And with that, the subject was dropped. But clearly not forgotten, as I heard them talking about it twice more that evening: once as they watched the news while I very quietly loaded the dishwasher, and again from upstairs, as I was getting ready for bed. The next morning, as I passed the War Room, I saw she’d pulled her file labeled TRAVEL onto the desk, the one that contained packing lists, intricate clothes-folding diagrams, and all her guidebooks. If they went, it would be her first trip in over a year, and I wanted her to have that. Plus, a whole weekend with Jenn might help to bridge the distance that I’d recently felt creeping into our increasingly rare conversations, both on the phone and face-to-face. Maybe this would be good for all of us. But the morning they were supposed to leave, we got a phone call.
“Jenn’s sick,” my mom reported when I came downstairs for school. My dad was leaning against the fridge with his coffee. “Stomach bug. They all have it.”
“Ugh,” I said.
“Exactly. So you can’t stay there this weekend.” She looked at my dad. “What now?”
“Meredith?”
“She’s away at a meet,” I told them. “Left yesterday.”
My mom sighed. “Well, that’s that. Peyton, you go ahead, and I’ll stay here. It’s probably better this way, anyway.”
“No, no, hold on,” my dad said. “Let me think.”
“I’m seventeen,” I told them. “I can stay alone for a weekend.”
“That’s not happening,” my mom told me. “I think we all know well what a lack of supervision can lead to.”
Hearing this, I felt stung. I’d never done anything, not even skipped school. The last thing I deserved was to have the same old assumptions applied, but clearly, this wasn’t about me.
“Hold on,” my dad said, pulling out his phone and typing something as I got down a bowl and poured my cereal. I was just about to add milk when he said, “Done. It’s taken care of.”
I looked at him. Now I was an It. Nice. “How?”
He replied to my mom, not me. “Ames and Marla. They’ll be here at four, stay the whole weekend. He says it’s not a problem at all.”
“Oh, they don’t need to do that,” I said quickly. “I’m fine. I mean, I’ll be fine.”
“Ames and Marla?” My mom wrinkled her brow. “Oh, I hate to impose on them that way. He’s already going to Lincoln tomorrow.”
“He’s happy to do it, he says. And Marla’s got the whole weekend off.”
Oh, great. I’d heard Marla say a total of about ten words in the months I’d known her. Having her here would be no different, really, than Ames and I alone. I said, “Um, I actually have this new friend, Layla. I’m sure I could stay with her.”
They both looked at me. “A new friend? You haven’t mentioned that.”
“Well, I just met her. But—”
“I’m not sending you to stay with a family I don’t know at all, Sydney,” my mom said, shaking her head. “That could even be worse than staying by yourself.”
“Then I’ll just do that.”
“Ames and Marla are coming,” my dad said. His tone made it clear this negotiation was over. “Now, Sydney, eat your breakfast. You’re going to be late.”
Helpless, I sat down at the table as my dad walked over and kissed my mom on the forehead, then said something quietly to her that I couldn’t hear. She smiled, reluctantly, and I realized how long it had been since I’d seen her anything but barely coping or outright sad. And what would I tell her, anyway? That this person whom you count on and totally adore gives me the creeps—for no reason I could specifically say—and his girlfriend wouldn’t help matters? I’d sound crazy. Maybe I was.
“Sydney?” she asked me suddenly. I looked up. “Everything okay?”
I met her eyes, saying nothing but wishing she would. That somehow, in the midst of all her grief and distraction, she might be able to finally see me, if not hear the words I couldn’t speak aloud.
A beat passed, then another. She was starting to look worried, the canyon finding its way onto her face again. From the open doorway, my dad was watching me, too.
“Yeah,” I told them. “I’m fine.”
CHAPTER
7
THIS TIME at Seaside, I was sure of it. The music playing was bluegrass.
“You want another slice?”
I shook my head. Layla slid out from the booth where we were sitting, taking her plate with her. As she ducked behind the counter, grabbing a second piece to heat up, I walked over to the jukebox. It was the vintage kind, with actual typed titles and a slot to put in coins. Each selection was a quarter. The song currently playing was called “Rope Swing.”
“We call that thing the Dinosaur,” Layla said from behind me. A moment later, she was leaning on the glass. “My dad bought it at a flea market when he took over this place from my grandfather.”
“So pizza runs in the family,” I said.
“Not exactly. My mom’s the Italian one. Daddy’s family is from the mountains,” she said. “But when he married in, it was understood he’d take over Seaside eventually. He wanted to make it more his own, though; hence the Dinosaur. That’s when the music rule started.”
“Music rule?”
“Nothing but bluegrass during business hours.” She shook her head. “We have tried everything to talk reason into him. I mean, this place is called Seaside Pizza. Bluegrass is mountain music. It’s totally incongruous.”
“It’s pretty, though,” I said as “Rope Swing” went into another chorus.
“Oh, it’s great. I mean, it’s the first thing I learned to play. It’s just not exactly what teenagers want to listen to after school. And since we’re always trying to get more business, it’s kind of ridiculous.”