As the man and his daughter headed into the office—her ice cream dripping, also per tradition, across our floor—I stopped by the map, checking its progress so far this season. Like normal around this time of the summer, there were a lot of pins within our own state, several in the ones above and below, and a scattering of others beyond. Someone had been here from Los Angeles; another, from Austin, Texas. There were several, all crammed together, in western Illinois—a wedding, most likely—and two placed neatly, meeting at the tip, over Toronto, Canada. So many different places, different routes to and back from this same place.
As for Colby itself, though it was my home and everyone else’s that worked here, there was no pin. Just a circle, a star, and the YOU ARE HERE I’d written myself when I repainted the sign back in May. I was here, always, and in many ways loved it. But every time I passed the map and this reminder, it kind of made me sad.
Why, though, was hard to say. Just as it was difficult, back when all the college stuff started, to explain to my parents, Luke, and just about everyone else why I’d want to go to anywhere other than East U. It was barely a millimeter away on this map, so close, and yet it still felt like enough distance to them. In Colby I’d found that people either wanted to stay forever (and usually did) or couldn’t wait to get gone and never look back (ditto). For me, however, it was a mix of the two, this constant push and pull. I loved it here. But I’d been in that circle and star for my entire life, and I so wanted to know what it would feel like to claim another distant spot as my own, if only for a little while. Someday.
Outside, Daisy was sitting on the hood of my car, waiting for me. “I thought you were getting towels,” she said, as I pulled open my door.
“So did I. Turns out my mom just wanted to know what was going on.” She laughed. “It’s not funny. They are all such psychos. They can’t stay out of my life. Or my room.”
“Because your life and your room are much more interesting than theirs.”
I rolled my eyes. “If that’s what you really think,” I said as I cranked the engine, “why don’t you tag along for dinner tonight?”
“I totally would, as my life is not interesting either,” she replied. “But I’m on gyno from four to close.”
Gyno was Daisy’s shorthand for bikini wax, her specialty at Wave Nails. There were other girls there who did it, but because she brought to this task the same dedication and meticulousness with which she did everything else, she had a rabid local following. Her clients were so numerous (and hairy, I guess) that she had to keep special post-workday hours to accommodate them all. Personally, I couldn’t understand how she stomached the, um, awkwardness of the situation, but Daisy was nothing if not professional. Seen one, she said, seen them all. All right, then.
“Want to trade?” I asked her now.
“Depends. Where’s he taking you for dinner?”
“No idea. They’re just calling when they get closer.”
“Tell him to meet you at Melisma.”
That was the nicest restaurant in Colby. I’d been there only once, for prom, when I could barely afford to order more than a salad. It was a really good salad, though. “I don’t think that’s what he has in mind.”
“Too bad. It’s the least he can do for blowing off your graduation.”
“Yeah, well, we didn’t talk about that.”
“Think you will?”
I sighed, then tipped my head back and looked up at the ceiling. The car was hot and I needed to take Daisy to her other job, at a local boutique, so I could do a round of midweek drive-bys of our properties. We did this to make sure nobody was up to anything crazy, like moving a couch onto the balcony, neglecting to report a small fire, or packing forty people into a house that sleeps twelve. Truthfully, I would have rather dealt with all of these problems at once than have to broach the subject of my graduation with my father.
“If he doesn’t mention it, neither will I,” I told her. “It’s over. There’s no point.”
Daisy was quiet for a moment, long enough that I turned to look at her. Once I did, she said, “He really hurt you, though, Emaline. You should tell him so.”
“It won’t change anything,” I replied. “And if I was any other girl, I would have gotten over it by now anyway.”
Now, her eyes narrowed. “You know I hate when you say that.”
“What?”
“That any-other-girl thing.” She flipped her hand, as if literally swatting the words away. “People are not uniform, Emaline. There is no such thing as any other girl. So stop holding yourself to some ridiculous high standard, would you please? It’s okay if you’re still upset. I would be.”
My phone beeped suddenly, announcing an incoming text. I flipped it over and looked at the screen. I’m sorry, it said. My mom. Forgive me?
I looked up at the rental office, where I could just see her window. I didn’t know if she realized I hadn’t left, or was watching me as I typed back three letters: Yes.
The irony of this was not lost on me as I cranked the engine, then backed out of the lot and turned towards the boardwalk. But making up with my mom was easy: It wasn’t the first time one of us had screwed up and had to apologize. Not even the first time this week, probably. Behavior and apologies could be taught, learned over time. Eventually, it became habit, second nature. But my father and I didn’t have that. It would take more than three letters to fix this. Which brought me to the real truth, the one that had sat on my chest since I heard him pick up the phone an hour earlier: I was thinking that maybe, by this point, I liked it better broken.