‘That was new,’ Mum said.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Who are we and what have we done with the other versions of ourselves?’
Mum, laughing gently, said, ‘We left them where they probably belong.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘I don’t know. Somewhere back there,’ she said with a gesture as if she was shooing something over her shoulder. ‘I don’t think we really need to know, do you?’
‘No, I don’t think we do. I think this here could be better.’
‘I think it could.’
‘You know,’ I said, ‘maybe I’ll give Jennifer a call now.’
‘Why wait?’ Mum said.
‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘why wait?’
Every day since then, Jennifer and me had connected in some form or another; sometimes just a phone call but going to The Stable grounds to walk around with an ice cream from the van had become a favourite on the days when the sun was out.
‘My parents could learn a thing or two from yours,’ Jennifer said after I’d mentioned a possible return to the bowling alley with the McCoys. Mum was ready to beat us all again,apparently. ‘I mean, could you picture my mum and dad in bowling shoes?’
‘I can’t, actually,’ I said, laughing.
‘I mean, it’s quite a change in your parents, isn’t it?’ she said.
‘Over the past year, definitely.’
‘And the fact that they’re trying.’
‘I’m guessing your parents wouldn’t … ?’
‘What? Try? To change?’ She laughed. ‘No.’
‘Do you plan on going back home at all?’
‘No,’ she said defiantly. ‘I don’t. I’m pretty content at Auntie Alice’s and I think they’re content with me being there too. Plus, Auntie Alice is closer to town, I can walk to tech from her house come September, unlesssomeonewants to pick me up in the morning in his new car so we can drive to tech together?’ she said with a nudge and a wink.
‘So it’s definitely the tech you’re planning on going to?’ I asked
‘Yeah, same as you.’
‘Well, I don’t know,’ I said and she slowed her pace. ‘Even if I get the grades, I don’t know.’
Jennifer stopped and stood in front of me.
‘Brendan, explain.’
Not that I had been dedicating time to planning my future but I just couldn’t picture myself in a matter of weeks at a new school, with new people, new everything. Something was telling me I needed more, I needed something different.
‘I just can’t see myself going there in September,’ I said.
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t have an answer. Maybe it’s one of those universe things.’
‘Don’t use the universe thing on me even though I use it on you all the time,’ she said. I laughed but she stopped me with her non-ice-cream-holding hand on my chest. ‘No, seriously,what will you do if you don’t go to tech? Where would you go instead?’
