His parents approach a black BMW that’s parked in the driveway but Adrian waves them over to join us, and I really wish he hadn’t. You know all those runners in Tampax ads who finish their workouts with glowing complexions and runway-ready hair? After eight miles in ninety-degree weather, I don’t look anything like them. My shirt is soaked with sweat, my hair is a stringy, greasy mess, and there are dead gnats speckled all over my forehead.
“Mallory, this is my mother, Sofia, and my father, Ignacio.” I dry my palm on my shorts before shaking their hands. “Mallory babysits for the Maxwells. The new family on Edgewood. They have a little boy named Teddy.”
Sofia looks at me suspiciously. She’s so well dressed and perfectly coiffed, I can’t imagine she’s broken a sweat in thirty years. But Ignacio greets me with a friendly smile. “You must be a very dedicated athlete, running in all this humidity!”
“Mallory’s a distance runner at Penn State,” Adrian explains. “She’s on the cross-country team.”
And I cringe at the lie because I’ve already forgotten about it. If Adrian and I were alone, I’d come clean and fess up—but I can’t say anything now, not with both his parents staring at me.
“I’m sure you’re faster than my son,” Ignacio says. “It takes him all day to mow two backyards!” Then he laughs uproariously at his own joke while Adrian shifts his feet, embarrassed.
“That’s landscaping humor. My father thinks he’s a stand-up comic.”
Ignacio grins. “It’s funny because it’s true!”
Sofia studies my appearance and I’m convinced she sees right through me. “What year are you in?”
“Senior. Almost finished.”
“Me, too!” Adrian says. “I go to Rutgers, in New Brunswick, for engineering. What’s your major?”
And I have no idea how to answer this question. All my college planning focused exclusively on coaches, scouts, and Title IX funding. I never reached the point of considering what I might actually study. Business? Law? Biology? None of these answers seem credible—but now I’m taking too long to respond and they’re all staring at me and I need to say something, anything—
“Teaching,” I tell them.
Sofia looks skeptical. “You mean education?”
She pronounces the word slowly—ed-u-ca-tion—like she suspects I’m hearing it for the first time.
“Right. For little kids.”
“Elementary education?”
“Exactly.”
Adrian is delighted. “My mom teaches fourth grade! She was an education major, too!”
“No kidding!” And it’s a good thing I’m flush from my run, because I’m sure my face is burning.
“It’s the most noble profession,” Ignacio says. “You’ve made a wonderful choice, Mallory.”
At this point I’m desperate to change the subject, to say something—anything—that’s not a lie. “Your flowers are beautiful,” I tell them. “I run past your house every day to look at them.”
“Then here’s the million-dollar question,” Ignacio says. “Which is your favorite?”
Adrian explains this is a game that his parents play with visitors. “The idea is that your favorite flower says something about your personality. Like a horoscope.”
“They’re all so beautiful,” I tell them.
Sofia refuses to let me off the hook. “You have to pick one. Whatever you like best.”
So I point to the orange flowers that just came up, the ones that are growing on the trellis. “I don’t know the name, but they remind me of little orange traffic cones.”
“Trumpet vines,” Adrian says.
Ignacio seems delighted. “No one ever picks the trumpet vine! She’s a beautiful flower, very versatile and low-maintenance. You give her a little sun and water—not too much attention—and she takes care of herself. Very independent.”
“But also kind of a weed,” Sofia adds. “A little hard to control.”
“That’s called vitality!” Ignacio says. “It’s good!”
Adrian shoots an exasperated look in my direction—see what I have to put up with?—and his mother reminds them that they’re very late, that they need to get going. So we all say hasty goodbyes and nice-to-meet-yous and I resume walking home.
A few seconds later, the black BMW drives past and Ignacio toots the horn while Sofia stares straight ahead. Adrian waves to me through the rear window and I catch a glimpse of the little boy he used to be—traveling with his parents in the backseat of their car, riding his bike on these shady sidewalks, accepting these beautiful tree-lined streets as a kind of birthright. I have the sense his childhood was perfect, that he has lived life with absolutely zero regrets.