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Ryan leans back and resumes his rowing. He rows now like someone with nothing to prove. There’s no rush. No need to be anywhere but the midst. He rows like someone who’s learned that the key to floating merrily, merrily is to proceed gently…gently…
Where Do You Think You’re Going?
(the eighth date)
“Where do you think you’re going?” Ryan’s father asked as Ryan headed off to meet Avery for their date at the Greek restaurant. Ryan was turning the knob on the front door, ten seconds away from being gone.
“I’m going out,” Ryan nonexplained.
“Get back in here,” his father ordered.
Ryan let go of the doorknob, faced his parents. He felt stupid because he still had his tie in his hand.
“You said I wasn’t grounded,” he reminded them. “I made plans.”
“What plans?” his mother asked. So this was going to be a tag-team effort.
Is that any of your business?he wanted to reply. But where would that get him?
Where would any answer get him?
He decided to say, “I’m driving to Hollis to have dinner with my boyfriend.”
He knew he was plunging deep into the gray area here. He knew his parents would ground him if he lied. But maybe they wouldn’t ground him for having a boyfriend.
“No,” his father said.
“What do you mean, no? That I can’t possibly have a boyfriend I’m meeting in Hollis?”
“I mean, no, you can’t go.”
Ryan was not going to abandon Avery, not for this reason.
Trying to stay as calm as possible, he said, “Okay, it’s way too late for you to tell me that. When I was grounded, I followed those rules. When I was no longer grounded, I followedthoserules. Which include me being able to go out on a Saturday night if I want.”
Look at me,he wanted to say.I am wearing a button-down shirt. I polished my shoes. I tried for ten minutes to tie a tie, and now I’m holding it so I can try again in the truck. If you really look, you’ll see how much this means to me. You’ll see how serious I am.
But they didn’t see. They refused to see. All they could wrap their minds around was the fact of him leaving, not the why.
“Not this time, Ryan,” his mom decided. “Not tonight. We can talk about next weekend.”
Ryan reached for the doorknob again.
“No,” he told them. “I made a date, and I am keeping that date. Avery is going to be waiting for me. I have to go.”
In response, his father deployed his most threatening voice. “Don’t you dare walk out that door.”
Ryan’s response to that voice is always like an allergic reaction. Instant irritation. Immediate inflammation.
“Or what?” he taunted. “You’ll make my life miserable? Well, guess what—you’ve already aced that one! You know me about as well as this door knows me. But you know what? I like the door more. Because watch—the door’s going to let me leave.”
He could sense his father about to jump forward. But Ryan was quicker than that. He was quicker as he got through the door and slammed it behind him. He was quicker as he got in his truck and sped out of the driveway. The radio was already primed to blast; he couldn’t hear what, if anything, his parents were yelling after him.
He got in his truck and drove.
He told himself he’d go see Avery, and deal with the rest of it later.
—
