But right now, Ronnie had no choice in the matter. Because she was still seventeen. Because of a trick of the calendar. Because Mom conceived three months earlier than she should have. What was that about? No matter how fiercely Ronnie had begged or complained or screamed or whined about the summer plans, it hadn’t made the tiniest bit of difference. Ronnie and Jonah were spending the summer with their dad, and that was final. No if, ands, or buts about it, was the way her mom had phrased it. Ronnie had learned to despise that expression.
Just off the bridge, summer traffic had slowed the line of cars to a crawl. Off to the side, between the houses, Ronnie caught glimpses of the ocean. Yippee. Like she was supposed to care.
“Why again are you making us do this?” Ronnie groaned.
“We’ve already been through this,” her mom answered. “You need to spend time with your dad. He misses you.”
“But why all summer? Couldn’t it just be for a couple of weeks?”
“You need more than a couple of weeks together. You haven’t seen him in three years.”
“That’s not my fault. He’s the one who left.”
“Yes, but you haven’t taken his calls. And every time he came to New York to see you and Jonah, you ignored him and hung out with your friends.”
Ronnie snapped her gum again. From the corner of her eye, she saw her mother wince.
“I don’t want to see or talk to him,” Ronnie said.
“Just try to make the best of it, okay? Your father is a good man and he loves you.”
“Is that why he walked out on us?”
Instead of answering, her mom glanced up into the rearview mirror.
“You’ve been looking forward to this, haven’t you, Jonah?”
“Are you kidding? This is going to be great!”
“I’m glad you have a good attitude. Maybe you could teach your sister.”
He snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“I just don’t see why I can’t spend the summer with my friends,” Ronnie whined, cutting back in. She wasn’t done yet. Though she knew the odds were slim to none, she still harbored the fantasy that she could convince her mom to turn the car around.
“Don’t you mean you’d rather spend all night at the clubs? I’m not naive, Ronnie. I know what goes on in those kinds of places.”
“I don’t do anything wrong, Mom.”
“What about your grades? And your curfew? And—”
“Can we talk about something else?” Ronnie cut in. “Like why it’s so imperative that I spend time with my dad?”
Her mother ignored her. Then again, Ronnie knew she had every reason to. She’d already answered the question a million times, even if Ronnie didn’t want to accept it.
Traffic eventually started to move again, and the car moved forward for half a block before coming to another halt. Her mother rolled down the window and tried to peer around the cars in front of her.
“I wonder what’s going on,” she muttered. “It’s really packed down here.”
“It’s the beach,” Jonah volunteered. “It’s always crowded at the beach.”
“It’s three o’clock on a Sunday. It shouldn’t be this crowded.”
Ronnie tucked her legs up, hating her life. Hating everything about this.
“Hey, Mom?” Jonah asked. “Does Dad know Ronnie was arrested?”
“Yeah. He knows,” she answered.
“What’s he going to do?”
This time, Ronnie answered. “He won’t do anything. All he ever cared about was the piano.”
Ronnie hated the piano and swore she’d never play again, a decision even some of her oldest friends thought was strange, since it had been a major part of her life for as long as she’d known them. Her dad, once a teacher at Juilliard, had been her teacher as well, and for a long time, she’d been consumed by the desire not only to play, but to compose original music with her father.
She was good, too. Very good, actually, and because of her father’s connection to Juilliard, the administration and teachers there were well aware of her ability. Word slowly began to spread in the obscure “classical music is all-important” grapevine that constituted her father’s life. A couple of articles in classical music magazines followed, and a moderately long piece in The New York Times that focused on the father-daughter connection came next, all of which eventually led to a coveted appearance in the Young Performers series at Carnegie Hall four years ago. That, she supposed, was the highlight of her career. And it was a highlight; she wasn’t naive about what she’d accomplished. She knew how rare an opportunity like that was, but lately she’d found herself wondering whether the sacrifices had been worth it. No one besides her parents probably even remembered the performance, after all. Or even cared. Ronnie had learned that unless you had a popular video on YouTube or could perform shows in front of thousands, musical ability meant nothing.