“Mistakes?” I slide my arm around my sister, shocked when I see her brush tears away with trembling fingers. “Dani, you’re, like, perfect. Like, you make me feel like I’m doing a shitty job as a big sister to my little sisters because I could never live up to you. You’re always there for me. You have more drive than anyone I know. You’re smart and talented and confident. I mean, look at everything you’ve achieved.” For some reason, everything I’m saying to reassure her just makes her cry harder. Desperate to stop her tears, I joke, “You know, Dad sent me the copy of Key West’s Entrepreneurs. You were number one in the ‘Thirty under Thirty,’ and you looked like a total hottie on the cover.”
She chokes out a tear-clogged laugh. “Why does he insist on showing that article to everyone? Ugh...look.” She points to an over-the-seat pocket that holds multiple copies of the magazine with Dani’s gorgeous face smiling on the cover, and we both howl with laughter. “I’m glad Dad’s proud,” Dani says, this time wiping tears of hilarity from her eyes, “but couldn’t he be...more reserved about it?”
That makes us howl louder. Stephen Duke Beloise is many things, but reserved is definitely not one of them.
“What are you chuckleheads laughing about?” Dad asks when we pull in. He’s smiling so wide, it’s got to hurt his cheeks.
“Sister stuff, top secret,” Dani says, then hugs me hard and whispers “I love you so much” into my ear.
We get out and straight gawk at the beautiful storefront with delicate scrollwork lettering and gorgeous lighting that makes the whole place feel warm and sparkly. Dani’s place is called Time after Time Salon, which the Key West’s Entrepreneurs’ article informed me is a tribute to the song her mom and Dad danced to at their senior prom, the night Dad proposed. Dad and Allie—Dani and Duke’s mother—were high-school sweethearts who got married really young. I know from the way Dad’s face tightens when he talks about her that her death still hurts him badly. She got cancer when Duke and Dani were still really little, which is when Nan Sunny came in to help out, just before my mom and I burst in for a quick year or so, then disappeared. Or, at least Mom did. I keep coming back every summer, trying to soak up all the love they pour on me.
Dani unlocks the doors and bustles in, flipping on more lights and holding her arms out as I look around. “So? What do you think?”
“The pictures did not do this place justice.” I tilt my head back and twirl around, looking at the gorgeous ceiling tiles and glistening chandeliers. “We don’t have anything like this in my hometown in Michigan. I haven’t even seen anything this fancy in Grosse Pointe.”
“Maybe I should open a salon there,” Dani muses.
Dad fake shivers. “Baby, you’ve never felt a windchill of negative twenty before. You don’t have a flamingo’s chance in the Arctic of adjusting to that kind of weather.”
“Twenty below? Below zero?” Duke pushes the hair out of his eyes to squint at me. “Is it really that cold where you live in Michigan?”
“They don’t even close school unless it’s twenty-five below in my district,” I brag.
Duke’s eyebrows shoot so high, they’re completely hidden by his mass of curls. “I can’t imagine you anywhere other than the beach.”
“Our baby sister is made of tougher stuff than you think,” Dani says. “For example, she’s willing to cut off several inches of gorgeous hair; meanwhile, you’re crying over two inches of that wild-beast mane.”
“Fine. If Dell can deal with twenty-below-zero temperatures, I guess I can deal with looking like a hipster asshole.” Duke plops in a chair, and Dani runs to snap a cape around his neck.
While the buzzers whir, I walk over to the wall behind the gleaming cherrywood reception desk. There are pictures—me and Dani on the beach in matching polka-dot bikinis; Bennie, her long-term sweetheart, and Dad out on a boat reeling in a giant swordfish; Duke, hair overlong, smiling from the hammock by the pool behind the house; a beautiful black-and-white shot of Nan Sunny when she was a high-school senior, next to a soft-color photo of Dani’s mom from her senior year; and several of friends I don’t recognize from the church we attend every Sunday, including a few with a cute little curly-haired boy. Dani nannied for a little while in high school. I bet this is the family she nannied for. Or maybe he’s one of the many distant cousins I’ve heard about but can never put a name to at our big family reunions at the end of the summer.
“Are you sure you don’t want to have your welcome-back party right away?” Dad hunkers down to look at the pictures, drawing the scratchy pads of his fingers over them softly.
“I want Gram and Pop to be there.” My paternal grandma and stepgrandpa are on a cruise in Norway or something, but they’ll be back in two weeks.
“They already said they don’t mind,” Dad wheedles.
I drape an arm around his waist and bury my head in the sleeve of his Belo’s Bait and Tackle T-shirt, the cotton worn so soft, it feels like silk. “That’s because you’re a bully. You bullied them.”
“Never,” he insists, eyes crinkling at the edges from his smile.
“You just want an excuse for a party.” I cross my arms, and Dad quirks an eyebrow.
“Are you accusing me of using my baby girl’s homecoming as an excuse to drink gallons of sweet tea and eat fresh shrimp and dance all night with all our friends and family?” When I glare at him, he tilts his head back and bellows out a clear, loud laugh. “Guilty!”
Sometimes I wonder how my mother ever left my funny, charismatic, action-hero-handsome father for Peter. Not that Peter isn’t fantastic, in his own nerdy way. He’s just so quiet and brainy and...calm. Peter is definitely not the spontaneous life of the party my father is. Mom is also so outgoing and high-energy, it just seems like she and Dad should have worked. But maybe the old saying about opposites attracting is true after all.
“Dad, you really wear me out, but I love you anyway.” I’m hoping to get a smile when I quote a line from one of my favorite childhood books, Olivia, which I used to make him read to me over and over again when he put me to sleep at night. Instead, his eyes well up and glisten. “Oh, Dad...”
He pulls me into a tight hug and says, “All kidding aside, you’re growin’ up so damn fast, Dell, and it’s harder to deal with when we skip months between visits. One year I’m reading you that book about the funny pig every single night, and the next it’s that spunky little Junie B., then Baby-Sitters Club graphic novels, then actual literature I never even bothered to read—all in a blink.” He pulls back and pets my hair down. “I know I’m probably being sentimental, but this year feels big, ya know? You’ll be off doing amazing things soon. Hell, next year you won’t come down here at all. You’ll be too busy packing on up for college.”