Celeste Scott

Celeste Scott

The Last Vacation

The last vacation we went on as a family before my parents got divorced was to Tyler, Texas. I guess it wasn’t really a vacation because we were going for my great Aunt Henrietta’s funeral. But there was an indoor pool on the first floor of our hotel, so Jordyn and I brought our bathing suits, which kind of made it feel like a vacation anyway.

To get anywhere in Tyler, you had to pass about a million trees along the way. It wasn’t like LA, where there were lots of freeways and big green signs pointing towards Burbank or Santa Ana. In Tyler there were just roads that led to other roads, and eventually after turning down a bunch of normal-looking streets, you got where you needed to be. Whenever we went to Tyler to visit Daddy’s side of the family, we always stayed at a hotel called the Courtyard by Marriott. It was in the same parking lot of a restaurant called New Panda Buffet, which served all the things we usually ordered at Chinese restaurants back home, but for some reason also had fried chicken.

We checked in around dinner time the night before the funeral. We were supposed to have dinner at Grandma’s house, but my mom’s luggage had gotten lost at the airport during our layover in Phoenix, which meant we were running late. I can’t think of anything Daddy hated more than running late. Maybe too much ice in his iced tea, but that’s about it.

The lobby smelled like burnt coffee and Febreze. It was mostly empty except for a woman sitting behind the front desk and a boy wearing a gray hoodie, who sat hunched over a textbook at one of the tables where they served the continental breakfast. Around the corner from the front desk was the entrance to the indoor pool. The lady at the front desk was plump and white and red-headed, but she had the kind of voice that might make you think she was black if you were talking to her on the phone. When Daddy told her the name on the reservation, the lady said, “Welcome back, Mr. Samuelson.” She smiled, revealing a big gap between her two front teeth.

We headed to the elevator. Daddy always got a luggage cart even though we never really needed it. He rolled it smack dab in the middle of the elevator, splitting the four of us into our own corners like we were about to play four square or something.

“I’m going to need to buy something to wear for the funeral tomorrow,” my mom said.

She was tucked into the back corner of the elevator while Daddy, standing by the buttons, had his back to her. Jordyn was in the corner opposite my mom, while I stood in the front across from Daddy. We always had a way of splitting up like that on our family vacations. Daddy was always walking up ahead of everyone and I, trying not to make him mad, was usually the one to keep up. Jordyn was six and a half years older than me, which meant she was too big to be spanked. She also had a different dad, so I guess she didn’t care about making Daddy mad as much as I did. She usually lingered behind with my mom who was constantly digging for something at the bottom of her purse or stopping somewhere to admire a bush of roses.

Daddy said we could stop by the mall after dinner. My mom said that it would probably be closed by then.

“Everything closes so early in this little town,” she said, in a tone that kind of had a bite to it.

My mom hated going to Tyler, but she would never actually say that she hated it. Instead, she would complain about every inconvenience under the sun for the entire trip. I had watched my parents argue enough times to recognize when a fight was brewing. They were not the types to get into it immediately. It was the kind of thing that began to bubble up over the course of a few hours, or even a few days. Kind of like whenever my mom would put a kettle on the stove to make tea, and the water took some time to boil.

I looked up at Daddy. He was quiet as the elevator ascended slowly towards our floor. It was a good sign for me. If they started fighting right away, I could just about kiss any opportunity to go in the pool goodbye. My ability to have fun was often dictated by whether or not they were in a fight. Most of the time for no good reason. One time, I had to miss my best friend Breanna’s birthday because they were fighting over which carpet to put in the family room.

The elevator dinged. Daddy dragged the nearly empty luggage cart out of the elevator and began rushing towards our room.

“Worse comes to worst, you can borrow something from Mother,” he said over his shoulder.

I envisioned Grandma’s closet full of those beaded blouses and two piece sets she wore to church every Sunday. I could just about smell the velvety perfume that seemed to be weaved into every fiber. I imagined my mom, who hated wearing anything too flashy, in one of Grandma’s big church hats and started to laugh.

My mom shot me a look that shut me up quick. Sometimes I felt like I was annoying to her, but I couldn’t figure out why. Jordyn put her hands on my shoulders and walked close behind me in a way that made me feel protected. By then, Daddy was already down the hall, swiping the key card for our room and throwing the suitcases inside. I got the sense that he didn’t want us to waste any time shuffling into the room just to shuffle right back out again. My mom and Jordyn must’ve gotten that sense too because we all just stood in a line in the hallway, waiting until he came back out.

“I’m gonna need shoes too,” my mom said, sounding like she was out of breath.

“I have an extra pair of shoes you can borrow,” Jordyn said, saving the day like always.

My mom put her arm around Jordyn’s waist. They were almost the same height. Sometimes people said they looked like twins. Jordyn had small eyes just like my mom and she always had her hair pressed like my mom. My eyes were big and buggy like Daddy’s and I wouldn’t be allowed to get my hair pressed until I started junior high.

“Thank you, my sweetheart,” my mom said to Jordyn. I tried to think of a single time in my nine years of life when she had ever called me her “sweetheart.”

Daddy came out of the room and dragged the luggage cart back towards the elevator. I squeezed my hands between Jordyn and my mom, parting them like the Red Sea, pushing my way through them to catch up with Daddy.

We sped through the fish fry dinner Grandma had made for us, so my mom could take the rental car to go to the mall. Jordyn had wanted to go with her, but I just about begged her on my hands and knees to stay at the hotel with me so we could get in the pool. Now that Jordyn was in high school my parents would let her supervise me at the pool by myself. If she’d gone to the mall with my mom, Daddy would’ve had to sit by the pool in his regular clothes and watch me. For some reason that made the idea of going to the pool sound less fun. In the elevator, I noticed that Jordyn had her towel wrapped around her body so that you couldn’t see her bathing suit. It was probably because she had boobs now, I thought. I was starting to get boobs, too, but my mom wouldn’t let me wear a bra yet.

Jordyn was texting someone on the pink Razr phone her dad had gotten her for Christmas. She had been texting all throughout dinner, which seemed to make Grandma mad. At some point, Grandma tried getting her attention by saying that she was becoming a “young lady” and that Daddy had better watch out. Jordyn just smiled awkwardly and kept texting. I assumed Grandma was talking about boys. Which, if she was, it was too late. I knew for a fact that Jordyn already had a boyfriend. I knew because she told me not to tell anyone, and I didn’t. I wasn’t allowed to have a phone yet, which didn’t really matter because none of my friends from school had phones either and I didn’t have a boyfriend. My mom said I was too young to have a boyfriend. I had one in fourth grade for three days. His name was Xavier. It would’ve lasted longer but I got nervous that my mom would find out, so I broke up with him.

When we got to the pool someone was already in it, swimming laps. He popped his head above the water and shook the water from his hair. It was that boy again, the one I’d seen in the lobby. I couldn’t tell if he was Mexican or just really light-skinned. His hair, which had been really curly when it was dry, was almost completely straight due to the pool water.

Jordyn sat down on a chair facing the pool. She kept her towel wrapped around her body while she tapped away at the buttons on her phone. She looked really concentrated, and also kind of sad. I wondered if she was texting her boyfriend, and if they were going to break up. I sat on the edge of the chair next to Jordyn and slipped off my flip flops.

“Are you going to get in?” I asked.

“In a sec, Jay,” she said, still not looking up from her phone.

Everyone in my family but Jordyn usually called me my real name, which is Jaylyn. I used to like it when Jordyn called me “Jay,” but I was starting not to because it sounded like a boy’s name.

I looked over at the boy in the pool to see if he had heard but his head was under water. His body looked like just a splotch of brown beneath the surface. I got up from my chair and walked over to the pool. It wasn’t deep enough to cannonball but I didn’t want to tiptoe in either. I stood at the deepest end, bent my knees, and plopped myself in. I felt my whole body sting as I hit the water. I was only under for a moment before bobbing back up to the surface. I blinked the water out of my eyes and began treading water the way I’d learned at the YMCA two summers before. The boy was at the opposite end of the pool. He was looking at me.

At that moment, I wished my mom hadn’t made me wear a swim cap. I had so much hair that it always made my head look huge, like I was an alien. But washing my hair took a long time, and my mom always complained about me being tender-headed. She said she didn’t want to have to deal with “all that hair” before the funeral.

I ducked my head under the water again and turned over to float on my back. I liked how it felt with my ears under the water. The world sounded different. We didn’t have a pool at our house, but my best friend Breanna did, and one time she taught me how to do a backstroke. I started doing a backstroke across the pool, in my head repeating “monkey, airplane, soldier” over and over again, until I heard a voice say:

“How old are you?”

I looked up at the boy. He was close to me, his head bobbing just above the water. Up close I could see that his eyes were greenish-brown like a marble.

I looked over at Jordyn, like I needed permission to talk to him. Her eyes were still glued to her phone.

“Nine,” I said to him. “But I’ll be ten in June.”

“Is that your sister?” he asked, nodding towards Jordyn. The way he did it, for some reason, gave me butterflies.

“Yes,” I said, and, anticipating his next question, added, “She’s sixteen.”

“Where y’all from?” he asked. It was then that I noticed he kind of had a country accent. His voice was raspy, sometimes crackling on certain words.

“LA,” I said, suddenly proud to be from a place with a name so short.

The boy smiled and I noticed he had a gap in his teeth like the lady at the front desk. “Have you ever met Snoop Dogg?” he asked.

“No,” I said, laughing. I thought he was joking, but the way his face got straight at my response let me know that he was not. I changed the subject.

“How old are you?”

The boy smirked and said, “Guess.”

He disappeared under the water for a moment. I could see him doing a flip beneath me. By the time he came up for air, I still hadn’t guessed his age.

“Um,” I said, “Ten?”

The boy shook his head. He went under again for another flip. When he came back up I tried again.

“Eleven?”

The boy nodded, and licked the water from his lips. I tried to think of another question.

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“In Tyler,” he said, dragging out the “eye” sound in Tyler.

“Why are you at this hotel then?”

“My mom works here,” he said. “At the front desk.”

“Oh.”

That answered at least half of the question about his race. I tried to remember, besides the gap in her teeth, what the lady at the front desk had looked like. If she looked like him. I wanted to ask the boy why he had to be at the hotel with her while she worked, but that felt like a weird question to ask someone you just met.

Jordyn’s phone started ringing. She answered it and got up from her chair. To me, she said she would be right back, and then left the pool room. Through the glass windows, I could see her take a seat in one of the cushiony chairs in the lobby. She had her phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder. She was talking quickly, her hands moving all over the place.

“Who she talking to?” the boy asked me.

I turned back towards him, only then aware of the fact that we were alone in the pool. Just us.

“Her boyfriend,” I said, “Probably.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?” the boy asked. When he smiled, I could see his tongue pressed up behind the gap in his two front teeth.

“No,” I said, feeling my face get hot. “Why?”

The boy said, “Just asking.” And then he ducked his head under the water and swam away from me.

The next morning, I stood at the waffle maker by myself, in a black velvet dress and a pair of stockings that had a rip on one knee. I’d accidentally overfilled the waffle maker and the batter was oozing out from the sides, puffing up as the timer counted slowly down to zero. It was embarrassing. I looked around to see if anyone else had noticed my mistake. But the only other person in the dining area was Daddy. He was sitting alone at a two person table with a black coffee and two boiled eggs.

Daddy and I had woken up early, of course. I’d heard him shuffling out of bed around 6:30 and followed suit. The night had seemed to stretch on forever. I couldn’t sleep because the hotel room was so cold. And also because Daddy snored all night. He always snored and my mom hated it. At home, Daddy slept in the office downstairs, where there was a pullout couch. But at the hotel, we all had to endure it.

I’d laid awake for most of the night, thinking about Malachi. That was the boy’s name. We’d raced each other for hours, swimming back and forth from one end of the pool to the other. We also played who could hold their breath underwater the longest. Of course, in all of these challenges, he always won. But I didn’t mind. I was just happy that he was even talking to me.

Jordyn had stayed on the phone for about thirty minutes, and then came back to the pool with her eyes looking all puffy. She sat back down on her chair and still kept her towel on. Malachi had asked what was wrong. I said I guessed that she and her boyfriend broke up. Malachi said, “Damn.” I slapped my hands over my mouth in shock.

“What?” Malachi said.

“You said the d-word.”

“So?”

“That’s foul language,” I said, realizing I didn’t even know what “foul” meant, just that my mom always said it to describe something bad.

“Yo mama is foul language,” Malachi said.

I didn’t know what to say back, so I just splashed water on him. The wave= was stronger than I expected, and his face got completely soaked. I expected him to be mad, but he just shook the water out of his face, surprised.

“Damn!” he said again. He sent a wave of water my way, and it splashed in my face. I wiped the water from my eyes, and almost at a whisper, I said, “Damn.”

Malachi’s face lit up like a Christmas tree. He opened his mouth wide, revealing even more gaps in his teeth.

“Say it again!” he said, glancing over at Jordyn.

“Damn.”

“Louder.”

“Damn.”

“Louder.”

“My sister’s gonna—”

“Louder!” he said, lunging at me. His hands were suddenly on my shoulders.

I felt him on the verge of dunking me under the water, and I screamed.

“Damn!”

Malachi fell over into the water, laughing. His hands were no longer on my shoulders, but the place they had been still felt warm and tingly. I turned around to look at Jordyn to see if she was laughing too, or if I was in trouble. But it was neither. She was just staring in front of her at nothing.

When my waffle was done, I sat down at the table across from Daddy. He had brought his big leather Bible down from the hotel room. He was supposed to say something about Aunt Henrietta at the funeral and was writing down some notes on a flash card. He looked really focused, rubbing the gray-speckled hairs on his chin and reading the passage under his breath. Daddy knew almost everything there was to know about the Bible. One time I asked him why there were things that happened in the Bible, like animals talking and water turning to wine, that didn’t happen in real life. He told me we’re not supposed to question the Word of God, and after that I didn’t.

Eventually other guests, mostly old people, began shuffling into the dining area. Every time I heard the elevators ding, I looked back to see if it was Jordyn and my mom. We had to leave soon for the funeral. If we were late Daddy would be really mad. I didn’t realize I was shaking my leg under the table until Daddy looked up at me and told me to stop.

The elevator dinged. When I turned around to look, I saw that it was Malachi and his mom. Malachi was wearing the gray hoodie again, with the hood covering most of his face. His mom pushed him toward the dining room, and for some reason, he looked like he didn’t want to come in. She said something to him quietly, her face looking really serious. Malachi threw his head back, annoyed, and trudged in.

I turned back to my plate and tried to look busy. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Malachi grab an apple from the fruit basket before plopping himself down at a table far away from us. I was cutting off a piece of my waffle with my fork when Daddy looked up from the page he was reading. He took one look at the waffle on my plate and got up. I watched as he passed by Malachi and went towards the cutlery.

Malachi looked at him and then his eyes landed on me. He smiled, which made me smile. When Daddy’s back was turned, Malachi cupped his hands around his lips and mouthed “damn” across the room.

My stomach flipped. I slapped my hand over my mouth so that Daddy wouldn’t see me laughing. By the time he got back to the table, I had straightened up my face. He had come back with a butter knife. He reached across where his Bible was laid open on the table and began cutting my waffle into bite sized squares with my fork and his knife. When I realized what he was doing, I felt embarrassed, knowing that Malachi was watching. I grabbed the knife and fork from him.

“Let me do it,” I blurted out.

Daddy sat back, looking surprised. I thought he was going to get mad at me. But he just pushed his glasses up on his nose and looked back at the open book before him. I could feel Malachi looking at me still, but I didn’t look back at him. I just smiled to myself while he watched me cut my waffle into little squares.

The church where the funeral was held was big and white, and surrounded by nothing but trees and a bunch of grass. Inside, everything was brown. The pews, the walls, the floor. It looked and smelled like it was built in segregation times. Daddy was acting like he was the mayor or something, smiling and waving at everyone when we stepped inside the church. Me, Grandma, Jordyn, and my mom followed close behind him like a line of ducks. As we walked down the aisle toward our seats, we had to stop and hug a lot of old ladies along the way. Most of them I didn’t know, but apparently they all knew me. My dad would grab me by the shoulder and say, “Remember cousin Cheryl?” And I would smile with teeth at whichever rose-scented, wrinkly lady was in front of me. When they saw Jordyn, they said she was so “grown” now, and my mom, wearing the slim black dress she bought at Nordstrom Rack, would say, “She’s still my baby, though.” To that, everyone would smile and laugh, even though we were at a funeral. It kept going on and on like that until we finally got to our seats in the front row.

When we sat down, the order was Daddy, Grandma, me, Jordyn, and my mom. I felt like the meat of a sandwich. Grandma looped her arm through mine and kept it there throughout the whole service. First, the choir sang, then the pastor spoke, then a bunch of people, including Daddy, went up to say some nice things about Aunt Henrietta. At some point during Daddy’s speech, he had to take his glasses off and wipe tears away from his eyes. I was astonished because I’d never seen him cry before. I looked up at Grandma and saw that she was crying too. On the other side of me, I heard sniffles coming from Jordyn. My mom, with her hands in her lap and her legs crossed at the ankles, was the only one not crying. And me, I guess.

By the time we got back to the hotel, it was already dark. My mom, whose feet were hurting from wearing Jordyn’s too-small shoes all day, burst through the double doors of the hotel lobby. Jordyn and I followed close behind, equally ready to get out of our church clothes. Daddy had stayed behind at Grandma’s house, where we had done the repast. Towards the end of the night all the men had started drinking beer and playing cards, which is when my mom said it was time for us to go.

Malachi’s mom was at the front desk again. She was on the phone, but it didn’t sound like she was doing work. When we walked into the lobby she quickly took the phone away from her ear and smiled in our direction.

“Welcome back, ladies!” she said looking at my mom. My mom just flashed her a tight-lipped smile and stomped over to the elevators.

I smiled at Malachi’s mom, hoping she would notice me. But as soon as my mom was out of view, she put the phone back up to her ear and went back to talking.

As we waited for the elevator, I looked around the lobby for Malachi but didn’t see him. I asked Jordyn to look at her phone to see what time it was. She said it was 9 p.m. The pool would be open for another hour.

“Do you want to go to the pool?” I asked Jordyn. Before she could answer, my mom cut in.

“You girls don’t need to be getting in that pool at this time of night,” she said. The elevator dinged, somehow making her decision feel even more final.

In the elevator, I looked down at my shoes to avoid having to look at my mom. I was happy that the next day we were going home, where I could go in my room and close the door and never have to look at her again.

Jordyn, who’d had this sad look on her face all day, put her hand on my shoulder. “Next time, Jay,” she said.

The elevator dinged again and let us out on the fourth floor. I was lagging behind, “dragging my feet” as my mom would say, when I heard someone go, “Psssst.” I turned around and saw that the door to one of the rooms behind me was cracked. I squinted and saw what looked like a smile floating in the darkness. A smile with a gap between the two front teeth.

“Malachi?” I whispered, “What are you doing in there?”

He reached his arm through the crack towards me. In his hand was a small piece of paper, folded in half. I grabbed it from him.

“Read it,” his mouth said through the crack, and then the door closed.

I opened the paper to find his message: Meet me at the pool at 12 a.m.

A tingly feeling flooded my body when I saw those words. My armpits began to sweat, and my face felt itchy.

Then I heard my mom down the hall say, “Jaylyn!”

I turned on my heel and rushed to the room, stuffing the note down the front of my dress and praying it would stay there. When I got to the room I immediately went into the bathroom and read the note again. At the bottom of the note, Malachi’s choppy handwriting said: Don’t be chicken.

* * *

Later that night, I laid on my back on the side of the bed that was closest to the window.

Beneath the dark curtain, I could see the glow from the streetlights outside and the occasional burst of light from a passing car’s headlights. Jordyn was far away from me on the other side of the bed, her back facing me. Daddy still hadn’t made it home yet, even though it was almost midnight. Which I knew, because my eyes had been open all night, watching the digital clock on the bedside table.

When the clock struck twelve, I slowly got out from underneath the covers, tiptoed past the bed where my mom was sleeping, and went for the door. I had worn my bathing suit under my pajamas, and put a rolled up towel next to the door. My heart was hammering inside of my chest as I put the key card into my shirt pocket, grabbed the towel, and snuck out.

In the hallway, the lights were just as bright as they’d been earlier in the evening. I walked quietly, towards the elevators, praying under my breath that I wouldn’t run into Daddy on the way to the pool. Just as I was about to hit the down button on the elevator, I felt someone grab my arm from behind. Suddenly, I was being pulled into the darkness of the stairwell. I let out a scream. A hand slapped over my mouth. When the door to the stairwell closed the hands let me go, and I turned around to find Malachi looking back at me.

“Why the fuck did you scream?” Malachi said through gritted teeth. I couldn’t believe he had said the f-word. But I didn’t want to show my surprise.

“You scared me,” I said, still trying to catch my breath. Malachi’s face lightened up. “Come here,” he said, pulling me into a hug.

I had never been hugged by a boy before. Not even Xavier when he was my boyfriend for three days. Malachi’s hoodie felt soft and warm against my face. His chin, resting on top of my head, felt perfect. Like I belonged to him.

When we got to the pool, the door was locked and the shades were drawn over the windows. Malachi pulled a very official-looking key from his hoodie pocket and unlocked the door. I must’ve been looking around really nervously because Malachi grabbed my hand before we went in.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “there’s no check-in after midnight. It’s just us.”

Once we were inside, Malachi took off his hoodie and I took off my pajamas. It felt weird, undressing in front of him. Even though my bathing suit was underneath. As I was taking my clothes off, I realized that I’d forgotten to bring my swim cap. I prayed to God that my hair would be dry by the morning and that my mom wouldn’t notice.

Malachi said we couldn’t make too much noise, or else we might wake up the people sleeping on the first floor. He took my hand, and together, we waded into the shallow end of the pool.

“When y’all going back to Cali?” Malachi asked.

“Tomorrow.”

He made a sad face. “I’mma miss you,” he said.

My stomach fluttered. I wondered if him missing me meant he liked me.

“You should come visit,” I said.

For some reason, that made Malachi get quiet for a while. Then finally he said, “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Do you live here?” I asked. “At the hotel?”

“For now,” he said.

“Is it fun living at a hotel?”

“It’s fine. I’mma go underwater and you count how long I can hold my breath.” “Okay.”

Malachi ducked his head under water. After about a minute, he came back up. I reported the time back to him.

“Your turn,” he said, wiping water from his eyes.

I plugged my nose and dove under. When I opened my eyes under the water, I saw that Malachi had taken off his swim trunks, and that his private area was completely bare. I came up for air, coughing and spitting up water. Malachi laughed.

“Ten seconds! I win!” he said.

“Why did you take off your pants?” I said. He just shrugged.

“It’s just us. Who cares?”

I could see now that his swim trunks were in his hand. He tossed them onto the edge of the pool. The sight of them, wet and crumpled up on the cement floor, made my stomach feel hollow.

“You never went skinny dipping before?” Malachi said.

I shook my head.

“Why?” he teased, “You chicken?”

“No!”

“Then take your top off.”

I hadn’t realized that I’d been swimming backwards away from him until Malachi was swimming toward me, closing the gap. Suddenly, my hands were unclasping the back of my bathing suit top, pulling the wet fabric over my head, and throwing it next to Malachi’s swim trunks on the edge of the pool.

Malachi smiled, and ducked his head under water. I guess, to inspect me. My heart hammered inside my chest. I counted the seconds: One, two, three, four, five, six—Malachi came back up for air.

Frowning, he said, “Man, I knew you were flat-chested.”

Before I could say anything back, I heard the door open. When I turned around, Jordyn was standing in the doorway in her pajamas.

Malachi said, “Oh shit!”

“Jay!” Jordyn hissed.

Malachi was fumbling around in the water, putting on his swim trunks. I followed his lead, and grabbed my bathing suit top.

“Uh,” I mumbled, “We were just swimming.”

Malachi climbed out of the pool, ran towards the door, and scooted past Jordyn without even looking back. I stayed in the water, holding the bathing suit top up to my chest. I felt like Eve in the Garden of Eden.

“Are you okay? Did he touch you?” Jordyn said, coming closer to the pool.

“No.”

“Why is your top off? What were you guys doing?”

“We were just swimming.”

“Jay, it’s okay. Just tell me what happened.”

“Don’t fucking call me Jay!” My voice echoed off the walls. I climbed out of the pool, and, dripping wet, ran to the elevator.

My dad didn’t come back to the room that night. I laid awake for the rest of the night, waiting to hear his key card swipe at the door, but it never did. When he wasn’t back by 6:30, I thought about waking up to tell Jordyn, but then I remembered I was still mad at her for barging in on me and Malachi. She and my mom were both still fast asleep. They even slept the same. Curled up on their sides, with the covers pulled up to their necks.

I put my clothes on and took the elevator down to the lobby. When I walked into the dining room I saw my dad sitting at the same table as the day before. Black coffee and two boiled eggs in front of him. He was wearing his funeral suit still, just without the jacket and tie. His Bible was open on the table in front of him.

I went to the waffle maker and poured the batter in, making sure not to overfill it this time. When it was done cooking I put it on a plate and went over to the table where my dad was. When I sat down he looked up at me.

“Good morning, Princess.”

“Good morning.”

“Did you sleep well?”

“I slept okay.”

He looked back down at his Bible. I cut a piece off of my waffle. I had made sure to get a knife this time.

“How come you didn’t come back last night?” I asked.

“I did,” he said, turning the page. “I came down before you were awake.”

I felt like I was going to cry. Weren’t you supposed to tell the truth when you had your hand on the Bible?

When we checked out, the lady at the front desk was not Malachi’s mom. Instead it was a Black lady who I hadn’t seen the entire time we were there. I kept thinking, hoping, that before my dad was done signing the paperwork, the elevator would open and Malachi would see me leaving. He would come up to me and say that he would come visit me in California and that he was sorry for saying I was flat-chested. But before I knew it, my dad was grabbing the luggage cart again, and pushing it toward the door.

Me, Jordyn, and my mom got into the car while my dad loaded the trunk with our suitcases. Jordyn and I sat in the back seat. She kept looking at me like she wanted to talk to me or something, which was annoying. I leaned my head against the window on my side of the car, turning my body as far away from her as possible.

As we drove away from the hotel, I let my eyes move back and forth across all the trees we passed by. The trees were all the same and there were so many of them. Eventually I got tired of looking at them and just closed my eyes for a while.

My mom was in a good mood. She hadn’t even noticed that my hair was damp from the night before. She had the passenger mirror flipped down and was putting on her shiny burgundy lipstick. I didn’t realize how quiet the car had been until she reached over and flipped the radio on. She kept changing the channel until she found a gospel station. When we turned onto the highway, she even started singing.