“Isn’t sighing almost the same as speaking?” he teases.
I scribble on the whiteboard Ms. Kinsey gave me—the one I’ve resolved to cart around with me at all times—and show it to him. My vow, my rules.
He chuckles. “Fair enough.”
“Frank,” Mom says warningly. She hates when he humors me. She’s not big on humor in general, really. She’s into managing a floral shop, which is what she does for a living. And being a florist is very serious business in her world. God forbid you don’t discuss the art of flower arrangements with the utmost reverence.
“I don’t see the big problem,” Dad replies. “I think it’s important to nurture creativity, and if this is how Chelsea decides to…express herself, then we should be supportive.”
I smile at him to show I appreciate his principled stand, even though I was banking on it all along. See, Dad has this stiff office job where he wears a suit and sits in the most depressing cubicle ever for eight hours a day and tries to sell office chairs over the phone to people who don’t want to buy anything in this economy anyway. He’s got to hate it. I’ve seen pictures of him when he was my age; he rocked long hair and wore these crazy sunglasses and played drums in a band. There’s even this cassette tape of their recordings he keeps in his closet. I listened to it once, but it was all endless jamming that can only sound genius if you’re seriously stoned. All of the lyrics revolved around a) getting high and b) sticking it to The Man. He’s still a hippie at heart, and as someone who went from fighting The Man to working for him, I’m sure he secretly thinks my vow is “rad” or whatever slang word he thinks is hip.
“‘Expressing herself’? How? By not expressing herself at all?” Mom harrumphs and drops her forkful of tofurkey. I swear I’m the only kid not on television who is actually subjected to the evils of tofu on a regular basis. My mother’s been having a two-year-long love affair with organic foods. It’s tragic. For me, I mean. “That’s it. I’m scheduling an appointment with Dr. Gebhart tomorrow,” she declares.