Chapter 24
LYSSA
A month ago, if anyone had asked me, I would have said that the worst thing that could happen to a lonely girliepop like me would be to never experience sharing a meal with a bunch of people who cared about you, whom you could be your truest self with.
Today, I was burdened with the knowledge it was infinitely worse to have had that once and know that you’d never get it again.
Knowing exactly what you were missing was way worse than a vague yearning. It was the difference between an aching pain and a sharp, stabbing one.
If I’d known that traveling to Aotearoa New Zealand would lead to being welcomed into a loving family unit; falling for a man who made me feel sexy as well as safe, who made me want to be my best me and to make him smile as much as he made me—well, I would have traveled here years ago.
And I’d still have to give it all up.
This crushing sense of grief was why I rarely let myself think about the good times at Bossi. Instead, I hyperfocused on Paul and how badly he’d wronged me. That way, the grief had a red edge of rage that was enough to keep me moving. Especially when my social media was a living monument to it.
It was going to be much harder not to dwell on everything I’d found here in Woodville.
Once again, my mother had ruined everything.
“How much longer are you planning to gallivant around the Southern Hemisphere, Lysander?” My mother had asked when I’d answered her call in the Levitate parking lot.
Salutations were beneath Emily Ludlow.
“How did you know I was in Aotearoa?”
My mother’s big brain took only a second to process the unfamiliar word.
“That must be the Indigenous name. You’re not an Indigenous person, Lysander.
I would expect you to call it New Zealand.
” She didn’t give me time to reply. “But given the size of the population, and the colonial landscape, it must be classified as an at-risk language—or an actively declining one. Therefore, it makes sense to encourage tourists and non-Indigenous New Zealanders to speak it.”
She was right, of course. She was always right.
“Te reo Māori is one of the two national languages here,” I told her. “English actually isn’t one of them, although it’s the most widely spoken. The other is?—”
“New Zealand Sign Language, yes, I Googled it while you were talking. Approximately 95 percent of the country speaks English, but year on, speakers of te reo Māori are increasing. Many families whose Indigenous grandparents weren’t permitted to speak the language now share households with children who speak it exclusively. That’s very interesting.”
I glowed at the praise. It wasn’t for me, exactly, but it was close enough.
“To answer your earlier question, I know where you are because I pay your credit card bill. I don’t know what the World of Wearable Art is”— this she didn’t care about enough to Google—“but it sounds like a heinously expensive juvenile art project.”
“It was an immersive design experience?—”
“Now, here’s the question I’m calling with. When are you returning to America?”
“I… don’t know.” My brain slowed as my heart picked up pace, hammering under my plaid shirt and corset. “I was going to… um…”
“Continue wasting money on this frivolous adventure, while the New York City apartment sits empty?”
“No—”
“I gave you the grace period you insisted upon after the unpaid thing at the Flossy, Mossy?—”
“Bossi.”
“— Bossy website ended. But unless you stow your cowardice and stop hiding at the bottom of the Earth, I won’t continue to pay West Village property taxes for a glorified closet.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’ve set up an interview for you with my old friend Norman Post—you remember him, he used to come to dinner. He’s at Brown now and has agreed to talk to you about your options as a mature student. I’ve told him you’ll meet him next week.”
“In New York?”
“No, in Rhode Island,” she said with exaggerated patience.
“Where Brown is. They’re known for their arts and science, so some of your fashion theory may be transferable.
You’ll still need to do all the language prerequisites, of course, but if you take Mid-Century, your name will help with selection. ”
“But I don’t want to go to Brown.”
I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew it involved fashion and didn’t involve going back to college.
“Then stay in Aotearoa New Zealand if you must. But I will sell the West Village apartment.”
My heartbeat, which seconds ago had been racing, stuttered to a stop. I breathed deeply into my chest, trying to stay calm, trying to think. Emily didn’t respect panic.
I needed my New City York apartment to be a New York City fashion girl.
It was the Carrie Bradshaw of it all! It was who I was.
Bossi had been an unpaid internship, but it legitimized my fashion credentials and I leveraged that into a decent income through social media ads and sponsorships.
But without Mom’s credit card, I definitely wouldn’t be able to afford to stay in Manhattan.
Which I had to, as I needed to be within a short train or inexpensive rideshare to work.
Being an intern meant long hours and making yourself available at a moment’s notice—all of which would be impossible from Rhode fucking Island.
“What if I come back, but I don’t go to Brown?”
The phone line was silent for a minute. With my toe, I smoothed a divot in the gravel that Kev had missed while raking.
“I’ll give you three months,” she said finally.
“Come back, take the meeting, start planning for undergraduate next year. In the meantime, you may see what other fashion things you can pick up. If you’re not financially self-sufficient by the end of the year—calendar, not fiscal—I’ll sell the apartment and you’ll start at Brown. I think that’s reasonable.”
My stepdad said something affirmative in the background.
“You’re our daughter, Lyssa. Charles and I want you to be successful. Not be led about by your whims and end up selling gator T-shirts out of the back of a van in Tampa.”
“I thought you said my birth father was a Tampa tour guide?”
“Well, the feathers in his backwards baseball cap are many and varied,” she said, sounding almost wry. “But no daughter of mine is going to have a career that relies on what you can hawk on the side of the road, or convince an unsuspecting tourist to do. Do you understand me?”
I was beginning to.
She sighed. “Lyssa, can you imagine me in Florida? Of course not. But there was a time when I was convinced I wanted to live there. And I would have hated it. Your birth dad would have tried his best, but eventually he would have hated me too, for complicating his life with ideas and goals that didn’t fit in Florida.
He loved me enough to say goodbye to me.
He knew that my potential was too significant to waste. It truly is that simple.”
It was so fucking terrible when she was right.
I said a feeble farewell to her before going inside. I tried to be normal for the rest of dinner, but I ended up getting overwrought. Caroline had to remove me from the table and splash water on my face.
When we were in the bathroom I told her everything—about Mike, about my mom’s ultimatum. Caroline asked good questions, like what did I want to do, and what was my heart telling me, and I didn’t know how to answer her.
I liked Mike. I wanted to stay with Mike.
I wanted to stay here. But my mom was right—I needed to figure out what I was going to do with my life.
My plan couldn’t be a person, I had to have a thing .
Since I was 14, that thing had been fashion.
There was no way I could give all of that up for a man, that was silly—my mother would despise that even more than she despised fashion itself.
Besides, Mike had been very clear that he wanted the thing between us to be a secret from his town and his family, because being seen with me was bad for his rep.
The only reason he’d changed his mind tonight was because his pitch flopped.
His bigger, loftier goals had fizzled out, and I was the participation prize.
If he’d gotten what he’d really wanted, I’d still be his dirty little secret.
His potential was too significant to waste.
And I wasn’t going to hold him back anymore.
I stared into Caroline’s eyes and remembered how many nights we’d spent in my apartment in New York, lying on our bunks, sharing our dreams of onstage stardom (her) and fashion notoriety (me).
Going back to New York and giving fashion another try made the most sense—it was what I’d always said I wanted.
When Caroline and I announced to her family that I would be flying home in two days, I couldn’t look at Mike. I struggled to meet anyone’s eyes, actually.
While the news I would be leaving wasn’t a surprise to anyone who had been thinking ahead (which was probably everyone except for me and Mike), the suddenness was jarring.
The Hollidays had all been so welcoming toward me.
At dinner, when I’d mentioned how much I loved the potatoes, Dean gave me two spoonfuls.
They’d even begun to tease me, which I now knew was how Kiwi people, especially Hollidays, showed affection.
I loved seeing my man and my very best friend at the same table—or rather, I loved being at their table.
And I liked Dean and Hannah and even Tessa—who was cuddly as a cactus and drunk by the time we all waved goodbye. And I loved Kev.
While Mike was fixing drinks earlier tonight, Kev had shown me the picture of Wanda he carried in his wallet. Caroline had her eyes. Mike had her wide grin.