Pop huffs. “How do you not own a single swimsuit?”
“I used to.” It was black, if I remember correctly, with a white diagonal stripe across the chest. I grew out of it and never got around to procuring a new one. That time I swam in Leo’s pool, I did it in my underwear. Which felt bold and sexy at the time. I swallow. “I could get one—maybe, somewhere . . . before tomorrow morning. Hmm. This seems unlikely.”
Pop apparently decides it’s not important. “No worries. If there’s one thing a person can buy in Hawaii, it’s a bathing suit.” He sighs wistfully. “I love Hawaii. Your mother and I had our honeymoon in Kauai.”
“I remember. I was mad because you didn’t take us.”
“We had a beautiful time there. One morning we got up early, just as the sun was coming up, and we went paddleboarding. It was so tranquil out there on the water. It was an almost spiritual experience.”
That sounds amazing. It also sounds like just what I need. “You’ll have to teach me,” I say.
His faraway gaze focuses on me. “Teach you?”
“How to paddleboard.”
His mouth tightens. “Oh. About that,” he says quietly. “I’m not coming this time.”
“Not coming paddleboarding?”
“Not coming. To Hawaii. We’ve had a last-minute change to the schedule.”
I stare at Pop breathlessly. “What? But you always come to the STS conference.”
“I can’t this time. It turns out that they need me at work.”
Abby stops jumping on the bed and flops down onto the bedspread. “Wait, why can’t you come, Poppy?”
He strokes her hair. After taking a minute to consider, he says, “Well, you know that I’m a nurse.”
Not just a nurse, really, but the best emergency room nurse at El Camino Mountain View. But let’s be modest about it.
“And June is when people start doing more dangerous things like hiking and camping and rock climbing, and they end up needing emergency care more often than usual,” he continues. “And what would those people do if Poppy were on vacation when they needed help?”
“The same thing people do when they need surgery when Mom’s on vacation,” comes Afton’s voice from the doorway. This time she’s wearing a pajama shirt and boxers, thank god. “They get it done by somebody else, and they’re fine.”
“And you always come to the STS conference,” I say again. “Plus, you’ve been working so hard lately. You could use the R and R.”
“What’s R and R?” asks Abby, adorably, because she can’t fully pronounce her R’s yet.
“Rest and relaxation.” Pop rubs at his eyes like he’s tired just thinking about work, which proves my point, but he’s already saying no even though he knows I’m right. “I’m sorry, girls. We’re short staffed this year. I can’t get away.”
Afton and I exchange tense glances, the friction between us momentarily placed on hold while we assess this new information. I don’t believe his flimsy excuse about work for a second. This has to be about Mom. Maybe they even had a fight between last night and now, one that we don’t know about. Maybe they’re breaking up.
“What does Mom think about you not going?” Afton asks, because she’s come to the same conclusion.
“She understands. Of course she does,” Pop answers a bit sadly.
This is not good. Not good at all. “But, Pop—” I start.
“You probably don’t even want to go to the conference,” Afton theorizes.
“That’s silly,” Pop says. “Why wouldn’t I want to go?”
I can think of a reason: Because Hawaii is where he and Mom were in all kinds of intense, beautiful love, and they’re not in that kind of love anymore.
“Because you hate having to spend an entire week with a bunch of judgmental, stuck-up surgeons who think nurses are morons, and male nurses are even worse,” says Afton.
Pop’s face goes slightly red. “No. That’s not—”
“Then why?” Afton asks sharply.
“I told you,” he says. “I have to work.”
“But this year is Hawaii. You love Hawaii.” I hate that my voice is a whine, but I can’t help it. Pop is my favorite person. I know it shouldn’t be a kind of competition between who I like best in my family, but if I’m being honest, there’s no contest. It’s Pop. Not Mom or Afton or even Abby.
Pop is my rock.
“I do love Hawaii,” he sighs, agreeing with me but not agreeing. “You girls are going to have so much fun.”
10
“Hey, I’m sorry about what I said yesterday,” I try out as an apology Sunday morning. The plane is about to lift off from SFO. Afton and I are stuck sitting together, seats 17 A and B, respectively, and while I’m still moderately pissed off at my older sister, for reasons I can’t quite articulate, I don’t think I can endure the entire six-hour flight with the two of us actively fighting. So I’m waving the white flag. Being the bigger person. Making nice.
Afton pulls out a compact and reapplies her lipstick. “What part?”
“What?”
“What part of what you said, exactly, are you sorry for?” She presses her lips together to blot them and clicks the compact closed.
“Um, all of it?”
“Hmm. Okay.” Afton starts texting someone. Probably Logan. Because Afton, lucky her, still has a boyfriend.
“You’re not supposed to use your phone right now,” I say. “It interferes with the plane’s radar or something.”
Afton sighs and puts her phone back into her purse, but she doesn’t turn it off or put it into airplane mode first. The plane starts to pick up speed. I try to steady my breathing as it thrusts itself into the air. I’ve never loved flying. I don’t like being in tight, enclosed spaces where, if something were to go horribly wrong, I’d be trapped with no way of escape. I only get through it by reminding myself that it’s temporary.
But this is a six-hour flight.
“Have you heard from Leo?” Afton stares out the little window as the ground drops away beneath us. She has the window seat. She always gets the window seat, and I always get the aisle. This feels like a metaphor for something.
I exhale through my mouth slowly before I answer. “No. And I don’t want to hear from him, ever again.”
“Good,” says Afton.
So we’re on speaking terms again. I sigh in relief. “The thing that kills me is how he always said the right things, all that progressive, woke, feminist bullshit about respecting me and liking me for who I was, but underneath that he was just a cliché of a douchebag, after all.” I’ve also been taught not to say the word douchebag, because the reason it’s supposed to be an insult is that it’s associated only with women. The same way that pussy is a slur. But the word asshole just isn’t covering it when it comes to Leo. “So you were right. It’s a good thing.”
“Right,” says Afton vaguely.
“This trip is just what I need,” I say, almost cheerful now. “Even if Pop’s not coming.”