Page 31 of The Summer I First Saw You
“Then you demand something unreasonable for breakfast, and lash out when you get that thing because you now want something else.”
He nods. “Well, itisfrustrating to discover you’ve chosen poorly.”
“Then you fire an employee—perhaps someone on parole or in witness protection so he or she will be too scared to sue for wrongful termination.”
“Thatiseasiest, yes. And then?”
I hitch a shoulder. “Really, the sky’s the limit. Talk to other rich people about how rich you are. Go hunt poor people for sport. Impregnate supermodels—the ones your dad hasn’t impregnated first, that is.”
A laugh rumbles in his chest. “What a fascinating place your mind is. I’d like to peel it back to see all the rest.”
“I’m sure you’d love to peel back my mind, but you’re not getting rid of methateasily.”
“I don’t want to get rid of you,” he replies, and something flutters in my chest again. Not lust, this time. It’s sweeter.
If I were already head over heels in love with him, I’m guessing it would feel a lot like this.
I spendmy next shift in the dreary restaurant, thinking about my grandmother, oddly enough—how she used to tell me I was just like my dad, and how much I hated it.
He could never stand to be indoors either, she’d say when I’d visit them, always with this combination of pride and wistfulness, as if it were a good thing.
The official story, according to my grandparents, is that my father got held under too long at Mavericks and had a reaction to the meds he was put on afterward for depression.
My mother says they don’t want to acknowledge he was ill all along—that all those qualities in him that seemed quirky and wild and offbeat, like risking your life to surf Mavericks when it’s clear you’re not ready for it, were simply the early signs. I think she’s probably right, which is what made my grandmother’s words so hard to hear. I don’t want to be anything like him, and I suspect I am.
The last time I saw my father, when I was twelve, he was living in a residential center for the mentally ill. Even medicated, most of what he said didn’t make sense, but what scared me was that a little of it did. He insisted they were poisoning him with all the fluorescent light at the exact moment I was thinking the lights were making me tired. He told me he’d rather be dead than be kept indoors all day, and it was a thought I’d had a thousand times. I’d said it to Liam whenever he was blowing off work to catch the winter swell while sendingmeto school.
People told my mom she put too much pressure on me to become something extraordinary, but I put that same pressure on myself. It felt as if the only other option might be…him.
I look toward the water longingly—there’s a voice in my head as I go to fulfill Mia’s drink orders, sayingjust walk out, Daisy. Get some sun. Go surfing.Maybe my dad heard that voicetoo. Maybe at heart, I’m someone who can’t be inside, can’t suck it up and function at a normal job, skilled or unskilled.
I bus Mia’s tables. A guy stops me to ask if our fish is ethically sourced, and it’s all I can do not to point at our drink menu, which features a cocktail called“Bitch Had it Coming,”and ask if he’s serious.
Another of her customers is drawing a picture, glancing my way every three seconds as he sketches. I can tell that it’s me, though he’s got me in some weird dominatrix outfit and the boobs are impossibly big. He hands it to me when he’s done, and I thank him because I’m not sure what to say. As I walk away, I think about that day in creative writing when I was invited to join the writing group that was mostly for grad students…and no one else was. Oh, the look on my ex’s face when I was invited and he was not. Thespeedwith which he raced after me when class ended to beg me to take him back, claiming it was “pretty much over” with the model, which is what men say when they are very much in a relationship but want to fuck you anyway.
I made the wrong decision that day and then proceeded to make worse ones, all because I wanted to be more, because I wanted to be special, because I needed to believe that the reason I hadn’t found my place in the world was because I wasextraordinaryrather than defective.
And now I’m sucking at waiting tables and thanking people for pornographic drawings, and I’m probably not getting back into school, and I can’t stand the way my life is narrowing, is turning me into my father no matter how hard I’ve tried not to become him.
I don’t take a single deep breath until my shift ends and I’m back outside.
17
HARRISON
After months of not having enough to do, on Tuesday afternoon, I’m swamped and resentful.
I stare at the dying sun, picturing Daisy out on the water, telling me how rich people live. I want to surf. I want to talk to her as we straddle our boards, the water rolling beneath us. I want to take a hot shower afterward and watch her pad around the kitchen with wet hair, humming as she cooks.
I’d forgotten this hunger for things, the way I once couldn’t fucking wait to leave work to surf with my friends. And maybe this hunger is about more than surfing, but that point is best left unexplored.
I don’t get home ‘til late. She’s on the couch, curled up with a book, her bare feet peeking out of the end of the blanket. I fight the urge to cover them, tugging at my tie instead. I can’t reconcile these two sides of her—the cute little kid I babied for years and the grown woman who is seductive even when she’s wrapped in a blanket, reading.
“There’s some shrimp and pasta in the fridge,” she says.
I ate at work, but I heat some of it up anyway, just in case she made it for me.
She comes to the counter, yawning as she scrapes her hair back into a ponytail. “Hey, can I borrow one of the bikes in the garage? I’m not being paid yet, and the lot I’m parking in costs fifteen bucks a day.”
