ahead of me in school, thanks to his birthday being in the spring, he’s currently two years older.
“And in that piece-of-shit truck of his?” My father reddens with the very idea. “It’ll probably break down before you reach I-91.”
My mom smoothes her napkin out on the table so the embroidered violet lies flat. “If he gave you the ticket as a gift, then it’s your choice whether you go. There’s nothing that says you have to. He should have asked about the date first.”
“You should have asked about the date. The concert was already planned.” I can’t take it anymore. I push away from the table and lock myself in my room.
I went to the concert, too. I called Jared, snuck out the back of the house, and spent all day with him until we left, my cell phone off. I knew I’d pay for it later, and sure enough a massive grounding followed. In fact, that would turn out to be one of the pivotal events cited by my parents as a reason I should break up with Jared. The good, pre-Jared Claire would never have done anything so horrible.
The radio station jumps to commercial break, and I’m abruptly pulled from my memories.
“What do you think of these?” April holds her phone up to my face.
I shake my head. “I can’t look now. I’m driving.”
Driving? Hell, I’ve been zoning. It’s only April and the heavy traffic that dragged me off memory lane and back onto the Mass Pike.
I rub my eyes beneath my sunglasses. “What are you looking at anyway?”
April frowns into her phone. “Shoes to go with my dress for the Michelsons’ party.”
“We still have to go to that thing?”
I swear I can hear April rolling her eyes. “You really thought we could get out of it? Dad was talking about it the other night. Which you’d know if you hadn’t had your earbuds in.”
I haven’t the faintest idea what other night she’s referring to, nor the desire to ask. Absently, I scroll through my music. Janis and the radio station are long gone. I want something more current now. Something that promises the future instead of replaying the past.
April continues to shop, undaunted by the size of her phone screen. “I’m looking for you, too, since you don’t want to do it. Feel free to thank me anytime.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Gee, thanks. I know it’s a hardship for you.”
Just another way my sister takes after our mother—the shopping gene. More so than tennis or organizing fundraisers for the local art museum, my mother loved to shop. And I don’t just mean for clothes and shoes and all the usual things either, and certainly not just for herself. She was annoyingly generous that way, buying me new backpacks, earrings or whatever else she thought I needed to update more frequently in my life than I did.
In fact, the longer I was with Jared, the more she tried shopping for a new boyfriend for me, shuffling through the possibilities like boys were something you bought off the rack at Nordstrom.
Do you like the blue sweater or the green one? The brunette or the blond? Oh, honey, pick any boy but that Jared one. He’s too shabby for you and he clashes with your future.
Speaking of the Michelsons, the most blatant memory I have of her doing just that was the afternoon of their annual party two years ago. My mother’s hairdresser has come to the house to fix April and me with elaborate up-dos because that’s what you do before going to the Michelsons’ gala. I’m not even sure how my dad knows the Michelsons, but we’ve been going—and I’ve been suffering—through these parties once a summer for as long as I can remember. Think champagne, caviar, ice sculptures, boasting and evil gossip disguised by tuxedos and glittering jewelry. It’s a lot like how I imagine The Great Gatsby went down only without the cool flapper dresses.
“What about Sam Cohen?” my mom asks.
The hairdresser yanks too tightly on my head and I wince. “What about him?”
“He’s cute.” My mom so innocently tries on one of her wigs, scrunching her face up as if that will help her figure out which one goes best with her gown.
I stare wistfully at the bowl of blueberries several feet away. I can’t eat while Candy tortures my scalp, and I can’t fight with my mom right now although I know where this is heading. “No, he’s not.”
She clucks her tongue at me. “He thinks you’re cute. His mother told me so.”
“Of course, he thinks that. I’m adorable. But that doesn’t change his face.”
She knows where this is heading too, but that makes her smile. “The Hendricks’ boy then? What’s his name?”
I pretend I don’t know it.
Undaunted, she lists off every boy within my general age range who is known to attend the gala. “Really, Claire, one of them ought to be good enough for you. Todd is even a musician. I’m sure you’d get along well. I can talk to his mother and—”
“Todd has a girlfriend.” And, you know, I have a boyfriend. But duh—she knows. That’s why we’re having this conversation. She wants me to exchange my boyfriend for a new one.
My mom puts the second wig on the bureau and smoothes down her pixie-ish hair. “So what? Relationships shouldn’t be so serious at this point in your life. At your age, you should be going out on lots of dates with lots of different people. You should be exploring and living it up, not locking yourself down with one person. Shop around, sweetie. Keep trading up until you find the best match. Isn’t that right, Candy?”
Candy bites her lip, clearly not want to be dragged in to this conversation. “If you’re going to date around, high school is the time.”
Beautifully noncommittal. I silently applaud her.
In retaliation, she takes the curling iron to my hair, and I wince because I’m not a fan of having hot metal so close to my face. “I hate shopping, remember? I prefer the old and comfortable to the new and shiny. Anyway, it’s bad karma to replace what works great. Wasteful. Bad for the environment.”
“Oh, Claire.” My mother clucks her tongue at me. “I just don’t want you missing out on new opportunities or settling. Live a little. For me. Shop.”
Boys are not interchangeable objects, I want to say. And unlike a sweater that doesn’t care if I add a new one to my collection, Jared would not be pleased.
But my mom runs her hand over her super short hair again, and her guilt trip is achieved. Live a little for me. With the unspoken ending: because I don’t know how much longer I’ll live myself.
So I curl my hands into fists and say nothing. I love my mother, I tell myself. I just wish she could love that I also love Jared.
But she can’t, and it only gets worse that summer. That’s when April overhears me talking to Kristen, and the word condom or sex or something equally blab worthy is mentioned. She squeals about it to Mom and Dad, who panic.
Mom spends too much time crying because she’s worried about me making bad choices. She fears I’m going to ruin my life, and she won’t
