What Happened to Goodbye(91)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“Is that really what it said, on the roof of the building?” I asked.

I could feel his breath, the warmth of his skin. We were that close. “No idea,” he replied. “But anything’s possible.”

I smiled. Downstairs, they were laughing, cheering, seeing out this last night in this sacred place. Soon, I knew we’d join them, and shut it down together. But for now, I leaned closer to Dave, putting my lips on his. He slid his arms up around me, and as he kissed me back, I felt something inside me open, like a new life beginning. I didn’t know yet what girl she’d be, or where this life would take her. But I’d keep my eyes open, and when the time came, I would know.

Eighteen

“Oh, crap,” Opal said, dropping a bunch of empty plates with a clang. “AHBL!”

“Already?” I asked. “We’ve only been open fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, but we only have one wait, and that wait is Tracey,” she said, stabbing two orders onto the spindle in the window between us. “We’re already in the weeds.”

She bustled off, cursing under her breath, while I pulled the tickets off, glanng at them. “Orders,” I told Jason, who was sitting on the prep table behind me, reading the Wall Street Journal.

“Call ’em,” he said, hopping down.

“You sure? We’re behind already.”

“If you’re going to be in the hole, you have to learn to call out orders,” he said, walking over to the grill station behind me. “Go ahead.”

I looked down at the top ticket. “Mediterranean chicken sandwich,” I said. “Order fries. Side salad.”

“Good,” he said. “Now hit that salad. I’ll do filet and drop those fries.”

I nodded, turning to the back table and grabbing a small plate from the shelf above. For all my time growing up in restaurants, working in one still felt brand-new. But there was nowhere else I’d rather be.

At graduation a week earlier, I’d sat with the rest of my class, fanning my face with a damp program as the speakers droned on and assembled family and friends shifted in their seats. When we all stood up, grabbing our caps to throw them in the air, a breeze suddenly blew over, lifting the air and all those black squares and tassels up overhead to take flight like birds. Then I’d turned, searching for the faces of my friends. I saw Heather first, and she smiled.

I was supposed to go back to Tyler, yes. But things change. And sometimes, people do as well, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. At least, that’s what I was hoping the Saturday after Luna Blu closed, when my mom showed up to help me pack my stuff. My dad was there, too, and Opal, all of us making trips from my room to Peter’s huge SUV, chatting as we did so. Opal and my mom hit it off immediately, which I had to admit surprised me. But as soon as she found out my mom had handled all the financial stuff at Mariposa, she started picking her brain about how best to do things at her new place. The next thing I knew, they were at the kitchen table, a notepad between them, while my dad and I finished the job.

“Does that make you nervous?” I asked him as we took out my pillow and my laptop, passing by them. My mom was saying something about payroll, while Opal jotted on the page, nodding.

“Nah,” he said. “Truth is, your mom kept that restaurant afloat for two years longer than it should have been. Without her, we would have closed a lot sooner.”

I looked at him over the hood of the SUV. “Really?”

“Yeah. Your mom knows her stuff.”

I was thinking about this later, when I was finally packed up and we were getting ready to leave. I’d said my goodbyes to Deb, Riley, Ellis, and Heather the night before, at a farewell dinner—fried chicken, naturally—that Riley’s mom cooked for me at her house. My goodbye with Dave had been more private, in the hour he was allotted after I got home. We’d sat together on the steps to the storm cellar, hands intertwined, and made plans. For the next weekend, for a beach trip if he could ever get away, for all the calls and texts and e-mails that we hoped would hold us together. Like my dad and Opal, we weren’t kidding ourselves. I knew what distance could do. But there was a part of me here now, and not just in the model. I planned to come back to it.

As I shut the car door, everything finally in, I looked over and saw Mrs. Dobson-Wade, standing in her kitche. Dave was at work, their other car gone, and she was alone, flipping through a cookbook. Watching her, I thought of my mom, and all the problems we’d had over the last two years. Trust and deceit, distance and control. It had seemed unique to us, but I knew it really wasn’t. I also knew that just because we’d found a peace didn’t mean everyone could. But Dave had done something for me. The least I could do was try to return the favor.

When I knocked on her door a few minutes later, my mom and dad behind me, she looked surprised. Then, as we came inside and I explained why I was there, a bit suspicious. Once we sat down at the table, though, and I told her the story of what had happened that night, how Dave had come for me, and told my dad where I was, I saw her face soften a bit. She made us no promises, only said she’d think about what we’d told her. But then, something did happen. To me.

It was when we were getting into the car to leave. Opal and my dad were in the driveway to see us off, the house mostly empty behind them. It was so weird, like the reverse of when I’d left Tyler with him all those years ago. With all my departures, he’d never been the one watching me go, and suddenly I wasn’t sure I could do it.

“It’s not goodbye,” he said as I hugged him tight, Opal sniffling beside him. “I’ll see you very, very soon.”

“I know.” I swallowed, then stepped back. “I just … I hate to leave you.”

“I’ll be fine.” He smiled at me. “Go.”

I managed to hold it together until I got into the car and we drove away. As the house, and them beside it, receded in my side mirror, though, I just started bawling.

“Oh, God,” my mom said, her hands shaking as she hit her turn signal. “Don’t cry. You’re going to make me totally lose it.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, rubbing my nose with the back of my hand. “I’m okay. I am.”

She nodded, turning onto the main road. But after driving about a block, she hit the signal again, turning into a bank parking lot. Then she cut the engine and looked at me. “I can’t do this to you.”