“Pancakes, sweetheart?” my dad asks, full of annoying morning cheer. He looks all wrong in this kitchen. He’s never made pancakes. That was my mom’s job. Syrup and flour congeal on the pristine marble countertops. Does he feel at home here, comfortable enough to man the stove and serve up pancakes barefoot? I feel awkward when I use the microwave. I don’t want to leave crime-scene splatters on its insides, or any other evidence of my existence.
“Umm…” Will I be able to eat breakfast without throwing up? No choice. I’ve never once turned down a carb, and I don’t need my dad getting suspicious about my drinking. “Sure,” I say. What I don’t say: What’s going on? Are we staying? Are you suddenly really happy or is this an act? “You made breakfast? This may be a first.”
“Gloria’s day off.”
“Right.”
“Listen, we need to talk,” he says. My stomach drops out, and vomit pushes its way up. Clearly, this whole kitchen act is a sad departure gift. My dad and Rachel are breaking up, and we are leaving. They are unraveling that which never should have been raveled in the first place. That’s what this faux happy performance is about: a way to butter me up before the news. I put my head down on the cold counter. Screw it. Who cares if he knows I’ve been drinking? He’s guilty of much bigger transgressions. In fact, he’s lucky I’ve never had the energy to seriously rebel. I should win a Trouper of the Year award. Should have been given a little brave golden man statue or some sort of plaque to hang on my wall.
This breakfast must be a last hurrah before we have to hit the road. Makes sense that my dad would take advantage of his final chance to use a Viking range and fancy-ass pans and organic pressed coconut oil in a perfectly measured spray. I should run upstairs and wash my hands with that delicate, monogrammed soap that still has a price tag on it. Learn what a hundred dollars gets you in the soap world.
“Here, these will help settle your stomach.” My dad places a stack of perfect circles on a plate and puts them in front of me. They smell surprising, not like the thing itself but like a representation of the thing. The fragrant-candle version of a pancake. “Just tell me you didn’t drive last night.”
“Of course not. Dri did,” I say.
“Dri?”
“I have friends, Dad. Don’t be so surprised. Did you think that I wouldn’t talk to anyone ever again?” I don’t know why I’m being mean, but I can’t help it. For once, my words are one step ahead of my mind, not the other way around.
“No, I just…I’m happy for you, that’s all. I know it hasn’t been easy.”
I laugh—not a laugh, exactly, more like a nasty neigh. No, no it hasn’t. Nothing has been easy for a long, long time. Even last night, my first attempt at fun since we moved, ended with a sociopathic blonde calling me a skank.
“I guess I deserve that,” my dad says.
“So what now? Are we leaving?”
“What? No. Why would you say that?” he asks, and his surprise seems genuine. Did he not realize the entire city of Los Angeles heard his fight with Rachel? That the other night he basically admitted that this whole thing has been a huge mistake? Doesn’t he know that I’ve spent the entire week psychologically readying myself for another departure?
“Your fight with her.”
“It was just an argument, Jess. Not the end of the world.”
“But she said—”
“I sometimes forget that you’re just a teenager. But I remember that—how everything feels bigger or, I don’t know, somehow just more when you’re your age.”
“Don’t you of all people dare be condescending,” I say. There’s a sharpness to my tone, and of course, I’m a hypocrite, accusing him of talking down to me while acting like a stereotypical teenager. All snark and pouts.
But screw him.
Seriously.
Screw. Him.
My dad sighs, as if I am impossible, as if I’m the one who doesn’t make sense.
“She said ‘leave and don’t come back.’ I heard her.”
“Stop saying ‘she’ and ‘her.’ Rachel. Her name is Rachel. And people say stupid things when they’re angry.”
“And people do stupid things when they’re grieving, like get married and move across the country and not give a shit about their kid.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I’m yelling now. I don’t know when my control slipped. Because here it is. The anger delivered, whole and solid. Hot and unwieldy. Placental.
“Do you want to leave? Is that what you’re saying?” he asks.
I think of SN, of Dri and Agnes, of Ethan with his electric-blue guitar and his dismissive “hey.” No, I don’t want to leave, but I don’t want to feel like this either. Like an interloper in someone else’s home. If I do throw up today, which is more likely than not at this point, I don’t want to have to worry about soiling Rachel’s bathroom. I don’t want to feel in constant danger of eviction.
No, none of that is important. What do I really want? I want to punch my dad in the face—connect fist to nose, crush, crunch, make him bleed. Kick him hard and watch him bend over and squeal and scream the words “I’m sorry.”
This feeling is new. This anger. I’ve always found a way around the pain, have never burrowed straight through like this.