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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 League manners. She asked sharply, “This one?” pointing with her thumb over her shoulder in the general direction of the Crab Lab’s kitchen, where Sawyer had disappeared, thankfully.
“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.”
