Page 39 of The Getaway List
“Riley?”
It takes me a second, only because the last thing I want to do is sound choked up and set off every parental alarm bell in her head.
“Hey,” I say. And then because I apparently have the social skills of an eighties radio DJ reject, I add, “How’s tricks?”
My mom’s quiet for a moment, too. Then she says in a too-bright version of her usual voice, “Well—you know. Shop’s busy in the summer.”
“Right,” I say, my voice also up half an octave.
Another beat. Shit. I’m not sure whose turn it is to talk next, like it’s a play and we’ve both forgotten our lines.
“I’ve missed you,” says my mom.
“Yeah,” I say, feeling relief flood through me so fast that my hand flies to the back of my neck like I have to contain it. “Missed you, too.”
The silence that follows is a short one, but no less excruciating for it. It’s my mom. I’ve never not known what to say to her before. It’s unnerving how so little time can pass but so much can shift in it that we almost feel like strangers.
“How are your … tricks?” my mom asks.
Her voice is just wry enough for me to relax a notch. “Good,” I say. “I’m, uh—really getting into the swing of things. You know that delivery service I was going to do with Tom that summer? They took me on. Yesterday I biked forty whole miles.”
“That’s—” My mom pauses. “During the daytime, right? And with a helmet?”
“Yeah,” I say, so effusively I’m nodding into the phone. “Tom taught me the ropes.”
“Did he?” my mom asks, her voice tight.
All right, hard pivot on the Tom talk, then. “And I, uh—I took a writing class,” I try instead. “And made a few friends here. We’ve been going to Jesse’s shows and thrift shopping and hanging out in the park a lot.”
“Well, that sounds nice,” says my mom.
I wait for a moment, but there aren’t any follow-up questions. I clear my throat. “So I know you weren’t here for long, but—I was wondering if, uh—if you had any good picnic spots? Or thrift shops that might still be around? My friend lives in the East Village like you did. I bet there are a ton of places you liked that are still down there.”
“When are you coming home?”
My stomach drops. Hard pivot on the “try to make her reminisce” talk, too, then. There’s really nothing I can say here except the thing I called to say in the first place, which is so simple that I didn’t bother rehearsing it in my head. A decision I am sorely regretting when I open my mouth and all that comes out is, “Um, so.”
“So?” my mom echoes.
My mouth is still open, but all the bravado has leaked out of me. I feel like I’m ten again. Worse—I feel like I did all through high school, when my mom took the reins and I didn’t question it because it was easier not to push back. I used to think we never fought because we were so close. Now that we’re on the brink of another fight, I realize it’s just because I always rolled over before any could start.
“Riley,” my mom says, with just enough warning in it that I know I better spit it out fast if I have a chance of saying it at all.
“I was thinking I might stay. Like—past the summer, I mean.”
My mom answers so fast that I realize she must have expected the call to take this turn long before I decided to make it. “Is that what Tom’s trying to get you to do?”
“What?” I stammer, nearly stopping dead on the sidewalk. I glance back reflexively at the apartment building. “No. I haven’t—he doesn’t even know I’m thinking of staying.”
“So that has nothing to do with him,” says my mom.
I’m almost too stunned to be mad, but I get there in the end. “It doesn’t,” I say, the words steely. “Why is it that you think every decision I make this summer comes right back to Tom?”
“Well, who else would it come down to?”
“Me,” I blurt, with so much anger in my voice that a group of pigeons, the most unflappable animal on earth, gust away in shock. I pull off to the edge of the sidewalk, pressing the phone to my cheek and saying into it, “And you, too. You spent all these years trying to keep me out of trouble but you kept me out of the whole world. And I have it now, and these are my choices. This is what I want when I get to choose. I want the same things you did. How can you be mad at me for that?”
“This whole thing feels like an overreaction,” says my mom. “You’re upset with me. I hear you. But instead of talking about it you just up and left, and you’re not ready for this like you think you are.”
