Page 38 of The Dangers of Daydreaming

I could see her nodding from the corner of my eye. She had her laptop out on her lap and was tapping away on it. Her fingers paused for just a second.“Thank you,” she said. “This might give me an edge over my competition.”

“Anytime.”

Her typing filled the silence again.

When there was a lull in her clacking, I tried my luck at a little conversation. “How did you end up in this job?” I asked.

“A friend worked for the company and told me about the opening.”

“You mean, you didn’t grow up wanting to be a travel agent?”

I caught the tail end of her lips twitching. “It’s a pretty good gig, to be honest. At first, I thought it would get my mom and me discounts on our trips.”

“But you don’t travel anymore.”

“We already had this conversation.”

“I know. Do you ever get jealous hearing all the fun stories of your clients when they get back?”

“I don’t usually hear them, actually. I do all the work before they leave, and occasionally handle problems while they are on their trip, but I rarely hear all about it unless they send me a postcard or something.” She typed a couple of things on her laptop, but hadn’t gotten mad at me for distracting her, so when she stopped, I kept going.

“Our jobs go hand in hand, you know. We both help other people live out their dream vacations,” I said.

I could feel her stare when she looked over at me. “Yeah, but you don’t love your job. What did you want to be when you grew up?”

“A doctor,” I said before I could stop the words.

She nodded instead of laughing at me. I mean, who’d heard of a tour guide-turned-doctor? Especially one who’d, from the outside, given up on the dream. “Right. Isn’t that what your dad was? I remember he came for a career fair.”

“No,” I said. Too fast. The word came out short and angry. I tried to backtrack, delivering the next sentence with nonchalance, so she wouldn’t see how much I hated this topic. “No, he was on the board of a hospital. Businessman. Not doctor.”

“Did he… Did he pass away?” she asked, every part of the sentence making it clear she wasn’t sure if she could be asking that.

I liked talking to Lucy, and didn't mind her asking questions… just not these questions. A big part of me wished I could just say yes and move on.

“No. He still lives in the Salt Lake area.” I gripped the steering wheel just for something to do with my extra energy.

“Gotcha.”

And then I felt like a jerk when the car got quiet again. Her typing didn’t start up again.

“My dad’s a deadbeat.” I regretted the words the second I said them. She didn’t need to know my life story. It was more tragedy than happily ever after, and I happened to know that was not her cup of tea.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Not your fault.” Yeah, those kinds of warm and fuzzy responses really made me feel like less of a jerk. I mentally chilled myself out before adding. “He did some stupid white collar crime stuff, got himself thrown in jail, and didn’t want me to come live with him again when he got out.”

More silence. I wasn’t making this any better. Did they create erasers for conversation? I’d like a redo.

“That makes me sound like I’m all bitter about it. I’m not. I got to come here, and Pops and Gram were amazing. Plus things weren’t great with my dad before that all happened anyway, so really it’s been fine.”

“Wait.” Her decade-long silence was finally broken. Praise the heavens. “When did this all happen?”

“Eighth grade. Fall break.”

“That’s…that’swhy you never came back?”

My eyes flitted over to her and again to the road. “Yeah. I thought it was common knowledge. Small-town headline news.”

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