“That’s it?” asks Mom.
“Yep.”
Tanner crosses his arms and clears his throat. He obviously thinks there is more to tell.
“Spit it out, Ann,” Dad tells her.
My sister rolls her eyes with a long sigh. “Fine. There was maybe a little bit more than that. See…I sort of, like…passed out a little bit after I threw the fish. That’s why I fell. Actually, I hit my head pretty good on the bucket when I went down, so I have a bump up here, but it’s really no biggie.” She rubs the left side of her head, just above the ear.
“Oh my gosh!” says Mom.
“You should have called us,” Dad adds. “How long were you out?”
“It was like two seconds! So not a big deal. This is why I didn’t want to tell you, because I knew you’d blow it way out of proportion.”
Mom stands up and starts pacing. “Ann, we’re your parents, so we have the right to be concerned. And this is your life we’re talking about. We’re not blowing anything out of proportion. We just want you to be safe.”
“Well, I am safe,” she shoots back. “See?” Ann points at herself and smiles. “People pass out all the time, Mom. This has nothing to do with my heart.”
“You’re sure?”
“Positive. I was just all excited about feeding the sea lions and I jumped and shouted and…I don’t know. I think the smell of the fish got to me. I got a little woozy and then…plop. Right on the bucket.”
Mom and Dad share a concerned look. “That’s it? No sharp pains?”
“None.”
No way…she’s lying right to their faces! Am I the only one in this family who can tell when Ann is lying?
“Any other symptoms?”
“Nope. Just a lot of fishy smells, and it made me dizzy.” Dad and Mom still don’t seem fully convinced, so Ann throws in a heartfelt, “Honest.”
“Fine,” Dad says at length. “If that’s all there is to it. But you’d tell us if there was more to tell, right, Ann?”
“Of course, Dad.”
Liar.
He walks over and gives her a half hug, with one arm around her shoulder. “Good. Because any day now you’re going to land at the top of that list, and that pager of yours is going to go off, and then we won’t have to worry about stuff like this all the time.”
“Can’t wait,” she tells him.
Dad lets go of her and extends a hand to Tanner. “Thank you for bringing her straight home. That was very responsible of you.”
Tanner shrugs it off. “It seemed like the right thing to do. Besides, it was either that or risk not getting to go out with her again.” He pauses. “Assuming you’ll let us…?”
Dad nods. “Let’s just take a day or two to make sure she doesn’t have any other episodes like this, but then I’m sure we can probably find a way to make that happen.”
Mom and Dad thank him again, as does Ann, and then he lets himself out.
Even with the window open, the upstairs bedroom is too hot to sleep. Ann is on the bunk below me, but I’m sure she’s awake too, thinking about her failed date. I don’t get it. Why does this kind of stuff always happen to her? Why is everything always so messed up for her? Would I rather that Tanner liked me? Yes, that’s no secret. But as long as she’s on a date with him, can’t it at least go well?
Is it something about her? Bad luck, perhaps? Or is life really so unfair that a teenage girl who’s had a miserable couple of years can’t have one good date with the one boy who has ever paid attention to her?
Right now, I’m sure she’s asking herself similar questions.
After lying there in silence for a long time, I want some answers.
“So?”
“So what?”
“Are you going to tell me about it?”
She doesn’t respond immediately.
“What do you want to know?”
“Well…I guess mostly I want to know why you were fighting in the car.”
She’s quiet again, for a long time. Then I hear her roll onto her side. “When we got home, I told him not to mention the whole passing-out thing to Mom and Dad, but he said he signed a contract to keep me safe, so he had to. I kept trying to convince him that I’m fine, but he said if they ever found out that something happened and we didn’t tell them about it, they’d never let us go out again.”
“That’s true.”
“I know. And it was very sweet of him. I just didn’t want to deal with them freaking out.”
“Is that why you lied?”
“When did I lie?”
“About passing out. You said it was from smelling the fish. I’ve seen you wincing a lot lately. It was from your heart, wasn’t it?”