The Art of Adapting (46 page)

“Don't you talk trash about my girlfriend, asswipe.” Byron jumped off the couch into some mock-karate position he'd seen in a movie.

“Don't you tell me how to treat my sister, jerkwad.” Trent picked up a ruler from the coffee table and held it, swordlike, out to defend himself.

“Are you two morons kidding me?” Betsy said from the bottom of the stairs. She sashayed in between them, hands on hips, and gave them both a stern look. “Grow the hell up.” She tapped her foot in irritation. Byron looked down to see she was wearing pink fuzzy slippers with bunny ears that flopped whenever she tapped. The three of them broke up laughing and fell onto the couch. Byron took Betsy's hand and she squeezed it. Maybe they weren't sleeping together yet, but Betsy was a lot more fun these days. She rolled her head in Byron's direction and puckered up, blew him an air-kiss. He caught it in his stomach, like a sucker punch of love, and grinned back like an idiot. She still had that effect on him. He was hopelessly gone on her. She used her pink-painted nail to trace a heart on the inside of his wrist and it tingled all over his body.

It was almost time for him to head to campus for the parkour meeting. Sometimes Betsy came along, but today she had a dentist appointment. It was always hard for Byron to leave her, but he
couldn't see skipping parkour to sit in a dentist's waiting room with bad music, terrible magazines, and that horrible drill sound in the background. There weren't as many of the guys getting together for parkour now that it was summer and half the group had headed home to Mom and Dad until fall rolled back around, but Byron still went twice a week. Graham was giving him a ride. He'd come a few times to watch. He sat on the grass with the hot coeds and cheered Byron on, which was equally embarrassing and cool.

After finishing his run, Byron sat next to Graham and guzzled the water and ate the sandwich Graham had brought.

“You're crazy, doing those stunts,” Graham said. “I don't know how you haven't broken something.”

“We're more careful than we look,” Byron said. “We practice a bunch in the gym before we take it out here.”

“You're a smart kid,” Graham said. Byron thought it might be the first time Graham had called him smart instead of athletic. Abby was the smart one, everyone knew that. He shrugged and smiled. Graham was better these days. Calmer. Tax season was long over and he wasn't such a stress case. He worked reasonable hours and sometimes even blew off work early to take Byron to parkour. Sometimes they grabbed dinner together after. A couple of times Graham even invited Betsy to join them. He was becoming a normal dad, a real one, not a cardboard cutout, and not a disappearing-act one like Trent and Betsy's.

Graham and Ivy had broken up, as Byron had predicted. Graham was tight-lipped about the details. All he said was, “A realist and an idealist. Not the best match.” Graham had more free time now that he was single again, and Byron was happy to be getting a fair chunk of it. He hoped it would last and wasn't just a phase.

“I have a little something for you.” Graham pulled a white envelope out of his pocket and held it out it to Byron.

“What's this?” Byron asked.

“Tuition for that art class you want to take.”

“Seriously? You'll pay for it?” Matt had already paid for the first session. This would cover the second session, giving Byron a full summer of art training. His summer just kept getting better.

“On one condition,” Graham said, picking up Byron's empty sandwich wrapper and rolling it into a ball. “Don't quit swimming. Or track. Do it all. Just because you can.”

Byron tapped his lip, faux-thinking. “I'll be pretty busy, trying to keep up with all of that. I might need some transportation.”

“Enough about the damn car, Byron. I got my first car when I was nineteen. I worked for three years and saved every penny to buy it myself. You buy your first car yourself, you take pride in it. You get it as a gift, and it means nothing to you.”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Byron said. “No car.” He smiled at Graham, still so easy to rile up over money. And yet. Byron balanced the envelope on his palm. Seemingly weightless, but in fact the most substantial thing his father had given him in a long time. “So what changed your mind?”

Graham looked around the campus, which was summer-quiet and drenched in shade, June gloom in full effect. The temperature was perfect, but San Diego had mostly overcast skies in June, the whole city holding its breath until July came and full summer perfection broke through.

“You shouldn't quit something you're good at,” Graham said. “I mean really good at. Once you stop, it's hard to go back. You're not at the same level as everyone else anymore. You get left behind.”

Byron wondered what Graham meant, wondered when he had been left behind. But it wasn't hard to agree to the terms. Swimming in Florida already had Byron doubting his decision to quit swim team. He just loved the feel of the pool, the smell of the chlorine, the pull of the water too much. And he and Gabe had just started running together some mornings. They were planning to be on the cross-country team together. Byron didn't want to give that up, either.

“Deal,” Byron said. “Swimming, track, parkour, and art.”

“A quadruple threat,” Graham said, smiling.

“I seriously didn't see this coming. Thanks.”

Graham brushed the palm of his hand along the tips of the blades of grass. “It's not that I don't believe in you, Byron. In your art as much as the sports. I didn't have the opportunities you have. Or the skill. I don't want to see you walk away from something you have natural talent for.” Graham tugged a fistful of grass free, tossed it aside. “I envy you: out on the track, in the pool. You make it look so easy. And out here with these guys, doing these stunts.” Graham smiled at Byron, tossed a handful of grass his way. “You're a sight to see.”

Byron couldn't help smiling. “Wait'll you see my painting skills. After these classes.” He waved the envelope. “I'll be a sight to see in the art studio, too. Aunt Becca says I'll be unstoppable. That the universe is speaking truth through my art.”

“Aunt Becca . . .” Graham began, then he stopped himself, just shook his head, smiling. “I have no doubt you'll be unstoppable.”

A few guys were practicing moves still, grunting and whooping as they launched halfway up the exterior wall of the library to a window ledge, gripped it, and hoisted their legs. They were trying to do a backflip midair. Byron narrowed his eyes, watching, calculating how he'd do it. When he looked back at Graham he was watching him, smiling. “Can you do that?”

“I think so,” Byron said. “They need to be turning faster. Get their head and shoulders back before their knees even hit their chests.”

Graham laughed. “You're all crazy. You know, I've never been much of an athlete, but I always wanted to be. It was always the athletes who got the cool girls.”

“You got Mom, though.”

“I did. Took her from one of those athletic types.” Graham pointed at the guys practicing jumps and rolls off the picnic table, the buff guys of the group. “Stole her right from under his nose.” Graham stared into space, drifting away, thinking about something that made him look sad, then he came back, looked Byron over, and grinned at him. “Of course, I also have no artistic skill. I'm just a numbers guy. That's it. Nothing cool about it.”

Byron shrugged, slapped the envelope against his palm a few times.

“It's kinda cool. I mean, Abby's a math whiz like you, right? And she's pretty damn cool.”

Graham smiled and nodded. “She is. Both of you are.”

Matt was spending more time away from home, out with Susan. Sometimes Abby sat at his window by herself, eating and watching the world go by. Lana made herself a sandwich and settled into Matt's chair beside her.

“Don't tell him I sat here,” Lana joked.

“He'll know.” Abby smiled. “He's got psychic powers or supersonic smell or something.”

Lana held up half of her sandwich and Abby considered it, then lifted the top layer of bread, spotted the mayo there, and shook her head. “No sale.”

Lana took a big bite and made a rapturous sound. “Mmm, mayo.” Abby giggled and the sound filled Lana up. “That's my favorite sound in the world,” Lana said. “You laughing.”

Abby gave Lana a hearty fake belly laugh, Santa-style, that set her chuckling for real. In no time she was snorting and doubled over with giggles. Abby still had her distant moments, her occasional sullen moods, but for the most part Lana had her back, her cherished child. She wasn't going to let her go again.

“It's like a dance,” Lana said. “The tenuous relationship between teen girls and their mothers. The pull of independence. The
changing roles. The fact that you can always love your mother even though you don't always like her.”

Abby looked Lana over, serious again, and pursed her lips. “I'm sorry if I make you feel like I don't like you. That's not true. I actually always wanted to be more like you. You're so nice to everyone. And you're the prettiest of all the moms. Everyone says so.”

“Do they?” Lana laughed. “Is there a mom beauty competition I never knew I was in?”

“Of course there's a competition,” Abby said, rolling her eyes. “We're teenagers. Everything's a competition.”

It was news to Lana. “Funny. I wish I was more like you. Your athleticism, your intelligence, your fair hair, delicate skin, and those beautiful eyes, like peridot gems.”

Abby made a face and they both laughed. “I guess people always want what they don't have. Take for granted whatever comes easy to them.”

“See?” Lana said. “If I'd known that at your age, my whole life would've been different. You're the wisest kid I've ever met.”

“How do you wish your life had been different?” Abby asked. She was eating stalks of celery cradling peanut butter, taking small bites, washing each one down with little sips of milk.

Lana looked out the window at the sunny summer sky and thought about how much had happened in the past year, how hard it had been, losing Graham and finding the cancer cells and fighting for Byron's art and getting Abby help. She smiled at Abby, her beautiful girl, and remembered the unflinching, fearless child she'd been.

“Not a thing. Because then I wouldn't be right here, right now, with you.”

“Aw,” Abby said, patting Lana's head. “My sappy mom.”

Lana laughed. “You know, when you were little, you hated it when guests left. You'd run out that door after them, clinging to their hands, trying to get their keys from them. Eventually I'd have to pull you off of them, and we'd stand on the grass watching
them go. You'd wait until they were backing out of the driveway and you'd scream, ‘Goodbye! I love you!' with such force that half the time they'd get right out of their cars and come back to you. Because we all need more of that. That depth of love.”

“I'm sorry I don't do that anymore,” Abby said. “I do love you.”

“Oh, I know it, sweetie. Remember, I was once a teenage girl myself. I waged major battle with Grandma Gloria over everything under the sun. It's the plight of teen girls. We need to knock our mothers off their pedestals so that we can figure out who we are through our own eyes, not theirs. You go ahead and do that, okay? I'm strong enough to take it.”

“You're the best kind of mother,” Abby said. “Not the overbearing type, not the kind that noses into my business.”

“I don't want to hover. To make you feel like I don't trust you,” Lana said. “But I'm not sure that was the right approach. I should've interfered more, sooner. Maybe then . . .”

“I'm fine, Mom,” Abby said. “Just like you, I'm right where I'm supposed to be.”

Lana patted Abby's shoulder. “Just promise me that while you try to find your way, you'll call me in when you need help, or push me away when you're ready to be independent. And that you'll forgive me when I misjudge your mood and get too close when you need space or too far away when you need me beside you. This whole motherhood act is one big guessing game. I really have no idea what I'm doing most of the time.”

“I promise,” Abby said. She got up off her chair and settled on Lana's lap. She wrapped Lana's arms around her, a seat belt of affection. “But I think you're pretty good at this motherhood gig.”

“Gabe seems like a very nice young man,” Lana said. Abby nodded, the sun flashing off her blond hair. “But know that if he breaks your heart I'll hurt him. Bad.”

Abby laughed, turned, and kissed Lana's forehead. “I'll warn him. Nobody wants to make warrior-mama mad.”

Summer was unfolding before them: quiet and kind. Lana's mornings were spent in the reading lab, her afternoons free for walks with Camille, her evenings for her kids, Matt, her weekly yoga class, and precious dates with Abbot. She was building a new life, moment by moment, on her own terms. But she still had the divorce to deal with.

Lana realized at the first mediation appointment that she'd been suffering a week of anxiety about it for nothing. The mediator, Allen Greer, was a soft-spoken man in his late fifties, portly and calm and all business. He went over his rates, the basic structure of future appointments, explained the various ways to determine temporary spousal and child support during the divorce.

“Talk it over, decide if you want to hire me, and get back to me,” he said as he shook their hands. “If it's a go, simply pay the retainer and I'll get you the paperwork to start filling out.”

Graham and Lana stood on the sidewalk out in front of his office smiling uncomfortably at each other. They'd been seated elbow to elbow in Allen Greer's conference room for only twenty minutes, but it was the most time they'd spent together since Graham had left.