Woke Up Like This(15)
I swat her words away like pesky houseflies. I don’t mean to be a brat, but Mom is out to lunch. I can’t imagine a reality where Kassie isn’t blowing up my phone, asking how hot she looks on a scale of her grandma to Kylie Jenner in certain outfits, or whether she’s wearing too much bronzer. And then there’re the serious texts when she vents about how much she wishes her parents would just divorce already, because they’re both checked out.
Mom can tell I’m over the conversation and starts scrolling on her cracked iPhone. “Want to order pizza for dinner tonight?”
“We ordered pizza last week,” I remind her.
It’s been just Mom and me for years now. We aren’t a family who breaks bread at the table every night, rehashing our days. We usually eat on the couch. Ever since Dad left, Mom thinks sitting at our six-person dining table, just the two of us, is “depressing.” She’s probably right. I have vivid memories of sitting at the table with Dad. At the beginning of each meal, he’d ask what I learned in school that day. Mouth full, I’d jump at the opportunity to show off all my newfound knowledge, reciting facts from every subject. Bonus if I had a good grade to report. Dinner was when Dad and I bonded most, probably because he’d spend most of his evenings working. Sitting at the dining table across from his empty seat just feels . . . wrong, like a stark reminder of what I no longer have.
Mom props her bare feet on the table. “What about Subway? Oh, before I forget—I got a voice mail last night.”
“A voice mail? From who?”
“Your dad.”
My stomach plummets. “Oh.” That’s strange. Dad never calls just to talk. He prefers to text intermittently, only asking about school, as though my grades are the only thing he cares about. We only have formal phone calls on Christmas and my birthday, which happen to fall within a month of each other.
“He left a rambling voice mail. Asked me to ask you to give him a call, if you want.” Mom has that forced neutral tone she uses when she doesn’t want to persuade me either way.
“If I want?” I repeat, hesitant.
“I know he’s not Dad of the Year, but I think you should give him a call.” There’s something odd about her tone. A weird, nervous lilt, like there’s something more going on.
“Why should I?” I don’t bother to mask my saltiness.
Dad left for the city when I was nine. Mom fell into a depression for months afterward. Camp with Kassie that summer was my solace—a place I could decorate myself into oblivion with stickers and temporary tattoos, fill up on candy and white freeze pops, and forget about how much I missed Dad and the way things used to be.
For the longest time, his calls were the highlight of my week. I couldn’t wait to tell him about my latest test grade, or the elementary school speech I rocked, just like our dinner table conversations. He would get all warm and affectionate when I told him good news.
By middle school, things had changed. He started climbing the corporate ladder and married a woman named Shaina, who he’s currently in the process of divorcing. She was pleasant in a Stepford kind of way and owned multiple frilly aprons in different colors for every occasion. She also abided by the hashtag #happinessishomemade, which is the clear opposite of Mom, whose idea of homemade is a dry Betty Crocker box cake. She smiled a lot, but she already had three kids of her own, so she wasn’t particularly interested in me. After they married, my calls with Dad became distant and less frequent. They mostly consisted of me rambling while he put me on speakerphone and tapped away on his laptop. No matter how good my grades were, his responses were clipped, delayed, and often completely unrelated.
Things went downhill in ninth grade. I called to tell him I’d been elected freshman student council rep and he didn’t even remember that I was running in the first place. That was the moment I gave up seeking his approval. The moment I stopped visiting him in the city. What was the point? He was never coming back anyways, no matter how much I accomplished.
Mom fiddles with a loose thread on my sweater, reminding me that I need to ask her to sew my ripped backpack. “Well, he’s still seeing that new woman. Maybe he wants you to meet her.”
I crinkle my nose. “Which one? The assistant?” Since announcing his divorce from Shaina, he’s had a couple girlfriends, all of whom are in their twenties.
“Nope. She doesn’t work for your dad. She’s a publicist. Her name is Alexandra. I creeped her on social media and she’s totally out of his league,” Mom adds, scrolling through her phone for a photo. She turns it toward me.
Dad definitely has a type: young. Alexandra is no exception. She’s tanned, sun-kissed, and posing in a black one-piece on the balcony of what appears to be a tropical resort. Her sharp cheekbones and slender build remind me of one of those dark-haired Victoria’s Secret models.
“Good for him, I guess,” I mutter. Though I still have no interest in meeting her, regardless of how nice a person she probably is, especially if he’ll be on to someone new next month.
“You need to make more of an effort with him too, you know. Maybe go visit this summer. You could have a hot-girl summer in the city.”
I shoot her a poisonous look as I type an SOS text to Kassie about Dad and his new girlfriend. “Mom, don’t say hot-girl summer.”
“I’m just sayin’. You don’t want to end up with daddy issues like me, or Rachael.”