Cry of the Sea (2 page)

Mom didn’t sound worried, though. “Oh, it’s
all just talk. And despite the guff I’ve been getting from these
people,” Mom’s voice lightened, sounding almost giddy, “I finally
got the executives at Affron to agree to a delay long enough for
the inspectors to look at the ships and determine if they are
legally fit for shipping oil! Success!” Mom squeaked on that last
word. A different sound for her. I bet the Affron executives didn’t
hear her do that.

“Oh, that’s cool, Mom. Congratulations.” I
knew I didn’t sound overly enthusiastic, but I did mean it. My mom
does great work. It’s just that my mom has a lot of these
victories, and it’s hard to get too excited about them anymore.

“Thanks, honey,” There was obvious
disappointment in her voice, but it was kind of too late to do
anything about it. If I got all excited now, it would sound fake or
pushed. “So, tell me. How was College Night? Talk to any
interesting people?”

I felt my heart start to pound, and my feet
and hands went instantly numb as I tried to figure out the best way
to let her down. I mumbled, “I got a lot of catalogs. Some look
really great.”

“Well, I don’t even know why you went at all.
Washington University has the best Environmental Studies program.
Your father and I know several of the professors.”

Ugh. Like I hadn’t heard all this already
from Dad. Dripping with impatience, I said, “Yes, Mom, Dad made
sure I got a catalog from Washington University. It was the first
booth we went to.”

“Terrific. When I get back next week, we can
look it over together.”

“Yeah, Mom, but I...”

“Did I just hear you tell your mom that you
have a catalog from Washington University?” Dad asked, stepping out
of the kitchen, shaking coffee grinds and orange peels off the
cover of that very same catalog. “Cause look what I found while
getting ready to cook dinner.”

Brilliant thinking, June.
Why didn’t I
wait and throw it away at school or anywhere else?

“Sorry, Dad, I...”

He didn’t listen. He stomped down the hall
and picked up the extension in his office. “She threw it away,” he
told my mom.

“You what?” Mom asked, her voice hitting a
chord that distorted the connection.

Did we have to do this over the phone?

I tried to explain. “I told you I didn’t want
to go to Washington. I want to go to San Diego.”

“But their program isn’t as good,” my mom
said.

My dad added, “Not to mention the cost of an
out-of-state school.”

“If it’s a matter of living at home, we can
help pay for a dorm or apartment.”

“It’s not that,” I said, even though I knew
going to any school this close to home would drive me crazy, “I
don’t want to major in Environmental Studies.”

“Why not?” both parents asked, like they’d
never heard me say that before.

“Why should I?” I came back. “I grew up in
your house. You’re both experts. Why waste money on a college
education about stuff I already know? What good will that do
me?”

“It’ll get you a good job,” Mom said.

“Like your mother’s,” Dad pointed out.

My dad always did that—made it seem like my
mom’s job was better than his because he didn’t have a college
education.

“I was thinking about doing something else,
that’s all.”

That’s when my mom said it. Those words that
said everything about how much my mom cared about the environment
and how little she cared about me. Because if I didn’t want to grow
up and be just like her then nothing I wanted to do would be good
enough. “You don’t have the slightest idea what you should do with
your life!”

And that’s when I said my equally hurtful
words. “No, I know what I want. I want to get away from you!”

No one spoke for a moment. I thought about
saying something else, but I didn’t want to make the situation
worse.

“We’ll discuss this more when I get home,” my
mom finally said in those even lawyer tones she had perfected over
the years. “Just don’t do anything. Don’t fill out any
applications, anything, until I get home. Can you handle that?”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “I think I can
manage that.”

Mom went on, “Now if everything goes smoothly
with the inspection, I should be home by Monday. If not, it might
be another week.”

“That’s fine, Honey,” Dad said. “We’ll talk
to you soon.”

My mom hung up without another word. Half a
second later, I heard my dad hang up. Finally, I removed the
receiver from my own stunned ear and placed it back on the
hook.

When my dad came back into the kitchen he had
a cocktail in his hand. He sipped what looked like a gin and tonic
as he finished pulling vegetables out of the refrigerator. Clearly,
he had no intention of talking to me.

“Dad?” I tried. He responded only by throwing
an onion onto the counter next to me. “Dad?” I tried again. This
time I got some parsley. “Dad, talk to me.”

“I don’t see why,” he said, closing the
refrigerator door with his hip. He dropped his load of cabbage and
carrots on the counter without spilling his drink. “You don’t care
about anything I have to say anyway.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?”

I really resisted the temptation to roll my
eyes or raise my voice. “Honestly, I think it’s the other way
around. I think you don’t listen to me. I’m not being an awful
daughter just because I have different goals than yours.”

“We raised you to follow in our footsteps,”
he said.

“That’s not fair,” I replied. “For seventeen
years I have gone to all your protests and rescue missions. I have
helped right alongside experts. You know that I can do stuff that
some college graduates can’t.

“That’s different,” he said, throwing sliced
onions into a hissing pan of butter. “Look, I didn’t get a degree
and can do things some college grads can’t, but they still get paid
more. They get more validity. Don’t you want that?”

“Of course I want that,” I said. “I’m still
going to college, Dad. But not to do what you and Mom do, that’s
all.”

His eyes got teary from the onions. I could
feel the spicy waves stinging my eyes too. He didn’t say anything,
though. Instead he threw the rest of the vegetables into the frying
pan. I listened to them hiss in the olive oil as I waited for him
to continue the conversation. I watched him cook until the
vegetables softened and the green smell permeated the room. As his
sole interest focused on browning onions and peppers, it was clear
that he didn’t plan on speaking to me anymore for the evening.

I headed upstairs to my bedroom and shut the
door behind me. Under my bed I kept a box stocked with snack cakes
and candy bars. I ate two Ding Dongs and figured they would be more
filling than my dad’s meatless fajitas anyway. My parents would
freak out if they knew I ate this junk. They never put a fraction
of processed food in their mouths, nor meat, nor sugar unless it
came from fruit.

I grabbed my phone and called Haley.

“Hey, turn your TV a little to the right,” I
said. I sat on my bed and looked out my window. Now I could see the
screen across the fifteen feet that divided our houses and through
her bedroom window to the far wall where the TV rested on her
dresser. Some kind of reality show like
Dumbest Criminals
was on. The picture was tiny, but it was better than nothing.
“What’s happening?”

Even though we could both see each other and
could talk from the windows without phones like we did when we were
kids, we preferred to sit on our beds not looking at each other and
use the phones as if we were miles apart. It was way more
comfortable.

Haley groaned. “It’s pretty boring tonight.”
Then she laughed really hard. “Well, that was funny!”

“What happened? I couldn’t see it.”

“I can’t explain it, really,” she said. “Your
parents should let you get a TV for your room.”

“Haley, you know they won’t.”

“I know,” she grunted. “Do you know that they
haven’t even spoken to my mom since they found out she leaves the
TV on all the time so our dog won’t get afraid when everyone’s gone
or asleep?”

“It wastes electricity.”

“Yeah? Well, they should see our clawed up
kitchen door after the last time the dog freaked out when he was
left by himself.”

“Your dog is weird.”

“Your parents are weird,” she said. Then she
added a quick “no offense” as if that made it okay.

I bit my lip. It’s kind of one thing to
insult my own parents; it always got on my nerves to hear someone
else do it. I tried to play it off like it was no big deal.
“They’re just hippies at heart. They’re harmless, really.” I popped
half the Ding Dong in my mouth.

“I saw you guys at the Washington U booth
tonight. You change your mind?”

“No,” I said, choking on the cake. “I just
took the brochure to make him happy, but he’s pissed now because I
told him I don’t want to go there and be a clone of my mom. He
doesn’t get that being a lawyer doesn’t interest me.”

“You can’t help that.”

“They make me feel so guilty, though,” I told
her.

“Don’t,” she said back. I watched her pick up
the remote and turn the TV off. “It’s your life, not theirs. And
it’s not like you want to do something crazy like drop out of
school or spend the rest of your life working at the mall. You
still want to do great work.”

“I do. I want to do something that’s my own,
you know? Find my own cause to get behind, not just ride their
coattails.”

“That’s why we’re starting the Recycling Club
at school,” she said.

I laughed. “Well, that’s hardly a new cause,
but okay.”

Haley came to the window and sat on the sill.
I noticed that she had changed out of her school clothes and was
wearing her pajamas. Her hair, usually up in a ponytail, was long
and wet from a shower. It seemed more brown than blond that way,
and I liked it better. Well, except for the frown she had going on
under it.

“So I have to tell you this,” she said. I
leaned against my wall and thought how it might be easier to open
our windows and talk directly at each other. She was kind of
whispering, though, like she was telling a secret, and I guess I
wouldn’t be able to hear her without the phone. “I read what Regina
posted on her wall. She said if
anyone
else in school wants
to come up with a Recycling Club, she’d make sure it passed through
the Student Council review, but she was not going to pass yours
because you’d probably be running through the school snatching soda
cans out of people’s hands and tearing the pep rally posters off
the walls while screaming about how much paper was being
wasted.”

It took me a second to process what she was
saying. “Wait! You’re ‘friends’ with Regina?”

Haley waved her hand like that wasn’t
important. “She ‘friends’ everyone because she wants to have the
biggest number to show how popular she is. She never actually
responds to anyone else’s stuff.”

“I can’t believe you bother to read what she
writes,” I said. “She’s an idiot.”

“She’s President of the Student Council, and
without her support tomorrow we have no club. I don’t think we’re
going to get it. She hates you.” Then her voice weakened as she
looked away from me, “Us.”

I wished I didn’t recognize the hitch in her
voice. Poor Haley. I remember when she was ten and new in town.
Cute, blonde, and bubbly. The kind of girl who could feel
comfortable in any crowd and should have been popular. She should
have had lots of friends. But she had the bad luck to stand up in
class on her first day of school and introduce herself as my new
next-door neighbor. Cursed forever by that mistake, she had no
choice to be my best friend because if she didn’t hang with me she
wouldn’t have anyone to hang with at all.

“I’m sorry, Haley,” I said.

“When we do this presentation tomorrow, can
you just try to convince them that you’re not like your parents?
That you’re not going to do anything weird or obnoxious? We just
want to put out some recycling bins and help people know what can
and can’t be recycled. We’re not going to go rioting across campus
and hijacking people’s backpacks looking for recyclables.”

My throat knotted up. Did Haley really see my
parents like that? After all these years, did she really worry that
I would behave like that? I embarrassed her. “Tell you what. I’ll
let you take the lead on this. You do most of the talking.”

Haley smiled and nodded enthusiastically.
“That sounds great! Oh! And remember to wear your brown and green.
We’ll be Earth Sisters!”

“Got it.”

“The Student Council might think we’re dorks,
but that doesn’t matter.”

“No, it does not,” I agreed. “They’re
popular, mean, hateful, and selfish, but they’re not entirely
stupid. We—you—can convince them to let us have our club.”

Haley wished me luck with my dad before
hanging up and closing her blinds. I half wanted to go on the
computer and see if Regina Williams would ‘friend’
me
, but
then I decided it wasn’t worth it.

Dad never did call me to dinner or to “talk
things out.” Instead, he did one of his famous stand-offs, where he
wouldn’t speak to me until I apologized and gave in to his wishes.
I didn’t, though. I didn’t feel like letting him win this time. I
was mad too and could be just as stubborn if I wanted to be. I
planned to wake up the following morning and leave for school
without so much as a nod to the man.

Mom’s frantic call in the middle of the night
changed everything.

Chapter
Two

No good calls ever came at two o’clock in the
morning. Only ones that wipe out any hope of having a normal day.
On this particular morning, it wiped out hope of anything ever
being “normal” again.