16. Then #2
I’ve been claiming to anyone who will listen that I’ve got no clue what I want to do with my life. Maybe I had a clue after all…I just couldn’t see how to make room for it.
Mr. Tomlinson returns to me, unaware or perhaps just ambivalent about the chaos he has brought to the table. “That, my dear, is why you need some kind of long-range plan. You need to create a goal for yourself beyond community college .”
It’s impossible to miss the slight disdain in his voice, as if he already knows I won’t be making anything of myself, as if he already knows that I’m never going to get this degree—one he clearly considers worthless anyhow.
“I’ve been thinking about moving to LA,” I reply.
It feels like a lie—it’s not as if I seriously thought about it.
It was a dream, not so different from my dreams of attending Hogwarts when I was small.
But maybe the only difference between a dream and a plan is how committed you are to making it happen.
“Once I save enough money, I mean. What I’d really like to do is sing. ”
Luke’s gaze meets mine. His eyes blaze with something…hopeful?
“But, Juliet, you don’t have to go all the way to LA to do that,” Donna says, a hint of desperation in her voice. “You can stay right here. Get a degree in music and teach at the high school.”
I picture it: me in a beige skirt and cheap flats, leading a bunch of apathetic teens through scales and tepid acapella versions of pop songs.
“ That is an excellent idea,” says Mr. Tomlinson.
They think LA is a childish dream, one that will leave me homeless, playing guitar on a street corner and begging for change.
“She doesn't want to teach,” Luke says between his teeth. “She wants to sing.” He stares at his plate, but it feels like his anger is directed at Donna, the last person who deserves it.
“They’re right,” I say quietly, because I can’t stand to hear Donna criticized, even subtly. “LA is probably a pipe dream. I need a back-up plan.”
Donna smiles and reaches out to cover my hand with hers, rewarding me for saying the right thing. It’s a little pat on the head, and like the child I am, I relish it.
Except…Luke was right. And if I were braver, if I were brave like him, I would have told them all the truth.
Later that night, after Tomlinson is gone and the kitchen is clean, Danny and I sit on the front porch, alone for the first time all day. “Did you realize your mom assumes you’ll move to Central America with them?” I ask.
He shrugs. I guess that’s a yes . “I mean, it’s not like I’m gonna play pro ball.
It might be okay, you know? My mom wants to open a school there too.
It’ll take a while, but eventually…I could teach business and you could teach music.
We wouldn’t have a lot of money, but I don’t guess we’d need it, either.
Everything’s cheap down there, and we could probably grow a lot of our own food. ”
I stare at him. The life he’s describing is plucked straight from a children’s cartoon, the kind where coconuts fall from the sky when you’re hungry and bananas rain down by the barrel.
Kids in some third-world village aren’t going to want to take fucking business classes or learn how to play “Jingle Bells” on a guitar.
“Danny…I’m not sure I want to teach. I think I want to perform. Like, create my own stuff.”
“You know how many people want that and fail?” he asks. “There are lots of ways you can perform without moving to LA, but the odds of you going there and it all working out are probably worse than your odds of winning the lottery.”
I don’t argue with him because he’s right. But I also know Luke would say that if I want to play the lottery, I should fucking play the lottery, because it’s my life, not Danny’s.
* * *
“I just seated you,” says Stacy. “He asked for your section.”
My head jerks toward the tables in the corner, to where Luke is sitting by himself, his hair still damp from a morning in the water.
He’s studying the menu, and something about the sight of him there, so big and alone, does a weird thing to my heart. It’s a tiny pinch of emptiness, but I sense an abyss somewhere beyond it, somewhere I don’t want to look.
I’d assume he was in my section by accident if I hadn’t been told otherwise.
His gaze lands on me as I approach, in that way it always does, as if I’m something deadly he can’t allow out of his sight. Not a single muscle in his face moves otherwise. No smile, no hint of anything. Just those eyes of his, always watching.
“Hey,” I say, swallowing my nerves. I lean my hip against the table, the only hint that he isn’t a regular customer. I want to thank him for taking up for me the other night, and I want to apologize for what I said in response. It’s just all locked up in my throat.
He looks back at the menu. “What’s good?”
This is so weird. Why are you here, Luke?
Why are you in my section when you mostly seem to wish I was elsewhere?
I don’t voice my questions, mostly because there’s some strange part of me that doesn’t want him to leave.
That wants the next twenty or thirty minutes to just gaze at him, big shoulders hunched over as he wolfs down a solitary meal.
“All of it if you like meat and potatoes,” I reply. “None of it if you hope to live past fifty.” I give him a nervous grin.
He doesn’t offer one back, but instead continues to stare at the menu. “The number four, please.”
“Coffee?”
He shakes his head. “Water’s fine.”
I suspect he’d like coffee and is trying to save money. I suspect he’d like a whole extra meal. He was in the water for hours this morning. If he was my friend, I could ask him. But he’s not my friend and he’s made that clear.
I take his menu and put in his order. Every time I glance over, he’s watching me, and he looks so hungry and alone that I finally can’t stand it. I swipe him a Danish and bring it over with coffee and juice.
“I didn’t order this,” he says.
“You look hungry,” I reply, already scurrying away. “It’s on the house.”
He says nothing as I refill his coffee, his juice, and deliver his meal. He just watches me and doesn’t say a word until I drop the bill on his table.
He pulls out his wallet. “Don’t listen to Donna. You don’t want to fucking teach.”
He rises from the booth without another word and walks away to pay at the register before his big frame edges through the door like GI Joe in a miniature dollhouse.
The restaurant feels emptier without him in it. I reach down to grab his plate. He’s left a tip under it equal to the size of his bill. I put it in my other pocket, away from the rest of my money, as if it’s special.
* * *
It would have been easy enough to casually bring up Luke’s visit to Danny— Luke got seated in my section this morning . It would have been easy enough for Luke to bring it up too— Stopped by your girlfriend’s place of employment, this morning. The food there sucks .
Yet neither of us do.
By the end of the week, I’m wondering if I read too much into it. I pull that twenty he left out of my dog-eared copy of Wuthering Heights and stare at it as if I might find a hidden message in its folds.
Maybe the question I should be asking isn’t if I read too much into it.
It’s why I read too much into it, and what was I hoping it meant?
Better yet, I should be thinking about what he actually said: Ignore Donna .
It’s just…she makes it so hard. Her love, her investment in me, is like a warm coat you continue to wear indoors on a winter day.
I can’t bring myself to shrug it off, even when I know I’ll just wind up colder in the long run.
And every time I think about shrugging it off, she leans over and zips me up with her most loving smile.
“I’ve got some good news for you, Juliet,” she says over dinner. “I spoke to Miss Engelman. She teaches at an elementary school down in Santa Cruz. She said she can set up an internship for you there next year, assisting the music teacher.”
She beams at me as if she’s given me a gift, which makes me feel like I’ve missed something important. “An internship? Is it…paid?”
She frowns. “Well, no, it’s not paid. But if you’re living here, you don’t really need the job, do you? And Miss Engelman said there are actually scholarships for school employees. Once you’ve been there for a while you might be able to get them to cover some of your classes.”
I know I’m supposed to be grateful, but all I hear is I’ve arranged for you to work full-time, for free. You don’t need anything of your own because we’ve got you covered . It leaves me wanting to press my face deep into my plate and cry.
Across the table, Luke’s gaze meets mine, and something clenches deep in my stomach.
He’s the only person in this house who’d think I was right to be upset.
He may be the only person in this house, and maybe this state, who really gets me at all.
And that should scare me, but it doesn’t.
It’s just such a fucking relief to have someone understand.