I crank out my homework while the oven finishes preheating. There’s little to do this late in the year, so it doesn’t take long.
My culinary pride and joy—a pizza stone Mom bought me for Christmas last year—rests hot and ready on the center rack of the oven. First I sprinkle it with a little cornmeal (to keep the crust from sticking) and then, with a pizza peel, I transfer my creation to the stone.
The pizza’s done by the time Mom walks in the door ten minutes later, the cheese bubbling and perfectly pocked with brown, the crust tanned and only the slightest bit yielding.
“Your timing is impeccable,” Mom says, pecking me on the forehead. I wait until she turns around to put her purse down before rubbing the kiss-spot on my forehead with the palm of my hand.
“It needs a couple of minutes to cool,” I remind her as I paddle the pizza out of the oven and set it on the counter. “Otherwise the cheese will go all over the place when I cut it.”
“Well, I’ll go wash up and get out of these shoes.”
A few minutes later, we’re at the table, eating in silence. I would rather be watching TV. Or eating alone.
But I just eat. Because there are things we do.
“This is really good,” Mom says, and I grunt, “Uh-huh,” because if I say nothing, she gets angry, and I don’t like to make her angry. Not because of anything she does or says when she’s angry, but just because making her angry makes me sad. She doesn’t deserve it.
“It really hits the spot,” she goes on.
“Uh-huh.”
There’s a familiar tone in her voice. It’s the I have something to say, but I don’t want to just jump right into it, so I’ll do chit-chat first tone. I know it well.
“Sebastian, could you at least look at me when I talk to you?”
With a slow, infinite effort, I lift my gaze to her. She smiles that gauzy smile.
“Was that so difficult?”
“Compared to what?”
The smile widens almost imperceptibly. “I think we should talk.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing right now? Have I been misled my whole life?”
“I’m thinking we should talk about what you’re going to do this summer.”
A shrug. “I’ll get by.”
“No. I don’t want you lazing around like last summer.”
“Last summer was pretty great. I didn’t laze. I was hanging out with Evan.”
“And what did you two accomplish?”
Touché.
“You’re fourteen now. Old enough to get a summer job.” Before I can protest too vociferously, she forestalls me with a raised palm. “Or do something productive. It doesn’t have to be a job. Just something worthwhile.”
“Evan isn’t getting a job.” Evan will be headed to something called Young Leaders Camp, a hellish mix of Model UN and overnight camp, spliced with the DNA of a tech start-up incubator. It’s what rich kids do with their idle time as they await their Ivy League acceptance letters and keys to the Congressional washroom.
This is an argument I know is doomed to immediate failure, and—truth be told—I only offer it halfheartedly.
Mom doesn’t disappoint. The words rich, family, and not the same are employed rather effectively in a mix of others.
“I want you to know how proud I am of you,” Mom says slowly, so slowly that I almost believe her. “You take care of yourself. You aren’t mixed up in anything crazy. I don’t have to worry about you.”
Anymore, I add silently.
“But you’re in high school and you’re going to be a sophomore. You’re going to graduate sooner than you think. And I’m not saying that you need to figure your life out right here, right now, or even this summer, but, Sebastian… honey, you need to start at least thinking about it.”
I shrug. A shrug is, by definition, a noncommittal action, but I do my best to add further noncommitment to it. I don’t want to think about or start thinking about figuring out my life, for whatever it’s worth.
“You can’t drift your whole life. You can’t give up on your future because of what happened—”
And almost without realizing, I’m telling her to shut up.
And she won’t, so I’m telling her to seriously shut up, to shut her big fat stinking mouth, and she’s a blur through my tears and I can’t hear her voice through my own yelling—
—I don’t know when I started yelling—
—as I’m up from the table—
—running—
—bathroom—
—just in time—
—tears and snot and then leaning over the toilet, vomiting chicken and pesto and mozz and parm and the crust, all of it gone, a green-gray sludge floating there as I spit the last bits into the water, crouched down, clinging to the tank and the rim of the bowl as though I could fall in and drown.
I flush.
I rinse my mouth with lukewarm water cupped in my hands. I spit out grit that tastes of garlic and basil.
Wipe my eyes. My mouth. Blow my nose.
Mom loiters in the hallway, waiting for me as I emerge. A glut of emotions roils inside me. I’m ashamed of yelling at her, of running away, of throwing up. I’m furious at her for bringing up the past. I’m outraged. I’m exhausted.
On those rare occasions that I dredge up our shared history, she suddenly comes down with a migraine. Or a stomachache. Anything to avoid the topic.
“You can’t do this to me,” I tell her. “When I try to talk about it, you decide it’s not time. But then you go and spring it on me. It’s not fair.”
“This isn’t over,” she says quietly. “By the weekend, I want you to be able to sit down and tell me your plans for the summer.”
I tell her to fuck off.
I tell her I can’t think straight.
I tell her to go to hell.
I tell her I’ll do it.
I tell her I can’t do it.
I tell her it’s pointless.
I tell her none of those things. Because I can’t believe she’s still fixated on me having a “productive” summer. If I’d had an aneurysm instead, if I’d had a heart attack, if I’d collapsed twitching into an epileptic fit, then would she understand how desperately I do not intend to have this conversation? Or would she run alongside my stretcher as it’s borne into an ambulance, lecturing me on the importance of my future?
But that’s all pointless speculation. Because this summer will be my last. And that, most likely, is why I really reacted the way I did. Because it’s true and it’s coming and it’s happening, and she’s acting like this is just any other summer.
Not that she knows. Not that I can tell her.
“I’m going to ride my bike,” I tell her.
“Be back before ten,” she says. “It’s a school night,” she adds needlessly, as though I can’t tell on my own.
I say nothing. Outside, the sun is setting, the air still humid. Muggier than usual, the day’s heat releasing last night’s rain from the soil into the air.
I take off from the back of the house, cutting through the Marchettis’ backyard too fast for Mr. Marchetti to notice it’s me and yell from his window.