What Happens to Goodbye (33 page)

Read What Happens to Goodbye Online

Authors: Sarah Dessen

“Welcome to Frazier Bakery!” the guy behind the counter yelled. He sounded more awake: I wondered if he’d had a few shots of coffee himself.
“Good morning!” a woman’s voice, cheerful, called back. I glanced over, and there was Lindsay Baker, wearing yoga pants and a fleece jacket, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. When she saw me, she smiled and came right over. “Mclean! Hello! I didn’t know you liked this place!”
“I don’t,” I said. She looked taken aback, so I added, “I mean, I’ve only been here a couple of times. Just found it the other day.”
“Oh, I love the Frazier Bakery,” she said, plopping down in the chair beside mine and crossing one leg over the other. “I come in every morning. I could not get through the seven thirty Spin Extreme without my skim caramel espresso.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right.”
“I mean, how can you not love this place?” she asked, sitting back. “It’s so cozy, and it just feels good when you walk in, with the fireplace and the little sayings on the walls. And the best thing is when I travel, there’s always one on some corner. So it’s like having a bit of home with me no matter where I go.”
I looked around the room again, thinking of my dad. If there was one thing he hated in a restaurant, it was fakeness. He always said that eating food as an experience should be real, unique and messy, and to pretend otherwise was cheating yourself. “Well,” I said. “That is convenient, I guess.”
“And the food is great, too,” she said, pulling off her gloves. “I eat just about every meal here, to be honest. It’s halfway between my condo and my office. See what I mean? Perfect!”
I nodded. “I’ll have to try that skim caramel thing.”
“Do it. You won’t regret it.” She glanced at her watch. “Oops, gotta go. If I’m late I might not get a bike and that is
not
a good thing. Hey, it was great bumping into you! Your dad says you’re really liking it here.”
“He said that?”
“Oh, yeah. I think he likes it, too, especially lately. Just a hunch.” She smiled, flashing those white teeth. I raised my eyebrows, but she was already turning around, flipping me a popular-rl wave over one shoulder. “See you soon, Mclean!”
Oh, God,
I thought as I watched her stride up to the counter, although I had to admit I felt a little relieved. My dad could never really be with a woman who loved this place, even in the short term. We cut and runners might be sketchy, but we had our standards.
I waited until she’d gotten her drink and left, the bell sounding cheerily behind her, before I pulled out my phone and glanced at the clock. It was 7:00 a.m. sharp as I dialed, then listened to one, two, then three rings. Finally, she picked up.
“Mom? ”
“Mclean? Is that you?”
I cleared my throat, looking into that fire in front of me. The logs were perfectly shaped, the fake flames flickering. Pretty yes, but no real warmth there. Just an illusion, but you didn’t realize that until you were up close and still felt cold.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s me. We need to talk.”
“Hey! Think fast!”
I just looked at Dave as he chucked the basketball at me with possibly the worst overhand throw I’d ever seen. It landed far to my right, then bounced past me, banging against my dad’s truck.
“Do you have a vision problem or something? ” I asked him.
“Just keeping you on your toes,” he replied, cheerful as ever as he ran over, picking it up again. He bounced it, then said, “Up for a game?”
I shook my head. “Too early for me.”
“It’s eight thirty, Mclean. Get with the program.”
“I’ve been up since five.”
“Really?” He bounced the ball again. “Doing what?”
“Compromising.” I yawned, then turned toward my house. “I’ll explain later.”
I started up the steps, rummaging in my pocket for my keys. Inside, all the lights were still off, my dad sleeping in for once.
“Want to know what I think?” Dave called out from behind me.
“No.”
“I think,” he continued, ignoring this, “that you’re scared.”
I just looked at him. “Scared.”
“Of my game,” he explained. “My skills. My—”
I walked closer to him, then reached out, easily knocking the ball from his hands. It hit the driveway, then rolled onto the grass.
“Well, see, I wasn’t in defensive mode just then.” He reached around me, picking up the ball and giving it an authoritative bounce. “Now I am. Bring it on.”
“I told you,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “I’m not interested.”
He sighed. “Mclean, come on. You live in a basketball town. Your dad played for DB, your mom is married to the current DB coach, and I happen to have personal experieve been with your overhand shot.”
“Yes, but basketball doesn’t have the best associations for me right now,” I pointed out.
“You can’t blame the game for any of that,” he said, bouncing the ball again. “Basketball is a good thing. Basketball only wants you to be happy.”
I just looked at him as he dribbled sloppily around me toward the basket. “Now,” I said, “you sound like a crazy person.”
“Think fast!” he said, whirling around and throwing the ball at me. I caught it easily, and he looked surprised. “Okay, fine. Now shoot it.”
“Dave.”
“Mclean. Humor me. Just one shot.”
“You’ve seen me shoot,” I pointed out.
“Yes, but the blunt force knocked my memory out. I need a replay.”
I sighed, then bounced the ball once, squaring my shoulders. Other than that random Boomerang a few weeks ago, I hadn’t had my hands on a basketball in years. But that morning had been all about doing things I had never planned to do again, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.
At first, on the phone, my mom was wary. She knew I’d heard about her lawyer’s call, and thought I was calling to tell her exactly what I thought of her latest move. It was tempting to do just that. But instead, I took a breath and did what I had to do instead.
“Are you still thinking you’ll be going to the beach a lot this spring?” I asked.
“The beach?”
“Yes.” I looked into the fireplace again. “You did say once the house and the season was done you’d be going there a lot. Right?”
“I did,” she said slowly. “Why?”
“I’ll come for my spring break, next month,” I replied. “If you call off your lawyer, I’ll come that full week and four other weekends as well.”
“I didn’t want to have to get the courts involved,” she said quickly. “But—”
“And I don’t want to spend the rest of high school worrying about court dates,” I replied. She got quiet, fast. “So this is what I’m offering. Spring break plus four weekends before graduation, but my choice of when they happen. Do we have a deal?”
Silence. This was not the way she wanted it, I knew. Too bad. She could have my company and my time, my certain number of weekends and my senior spring break. But she could not have my heart.
“I’ll call Jeffrey and tell him we’ve worked something out,” she said. “If you’ll send me those break dates and the other ones you have in mind.”
“I’ll do it today,” I replied. “And we’ll just follow up as it gets closer. All right?”
A pause. It was like a business deal, cold and methodical. So far from those spur-of-the-moment trips to the Poseidon, all those years ago. But nobody went to North Reddemane anymore. Apparently.
“All right,” she said finally. “And thank you.”
Now, I stood there with Dave, holding the ball. He was grinning, in defensive stance—or what counted as such for him—bent over slightly, jumping from side to side waving his hands in my face. “Just try to get past me,” he said, doing a weird wiggle move. “I dare you.”
I rolled my eyes, then bounced the ball once to the left before cutting right around him. He scrambled to catch up, doing several illegal reach-ins as I moved closer to the basket. “You’ve basically fouled out in the last five seconds,” I told him as he batted at the ball, me, the air around both of us. “You know that, right?”
“This is street ball!” he said. “No fouls!”
“Oh, okay. In that case . . .” I elbowed him in the gut, making him gasp, and moved under the basket. In those few seconds, the net clear above, I remembered all the things my dad had taught me as if they’d been imprinted: watch the hoop, elbows tight, touch light, light, light. I shot, the ball arcing up perfectly.
“Denied!” Dave said, leaping up and batting the ball away.
“Interference,” I called out, grabbing it back.
“Street ball!” he replied. And then, as if to prove this, he tackled me and we both went down onto the grass beside my deck, as the ball left my hands, rolling under the house.
For a moment we just lay there, his arms loosely around me, both of us breathing heavy. Finally, I said, “Okay, so with that, you left the realm of basketball entirely.”
“Full contact,” he said, his voice muffled by my hair. “No guts, no glory.”
“I’d hardly call this glory.”
“You didn’t make the shot, did you?”
I rolled over, so I was on my back, him panting beside me. “You are, like, the weirdest basketball player I have ever seen.”
“Thank you,” he said.
I laughed out loud.
“What? Was that supposed to be an insult?”
“How could it be anything else?”
He shrugged, brushing his hair out of his face. “I don’t know. I think my game is unique, if that’s what you’re saying.”
“That’s one word for it.”
We lay there for another moment. His arm was still next to mine, elbow to elbow, fingertips to fingertips. After a moment, he rolled over, and I did the same, so we were facing each other. “Want to make it best of two?” he asked.
“You didn’t score,” I pointed out.
“Details,” he said. His mouth was just inches from mine. “We big thinkers choose not to dwell on them.”
Suddenly, I was just sure he was going to kiss me. He was there, I could feel his breath, the ground solid beneath us. But then something crossed his face, a thought, a hesitation, and he shifted slightly. Not now. Not yet. It was something I’d done so often—weighing what I could afford to risk, right at that moment—that I recognized it instantly. It was like looking in a mirror.
“I think a rematch is in order,” he said after a moment.
“The ball is under the house.”
“I can get it. It’s not the first time.”
“No? ”
He sat up, choosing to ignore this. “You know, you talk this tough game and everything. But I know the truth about you.”
“And what’s that again?” I said, getting to my feet.
“Secretly,” he said, “you want to play with me. In fact, you
need
to play with me. Because deep down, you love basketball as much as I do.”
“Loved,” I said. “Past tense.”
“Not true.” He walked around my deck, grabbing a broom there and using the handle to fish around beneath. “I saw how you squared up. There was love there.”
“You saw love in my shot,” I said, clarifying.
“Yeah.” He banged the broomstick again, and the ball came rolling out slowly, toward me. “I mean, it’s not surprising, really. Once you love something, you always love it in some way. You have to. It’s, like, part of you for good.”
I wondered what he meant by this, and in the next beat, found myself surprised by the image that suddenly popped into my head: me and my mom, on a windy beach in winter, searching for shells as the waves crashed in front of us. I picked up the ball and threw it to him.
“You ready to play?” Dave asked, bouncing it.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Are you going to cheat?”
“It’s street ball!” he said, checking it to me. “Show me that love.”
So cheesy,
I thought. But as I felt it, solid against my hands, I did feel something. I wasn’t sure it was love. Maybe what remained of it, though, whatever that might be. “All right,” I said. “Let’s play.”

Other books

The Deputy's Lost and Found by Stella Bagwell
Animal Instinct by James R. Vance
The Road to Hell by Michael Maren
When I Surrender by Kendall Ryan
Crashing Waves by Graysen Morgen
Haven Creek by Rochelle Alers
La madre by Máximo Gorki