U ENGLISH AND YOU it said. The words were somewhat hard to read, as I had only the distant glow of the house behind us to go on. But the picture of my mom – sitting at the head of a seminar table, her glasses in one hand, clearly mid-lecture – I would have known in any light, any distance.
‘Where did you get this?’ I asked her.
‘It came with my application package. The English department was the main reason I applied there.’
‘You’re going to the U?’
She shook her head, and I felt bad for asking, as a rejection had to be a sore subject. ‘I did tons of research, though. I knew your mom looked familiar in the store today. But I couldn’t figure out why until I went home and found that.’
I looked down at my mom’s picture again, then slowly shut the catalog. ‘She’s… complex,’ I said. ‘It’s not always easy being her daughter.’
‘I think,’ she said, ‘sometimes it’s hard no matter whose daughter you are.’
I considered this as I handed the catalog back to her and she returned it to her bag. For a moment we just sat there, both of us quiet, looking at the water. All I could think was that of everyone I’d met so far in Colby, she was the last person I ever would have thought I would end up with like this. Which reminded me of something else.
‘You know,’ I said finally, ‘Jake really was nothing to me. I’m embarrassed I ever had anything to do with him.’
She nodded slowly. ‘He tends to have that effect on people.’
‘Really, though. If I had it to do over…’ I took in a breath. ‘I wouldn’t.’
‘And you,’ she said, stretching her legs out in front of her, ‘were only with him for one night. Imagine wasting two years of your life, like I did.’
I couldn’t, of course. I’d never even had a real boyfriend, even a crappy one. I said, ‘You must have really loved him.’
‘I did.’ This was said simply, easily. The truth. ‘I guess everyone has that, though, right?’
‘Has what?’
‘That first love. And the first one who breaks your heart. For me, they just happen to be the same person. At least I’m efficient, right?’ She reached into her bag, rummaging around again, before finally pulling out a pack of gum. She went to pull out a stick, then furrowed her brow. ‘Empty. Time to hit the Gas/Gro.’
I looked up at her as she got to her feet, brushing sand off herself before grabbing her bag. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Thanks. For checking in on me.’
‘You’re not coming?’ she asked.
‘To the Gas/Gro?’
‘Or wherever.’ She hiked her bag over her shoulder. ‘I mean, you can just sit here, I guess. But it seems kind of lonely. Especially if you’re already feeling rotten.’
I just sat there, looking at her for a moment. I felt like I should be honest, let her know that lonely actually appealed to me, even at my most rotten, and at times was actually preferable. But then I remembered how I’d been feeling, sitting there watching the sun go down, and wondered if this was still true. Maybe. Maybe not. It seemed a lot to decide, right in that moment. So instead, I went with another truth, one that was never in doubt.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I guess I could use some more coffee.’
Then, somehow, I was standing up. Chucking my empty cup in a nearby trash can. And falling into step beside her, down the sand to the boardwalk, past the gathered tourists, to the Gas/Gro, where Esther and Leah were sitting outside on the bumper of a beat-up Jetta, waiting for us.
Now, I watched as Maggie grabbed a pack of cookies and her gum, and paused, her hand over the Twizzlers, before deciding against them. Esther, beside her, was studying a package of sunflower seeds.
‘All night I’ve been thinking about these,’ she said. ‘But now, here in the moment, I’m just not sure they have enough snack bang.’
‘Snack bang?’ I asked.
‘It’s the amount of taste and sustenance you get from any given snack,’ Maggie explained as Leah grabbed a box of Tic Tacs, shaking them. ‘So, like, sunflower seeds have very little. But beef jerky has tons.’
I said, ‘You know, I have to be honest. I just don’t get this.’
‘Get what?’ Leah asked.
‘This whole obsession with stores, and snacks, and analyzing the minutiae of every single choice and pairing,’ I said. ‘What is that all about?’
They all looked at one another. Then Esther said, ‘I don’t know. It’s like, we’re headed out somewhere. You never know what’s going to happen. So you stop for supplies.’
‘The store-going comes first,’ Maggie added, ‘and then the adventure follows.’
They headed for the register, and I grabbed a fresh cup, filling it up with GroRoast. It was simple: I required nothing else. But on my way to the register, I found myself suddenly reaching out to grab a pack of two chocolate cupcakes. I knew they were extraneous, highly caloric, a waste of money. And yet I had to wonder if they were right. When you don’t know where you’re going, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to have more than you need.
‘Oh, God,’ Esther groaned. ‘Like we haven’t been here before.’
We were standing in the driveway of a big house right on the beach. There were people packed on the front steps, moving in shadows across lit-up windows, filling both decks and scattered across the sand below. Plus, there still were cars arriving, parking behind those already lining the narrow road and cluttering the cul-de-sac. In the two minutes we’d been standing there, at least fifteen people had walked past us, heading in.