2006
From the second I turned the little wooden sign on the front door from OPEN to CLOSED, all I wanted was to get the hell out of the diner – but that’s not how the restaurant business works. There’s still the last few tables to be bussed, the condiments and napkins to be refilled, the floors to be swept and mopped down. I don’t mind that, though. With Dad taking care of the kitchen, the main body of the restaurant is quiet without the customers. I hate that. It’s easy enough to paint on a smile and take orders, but when the doors close and I’m left alone… well, that’s when my thoughts take over.
Three weeks after he left, I’m still stuck thinking about Hale.
Not that I really have time for that, of course. I don’t really have time for much of anything. Between three AP classes and working at the diner, my final year at Westbridge High is shaping up to be absolutely packed – and that’s before I even get started on thinking about college applications. I don’t care where I go now. All I know for sure is that I want it to be as far away as possible.
Wouldn’t that just be a thing? There I am, wandering down the street a year from now in a city I picked pretty much at random, and suddenly there’s Hale in front of me, with his arms open wide and a broad smile on his face. The strangest coincidence – but these things happen, right? That’s the kind of thing that screenplays and novels and romantic songs are built on.
He hasn’t called, not once. Not even to let me know he’s alright. Why hasn’t he called?
You know full well why, Carrie, I tell myself. Because he doesn’t care. Maybe he never cared. Maybe he was just stringing me along the whole –
‘You almost done in there, Bug?’ Dad’s voice calls through from the kitchen.
I squeeze the mop down in its bucket. ‘Almost.’ Good enough, I think. Mom is away visiting family for the week, and so it’s just the two of us. He’s more likely to be forgiving of me not getting the last mark up off the linoleum than she would be, which is a good thing: what I’ve already done is just about all I’ve got the energy for tonight. If it comes down to it, I can catch the rest tomorrow. All I want to do is go up to my room and do nothing for a couple of hours. Maybe forever.
Dad walks out into the main body of the restaurant, hangs his apron up by the door and takes a seat at the counter. ‘You got a minute?’ he asks.
Well, so much for doing nothing. He gestures down for me to sit, and I get the feeling we’re going to be here for a while. Perfect.
‘What’s up?’ I say, trying to keep my voice cheery and light. It’s going to be one of his patented I’m worried about you conversations, I can feel it, and maybe a smile or two will help to convince him that I really am OK. It’s doubtful – the only person who ever even came as close to being able to see right through me as Dad can was Hale – but a girl can dream, right?
‘Haven’t seen your boy around here recently,’ he says: straight to the chase, that’s my dad. ‘Is there a reason for that?’
I shrug. ‘We broke up,’ I say.
‘Figured it might have been something like that,’ he says, nodding slowly like a cow chewing the cud. ‘How are you holding up?’
‘Fine.’
‘Oh yeah? Is that so?’
‘Yeah. I guess.’
‘Look,’ he says. ‘You don’t have to tell me what’s going on with you. I get it. It’s personal. You’re grown enough to be able to have your own business now, and I can respect that. Maybe you don’t want to tell your old man everything anymore –’
‘Dad…’
‘— and that’s OK too. But I figure it doesn’t hurt to ask. You haven’t been yourself these last couple of weeks, moping around here with a face like the bottom of a storm cloud. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t check up on you.’
‘I’m fine,’ I say, but of course my voice chooses right that moment to betray me: a crack like the Grand Canyon runs straight down the middle of it, and down me, too. A sniffle follows close on its heels, and then that’s that. Goodbye, dignity; hello, sobbing.
It takes a little while – I’m not sure he’s seen me crying in front of him since I was a little girl, and I’m not sure anyone would be able to deal with my scrunched-up face and snotty nose – but eventually I feel him reach across the counter and give my shoulder a little comforting squeeze. ‘Hey,’ Dad says. ‘Hey. It’s alright.’
When I look up, he’s holding out a stack of napkins with a concerned look on his face. ‘Sorry,’ I say as I blow my nose and try to make myself a little bit more presentable.
‘For what? You let it out, kiddo. That’s what tears are for. You want to talk about it?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, do you want some of the good stuff?’ he asks. ‘Maybe that’ll help you decide.’
I nod: if we’re going to have this conversation – and I’m still not sure we are – then we’re at least going to do it right. Dad reaches under the counter and pulls out a bottle of whiskey he keeps down there for emergencies, and places it down in front of me. ‘Now, what’s the golden rule?’ he says.
‘Don’t tell Mom.’
‘Atta girl. The less she knows about my bad habits, the better.’
With that, he pulls himself off the stool and heads into the kitchen; a minute or so later, he’s back with two bowls, two spoons, and a container of the finest vanilla bean ice cream that money can buy. He’s never been much of a drinker, but the ice cream is his one real vice; he keeps it in the freezer in the diner itself, rather than upstairs where Mom might find it and roll her eyes. If you ask him, nothing brings out the flavour quite like a splash (and just a splash, mind) of Kentucky bourbon. He ladles out two servings of ice cream like he’s running a going out of business sale, and then finishes them off with the tiniest addition of whiskey – less than a capful, drizzled over the top. The perfect amount to bring out the flavour but not enough to overpower it, served with an expert hand.
‘There,’ he says as he slides my bowl over to me. ‘Now we can talk.’
‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’
‘Whatever you want,’ he says. ‘Nothing, if that suits you better. I’m happy just to sit here and eat desserts with you. You want some pie to go along with it? We’ve got some leftover from the dinner rush. Cherry, or apple?’
I shake my head. ‘The ice cream is OK.’
‘The ice cream is exceptional,’ he says. ‘But fair enough. So what’s on your mind?’
The truth pours out of me like floodwater out of a storm drain – gurgling through, brown and dirty, dredging up all manner of long-forgotten things along with it and carrying on through as though it’s never going to stop. I tell him about how sad I’ve been for the past couple of weeks. I tell him about the stress of my classes, and of balancing work and school, and of how lonely I feel now. I skirt around the topic of Hale, but there’s only so much skirting I can do. In the end, I tell him all about everything: that night, when he came to visit me in the darkness. I tell him about how I snuck out to see him – sorry, Dad – and about the blood on Hale’s shirt. I tell him everything that Hale told me, about his dad and the fight and the long, hot walk at midnight to the diner. I tell him how I begged Hale to stay, and how he left anyway – how he left me, how I lost him.
Dad, predictably, says nothing for a long time. He just sits there, spoon in hand, listening intently, being sure he’s taking it all in.
‘So he left,’ he says eventually.
‘Yeah.’
‘And he asked you to go with him?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Did he pressure you into it?’ His brow is furrowed suddenly, stern and serious. There’s not just that question in his mind, but the partner that follows it unspoken: Did he pressure you into anything else?
I shake my head. ‘No. It wasn’t like that. He just asked me if I would, and I said no, and then he left. That’s all. Didn’t say where he was going, just that he was going away. I figured he’d be back, but…’
But he’s not. But I don’t think he ever will be, now.
Dad nods slowly, almost to himself; I can see the hot flush of his anger starting to dissipate. ‘That’s something,’ he says. ‘Not much, but it’s something. He shouldn’t have done that. He should have known better. I don’t know what the hell that boy was thinking, running off like that.’
I shrug. What else is there to say? I don’t know what he was thinking either, although God knows I’ve spent enough time wondering over the last three weeks – not that it got me anywhere. Hale was always a mystery to me, except when he decided not to be; the moment I thought I had him figured out, he disappeared completely. I didn’t even know him well enough to know that he was gone for good. For days after the fact I thought he’d turn up again out of the blue, with that same dumb hangdog look on his face that would tell me he knew he’d screwed up but that he was sorry – and then, somehow, he’d make up for all the worry he put me through. I didn’t know how he’d do it, exactly, but I knew he would. That was just what Hale did, for God’s sake. He was a survivor. When life pushed him down, he found a way to push right back.
‘So,’ Dad says, ‘were you thinking about it?’
‘What?’
‘You know what, Bug. Going with him. Sneaking off. Running away from home.’
‘Dad.’
‘It’s a fair question, kiddo. Were you?’
Sure, I’d thought about it – for too long, really. Mentally I had already had my bag pretty much packed and my bus ticket bought before I realised just how crazy it was. I’d be leaving my parents, the diner, my education… and for what? To be with Hale for a couple of days until he saw how crazy it was and came back?
I had tried to explain that to him at the time – I really had – but he didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to accept that I wasn’t giving up on him. He wouldn’t come inside. He wouldn’t stay the night. He wouldn’t accept me waking up my parents so they could help him, somehow. In the end, I offered him the forty or so dollars I had in my room just to make sure he was safe for the night; by the time I got back downstairs to give it to him, he had disappeared.
And that, as they say, was that.
But Dad is still staring me down, waiting for his answer.
‘What if I was?’ I ask. ‘Would you have let me go?’
He laughs. ‘Oh, honey,’ he said. ‘Are you kidding me? I would have torn this state apart looking for you if I had to – and when I found you, I would have kicked your boy’s ass into the bargain for being stupid enough to drag you along.’
‘What happened to letting me make my own mistakes?’
Dad shrugs, and takes another bite of his ice cream. ‘I said I was going to give you a little more slack,’ he says, ‘not let you off the chain entirely. I’m still your dad, kiddo. Sometimes that means stepping in if you seem to be going too far down the wrong path. That’s just what parenting is. That’s what I’m for. Does that sound about reasonable to you?’
That’s the thing about Dad: he has a gift for making just about anything seem reasonable.
‘I understand it, you know,’ he says. ‘Well, no. Maybe not all the way. But about halfway, perhaps. You and your boy, I mean. You know I was about that age when I first met your mom?’
I shake my head. Dad and Mom have always told me stories about what they were like as a young couple, right from me being a little girl, but they always featured them as being a little older – setting up in a little place of their own, buying the diner, struggling through until Bang! There I was.
‘Yep,’ he says. ‘Seventeen, maybe eighteen – and that was that. First time I laid eyes on her, I just wanted to run away with her, just the two of us. Felt like I was going to lose my damn mind half the time, and the other half it felt like I already had. I just knew that if I had her next to me, everything would be OK. You know what I mean?’
I nod. Boy, do I.
‘So what happened?’ I ask. ‘When you asked her on a date, I mean.’
‘Oh, she turned me down flat. She was nice about it, or as nice as you can be in a situation like that, but yeah… it was a straight-up no. Not that I blame her, of course. I wasn’t really much of what you’d call a catch in those days – I was a bit of a brawler, a bit of a bum – and your mom always did have a good head on her shoulders. She wouldn’t have had anything to do with someone like me back then.’
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. My parents almost… never got together? Because my dad was a troublemaker? After all the grief she gave me about Hale, I think, and I feel a rush of irritation; the hypocrisy of it stings. She was always against him. She always hated the idea of us being together. If she hadn’t held him so much at arm’s length, maybe he’d still be here. Somehow.
It’s wishful thinking, I know, but I’ve still got to put my anger somewhere.
‘What did you do?’
He smiles. It’s a look I recognise well: it’s the same look he always gets when he talks about my mother. ‘Well, I figured if that was what it would take to get her attention, I’d try and get myself on the straight and narrow. Hit the books, stayed off the streets, kept my nose clean. When I asked her again, a little while later, she said yes – and that was the sweetest word I ever heard come out of her lips until the day she agreed to marry me, I don’t mind telling you. After that, I knew I didn’t need anything else, as long as I had her. All I wanted to do was keep her as happy as she made me. I still do, even now. You see what I’m getting at?’
‘Not really.’
Dad pauses. ‘I guess what I’m saying is, I liked being on my own. I liked making trouble. I liked not having to answer to anyone except myself. But then, when I met your mom… all that changed. I found something that was more important to me, and thank God I did, too.’
‘Even though you had to change yourself completely just to get a date with her? Aren’t you the one who always tells me to just be myself?’
He lets out a soft little sigh, a patient sort of exasperation. ‘No, no… you’re misunderstanding me. I didn’t have to change. I chose to change, in my own good time. Your mom just gave me a reason to. She saw what I could be, even when I didn’t. There was no guarantee I wouldn’t just piss my life away, if I –’ He pauses again, catches himself. ‘Sorry. That I wouldn’t just waste my life, if I hadn’t met her. I could have done it, easy enough. I just realised there was something I wanted more than what I already had. After that, it was the easiest decision in the world. Wouldn’t change it for anything. Whatever I decided led me to here, you see? I’ve got you and your mom. I’m happy. I really am. But that’s the question you need to be asking yourself. Does your boy have something like that? Something that he wants more than he’s got right now? Something that he’d give up pretty much anything else for?’
‘I don’t know.’ Maybe. Sometimes I thought I saw it in him, when he talked about wanting to get out of Eden – when he played his guitar. Maybe he does have that reason, and it’s just not me. Maybe it was the music all along.
I think I could almost be OK with that. If it would help him. If it would make him happy, wherever he is. It’s comforting, in a weird way. I’ve spent the past three weeks wondering how I was ever going to be OK, never realising that I was always going to be OK. I had my family, I had my friend; a year out, I’d have a college place waiting for me and a new life wherever I chose. I’d be fine. Hale, though… well, who knows? Who ever could?
Dad shrugs, and lays his spoon down in his empty bowl. ‘Well, if you don’t know, you don’t know,’ he says. ‘Maybe he doesn’t even know it himself, yet. But until he figures it out, there’s not a lot you can do except keep on struggling through, day after day. You think you can handle that?’
‘I’ll do my best.’
I’m trying to keep it light, but Dad’s brow crinkles up again. ‘Promise me, Bug,’ he says. ‘There’s a big old world out there, just waiting for you to grab it with both hands and make it your own. You’re better than waiting around for some boy to get his act together. I know it’s sad now, but you won’t be sad forever. Eventually things will pick up again, and I don’t want you to still be mooning over what might have been when it does. That’s how you miss out on life. That’s how you end up looking back and wondering how you ended up wasting your shot. I want more for you than that.’
You and me both, I think.
I’m not quite sure how it happens, but a second later I’m on the other side of the counter with my arms wrapped around him in a hug like I haven’t given in a long time, my tears – happy tears, now, for the first time in what feels like forever – soaking into his shirt. If I was going for the whole leaky-eye look, I probably should have done it before he took off his apron, but whatever; he doesn’t seem to mind, anyway.
‘Hey, there,’ he says, patting my head gently with his big, beefy hands. He smells of fryer-fat and cheeseburgers and the bleach he uses to clean down the kitchen, but I don’t care. It’s just nice to be held again, to feel the same way I did when I was a little girl and everything made sense. ‘You feeling OK, kiddo?’
I nod silently into his barrel-chest.
‘How about we have a movie night tonight?’ he says. ‘Like old times. Just you and me and as many snacks as the Stop ‘n’ Shop will sell us. Sound good?’
‘Yeah,’ I say as I finally let him go. ‘That sounds great.’
And somehow, at least for one glorious calming moment, I feel as though I might just be alright.