I nodded as well. “Me too,” I said. He gave me another sad smile, and we sat there together in silence.
The shuttle bus rumbled up the street and passed our driveway, coming to a stop in front of the house next to ours, the CUT TO: SUMMER house. A dark-haired girl in an all-white tennis outfit got out, looking, even from this distance, fairly disgruntled as she stomped off the bus and up her driveway, soon obscured by the trees that separated our houses.
“Was that it?” he asked, after the girl had disappeared from view and the shuttle bus had moved on.
“That’s it,” I said. Then he’d reached out and ruffled my hair, resting his hand on the top of my head. And though we were certainly not a touchy-feely family, without even thinking about it, I leaned closer to my father, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into a hug. And we stayed like that for just a moment before we both moved apart, almost at the same time, as though we’d agreed upon it beforehand. I slid out of the driver’s side, opening the back door to retrieve my bag, the bakery box full of unfortunate cookies, and the Henson’s Produce bag, which my father let me take.
We were heading up the steps to the house, my father leaning on the railing when he stopped and turned back to me, a smile starting to form that made him look less tired. “Metamorphosis,” he said. I frowned, trying to make this make sense. “A thirteen-letter word for change,” he continued. He raised his eyebrows at me, pleased with himself.
“Maybe so,” I said. I saw the abandoned crossword lying on the table, and I wanted to run over to it, see if it was the answer I’d been looking for. “Let’s find out.”
chapter nine
“GELSEY!” I YELLED IN THE DIRECTION OF THE house. “LET’S GO!” I was standing in the driveway, keys in hand, where I had been for the last ten minutes. I checked my watch and saw that I really should have left by now. Though I had no actual job experience, I had a feeling that that showing up late on your first day of work was probably frowned upon. The plan had been for Gelsey to bike to her first tennis lesson this morning. But her bike (technically, my old bike that was now too small for me) turned out to have a flat tire, and then Gelsey had some sort of meltdown, so it had fallen to me to drive her.
The front door slammed and she stepped out onto the porch, my mother right behind her. I noticed my mother stayed in front of the door, almost like she was blocking it, lest Gelsey try to make a break for it and run back inside. “Finally,” I said. “I’m going to be late.”
“You’ll be fine,” my mother said. Gelsey just glowered at me, as though I was somehow responsible for all this. My mother smoothed down Gelsey’s hair and straightened the sleeves of her white tennis dress, one that had been mine when I was her age.
“Are you ready?” Gelsey asked, as if it had been me who had been holding us up all along. She pulled herself away from my mother and stomped down to the driveway.
My father, shielding his eyes, came forward a few steps from the garage, where he’d been fixing up our bikes since most of them hadn’t been in a fit condition to ride. “Have a good first day, you two,” he called. “And when you come back, I’ll have the bikes all ready. So you both should be able to ride tomorrow.”
“Great,” I said, trying to sound enthusiastic about this while also trying to remember how many years it had been since I had ridden a bike.
“Have fun,” he called. “Do great things.” I turned back to wave, but he was already heading for his workbench, reaching for an air pump, humming tunelessly to himself.
“Can we leave already?” Gelsey asked, her voice heavy with disdain. I was about to throw disdain right back at her—maybe paired with a lecture about how it was her fault we weren’t leaving until now—when I realized we probably didn’t have time.
“Good luck,” my mother called from the doorway, smiling at me. I wasn’t sure if she was talking about my first day of work or about me getting Gelsey there in one piece, but I gave her a halfhearted smile back, then opened the driver’s door and climbed into the car.
I started the engine, trying not to panic when I saw that I had only seven minutes to drop my sister off at the Rec Center and get myself to the beach—not to mention that I’d received only the vaguest instructions from Jillian as to who I was supposed to talk to when I got there. So as soon as I’d reached the end of the driveway and passed out of sight of my parents, I stepped hard on the gas, now driving much faster than the WE LOVE OUR CHILDREN… PLEASE DRIVE SLOW! signs that dotted the road recommended.
Gelsey looked over from where she had been glaring out the window and glanced at my speedometer. “Speed much?” she asked, eyebrows raised.