chapter one
There are two problems with being the daughter of a best-selling etiquette guru. The first one is that everyone assumes you know how to do everything right. The second is that 99 percent of the time, you live with the fear you're doing everything wrong.
"You can't be serious!" I yelled when my parents broke the news to me. From the look on my mother's face, there was no doubt that yelling was the wrong thing to do in this situation. I did, however, resist the urge to fold my arms defiantly across my chest. It was one thing to stand my ground. It was another to look like a spoiled brat doing it. "There's no way I'm going."
My dad sat on the edge of my bed rubbing his knees while my mom waited for me to calm down so she could continue.
"We realize this isn't the best timing," she tried again, but I wasn't going for it.
"It's not just bad timing, it's halfway through my senior year. You can't expect me to leave my friends and everything right before graduation. I'm supposed to be the class valedictorian, for God's sake!"
Apparently my academic achievements weren't as important as the fact that my father's company was transferring him back to Boston, because my mother didn't even skip a beat. It almost made me wonder if she'd written a chapter on this in one of her books: Breaking Big News without Breaking a Sweat.
"I think you're making this out to be worse than it is," she went on, and then started rattling off all the wonderful, exciting things about moving "back to Boston." She kept saying "back to Boston" instead of "leaving Chicago," like somehow her choice of words would make it better. As if the fact that we used to live there made it easier.
"It's like going home," my mother insisted.
"No, it's like moving," I told her, and then added, "It's even worse than moving." At least if you moved somewhere new, you had an excuse for people not liking you -- they didn't know you. But when you were moving back to the same town you lived in for most of your life, going back to the same school you once attended, the possibility that people you once liked, and who once liked you, might not want anything to do with you anymore, was slightly horrifying to say the least.
I glanced over at my dad, who was still sitting on my bed staring at his khaki-covered knees as if they were infinitely more fascinating than the conversation taking place around him.
"This isn't fair," I told him, and he looked up at me with an expression of total innocence. Like none of this was his fault, and yet, he was the reason we were having this conversation in the first place. He was the reason the rest of my senior year was going to suck.
"Can't you tell them you'll move in May after graduation?" I pleaded, and for the first time since he came into my room my dad decided to speak.
Only instead of telling me what I wanted to hear, he shook his head. "Can't do that, Em."
"Look, it's all decided. We'll move right after Christmas." My mom laid a hand on my shoulder and squeezed lightly. I'm sure it was supposed to reassure me, but it just made me even angrier. While my mother said all the right things as usual, my father just sat there like none of this was fault. But it was. All of it.
"Maybe I could stay with Jackie or Lauren until school's out," I suggested in an attempt to try and rectify what was left of my senior year. "It's just a few months."
"Absolutely not." My mom shook her head and didn't even bother looking to my dad for agreement. She was handling this because obviously Patricia Abbott knew the right way to handle every awful, unpleasant situation. "Come on," she chided, giving me a smile that I knew I was expected to reciprocate. "Everything's going to be fine. Promise."
She "promised," as if that was supposed to make me feel better. It didn't. And looking back on it, it just goes to show that even America's number one syndicated etiquette columnist isn't always right.
Six weeks later, our cab pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the United Airlines terminal. We probably looked totally normal, a family of four heading off on some warm tropical vacation right after Christmas. But even though four people exited the taxi, only three of us had our luggage. And the person who was responsible for ruining my senior year wasn't holding a plane ticket.
"Looks like that's everything," my dad told us as he placed two suitcases and TJ's Nike duffel bag on the sidewalk.
The cabdriver must have known this wasn't going to be a typical heartwarming family moment, and was smart enough to slip back into the driver's seat after closing the trunk.
" 'Bye, Dad." TJ was the first to say it, which figured. He seemed to be totally unscathed by all of this, completely oblivious to the fact that my father had single-handedly wrecked everything. My younger brother was always the problem child, so how did I end up being the difficult one in this situation? "I'll miss you."
While they shared a touching father-son moment, complete with hugs and manly pats on the back, I hung back by the sliding glass doors, grateful for the bursts of warm air that escaped every time a passenger entered.
There was no way my father would be getting a hug from me. And I wasn't about to tell him he was going to be missed.
When my dad told my mom he'd decided to stay behind in Chicago for a while, she actually thought he meant he'd decided we should all stay behind in Chicago for a while. Forget that we'd already sold our house, bought a new home in Branford, sent our transcripts back to Heywood Academy, and had a moving truck scheduled to haul all of our earthly possessions away in less than fifteen days. What bothered my mother the most about his news was that she'd already mailed the We're Moving! announcements to everyone on the Abbott family's Christmas card list. Apparently my dad had cleared it with his company and was going to stay in Chicago for a few months before making the transition. Too bad he hadn't cleared that with the rest of us.
"Emily?" My mom gave me a look that meant I was next in line for this Hallmark moment. I was expected to wrap my arms around my dad and act like all was forgiven. And I just couldn't do that. I couldn't pretend that the three of us were simply taking a trip instead of acknowledging what was really going on -- my father was ditching us.
"It's cold, I'm ready to head inside," I told them and then grabbed the handle of my suitcase and picked it up before my dad could reach for a hug. My dad didn't deserve hugs and teary good-byes. " 'Bye, Dad."
Maybe he felt guilty about leaving us or maybe my mom had trained him well enough to avoid a scene in front of the skycaps, but whatever the reason my dad didn't force the issue. TJ, on the other hand, looked like he wanted to kill me. It had been that way ever since the second big announcement -- TJ just didn't get it.
Finally my mom stepped forward and I waited for the explosion, the argument, or pointing of fingers that I knew was supposed to happen in a situation like this, but that, for some reason, never seemed to happen. Instead I watched two people have a conversation that seemed as civilized and rational as every other conversation they'd had over the past six weeks. And it annoyed me to no end. Was I the only one who wasn't willing to act like this was okay?
"Call me when you get in," my dad instructed us one last time before opening the cab's back door to get in. And then he looked directly at me. "Have a safe flight."
My mom, TJ, and I watched as my father pulled away and waved to us from the backseat of the cab. And because I'm nice, because I am my mother's daughter, instead of telling him what a shitty thing he was doing, I did the polite thing and waved back.
Our flight was delayed -- of course. Was it too much to ask that at least one thing go right this morning? Wasn't it enough that I had to be frisked by a stranger wielding a beeping black wand after I set off the security alarm? Or that the female security officer waved the wand around my right boob so many times the line of passengers behind me must have thought she was casting a magic spell on my 34Bs? If I'd have known my underwire would be mistaken for a national security threat I would have worn a running bra and saved myself the humiliation.
"Want a mint?" my mom asked, holding out a roll of peppermint LifeSavers. My mother was strictly old school when it came to fresh breath. No tins of atomic Altoids for her.
She probably assumed the frown on my lips was due to a mild case of bad breath. Unfortunately, peppermint wasn't going to help my situation. Besides, with a lump in my throat, I wasn't sure I'd be able to swallow.
I shook my head slowly, fearing any vigorous movement would release the tears that were currently blurring my vision.
"I know this is hard on you, all of it, but we'll get through this," she assured me. Just like she did when our cat, Snickers, got hit by a car and we discovered her on our front steps whimpering and licking a broken leg. Or when TJ needed stitches after falling off his bike and I was convinced he was going to die (I was eight at the time and still relished my role as the big sister -- I was over that by the time I was ten). Or even when I received the deferral letter from Brown and thought I might hyperventilate right there in the kitchen. My mom was always assuring me. Maybe that's a mother's job, but I had to wonder how, after all that had happened, she still managed to believe we'd get through this. Or maybe she didn't. Maybe she was trying to convince me as much as she was trying to convince herself.
"Come on, don't look so sad." My mom pushed my bangs off my forehead so she could look straight into my watery eyes. "You might actually discover you like being back in Boston."
I highly doubted it, but I didn't tell her that. I also didn't tell her about Sean.
One of the reasons I didn't tell my mother about Sean's driveway confession is t...
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