Golden (4 page)

“Good.”
She drains the remaining mocha from her cup and grabs her purse. “You better make it a worthwhile thing, though. Something big.”

“Unexpected, worthwhile, and big,” I say. “I'll get right on that.”

We both stand, and she loops her arm through mine, face all business. “Okay. Let's go then. Who knows what's out there waiting for you.”

“I never dared be radical when young

For fear it would make me conservative when old.”

—“PRECAUTION,” FROM “TEN MILLS,” 1936

“You were meant for this, Parker.” My mom beams. “This. Right here.” She holds the creased letter in front of her like it's something holy. Then she frowns. “I just wish you would've kept it nice so we could frame it.”

I make a conscious effort not to roll my eyes. “It's just a piece of paper, Mom. And it's not a sure thing. I still have to write the speech—and, you know, win, so don't get all excited yet.” I sound like a brat, even to myself, but I can't help it. Now that it's in her hands, I wish I'd kept it to myself just a little longer, because all of a sudden it seems more her accomplishment than mine. And because I know our
world will now revolve around me writing and practicing my speech. I snap my chopsticks apart and rub them together hard without saying anything else.

“I'm just so proud of you, honey. I
know
how hard you've worked, and that I haven't always been easy on you, but . . . it's all come down to this. They'll choose you, I just know it.” She purses her lips together and her eyes flood behind her glasses. “I always knew you had the potential.”

I cringe inwardly, but force a smile. “I know, Mom.” Then I raise my steaming bowl of miso so she can continue if she wants to. In the last few years I've learned it's easiest this way. She talks, I mostly listen, sometimes nod, and let her say what she needs to. Especially when it's about “potential,” which, in her eyes, is the worst possible thing I could waste. I'm positive it's all tied to my dad and the fact that after publishing his first collection of poetry years ago, he's yet to finish anything else—if you exclude their marriage. I have a feeling that was over before it really began though. My parents are far too different for me to believe they were ever meant to be.

“Have you told your father yet?” she asks in the false casual tone reserved for talking about him.

“Not yet.” Her face lights up a bit, and I know it makes her happy that she's the first of them to know, which just seems petty to me, but that's what it's come to.

“Well. You should call him tonight with your good news. Maybe it'll inspire him somehow to know that
you've
accomplished what you set out to do.”

She speaks the words lightly, but they're laced together
with sarcasm. It doesn't seem to matter to her that he's now teaching writing at a school in New York, which most people would consider a successful endeavor. But not her. At any mention of it, she's more than happy to discuss her opinion that he's hiding behind helping other people with their writing because he can't do it himself anymore. I change the subject. “Can I go out with Kat for a little while tonight, to celebrate?”

She shakes her head—a reflex she can't help when Kat is involved. “Let's not get ahead of ourselves. You still have a speech to write. Besides, isn't that what we're doing right now? Celebrating?” She gestures at the spread of sushi in front of us.

“Yeah . . . but she wants to take me out for coffee or dessert or something. Just for a little while?” I watch her perfectly made-up face for a sign of compromise, but get only the inflexibility I expect.

“It's a school night, Parker. And you already had coffee.”

“What?”

“Debbie Monroe said you and Kat were at Kismet today, and that she wasn't exactly being polite.” She stabs a piece of salmon with her chopsticks. “You know, that girl really needs to be more aware of how she acts in public.”

I literally have to bite my tongue to keep from answering back the way I really want to. Kat has been “that girl” to my mother for as long as we've been friends, and the way she says it never fails to remind me just what she thinks of her.

“Mom, Debbie Monroe thinks everyone under the age of twenty is either on drugs or involved in some other ‘illicit
teenage activities.' She actually said that. In line at the grocery store, and she wasn't joking.” I stir up the cloud of miso that's settled in the bottom of my bowl. “She doesn't know what she's talking about. Kat wasn't doing anything wrong; she was just excited for me.”

My mother doesn't say anything. Just pinches another slice of salmon roll between her chopsticks and adjusts her glasses, and there's my answer.

“Fine,” I say into my soup. It's useless to argue. Even more useless to think that she could bend, just a little, or trust me for once. I've never given her reason not to—but then again, I've never had the opportunity either.

My mother lets out a heavy sigh. “Parker,
soon
. Soon enough you'll be making your own choices. Humor me in the meantime, okay?”

I look at her, hair pulled back sleek and tight, smile to match, and decide to see if I can finish my celebratory dinner without saying anything else. It's surprisingly easy. While she goes on about the rigors (and cost) of Stanford, all of which I'm well aware of, thank you, I think about what Kat said and try to decide what worthwhile, unexpected thing I could do. I would love, more than anything, to have the guts to stand up right here and tell my mom to just lay off it all—the expectations, the pressure, the constant judging—all of it. A tiny part of me would love to just tell her to forget it. To say never mind, I don't want any of it. But that's not what Kat meant.

She meant I should do something unexpected that would leave me with something I could keep and remember. An
experience instead of a goal. And I get what she means. She's right about me not having very many of those to show for four years of high school. But it seems to me that the experiences that stay with you, the things you'll always remember, aren't the ones you can force, or go looking for. I've always thought of those things as the ones that somehow find you.

“Love and a Question”

—1913

By the time we get home my mom has outlined how she thinks my entire speech should go, including all the keywords I should include to ensure that I'm the foundation's obvious choice. I'm actually thankful because as soon as we walk through the door, it gives me the perfect excuse to head upstairs and “get started right away.”

“That's my girl,” she says, smiling at my unfailing dedication. “Strike while the iron is hot and the inspiration is fresh.”

I stop at the top of the stairs and do my best to smile back. Then I walk into my room and close the door behind me. I need a moment. A moment to breathe, because the combination of expectation and good intentions feels especially
suffocating tonight. In the quiet of my room, I drop my bag to the floor, flop onto the bed, and exhale. Finally.

Like a reflex my eyes travel up to the ceiling above me, where in ninth grade, in a small act of rebellion, I pinned a poster I'd made for English. My final project for
Romeo and Juliet.
My mom had just had the house painted after my dad moved out, and she decreed there would be no more pin holes in my walls. But she didn't say anything about the ceiling, so I put it up—a collage of images: the sun and moon and stars, a rose, a balcony, a kiss in silhouette, and a tiny glass vial, all under the glittery caption,
IT WAS WRITTEN IN THE STARS.
It wasn't a masterpiece by any means, and I didn't even get the top score, but it meant something to me. I was in love with the idea of it all—the stars, and fate, and these two people who loved each other enough to want to die without the other. My parents didn't love each other enough to even make eye contact anymore.

It took my mom awhile to notice what I'd done, and she was angry when she did, but too distracted to follow through on making me take it down. Divorce will do that. I don't think she even realizes it's there anymore. It's easy to forget to look up when all you do is focus on the road straight ahead. Which is what I
should
be doing right now. Actually getting started on my speech. But the thought of sitting down to a blank page is so daunting, I don't move. I lie there instead, looking up at love idealized and wondering what it would be like to feel that way. And then, all in one motion, I do move. Up and across the room to where my bag leans against the wall.

I take the stolen envelope out slowly, feeling every ounce of its weight in my hands, and then I bring it to my desk, sit down, and stare at it until Julianna's name goes blurry. For half a second I let myself think that maybe it's not coincidence I found it today. Maybe it found me, for whatever reason. Then I almost laugh at how ridiculous that sounds. I'm reaching. Justifying the thing I want to do.

I get up. Pace. Slide my window open. The wind has died down outside, but the air that drifts in still has a bite to it that hints at snow. It's too cold to climb out onto the roof like I sometimes do, so I lean on the windowsill and focus my attention on the sky. On clear winter nights the constellation Orion hangs perfectly framed in my window, and beyond him a backdrop of sky dotted so dense with stars it looks like sugar spilled across the night. But right now I can't see any of them. Instead, the town lights reflect off the cloud-filled sky and it glows pale white, while fireplaces stream wood smoke into the air, leaving the night hazy around the edges.

A single snowflake twirls down onto the ledge of my window, and then another, and I watch as they melt almost instantaneously. Flurries like this aren't unheard of this late into spring. But storms are rare. Like the one Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz disappeared into. The way people tell it, that storm came fierce and unexpected, then was gone just as quickly.

I eye the envelope again and wonder if it started out with a whisper and a single flake, like this right now. I wonder if she wrote about trivial things like the weather in her journal. I probably would have for this assignment. It'd be
a safe thing to write about, something that wouldn't matter if anyone else read it. Or maybe she didn't worry about that. Maybe she only wrote about Shane and what it was like to be in love. Maybe Julianna took the assignment to heart and put her truest self into words, like Kinney tells his seniors to do.

It's hard to guess without ever having known her. She was so much older than me, and lived in the seemingly distant world of high school. But even then I knew of her. She stood out to everyone, including my seven-year-old self. I'd seen her crowned queen at a homecoming football game, and after that, catching a glimpse of her around town was like seeing a real-life princess. The version of her in my memory is of the kind of girl I wanted to grow up to be. The version the town stories have painted of her is just as perfect—vibrant and full of life, special on her own, but exceptional together with Shane. And then there's the last version. The tragic one, of youth and innocence lost below the surface of a half-frozen lake. Maybe they're all true. Or maybe none of them are. People always put their own spin on things, remember what they want to remember, and somewhere in the middle of it all is the truth—the real version—one you could only write yourself if you were willing to.

I pick up the envelope and turn it over in my hands. This could be the real version right here. The one that might be more than the stories we've all heard and the labels she was given: homecoming queen, Shane's girlfriend, the next Cruz Wife. Perfect. Missing. Tragedy. Really, these are the only things I know about her. But I'm sure there's more. We're all
more than the person we show to everyone else. At least I hope so. Because I
feel
like there's more to me than that. I just haven't had a chance yet to show it.