“Sounds about right. And why are you hanging out at home on a Friday night?”
“I wasn’t. Alana and I went out and now I’m back.” I hoped Uncle Tim wouldn’t ask me what we’d done. I didn’t like lying, but I would never tell my uncle about trespassing on Mr. Young’s properties. He’d be disappointed, maybe worried. My parents always said we needed to maintain a squeaky clean reputation, never give the Youngs ammunition.
“You seem down,” my uncle said in his thoughtful way.
Despite Alana’s attempt at distracting me, my brain was still wrapped up in my major fail at hosting. Thinking about struggling through a year of something I never wanted to do in the first place wasn’t sitting well.
“How do I convince my podcasting teacher to let me switch jobs?” I asked my uncle, turning to face him. “She’s really stubborn, but I feel like the entire class wishes that would happen.”
“Ah. Yes.”
My heart sank. “You listened to it, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
He didn’t finish that sentence with: you were great or you were funny. Instead he said, “You’ll get better. And don’t worry, the class will come around.”
Ouch. “Yeah … maybe.” We finished our cereal in silence. I stood up and dumped the remainder of my milk into the sink.
“Don’t stress about it, Kate. Success doesn’t happen without some failure.”
I turned back around to look at him at the counter. “That’s one of those things adults say that really means nothing, isn’t it?”
He laughed. “I stand by it.”
“Thanks.”
I wanted to believe him. But his statement implied that success always came after failure. I knew that wasn’t true. “Maybe I should just drop out of the class,” I mused out loud. “Take pottery instead.”
“Your mom wouldn’t like that. She’s excited that you’re taking this class.”
“I know.” I rolled my eyes. “She’s all into podcasts thanks to Alana.”
Uncle Tim laughed. “I think it’s more that she wants you to find some new passions. Make sure you’re living up to your potential and all that.”
“But I already have my passion!” I protested. “I want to run the marina. Why are my parents suddenly acting like my caring about the lake is a horrible thing? Their lives are about the lake.”
Uncle Tim nodded. “But there’s nothing wrong with exploring some more options before making a decision about your entire future. That’s all your parents want.”
“Says the guy who has known he wanted to fly airplanes since the time he was five.”
He smiled. “True.”
I started to walk toward the door.
“But I minored in Biology because I thought cutting things open sounded fun, too.”
I turned and walked backward a few steps. “You’re weird.”
He raised his cereal bowl to me. “Sometimes the path of least resistance isn’t necessarily the right path. You can resist the siren call of the lake sometimes.”
I stopped walking. “What?”
“What?”
“You were talking to my dad, weren’t you? He used those exact words. Did you all sit around talking about me?”
“No.”
I lowered my chin and continued to stare.
“They’re just concerned about you, Kate.”
I frowned. “They think I only want to run the marina because it’s easy? Because I’m lazy or something?”
“They don’t want you to choose your future by default.”
“I love the marina. Maybe more than they do.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
I grunted and marched to the door. “Fine. I won’t quit the podcast.”
At least, not yet.
“I thought Alana was coming with us today,” Liza said as we pulled up outside the tutoring center on Monday afternoon.
“She’s meeting us here.”
Alana had explained to me that she didn’t want to show up at Diego’s place of employment without a good reason. I wasn’t sure what good reason she’d come up with, but I’d learned long ago to just go along with Alana’s plans. Things turned out better that way.
This time, Diego was at the front counter when Liza and I walked inside.
“Hey, Kate, Liza,” he said.
Tommy came out of the back room. “Hi, Liza. You ready to get to work?”
She shrugged. “Not really.”
Tommy laughed. “Well, too bad, kiddo. I get paid the big bucks to make you work.” His gaze slid to me. “Hey, nice job on the podcast Friday.”
I nearly choked on my own surprise. “Oh … you listened to that?”
“Yeah. You were funny.”
“See!” Liza said. “That’s what I tried to tell her, but she cried about how awful she was.”
“I did not cry.” My face got hot.
“Whined, whatever.”
She had me there. “Yes, there was lots of whining.”
“Well, I liked the podcast,” Tommy said. Then he gestured toward the tables and led Liza away.
I bit my bottom lip and tried to avoid Diego’s stare, which I could feel on me.
“You host the school podcast?” he asked.
“I know. I seem like the last person who should’ve been picked to be a host.”
“I didn’t say that.”
I occupied myself with the magazines on the table again. There were new ones, I noticed. “It was a job forced upon me.” I picked up one of the new ones, a fashion magazine, and showed it to Diego. “This another hobby of yours?”
“No. Do you like fashion?”
I threw the magazine down and sank onto the chair. “Not really.” I opted for one of the three-year-old celebrity gossip magazines and began reading some articles. It was interesting going back in time for a bit. Some things seemed exactly the same and others were totally different.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat leafing through that magazine and wondering if Alana would ever show up. But when I looked up again, Diego was typing into his phone. A picture was tucked into the clear case of his phone. My curiosity had me tossing the magazine back on the table and standing up to take a closer a look.
“Your family?” I asked. The photo showed Diego with two adults, plus two older guys and a girl I guessed were his brothers and sister. They were all good-looking, with similar wide smiles.
“What?” he asked.
I pointed. “The picture.”
He flipped his phone over to look. “Oh. Yes. I like my family. Go figure.”
I smiled. That was sweet. “Me too. Most of the time.”
Diego went back to typing something, and I was just about to ask him what had his attention when Victoria’s voice rang out over his phone’s tiny speaker, broadcasting the podcast.
I gasped and without hesitating, I lunged forward tried to steal the phone from Diego. He held it out of my reach. Then my voice rang out from the speaker. I grabbed his arm and tried to pull the phone down. He laughed and twisted out of my hold.