It is beyond lame that my first thought is that Arizona left me out of this decision. That she planned some rebellion without me. That she probably talked to Roxanne about this plan but not me.
“Yeah, maybe you could wait, Dad?” I say. I’m trying to join in, even though I haven’t been invited.
“Not wait,” Arizona says. “Not do it. Ever. I think we deserve one unilateral no, and I’m using mine.” She keeps digging into the eggs and makes her eggs-eating face that I’ve seen for years. Adds salt and pepper to each bite. Our diner trips are practically choreographed.
“Arizona Varren,” Dad says. His voice is low and shaking. He pushes his eggs away like they’re suddenly sickening. “Absolutely inappropriate. What’s gotten into you?”
She doesn’t even look down. Doesn’t wince or stop eating.
“You’re trying to marry a twenty-year-old who you met, like, five minutes ago. I don’t think I’m the one with the problem,” Arizona says.
“She’s not twenty,” I say, because I am literally the stupidest person on the planet. I wish I could time-travel back thirty seconds and unsay it, but I can’t. Without thinking, without even considering the epic fallout from the choice, I’ve taken Karissa’s side.
Arizona glares at me. I’m sure forks continue clattering and random conversations keep going, but I don’t hear them.
“I mean, I also would rather you didn’t marry her,” I say, but it’s so weak compared to whatever it is she’s doing that it gets lost, maybe doesn’t even travel across the table to my father’s ears.
Dad takes a bite of eggs at last but makes a face like he’s swallowing glass.
Maybe the images of his ex-wives are bouncing in front of his eyes. Maybe he’s remembering that Tess’s shitty Lean Cuisine meals are still in our freezer. If the former wife’s food is still edible, you’re not yet ready for a new wife. I’m pretty sure that’s a rule somewhere.
“I expect you both to be there tonight,” Dad says. “I expect you to support the thing that makes me happy, like I support both of you.” His voice cracks, and I wonder if he’s going to cry. If we’re seeing him grieve something real and complicated and basic. His failed marriages. The things he’s done that have made all our lives erratic and tense. Taking us for five-dollar eggs when he knows we’d prefer bagels and cream cheese and lattes and the park.
Arizona sees it too. She reaches for his hand. Holds it in hers. He stares at the ceiling and we wait in that moment, together.
“I’d like my girls there,” he says. “It’s that simple.”
This is why hope is such a stupid thing to have. Especially when it comes to people you know well.
“You should have told me what we were doing,” I say when he’s gone and the rest of the diner has more or less stopped listening in and the eggs are cold and the coffee is refilled to the tippy top, where there’s no more room for milk and sugar.
“We weren’t doing anything,” Arizona says. “I did something. You’re in la-la land losing your mind over there. I’m trying to fix the situation.” The hardness hasn’t faded from her face, and I can’t read her.
“That’s not fair,” I say. “I talked to Karissa about it. I told her what was happening. I thought I could stop it on her end.”
“And?”
“She’s not stopping it,” I say. “But I tried.”
“Well, see? You’re doing a bunch of shit without me too. So.” Arizona is bristly and flustered. I want out of the diner. Someone ordered tuna salad, and it’s stinking up the place. “All that complaining about me being away for college, and you’ve spent all this time with freaking Karissa and that dude.”
“Oh my God, you know his name!” I could slap her. I don’t get frustrated with anyone the way I do with Arizona. I want to shake the table until she hears herself.
“I love you, but you’re making a big mess, Sean Varren–style, and you need to know that,” she says after rolling her eyes and picking a little at her cold eggs.
“I don’t do anything Sean Varren style,” I say.
“Whatever, dude,” Arizona says. “You’ll see. In like a year, when you leave and go to your own college, you’ll see what really happened this summer.”
I hate that she said the word college. I hate that she thinks I’m in need of some Maine-campus-induced epiphany. I don’t respond.
She pays the bill and looks at me like I’m supposed to know we’re leaving together. “Park?”
“I thought you hate me.”
“I mean, I do, but it’s our last day to be in the park before Dad ruins it with his proposal crap. Roxanne’s already there. Told her I’d bring her a diner coffee to go.”
“It’s even worse when it’s to go,” I say, and somehow we’re back to ourselves for a moment. We find each other, again and again. I’m happy that that, at least, hasn’t changed.
twenty-five