“Just add a little life to it,” he replied. I looked up at him, biting my lip. “Don’t worry, she approved it. Most of it anyway.”
I smiled. “I can’t believe the model’s actually almost finished. It feels like we just put down that first house, like, yesterday.”
“Time flies.” He looked at me. “So when do you leave?”
“I start moving stuff next weekend.”
“That soon?” I nodded. “Wow. You don’t mess around.”
“I just feel like if I have to go to another school ...” I sighed. “I might as well do it now.”
He nodded, not saying anything. Another car drove by.
“But I have to say,” I continued, “that it stinks that when it came down to it, there were only two choices. Go forward, to Hawaii, and start all over again, or backward, back to my old life, which doesn’t even really exist anymore.”
“You need a third option,” he said.
“Yeah. I guess I do.”
He nodded, absorbing this. “Well,” he said, “for what it’s worth, it’s been my experience that they don’t appear at first. You kind of have to look a little more closely.”
“And when does that happen?”
He shrugged. “When you’re ready to see them, I guess.”
I had a flash of those Rubbermaid bins, lined up in my mom’s garage at the beach behind Super Shitty. “That is frustratingly vague,” I told him.
“You’re welcome.”
I smiled then, and he smiled back. “You should go,” I said. “Before Deb decides to make an evening visit because she can’t sleep due to obsessing over the model.”
“You joke,” he said. “But it could happen. I’ll see you, Mclean.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “See you.”
He started to turn away, toward the road again. But just as he did, I moved forward, closing the space between us, and kissed him on the cheek. I could tell I surprised him, but he didn’t pull away. When I stepped back, I said, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being here,” I said.
He nodded, then walked past me, using his free hand to squeeze my shoulder as he passed. I turned, watching him as he crossed the street and headed up the alley to the bright lights of Luna Blu. Then I turned back to my own house, took a breath, and went up to the door.
I was just reaching for the knob when two things became clear: my dad was definitely home, and he wasn’t alone. I could hear his voice, muffled, from inside, then a higher voice responding. But the lights that were on were dim, and as I stood there, I noticed that their conversation began to have short lags in it, little silences that became gradually longer and longer, peppered with only a few words or laughter in between.
Oh, God,I thought, slumping against the door and losing all momentum as I pictured him lip-locked with Lindsay and her big white teeth.Ugh.
I stood up straighter, then knocked on the door, hard, before pushing it open. What I saw before me literally stopped me in my tracks: my dad and Opal on the couch, his arm around her shoulders, her feet draped across his lap. They were both flushed pink, and the top button of her shirt was undone.
“Oh my God,” I said, my voice sounding incredibly loud in the small room.
Opal jumped up, reaching to do her button as she stumbled backward, bumping the wall behind her. On the couch, my dad cleared his throat and adjusted a throw pillow, like decorating was the most important thing at that moment. “Mclean,” he said. “When did you get back?”
“I thought ... I thought you were dating the councilwoman,” I said to him. Then I looked at Opal, who was tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, crazy flustered. “I thought you hated him.”
“Well,” my dad said.
“Hate is anawfullystrong word,” Opal replied.
