Read What Happens to Goodbye Online
Authors: Sarah Dessen
What Happens to Goodbye
Table of Contents
ALSO BY
Sarah Dessen
That Summer
Someone Like You
Keeping the Moon
Dreamland
This Lullaby
The Truth about Forever
Just Listen
Lock and Key
Along for the Ride
Viking
Published by Penguin Group
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Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books ndia Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,
Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in 2011 by Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
All rights reserved
Excerpt from “Families Cheating at Board Games”
Excerpt from “Families Cheating at Board Games”
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Dessen, Sarah.
p. cm.
Summary: Following her parents’ bitter divorce as she and her father move from town to town, seventeen-year-old Mclean reinvents herself at each school she attends until she is no longer sure she knows who she is or where she belongs.
eISBN : 978-1-101-52864-8
[1. Divorce—Fiction. 2. Identity—Fiction. 3. High schools—Fiction.
4. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.D455Wha 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010041041
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
For Gretchen Alva, with love and admiration
Break away from
what you’ve known
You are not alone
We can build
a brand new home
You are not alone
what you’ve known
You are not alone
We can build
a brand new home
You are not alone
—Ben Lee, “Families Cheating at Board Games”
One
The table was sticky, there was a cloudy smudge on my water glass, and we’d been seated for ten minutes with no sign of a waitress. Still, I knew what my dad would say. By this point, it was part of the routine.
“Well, I gotta tell you. I see potential here.”
He was looking around as he said this, taking in the décor. Luna Blu was described on the menu as “Contemporary Italian and old-fashioned good!” but from what I could tell from the few minutes we’d been there, the latter claim was questionable. First, it was 12:30 on a weekday, and we were one of only two tables in the place. Second, I’d just noticed a good quarter inch of dust on the plastic plant that was beside our table. But my dad had to be an optimist. It was his job.
Now, I looked across at him as he studied the menu, his brow furrowed. He needed glasses but had stopped wearing them after losing three pairs in a row, so now he just squinted a lot. On anyone else, this might have looked strange, but on my dad, it just added to his charm.
“They have calamari
and
guac,” he said, reaching up to push his hair back from his eyes. “This is a first. Guess we have to order both.”
and
guac,” he said, reaching up to push his hair back from his eyes. “This is a first. Guess we have to order both.”
“Yum,” I said, as a waitress sporting lambskin boots and a miniskirt walked past, not even giving us a glance.
My dad followed her with his eyes, then shifted his gaze to me. I could tell he was wondering, as he always did when we made our various escapes, if I was upset with him. I wasn’t. Sure, it was always jarring, up and leaving everything again. But it all came down to how you looked at it. Think earthshattering, life-ruining change, and you’re done. But cast it as a do-over, a chance to reinvent and begin again, and it’s all good. We were in Lakeview. It was early January. I could be anyone from here.
There was a bang, and we both looked over to the bar, where a girl with long black hair, her arms covered with tattoos, had apparently just dropped a big cardboard box on the floor. She exhaled, clearly annoyed, and then fell to her knees, picking up paper cups as they rolled around her. Halfway through collecting them, she glanced up and saw us.
“Oh, no,” she said. “You guys been waiting long?”
My dad put down his menu. “Not that long.”
She gave him a look that made it clear she doubted this, then got to her feet, peering down the restaurant. “Tracey!” she called. Then she pointed at us. “You have a table. Could you please, maybe, go greet them and offer them drinks?”
I heard clomping noises, and a moment later, the wait in the boots turned the corner and came into view. She looked like she was about to deliver bad news as she pulled out her order pad. “Welcome to Luna Blu,” she recited, her voice flat. “Can I get you a beverage.”
“How’s the calamari?” my dad asked her.
She just looked at him as if this might be a trick question. Then, finally, she said, “It’s all right.”
My dad smiled. “Wonderful. We’ll take an order of that, and the guacamole. Oh, and a small house salad, as well.”
“We only have vinaigrette today,” Tracey told him.
“Perfect,” my dad said. “That’s exactly what we want.”
She looked over her pad at him, her expression skeptical. Then she sighed and stuck her pen behind her ear and left. I was about to call after her, hoping for a Coke, when my dad’s phone suddenly buzzed and jumped on the table, clanging against his fork and knife. He picked it up, squinted at the screen, put it down again, ignoring the message as he had all the others that had come si we’d left Westcott that morning. When he looked at me again, I made it a point to smile.
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