I applied Early Action and was deferred, which was okay because Ethan was too. I remember the feeling of opening the decision email in the newspaper room on the Friday before winter break. The dull rushing in my ears, the weird wobble the whole world gave when my goal was pulled temporarily out of reach. Instead of dwelling on the feeling, I set my sights on regular decision and focused on what was important—Ethan didn’t get in, either.
Once I receive my admission letter and Ethan hopefully doesn’t, I’ll finally have the gloriously Ethan-free life I’ve fantasized about for years. Of course, I have to admit the possibility we both get in. It would be the worst. We’d inevitably be on the newspaper together, undoubtedly run into each other in the freshman dining hall, and probably sit in the same lectures. Should it happen, I’ve consoled myself with the thought I’ll find plenty of non-Ethan people. I’m sure I’ll even find a more bearable rival.
Right now, I just need to survive the rest of the year with the one I have.
Eight
“SERIOUSLY?”
I’m eating breakfast the next morning, plain Cheerios, the only thing my stomach will withstand right now, while I work on AP calculus homework. Or I was, until my mom dropped a driver’s ed course registration paper onto the conic-section diagrams I’m solving.
“Seriously,” she says. She walks past me, circling the kitchen island and reaching for the Keurig. I notice she’s especially dressed-up for work, wearing her new charcoal skirt suit instead of her usual colorful sweaters, which I’m guessing means she has an important client conference. Yet she doesn’t seem stressed in the least. “You’re signing up, or no more rides home from the newspaper at all hours. You got your learner’s permit, like, six months ago. It’s time for driver’s ed.”
“I don’t have the time,” I protest.
Dad walks in, holding his Nikes in one hand. He focuses immediately on the coffeemaker, eyes bright under his thick brows. Lately, he’s been growing an awful beard, which is coming in even grayer than his heavy crop of hair. We’re on week three of the beard, despite repeated hints and eventually outright directives from me, my mom, and Jamie.
“You know,” my mom says, “you don’t actually have time for half the things you do, and yet you find a way.” She closes the Keurig, piercing the plastic pod as if to put punctuation on this point. “Why are you avoiding this, baby girl?”
I frown. I hate the nickname, which is a relic from when I was a kid and would come home from third grade and read Jamie’s Nancy Drew collection. “I’m not avoiding it. I’ll do it. When I have time.”
“Your mother’s right,” Dad contributes. “We’re too old to be picking you up at one in the morning on production nights.”
In fairness to my parents, production nights are ridiculous. The weeks we publish the newspaper, the editorial staff stays in the journalism room after school working late into the night, designing pages, placing stories and photos, editing with writers when necessary. While it’s not strictly allowed under school rules—or strictly legal—our lackadaisical advisor, Ms. Heyward, provides the shallowest pretense of supervision, and the administration pretty much looks the other way.
Regardless of production night hours, I hate how my dad’s playing the age card. Yes, my parents are closer in years to my friends’ grandparents. I just don’t like to be reminded of how incongruous I am with the lives of people nearly in their sixties.
“You should have thought of that before you had me,” I reply. It’s not like having old parents was my choice.
“Shoulda, woulda, coulda,” Mom says, while the coffeemaker sputters and fills her mug.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She lifts the cup and sips hesitantly, looking up with an innocent expression. “I got pregnant with you seven years after I had your sister,” she says. “You think there was any forethought involved in your conception?”
I pull a gagging face. “Could you please not reference accidental pregnancies while I’m eating? Especially when they pertain to my very existence.”
Mom and Dad share a mildly disturbing look. “Greatest accident of our lives, kiddo,” Dad says. Walking over to where I’m finishing my Cheerios, he places one hand on my shoulder. I smell the familiar pine scent of his shampoo. “Right above the time I spilled soup on Harrison Ford.”
I ignore him. It’s the universe’s only 100 percent proven way of deflecting his jokes. “You’d seriously leave your seventeen-year-old daughter to find her own way home from her exhausting extracurricular after midnight?” We’re fifteen minutes from school, streets I’ve never wanted to walk post-production night even though they’re empty and quiet with the safety of suburbia.
“Yes,” my parents say together.
I don’t know why I expected anything else. When it comes to me, I’d characterize my parents’ parenting style as “hands-off.” Maybe they were different with Jamie. But by the time I arrived, they’d become easygoing on everything from curfews to SAT scores. They’re not unsupportive—they’ve encouraged me in every way, praised me, paid for every extracurricular and summer program I ever wanted. But because they’re older, they’re not invested in the higher-pressure behavior I’ve seen in my classmates’ parents. They’ve done it already. Now they’re just waiting to retire.
“You could always depend on Jamie,” my mom adds, earning a laugh from my dad.
Everyone knows Jamie’s not exactly dependable. I’m sure she’s still sleeping right now. It’s like moving back into her childhood bedroom has regressed her. She sleeps until noon, watches sitcoms at all hours, and eats junk food every day. When Mom sends me to summon her downstairs for dinner, I get glimpses into her room and inevitably see empty Frappuccino cups surrounding her wastebasket and sweatshirts and sweatpants strewn on the floor. The idea of relying on her for rides home is, to say the least, iffy.
“You’re both incorrigible,” I tell my parents.
“Just think,” Mom says expansively, “with your own license you could sneak out and go to a boy’s house.”
Placing my dish in the sink, I frown. “I have other—”
“Oh, you mean Ethan Molloy’s house,” Dad interrupts. I close my eyes, sighing. I’ve heard this bit before. Hundreds of times, I would estimate. Ever since my parents encountered Ethan when I hosted an AP Euro study group and we debated the entire time, I haven’t heard the end of their enthusiasm for the idea of me and my rival dating.
“I do mean Ethan Molloy’s house,” my mom replies, her face lighting up. “Speaking of accidental pregnancies . . .”