Has to Be Love (2 page)

Dad pauses at the edge of the living room. “We'll need to get started cooking soon,” he says in his gravelly voice.

I tap my finger across the cover of Mom's book—a cheesy mountain picture that looks painted. Small Alaskan press, but still a thrill.

“Clara?” Dad calls again.

“Coming!”

Dad's already set the massive table, and my heart skips again because I don't
want
to meet the guy who is subbing for Ms. Bellings for a couple months.

“I've opened a standing invitation for Rhodes Kennedy to eat with us,” Dad says as he starts browning the meat, holding the spatula out to me before he burns it or something.

“Why?” The word comes out a bit snottier than I mean for it to. It's that English is
my
subject and having a sub for the end of senior year feels cruel. I take the spatula and dump in some tomato sauce and the onions he's chopped up. The smell of marinara sauce begins to fill the kitchen, and some of the tension dissipates.

Dad turns toward the fridge. “Because he's a guy who has never been here before, and I think a young college student might appreciate a couple home-cooked meals a week. Especially considering he's going to be student teaching for the first time.”

His voice is so methodical and matter-of-fact that I really can't argue. It's exactly the kind of thing he'd do anyway—welcoming the new face into our little town.

And we're definitely a little town—probably microscopic for someone coming from college. The grocery store is mostly canned and frozen stuff, and the produce is an hour away, along with the Walmart.

I go to the private Christian school in Knik because Dad and the principal of the high school have some feud over … I think it's that the principal's husband is the only other accountant in town and is a “money-grubbing crook.” Apparently I should not be in a school that is run by the wife of a crook. Never mind the fact that both schools only have a couple hundred students total, and that we all hang out and know each other outside of school.

“Where's he from?” I ask. I'm sure he's said before, but Dad's chatter about the school board generally floats in one ear and out the other.

“New York.”

My heart gives a few thumps. “Which school?”

Dad pauses and scratches his chin. “Columbia? I think that's the one. You applied there, right? Like your mom?”

I take a hard swallow. I could go. I mean, not this fall. Too soon. Not enough time to get my face fixed. But
Columbia.
J. D. Salinger went to Columbia. So did Federico García Lorca, Hunter S. Thompson, Eudora Welty, Jack Kerouac, Langston Hughes … Allen freaking Ginsberg. My hands shake a little at the thought of how something so far out of reach feels oddly closer now that someone from
there
is
here.
And now that my acceptance letter is
in my drawer.
Like Columbia used to be a foreign country and now … isn't.

“Good school.”

I think about the acceptance I have stashed away. What it means. How we'd even pay for it if I did decide to go. Well … when I decide to go. Or maybe they won't have room for me in a year, and that decision won't need to be made.

There's a beat of silence where Dad stares at me because he's way, way too good at reading me.

“What's on your mind?” he asks.

I widen my eyes and give him a smile as I stir the sauce. “Dinner.”

Dad shakes his head and watches me for a moment longer. “How are you feeling about going to Seattle?” he asks.

“Good.” I shrug like it's just another trip, but I've been thinking about it at least as much as Columbia. The trip to Seattle is going to change my life. That's when the plastic surgeon will work on my scars. Then the world will open up.

“We could put it off just a little longer if you want. Sometime over the summer or next winter or …”

I stop stirring and face Dad. “We have our tickets. The appointment is in two weeks. How can you even
ask
that?” New York isn't an option this fall, but if I don't get my face fixed, it won't be an option for next fall either.

He scratches his thinning hair, leaving pieces of it up in wisps. “We were always told that there might not be a fix for your scars. I pray there is for your sake. I just don't want you to be disappoi—”

“And times change,” I insist as my neck heats up, spreading embarrassment and anger far too quickly for me to hide my reaction. Even Elias's kiss couldn't totally dissolve the comments I heard today. “And that's not what we were told. We were told we needed to wait until I was older and the scars were fully healed.”

Dad and I have looked over the website of the plastic surgeon a million times. It's amazing what he's done for scarring on other people. And then I wouldn't have to leave for college until my face looked … normal. That has always been part of my plan.

Right now I'm an ugly mess.

My eyebrow is half gone. I'm missing a bit off the corner of my upper lip. Four welted lines mark from the corner of my eye, the edge of my nostril, the top part of my lip and chin. The angry purply-red scars almost touch my eye and have messed up part of my hairline. Only doctors have ever asked me if the scars feel funny, but they do. Both to my fingers and to my face.

Dad and I stare at one another for a moment longer, both knowing we'll go, both knowing I won't relent, and Dad in his dream world thinking I'll somehow wake up one day okay with looking so freakish.

I won't.

“I understand you wanting them gone,” he says. “I just want to make sure you're happy now too.”

Right.

The doorbell rings. I'm off the hook for this conversation.

But as Dad goes to answer the door, my stomach rolls over. When I meet new people, there's always staring and then subtle (or not-so-subtle) glances over my face, and sometimes there are questions. Most often are quick, guilty glances followed by avoidance.

I can't imagine strangers' reactions changing so, according to Dad, that puts the burden on me to decide how I feel about their reaction. It's one of many things I have yet to master. The reality is that it's really hard to tell myself they're thinking anything different than the random comments I overhear at school.
She'd be maybe even pretty if … It's the one at the edge of her eye that freaks me out … Wonder if they feel as gross as they look …

I shove out a breath and pour a half cup of red wine into the spaghetti sauce. The tangy smell of grape and alcohol tickles my nose, and I take a whiff right off the top of the bottle. Dad doesn't drink, and I've never had a drop, but I breathe in deeply again.

There's chatter from the entryway, and the new guy says something about the woodwork on the walls and ceiling. I swear I can feel Dad beam from here. He built this house and loves talking about it. In seconds he's launched into the story about the people who milled the wood from trees my dad cut down himself. I've heard this story about a
million
times.

“Clara?” Dad steps into the kitchen, and I shove the old cork into the bottle of wine. “This is Ms. Bellings's nephew, Rhodes Kennedy. Though he'll be ‘Mr. Kennedy' to you.”

I brace myself for the stare and turn from the stove to meet with … My heart does some sort of fantastic leap because … brain fuzzing … just wow.

Blond, curly hair in serious need of a cut (if you're my dad) or just perfect (if you're me), relaxed smile, sparkling blue eyes.

And then his eyes do the predictable scan across my face. A quick frown is followed by a hard swallow (I note by his very manly Adam's apple) and then a forced smile. This is the point when my brain checks out of the moment because his reaction makes my neck heat up and my stomach tighten. I will never meet someone face-to-face without getting some kind of stare or nervousness—at least not until I'm rid of my scars.

I tilt my head down enough that my hair cascades like a shield.

Rhodes Kennedy reaches his hand out and shakes mine. Any weird expression on his face is gone. I'm not so lucky because the tension's going to stick with me for a while.

“Need help finishing up?” he asks.

“No, I …”

Dad gives him a friendly slap on the shoulder. “Come sit down, Rhodes. Clara loves to cook.”

And I do love to cook, but in this moment I'm ready to be alone in the kitchen, even though a million questions about Columbia rest on the tip of my tongue.

I give Mr. Kennedy a quick smile through my hair, carefully not watching his reaction. But instead of following Dad, he helps himself to a fork and pulls out a noodle.

“They might be ready,” I say, even though I'm supposed to want him gone. He's just … I don't know. There's something about how his hair is perfectly messy and how his jeans are a little too skinny and his shoes a little too trendy and his glasses a little funky. It reminds me of how I imagined going to college out of state would feel. Like beat poetry and unexpected rhythms and quirky rhymes … like everyone would be more like him and less like me, whose jeans are stained from playing with horses and riding four-wheelers.

The stupidity of wanting a school so far out of my reach hits me again. I desperately want to be there. To be one of the too-cool people with smart opinions and term papers with deadlines. I just … It's overwhelming. And it's so
far.
And I'm so horribly ugly. I have just over a month to give them my yay or nay on the acceptance, and the thought of answering either way makes air hard to breathe.

Mr. Kennedy tosses the noodle onto a cabinet just like Dad and I do.

“Looks like it.” His brows dance up once as he pulls the noodle from the cabinet and slides it in his mouth.

Dad chuckles. “We've tested noodles that way for ages.”

“Best way.” Mr. Kennedy gives Dad a smile.

“You, um … go … um … to … Columbia?” I ask, only my voice catches like three times during the
four-word
sentence.

“It's the best.”

I nod, wanting details. Smells. Sights. Feels. Rhythms.

“I've read your writing,” Mr. Kennedy says.

Dad's beaming again. I can feel it, like his pride is something that floats in the room. “I'm definitely proud of my Clara.”

I stare at the spaghetti sauce as I stir, once again tilting my chin down so my hair falls forward. Ms. Bellings raves about my stories, essays, and poems, but her praise has never felt like a big deal to me because again, small town, small school. But the tone of Mr. Kennedy's voice makes it sound like my words could be a big deal.

“Oh,” I say because I can be eloquent like that.

His head tilts to the side. “Small town … no real training … You're lucky to have some natural talent to work with.”

“Oh. Thanks.” I want to look up at him again, but I'd rather enjoy the compliment without any kind of pity stare from him about my face.

“You read a lot?”

“All the time,” Dad interrupts. “I mean … unless she's writing.”

Mr. Kennedy chuckles, and the doorbell rings.

“You'll have to excuse me.” Dad gives me a wink before leaving the kitchen.

Mr. Kennedy leans against the counter like he lives here. “So. I'll make sure
you
get a chance to answer my question. Read a lot?”

“I've read Thoreau an embarrassing number of times, and I could read Coleridge every day.” I tap the spoon on the edge of the pot before sliding it through the sauce again. “Lorca's poems are basically words to live by.”

“At least you're on the right track.” He smiles.

Is he
flirting
with me? I mean, he's a student teacher and not a
teacher
teacher, but still … It's sort of scandalous, I think. I shake off the ridiculous thought of his possible interest but glance through my curtain of hair again to see his smiling profile. Maybe I'm reading too much into him being nice.

“Tell me you don't like Dickinson.” He rolls his eyes. “Because I think every incoming college freshman girl likes Dickinson.”

“Sexist much?” I ask instead of telling him how much I
love
Emily Dickinson.
Love,
love. So very much.

Mr. Kennedy shrugs. “Didn't mean it that way. Just seems to be the case.”

Dad steps back into the kitchen followed by his long-time friend, Suki.

“Clara!” Suki's smile accentuates her large teeth and the bright pink lipstick that seems to be her trademark, as she also steps into the galley kitchen. I sometimes wonder what her history students think of this overly happy but intense Native Alaskan woman whose black hair is strikingly striped with blond and whose lips are always a few shades of bright.

Dad invites her over a lot, and I keep wondering whether he'll move forward with this weird friendship they have, or if he'll pine away for Mom for the rest of his life.

“Hi, Suki.” I smile back at her from the stove, but the right side of my mouth feels funny today, so I'm sure my smile is extra weird.

“Oh, this tastes like heaven.” She groans as she licks the finger she just stuck in my sauce. “You have a talent, girl. I keep saying this … Probably one of the few blessings of being such an independent girl.”

My cheeks warm, even though I was sort of forced into independence. First, because Mom was trying to finish her degree online. Second, because she was writing. Third, because she died. And fourth, because Dad works a
lot.

“Glad you made it tonight.” Dad smiles widely as he rolls up the sleeves of his plaid flannel shirt and leans against the kitchen door.

“Me too.” Suki turns toward Dad, resting a hand on his arm and touching the edges of his gray hair, smoothing over the strays.

The touching is new, so I watch out of the corner of my eye to see how far they're going to go.