29
Spring break couldn’t come soon enough. I am going back home to California. I am going to spend the week watching beautiful sunsets over the green valley below my parents’ house, swinging in the hammock on our wraparound deck, and eating oranges straight from my mom’s carefully maintained orange tree.
By the time my mom picks me up from the airport and we finish eating dinner in front of their new wall of windows looking out onto the valley spotted with wildflowers, I forget all about my life in New York. It’s as if absolutely no time has passed. I feel like I had never left at all.
“So, tell us everything that has been going on,” my mom announces.
We talk every day and I keep her up to date on my everyday life, but she still demands an update as if we haven’t seen each other in ages.
“Nothing.” I shrug. “Just school stuff. Lots of papers. Midterms. Didn’t do very well on my Victorian Literature midterm, unfortunately.”
“Like an A-?” my dad jokes.
“No.” I shake my head. “Like a C.”
“Oh, wow,” my mom says. “Well, that’s good.”
“What?” I gasp.
“It’ll build character. I don’t think you’ve ever gotten a C before and this is good for you. To know that you are capable of making mistakes. That you’re not such a know-it-all.”
She’s joking of course. Trying to make me feel better. I appreciate it. My mom can always be counted on for that. She doesn’t take things too seriously. At least, not anything that shouldn’t be taken seriously. In fact, she always has a way of putting life in perspective. “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is pretty much her motto.
That’s precisely why I feel so terrible about keeping the events of the last month or so secret. I should tell her. She probably won’t freak out. At least, I hope not. Honestly, I have no idea how she would react, but I can’t. I’m scared. So, for now, all my mom knows is that Hudson and I broke up. Again. This time for good. So instead of telling her what’s really going on, I focus on my grades and school.
“I did a speech for Public Speaking last week,” I say. “And it actually went okay.”
“Oh, I knew you’d do great!” my mom says, clinking her glass to mine. We’re drinking her specialty—sangria. She makes amazing sangria.
“You know, you can’t get sangria anywhere in New York,” I say wistfully. “I guess it doesn’t fit the climate; it’s all gray skies and bleakness over there now, but I honestly think that a little sangria would do New York some good.”
My mom flashes her pearly whites.
“Speaking of gray,” she says, “you’re looking a little gray.”
I look down at myself as if I can see my face. “I know,” I say with a shrug, “but I haven’t seen the sun in close to a month. Honestly, it gets really depressing sometimes. More like all the time, actually.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” My mom pats my hand.
Unlike me, my mom looks radiant. Both of my parents are doctors, but they’re not working as many hours as they used to anymore and now it looks like they’re glowing. Gone are the dark circles and the tired eyes. Their skin looks sun-kissed and they’re as fit as ever—given their daily tennis matches at the Calabasas Country Club.
“So, how’s the business going?” I ask.
My parents started a clinical research organization, which runs pharmaceutical trials. It took a few years for it to get off the ground, but now they have more time and more than we’ve ever had.
“Really, really good.” My mom smiles. “I’m so glad I’m not killing myself at the hospital anymore. Now, I actually have time to do my makeup every day and get my hair done every week. Can you believe that? Me actually taking care of myself?”
“I’m so happy for you,” I say.
I mean it. They’ve been working so hard for as long as I can remember, missing my sisters’ and my games, events, and special occasions. Now, everything is finally falling into place. They have time for themselves. Time for each other.
“So, okay,” I say, taking a deep breath, “there is something I’ve been meaning to talk to you two about.”
“Wait, wait,” my dad says and pours himself another glass of wine. My mom laughs.
“You ready?” I ask. He takes a sip and nods.
“Okay, so…I’ve been thinking about something.” I don’t know how to say it without actually just coming out and saying it. I look at my parents. They are waiting for the news patiently but eagerly. “I’ve been thinking of transferring to USC next year.”
The table gets so quiet, I hear the hummingbirds flapping their wings as they angle for some syrup out of the feeder.
“Oh, wow, that’s a surprise,” my dad finally says.
“We thought that you loved Columbia,” my mom says. I know she’s serious because she puts her glass of sangria down and leans closer to me.
“I did. I mean, I do. It’s just tough, you know. Winter. All that darkness and the cold.”
“Well, spring is coming,” my mom says.
“Hey, if she wants to go to USC, that’s awesome. Why are you trying to talk her out of it?” my dad asks.
“It’s not that. I’m just confused. I thought you loved New York. This is the first I’m hearing about how you don’t.”
“It’s not that. It’s not just New York. I mean, it is, but it isn’t,” I say. I’m grasping at straws. The
