Page 6 of Love in Tandem
She definitely shouldn’t have mentioned it. What was wrong with her? First, making up a special friend who loved spinach for Ben’s mom, and now pretending to date Frankie Avalon in front of her family? Maybe Ben’s wedding this weekend was getting to her more than she wanted to admit.
“Well, I’m glad you did say something.” Mom smiled and lifted a hand to wave goodbye to Rick and his family as they headed out the door. “I feel better knowing you won’t be sitting at home this weekend by yourself. Especially after hearing your grant money’s not coming through.”
“No grant money?” Nita appeared with a tray of waters and more salsa. “Eso es terrible. Todos esos instrumentos!”
“Might not be coming through,” Charlotte tried reassuring Nita. Tried reassuring everyone. “I have faith everything’s going to turn out fine.” Sort of.
“So Ty’s not worried?” Dad said after Nita had taken their orders and performed the sign of the cross while murmuring what Charlotte assumed were prayers imploring all the saints above to save the music program. Oh, how she loved Nita.
Charlotte thought of Ty’s slumped shoulders. His defeated expression. His words of warning. “Oh, you know Ty. He always has a backup plan.”
Not necessarily a feasible backup plan. But she wasn’t about to mention the article in the paper. Knowing Sophia, she’d latch on to the ridiculous contest with a stranglehold until she figured out a way to rope Charlotte into it.
“Anyway,” Charlotte said, swiping her hand as if the whole possibility of not having a job next school year and watching her entire dream explode in flames on the second anniversary of getting jilted at the altar was nothing but a pesky fly. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“Like the youth group’s canoe trip.” Sophia gripped Charlotte’s wrist, a habit of hers whenever she wanted a favor. “Can you do it? Please? Rick said he’s desperate. It’s only a day trip, no camping.”
“Me?” Had her sister lost her mind? Sophia should know no amount of desperation would force Charlotte to step foot in a canoe. And she should definitely know better than to grab Charlotte’s wrist when she had a chip full of salsa halfway to her mouth. “Why can’t you do it?”
“My summer job at the hospital starts this evening, and I don’t know any of my coworkers well enough to ask for a trade. C’mon, Charlotte. You could take your guitar and play churchy campfire music when they reach the end. It’s totally your thing.”
Charlotte shook Sophia’s hand off, flinging salsa onto her shirt in the process. It matched the blood splatters, at least. “Canoes and campfires are not my thing. Mom, tell her that’s not my thing.”
Mom shrugged. “It’s really not her thing.”
Sophia folded her arms and collapsed against the back of the booth. “Fine. Don’t help. Don’t play songs about Jesus. Let dozens of teenagers potentially lose their souls because you’re unwilling to participate in something that’s ‘not your thing.’”
Charlotte blotted her shirt with a napkin. “Now that we’ve got that matter settled, Sophia and I have a surprise for you.”
Sophia perked up in her seat, dozens of teenagers’ souls apparently forgotten for the moment.
“Surprise?” Dad said. “I thought we were just here for the half-price margaritas.” Mom playfully bumped his shoulder as Charlotte pulled the envelope out of her purse and slid it across the mosaic tabletop.
Mom’s and Dad’s smiles both disappeared.
“What’s that?” Dad asked, eyeing the white envelope the same way he tended to eye Charlotte’s attempts at a new recipe. Little optimism, ample suspicion.
“Some money I’ve—” Sophia’s pointy elbow jabbed Charlotte’s side—“we’ve been setting aside for you.”
Her parents stared at the envelope, neither of them reaching for it. Mariachi music blasted overhead for what felt like an eternity before Mom cleared her throat and tugged the check from the envelope. She sucked in a breath, then showed it to Dad.
“Consider it a late anniversary present,” Charlotte said.
“You can finally take a vacation,” Sophia added.
Dad pulled out his reading glasses from his front shirt pocket. As soon as he looked at the check, he shoved it back in the envelope and handed it across the table. “Char, we’re not taking your money.”
“Our money,” Sophia whispered.
“You’re not taking anything,” Charlotte said, trying to hand it back to him. “We’re giving it to you. C’mon, when’s the last time you guys took a vacation?” Probably not since a dozen years ago when it became clear camping wasn’t Charlotte’s thing.
Of course, between paying off steep medical bills from mom’s cancer, trying to help put their kids through college, hiring a lawyer for Will, and losing several deposits from Charlotte’s last-minute canceled wedding, it’s not as if her parents had been in a good place to take a nice long vacation since then either.
Dad still put in sixty-plus hours a week at the shop, Mom worked her part-time secretary position at the church in addition to cleaning homes, and neither breathed a word of saving for retirement.
They needed a vacation. They deserved a vacation. Which was why Charlotte had scrimped and saved these past couple of years to give them that vacation.
So why weren’t they the least bit thrilled to take a vacation?
