My dad stood by the edge of the pool, watching me with a satisfied look on his face. “There you go,” he said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
I didn’t answer; instead, I fought my way to the shallow end, where my mom had rushed. “Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked, putting a hand on my back as I stumbled up the steps to the patio. I had to throw out a hand and grab on to the railing so I wouldn’t fall. All of the other people at the party had stopped their conversations and were staring at the pool. At my dad and me.
“I’m fine!” I jerked away from her touch, keeping my head down as I grabbed the towel she held and wrapped it around my body. Despite the heat, I shuddered, and rivulets of water raced down my legs. My flip-flops had come off in the water, but I didn’t even care. I just wanted to leave.
“C’mon, Ty,” my dad said from the other side of the pool. “Don’t be a spoilsport!”
“Please, Jason!” my mom snapped. “Enough!”
“I’ll decide what’s enough, Liz,” he replied, leaning hard on her name. His brows furrowed as he made his way over to join us.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Amber look at her mom, like what should we do? But Helen simply pressed her lips together and gave a small shake of her head. I couldn’t believe my parents were fighting in front of everyone, that this was the first impression they wanted to make. So much for our family getting a new start.
“We were just horsing around,” Dad said, in a much more controlled, lighthearted voice, glancing around at the other people at the party, as though only now realizing he was being watched. “That’s what fathers and sons do. Right, Ty?” He gave a hearty, friendly-sounding laugh, one so convincing that if people didn’t know him, they would think it was genuine.
I stood still and didn’t answer, refusing to look at him.
Just then, there was a commotion of activity as the gate opened and more people arrived. With the distraction of the new company, the strain in the air dissipated. While the younger kids began to play in the pool again, the adults grabbed drinks and food, sitting in the shade or lounging in the sun, chatting with each other and keeping an eye on their children. Someone turned on some music, and a stocky man with black hair and a friendly smile greeted my father. If I had to guess by the way he clapped my dad on the back and maneuvered him away from me and over to the food table, I would have said that this was Helen’s husband, Tom, trying to assure that the situation remained diffused. My mom sat down with Helen again at a table by themselves, and they put their heads close together again, talking. In between sips of wine, my mother kept biting her bottom lip and shaking her head, looking like she was trying not to cry.
Seeing this, I left the patio and strode across the lawn, knowing that witnessing her tears might bring on my own, which was the absolute last thing I needed—I’d had enough humiliation for one day. I sat alone near the back fence, staring at the thick grass, kicking at one spot with my big toe until a small chunk of the lawn lifted. I thought about leaving. About running away from this stupid small college town and going back to Seattle, even if there was nothing for me there. For the most part, I kept to myself. I didn’t really have any friends, certainly not the kind that would invite me to live with them. I was too quiet, too hesitant to engage in the sort of rough-and-tumble activities other boys my age seemed to love. My grandparents on my father’s side lived in Southern California, where he’d grown up, and after some sort of squabble they’d had with my dad years ago, we didn’t talk with them. My mom’s parents had had her later in life, when they were in their early forties, and now they lived in an assisted-living community in Bellevue that didn’t allow residents under the age of fifty-five, so I couldn’t stay there. I had nowhere to go, no one in my life to save me. As I looked up at the cloudless blue sky, a shadow fell over me, and Amber dropped my flip-flops on the ground next to my feet.
“Thought you might want those,” she said, plunking into the empty chair next to me.
“Thanks.” I was too embarrassed to look at her, so I pulled the towel from my shoulders and wadded it up into a ball in my lap. It was hot enough that my hair and T-shirt were already almost dry.
“It must suck to move somewhere new, huh?” Amber said. “I’ve lived here all my life. Same house, same people, same everything. Talk about boring.” She pretended to snore, and I couldn’t help but laugh—a short, dry sound that emanated from my chest.
“It does suck. I don’t know anyone.”
“Well . . . you know me,” she said, with a lilt in her voice. “And I’m pretty great. Just ask me.” She grinned, revealing straight white teeth and a single dimple in her full, round cheek.
I laughed again, this time from my belly, and the tension in my body slowly began to melt away. I fiddled with the thick hem on my towel, then gave her a grim look. “Sorry about my dad.”
“What are you sorry for?”
I shrugged.
She waited a moment before speaking again. “Why’d he do it?”
The words “Because he’s an asshole” almost came out of my mouth, but instead, I said what my mother always told me when he acted like a jerk. “He just wants me to be more like him.”
“Oh.” Amber cleared her throat, and then looked at me. “Are you?”
“Am I what?”
“Like him.”
I glanced over at my dad, who by this time had left Tom’s company to sit near the pool and a woman in a bathing suit that showed off her big boobs. She laughed at something my dad said, and in response, he briefly brushed the backs of his dangling fingers against her bare leg. “No,” I told Amber. My voice was flat. “I’m not.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
“Yeah,” I said, wondering how it was possible that after barely a ten-minute conversation, this girl might already understand me.
“C’mon,” she said. “You wanted to eat, right? So let’s eat. I can tell you what’s good.”
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.” I gave her another shy smile then, grateful for the way she made me feel. It didn’t matter that she was two years younger than me or that we were going to different schools. In that moment, one thing felt clear. Amber and I were going to be friends.
? ? ?
“What about that one?” Amber asked me as we stomped our way through the plot of forest that the tree farm opened to the public during the holidays. Her parents and my mother had gone off in a different direction to pick out the Bryants’ tree, while Amber and I were put in charge of finding a smaller one for my mom’s house.