Most Likely to Succeed by Jennifer Echols
Finally I gave up and played in the water with them, floated in the ocean, and soaked up vitamin D on the beach to try to feel better about my life spinning out of control. I took deeper breaths, telling myself to relax or die, when I thought about going home to lunch with my mother.
I’d gotten a pass for the morning because Barrett and Dad were out on the sailboat. But my mother was making a big lunch with all Barrett’s favorites—this was a little strange to me, because she cooked so seldom lately that I doubted she knew what my favorites even were—and I was required to be there.
* * *
Sure enough, the family lunch was everything I’d feared it would be, and more. My mother riddled Barrett with questions about college, ending each one in a barb about why he didn’t make better grades. Barrett said as little as possible. Dad gently encouraged my mother to back off.
At some point my mother noticed I was there and asked, without much enthusiasm, “How was your game last night?”
“Pretty bad,” I said. “Aidan broke up with me.” I took another bite of salad.
My mother’s jaw dropped. “I warned you about your mutiny. I hope it was worth it.”
“Sylvia, wrong thing to say,” Dad scolded her in an even tone, which was the only tone Dad had. But I was already pushing back my chair.
“No, ma’am,” my mother called sharply. “You are not excused.”
I stomped out of the dining room, down the hallway, and halfway up the stairs. At that point I realized the stomping was childish. I wasn’t going to sit there at the table while my mother insulted me, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing me throw a tantrum, either. She would use that as ammunition later when I asked permission to do something.
I walked more softly up the rest of the stairs and into my room, not even slamming my door. In my bathroom I spit my mouthful of salad into the toilet and flushed.
Then I sat down in my reading chair, crossed my legs, and waited for my mother to send Dad up to talk to me. In the meantime I struggled not to cry. I couldn’t look like I’d been crying when they made me come back downstairs, and I couldn’t let them hear me sobbing.
But I wanted to. I struggled for every breath as I squeezed my eyes shut and thought about how unfair my life had become. This was not what high school was supposed to be like. I felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest, exactly as I had when I’d run the Labor Day 5K keeping pace with Cathy, who had longer legs than mine.
By the time Dad predictably knocked on my door and let himself in half an hour later, I was more or less calmly looking out at the neighbors’ gardener cutting their grass behind our house. My parents’ bedroom and Barrett’s had the views of the lagoon out the front.
I nearly bawled and threw myself into Dad’s arms when I saw him, but that’s what I’d done when I was little and had an argument with my mother. So I sat quietly while he told me to make my mother happy, just this once, and come downstairs to spend time with my brother in the short space we had left together as a family.
Obediently I sat with Dad on the sofa in the family room, watching college football, which is probably what I would have done even if I hadn’t been ordered to, since it gave me time with Dad. I just did it with less shouting at the TV than usual.
My mother was in her office, catching up on the work she’d missed when she left the bank early on Friday.
Barrett was up in his room, on his laptop. So much for spending family time together.
Luckily, we had another happy memory scheduled, one that would trap us all at the table together again. For dinner Barrett wanted his favorite meal, shrimp and fries at the Crab Lab.
The Crab Lab was one of the bigger restaurants downtown, with lots of waiters. Even though Sawyer was working tonight, there was no reason to think he would wait on us. We’d been there as a family plenty of times, and he’d never served us before. In fact, I hoped he wouldn’t, after what my mother had said about him yesterday.
But I did hope I would catch a glimpse of him. Share a joke with him. I could casually repeat the joke later when I texted him to ask whether, according to parliamentary procedures, Aidan could really oust me as student council vice president. In three years I’d never tried to get close to any guy except Aidan, and I wasn’t sure how it was done. I promised myself I would try with Sawyer. At least that gave me something to look forward to on this horrible weekend.
I should have been more careful what I wished for.
7
“GOOD EVENING, MS. BEALE,” SAWYER said in a tone even brighter than the pleasing-the-elderly speeches I’d heard from him at breakfast that morning. “Hello, Mr. Gordon. I’m Sawyer, and I’ll be your server this evening. Barrett.” He looked down into my eyes. “Kaye. You look beautiful in blue.” He set a basket of bread closest to me.
He wore his usual battered flip-flops, khaki shorts, and a Crab Lab T-shirt, with a white waiter’s apron tied around his waist. His variegated blond hair looked halfway styled tonight. I approved. Even my mother had to be impressed by a neatly dressed, hardworking teen, exactly what she’d been growing up in downtown Tampa.
I should have known better when she didn’t smile at being called Ms. Beale—even though, as Aidan had proven, it was quite a feat for my classmates to remember her name. Sawyer had been to my house for big parties a few times. He must have seen both surnames on our mailbox. So had everybody else, but Sawyer had remembered.
My mother didn’t seem to care, though. When Sawyer asked for our drink orders, she just mumbled something to Dad, who opened the wine list. “What do you suggest?” he asked Sawyer.
Sawyer walked behind Dad, and they consulted the list together. Sawyer asked whether Dad was looking for a red or white, then rattled off characteristics of Riesling and sauvignon blanc brands using terminology I’d heard only on foodie TV shows. Sawyer was good at this.
“How do you know that?” my mother broke in. “Are you parroting what the restaurant has taught you about these wines, or do you know this from personal experience at age seventeen?”
I could have defended him by explaining that his brother was the bar manager, but somehow I didn’t think that would impress my mother.
Sawyer straightened and appeared unsure for the first time. He said, “I don’t have a good answer for that.”
Dad chuckled. “That is a great answer.”
I raised my hand. “Are y’all ready to order dinner? I’m ready to order.” I poked Barrett. “Shrimp and fries, right?” The faster we could get out of here, the better. If my mother kept on like this, Sawyer would never want to look at me again.
As soon as he’d taken our orders and moved to a different table, my mother pegged me with a stern gaze. “Is he the one who wants you to chase after the homecoming dance, even though the school canceled it?”
“A lot of people do,” I said defensively. I pulled a slice of bread out of the basket, passed the basket to Dad, and popped some bread into my mouth. If everyone at the table had immediately started eating the Crab Lab’s delicious bread, my mother would never have asked this:
“But you don’t still want the dance, do you? Haven’t you abandoned that idea now that Aidan’s broken up with you? Who would you go with?”
I was tempted to blurt out Sawyer’s name through a mouthful of bread, muffling the truth. I might have gotten away with it if my mother was just making conversation. But my mother never just made conversation. There was always a strategy, and this time she was reminding me I should have held on more tightly to Aidan, my great catch.
Besides, I got in trouble when I talked with my mouth full. “Not Florida manners,” my mother would remind me. “Ivy League manners.”
I chewed carefully, swallowed, and made the whole situation a million times worse by forcing my mother to wait and drawing attention to my answer. Finally I said, “I might ask Sawyer.”
My mother choked midsip and put her water glass down with a bang, which I was pretty sure was not Ivy Leagu
“Yes,” I said.
“The pelican,” she said.
“Yes.” I straightened in my chair, determined not to let her make me feel like shit. Or, more like shit.
“The one whose father robbed a bank.”
“How did a pelican rob a bank?” Dad asked.
I looked over at Barrett. He’d never been very supportive in situations like this. He was good for a sympathetic eye roll, not much else. For once I could have used a comment from him, or a joke, or a subject change to distract my seething mother and befuddled dad, who was only going to make my mother angrier if he didn’t stop playing dumb.
Ignoring Dad, I told my mother in a reasonable tone, “Sawyer’s dad robbed a bank fifteen years ago.”
“And he’s out already?” my mother asked. “If he’d tried to rob my bank, he would be in there for life.”
“He must have gotten time off for good behavior,” Dad said helpfully.
“I’ve never understood that,” my mother said. “How can anyone not behave well there? It’s prison.”
I took another bite of bread, since they obviously didn’t need me for this conversation.
“You’re not going out with that boy,” my mother told me.
Again, I chewed carefully, swallowed, dabbed daintily at my lips, and returned my napkin to my lap. “Yes, I am,” I said.
“You’re grounded,” my mother said. “Go ahead and ruin your grades trying to find a way to hold the dance, but you’re not going.”
I set my bread down. “I’m in charge of the parade, the homecoming court election, and the dance,” I reminded her. “I was counting on impressing Principal Chen, whose glowing recommendation would get me into Columbia. But by all means, ground me because you don’t like that I might ask out someone whose father did something wrong when I was two years old and already paid his debt to society. Because of that, I will shirk all my responsibilities and give up my Ivy League dreams.”
“Sylvia,” Dad said to my mother.
“I will probably move in with Sawyer after graduation,” I continued, my voice getting shriller. “Maybe after a few years, I will have saved up enough money for cosmetology school.”
“You lower your voice,” my mother seethed.
“Why should I,” I challenged her, “when I’m already grounded?”
“You’re not grounded,” Dad said patiently. He told my mother, “Kaye’s not really going to a dance that doesn’t exist with a boyfriend she doesn’t have.” He suggested to Barrett, “Tell us more about your classes this semester. When do you get to particle physics?”
I turned to Barrett as if I was interested in his sophomore-level physics classes too. As if anyone was. Dad could carry on pleasant conversation when nobody else wanted to. He’d honed his talents over a period of years in this family. The whole dinner was giving me a headache, though. I was clenching my teeth so hard I’d made my jaw hurt. I realized this and opened my mouth to relax my face, forming a hideous expression, I’m sure, just as Sawyer came around the corner balancing a tray with a wine bottle and an ice bucket.
He wasn’t even looking at me, though. He set up a stand for the tray, placed the bucket on the table, then picked up the wine in a white towel. He stood there until Dad finished what he was saying to Barrett. Dad finally glanced around at Sawyer. Then my mother glanced over her shoulder at him too. Sawyer’s nervous gaze flashed between them.
“What are you waiting for?” my mother asked.
“Normally I would show the label to Mr. Gordon,” Sawyer said, “since he ordered the wine. But I was waiting for some indication from you, because it seems like you might ask why I assume I should show the bottle to the man of the party.”
Dad and Barrett burst into laughter. Diners at the surrounding tables looked over.
My mother saw people looking too, and bent forward over the table. “Why are you laughing? I wouldn’t do that.”
“You have done that,” Dad and Barrett said at the same time. Dad added, “At that restaurant on our trip to Miami, for starters.”
Sawyer kept looking from one of them to the other, with the demeanor of an accused murderer waiting to hear his verdict in court. He still didn’t glance at me, which was just as well. He knew he’d gotten himself in trouble, but he had no idea how angry he’d just made my mother.
Or how, if we ever did have any chance of going out together, he’d just killed that possibility.
When Dad was finally through chuckling, he wiggled his finger, inviting Sawyer to show him the bottle. My mother scowled as Sawyer maneuvered through an impressive display of ceremonial wine pouring. First he cut the foil over the top of the bottle with a large pocketknife he produced from his waiter’s apron. I wondered if he brought this thing to school every day, too, and whether that was legal. Next he brought out a corkscrew. Remembering all the comedies I’d seen in which people got hit in the eye when someone popped the cork on champagne, I gripped the edge of my seat, expecting disaster—but Sawyer opened the wine like it was nothing.
He offered the cork to Dad—who shook his head as if that wasn’t necessary—placed the cork by Dad’s plate, then poured a splash of wine into Dad’s glass, turning the bottle carefully so it didn’t drip, I supposed. Dad sipped from his glass and nodded. Sawyer filled my mother’s glass half-full, then Dad’s, and with one practiced movement shoved the bottle into the ice bucket, keeping the white towel wrapped around the top.
My parents always ordered wine with dinner at restaurants. I must have seen this dance performed a hundred times, but I’d never appreciated the choreography, or the performer. Funny how a crush changed everything.
Sawyer stepped back. “Is there anything else I can do for you right now?”
“You have done a lot already,” my mother said.
This time Sawyer focused on me, his blue eyes huge, before escaping to check on the next table.
My mother shook her head at me. She didn’t say a word, but her message was clear: You are dating Sawyer De Luca over my dead body.
At the same time Dad was asking, “What did you prove, Sylvia, attacking that child? It’s not a fair fight. Let it go.” He turned to Barrett. “Next time you’re home, I’m hoeing the potatoes and catching the shrimp myself.”
“You’re making a joke out of it,” my mother said, “but your daughter just declared she is going out with him.”
“That’s not what she declared.” Dad asked me, “Is that what you declared?”
I turned away from both of them to speak to Barrett, for once. “Please, tell us more about particle physics.”
That got my parents asking Barrett questions again, at least. I stayed silent and worried about what Sawyer was thinking, and whether he hated me, as he strode from table to table to the kitchen and back to another table. I saw now why he slept so soundly.
After about twenty minutes, he brought out another tray and set up a stand. He placed redfish in front of my mother, trout in front of Dad, shrimp and fries in front of Barrett (damn Barrett and his shrimp and fries for causing all this), and the same in front of me. A couple of weeks ago when a bunch of us from school had eaten here, Sawyer had arranged my shrimp around the edge of my plate like the curls of my new hairstyle. This time the shrimp were piled humorlessly with a garnish of parsley. Judging from this, our prospects were ruined.
After he’d served us all, he drew the wine bottle out of the ice bucket, wiped it carefully with the towel, and poured my mother another glass. She looked up at him and asked, “Isn’t it illegal for you to serve alcohol before you’re twenty-one?”
He did that turning thing with the bottle again so it wouldn’t drip as he brought it away from my mother’s glass. Then he said, “The legal age to serve alcohol in Florida is eighteen, not twenty-one.” He stepped behind my father and poured th
My mother was glaring at him.
He didn’t see her, though. He set the empty bottle on his tray and removed the ice bucket from the table. By that time he seemed to realize all on his own what he’d done. His lips parted. He looked at me.
Suddenly he straightened and turned very pale underneath his tan. “I’m sorry,” he said to my mother. “That was uncalled for.”
The table was silent. My mother’s eyes had never left him, and her expression hadn’t changed.
“I’m really sorry,” he told Dad. “I apologize.”
“It’s okay, Sawyer,” I heard myself telling him.
He lifted the laden tray high over his head, folded the stand, and hurried across the restaurant. He disappeared through the folding door into the kitchen.
“What did you say that for?” I hissed at my mother.
For the first time in a long time, my mother seemed taken aback. “It’s illegal for him to serve us alcohol,” she repeated.
“If you’re so outraged, why did you let Dad order alcohol from him?”
Dad didn’t jump in to defend her. He raised his eyebrows at her like he thought it was a good question.
“I didn’t know it was illegal,” my mother said.
“Obviously you had some idea, or you wouldn’t have tried to catch him doing something wrong and embarrass him.” I threw my napkin down on my plate and stood. “I am done eating with you people.”
“Not again,” Dad said.
“Can I have yours?” Barrett asked.
“Young lady . . . ,” my mother started.
I followed Sawyer’s path, winding among the tables. I had a hard time doing this without bumping anyone, and I wasn’t even carrying a heavy tray and a stand like he had been. At the door to the kitchen, I hesitated, looking around to see if any of the restaurant staff was watching. As I glanced into the bar, a smaller room on one side of the restaurant, my eyes met Sawyer’s dark-haired brother’s.