Chapter Nineteen

nineteen

“Hell-OOOO!”

If not for the constant buffering of this episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race , I may not have heard my parents come home. Lucky or unlucky for me, the living room TV has been still for the last fifteen minutes aside from a spinning loading wheel over the panel of judges, and the low grumble of suitcase wheels rolling across the hardwood comes over loud and clear in the silence. I hip check the dishwasher, sealing off the last of four days’ worth of dirty dishes, and hit start while dragging a rag across the counter. To say the house is spotless would be downplaying it; after a hectic Sunday morning barista shift, I’ve spent the rest of the afternoon erasing all evidence that anyone has ever set foot in this house. Not me, not Kat, and certainly not Ellie. Any hints of her have been bleached away, returning the house to its usual state—tidy to the point of looking practically uninhabited.

“Anyone home?” Mom’s voice bounces off the vaulted ceilings and lands right in the middle of the kitchen floor, where I spot and immediately snatch up a clump of dust and hair. How I manage to shed this much and still have a single strand on my head, I may never know. I pocket the dust bunny, silently cursing the traffic from O’Hare for not being worse. I was planning to wrap up an afternoon of cleaning with a second sweep and a third round of vacuuming, but I was also planning on at least another hour before Mom and Dad got home. Instead, a leathery, middle-aged Barbie and Ken waltz into the kitchen, dragging identical black suitcases behind them.

“Well, don’t rush to greet us or anything,” Mom teases, tucking a stray strand of silver hair back into her airplane-friendly ponytail.

“Sorry, sorry. Welcome home.”

Mom gathers me up in a hug that feels straight out of one of those soldier-comes-home videos. When she grants me full use of my airways again, she doesn’t let go altogether; instead, she holds me at an arm’s length, like she’s searching for evidence that I’ve changed or grown up at all over the course of less than a week.

“Florida wasn’t the same without you.” Her eyes are welling up a little, but her subtle yet tragic sunglasses-shaped tan line keeps me from slipping into feeling sentimental. And of course, if the sunglasses tan didn’t do it, Dad sure would. He’s just a few steps behind her, his winter coat zipped over an unseasonable pair of khaki shorts.

“Hey, Toto, I don’t think we’re in Florida anymore!” He flashes me the sort of big, eager smile and bouncy eyebrow maneuver that tells me he tried this joke out on Mom already.

“I guess not.” I scare up a fake laugh, which I always do, even for Dad’s worst jokes.

“See?” He jabs a thumb in my direction, giving Mom a look. “ She thought it was funny.”

While Dad and I riff on Wizard of Oz and Thanksgiving crossover jokes ( green beans and corn bread and yams, oh pie! ), Mom goes full real estate appraisal on the house. She twists one of the blue pillar candles in the center of the countertop, examining the wick to be sure I didn’t forget these are for decoration, never for lighting. “It doesn’t look too bad in here,” she finally admits.

“Yeah, you can hardly tell I had a huge rager here last night.” I look to Dad, hoping he’ll hop on my joke, but the sheer sense of panic emanating from Mom keeps him from saying a word. She freezes in place, only her head pivoting toward me for a quick sarcasm scan.

“You didn’t.”

“Literally who would I invite?”

“Kat? And Kat’s boyfriend?” She’s white-knuckling the handle of her suitcase, but I’m not ready to drop the joke yet.

“I don’t think Kat and Kat’s boyfriend qualifies as a party,” I point out.

Dad interrupts with a guttural laugh. “Tell that to Kat and Kat’s boyfriend!” When Mom shoots him dagger eyes, he puts up his hands in defense and backs away, returning to the safety of keeping his mouth shut.

“There was no party,” I reassure her. “I’m joking. I had Kat over one night, but Daniel didn’t even come in.”

“Daniel and Kat. Kat and Daniel.” Mom releases her grip on her suitcase and turns their names over and over, practicing emphasizing one name and then the other. “What’s the verdict on him?”

“I like him. He’s…patient.”

She raises an eyebrow at my choice of descriptors, but we breeze past it and into the other details of my weekend, although they’re few and far between. I focus on the success of the reopening, which impresses them enough to ward off any questions about how I spent my Thanksgiving. I’m halfway through recounting Brooklyn’s nicknames for our regulars when RuPaul’s voice interrupts, unleashing some harsh but fair criticism onto a queen who, from the sound of it, stands little chance at becoming America’s Next Drag Superstar.

“Jesus.” Mom fans her fingers across her chest while I fumble for the remote and hit mute. “I thought somebody broke in.”

“Nah, just RuPaul.” I smile sheepishly, feeling embarrassed for no reason I can pinpoint. “Tell me more about Florida.”

Mom blinks at me, then at Dad, then back at me. “Actually, we do have something kind of fun to share.” Her off-putting, ultrasaccharine smile must be contagious, because seconds later, Dad is giving me the same one.

“We did a little shopping,” Dad explains.

“Yeah?” I take a backward grip on the counter behind me, bracing myself for a retelling of the discount golf shirt story. Were they really so drunk on Thanksgiving that they don’t remember telling me?

“Some big shopping.” Dad loops an arm around Mom’s waist, creating a united front. “We put an offer in on a condo.”

My eyebrows hop up my forehead and back. “Yeah?” I knew my family had Thanksgiving in Florida money, but having second property in Florida money is news to me.

“It’s the cutest little spot, right on Sanibel Island. A two-bedroom, but it’s only got the one bath.” Mom digs into her purse while she talks, fishing out her phone. “We had to make a few compromises to get the location we wanted. Let me pull up the listing. Wait no, better yet.” She pulls her readers out of her purse and situates them on her nose, mouth stretching open as she punches her finger against her phone screen. “We took some video during our showing. Look, here’s your father standing in the shower.”

I shield my eyes with my hands. “Ew, I don’t want to see that.”

Mom is unimpressed, if not a little annoyed. “He’s clothed, Murphy. He’s just showing off how spacious it is.”

“I got a full wingspan in every direction in that thing!” Dad chimes in with a toothy grin, stretching his arms out airplane style to demonstrate.

Mom cozies up beside me and flips her phone horizontal, and I watch the wobbly footage of her walking past coral walls and bright white cabinets. “We’re going to paint, of course,” she says. “The previous owners really made it like you’re living inside a seashell.”

“Did they, uh.” I bite my cheek, searching for the right terminology and realizing that, for a realtor’s daughter, I know shockingly little about real estate. “Like, do you own it yet or?”

“They accepted the offer,” Dad says, putting me out of my misery. “We close on it in a month, so long as everything goes well with the appraisal and there aren’t any hang-ups with the HOA. We’ll just need to liquidate a few assets first.”

I nod along, trying out a smile that suggests I understand even 50 percent of this lingo. Better to fake it than to turn this conversation into a real estate lesson. On Mom’s phone, a sky-blue bathroom comes into view, and, as promised, Dad is standing in the shower with arms spread wide and an even bigger smile than the one he has on now. He looks happier than I’ve seen him in a long time, and while I have dozens of questions—most of them about how much this will cost and whether or not they’ll still have room in the budget to contribute to my college fund—none of that feels relevant right now. Mom and Dad are excited. The least I can do is be excited too.

“This is awesome. We’ll actually be able to actually have a real Thanksgiving in this kitchen.”

“Exactly! See?” Mom purses her lips at Dad, giving him the I told you so eyes. “And I know it’ll be tough with the one bathroom when you come down to visit, but I promise we’ll make it work.”

My chin dips to my chest. “Visit? Wouldn’t we fly down together?” No sooner do the words come out than the blanks start to fill in. Mom and Dad didn’t buy a vacation home; they bought a—

“Actually.” Mom pauses, smushes her lips together, and starts again. “Actually, we were planning to sell the house and move down there.”

They bought a new home. Shit.

The pit in my stomach threatens to swallow me whole. “We’re…moving?”

“Well. Your father and I are moving.” Mom doesn’t trail off so much as end her sentence right in the middle, holding her breath while I draw my own conclusions.

They’re moving, and I’ll just need to figure it out.

“Once you’re off at U of I, we won’t really have a whole lot keeping us here anymore,” Mom explains. “All my friends moved away years ago, and Dad and I are both just about ready to retire, and with you gone, we just won’t need this kind of space anymore. We’re always planning these trips down to Florida and spending all this money, and, well, we just thought…it’s time.”

As she works through her clearly rehearsed explanation, Dad nods along in agreement. I wonder if he helped her practice this little speech, if they first ran through it on the plane or when they were touring the place. Has this always been the plan? Have they looked at condos before? And where—if anywhere—do I fit it in?

“This is all great,” I lie. “But…what if I don’t get into U of I?” I try to steady my voice, hoping I come off more nonchalant than I feel.

Mom and Dad share a quick look, thinking I won’t notice. “Then we’d help you find an apartment here,” Dad says.

If there’s a deep breath to be found in this house, in this town, my lungs can’t find it. From the root of my tongue to the base of my stomach, nothing will move. Not a word, not a breath, not a scream.

“You could get something closer to school or closer to Sip,” Mom offers, tucking her phone away. “Your own place with your own stuff. And so long as you’re still in school, we can still help out here and there.” She rattles off something about an apartment complex she’s shown to a few younger clients of hers, selling me on the faux luxury of having my own shitty apartment in the suburbs. None of it sticks.

“So how soon are we selling the house?” I ask.

“Well, it’ll take a week or two to stage it,” Mom says. “Make it look all neat and spiffy for the listing photos.”

I stretch my arms wide, an unintended imitation of Dad in the shower of their new condo. Their new home . “This”—I look left to right, regretting my excellent cleanup job—“this isn’t neat and spiffy enough?”

Mom’s mouth puckers at the sides, panicked eyes turning toward Dad, silently begging him to intervene.

“Your room, Murph,” Dad explains. “We’ll just need to stage your room.”

If I didn’t know better, I’d think God swatted the earth and rocked its orbit backward. Of course. My room. The only room that shows any signs of someone living here. I want to push back, to remind them that I have a final coming up. I need more time. I’m not ready. But all I can croak out is “Oh.”

“Oh honey.” Mom squeezes me into an uncomfortable side hug. I’m no longer a soldier coming home. I’m a twenty-one-year-old mooch being kicked out of her parents’ house. “We know it’s not a fun conversation to have, Murph. We were planning to take you out to dinner and tell you, show you all the apartments we’ve already picked out for you. We thought you’d be excited not to be stuck in your parents’ house anymore.”

Her delivery on parents’ house is that of someone saying spoiled milk or athlete’s foot . She’s doing the realtor thing, the thing I’ve seen her do with her clients dozens of times when they lose out on listings and she suddenly wants to make a perfectly good house seems like the completely wrong fit. You didn’t want a place with only two bedrooms, did you? It’s a shame you got outbid, but did you really want to live with an unfinished basement? She normally pairs it with a slow shake of her head, subconsciously getting her buyers to agree. You’re so right, that’s not what we wanted at all. Predictably, the next words out of Mom’s mouth are accented by her head shaking side to side. “You didn’t want to live with us for the rest of college, right?”

My cheeks overheat, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see steam come out of my ears. Of course I didn’t want to live with them for the rest of college. I didn’t even want to be here this semester. But I’m not going to let Mom use her goddamn real estate tactics on me. I’m not her client. I’m her daughter. “Why were you already picking out apartments around here?” I ask. “Because you didn’t think I’d get into U of I, right?”

Mom winces, and her mouth opens, but no words come out. Fuckin’ figures. Dad steps in with a “Well, Murph, you gotta understand—”

“Well, you’re right,” I interrupt, then press my tongue to the roof of my mouth. The tears come anyway. My parents have the exact right amount of confidence in me, which is to say, none at all.

“Honey…” Dad starts, taking a cautious step forward. I cut him off with a flat palm held up like a traffic guard. It’s the sort of thing Mom would usually chew me out for, reminding me to be respectful of my father. Right now, she doesn’t say a word.

“No, I mean it,” I choke out. “I missed the transfer deadline because I was so busy with the Sip renovations. So congratulations, you called it. Your daughter is exactly the deadbeat you always knew she was.”

“Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry.” Mom’s voice is thick with heartbreak, but not an ounce of surprise.

“Yeah. I think I’m just gonna head to…” I arrive at the end of the sentence before I can decide how it’s going to end. Where am I supposed to go? Work? School? Kat drove back to U of I this morning, so it’s not like I can go to her house. “I’m gonna head up to my room, is that okay?”

I feel simultaneously too young and too old for this moment, asking for permission in a house that is entirely mine and entirely not mine, all at once. This is the only home I’ve ever lived in, the only place the maps app has ever put the little house icon. My house, except not my house at all. At some point, the house you grew up in is supposed to turn a corner from “my house” to “my parents’ house,” but that never happens if you never leave it. Until now, I guess.

“We love you,” Dad says, and I snatch my phone off the counter and head for the staircase, leaving behind fragments of a conversation that will remain unfinished.

Upstairs, I slide into the home base of my bed, breathing in the mix of coffee and detergent that everything I own takes on. It’s a comforting smell. A home smell. This home. I remember how my pillowcase always smelled just a little different after a sleepover at Kat’s. It’s the only frame of reference I have to tell me that, even with the same job and the same fabric softener, this smell will eventually tune itself to wherever I live next. I’ll probably forget this smell altogether.

I know I’m being dramatic. People move all the time. I just always thought that, when I left this house, it’d be onward and upward and of my own accord, and it would always be mine to come back to.

I roll onto my back, resisting the instinct to reach for my phone and dissociate until the feeling passes, squeezing my eyes tight enough for neon shapes to appear behind my eyelids. I’m going to have to move. I don’t know where, and I don’t know how soon, but I asked for this. I said I wanted out of Geneva, I just didn’t expect some real “Monkey’s Paw” bullshit.

The neon shapes linger even when I peel my eyes open again. They flicker and shift across the high school tchotchkes around my room. The trophies, the books—all of it simultaneously sacred and stupid, a three-dimensional scrapbook of a Murphy who no longer exists. Kat and Ellie are both wrong. I have changed. At least a little. Haven’t I?

I have to believe I’ve moved on from who I used to be. Otherwise, I’m no better than those college kids who wander back into their high school classes the first time they come back home. We used to make fun of those kids back in high school—each one had a visitor’s pass around their neck and looked a little worse for wear as they talked about the good old days, which were all of two or three years prior. We’d cringe and nod and give them a thumbs-up, wondering why they felt the need to revisit the high school memories they’d hardly left behind. God, don’t tell me I’ve grown up to be like them.

I pat myself down, searching for my phone, and knock out the only instantly urgent item on my to-do list: delete Ellie’s number, our chat history, and our photos. I’m done hanging on to things from high school, especially things that were never really mine in the first place.