What Happens to Goodbye (46 page)

Authors: Sarah Dessen

When I left the restaurant, it was a half hour into opening and my dad still hadn’t appeared. Neither had Opal.

“It’s just like a sinking ship,” Tracey, who was behind the bar, told me when I asked if she’d seen them. “The rats abandon first.”

“Opal’s not a rat,” I said, realizing a beat too late that by saying that I was basically admitting that my dad was. “She didn’t know anything about all this.”

“She didn’t fight for us either,” she replied, drying a glass with a towel. “She’s basically been AWOL since they announced the closing and the building sale. Polishing her résumé, most likely.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I can’t say for sure,” she said, putting the glass down. “But the word on the street is she’s been having a lot of closed-door phone conversations that may or may not have included the words
relocation
and
upper management.
”

“You really think Opal would just leave like that? She loves this town.”

“Money talks,” she replied with a shrug. A couple of customers passed me, pulling out stools at the bar, and she put down menus in front of them, then said, “Welcome to Luna Blu. Would you like to hear our Death Throes Specials?”

I waved goodbye to her, distracted, then headed toward the kitchen and the back door. As I passed the office, I glanced in: the desk was neatly organized, the chair tucked under it, none of my dad’s signature clutter scattered around the many surfaces. By the looks of it, he, at least, was already gone.

Outside, I walked down the alley, turning onto my street. When my mom had dropped me off earlier, the house had been empty, but now as it came into view I saw some lights were on and the truck was in the driveway.

I was just stepping up onto the curb when I heard a
bang
. I looked over and there was Dave, coming out of his kitchen door, a cardboard box under one arm. He pulled a black knit hat over his head and started down the stairs, not seeing me. My first impulse was to just get inside, avoiding him and whatever confrontation or conversation would follow. But then I looked up at the sky and immediately spotted a bright triangle of stars, and thought of my mom, standing on the deck of that huge beach house. So much had changed, and yet she still knew those stars, had taken that part of her past, our past, with her. I couldn’t run anymore. I’d learned that. So even though it wasn’t easy, I stayed where I was.

“Dave.”

He turned, startled, and I saw the surprise on his face when he realized it was me. “Hey,” he said. He didn’t come closer, and neither did I: there was a good fifteen or twenty feet between us. “I didn’t know you were back.”

“I just got in a little while ago.”

“Oh.” He shifted the box to his other arm. “I was just, um, heading over to the model for a few minutes.”

I took a couple of steps toward him, hesitant. “So you got a furlough.”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

I looked down at my hands, taking a breath. “Look, about that night I called you ... I had no idea you got in trouble. God, I feel awful about that.”

“You shouldn’t,” he said.

I just looked at him. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have been trying to sneak out.”

“Trying to—” he said.

“And you wouldn’t have been
caught
sneaking out,” I continued, “and then grounded, and your trip taken away, and basically your whole life wrecked.”

He was quiet for a moment. “You didn’t wreck my life. All you did was call a friend.”

“Maybe I can talk to your parents. Explain what was going on, and—”

“Mclean,” he said, stopping me. “No. It’s okay, really. I’m all right with it. There will be other road trips, and other summers.”

“Maybe. But it’s still not fair.”

He shrugged. “Life’s not fair. If it was, you wouldn’t be having to move again.”

“You heard about that, huh?”

“I heard Tasmania,” he said. “Which I have a feeling might be bad information.”

I smiled. “It’s Hawaii. But I’m not going. I’m moving back in with my mom, to finish out the year.”

“Oh,” he said. “Right. I guess that does make more sense.”

“As much as any of this does.” Another silence fell. He didn’t have much time, and I knew I should let him go. Instead, I said, “The model looks great. You guys have really been working hard.”

“Deb has,” he replied. “She’s like a madwoman. I’m just trying to stay out of her way.”

I smiled. “She told me about your debate over the people.”

“The people.” He groaned. “She
cannot
trust me to handle this myself. That’s why I’m sneaking over there with my supplies when I know she’s gone. Otherwise, she’ll stand over me, freaking out.”

“Supplies?” I said.

He stepped a little closer, holding out the open box so I could see it. “No cracks about model trains,” he said. “This is serious business.”

I peered inside. The box was lined with small jars of paint, all different colors, a stack of brushes standing in one side. There were also cotton balls, some swabs, turpentine, and several small tools, including a large set of tweezers, some scissors, and a magnifying glass.

“Whoa,” I said. “What are you planning to do, exactly?”

“Just add a little life to it,” he replied. I looked up at him, biting my lip. “Don’t worry, she approved it. Most of it anyway.”

I smiled. “I can’t believe the model’s actually almost finished. It feels like we just put down that first house, like, yesterday.”

“Time flies.” He looked at me. “So when do you leave?”

“I start moving stuff next weekend.”

“That soon?” I nodded. “Wow. You don’t mess around.”

“I just feel like if I have to go to another school ...” I sighed. “I might as well do it now.”

He nodded, not saying anything. Another car drove by.

“But I have to say,” I continued, “that it stinks that when it came down to it, there were only two choices. Go forward, to Hawaii, and start all over again, or backward, back to my old life, which doesn’t even really exist anymore.”

“You need a third option,” he said.

“Yeah. I guess I do.”

He nodded, absorbing this. “Well,” he said, “for what it’s worth, it’s been my experience that they don’t appear at first. You kind of have to look a little more closely.”

“And when does that happen?”

He shrugged. “When you’re ready to see them, I guess.”

I had a flash of those Rubbermaid bins, lined up in my mom’s garage at the beach behind Super Shitty. “That is frustratingly vague,” I told him.

“You’re welcome.”

I smiled then, and he smiled back. “You should go,” I said. “Before Deb decides to make an evening visit because she can’t sleep due to obsessing over the model.”

“You joke,” he said. “But it could happen. I’ll see you, Mclean.”

“Yeah,” I replied. “See you.”

He started to turn away, toward the road again. But just as he did, I moved forward, closing the space between us, and kissed him on the cheek. I could tell I surprised him, but he didn’t pull away. When I stepped back, I said, “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For being here,” I said.

He nodded, then walked past me, using his free hand to squeeze my shoulder as he passed. I turned, watching him as he crossed the street and headed up the alley to the bright lights of Luna Blu. Then I turned back to my own house, took a breath, and went up to the door.

I was just reaching for the knob when two things became clear: my dad was definitely home, and he wasn’t alone. I could hear his voice, muffled, from inside, then a higher voice responding. But the lights that were on were dim, and as I stood there, I noticed that their conversation began to have short lags in it, little silences that became gradually longer and longer, peppered with only a few words or laughter in between.

Oh, God,
I thought, slumping against the door and losing all momentum as I pictured him lip-locked with Lindsay and her big white teeth.
Ugh.

I stood up straighter, then knocked on the door, hard, before pushing it open. What I saw before me literally stopped me in my tracks: my dad and Opal on the couch, his arm around her shoulders, her feet draped across his lap. They were both flushed pink, and the top button of her shirt was undone.

“Oh my God,” I said, my voice sounding incredibly loud in the small room.

Opal jumped up, reaching to do her button as she stumbled backward, bumping the wall behind her. On the couch, my dad cleared his throat and adjusted a throw pillow, like decorating was the most important thing at that moment. “Mclean,” he said. “When did you get back?”

“I thought ... I thought you were dating the councilwoman,” I said to him. Then I looked at Opal, who was tucking a piece of hair behind her ear, crazy flustered. “I thought you hated him.”

“Well,” my dad said.

“Hate is an
awfully
strong word,” Opal replied.

I looked at him, then at her, then at him again. “You can’t do this. It’s insane.”

“Well,” Opal said, clearing her throat. “That’s also a strong word.”

“You don’t want to do this,” I told her. “He’s leaving. You know that, right? For Hawaii.”

“Mclean,” my dad said.

“No,” I told him. “It was one thing when it was Lindsay, or Sherry in Petree, or Lisa in Montford Falls, or Emily in Westcott.” Opal raised her eyebrows, looking at my dad, who moved the pillow again. “But I like you, Opal. You’ve been nice to me. And you should know what’s going to happen. He’s just going to disappear, and you’ll be here, calling and wondering why he doesn’t call back, and—”

“Mclean,” my dad repeated. “Stop.”

“No,” I said. “
You
stop. Don’t do this.”

“I’m not,” he replied.

I just stood there, not sure what to say. I could see Opal out of the corner of my eye, watching me carefully, but I kept my eyes on my dad. At least, for a moment. Then, I shifted my gaze, suddenly noticing the kitchen behind him. There were grocery bags piled on the countertops, and a couple of cabinets were open, revealing cans and a few boxes of food inside. Some noodles and a couple of tomatoes sat piled by a cutting board, and there was a new glass pan, sitting rinsed on the dish rack, waiting to be used.

“What’s going on here?” I asked, turning my gaze back to him.

He smiled at me, then looked at Opal. “Come sit down,” he said. “We’ll fill you in.”

Seventeen

“Oh, no,” Deb said. “What happened to my STOW sheet? Has anyone seen it?”

“Nope,” Heather, who was bent over a corner of the model, sticking on bushes in a local arboretum, replied. “Maybe you lost it.”

“Heather, stop,” Riley told her. “Deb, it’s got to be around here someplac. Where was the last place you had it?”

“If I knew that, it wouldn’t be lost,” Deb said, walking to the table and pushing some papers around. “This is crazy! I can’t finish this tonight without the STOW!”

“Uh-oh,” Ellis, on the other side of the model, said. “Get ready for a FODF.”

I looked up from where I was adding some sidewalk tiles. “FODF? ”

“Full-On Deb Freak-out,” Heather explained.

“I heard that!” Deb called out. “And FYI, that is not even a good acronym. It’s supposed to be a real word, not a made-up one.”

“FODF isn’t a real word?” Ellis asked. “Since when?”

“Time?” Deb asked, bustling past. “Anyone?”

“You have a watch on,” Heather told her.

“It’s nine thirty-two,” Riley said. “Which means—”

“Twenty-eight minutes!” Deb shrieked. “
Twenty-eight
minutes before we absolutely have to be out of here. Opal’s orders.”