Better Than Her

Chapter 3: Roast Chicken on a Platter

Chapter 3: Roast Chicken on a Platter

“Hey, Mom?” Sydney’s voice preceded her down the stairs to the finished basement that housed her mom’s home office.

“I’m very busy right now.” Though the closed office door muffled her mother’s words, Sydney had heard that particular sentence enough that she had no trouble deciphering it.

“You’re always busy! Seriously, I need to talk to you.”

The door swung a few inches inward. Sydney sighed, clutching the softball camp information she’d printed in one hand and shoving the other deep into her pockets. She nudged the door open a little wider with her shoulder.

Her mom had released the latch, but she hadn’t looked up from the computer. Her fingers flew over the keyboard.

“I only need, like, fifteen minutes tops.”

“Your father and I are late to dinner with the Apulus. We should have left ten minutes ago. I don’t have fifteen minutes.”

“I’ll talk to you while you’re getting dressed then.”

“I’m already dressed.”

Sydney stared at the back of her mom’s head. Her hair was in some sort of style, but flyaways floated free in all directions. She could never tell what her mother considered dressed or not dressed. She strongly suspected the distinction was arbitrary.

“This is important,” Sydney said.

It would be nice if she’d at least look at me, she thought.

“Is your room on fire?”

“You know it isn’t.”

“Then how important can it be? I’m late.”

“You know those softball camps I told you about? The general skills camp and the pitching camp? The deadline for the application and deposit is today.”

Her mom huffed. “Honey, you shouldn’t tell me these things at the last minute.”

“I told you about this the day they announced it.” Sydney took a deep breath, trying not to raise her voice. “I talked to you again over Spring Break, when Coach asked if I was going. I sent you an email, put a note on the refrigerator, and added an alarm to Dad’s calendar. I guess I could have tattooed it on my forehead, but I’m not sure you would have seen that, either.”

Her mom turned around at that. She had bags under her eyes, and her forehead was wrinkled from frowning. “Don’t be disrespectful, Sydney.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry. But I really want to go to this camp. We have to sign up today.”

Her mom shut down the computer and flitted from one side of the room to the other, gathering lipstick and other items and tossing them into her purse. “Why do you need a camp for softball? You already have a coach, don’t you? You just mentioned him.”

“Her.”

“Fine. Her. My point is, you go to practice all the time.”

“Four days a week.” That was the truth, but Sydney knew she could have said three or five instead and her mom wouldn’t have known the difference.

“Then what’s the big deal about camp? You’re already practicing a lot. Your grades are fine, right? And we haven’t bought you special tutoring for that.”

“Uh, right. But camp is also supposed to be fun.”

Sydney’s grades weren’t actually fine. The coach had warned her that she was skating on the edge of being kicked off the team for her low GPA. For a little while, she’d worried about her parents getting the letter home about that and cracking down on her in some way. Then she’d noticed the still-sealed envelope sitting on the kitchen table day after day, half tucked under the banana bowl. Gradually, it got buried under bank statements and credit card offers. Sydney figured it would take an archeological dig to discover it.

She felt sort of bad about that overlooked letter sometimes when she walked through the kitchen, but she wasn’t about to tell on herself. Even if she’d wanted to, she wasn’t sure how she’d get her parents’ attention long enough to go through with it.

“Patty?” Sydney’s dad shouted for her mom.

Sydney’s mom shouldered her purse and shook her head. “I’m sorry, Sydney. There’s no time. We have to go.”

“No, wait!”

Sydney ran ahead of her mother so she could reach her father first. As she dashed up the carpeted stairs, her mind flashed to Rebecca Howard and the two people who’d been hugging her. She pictured Rebecca’s moms in the dining room, the taller one tossing a salad while the shorter one carried in a roast chicken on a platter decorated with flowers. They smiled indulgently at Rebecca, who was setting the table.

I bet you’d love to go to softball camp, they said in unison. It would be so good for you.

Sydney growled to herself and lengthened her stride. “Dad! I need to talk to you!”

“Sydney, now is not the time.” Her father appeared around the corner, strapping his watch to his wrist.

Sydney felt desperately, irrationally annoyed that he still wore a watch instead of using his cell phone like a normal person. “Fine,” she said, grabbing the doorknob of the nearest closet to slow her momentum. “Can you give me your credit card, please?”

Sydney’s mom came up the stairs, and her dad only had eyes for her. He nodded without looking at Sydney, fishing in his pocket for his wallet.

“Don’t buy illegal drugs off the internet.”

Sydney tried to imagine still being nuts about someone after twenty years of marriage, but she’d stopped feeling dizzy around Kayla after only a couple of months of dating. Sometimes, she wondered what was wrong with her. Then she got frustrated with her parents and wondered what was wrong with them.

She took her dad’s credit card and squeezed it between her finger and thumb, hard enough that the embossed numbers on the card pressed into her flesh.

“Roland, you shouldn’t just hand her the credit card. Tell her how much she’s allowed to spend.”

Sydney calculated rapidly. “It’s $1,300 for both weeks of softball camp.”

Her mom clicked her tongue against her teeth. “For just two weeks? That’s too expensive.”

“This is important,” Sydney said. “Please.”

Her father wrapped his arms around her mother, kissing the top of her head. “It’s the least we can do, Patty. You know we can afford that.”

Sydney didn’t wait around. “Thanks!” She ran to her laptop to fill out the registration form and enter her dad’s credit card information. Then she ordered a pizza online, adding lots and lots of toppings, as if she could get back at her parents sixty cents at a time. That didn’t make her feel much better, so she found a pretty gold necklace and set it up to be delivered to Kayla’s house.

As if on cue, her girlfriend texted, asking if her parents had left yet and whether she could come over. Kayla thought it was awesome that Sydney’s parents didn’t hover or search her room or check to see how long her girlfriend had stayed. Sydney felt like she ought to agree, so she did. After all, she didn’t really want them to catch her making out with Kayla and punish her for it.

Still, a tiny, guilty part of her wished they would give her an excuse to tell her girlfriend no now and then. Sydney could never get away with lying to Kayla that her mom wouldn’t let her go out. If she didn’t feel up to seeing Kayla, she had to own that rejection herself.

Sydney sighed and texted back that she’d just ordered a pizza and would be glad to share it. She turned on the game and saw that the Rays were winning again. If they kept their lead, they’d sweep the series and hand the Sox the humiliation of their longest losing streak in twenty years—not to mention the longest losing streak for World Series champions since the Florida Marlins’ management sold off all the team’s best players right after their big win. She could see the sick disappointment on the players’ faces.

God, that must burn.

Sydney wrinkled her nose and thought about the pathetic excuses Rebecca Howard might use to explain away the skid. She toyed with good comebacks for a while, then jumped a mile when the doorbell rang. Kayla normally texted to say she’d arrived. Sydney ran to let her in, and found her girlfriend’s face in a rare scowl.

“What’s the matter?”

Kayla thrust a pizza box angrily in Sydney’s direction. “I’ve been texting you for, like, fifteen minutes. The pizza guy tried calling, too, and you didn’t pick up. Did you drop your phone down a well?”

Sydney frowned. Faintly, she could hear a regular beeping noise from within the house. She shook her head. Where had her mind been? “Sorry,” she said. “I was watching the game.”