Bittersweet (2 page)

I looked down at my watch. It was still early. I sat on my bed and stared at the chocolate bulletin board again. Then, before I could think about it too much, I dug my phone out of my pocket and dialed.

I almost hung up when my stepmom, Gina, answered. I’d only talked to her a handful of times in the last two years. She sent me chocolate every month and I always sent her a thank you note, but neither one of us could stomach being on the phone with each other for more than a few minutes. The memories were too raw.

“Hey, Gina.”

“Oh, Savannah, I was going to call you this week. How are you?”

“My summer’s gonna suck.”

“Oh yeah, what’s going on?”

“Mom’s making me work with Grant this summer at Haunted Valley. Did you ever meet him?”

“Your Dad’s brother? A few times. Your Dad never talked about him much. He seemed nice enough. He was quite a bit younger than your Dad, but was always more responsible.” My stomach tightened at the mention of my father.

“That’s good. Do you remember a few years ago we talked about doing a chocolate tour of Europe?”

She laughed. What a strange sound. “Yes, I do. We were supposed to go during Christmas break of your senior year. You said it would be an early graduation present.”

“That’s this coming year.”

Her voice lost its cheer. “Oh, honey, I—”

I interrupted her before she could continue. “I don’t expect you to pay for it. That’s what I was calling about. For the last couple of years, I thought it was just a pipe dream. But if I work this whole summer and save the money, I should have enough to actually go. I want you to come with me. It won’t be same if I go alone.”

She sighed on the other end of the phone. Gina only ever sighed before giving bad news.

“I wish I could, but I’m going to be tied up at Christmas. I was hoping you would be available to be here with me.”

I creased my eyebrows, confused.

“Why?”

“It’s been two years. I’m getting married and I want you to be a bridesmaid.”

I nearly dropped the phone. What right did she have, his wife, to move on when I couldn’t even summon a single stinking feeling? She couldn’t get married and be happy again. That wasn’t fair. I took a deep breath. She spoke again.

“Will you be my bridesmaid? I really want you there.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t. I’ll be in Brussels.”

I hung up the phone.

W
E MET AT
C
RACKER
B
ARREL
, which was just mom indulging me. My favorite meal in the whole world was biscuits and gravy from Cracker Barrel. If I could I’d subsist on chocolate alone, but I tried that right after Dad died and nearly ended up in the hospital.

“Grant just texted me that he already has a table. We’ll eat and then you two need to get on the road,” Mom said.

I recognized him immediately even though I’d only met him twice before, once at a family reunion and then again at the funeral. He had the same dark hair and eyes my dad had. Except skinnier. Grant gave my mom an awkward hug and shook Dave’s hand. They all smiled at each other. I sat down before he could touch me at all.

He tugged at his collar and smiled at me. It wasn’t a real smile, it was the kind of smile you gave when you felt like you were supposed to smile but didn’t really want to.

“So, Savannah, how was your school year?”

“Oh, fine. I got suspended, barely passed my classes since I wasn’t allowed to take the finals, and got dumped by my boyfriend.”

This was a test. If he were like my dad, he’d say something funny to lighten the mood. Dad hated anything serious.

Grant frowned and fidgeted with the menu. “I’m sorry to hear that. I hope this summer will be better for you.”

Fat chance of that. I rolled my eyes. He seemed so unsure of himself. Which was odd, because Dad was always the life of the party and completely in control of social situations. This aspect of him I didn’t inherit. Well, I did. I used to have it, but then he died and I threw it away.

They made small talk until the food arrived. Grant didn’t try addressing me again. Probably didn’t want me to tell him how horrible my life was. Just as the food arrived I hiccupped. Damn. My mother glared at me and Teddy giggled.

Hiccups are part of the family curse. Through my dad’s side, of course. We didn’t just hiccup. We made a loud and obnoxious noise that was more like a crow cawing. There was no way to get rid of them, I just had to wait them out. My mother always had new suggestions on how to stop them and they never worked. My hiccups were unbelievably embarrassing in class, but mostly they just reminded me that I’d inherited a curse that killed my great-grandfather during the Depression, my grandfather after Vietnam, and most recently my dad. There were other signs of the curse, but the first was always the hiccups. When I was little I thought the whole thing was about the hiccups, that my grandfathers died of hiccups. It wasn’t until a few years before my dad finally died from the wretched curse that he tried to convince me that hiccups had nothing to do with it. Sometimes, I still thought the hiccups were going to kill me.

“Damn curse,” I muttered.

Grant put his fork down. “Not you too.”

“Excuse me?” I asked.

“Your Dad was always going on about the curse. It doesn’t exist. He made it up as a party story to deflect attention off of his hiccups.”

“That doesn’t make it any less real. He’s dead, isn’t he?” I met his eyes. Those tiny almost-black eyes that were just like Dad’s.

“From a disease, not a curse.”

“Disease, curse, same thing.”

He put his fork down and crossed his arms. “It is not the same thing, if your Dad had recognized it as a disease then he would not be dead.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but my mother cleared her throat. Grant and I looked at her and then turned our attention back to food.

The rest of dinner was tense and silent. Except for Teddy jabbering on about Thomas the Train. To try to distract myself I listened to him intently. Half way through dinner, Grant looked at me but spoke to my mother.

“Savannah will have orientation on Tuesday. She’ll have to spend tomorrow getting up to dress code.”

My head jerked up and I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly.

“I’m sorry, what?” I asked.

“Your nails can’t be black. You can paint them a light pink, but no black or bright colors. You’ll have to remove the ring in your eyebrow.” I dropped my fork. This would not do at all.

“What about brown, can I paint them brown?” I wanted to continue, to explain that my nails were not black at all, but a dark brown of the richest chocolate. The kind that comes from Argentina. They couldn’t be black, because I threw the black nail polish away after Candie betrayed me and I shaved all the hair off my head. Before I could finish, he shook his head and took a bite of his omelet. I glared at my mom.

“You didn’t tell me they were going to make me change the way I look.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t know. But you’ll do it.”

“I can’t remove my eyebrow ring, it will close up.” My palms began to sweat. This was not the way I’d envisioned my summer. Pretending to be someone else. I was eighteen and they weren’t going to boss me around.

Grant scowled.

“If you want a job you will,” he held my gaze, which was hard because it was like staring straight into my father’s eyes.

“I don’t want a job anyway.” I shoved a biscuit in my mouth, emptying my plate, and waited for him to retort. He just looked at my mother and sighed. Perhaps he thought he was getting a docile little girl that would do whatever he wanted. The eyebrow ring would stay. I’d see to that.

In the end they decided I could put a clear stud in it.

Win-win. Not.

G
RANT LIVED IN A THREE-BEDROOM APARTMENT
right next to the Mall of America and Ikea. So much for saving up for the Eurochocolate tour. I may be depressed and having trouble getting over the early demise of my father, but shopping therapy still worked. Too bad its effects never lasted longer than stepping foot out of the mall.

Grant caught me spying Ikea out the living room window.

“Your room is a little plain. You can go shopping tomorrow.”

I nodded, pretending I didn’t care.

He set my bags in my room and then asked if I needed anything.

“No, I’m fine. A little tired.”

“Me too, Kiddo, I’m going to bed.”

I tensed. Kiddo? No one called me kiddo. Except my dad. He never called me by name; he used pet names instead.

Before I could ask him to call me Savannah, I heard the door to his bedroom click shut. I sighed. He looked like my dad but didn’t act like him. Perhaps I reminded Grant of my dad, with my mannerisms and personality. I was just like him, though I tried to shake it off. Because then someday I’d end up dead the same way he did. I removed my watch and looked at my tattoo. My reminder.

My room was pretty empty. A bed and a closet. Except the walls were covered in photographs.

The first picture startled me a bit. My dad smiled at me from a boat; he was young, maybe my age. The next was his graduation ceremony. There was a wedding picture of him and my mom, an eight-year-old Grant frowning next to them. Mom and Dad looked so happy. They divorced when I was so young that I never thought to ask for details on why they split. Both always just said they were too different to stay married.

A few pictures away he held a baby in his arms. That had to have been me. Damn, I was chubby. Cute though. Surprisingly, there were a lot of pictures with me in them. As I moved around the room I found the picture from the summer I turned twelve and we went to Disneyworld. My stomach clenched. No, I would
not
think of that.

I removed all the pictures from the walls and stacked them in the corner of the closet. No way could I function with him everywhere. The walls were much better empty.

I flopped down on the twin mattress. The pillow was flat. My bedroom at home was the one place I felt comfortable, where I could relax. This room was not designed for relaxing. It was too sterile.

I pulled my backpack towards me and dug out an apple and a box of eight truffles. I took a bite of the apple. Chewed. Swallowed. Where to start? The Richileiu. The flavors rolled around my tongue. Both dark and milk chocolate mixed with cherry. Mmm.

I wasn’t sure I would be able to live with a bachelor. Especially one who was obsessed with my dad. Unless he gave me an Ikea card and told me to spend whatever I liked. Then I might be able to deal with it.

I took out my phone to text Candie about Ikea. In February, we ditched school one day and drove up to Minneapolis. We meant to go to the Mall of America but spent the entire day playing hide-and-seek in Ikea. It was one of those days that I’d almost stayed home because I didn’t want to face perky teachers and a pep assembly with too much school spirit. Candie didn’t even attempt to make the drive to school; she just got on the freeway and drove north. I loved that about her. The way she could tell when I needed something.

I ran a hand over my slick bald head and put the phone back. I loved Candie but I didn’t think I’d ever be able to forgive her. Not after what she did.