I CALCULATE THE risk-to-reward ratio of changing the radio in my mom’s car from NPR to a pop station. Honestly, I kind of want to do it just to get under her skin. There’s something too curated, too oddly staged, about the two of us riding, backs straight, mouths closed, on the still-empty roads of the early morning while some woman half-whispers news about Bangladesh.
The impulse strikes me. I pull my hand from paralyzing stillness and twist the radio knob until I hear a heavy synth beat. I would have turned the volume up as well, just to really make a scene of it, but it’s too early in the morning even for me to want to deal with throbbing eardrums.
THIS TIME, BABY
I’LL BE
BULLETPROOF
“Excuse me,” Mom says, but she doesn’t bring her hands from the wheel to change the radio back.
THIS TIME, BABY
I’LL BE-E-EEE
BULLETPROOF
“Sorry,” I say, but I don’t change it back either.
We listen to the overproduced techno until the song ends and the station moves on to a commercial for a carpet-cleaning service. My mom turns the radio off with a quick, certain tap of her manicured fingers.
We allowed ourselves a full hour to get to O’Hare Airport from Evanston this morning, but with the clear roads, we’re almost there in a third of that time. I watch my mom, her elbows still, her eyes fixed on the bumper of the Volvo ahead of us, her mouth slightly twitching as if silently mouthing the words to a song she was embarrassed to like.
Fuck it. I pull my sketchpad out of the backpack between my knees.
“Do you think—” my mom begins sharply before stopping to take a deep breath. I begin doodling lyrics from songs stuck in my head, stretching out lines until they fill a whole page.
THIS TIME, BABY, I’LL BE BULLETPROOF.
My mother’s eyes jerk from the road to my sketchpad and back. “Very antisocial behavior, Nora,” she says.
“Oh, I’m sorry for ignoring the sparkling conversation of this car ride.”
Mom rolls to a stop at a red light and turns so that her shoulders are square to me. “You really think—I mean, this focus on art . . .”
“This ‘focus on art’ is basically my life,” I interrupt. “So . . . thanks.”
She takes a deep breath through her nose. “I apologize. But spending a whole summer at this . . . this camp. Don’t you think you could be more productive spending time with people with varied, well-rounded interests? Or finishing your real college applications?”
I don’t make eye contact when I answer. “Honestly, the reason I’m so excited for Ireland is because, for the first time in my life, I’ll be completely surrounded by people who truly understand what art means to me. How much I care about it.”
“I understand it’s a fulfilling hobby, but you’re usually so responsible, and in terms of making a good choice for your college major and career—”
“If I’m usually so responsible, then you should trust me to make my own decision,” I say. “Because I’m heading into adulthood. And at some point, adults get to make decisions about what they want to do with their lives.”
“But you’re not an adult yet, Nora,” she says. “I am. And I care about your future.”
“Well, my future will be spent in Europe, and then at college, and then away from Evanston for the rest of my life,” I respond, before turning my full attention back to my sketchpad.
Mom and I don’t speak for the rest of the car ride. In the stony, heavy silence, neither of us dares to turn on the radio. Our car crawls through the winding overpasses, following signs with arrows above the words INTERNATIONAL DEPARTURES.
A traffic attendant motions for us to pull forward into an empty strip by the front of a glass building, and before the car even stops I pull my backpack onto my lap and sling an arm through the shoulder strap.
“Don’t forget your carry-on, in the trunk,” my mother says.
“I won’t.”
I wait outside the car, backpack on, handle raised on the carry-on. My mother has decided to get out of the car and stand on the driver’s side.
“Well,” I say. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Text me when you land in Paris.”
I know I should say, “I love you,” the same way how, when you’re lying in bed at eight on a Monday morning, you know you should actually get up and brush your teeth. You can visualize yourself doing it, walk yourself through every step in your head, but when you come back to reality, you’re still there, in bed, teeth unbrushed, not actually doing what you told yourself to do.
“Thanks for the ride,” I say again. And I turn, walking toward the automatic doors that just pulled open with an antiseptic whoosh.
“WAIT!”
At first I don’t realize that the voice is directed at me. I definitely don’t realize it belongs to my mother. My first thought? How embarrassing for whoever is getting in a fight at the airport. My second thought (when I realize that the voice came from the row of cars in Departures) is that someone is getting in a fight with the traffic attendant in charge of parking. Also embarrassing.
But then I see Alice Parker speed-walking through the doors—our car blinking its hazard lights behind her—and my stomach pulls up into my throat. I pat my pockets and backpack to see if I forgot my passport. Nope. I just stare at her face and wonder what I could have possibly done wrong already, fourteen seconds into my trip.
“I’m coming with you,” she says, panting.
“Like, through security?”
“No.” She straightens. “This trip. Europe. The first leg, at least—until you get to Ireland. What’s first? Paris and Belgium?” Already her eyes are scanning the American Airlines desks, looking for an available agent who can help her buy a ticket.
“What? You’re . . . I mean, you’re not packed,” I say, my tongue feeling thicker in my mouth than usual.
She sighs and looks in my eyes for the first time all day. “You’re leaving. But . . .” As she searches for the right phrase, a couple in matching tracksuits and sporting deep purple under-eye circles shoves their way through us with rolling suitcases. My mom tries again. “You’re pulling. We’re pulling apart, and it isn’t fair. You’re leaving for college so soon, and you’re so busy with your friends, and I’m so busy with work. I just realized that I don’t know you at all. Like the music on the radio—I didn’t even know you listened to that sort of music.”
“I don’t!” I say. “I didn’t even know that song. Honestly. It was just what was on the radio!”
“I don’t know you, Nora,” she continues, acting like she hasn’t even heard me. “And I’m not going to waste this opportunity to get to know you.”
“What about work? How can you just leave for, like, a month?”
Her face darkens for a moment, but then immediately recovers. “I can take of it.”
“I wanted to do this on my own,” I say. I don’t know why my throat is tightening like I’m about to cry.
“But you don’t have to!” my mother says, eyes bright, lips peeled apart.
My visions of wandering alone and carefree through the streets of Paris and London suddenly dissolve. Where I had been drinking espresso and leisurely eating a chocolate croissant while reading a book in French (in my fantasy, I speak French), I now see myself plodding alongside Alice Parker, both of us in jeans and terrible sneakers, trying to make it to some tour I don’t care about.
She places her hands on my shoulders with a little too much force.
“I am so excited,” she says, still scanning behind me for someone to help her buy a ticket to ruin my summer.
“Yeah,” I reply. But I can’t force myself to say, “Me too.”