“Have you ever considered maybe you don’t know everything?” I finally snap.
“Anastasia!” my dad interjects. “Don’t talk to your mother that way.”
I unbuckle my seat belt. I need to get out of the car, now. “Never mind,” I tell her. She seems to feel bad suddenly because her body language changes. It’s like she suddenly remembers I’m an adult and can choose whether or not to call her. Or maybe she’s remembering what happened with her other daughter when they disagreed too much.
“School is more important, honey. Why do you need to go to Ukraine?” she coaxes.
“Because I want to,” I say, knowing I sound like a petulant toddler but unable to help myself. “Isn’t that enough?”
“You don’t know what you want,” is all my dad says. “You’re a child.”
I look out again at my apartment, where I can see Margot working on a terrible abstract painting of a dog for an upcoming art show at the school’s gallery. A part of me wishes so desperately to be a part of that culture, hanging my oil portraits in line beside all the mediocre watercolor landscapes and mixed-media collages, drinking wine and eating cheese until I am ready to pass out. Everyone in the art department gets to do it and most of them have the talent of a shoe. Or maybe I’m simply jealous that they have the ability to try, and I don’t. But why shouldn’t I, too, have this chance? Because my parents told me I can’t? Maybe it’s the wine, or maybe it’s the conversation we’ve had, but a little door starts to open in my heart then. And inside that door is a small voice that is telling me your parents don’t know everything, and it’s telling me if you don’t want the same things, then maybe you shouldn’t do what they say. That should seem obvious, the realization our parents don’t always know what’s best for us—but it’s harder to see when your parents have made so many sacrifices for you and behave like perfect robots.
“Actually, Dad, I’m not a child,” I say finally.
As I leave the car, and watch them drive off towards Highway 43, I’m awash in a feeling more familiar to me than love, or kinship, or even sorrow: an angry, guilty hopelessness.
If I had to name the feeling, it would be this: Family.
ANNA
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CHAPTER ELEVEN
I drag myself upstairs and open the door into the kitchen, where August is at the table drinking coffee and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette while simultaneously rolling another one. The window is open to the crisp, cool autumn air, and it smells like one of our neighbors is having a bonfire. I love that smell. Immediately, I feel more at ease than I have all night.
“Hey,” I tell August, with a nod. I let out a long breath of air and look for where to sit; the chairs are all semi-occupied. A polka-dot road bike leans against one, and a large backpack is open on the other. It’s full of yogurts, bagels, and some bottles of wine. Probably he came home straight after dumpster diving. “Trader Joe’s again?”
“Yep,” August says. “And Einstein’s must have had a very slow day.” When he doesn’t move, or offer me some of his haul, which he sometimes does, I begin to ransack the nearly empty cabinets for snacks, in order to soak up the alcohol and have at least some chance of sleeping later. Drinking too much gives me insomnia, for whatever inexplicable reason. And maybe I could get past the difficulty of falling asleep in a normal setting, but then every little noise wakes me up too, and my roommates are not quiet people. So I find a bag of pretzels and some cheese, and am about to head to my room to eat it, but then August starts talking.
“Hey, Anna! Sit with me,” he says. He takes his overflowing bag and sets it on the floor. I sit down. He hands me the new cigarette, and passes his lighter over too once I sit.
“Oh my god, thank you. It’s like you read my mind.”
August giggles. “Your mind isn’t hard to read, Anna. It’s usually one of three things. Speaking of, whatever happened to Mr. Short, Dark, and Handsome?” He tips his cigarette into the ashtray, knocks the ash off in a way where half of it ends up on our antique wooden table, then brings it back up to his lips to take another drag. “Haven’t seen him around lately.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Probably got back together with that ex he’s always obsessing about,” I say, then place my hand over August’s mouth. “Do not say I told you so!” but it’s too late, he says it at the same time as I do.
“Fine, fine, you were right,” I admit. August pinches my cheek. “I’m not cut out to be the other woman.”
“At least we won’t have to go to anymore metal shows,” he says, lightheartedly. “I didn’t want to tell you when you were fucking, but his music is awful.”
“Oh, I know,” I laugh. “I could tell from your face.”
“Could you?” he says. “I thought I was doing such a good job hiding it.”
“Not everyone can be Bob Dylan, August.”
“Sure, but can’t they at least be Bob Seger?”
“Who’s Bob Seger?”
August drops his head and shakes it. “Oh boy. Why do I even bother playing you music? You still don’t know the difference between indie folk and progressive rock.” He stands up, puts his cigarette out, and shoves the Drum baggie into his pocket. “Hey, can you keep an eye on my bike for a while?” he asks.
“Which one? That one?”
“Yeah, I sold the other ones,” August says with a hint of a smile. “I’m leaving town for a bit. I can leave you the lock for it too, if you want to use it.”
“Sure!” I agree. We are almost the same height so his bike would fit me perfectly, and it’s much faster than the old Trek hybrid I’d been borrowing from my parents’ house. I could go all kinds of places with August’s bike. “Where are you headed?”
“Gonna hop a train with my friend Rod. We’ll head south and see where we end up.”
“Oh, that’s so cool,” I say. “Rod… the one with all the face tattoos?”
“Yeah,” August says. “I haven’t done the train thing in a while, and I’m feeling antsy. This fucking weather, man.”
“Yeah, I don’t blame you. Although, I really like this weather. I’m a weirdo, I guess.”
“You want to come with?” he asks, then lifts his polka-dot road bike onto his shoulder as if it weighs nothing
“Train-hopping?” I ask, dumbfounded. At times, I’ve fantasized about going myself, jumping on a train as it starts moving, feeling the wind dancing around the steel car, and hearing nothing but a roar for six, seven hours. Going anywhere and nowhere, with no one to answer to. But I don’t think I have the courage for that level of misbehaving, the kind that involves leaving everything behind. Or any kind of misbehaving, when it comes down to it.
“I don’t think so, but thanks,” I tell August, breaking eye contact. I pick my snacks up from the table and open the door for him so he can get out easier carrying the bike on his shoulder. “Maybe another time. When will you be back, you think?”
“I don’t know. Couple weeks? I would rather not plan it too much.” I fight an urge to hug him goodbye. All of our late-night wine drinking spent talking about our failed romantic dramas had really brought us closer the last few months, and I’m sad to see him go. But I don’t want to come off as cheesy, so I settle for a more casual goodbye.
“Well, have fun, I’ll miss you,” I say.
“Aw, I’ll miss you too, Anna,” he says, then comes over and gives me a one-handed hug anyway. He smells like sweat and patchouli and platonic friendship. Relationships at nineteen are strange; sometimes they feel like train wrecks, the way you can bond so easily and so intensely. How someone you met only a few months ago now feels impossibly necessary to your daily existence. Sometimes I wonder if it’s just luck or if this is how life is for normal people; or, worst of all, if this is a fleeting occurrence that only lasts as long as young adulthood lasts. In any case I return the hug and then carry my snacks back to my room before August can see my eyes are tearing up. I blink them away and light another cigarette, and after a few drags, I’ve calmed myself down enough to turn on my computer.