Better Than Perfect (23 page)

I wanted to tell my dad in person about breaking up with Jason and deferring Harvard, so I called him and said I wanted us to have dinner. We agreed I'd meet him in Manhattan Thursday night, and he texted me an address. I'd assumed it was a restaurant, but when I got there, it turned out to be an apartment building, all glass and steel, nothing like our brick colonial in Milltown. The doorman asked who I was there to see, and I said, “Richard Newman,” and then I added, “My dad” and I asked what floor to go to. If it was odd to him that Mr. Newman had a daughter who didn't know where he lived, the doorman didn't show it. He just gave me the apartment number and waved me up.

“I didn't know you were so into modern stuff,” I said as we sat at the white table on the white chairs, eating the Chinese food
he'd ordered from a place across the street. It was strange to see how my father had chosen to furnish his own space. Everything in our house on Long Island had been carefully chosen, furniture you could imagine handing down to your children through the ages. This was all Ikea or Ikea-esque.

He looked around as if he'd never really noticed the furniture. “I just grabbed a bunch of stuff. I've never furnished an apartment before. Well, in college I lived with some friends the summer after junior year. I found a sofa on the street and we used that. So I guess, you know, I had some experience.” He held a container in my direction. “Dumpling?”

“No thanks.” I watched him serve himself a dumpling, then drip some sauce over his plate. And into the silence I blurted out, “I don't know you very well.”

“What?” My dad put down the container. “What do you mean?”

“Like I didn't know that about you—that you'd lived with friends the summer after your junior year of college.”

“That's not exactly crucial information, Juliet.” He shrugged. “But anyway, now you know.”

I toyed with the edge of my napkin so I could say the next sentence without meeting his eyes. “And you don't know me very well.”

“Why would you say that?” he asked, hurt.

“I mean . . .” I took a deep breath. “I'm more than my SAT scores and my grade point average.” I finally made
myself raise my eyes and look at him.

My dad stared back at me like I'd punched him. “Do you think I don't know that?”

Suddenly I felt defensive. “It's what you always ask me about. It's what you're always telling me you're proud of. I just . . . it seems like that's all you care about.”

“Juliet,” he said quietly. “You have to know—”

“I'm not going to Harvard in the fall.” I crossed my arms and stared at him, hard, across the table. I'd planned on building up to it slowly, but hurling it at him like that was unexpectedly satisfying.

“What?”
If I'd meant to shock him, I'd succeeded. He sat there, staring at me, his eyes wide behind his glasses.

“You heard me. I'm deferring admission.” I squeezed my biceps with my hands, willing my arms to stop shaking.

He shook his head slowly. “I have to admit I can't believe you're saying this.”

“Well”—I gave a little laugh—“believe it.”

My dad shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “I believe it.”

“That's
it
?” Now I was the one who couldn't believe what I was hearing. “That's all you're going to say?”

He took a sip of his water and put it down on the table, turning it slowly as he spoke. “I guess I'm surprised that you want to take time off. You've always seemed so driven to me. Sure of what you want. You're more like your mom in that way. I took forever to commit to college. And even when I went, I
kept dropping out. Remember, I didn't graduate until I was almost twenty-five.”

“But you always told me not to do that!” I cried. “You told me not to waste my time the way you did.”

My dad frowned and looked up at the ceiling. “I don't think I said that.” He shook his head slowly, as if he was struggling to remember. “I really don't think I would have said that. Maybe I said it was great that you were so driven. I've always admired that about you. And your brother. But I don't think I put pressure on you to know what you want to do.”

“Are you
kidding
me?!” I was practically screaming. “Every time I got an A, you told me how proud you were of me.”

“I
was
proud of you.”

I pointed my finger threateningly at him. “That was all you ever cared about.”

“No it wasn't,” said my dad, and now he sounded angry. “I'm proud of everything you do. I was proud when you got that internship with Children United—”

“Because it was so prestigious!”

“Because you
wanted
it so much!” my father yelled back.

“I just want you to love me for who I am!” I wailed.

“Juliet, how can you say that?” My dad looked like he was about to cry. “Do you really think I only love you because you get straight As and fancy internships?”

“I'm not an
idiot
, Dad,” I snapped. “I know you'd love me if I didn't get straight As and fancy internships. But you love
me
more
when I do get them.”

He started shaking his head, slowly at first, then more violently. “That is not true,” he said. And then he said it again. “That is not true. Juliet, I love you no matter what you do. I'd love you if you
killed
a person.”

“But that would never happen!” I shouted in frustration. “It's easy to say because it would never happen.”

My dad slid his chair back and came around to the side of the table where I was sitting. He knelt down by my chair. “Juliet, I love you. I love that you are so determined and hardworking and I love that you go for what you want. And if what you want is to not go to college next year, then I love you for pursuing that.”

For a minute, we were both quiet.

“I miss you, Daddy,” I said finally, staring at the tabletop. My throat felt tight, and my eyes stung. “I miss not having to think about our relationship.”

He reached forward and tucked the hair that covered my face behind my ear. “I miss that too.” He hesitated before he continued. “But maybe—maybe it's better to have to think about something. Maybe it's hard but it's better.”

I wanted to believe him, but I didn't. Not completely.

Not yet.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Are we okay?”

I nodded again.

“Are you ever going to say anything?” He'd bent forward so he could see my face, and now he was staring at me with his eyes humorously wide.

I was tired of talking about all of this. I wanted to say something that was clear and true and that I wouldn't have to explain once I'd said it. I took a deep breath. “I want a dumpling.”

My dad hesitated, like maybe he wanted to force me to continue our conversation. But all he said was, “Well, let's get you a dumpling, then.” Then he walked back around the table and sat down. He held the container of dumplings toward me. I took one out and put it on my plate. He passed me the dumpling sauce. We sat there, eating but not talking, for several minutes.

And it was really okay.

The Battle of the Bands was completely sold out, and the lobby was packed. Since Jason and I had broken up, Elise had been obsessed with Friday nights being girls' night, so I was there with Elise, Margaret, and Sofia but without George and Lucas. Lucas had wanted to come with us, and I'd said that was fine, but Elise had acted like Sofia had violated some ancient code of sisterhood, and so Sofia had told Lucas maybe they could do something after the show.

“Thanks a lot,” she'd said after she'd texted him.

“Don't blame me. You're the one who's listening to Elise.”

She rolled her eyes and put her phone back in her bag. “Eighteen years old and still succumbing to peer pressure. When will it end?”

The lobby was crowded. There were band posters up everywhere, and I stared for a minute at the Clovers'. It was a new photo; Danny's drums were set up on a fire escape and Declan was on the ladder above him while Sinead smiled out an apartment window, wearing a dress with a scooped neck and watering a pot of flowers. Sitting on the fire escape next to Declan was a kid I didn't know, but I'd heard he was the new bass player. Seeing him in the photo where Sean should have been made me miss Sean in a weird way. But maybe I wasn't missing Sean so much as I was missing the band I'd been in. I pulled my eyes away from the poster, sadder to see the smiling new Clovers than I would have expected.

Across the lobby from where I stood were the carpeted platforms of the senior lounge. Technically it was only for seniors—the other three grades were supposed to hang out in the student center around the corner—but nobody really minded unless underclassmen sat on the top platform, which was definitely seniors-only territory. Right now, for example, Jason and George were on the highest square, looking out over the crowd like two kings surveying their subjects. George had on a pair of jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, and Jason was wearing a pair of cargo pants and a blue sweater his mom had given him for Christmas two years ago. He'd been wearing it the day I'd gotten home from Connecticut after being at my grandparents'.

How bizarre that you could know someone so well and love him so much and then not have him in your life anymore.
Jason's eyes circled around the lobby and finally they came to rest on me. I kept looking at him, but either he didn't see or he pretended not to see, and he went back to talking to George. I had a sudden flash forward to two years from now. We'd be at Harvard. He'd be a sophomore and I'd be a freshman, and we'd pass each other on the quad, both of us rushing to a class. We'd say hello. Maybe chat for a second. And then one of us would have to go, and after we'd separated, the friend he was walking with would say, “Who was that?” and Jason would say, “Just a girl I used to go out with.”

The thought of his saying that made me feel strange, almost as if I were disappearing, and I turned to Sofia. “I need to get some air.”

“Seriously?” she asked. “They're about to open the doors.”

“I'll meet you inside.”

“You want me to come with?”

“I'm okay.”

She gave me a look but she let me go. I pushed through the crowded lobby, the voices and the laughter and the heat of the bodies overwhelming me.

Outside, the night shimmered with cold. A car pulled into the traffic circle at the front of the building, and a bunch of kids piled out of a minivan. I heard the mom yell, “Text me when it's over,” and the kid who'd gotten out of the passenger seat yelled back, “I will,” and then he hustled to catch up to his friends.

As I watched them walk into the building, I thought,
I bet this is their first Battle of the Bands.

And then I thought,
This is my last Battle of the Bands.

I hopped onto the low brick wall and looked up at the sky, the planets and stars overhead glistening in the freezing air. It was stupid to think about running into Jason on the Harvard quad in two years. Maybe after all this I wouldn't even go to Harvard. Maybe I'd move to China. Or to Europe. Maybe I'd never go to college. Maybe I'd stay in Milltown and see Elizabeth Bennet once a week until I knew enough about what I wanted to write it down on a piece of paper.

Anything could happen. And maybe that was okay too.

Behind me I heard voices, and then Lucas and this guy Justin Frank walked by. I thought maybe Lucas would ask me where Sofia was, but he and Justin just nodded at me and kept walking. I nodded back at them but didn't say anything. Then I went back to staring at the stars.

“Hey!”

I turned around. Emerging from the shadows was Declan. He was carrying a guitar case and wearing his black suit and his white shirt. I thought about how much had happened since I'd first seen him in it at the Milltown Country Club. It was crazy that he'd been there the night everything with my mother had started.

“Hey,” I said back.

He glanced up at the sky. “See anything suspicious?”

“Nope. Everything looks pretty solid up there.”

“That's a relief.” He switched his guitar case to the other hand. “I had the strangest dream last night. It was the Battle of the Bands, and you were there, and you and Sinead sang ‘I Got You Babe.' And we won.”

“That is a strange dream,” I agreed. “I'm supposed to start seeing a therapist in March. Maybe I'll see if she can analyze it for you.”

“Are you going to see her because when you refused to go out with me you realized you must be going crazy?”

I burst out laughing.

“Ouch! Laughed at.” He shook his head. “That's harsh, Jules.”

We stood there, not saying anything, and then I hopped off the wall. “I should go inside. They're starting soon.”

“They can't start without this.” Declan indicated his guitar. “Or this.” He pointed at himself.

“Who's to say?” I gestured toward the lobby with my thumb. “Maybe Sinead's inside getting a new lead guitarist as we speak.”

“Maybe she is,” Declan acknowledged. “And maybe I'm out here talking to our secret weapon. The girl who's going to win us the Battle of the Bands tonight.”

“What are you going to do, call me up onstage in front of everyone and make me sing?” I rolled my eyes at the implausibility of it.

But Declan didn't crack a smile. “I might.”

“Oh, please.” I stared at him. He didn't say anything. “You're serious.”

“Totally.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “So, what are you saying? That you're going to force me to sing ‘I Got You Babe'?”

“I'm not going to
force
you,” said Declan, his voice calm. “I'm simply going to call your name in front of a thousand people. If you choose to ignore me, that's your right.”

My voice was calm as well. “And what if I choose not to go to the show at all?” I scooted back up onto the wall. “What if I just sit here all night? Or get in my car and drive home?”

Declan shrugged. “If that's your choice, that's your choice.”

His calm was starting to irritate me. “So my choice is between going inside and singing with the Clovers or making you all look like assholes because you call me up as your special guest and I'm not even there?”

“Au contraire.” Declan tapped my knee lightly with the narrow end of his guitar case. “Your choice is between going in and not going in. Whether or not we are judged to be assholes for calling up an absentee special guest is entirely up to the audience. And now, I must go.” He tilted his head at me in a formal gesture of farewell and started to head into the building.

“Don't do it, Declan.”

He spun around. “People make choices, Jules. That's what life is. Making choices and living with them. So if you want
to choose to go home instead of being the special guest of the greatest band Milltown has ever seen, so be it. And if you want to take a chance on being a rock star . . . well, it's up to you.” He spun back and continued into the building.

“I'm not coming in, Declan. I mean it.”

But he'd already disappeared inside the building.

The lobby lights flicked once to indicate that the show was starting. I stayed where I was as the music—something heavy metalish—filtered out the doors. I didn't go inside through the whole set, or through the next band, which played a One Direction song I recognized followed by two other songs I didn't know.

And then, in the still night air, I heard Sinead's voice. “We're the Clovers.” The audience exploded, and the band went right into “One Way or Another.”

I imagined the song ending, imagined Declan scanning the audience. “We'd like to invite a special guest to come join us for this next number. Jules? Are you out there?” I imagined the spotlight finding me. Me making my way up to the front of the auditorium. Declan helping me up onstage. Handing me over to the mic. Sinead counting off and the music starting.

Then I imagined not being there when Declan called my name, the circle of light illuminating the empty seat I wasn't sitting in.

“One Way or Another” was almost over. It was time to make a decision.

Stay? Go?

I slid off the wall and started walking.

Even as I took my first step, I wasn't sure if I was walking toward the lobby or away from it.

I took another step. Then another. Then a fourth. The unseen audience burst into applause. Their cheers and whistles grew louder as I opened the outer door to the lobby, and by the time I was halfway to the auditorium, they were deafening.

“We'd like to . . . ,” Declan began, but the audience was screaming too loudly for him to continue. He laughed into the mic. “We'd like to invite . . .” The audience started clapping and cheering, and he laughed again. “Guys, give me a chance here.” The whole audience laughed with him and then grew quiet. “We'd like to invite a very special guest up here tonight. I hope you'll all join me . . .”

Everyone started clapping again, and I quickly crossed the last few feet between me and the door to the auditorium.

I wanted to be in the auditorium when he called my name.

I wanted to choose what would happen next.