What Happens to Goodbye (30 page)

Read What Happens to Goodbye Online

Authors: Sarah Dessen

“Can I tell you something?” Dave whispered to me. “I
love
Deb. She’s a total freak. And I mean that in a good way.”
“I know,” I said. “Every day she kind of blows my mind.”
It was true. Deb might have been a spazzer freak, speed-metal drummer, tattoo expert, and constructor of orphanages. What she wasn’t was timid. When she took something over, she took it over.
“Think wheel,” she kept saying to me as I stood over the model, holding a house in one hand. “We start in the middle, at the hub, then work our way out from the center, around and around.”
“We were just kind of putting things in as we pulled them out of the boxes,” I told her.
“I know. I could tell the first moment I saw this thing.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “But don’t feel bad, okay? That’s a beginner’s mistake. If you kept it up, though, you’d end up climbing over things, houses piercing your knees, kicking fire hydrants off accidentally. It would be a serious mess. Trust me.”
I did, so I followed her direction. Gone were the pick-apiece, put-it-together, find-its-place days. Already, she’d developed her own system and fetched a red pen from her purse to adapt the directions accordingly, and by an hour in, she had us running like a machine. She gathered the pieces for each area of the pinwheel—she termed them “sectors”—which Dave then assembled, and I attached to their proper spot. Create, Assemble, Attach. Or, as Deb called it, CAA. I fully expected her to make up T-shirts or hats with this slogan by our next meeting.
“You have to admit,” I said to Dave when she was across the room on her cell phone, calling the toll-free-questions line at Model Community Ventures for the second time for clarification on one of the directions, “she’s good at this.”
“Good?” he replied, snapping a roof on a building. “More like destined. She makes us look like a bunch of fumbling idiots.”
“Speak for yourself,” I said. “She said my approach was promising, for a beginner.”
“Oh, don’t kid yourself.She’s just being nice.” He picked up another piece of plastic. “When you were in the bathroom, she told me your sectors are sadly lacking.”
“That is not true! My sectors are perfect.”
“You call that perfect? It’s total chessboard.”
I made a face, then poked him, and he poked me back. He was laughing as I walked back to the model, bending down to inspect my sector. Which looked just fine. I thought.
“. . . of course! No, thank you. I’m sure we’ll talk again. Okay! Bye!” Deb snapped her phone shut, then sighed. “I swear, Marion is
so
nice.”
“Marion? ”
“The woman at Model Community Ventures who answers the help line,” she said. “She’s just been a godsend.”
“You made friends,” I said, “with the help line lady?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say we’re
friends
,” she replied. “But she’s really been great. Usually, they just put those numbers on there but nobody answers. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent on hold, waiting for someone to tell me how to glue an eave properly.”
I just looked at her. From across the room, Dave snorted.
“Hey, is Gus up there?” someone called up the stairs.
I walked over to see Tracey on the landing below. “Nope. He’s in a meeting in the event room with Opal.”
“Still? God, what are they doing in there?”
I had a flash of the pad with all those numbers, how her name had been awfully close to the top. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Well, when he finally emerges,” she said, pulling a pen out from her hair and sticking it back in with her free hand, “tell him that councilwoman called
again
. I don’t know how much longer I can put her off. Clearly, she’s undersexed and highly motivated.”
“What?”
“She’s hot for your dad,” she said, speaking slowly for my benefit. “And he is not getting the message. Literally. So tell him, would you?”
I nodded and she turned, walking back to the dining room, the downstairs door banging shut behind her. It wasn’t like I should have been surprised. This was the pattern. We landed somewhere, got settled, and eventually he’d start dating someone. But usually, it was not until he knew he had an end date that he’d take that plunge. Sort of like someone else I knew.
“Mclean?” I heard Deb call out from behind me. “Can I have a quick discussion with you about your approach in this area here by the planetarium?”
I turned around. Dave, who was carrying a structure past, said cheerfully, “And
you
said your sectors were perfect.”
I smiled at this, but as I walked over to take her critique, I was distracted. I didn’t even know why. It was just a phone call, some messages. Nothing that hadn’t happened before. And it wasn’t like he’d called her back. Yet.
At five o’clock, with three sectors done that had passed Deb’s rigorous inspection, we decided to knock off for the night. When we came downstairs, the restaurant had just opened. It was warm and lit up, and my dad and Opal were sitting at the bar, a bottle of red wine open between them. Opal’s face was flushed, and she was smiling, happier than I’d ever seen her.
“Mclean!” she said when she spotted me. “I didn’t even know you were here!”
“We were working on the model,” I told her.
“Really?” She shook her head. “And on your snow day, to boot. That’s some serious dedication.”
“We got three sectors done,” Dave told her.
She look confused. “Three what?”
“Sectors.” Nope, still lost. I didn’t even know how to explain, so I just said, “It looks really good. Serious progress.”
“That’s great.” She smiled again. “You guys are the best.”
“It’s mostly Deb,” I said. Beside me, Deb blushed, clearly pleased. “Turns out she has a lot of model experience.”
“Thank God somebody does,” Opal replied. “Maybe now Lindsay will relax about this whole thing. Do you know she keeps calling here? It’s like she’s suddenly obsessed with this project.”
I glanced at my Dad, who picked up his wineglass, taking a sip as he looked out the window. “Well,” I said, “she should be happy next time she stops by.”
“That,” Opal said, pointing at me, “is what I love to hear. She’s happy. I’m happy.
Everybody’s
happy.”
“Oh my goodness,” Deb said, her eyes widening as Tracey came toward us with a heaping plate of fried pickles, placing it right in front of Opal. “Are those—”
“Fried pickles,” Opal told her. “The best in town. Try one.”
“Really?”
“Of course! You too, Dave. It’s the least we can do for all your hard work.” She pushed the plate down, and they both went over to help themselves.
“Wow,” Dave said. “These are amazing.”
“Aren’t they?” Opal replied. “They’re our signature appetizer.”
Wow, indeed,
I thought, looking at her as she helped herself to a pickle, popping it into her mouth. My dad was still looking out the window. “So the meeting went well?” I asked.
“Better than well,” Opal said. She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Nobody’s getting fired. I mean, we presented our arguments, and he just . . . he got it. He understood. It was
amazing
.”
“That’s great.”
“Oh, I feel so relieved!” She sighed, shaking her head. “It’s like the best I could hope for. I might actually sleep tonight. And it’s all because of your dad.”
She turned, squeezing his arm, and he finally turned his attention to us. “I didn’t do anything,” he said.
“Oh, he’s just being modest,” Opal told me. “He totally went to bat for our staff. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he actually didn’t want anyone to get fired either.”
I looked at my dad. This time, he gave me a shrug. “It’s over,” he said. “That’s all that matters.”
“Is that Mclean I see?” I heard a voice boom from the back of the restaurant. I turned, and there was Chuckles, huge and hulking and striding right toward us. As usual, he had on an expensive suit, shiny shoes, and his two NBA championship rings, one on each hand. Chuckles was not a believer in casual wear.
“Hi, Charles,” I said as he gathered me in a big hug, squeezing tight. He towered over me: I was about level with his abs. “How are you?”
“I’ll be better once we tuck into that buffalo,” he said. Dave and Deb, standing at the bar, watched him, both wide-eyed, as he reached over with his impressive arm span to pluck a pickle from the plate in front of them.
“Chuckles just invested in a bison ranch,” my dad explained to me. “He brought ten pounds of steaks with him.”
“Which your dad is going to cook up as only he can,” Chuckles said, gesturing to Tracey, who was behind the bar, for a wineglass. “You’re joining us, right?”
“Sure,” I said. “But I need to go home first and change. I’ve got model dust all over me.”
“Do it,” Chuckles said, easing his huge frame onto a bar stool next to Opal as Tracey reached over with the wine bottle, filling his glass. “I’m just going to hang here with these gorgeous women until my food’s ready.”
My dad rolled his eyes, just as Jason stuck his head out of the kitchen. “Gus,” he called. “Phone call.”
“I’ll see you in a half hour or so?” he said to me as he got up. I nodded, and he walked back to Jason, taking the phone from him. I watched him say hello, and a grimace come across his face. Then he turned, and walked back toward his office, the door swinging shut behind him.
“I should go, too,” Deb said, zipping up her jacket. “I want to get home and whiteboard my ideas for the model while they’re still fresh.”
“Whiteboard?” Opal said.
“I have one in my room,” she explained. “I like to be ready when inspiration strikes.”
Opal looked at me, and I shrugged. Knowing Deb like I did, this made total sense to me. She slid on her earmuffs, then pulled her quilted purse over her shoulder. “I’ll see you guys.”
“Drive safe,” I told her, and she nodded, ducking her head as she stepped out into the snow and walked away. Even her footprints were neat and tidy.
“These pickles are really good,” Chuckles said to Opal as I gathered up my own stuff from the bar. “But what happened to those rolls you used to give out here?”
“The rolls?”
He nodded.
“Actually, we, um, decided to do away with them.”
“Huh,” Chuckles said. “That’s too bad. They were really something,from what I remember.”
“Have another pickle,” she said, pushing the plate closer to him. “Believe me. Pretty soon those rolls will be a distant memory.”
I glanced at her as she lifted her wineglass again to her mouth, and she smiled at me. My dad had been right. Thirty days, give or take, and she’d come around.
Dave and I said our goodbyes, then walked down the corridor to the back entrance. We were just passing the kitchen door when we saw Jason, rummaging around on a shelf for some pans. “Be careful out there,” he said. “It’s still really coming down.”
“Will do,” I said.
“Hey,” Dave said to him, as he stood up, the pan in hand. “Did I see your name on the Brain Camp Listserv the other day?”
“I don’t know,” Jason said. “If it’s there, it’s not my doing. I haven’t been in touch with them in ages.”
“You went to Brain Camp, too?” I said.
“He didn’t just go there,” Dave told me. “He’s, like, a Brain Camp legend. They pretty much genuflect to his IQ scores.”
“Not true,” Jason said.
“Order up!” I heard Tracey call. “Salad for the big boss, so make it good!”
“Duty calls,” Jason said, then smiled, walking back toward the prep table. Dave watched him go as I pushed open the back door, a bit of snow blowing in.
“So Jason was a big geek deal, huh?” I asked as I pulled on my gloves.
“More like a rock star,” he replied. “He went to Kiffney-Brown and took U classes, just like me and Gervais, but he was a couple of years ahead. He went off to Harvard when I was a sophomore.”

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