![[Image]](images/van.jpg)
“I MISS YOU SO much,” Odette said into the phone.
She’d called Mieko to tell her about Grandma Sissy, but when Mieko answered the phone with her chirpy voice and questions about Harris, Odette suddenly didn’t want to talk about anything—not about Grandma Sissy, not about their trip, and certainly not about what had almost happened with Harris on the bench.
She just wanted to listen, but Mieko insisted that she had nothing interesting to say. “My sisters are driving me crazy,” she said. “It’s hot here. It’s boring.”
Then there was silence that felt like a challenge.
Odette met it with her own wall of stony nothingness. She could be quiet too. But after a minute she caved in. “I miss you so much,” she said.
“I miss you, too,” said Mieko, grudgingly. “But jeez, Odette, you’re on the trip of a lifetime.”
“You don’t know anything!” Odette burst out.
“Fine,” said Mieko, her voice just as angry. “If I don’t know anything, then why do you even call me all the time?”
And it struck Odette that she had been the one doing most of the calling. Anger and shame filled her all the way up to her ears. “Maybe I won’t, then,” she said, and slammed her thumb against the End button.