What Happened to Goodbye(86)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“Oh, God, yes,” she replied. “To be honest, it’s been a bit of a conflict between us. But I have to respect his opinion, because this is a collaborative effort. So we’re working on a compromise.”

I bent down by the model, studying a cul-de-sac, until I felt her move away, turning her attention to something else. Compromise, I thought, remembering the one Dave had been working on with his parents, and mine with my mom. It was that give-and-take he’d talked about, the rules that were always changing. But what happened when you followed all the rules and still couldn’t get what you wante? It didn’t seem right.

“So,” Deb said now, bending down by the far left edge of the model, “about the restaurant closing. Does that mean … you’re moving to Australia? That’s the rumor, according to the grapevine. That your dad got a job there.”

Typical restaurant gossip, distorted as always. “It’s Hawaii,” I told her. “And I’m not going with him.”

“Are you staying here?”

“No,” I said. “I can’t.”

She turned, padding back over to the other end, by the tree line Heather had done. She bit her lip as she bent down over it, adjusting a couple of trunks. Finally she said, “Well, honestly … I think that sucks.”

“Whoa,” I said. For Deb, these were strong words. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I!” She looked up, her face flushed. “I mean, it’s bad enough that you’re going to go. But you didn’t even tell us it was in the works! Were you just going to take off and disappear, just like that?”

“No,” I said, although I wasn’t sure this was entirely true. “I just … I didn’t know where I was going, and when. And then the whole Ume.com thing …”

“I understand, it was crazy.” She took a step closer to me. “But seriously, Mclean. You have to promise me you won’t just leave. I’m not like you, okay? I don’t have a lot of friends. So you need to say goodbye, and you need to stay in touch, wherever you go. Okay?”

I nodded. She was so emotional, on the verge of tears. This was what I’d wanted to prevent with all those quick disappearances, the tangledness of farewells and all the baggage they brought with them. But now, looking at Deb, I realized what else I’d given up: knowing for sure that someone was going to miss me. What happened to goodbye, Michael in Westcott had written on my Ume.com page. I was pretty sure I knew, now. It had been packed away in a box of its own, trying to be forgotten, until I really needed it. Until now.

“Okay then,” Deb said, her voice tight. She drew in a breath, then let it out, letting her hands drop to her sides. “Now, if you don’t mind, I really think we should tackle these last two sectors before we go tonight.”

“Absolutely,” I replied, relieved to have something concrete to do. I followed her over to the other table, where the last group of assembled houses and other buildings were lined up, labeled and ready to be put on. Deb collected one set, I took the other, and we walked over to the far right top corner, the very end of the pinwheel. As I bent down, taking the adhesive off the bottom of a gas station, I said, “I’m glad there was something left to do. I was worried all this would be finished by the time I got back here.”

“Well, actually, it would have been,” she said, pushing a house onto her sector. “But I saved these for you.”

I stopped what I was doing. “You did?”

“Yeah.” She put a house on, pressing it until it clicked, then looked at me. “I mean, you were here at the very beginning, when this all started, before I even was. It’s only right that you get to be a part of the ending, as well.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied. And then, side by side, and without saying another word, we finished the job together.

When I left the restaurant, it was a half hour into opening and my dad still hadn’t appeared. Neither had Opal.

“It’s just like a sinking ship,” Tracey, who was behind the bar, told me when I asked if she’d seen them. “The rats abandon first.”

“Opal’s not a rat,” I said, realizing a beat too late that by saying that I was basically admitting that my dad was. “She didn’t know anything about all this.”

“She didn’t fight for us either,” she replied, drying a glass with a towel. “She’s basically been AWOL since they announced the closing and the building sale. Polishing her résumé, most likely.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I can’t say for sure,” she said, putting the glass down. “But the word on the street is she’s been having a lot of closed-door phone conversations that may or may not have included the words relocation and upper management.”

“You really think Opal would just leave like that? She loves this town.”

“Money talks,” she replied with a shrug. A couple of customers passed me, pulling out stools at the bar, and she put down menus in front of them, then said, “Welcome to Luna Blu. Would you like to hear our Death Throes Specials?”

I waved goodbye to her, distracted, then headed toward the kitchen and the back door. As I passed the office, I glanced in: the desk was neatly organized, the chair tucked under it, none of my dad’s signature clutter scattered around the many surfaces. By the looks of it, he, at least, was already gone.

Outside, I walked down the alley, turning onto my street. When my mom had dropped me off earlier, the house had been empty, but now as it came into view I saw some lights were on and the truck was in the driveway.

I was just stepping up onto the curb when I heard a bang. I looked over and there was Dave, coming out of his kitchen door, a cardboard box under one arm. He pulled a black knit hat over his head and started down the stairs, not seeing me. My first impulse was to just get inside, avoiding him and whatever confrontation or conversation would follow. But then I looked up at the sky and immediately spotted a bright triangle of stars, and thought of my mom, standing on the deck of that huge beach house. So much had changed, and yet she still knew those stars, had taken that part of her past, our past, with her. I couldn’t run anymore. I’d learned that. So even though it wasn’t easy, I stayed where I was.

“Dave.”

He turned, startled, and I saw the surprise on his face when he realized it was me. “Hey,” he said. He didn’t come closer, and neither did I: there was a good fifteen or twenty feet between us. “I didn’t know you were back.”