanitized spaces lacking soul. And we will write our own vows.”
“Well . . .” Mom starts to speak.
“Beth, I haven’t asked for anything in terms of this wedding ceremony,” Dan says. Even though he certainly has. “But I’m asking now. I want to have the wedding in the barn.”
“We can’t.”
“What do you mean we can’t?” Dan says.
“I put a deposit down somewhere else today. Nonrefundable. It’s not antiseptic or whatever you called the last place and it was available on the date and we can’t wait any longer, so it’s a done deal.”
“Where did you put this deposit down?” Dan asks. He doesn’t sound very excited.
“Sal’s.”
I stop rinsing the dishes. She’s having her wedding at the diner where I work? I cannot get away from this fucking wedding.
“Sal’s Diner?” Dan’s eyebrows fly to the top of his forehead.
“They have that outdoor space out back with those cute string lights and nice big wooden tables. And Sal said that he’ll get heaters brought out because it might still be chilly at that time next month. Plus, Sal’s food is great. You said you didn’t want boring food, and no one does Greek like Sal. It’ll be my little, tiny Greek wedding.” Mom’s joke falls flat.
“Well, I guess that’s that. No rustic wedding for us, but thanks, Mac.” Dan tips his drink to his lips and doesn’t say another word.
I finish the dishes and make sure the table is cleared. Having her wedding reception in the back of a diner on Pennswood Pike can’t be what Mom really wants. She feels pushed to have the reception there because she has so few options available, which seems to be the story of Mom’s life. I feel a little sad for her, but it’s not like someone is forcing her to marry Dan. She’s made that bad choice on her own. It occurs to me that the servers will be people I know. I grimace and count the days until I’m out of this town.
31
Odd One Out
BEN HAS BEEN gone for two weeks. I’m sitting on the couch, sketching him from memory and thinking that I’d call it Reward If Found, when Mom says my name.
“Yeah?” I say, not looking away from my work.
“I’ve been telling myself not to ask, but I can’t help it. Have you heard anything about the scholarship?”
My hand pauses on the sketch. I’m at Ben’s jaw and trying to get it just right. It’s been three weeks since I heard and somehow I haven’t told Mom and Emma. I remember Mom saying that I didn’t seem to want to be a part of this family. I sigh.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I got it,” I say, with no dramatic lead-in. “I got the scholarship.” I meet my mother’s eyes and she looks confused.
“You got it?”
I nod.
“So, you’re going.”
“Looks that way.”
“Honey, that’s . . . great,” Mom says. “But you don’t look all that happy.”
My hand is moving again, adding shading the way that Mr. M always tells me to do, the way that Ben seems to do effortlessly.
“Hello?”
I look up.
Mom is smiling that smile. Her whole face transforms and she’s ten years younger and happy.
“I know that we’ve had some . . . tension . . . but I’m so excited for you, sweetheart. You’ve worked so hard and now you will be able to follow your dreams.”
I smile back. All she’s ever wanted was for me not to end up like her—divorced at a young age with little kids and little money. That’s one thing we agree on.
“Even if you think that my dreams are impractical.”
“I never said impractical,” Mom says. “I just said that it could be hard to find a job.”
I give Mom a look, and she holds her hands up in surrender. “It doesn’t matter because you’re going. Do we need to pay the deposit or what?”
I flip the page and start a new sketch, also from memory. Mom wonders why I don’t seem happy and I wonder how I can leave when she’s marrying Dan.
“Mom, what if Dan did something that was really bad?”
Mom’s smile fades like the sun behind storm clouds.
“What do you mean?”
From the charcoal in my fingers, Dan’s face emerges on the page.
“Like what would you do if you found out he did something terrible?”
“I guess I’d talk to him and try to work it out.”
“What if it was so bad that you couldn’t work it out?”
In my sketch, Dan’s face takes up the page and he stares out of it dead-on. Like a mug shot.
“What are you talking about, Skye?”
“Before, you know, he . . .” God, this is so hard. I told her before and she didn’t believe me. What makes me think she’ll believe me this time?
“Everything will be okay this time.” Her eyes plead with me.
“But what if it’s not?” I say.
“We’ll deal with it.”
This is the first time that Mom seems to be willing to circle around to how it was before. I think that maybe I could meet her halfway, but she’s not even a quarter of the way to me.
“Okay,” I say. My voice sounds small. “I’ll find out about the deposit to MICA.”
I scrawl Deviant on the bottom of the sketch and close my pad.
* * *
—
“It’s time, Skye. Your mother will know to find us there,” Dan says.
It’s Wednesday night and Emma’s show starts in thirty minutes. I stare at the clock on my phone. Then I peer out the window, trying to will my mother to show up or time to move backward. I’d dropped Emma off early, armed with her costume and more makeup than any middle schooler should have, as per her instructions. I imagine her now waiting in the wings for the performance to begin.
Dan showed up twenty minutes ago, dressed in a sport coat and khakis, like he was going to some country club dinner. Neither of us has heard from Mom.
“Maybe I’ll wait for Mom and you can go ahead. Or maybe I’ll go ahead and you stay and wait for Mom.” Either way I’m hoping to avoid being alone with Dan for much longer.
“That’s what you said ten minutes ago. Your sister worked too hard for this. Come on. I’ll drive.”
Dan and I agree on one thing—Emma needs to have someone in the audience for her big night. I follow him to his car, angry on Emma’s behalf that Mom has blown this and pissed on my own behalf that I have to escort Dan to the show. I haven’t been in a car alone with Dan for a long time. It’s not the same car that he used to have. Not the old car that he drove when he took us on that camping trip. This one is smaller, but newer.
The tiny space smells like Dan. I don’t know what to do with myself. My leg jiggles and I place my hand on it to stop. I stare at my phone, pretending to text so that he won’t talk to me. He fiddles with the radio. NPR is broadcasting an interview with the victim of a women’s sports scandal. I want to change the station, but it’s not Mom’s car.
“Whoever designed this school did not plan well for parking,” he mutters, turning down the volume on the radio.
“You figure every parent with a kid in the show is here, plus all the grandparents who live close enough to come out,” I say.
I wish that Nana were still around to see Emma. If Nana were still around, a major component of Mom’s support system, I wonder if Mom would’ve agreed to marry Dan.
“Do you mind if I get out here?” I ask when Dan slows down in front of the school. “I’ll find seats and text you.”
“Very well,” Dan says.
When I’m out of the tiny confines of Dan’s car, I breathe. Inside the auditorium, I drape my jacket across three seats that I find on an end of a row toward the back. Not a great view, but you’ve got to take what you can get. After I text the location of the seats, I sneak backstage to find Emma. She’s all decked out in her costume, looking like the cutest teapot anyone has ever seen.
