Ink Is Thicker Than Water (13 page)

“I did hope to talk to the two of you,” Camille is saying by the time our salads are being delivered by our extremely hot waiter who is built tall and lean like Oliver. I guess that means I have A Type. Anyway, since conversation seems to have left science behind, I tune back in. “Next weekend I’m attending a conference in the Bay area, where—as I think you know—Sara’s biological father lives. The two of them are really looking forward to meeting, and my work will pay for Sara’s plane ticket and hotel room.”

“It should be fine,” Mom says, because isn’t everything okay with Mom? Hi, Mom, I’m joining a cult! I’m going to clown school! I’m experimenting with drugs and alcohol! All probably fine in the name of letting us be us, right? “But we’ll have to discuss it first, of course.”

Dad makes a face that I bet he makes a lot regarding Mom’s decision making. “Right, we’ll have to discuss it, Camille.”

“If you could just let me know within a few days,” Camille says. “I hate to put a rush on it, but considering there are travel arrangements to be made…”

“Oh, I understand,” Mom says. “We’ll let you know as soon as we can.”

After dinner with Camille, Sara is forced to ride home with Mom and me because she forgot to take her laptop to Dad’s. It is a very silent car ride.

Home, though? Another story.

I chase Sara into her room. “You’re worse than Dad!”

“I am not, and you wouldn’t understand.”

It stops me like a force field because Sara doesn’t say things like that, even though in reality of course there are so many things I wouldn’t understand. I’ve never gotten straight As or been Dad’s pride and joy or effortlessly looked like an easy-breezy Cover Girl ad.

“I know I haven’t gone through this,” I say. “But I’d never
lie
about my family.”

“Do you have any idea how hard it was for her?” Sara asks, and for some dumb reason, I think she means Mom. “She didn’t want to give me up, but she had to. And she’d picked Mom and Dad from all the profiles she’d read because she liked that they were professionals who worked together and had this great marriage. Her parents were divorced when she was little, and she didn’t want that for me.”

“But…we didn’t go through any angst or drama over the divorce. And Mom’s so happy with Russell—and we wouldn’t even have Finn otherwise!—and I guess Dad’s happy enough with Jayne. If Mom and Dad were still married, we’d probably all be miserable.”

“That isn’t the point,” she says.

“I don’t know how that can
not
be the point.”

Mom leans into the room. “Kellie, can I have a minute with your sister?”

“Fine.” I retreat to my room, where I change my new-Kellie outfit for an old-Kellie one, pajama pants and a Woodstock T-shirt, with my lip gloss blotted off and my hair in a messy ponytail. Though who knows how classic Kellie that actually is? I guess it wasn’t very long ago I didn’t think about how I looked at all. Now I care at least a little.

I get through my homework, as well as chatting with Adelaide, Mitchell, and Chelsea, and am thinking about sending Oliver a text when Mom knocks on my door.

“Hey, baby.” She sits down on my bed, and even though Mom isn’t a nosy type, I still close my laptop, knowing the current message on the screen is from Adelaide with a link to some sex-education site she swears will simplify my life. “Just so you’re in the loop, Sara’s going with Camille to San Francisco next weekend.”

“After she lied about us? Like us weirdos are something to be ashamed of?”

“You know that isn’t why she did it, baby,” Mom says. “And of course she’s going. It’s what Sara wants.”

“Okay,” I say, even though I have ten billion more questions for Mom.

“Thank you for being so understanding, Kell-belle.”

“So what did everyone think about my trial run at the shop?” I ask. I’m not above using nice moments for personal gain. “I didn’t mess anything up, and all the customers seemed to like me. So I was thinking—”

“Just don’t let your grades slip,” she says. “Or your newspaper responsibilities. And you should still go out with your friends and have fun whenever you can. And—”

“I get it, Mom. That means I’m hired, right?” I hug her again, triumphant this time. “Be happy, now you’re my boss
and
my mom.”

“I’m always your boss!” she says, which makes me laugh because that isn’t exactly the parenting manual Mom follows. “And I
am
happy. You earned this. I hope you’re happy, too.”

I want to be, and I beam at her like I really am. But all I can think of is Sara, on a plane, flying away from us.

Chapter Twelve

I go to Dad’s after school on Wednesday, since it’s a night Sara and I had already agreed on. I’m hoping we can have a normal, non-snappy conversation, but when she gets there, she just waves to me before shutting herself in her room. Luckily, after I get a bunch done on my first newspaper column and while I’m struggling through geometry on my own, Oliver calls. I pause the TiVo and click on my phone. “Hey.”

“Hey, what’s going on?”

In general I’m a texter not a caller, so I rarely come up with good answers to questions like that. “Just homework. Nothing exciting. You?”

“Same here. Listen, my friend’s band is doing a set on campus tonight, you want to come? I think you’d really like them.”

I trust Oliver about music, plus meeting him at school means there is a likely chance we can go to his room and make out again, so I let him know I’ll ask Dad as soon as he’s home. If having a boyfriend is mainly about going to concerts and haunted houses and dinners, followed up with lots of making out, I am very much onboard.

Dad is home at his usual time, and I greet him while still trying to look
casual
.

“There she is. What sounds good for dinner, kiddo? I can make something, or we can go out, your choice.”

“Actually, if it’s okay, I thought I might go to this presentation at SLU tonight.” I’m thrilled with my own quick thinking. I’m not sure if Dad would be okay with me going out with a guy, and I don’t feel like finding out right now. “Is that okay?”

“Presentation on what?”

“Modern music.” Nicely done, self.

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” he says. “Is Sara going?”

“Just me. I won’t be out too late.”
Success.
I duck into my room to call Oliver, who tells me I can come over right away.

It’s kind of weird, walking into his dorm room and feeling this warmth in my gut, like a good panic attack, if that is even possible. Only a few days since I saw him, and seeing him again is a very good thing.

“I have a lot of homework,” someone says, and I realize his roommate is in there, practically hidden behind stacks of textbooks and his laptop.

“We’re going anyway.” Oliver walks me into the hallway. “That guy makes me crazy.”

“I probably wouldn’t like getting kicked out of my own room so people could make out,” I say. “To be fair and all.”

“If you can’t handle that, don’t go to college.” Oliver laughs and leans in to kiss me, and it literally takes my breath away. We are getting really good at this. “It’s great seeing you.”

“You, too.” I kiss him back, and before long we’re the kind of obnoxious people I hate, making out in the hallway like suddenly that isn’t tacky. “We should probably…”

“Yeah.” He takes my hand and leads me through campus on tree-lined paths until we reach a tiny stage haphazardly set up outside. A few totally nondescript dudes with longish hair and ironic T-shirts are setting up their equipment with a very descript girl with platinum-blond hair and perfect black eyeliner (how do people do that, anyway?) and a patterned blue-and-black dress that the new Kellie would kill for. I really never get jealous of girls like that; I just wonder what it’s like to be them.

“Which one’s your friend?” I ask, like I can even tell the dudes apart.

“I know them all,” he says. “And Sophie’s my ex, but we’re still cool and everything.”

Oh,
hell
no. “Your vegetarian ex?”

“My vegetarian ex, yeah.” He laughs. “I’m not into her anymore or anything. I just think you’ll like their music.”

I
do
like their music, jangly guitars and pop melodies and all that other stuff that is probably why I listen to the oldies station nearly exclusively. Oliver is wonderful to know this is exactly what I needed, and I decide to be mature and not jealous of The Amazing Sophie.

After they play, I tag along while Oliver says hi to all of the guys. Apparently, he and Sophie aren’t
cool and everything
enough to actually speak to each other. She catches my eye while Oliver and the drummer are talking about some professor they hate, and I find myself turning to face her.

“You guys are really good.”

“Aw, thanks,” she says, and I think maybe she’s pulling some
aw, shucks
faux-modesty crap. But then she grins like the sincerest creature to ever accept a compliment. “You’re Oliver’s new girlfriend?”

“I guess I am,” I say, because he can’t hear me from where he’s standing, and because it might be true. “And you’re the old one?”

She laughs as she winds up a cable that had connected her guitar and amp. “You might say that. I’m glad Oliver met someone. He—”

“Sophie, I’m going to bring the van around,” the drummer tells her.

“Oh, great.” She turns back to me, slipping the cable over her arm like a purse strap. “He does better when he’s with someone. Good to meet you, thanks for coming.”

I step back, rejoin Oliver, and we walk through campus in the direction of his dorm, though we stop a few buildings over where there is a little bench. We sit down, and I stretch my feet across him so they dangle off the edge. It’s fun being cozy even with what The Amazing Sophie said on my mind.

“How’d you know I’d like the band?” I ask.

“Well, they sound a little sixties,” he says with a grin. “And since I don’t think there’s one band listed in your favorites on your profile that still plays shows…”

“Not true. The living members of The Who still tour sometimes.” I laugh. “You have a point. Do you think it’s weird?”

He shrugs, circling one of his hands around one of my ankles, rubbing it just a little under my jeans. Why the heck that feels so good—I mean, it’s my frigging
ankle
—I don’t know. “Maybe. Weird’s not bad.”

“Truer words were never spoken.” I lean forward, and he follows my lead and kisses me. “Do you want to read my first newspaper column?”

“Right now?”

I laugh and shake my head. “I can email it to you. If you want.”

“Definitely. I’d send you that Kant paper I’ve been working on, but I don’t think you’d find it very interesting. I definitely don’t.”

“What part of philosophy
is
interesting, then?” I ask. “I figure you like it or you wouldn’t major in it. It’s not like people make millions off philosophy.”

“Yeah, suddenly you sound like my dad.” He grins at me. “I just like thinking about life, reasoning it out, putting order to things. Does that make any sense?”

“I guess so.” I shiver a little and wind my striped scarf (knitted by Russell’s mom) more tightly around my neck. Fall is really here. “I have no idea what I’ll major in. Dad says I need to figure that out this year.”

“You really don’t. You’re only a junior, and you could be undeclared for a while anyway. Your dad seems a little…”

“Assholey?”

“I was gonna say ‘intense,’” he says. “I know Sara feels like a hard act to follow.”

“‘Feels like’? So it’s not my imagination.” I feel bitchy all of a sudden. “Sorry, I—”

“Trust me, I get it.” He leans over to kiss me again. Late at night his chin is scratchy with stubble. “Like I’ve said, Dexter’s younger, and it still feels the same way sometimes. One day he’ll be running the country and I’ll be—”

“Philosophizing?”

We both laugh really hard at that. It’s funny; whenever I’d thought about meeting a guy or having a boyfriend or whatever, I’d thought about the making out and the possibility of sex, but I hadn’t counted on knowing a guy who’d just
get me
like Oliver does. Get me and
care
. A good combo.

“What about writing?” he asks. “You’re on the newspaper and all.”

It’s nice he finds me capable of things. “I don’t know, it’s new. Maybe I won’t be that good at it.”

“I dunno, Kellie, you seem like you’ve got a lot to say. My money’s on you being more than good.”

If there was ever a moment I just sort of wanted to gaze adoringly at a guy, this is it. “Thank you.”

“You should probably go.” Oliver checks his watch. “It’s close to eleven.”

I appreciate that he keeps an eye on my curfew versus acting like I’m a dork for even having one. “Yeah, I’m at Dad’s tonight, I definitely should.”

Of course we get into the backseat of my car. By now I’m not worried about The Amazing Sophie’s words or my total fail at honesty the other night or anything else. Maybe I’m not stellar at this relationship stuff, but as long as we get to go places and talk and make out—and let me state that the making out going on right here in the backseat of my car is some of the best stuff that has ever happened to me—I can only welcome this.

Kaitlyn is waiting by my locker the next morning, a fact that causes me to spill my pile of books onto the floor.

“God, Kell.”

“You’ve lost your right to be personally offended that I’m a klutz,” I say. “What?”

“I found this at my house.” She shoves a T-shirt at me, my worn-in, comfy Family Ink shirt from the batch made when the shop first opened. “It’s not like I want it.”

“Also it’s not like it’s yours.” I open my locker and toss it inside. “Kaitlyn, you can’t just
do
this.”

“Do what?” she asks so innocently it’s easy to forget she’s blown me off for days now.

“Act like nothing’s going on when something’s going on.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says, like having a sweet tone makes her a sweet person.

“Kellie.” Adelaide barrels in between us and hands me a cardboard coffee cup. “It’s vanilla cocoa, don’t worry. I’m bribing you because I need your help.”

Kaitlyn rolls her eyes and starts to walk off. I lean out around Adelaide, whose hair today makes her taller than usual.

“Kaitlyn—”

I’m positive she hears me—she’s not deaf, after all—but she just keeps walking. And I don’t know why I’m surprised.

“Ugh,” I say aloud, and then I remember I’m holding hot cocoa. “Oh my God, this is so good.”

“I told you to support local businesses. Back to the point, I got assigned this paper on bodily integrity, and I spent all of last night racking my brain for a good angle, and it hit me this morning that I want to discuss body modifications. So obviously I need to interview your parents.”

I take another sip of the divine hot cocoa. “You didn’t have to bribe me for that. Mom loves talking about herself.”

“Fantastic. Class?”

“I’ll meet you there.” I’m not quite ready to leave the hallway and therefore admit the school day has officially started, a lot like never wanting to fall asleep on Sunday nights because doing so is accepting the weekend is over.

I catch up with Mitchell, Chelsea, and a few more newspaper peeps as they walk by. Of course I wish I could have just talked to Kaitlyn. I have Oliver details to share. I have Sara stuff to talk out. I have so frigging much going on right now, but she’s giving me stuff back like we’ll never speak again. Our best friendship feels like something I made up instead of our real and shared history.

“Thanks, seriously, for this cocoa,” I tell Adelaide as I take my seat behind her in class. “It’s the best ever.”

“Normally, I’d say that’s a bit hyperbolic, but I’ll let it go,” she says. “Ugh, Kaitlyn’s heinous. I tried to save you.”