Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Sayla
On Monday morning, bright and early, Loren bursts into my bedroom without knocking. “I can’t believe you’re not up yet!”
I groan at her from under my pillow. “Go awaaaaaaay.”
“Dex is gonna be here in fifteen minutes, so you better get a move on.” She chirps this at me like a bird, a beautiful, red-headed, relentlessly cheerful bird.
Another groan from me. “Noooooo.”
“Come on, Say. Remember your plan to be the bigger person?”
“I don’t want to be the bigger person anymore,” I mumble. “I want to be small. I want to be … minuscule.”
She plucks the pillow off my head, then drags the comforter from me, too. I flip over and peer up at her through blonde hair that’s wild with static. Her eyes skim the cargo pants and sweatshirt I’m wearing, because of course I woke up early. I’m already showered and prepped for the retreat.
“You’re already dressed?” she squawks. “I can’t believe it.”
“I can’t believe that surprises you.”
I’ve been packed since Friday night, before my run-in with Dex, and I spent the weekend memorizing the brochure Wilford gave us, along with the entire Camp Reboot website. I told myself I was ready to earn the best report the directors have ever given any guest of their program.
But this morning, when I was brushing my teeth, I imagined Dexter’s fake-charming grin aimed at me from across some ugly district car for the hour-long drive to the retreat, and I climbed back into bed.
“I can’t do it, Loren,” I groan. “He saw me in my pajamas. With tampons. And chocolate.”
“Regrettable, for sure.” She sighs. “But the performing arts department is depending on you, Say. That’s more important than Dex knowing you’re on your period.”
“Still.” I sniffle weakly. “I think maybe I’m sick.”
“Really?” She presses a palm to my forehead. “What are your symptoms?”
I reach for the Kleenex box on my nightstand even though my nose isn’t running at all. “I’m pretty sure I have scurvy.”
“Okay. So I’ll put some extra orange juice in our breakfast smoothies.”
“I’m talking about bad scurvy, Loren. Deadly scurvy. Way beyond the reach of extra vitamin C.”
She guffaws. “What are you? A pirate in the 1700s?”
“Being a pirate definitely sounds preferable to spending the next three days at a camp with Dexter Michaels.” I pat the static frizz of my hair.
“So would you please be my best friend in the whole wide world, and call the school? Tell Helen to tell Mr. Wilford I can’t go to the retreat on account of all this raging scurvy. ”
Loren plops on the bed next to me. “I love you, but you’re being ridiculous.”
“Saving myself from the spawn of evil is ridiculous?”
“Evil?” She rolls her eyes. “Come on, Sayla. Dex may have flaws, but the man is hardly evil. I’ll bet half the staff would gladly trade places with you this week. They all think he’s a pretty good guy, and if I’m being honest, I don’t disagree. Plus, you have to admit, he’s kind of a babe.”
“Babe like the pig?”
“No, like Zac Efron. Except not High School Musical Zac Efron. That would be weird, seeing as how we teach high school. I’m talking about facial hair Zac Efron. He’s pushing forty now. A totally age-appropriate babe. Like Dex.”
“Excuse me, ma’am.” I frown at her. “But aren’t you engaged?”
“Oh, you know I love Foster.” She waves away my question.
“But I still have eyes, and he’d probably admit Dex is handsome, too.
Either way, you need to get a move on.” She pats my knee.
“I’m going to make you a smoothie, with extra vitamin C, and you’re going to finish getting ready before Dexter shows up.
” She rises from the bed, pointing a finger at me. “Come out when you’re ready, matey.”
“Ahoy.” I spit a long strand of hair out of my mouth.
“Atta girl.”
As Loren heads to the kitchen, I drag myself over to the closet to throw on my brand-new hiking boots. I ordered them online specifically for the retreat. They’re basically a pair of blisters waiting to happen. Just another thing to dread about the next seventy-two hours.
So when my phone starts buzzing with an incoming call from my mom, I’d literally rather have scurvy than talk to her.
The blender starts whirring in the kitchen, and my entire soul craves just ten more minutes of peace.
But this is my mother. The only parent I’ve ever had. So, of course I take her call.
“Hi, Mom,” I say, without masking the sigh that follows.
“Hey, baby!” she squeals. “I knew my little early bird would be up catching the worm!” I’d appreciate the pride in her voice more, except I’m pretty sure she thinks all my positive qualities are because of her, not despite her.
And I’m pretty sure she’s wrong.
Then again, I did watch her closely for my first eighteen years, taking copious mental notes on who I didn’t want to be when I grew up.
And for the past decade, I’ve been doing everything in my power to be her exact opposite.
So yeah. Maybe who I am is because of my mom after all. Just not in the way she thinks.
Mission accomplished.
“I’m putting you on speaker while I finish getting ready,” I say, trying not to sound as exasperated as I feel.
“For work?” she asks. “Are you still teaching?”
“Yeah, Mom.” I let out a half scoff. “Still teaching. That was kind of the whole reason I got my credential.”
“Are you still at that same school?”
“Yep. Stony Peak High,” I say. “Three years and counting.” I’m sure that’s difficult for her to wrap her brain around, given the fact that she’s never kept a job for more than six months.
One of the reasons she’s stuck with being a server her whole life is that she could always find work at some new restaurant. No matter how often we moved.
No matter what state we ended up in.
“My little girl must be running that place by now,” she says.
I can’t tell if she’s trying to be funny, if she’s impressed, or if she’s truly that out of touch with the concept of anyone staying at the same workplace for more than a single season.
“Not exactly,” I say, gathering a brush and a ponytail holder to do my hair. “But I’m kinda busy, if you were just calling to chat.”
“I promise not to take up too much of your precious time,” she says, although with my mother, this is rarely true. Once Colleen Kroft gets talking, she usually has plenty to say about her favorite subject: Colleen Kroft.
“It’s just that I have some news!” She punctuates her statement with a little squeak of excitement.
“Oh?” As I stride over to the mirror, unease stirs in the pit of me like snowflakes in a shaken globe. My mother’s news could be literally anything, but I’ll bet she’s about to be on the move again. Goodbye, Apple Valley, Oregon.
After all, it’s been four months since she started dating the bookkeeper at The Clumsy Goat. Someone could’ve reported their relationship to HR, and when they had to sign disclosure papers, the guy balked.
That’s happened to her on at least three occasions. Other times she blurted, “I love you,” to a new boyfriend just a little too soon. Once she found out the man she was involved with had a whole other family he was lying about.
“Baby, I’m engaged!” she whoops.
I almost drop my brush.
Start the countdown to another maternal heartbreak.
“He asked me last night,” she gushes, “and I couldn’t wait to call you this morning!”
“Eugene.”
“Well, of course, Eugene.” She pauses for a moment. “Who else would I be marrying?”
Oh, I don’t know Mom, I think. After twenty-eight years, I stopped keeping track of your Rolodex of relationships.
To be clear, she doesn’t date multiple men at the same time.
My mother’s problem is the opposite. She’s a serial monogamist, falling fast and hard, giving her whole heart to men who don’t really want that level of commitment.
And after every breakup, she’d draw up stakes and drag us away from whatever living situation we’d established.
We moved a lot.
For the record, my mother’s not a terrible person. She’s just reckless, as a woman and a parent. So my goal has always been to be the opposite of reckless, whatever that is.
Full of reck? Let’s go with that.
Thanks to my mother, I am totally reckfull.
And yes, I realize reckfull isn’t a word. But maybe it should be, because I sure felt fully wrecked by the upheaval in my childhood. And that’s the reason I don’t date. Especially not colleagues. Workplace romance is my mother’s kiss of death. And I mean that literally.
Kissing coworkers killed every single one of her jobs.
“So I was really hoping you’d be my maid of honor,” she says, and the note of wistfulness in her voice sends a pang straight through my middle.
“Of course, Mom.” I tuck a stubborn piece of hair back up into my ponytail holder. “When’s the big day?”
“Oh. Well. That.” She stumbles over her words, and I can’t help thinking this means her plans aren’t totally solid. “We haven’t landed on an exact date for the ceremony yet. Some of that will depend on the venue. But Eugene wants us to tie the knot as soon as possible.”
“I’m sure he does, Mom.”
“But I told him I can’t say ‘I do’ without my best girl by my side.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. This is a road we traveled together so many times when I was young. She ended up hurt every time. Me? I just wanted to save her from the pain, and to save myself from the unmooring that followed. Mostly, I just wished she hadn’t been so lonely with me.
That I could’ve been enough for her.
“Of course I’ll be your maid of honor,” I say. There’s a long stretch of silence, so many things I want to tell her. But I can’t. “Anyway, I’ve gotta go, Mom.”
“All right, baby. Have a great day at work. Your mama loves you so much!”
“I love yo—”
She ends the call before I can say the whole thing back to her.
So I grab my bag and wheel my suitcase out to the kitchen, where Loren’s waiting for me with a green smoothie. I’ve got five minutes before Dexter’s supposed to show up.
“Bless you,” I say.
“No more breakfast burritos for you.”
“Word.”
In between gulps of smoothie, I fill Loren in on my mother’s engagement.
“I think it’s romantic,” she says on a sigh. “Finding your happily ever after at her age.”
“She’s not a hundred years old,” I snort.
“Still. Your mom never gave up on love, and now she’s getting married.”
“If it actually happens,” I tell her.
“Cynic.”
“Guilty as charged.”
I’ve shared the broad strokes of my childhood with Loren, but she can’t relate to my skepticism. Her parents were happily married until her mother passed almost a decade ago. Now her dad’s got early-onset dementia and, most days, he doesn’t remember losing his wife to an extended illness.
According to Loren, that’s mostly a mercy.
So yes, her family has experienced their own heartbreaks and losses for sure. But Loren still believes in happily ever afters. Meanwhile, I’m stuck back in once upon a time.
“Hey.” Loren nods toward the bay window across the house. “I think your knight in shining armor is here.”
I follow her gaze out the window just as a dirt-brown Buick pulls up to our curb. Mountain Valley School District is emblazoned on the side. “Kinda funny to see a guy like Dexter Michaels driving something other than his big manly-man truck.”
“Babe,” Loren says.
“Traitor.”
When he beeps the horn, I mumble, “Ugh,” and start dragging my bag and suitcase toward the door.
“Don’t murder anyone,” Loren warns. “You’ll miss your mom’s wedding if you’re in prison.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Dex honks again.
On second thought, prison might be worth the risk.