The Moon and More(9)
Author: Sarah Dessen

Point taken. And I got where she was coming from. She’d done everything she could to make sure I didn’t have the same experience, on any level, that she did. Luckily, I had some people on my side.

“Stop worrying,” my grandmother said to her more than once, when I overheard them discussing this behind a door that was supposed to muffle their words. “He wants to get her there and pay for it, let him. You’ve done everything else.”

“I don’t want her to get let down,” my mom replied. “The whole idea of being a parent is your kid not repeating your mistakes.”

“People do change, Emily. He’s a grown man now,” my grandmother told her. “And anyway, no matter what happens, she has you and Rob. She’ll be fine.”

The books, essay prep, and hard work all paid off: I got into three of my top five schools, and my safety, East U, offered me a full ride. It wasn’t until the e-mail came from our first choice, Columbia, however, that I finally let myself exhale. The first thing I did was hit Compose and type in my father’s address.

Columbia, I wrote in the subject line. Then, below, without a greeting or closing, only, I got in. Then I hit Send.

I expected a quick response, as, like me, he checked his messages almost constantly. Instead, it was about five hours later that he wrote back. Great news, the e-mail said. Congratulations.

It wasn’t like he’d ever been that effusive in our exchanges. But I had expected a bit more excitement—or something—at this particular news. He’d written me pages about Huckleberry Finn. This was only three words.

I tried not to think about this, though, as I hit Reply and thanked him, saying I’d be sending along some links to financial and admissions stuff we needed to work out. No response. In fact, the next time I heard from him was three weeks later.

Emaline,

I am so sorry to have to tell you this, but due to unforseen circumstances, I will not be able to supplement your tuition to Columbia. It was always my hope and intention to help you, but some things have occurred that make it impossible. I hope you understand.

Supplement? I thought. Not only was the deal off, it had never been what I thought in the first place. Also, I couldn’t help but notice that the tone—distant, almost automated—sounded not unlike messages I’d received from the schools that had rejected me. All that was missing was a We regret to inform you.

So that was that. Columbia had been a long shot. I’d gotten there, and now it was being pulled away again. Sucker. To make matters worse, it was too late to apply for financial aid, which I’d assumed I wouldn’t need. And while we theoretically could have taken out a loan, all I could think of was my dad, who never bought anything on credit, paid his bills in full each month, and expected all of us to avoid debt with the same vigilance we did pedophiles and rabid animals. I could only imagine his face when I told him we’d need to borrow about as much as he’d make in a full year. Luckily, I didn’t have to. When he and my mom sat me down after dinner the next night and told me there was no way we could afford Columbia, I wasn’t surprised. After all, it had never been their promise.

So East U it was. I had a full ride, it was a good school: you didn’t have to have a degree to see it was a no-brainer. That night, I sat at my desk, looking at that full shelf of college prep books, all lined up in a row. Thanks to ongoing budget cuts, they numbered more than the entire collection on the subject in my school’s media center. Just as I thought this, I had a flash of my mom graduating eighteen years earlier, while I watched from my grandmother’s arms. How different our lives were, then and now. She’d wanted so much for me: the moon and more. But maybe, right now, the moon was enough.

So it seemed fitting, really, that the moon was out and shining through the corner of my window as I pulled up the Columbia Web site and notified them I wouldn’t be attending in the fall. After all that hard work, it was so easy. Just a couple of clicks, some keystrokes, and done.

As for my father, there were no more e-mails, no explanations: he was just gone, Bigfoot all over again. At times, I found myself questioning his very existence, even though I knew I had, in fact, spotted him, with my own eyes.

And while I kept my initial acceptance message from Columbia in my inbox for a while, looking at it didn’t really make me sad. Instead, it was the lack of e-mails. How pathetic I felt logging in to my account, hoping to see my father’s address atop the new messages. The weirdness of donating all those books to the media center, now that I didn’t need them anymore.

Mostly, I felt stupid for falling for his big talk, the very thing my mother had warned me about. Even from a distance he’d taken me in, and I’d gone, gullibly and willingly. In my less masochistic moments, I reminded myself that I, a girl from Colby High, had gotten into an Ivy League school. That had to count for something. I just wasn’t sure what it was.

But life went on. And the one person who knew that best of all, always, hadn’t gone anywhere. She was always bragging, telling anyone who would listen about my full scholarship to a great school. Squeezing my shoulder as she passed by me as I sat on the couch watching TV. Smiling from across the dinner table when Amber said something typically ridiculous. Stopping outside my closed bedroom door for only a moment, yet always just long enough so I knew for sure she was there.

3

“I’D JUST LIKE to say again how thrilled we are that Andy will be joining our family in August. Here’s to the bride and groom!”

There was a burst of applause as Mr. Templeton held up his glass, followed by a collective “Awwww” as the happy couple leaned in for a kiss. Off to the right, Luke’s mom stood watching, face flushed, tears visible in her eyes. A beautiful moment.

I looked over at Luke, who was standing beside me in a collared shirt I was sure he had put on only under serious duress. “I am so glad we are going to college,” he said. “Because this next year, at this house, when all this is over and my mom has nothing to do? It’s going to be scary.”

“That,” I said, as his parents hugged Andy, then Brooke, “is a really poor attitude.”

“My mother,” he said in response, “has already told me that I have to wear tails to this wedding. Tails. In Colby. We’ll be like all those people we mock.”

He meant the ones who came here for destination weddings, most often in spring and summer. They set up chairs and little arches decorated with flowers on the beach, then were surprised when it was windy and the bride’s veil took flight and everyone looked ruffled in the pictures. After complaining endlessly about all our caterers and vendors—hopelessly backwards compared to wherever they came from—they more often than not left wedding cake smeared into the furniture and a trail of broken dishes behind in their rentals. There was no denying people like this were part of an industry many in Colby depended on for their living. Which did not mean we couldn’t make fun of them, at least a little bit.