The Foreseeable Future Read online

  Maybe the main reason we missed our mother was that she was kind. Her kindness wasn’t constant; when we pissed her off, she was quick to lay down the law, shouting rules and restrictions that hadn’t previously existed—like the time Jake let a half-consumed container of strawberry yogurt slide between his bed and the wall, where it dripped and hardened and soured over a period of three days. Now we weren’t allowed to eat anything, not even ice, in our rooms. Other times, Mom forgot we were not her political theory students. Rosie would say something like, “I got so lucky today; a fire drill interrupted gym class!” and Mom would crease her forehead and ask, “But what is luck? How would you define it, Ro-Ro?”

  Otherwise, Mom was the kind of person who would casually announce “I love you” when you hadn’t been doing anything lovable, just eating carrot sticks and idly wiping ranch dressing from the corner of your mouth. She was a dispenser of back rubs and small gifts. As a parent, Dad was perfectly adequate. He hung out with us all the time. When he was in the mood, he paid close attention to our stories and analyzed our actions as if we were characters in the books he wrote. But he wasn’t kind. A fun experiment, conducted often by Jake and Rosie and me, was to tell Dad you loved him and watch as he struggled to repeat the phrase.

  He did love us, presumably, but the words sounded foreign in his mouth.

  These days, the Nelsons were scattered across the globe, with Mom already in Italy and Jake still in New York until June. Every Sunday night we gathered around our laptops for a group video chat. When it was eight p.m. in California, it was only five a.m. in Naples—bizarrely, the hour at which my mother preferred to begin her day. Tonight, Dad and Rosie and I squeezed onto the couch, bowls of Cherry Garcia ice cream balanced on our knees and the computer centered on the coffee table.

  Jake was the first to appear on the screen, his hair wet from the shower and dripping onto the shoulders of the Taylor Swift shirt he wore often and only semi-ironically. He waved to us, and in another second our mother’s call came through. The box containing my brother shrank to accommodate a box of Mom.

  “My family!” she cried.

  Dad and Rosie and I monotoned a low “Hi,” spoons clanking against our bowls. It was always awkward at first. There was something depressing about accepting these blurry, jerky images as stand-ins for our actual relatives.

  Jake was always the first to break the tension. “Mom, I stayed up so late reading the new draft of your paper. It’s astounding.”

  Astounding was a word my brother and mother used a lot—usually to flatter each other—and it always made my insides cringe.

  “Oh, thank you,” Mom said. “It’s still rough, but the ideas are really coming together. I’ve been so immersed in it. Even in my dreams I’m reading Machiavelli. I’m not kidding; entire pages of The Prince appear word for word!”

  “In English or Italian?” Dad wanted to know.

  Mom thought for a second and answered, “Italian!”

  “I’d like to read this article,” Dad said, wrapping his lips around his spoon.

  “No,” Mom said. “It’s not ready. You’re too critical.”

  With his mouth still full of cutlery, Dad looked crestfallen.

  “Audrey, you spent last night at Whedon, didn’t you?” Iris would have known how I’d spent the previous night, no matter how I’d spent it. Even from six thousand miles away, she probably knew when I’d last brushed my teeth.

  “Yup,” I said.

  “And how was it?”

  “It was . . . okay.”

  Jake said, “Don’t let the big kids intimidate you. You’re going to love college.”

  “I promise you, I was not intimidated.”

  “And are you still looking for a summer job?” Mom asked.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I talked to someone at the retirement home today.”

  Beside me on the couch, Dad looked surprised. “The old folks’ home on the hill?”

  I wondered if old folks’ home was an offensive turn of phrase. Despite the word old, it seemed sort of infantilizing. “They need nurse assistants, starting in June. I would have to go to night school over the next few weeks to get certified, but it pays twice as much as anything else in town.”

  “Honey, that sounds kind of intense.” Mom’s eyes drifted, presumably locating Dad’s grainy image on her own screen, though she appeared to be frowning into the corner of our living room.

  “And grubby,” added my father. “That line of work is mostly bedpans and sponge baths, is it not?”

  I shrugged. Mom took my lack of conviction as a good sign, and relaxed. “You know, you don’t have to work this summer. You could spend time with your friends . . . get ready for your first semester. . . .”

  “I’d get bored,” I told my mother. “Besides, everyone works the summer after high school.”

  “I didn’t,” Jake said.

  I opened my mouth to remind Jake that he and I were entirely different people—but Rosie interrupted me.

  “Mama, you look tan.”

  My sister was right. Through the harsh shadow cast by a desk lamp, Mom’s face glowed, luminous.

  Dad said, “I was thinking the same thing.”

  Mom laughed. “Well, I admit I’ve made it to the beach a few times. Not that it was easy to tear myself away. You know me.”

  “I do,” Dad said cautiously, “and yet, I’ve never known you with a tan.”

  “You look great,” Rosie said. “You should grow your hair out.”

  Mom ran a hand through her gray pixie cut, not so different from Dad’s regular guy cut. The image froze briefly with the blur of her fingers obscuring her forehead. “You think so?” she asked.

  “Rosie,” my brother said, “Mom’s in Naples to write, not to get some European makeover.”

  Rosie shrugged. “Do both. That way, when you get home, everyone will be jealous.”

  My father snorted, a little too loud.

  THREE

  Before first period on Monday, I waited for my friends in front of the oceanic mural—ecstatic sharks, mournful orcas—that some kid had won the right to paint on the wall, decades ago. It was our usual meeting spot, close but not too close to a broken drinking fountain whose spray always pummeled the face of the person bending over it. Sara and Elliot and I took pleasure in watching the occasional ninth grader get soaked. We could be cruel that way.

  “Is it just me,” I asked my friends as they emerged from the crowd, “or is everyone acting especially unhinged?”

  A football kept sailing over the hallway’s shifting sea of heads and backpacks. Each time the ball descended into the mob, kids tripped and protested and a different boy shouted, “Got it!” The early morning swell of voices was always loud, but today it was high-pitched and deafening, as if all five hundred students were competing to tell the stories of their weekends before the bell rang.

  “It’s the weather.” Elliot gestured to the end of the corridor, where unfiltered sunlight—the kind Crescent Bay normally didn’t see until July—poured through the open doors. The heat had not dissuaded him from wearing the puffy green vest I was pretty sure he’d been born in.

  “It’s not the weather,” Sara argued. “It’s the promise of freedom. Only thirty-one more days!”

  Elliot wrinkled his nose and performed some mental math. “You left out the weekends.” He was always tempering Sara’s exaggerations.

  “Weekends don’t count,” she said.

  “Won’t you miss your friends?” I asked her, moving closer to the mural and stroking the painted sharks.

  Sara considered the sharks. Their manic, toothy grins. “No.”

  Elliot humored me, saying, “We’ll miss you, though.”

  “Oh, totally,” Sara said. “But not at seven a.m. After graduation, I’m never going to think about you guys before noon.”

&
nbsp; In the fall, Sara was headed to UC Davis to study veterinary science. Elliot was even farther southbound for UCLA. My friends never made me feel inferior for agreeing to stay and live at home, but sometimes I felt it anyway.

  “Duck,” Elliot said, shielding his head with his arms. Sara yelped and nearly knocked me over in her attempt to avoid a broken nose. Somehow, before I even realized what was happening, I had caught the ball.

  “Nice,” said a gravelly voice to my left. “Also, so sorry.”

  I turned. Pieces of hair had escaped his ponytail and were hanging in his face. Seth O’Malley looked pleased and sheepish at the same time, as if remembering what his mother had told him about roughhousing in crowded places. He raised his hands, indicating I should toss him the ball, but whatever reflexes had prompted me to snatch the thing out of midair failed me now. I stepped toward him, placing the football directly in his arms.

  “Uh.” Seth bit down a smile. “Thanks.”

  “No worries,” I said, then cleared my throat. No worries was one of those California-casual expressions I’d never used before in my life. Now I was overly conscious of my friends, their incredulous stares. Seth O’Malley was not our kind.

  “It was cool running into you yesterday,” he said.

  “Oh, yeah.” As if I’d forgotten all about it. “That was.”

  His upper lip twitched as he selected his next words. “About Chelsea . . .” Seth hesitated. Had either of us ever had a conversation before? “I hope she didn’t, like, discourage you or anything.”

  “Oh, no. She didn’t.” Part of me wanted to laugh. Seth sounded as awkward as I felt, but his eyes told a different story. I kept expecting him to wink.

  “I’ve worked at the retirement home since I was fifteen. They’re always looking for CNAs, especially on the night shift.”

  I already knew this. It was exactly what the receptionist behind the front desk had told me. As I’d driven home, I’d constructed a night-shift fantasy sure to distract me from whatever I was supposed to learn in school today. As a nurse I would exchange caffeine-fueled banter with my coworkers. I would memorize my patients’ names and ailments and hustle from room to room—my presence, for some reason, invaluable.

  “And working nights can be fun, in a way,” Seth went on, as if deliberately vying for a cameo in my vague fantasy. He was cradling the football against his chest, as you would a newborn. “Anyway, I just thought you should know they’re hiring. Do with that what you will.” Seth waved good-bye before crossing the hall and disappearing inside the room where I, too, had first period. That we shared a math class had only ever dimly occurred to me.

  “Weird,” Elliot observed.

  “Extremely weird,” Sara said. “Why is Seth O’Malley so invested in your summer job prospects?”

  “I have no idea,” I answered honestly.

  “I can’t stand that guy,” said Elliot.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “He’s always looking for an excuse to get nude. You’ll be at his house, and he’ll be like, ‘Just give me a sec to change my shorts!’ And before you know it, you’re staring at O’Malley’s bare ass.”

  “That’s awful,” Sara said.

  I studied Elliot. “When were you last at Seth’s house?”

  He thought. “Second grade?”

  “Is it possible Seth has changed since second grade?”

  “He was the kind of kid who always wanted to play doctor. Do those kids ever change?”

  “Nope,” Sara answered.

  When she and I had been about seven, we had gone through a phase of pretending that some malicious, unseen force wouldn’t let us use the bathroom or indulge in an afternoon snack until we kissed each other. Eventually this unforgiving god raised the criteria and made us kiss with tongue. I could still remember the precise twist of shame and excitement I’d felt as we’d mashed our mouths together.

  “Everyone changes,” I said. Sara and I no longer made out for sport. Elliot no longer hung around with the kids who had grown into jocks and cowboys.

  Sara rested a hand on my shoulder. The bell began to ring, earsplitting and rude. “Maybe,” she allowed. “But it’s not like Seth’s developed a reputation for keeping his pants on.”

  * * *

  * * *

  At the beginning of the year Mr. Longo had assigned seats, but by second semester his attempt at order had been overthrown. Now we set up camp wherever we wanted and, unless notoriously disruptive pairs of best friends sat side by side, Mr. Longo pretended not to notice. The desk beside Seth’s wasn’t my only option that morning; I could have chosen a spot in the front row, or over in the corner, which always smelled faintly of the sponge festering in the sink.

  I sat next to Seth.

  It didn’t make any sense, because he’d been around forever, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Seth O’Malley was the first interesting thing to happen to me in a long time. I dropped my bag in the aisle between us and he stared straight ahead, his fist blocking his mouth so I couldn’t tell if he was smiling.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Seth nodded toward Mr. Longo, who had assumed his position at the front of the room.

  “Good morning, boys and girls,” our teacher intoned. “Let’s talk last night’s homework. Anyone have any trouble?”

  Several hands shot into the air. Seth refused to break his gaze, as if he couldn’t bear to miss a word. The snub was slight, but I felt my cheeks redden anyway.

  With one glance Seth noted my complexion and he grinned, triumphant.

  I’d been played.

  He scribbled something onto a blank page of his notebook. As discreetly as possible, he tore it out and passed it to me. I was charmed; at some point after junior high, Sara and Elliot and I had switched from paper notes to covert text messages.

  Do you remember the night my girlfriend puked on you?

  I blinked, at first wondering whether Seth still had a girlfriend—he normally did, but I’d never felt any need to keep track of them—and then wondering what he was talking about. When Mr. Longo turned his back, Seth swiped the note and added:

  The night I drove you and Rusty home from that party on Cape Defiance and then, since you’re girls, you made me take you to the Taco Bell drive-through.

  The night came back to me in flashes. I’d been going through a phase of wanting to seem whimsical and childlike and so had worn a black romper that made it impossible to pee. Crescent Bay was a strange place. For example, it was possible to be convinced you’d had next to zero contact with a person, and then remember the night he gave you a ride home from a party in his maroon Jeep Cherokee.

  What’s girly about the drive-through? I wrote back.

  Not the drive-through, Seth scribbled. Taco Bell. All girls love Taco Bell.

  I frowned. Actually, girls are varied and complex and we all love different things.

  For sure! There’s just this one exception, which is that, when drunk, y’all demand to be taken to Taco Bell.

  I was having a hard time recalling what had possessed tenth grade–me to leave the party with Seth’s ex-girlfriend, Rusty Tillman. Rusty’s real name was Danielle and nobody could ever remember why she was called Rusty. The girl had a gap between her front teeth and perpetually skinned knees that were somehow sexy. What I remembered clearly now—both its smell and its awful, ground beefy consistency—was the torrent of vomit Rusty had, without warning, deposited into my lap as Seth drove us home. The two of us had been riding in the back together, eager to split our feast of crunchy tacos.

  I remember. I wrote to Seth. That was unfortunate.

  His leg bounced as he composed his reply. He had the longest legs I’d ever seen. That’s exactly what you said at the time! I thought you were either going to get mad or get sick, but instead you were just like, “Well, this is unfortunate.”

  It was!
/>   You were so chill. I was impressed.

  It took me a second too long to realize that Mr. Longo was hovering above my desk—that the entire class had craned their necks to stare at Seth and me. With his hand outstretched, our teacher demanded the note.

  I could sense Seth struggling not to smile.

  “You know,” Mr. Longo began, drifting back toward the front of the classroom, his chin raised proudly, “I understand that the majority of seniors believe what happens inside this building has ceased to matter, that all you need now are your diplomas before you go galloping off into the sunset—”

  We couldn’t gallop anywhere near the sunset. We lived on the coast; we’d drown.

  “—But I’ve been teaching calculus for twenty-five years, and I’m here to tell you that the people who go on to do great things with their lives are always those few students who remain respectful and focused”—Mr. Longo locked eyes with me, not Seth—“until the moment that final bell rings.”

  With a slight shake of his head, he moved on.

  Seth leaned sideways into the aisle and whispered, “Sorry.”

  I shrugged it off. In general, teachers were disappointed in me. Most likely they remembered and still pined for my older brother. When Jake had lived at home, when Columbia University was a goal but not yet a sure thing, he would frequently declare his intention to pull an all-nighter. Never out of necessity—procrastination was not his vice—but out of ambition for ambition’s sake. Our dad was always quick to say, “That sounds nice. I’ll join you,” as if Jake had proposed a relaxing few hours of Boggle. Then, after finishing the dishes, the laundry, ensuring that Rosie and I had everything we could desire in terms of late night snacks, counsel, and toiletries, Mom would pull up a chair at the kitchen table. The three of them would remain hunched over their books until dawn.