Days That End in Y (2 page)

“I get it,” I say. “Summer loving. Ha, ha.”

Mattie stops, her hand over her heart. “What you have is so much more than just summer loving,” she says. “You and Michael are forever.”

If only I had something to throw at her. But I don’t. So I end up bopping along with them. “Summer Nights” is a very catchy song.

BOOM!

The crowd gasps as the first firework of the night explodes across the sky in a burst of yellow and red.

“Come on!” We hurry back to where the rest of our little party is seated, spreading ourselves across the blanket my mother laid out. I have to admit, watching the fireworks at the park is pretty great. It’s kind of corny, but I like how everyone
oohs
and
aahs
together as the coloured lights explode above us. I thought it might get annoying, but it turns out it’s a nice feeling. It adds a real sense of occasion
to the fireworks. I love the moment between the boom of the firework taking off and the burst of colour and light. Each time I find myself holding my breath, just a little, until the streaks and swirls and stipples of light appear like magic in the sky. Doug calls out the names of the fireworks.

“You see that? That’s called a Roman candle.”

“That there is a spider; see how it looks like legs?”

“And that magnificent display is probably a crossette.”

It’s still hot out, but the grass is cool and that makes the temperature bearable. The display goes on for about half an hour. It’s a nice feeling, being surrounded by friends but not having to say anything. My mind wanders a bit, and I feel like I’m in two places: watching the fireworks, but also deep in my head, wondering about Michael. When the finale kicks in, the noise is deafening, and the display is so bright it casts red and yellows shadows across my friends’ faces. It seems like the organizers took every single firework and shot them up at the same time, pinwheels and sunbursts and spiders spiralling across the sky and then fading into nothing.

After the whizzing and popping has stopped, puffs of coloured smoke twist in the sky. Nobody moves, hoping for one last encore. When it becomes clear that the show is done for another year, conversations pick up again and people start moving toward the parking lot, clogging the sidewalks and paths like ants on a mission. I stay where I am, stretching my arms and legs until the knots in my spine pop and sigh.

“I love fireworks,” Benji says. “Don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn’t this a perfect night?” Mattie adds. “Couldn’t you stay here forever? You know, Clarissa, we do this kind of thing at camp all the time. Except instead of fireworks we
go stargazing. I really think you should reconsider—”

“Mattie, stop!” I groan, rolling away from her camp pep talk. “You’re ruining the moment.”

I get to my knees, look back at my mother, and then I freeze. Doug is kneeling in the grass in front of my mother’s chair, holding a little, dark box in his hands. I don’t need x-ray vision to know there’s a ring inside.

As soon as she realizes what’s going on, Mattie grasps the arm of my t-shirt and starts murmuring, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,” under her breath. I wrench my arm free.

“
Shhh
,” I hiss.

It’s hard to hear what Doug’s saying, but you don’t have to be a genius to get the gist of it. He’s got a ring; he’s asking her to marry him. I creep closer, Mattie glued to one side and Benji clutching my hand. Part of me wants to shake them off, but the whole situation is so unbelievable that I also kind of need their physical presence to ground me.

“… and maybe this seems rash or sudden, but I’ve known for a long time that you were the one, and I was just wondering—”

Mom cuts him off, leaping out of her chair onto the ground, throwing her arms around him. “Yes! Yes, you wonderful man!”

Denise is frozen, one hand covering her mouth, the other holding a camp chair tucked under her arm. She is obviously just as shocked as I am. Mattie is the first person to react, somehow managing to jump up and down, squeal and hug me at the same time. When my mom and Doug manage to untangle themselves, she launches herself at my mom, crying, “Congratulations, Annie! This is so exciting!”

I watch the moment unfold, feeling strangely separate
from it. A good daughter would jump up and down and cry and hug her mother and congratulate her, like Mattie. But I feel like I just met Doug. And I’ve never had a man living in my house before. Then, all I can think about is what if I run into Doug on his way out of the shower in a towel? Or, worse, what if I’m the one in a towel? It’s bound to happen eventually. And where will all his giant-sized stuff (shoes, tubs of protein powder, family-size boxes of cereal) go?

Beside me, Benji whispers, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, just surprised.”

Now other people have started to clue in, and complete strangers come up to pat Doug on the back or offer to take pictures. Denise has tears streaming down her face, and at one point someone mistakes her for the teary, but joyful, lucky bride-to-be. That’s almost funny enough to knock me out of my stupor, but I still feel like I’ve been struck dumb, like maybe the fireworks messed with the wiring of my brain.

Mom takes a breather from all her smiling and posing and catches my eye. Seeing how happy she is melts my frozen legs, and I run over to join in the celebrations. She gives me a full strength hug, and then Doug joins in, and before I know it, I’m caught in the middle of a hugging sandwich. Doug lifts both me and Mom off the ground in his giant arms, causing Mom to squeal and my head to pound. It’s nice, if a little weird, and I wonder if group hugs are going to become a regular thing in my life now.

When Doug puts us down he throws both arms in the air, fists clenched in victory, and crows like a rooster, “I got the girl!”

It’s more than a little embarrassing.

As a group, we are some of the last people out of the
park. We walk Mattie and Denise home first — which is a relief, since the two of them discussing appropriate train length and wedding invitation etiquette is exhausting — then Benji and I drop back behind my mom and Doug, leaving them to stroll hand-in-hand and discuss the future on their own.

“Hey! You’re going to have a dog now!” Benji says.

Cripes. I forgot about Suzy. As if living with Doug isn’t going to be strange enough.

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” I grumble.

“Most people like dogs,” Benji points out.

“I think I might be a cat person.”

“You could grow to love her.”

“Doubtful.”

“Either way, she’s going to live with you now.”

The way he says it makes it sound like a proclamation of absolute finality. It sends a shiver across my shoulders. Doug is moving in. So is Suzy. My house will become his house. I guess, technically, it’ll be
our
house. But it’s been
my
house for so long, that I have trouble inserting Doug and his dog into the picture. There will be pet food in the cupboards, a water dish that will slop all over the floor and dog hair on absolutely everything.

Nobody better expect me to poop-and-scoop.

***

I’m not even close to being asleep when Mom knocks at my door later that night.

“Come in,” I say.

She enters tentatively, peering around the door and whispering, “Did I wake you?”

“No. I’m not very sleepy.”

“No, I imagine there’s a lot on your mind.” Mom smiles and sits on the edge of my bed, careful not to touch me. Instead, she straightens my sheets, smoothing them over and over like she has a tic. Her eyes occasionally reach me. She’s sizing me up, trying to figure out how freaked out I am. Finally, when the sheets can’t possibly be any smoother, she says, “I wanted to talk to you about tonight. We haven’t had a moment to ourselves all evening.”

“Okay.”

“That was a shocker, huh?”

“You mean you didn’t know he was going to ask you?”

“We’d talked about it. Getting married, I mean,” Mom admits. Then she adds, “But, no, I didn’t know he was planning on asking me tonight.” Her gaze wanders down to her fingers, where her brand new ring sits, demanding attention. She wiggles her fingers, and the diamond catches the light and throws it in big sparkles across the bedroom wall. I watch them, thinking about how they look like fireworks: bright and temporary. Just hours ago I was at the fireworks with my mom and her boyfriend. Now he’s her fiancé.

“Hello? Are you in there?” Mom knocks gently on my head with her fingers, and I release a big gush of air I didn’t realize I was holding.

“I’m here,” I say, stalling.

“What are you thinking?” Mom looks both nervous and hopeful, which prompts me to speak.

“It’s going to be weird with a boy in the house,” I say, being as honest as I can without sounding selfish or too unsure about the whole thing.

Mom nods. “I know. It’s been just us girls for so long. It’ll be weird at first, but good, too. Right?”

“Right,” I agree, adding, “I do like Doug.”

Mom smiles. “I know you do, but it’s okay to feel strange about it. This is big.”

“Super big.”

“The biggest.”

Well, not the biggest. The biggest thing that has happened to us in the past few years was her breast cancer diagnosis. She’s been healthy and cancer-free for over a year now, but it doesn’t seem like so long ago that I woke up every day and thought about my mother dying. I can tell by her silence that mom is thinking about it, too. Enough doom and gloom. This is her engagement day!

“When is the wedding?” I ask, trying to brighten things up a little.

“At the end of the summer.”

I’m glad I was sitting for that part. “But that’s less than two months away. Don’t people take, like, a whole year to plan a wedding?”

“Neither of us wants a big to-do: just a little backyard party with our closest friends. You’re welcome to invite some of your friends: Benji, Mattie, even Michael, if you want.”

“Are you going to get a dress?”

“Probably, but nothing fancy.”

“Denise is going to be upset. She likes a big wedding.”

“Denise will be thrilled that I’m not stuffing her into a hideous bridesmaid’s dress.”

Too bad.
That
I would like to see.

“When is he moving in?”

“We thought he’d move in in stages. He’s going to start bringing some boxes by next weekend. That gives you and me some time to do a little cleaning and make room.”

“That’s soon,” I say carefully, not wanting to let on that I
am anything but thrilled about it.

“Why wait?” Mom says with a goofy smile I have come to think of as her Doug smile. “It’s something we both want.”

In my head I’m thinking, but what about what I want? What’s wrong with how things are now? Can’t two people live separately and still be in love? Wouldn’t that be the perfect situation? You wouldn’t have to clean up after the other person or get annoyed by their habits. Living separately seems like it would be the best way to
stay
in love.

Of course, I don’t say any of this out loud. Judging by the look on my mother’s face, I can tell she wouldn’t agree. It’s like her Doug smile has melted her entire face, turning it into a sappy, goofy mess.

Mom tucks my hair behind my ears and leans in for a quick hug. The hug is short but tight, and I can tell how happy she is by how hard she squeezes me.

“This is a big step, baby,” she says, her words tickling my ears. “It’s a whole new world for the Delaney girls.”

When she pulls back, she smiles at me — a true Annie smile, not a Doug smile — and I return it. When Annette Delaney smiles at you, it’s near impossible to not smile back. It’s like a magnet that tugs at the corners of your mouth until, before you know it, you’re grinning right back. Even if your insides are all mixed up.

With Doug all set to officially move in, Mom is on a cleaning spree to make room for all his man-stuff. Whenever she gets a spare moment, she attacks a corner of the house, throwing everything into a “keep” pile or a “Salvation Army” pile. I’m supposed to be helping, but she’s such a furious organizer that most of the time I just end up keeping her company.

Today her last client rescheduled, so she’s using the free time to attack her closet. It’s less interesting than the shed — which we gutted last night. We found toys I hadn’t used in ages, a bird’s nest and half a mouse. That was a little gross, but fascinating. Where did the other half go? What kind of cruel animal leaves half a mouse behind?

I’m sitting on the bed, trying to avoid being hit in the face by the blouses and belts that fly by as Mom de-clutters her closet.

“Can you believe I ever wore this colour? This must have been a gift. Or an impulse buy.”

“It looks like something Denise would buy,” I joke.

Mom gasps and pulls out a red dress I’ve never seen before. In fact, it doesn’t look like anything else she owns. It has buttons down the front and is belted across the waist, like a long, tailored shirt. “I forgot about this dress! I wonder if it still fits?” She holds it against her body and looks in the full-length mirror that hangs on the back of her closet door.

“What’s it from?”

“This was my interview dress. Everyone else would show
up in grey skirts and suits, and I’d waltz in wearing red.” Mom smiles and I can imagine her breezing into a room of boring, serious people looking like a movie star.

“Interview for what?”

“Jobs, baby. They don’t just hand them out for free.”

I never really thought of my mom working anywhere but at the Hair Emporium. As far as I knew, she left high school, had me, spent a few years at a mall salon perfecting her skills and then opened up her own place.

“When was this?”

Mom shrugs. “I worked all through high school and then just before you were born.”

“What kind of jobs?”

“This and that. Receptionist, sales associate, nothing fancy. You need a degree to get a fancy job,” she waggles her finger at me, “which is why you are going to university.”

Not this conversation again. “Can I go to high school first?”