The Do-Over by Jennifer Honeybourn

Author:Jennifer Honeybourn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

CHAPTER

14

“It’s crooked,” I say the next afternoon, staring at the new light fixture Dad and I have just finished installing above the bathroom sink.

Dad studies the fixture. “I think it’s fine,” he says. “Good enough, anyway.” He leans forward and wipes a smudge from the mirror we spent a good part of the morning framing. The thick whitewashed wood has a pretty obvious chip in the bottom corner. There’s paint on the baseboards, and the grout between the shower tiles is sloppy. There’s nothing “good enough” about this bathroom.

“What are you so worried about?” Dad asks me. “We’re not even going to live here.”

My chest aches. “Don’t remind me.”

Although maybe this sad DIY job isn’t the end of the world. Maybe it will deter anyone from buying our house.

Dad puts his arm around my shoulders and squeezes. “Em, I know this is hard,” he says. “But I promise you, everything is going to be all right.”

How can he promise me that?

God, if I’d never messed with the crystal, then this wouldn’t even be happening. My parents would still be happy. Or maybe not quite as happy as they seem to be now, but at least they wouldn’t be breaking up.

Dad picks up the seashell-covered picture frame I set on the wooden shelf above the toilet. It’s a photo of the three of us in San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge rising behind us in the background. It was taken the last time we went on a family trip, when I was ten.

Truthfully, I brought it in here hoping it would make him nostalgic. And for a moment I think my plan worked. He stares at the photo, a small lost-in-memories smile crossing his face.

“Karen says we need to remove any personal items,” he says.

I frown. Karen’s our real-estate agent. I haven’t met her yet—or maybe I have and I just don’t have any memory of it. At any rate, apparently she’s instructed us to take down everything that makes our house our home. Dad says that buyers want to be able to imagine themselves in the place.

“That goes for your room, too,” he says.

I sigh heavily. He’s been after me to declutter my room for days. There’s no way around it, so after we’re done in the bathroom, I take down my chili-pepper lights and the poster of Cuba, along with the photos of Alistair and Marisol and me on my bulletin board. Most are old photos that I remember, but there are a few that I have no memory of taking. Like the one of Marisol and me mugging in front of Bonus Round. Another of the three of us at winter formal, Alistair in a white dress shirt, me and Marisol in similar black dresses.

I guess Alistair and I went to the dance after all. Just not as a couple.

I don’t touch the joker cards on my wall. I don’t care what Karen says—I’m not going to take them down.

I load everything else into a couple of boxes and shove them in my closet.

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