Chapter 15: Jess

“God, this is so boring,” Emma groaned.

“Your dinner?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah, my dinner.”

“You’re telling me the dinner is boring?” Sophie asked, her eyes wide. “Who even says something like that?”

Sophie looked at me in disbelief, and I had to duck my head and put my hand over my mouth to keep from laughing out loud. I knew enough about ten-year-old girls to know that Emma wouldn't appreciate being laughed at. Still, it was a struggle I thought myself likely to lose for a couple of minutes.

It wasn't just Emma’s pronouncement that her bowl of spaghetti was too boring to eat, although that would have been enough. As she spoke, my daughter sat across from me, her chin resting in the palms of her hands forlornly. Her face was a perfect picture of childhood discontent, something all kids experienced as the end of summer approached. I knew this from my own childhood, but it would have been pointless to explain it to Emma. Children rarely enjoyed being told that what they were going through wasn't unique.

“Emma,” I said softly, once I was sure that I wasn’t going to lose myself to a fit of the giggles. “You know that isn’t very polite, right?”

"No," she said sulkily, her chin sinking even further down. "I don't. What's not polite about the truth?"

“Your aunt Sophie was nice enough to cook for you, so you shouldn’t complain. You know that dinner didn’t just appear out of nowhere, right? We aren’t living in a Disney movie.”

“I wish we were,” Emma said grouchily. “I bet things wouldn’t be so boring if we were.”

“Sure,” Sophie said brightly, digging into her own bowl of pasta happily. “Unless you’re in one of those Disney stories where you get yourself locked in a tower or put under a sleeping curse or something. I bet you’d be pretty freaking bored if either of those things happened.”

“Ugh, you know what I mean, Aunt Sophie. I can’t take it anymore! There’s like, nothing fun left to do in life!”

“Sweetie, what are you talking about?” I asked as gently as possible, trying not to piss her off and make her fly off the handle. “It’s only the first of July. How can there be nothing fun left? Especially in your whole life? There’s a lot of life left to live, Emma. It’s pretty early to give up on it all.”

"I'm not giving up,” she said. “I'm just bored!"

“So, then you’re ready to get back to school then, I suppose?”

“Yup!” she crowed happily. Sophie and I both dissolved into laughter after all. “I kind of am. I’ll get to see all of my friends, at least. And I sort of like school. There’s always something new to do, at least.”

"Seriously?" Sophie asked, her face registering genuine shock. "I don't see how that's possible. When your mom and I were young, we always wanted the summer to go on forever. Or at least, as close to forever as we could get. It's like we're not even the same species."

“You’re so silly.” Emma giggled, distracted enough to begin eating her dinner, despite it being the self-professed most boring food in the world. “And I bet part of why you weren’t bored was because you had boyfriends.”

“What?!” Sophie and I asked quickly and at the exact same time. “What does that even mean?”

“Boyfriends. You guys probably had boyfriends to hang out with you during the summer. That must make everything way more fun.”

"What on earth makes you think that?" I asked. My heart was thumping in my chest, and whether or not it was rational, I could feel the metallic taste of panic beginning to flood my mouth.

"If you have a boyfriend, you have somebody to always want to hang out with you,” Emma said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Plus, they like, do whatever you say and stuff. When they don't, you get to talk to your girlfriends about it. It makes it so there's always something to do. And even when you aren't actually doing anything, it makes it so that you have something to think about all the time. If I had a boyfriend, I bet this summer would be way, way better."

“Baby,” I reached across the table and took one of her little hands in my own. “I’m not sure it really works that way. In my experience, and I’m sure your Aunt Sophie’s as well, that’s not the way it goes.”

“Sure, it is,” Emma said. “That’s what it always looks like.”

“Looks like to who?” I asked. “Where?”

“In the movies and stuff. And with my friends.”

“You have friends who already have boyfriends?” Sophie asked, glancing over at me.

"Yup,” Emma said. “They don't like, do anything. Just maybe hold hands and stuff, and a whole lot of texts."

“That stuff can all be really great, but try to enjoy your life how it is now, too,” I said. “Sometimes, having a boyfriend can be really hard. It’s fun, but it can be hard also. There’s nothing wrong with being happy with how things are right now.”

“Is that why you don’t have a boyfriend, Mama? You think it’ll be too much work?”

Crap. Crap. I don't know why I hadn't seen the conversation going in this direction. Emma's question totally threw me off. To make matters worse, I could see that Sophie could tell that something was up with me. She didn't say anything, not yet, but that didn't mean much of anything.

Sophie was the most headstrong person I had ever known, and if there was something she wanted to know, she was going to know it. As I saw it, I now had two different options. I could keep quiet and wait for Sophie to pounce, grilling me into submission so that I spilled my guts everywhere. As options went, this didn't seem like a great one.

The second choice was that I just go ahead and tell Emma and Sophie about Drew. It was something I should have already done, seeing as the Fourth of July picnic was now only three days away. The longer I tried to put it off, the worse it was going to get, and I knew it. I took a deep breath, shut my eyes briefly, and then looked at Emma with what I hoped passed as a reasonable level of confidence.

“Actually, Emma, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”

“Have you now?” Sophie asked with shock so fake it was sickening, “What a complete and utter surprise!”

“Yes, actually, I have. I’ve been meaning to talk to both of you.”

“About what, Mama? You’re acting funny. And your face is all red.”

"It's about the picnic. I want to bring somebody with me. I really hope that's okay with both of you, because I've actually already invited him. His name is Drew, and he's a pilot. We've flown together, which is how we met, but only once. Only once we've flown together, I mean. We've met more than once. Obviously, or else I wouldn't be inviting him, right? Anyway. I invited him. I hope you guys are cool with it, because I would rather not rescind the invitation."

Silence. Total and complete silence. Somewhere during the course of my speech, I had dropped my eyes down to my hands. Now that I was done talking, the idea of looking up at either one of them was borderline terrifying. I was so afraid that one or both of them would tell me they weren't okay with it at all. As much as I liked Drew, all it would take was one of these two telling me they didn't want him there, and I would call the whole thing off. I would have given him up completely, if that was what they had wanted.

“Oh my God!” Emma said. “Are you kidding? No way! No freaking way!”

Emma broke the silence by jumping up from her chair and dancing around like a maniac. Her words gave way to excited little hollers, and after a second, Sophie got up and joined her. The two of them gripped hands and turned in joyful little circles, before collapsing back into their chairs, panting.

“Do you know what this means, big sister?” Sophie asked.

“No,” I answered cautiously, not liking the mischievous gleam in Sophie’s eyes. “I don’t think I do.”

"It means that now, I'll finally get some payback for all the times you grilled and embarrassed me in front of my dates! I never got to do that to you, but I totally will now. Oh man, Emma and I are going to have so much fun, thinking up all of the embarrassing things we're going to tell this dude. Forget a picnic for the Fourth. It's going to be like you're attending your own roast."

I sat silently, listening to Emma and Sophie exchange ideas for how they could best humiliate me in front of Drew. I did my best to stay calm, or at least to be something that resembled calm, but inside, I felt very close to outright panic. Ever since inviting Drew, I had been worrying about whether or not Emma and Sophie would even allow me to bring him. Now, there was a whole other set of possibilities I hadn’t even thought to worry about.

“Guys, come on,” I said. “Please stop it, okay? Please. I think I’m going to have a heart attack.”

“Aw, what’s the matter, big sis? Think we’re going to embarrass you?”

I frowned. “I don’t know, maybe. Sort of sounds like it.”

“Look, Jess, all joking aside, you can’t think like that. If you really like this guy and you think you can see it going somewhere, he’s going to have to get to know your family. He’s going to have to get to know us for who we really, truly are. What’s his name?”

“Drew. His name is Drew Larson.”

“Sure, whatever. My point is, that if Drew is put off by your family, he might not be the right guy for you. That’s probably something you’ll want to get to know, sooner rather than later. Or at least, that’s what I would want.”

“You’re right. Really, you are, but please don’t go out your way to make it harder. Deal?”

Sophie shrugged. “Maybe. We shall see, shan’t we?”

Sophie let loose a cackle of delight, and then she and Emma were on their feet again, dancing and whooping and hollering like this was the best thing ever. One thing was for sure, and that was that Emma wasn't bored anymore. That was great, except that now, I was terrified of the implications of what I had done. Bringing Drew to this picnic was more than a little get together. It was a crossroads, and I had no idea how it would wind up.