My Summer, Their Vacation, My Labor

The smell of bacon usually meant I could pretend, for ten more minutes, that this summer would be different. I lay in bed with my eyes open and stared at the c***k in my ceiling. Downstairs, the kitchen radio was playing that oldies station my father loved, and someone was laughing. My mother's laugh, high and quick, then my sister's, lower, almost musical. I knew the speech was coming. I had heard it four summers in a row, and each time my parents delivered it with the same warm confidence, as if they were handing me a gift I had not yet learned to appreciate. "Rise and shine, sweetheart." My mother pushed my door open without knocking. She was already dressed in a linen sundress, her hair pinned back, her face bright with the particular energy she only got when she was planning something. "Big day," she said. "Come down and eat. Your father wants to talk to you before he leaves." I sat up. "Before he leaves for where?" "Work, obviously." She smiled and pulled the door shut behind her. I got dressed slowly. Through the wall I could hear my sister, Marissa, singing in her bathroom, the water running, the sound of a life that had never once been interrupted by anyone else's schedule. When I got downstairs, my father was at the table with his laptop open and a cup of coffee in hand. He was a large man who had spent thirty years in commercial real estate and had the kind of calm that came from always being the person writing the checks. "There she is," he said. "Sit down. I found something for you." "For me." "For the summer." He turned the laptop toward me. On the screen was a job posting from a grocery chain on the other side of town. Sales associate. Twenty-eight hours a week. Fifteen dollars an hour. I looked at it, then at him. "You already applied for me." "I sent your resume in this morning. The manager is a friend of a friend. You start Monday." My mother set a plate of pancakes in front of me. "It's good experience, honey. You'll learn how to talk to people. How to handle money. How to deal with a boss." "You've said that before." "And it was true every time." Marissa came into the kitchen in a cropped sweatshirt and leggings, her wet hair wrapped in a towel. She poured herself a glass of orange juice and leaned against the counter, watching me with the mild curiosity of someone observing a nature documentary. "So what's the job this year?" she asked. "Grocery store," my father said. "Cashier." "Ugh. At least it's not the factory." She grinned at me. "Remember the factory? You came home smelling like burnt plastic for a month." I remembered. After my first year of college, they had sent me to a packaging plant forty minutes away. The work was loud and repetitive, ten hours a day on a concrete floor. That had been the summer my parents took Marissa to the capital to see the monuments and the parades and the fireworks. She came back with a snow globe and a tan and a hundred stories about the hotel breakfast. "I'm not looking for a job this summer," I said. The room went quiet. My father closed the laptop. "What does that mean?" he asked. "It means I already have plans. I applied for a research assistant position with Professor Halvorsen. It's paid. It's in my field. And I'd live on campus." My mother's face folded into that patient expression she used when she thought I was being dramatic. "Sweetheart, you can do that during the school year. Your father and I are trying to help you." "Help me do what?" "Build a work ethic." My father's voice had dropped an octave. "You think the research position is going to teach you how to survive in the real world? It's not. Nobody hands you anything out there. You have to earn it." "I have been earning it." Four summers. Four jobs. Four deposits into the family account that he controlled because I was still on their insurance and their phone plan and, according to them, not yet "financially mature." "And we appreciate that," my mother said quickly. "We do. But this year is a little different. We need a bit of help." I looked at her. "Help with what?" She and my father exchanged a glance. It was fast, almost invisible, but I caught it. Something passed between them, and for the first time in my life, I understood that there was a version of this household I had never been allowed to see. "We'll talk about it later," my father said. "For now, Monday. The grocery store. Nine a.m." He stood, grabbed his keys, and kissed my mother on the cheek. Then he was out the door, and the screen banged shut behind him. Marissa stirred her juice. "So are we still going to the lodge in August?" "What lodge?" I asked. "Nothing," my mother said. "Go get ready. I need you to drop your sister at the mall." The mall. Because Marissa needed new clothes for whatever was happening in August. Because Marissa always needed something, and I was always the one driving her to get it. I went back upstairs and sat on the edge of my bed. On my nightstand was a letter from the university, unopened since Tuesday. I knew what was inside. I had checked my email. I had been accepted into the summer research program, and Professor Halvorsen had written personally to say she hoped to see me in the lab. I held the envelope in my hands and did not open it. Opening it would mean making a decision. And I was not ready to make a decision. Not yet. I put the envelope in my nightstand drawer, under a stack of old notebooks, and told myself I would think about it later. Later, of course, never came on its own.