“Jesus,” I said, still reeling. “If I was you, I’d want a change of scene. Let’s go somewhere else. We can go together.”
“For what? To ‘find ourselves’? Like I said, Little John, I’ll be me wherever I go.”
We sat silently for a few minutes, watching the light from inside HP’s house. I could hear his mother clanking pots in the kitchen.
“I don’t need to go anywhere, either,” I said at last. “Here’s fine for now.”
He drew me into a hug and pulled his hood up, so I could see only strands of beachy hair poking out and the strong line of his chin.
In the spring of Grade 12—so, eight years ago—my class planned a late-June camping trip out at Elbow Lake for grad. Mom was weird about me going, which was dumb, given how she’d dragged me all over the country growing up. Apparently her new thing was for me to stay home more.
“And will there be adult supervision?” She twisted the pearl earring in the lobe of her ear. She’d been chopping carrots and had flecks of peel stuck to the sinews of her forearm. Behind us on the counter her food-preparation Les Misérables blared: she’d turned it up just before I came in, and we had to shout over it to be heard. “And have you finished your paper on Faust? You need to maintain your grade point average, darling. Beat everyone else and finish strong.”
“What?” I said, my head in the fridge. There was never anything good to eat: it was all baba ghanoush and tapenade. I pulled out a strawberry yogurt drink that HP must have left there.
“Honey, don’t say what, say pardon me. And drinking yogurt is manly. Get a spoon.” My mother’s hair draped forwards over her shoulder as she worked, and she batted it away with a heavily bangled wrist.
“It’s runny, Mom. The yogurt is runny!” I walked over and turned the CD volume down, then stood against the kitchen drawers, slurping from the container. My mother grimaced. “So can I go on the camping trip or what? Or pardon me?”
“Don’t be clever, Angela. Nobody likes a show-off.”
Dad wandered into the kitchen humming a Tchaikovsky bass line. It was rare to see him. When he wasn’t working at the library, he spent every hour in his study at home poring over ancient Greece. He knew everything about Orpheus and nothing about me. When he reached for a slice of carrot, Mom slapped his hand.
“Who else is going?” She grasped the knife and chopped. This was the key answer to get right.
“HP.” I waited.
Even the mention of his name swept light onto her face. Did women of all ages adore him? I rolled my eyes but she didn’t catch me. Mom had decided long ago that I’d marry HP. I could ask her a question about anything else four times and she wouldn’t hear me. Say HP’s name, though, and her head snapped around like a barn owl’s.
I’d been buddies with him for close to a year before I first introduced him to my mom. I wasn’t much of a talker back then, and if my parents ever asked how school was going, I gave them only monosyllables. But one day Mom intercepted HP and me on our walk home.
“Oh, hi!” she said, not looking at me. “Who’s your friend?”
HP readjusted the strap of his backpack and stood up straighter.
“I’m Shelley Petitjean”—Mom wheeled past me—“what a pleasure it is. Angela failed to mention she had such a handsome chaperone for the school commute.”
“This is HP, Mom. He lives a block up.”
“I bet he does.”
HP gave my mom a kind of hybrid handshake–high five across the gate. “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Petitjean.”
“Oh, call me Shelley, for goodness’ sake.” Her finger pointed at his chest, making him glance down as if he’d spilled food there. “You’re the quarterback on the football team.” She tapped her lip. “No, wait, you’re a junior hockey player. Beach volleyball?” She shook her head. “You’ve got me all turned around.”
“He swims,” I mumbled. “See you tomorrow, HP.”
“HP? What does that stand for?”
He shifted his baseball cap.
“It’s a secret,” I said.
“Is it? Will you tell me later?” Mom whispered to me.
“So.” HP cleared his throat. “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Petitjean. I’ll see you around, LJ.”
Mom looked at me quizzically, then looked back at HP. “Is there a prom soon? You should ask Angela to it.”
“Mom!” I started to walk into the house. “It’s, like, in a whole year’s time and besides, gross.”
Mom followed me in, waving good-bye as HP took off. “Angela, you need to plan ahead for your milestone moments.” She hurried after me, stepping over my bag as I dropped it in the hall. “I’m telling you—Angela, stop moving and listen to me—prom’s a major life event and that boy is your prom date. Milestone moments!”
Now at the kitchen counter, Mom paused in her carrot chopping. “Oh, darling, you didn’t tell me HP was going camping. That’s great. Now I know you’ll be safe. He’ll look after you.”
“Well, hold on a minute, Shelley.” Dad adjusted the waistband of his track pants over his dress shirt. He took his reading glasses off and held them up to the light, huffing hot breath onto each pane. “Is it an overnight thing?”
“Yes, Dad. It’s a camping trip, with tents and sleeping.”
“And we’re sure that HP will keep a good eye on you, are we?”
“Of course we are, David. He adores her. Doesn’t he, Angela?”
I shrugged.
“He adores her. You should see the way he looks at her.” Mom sighed and put her hand to her bony chest, the edge of the knife blade glinting near her chin. “Although frankly, honey, you could make more of an effort. Is that a boy’s sweater? And why do you insist on wearing your lovely dark bangs so they hang over your superior bone structure? If I were to take a photo of you right now and show it to you in ten years, you’d be horrified.”
“You can only go if you’ve done all your homework,” Dad said.
“I’ll have graduated by then!”
“And if you have everything in place with college plans. Did I tell you I heard back from Reggie McIntosh? He’s head of Classics at Oxford.” He abandoned his search for crackers and rubbed his hands together while I yawned. “You might be in with a chance for this fall if you keep your head down. Reggie’s working it so you take your freshman year over there—he owes me a favor, so he’s all but sneaking you in the back door.”
I drained the last of my yogurt.
“Oxford University, England—get excited, it doesn’t get any more Ivy League than that! You have such potential, my dear . . .” He trailed off.
If he was waiting for thanks he didn’t get it. I couldn’t care less about Ivy League schools. The only reason I went along with his push for academia was because it got me out of their crosshairs.
“We can talk about it properly another time . . . Angela? Look at me. Here’s what I have to say about this camping trip: If all your work is done . . .” He raised a pale index finger. “. . . and you keep your wits about you, it should be acceptable. But be careful: I know how teenage boys think. I was one of them, too, you know.”