Page 18 of The Problem with Perfect

With those as his only parting words, he hops into his Chevy and fires up the engine. I take that as my cue and hop into my CRV, following Rusty out of the gravel lot, but when he turns left and heads toward town, I turn right, deciding to take the long route home, hoping the extra time around the lake will help to clear my head.

Tomorrow, I’m going out on my first date—but it’s a pretend date with my fake boyfriend.

How exciting for me.

* * *

When I originally decided to push myself to graduate early, I envisioned collecting my diploma then jumping right into full-time employment. However, I hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that most accounting firms tend to hire in the summer and fall, leaving me with few options, none of which felt like the right fit.

So, back in January, even though I had just finished my degree, I dove right back into studying, deciding a better use of my time would be to focus on banging out the Uniform CPA Exam as quickly as possible.

My mom encouraged me to take some time off, give myself a chance to enjoy the accomplishment of completing my bachelor’s degree, but that’s not my style. I spent most of the winter with my nose in a book, and so far, I’ve completed three of the four required exam sections in record time and with flying colors. I’m hoping to take the final—and most difficult—section in July or August.

Then, I’ll be searching for full-time work and likely leaving my jobs waitressing at Dock 7 and bartending at The Mitch behind. I’ve worked at the former since high school and the latter for over a year now. Because I went to college online, I never had to bounce around and get short-term work during winter break or the summer, and those places feel more like family now than employers. I’m sure once the day comes when I have to move on, it will be filled with emotion.

Thankfully, most accounting work can be done virtually, so while I might leave my current jobs, there won’t be a huge pressure to leave Cedar Point to find something related to my degree. Even so, part of me is still nervous about how everything is going to play out.

I don’t want to leave my hometown, even if that means it takes me a while to figure out exactly what my next step is going to be. Many people leave small towns for college only to decide later on that they want to move home because they miss the community feel a bigger city can’t offer. Often, they at least wanted the chance to see if life somewhere else might be a better fit.

That wasn’t something I needed. I love Cedar Point, always have. Do I think it’s the best place in the world? Probably not. But is it the best place in the world for me? I think so, and I’m not someone who needs to see all my other options before being happy.

I’m the only one of my siblings who decided to stay. Boyd left for college on the east coast, and Briar moved down the mountain. My twin brother, Bishop, took a full ride playing baseball, and my younger sister, Busy, liked being away so much she got a job at a summer camp instead of coming home last year between semesters.

Then there’s me, the 22-year-old who hasn’t ever moved out of her childhood bedroom and still plays cards on the deck with her mom on Sunday mornings. I’m just happy here. It’s a special place, and I don’t ever want to leave.

Eventually, I’d like to open my own accounting business. George Sterling has been the only licensed CPA in Cedar Point for years, and he’s been talking about retiring soon and moving to Florida with his new wife. It will leave a CPA-sized hole in the Cedar Point infrastructure that I’m hoping to fill, as long as someone else doesn’t do it first.

For now, I’m just biding my time, working and studying and ruminating on different pathways to what’s next, and wrapping up these exams this summer cannot come soon enough. I desperately want a chance to get a job doing more than slinging drinks. It’s not that I hate being a bartender or a waitress. I actually really enjoy them both, but I also really enjoy using my mind for work. I mean, I got this degree for a reason, and I want to use it.

After I’ve finished up a few hours of studying on Wednesday morning, I change into some shorts and a ratty tee then head out to the back yard where my mother is working on her brand-new vegetable garden. It’s bittersweet, doing yardwork alongside my aging mother. I love spending time with her and digging my hands into the dirt, but it also makes me hyperaware of the fact that she’s moving a little bit slower, needing longer breaks.

Like now, as she cuts open the last bag of potting soil, she stops before dumping it into the bed, like she has to brace herself in order to be able to lift it enough to dump it out.

“Here, I’ve got that,” I tell her, wrapping my arms around bottom of the twenty-pound bag and pouring it on top of the mixture of filler and dirt that is already spread throughout the wooden boxes.

“Thanks, sweetheart.” She grins and tugs off a glove then snags her water bottle and takes a big swig. “You know, if these vegetable gardens work out, it might be fun to set up a booth at the farmer’s market.”

I laugh. “With our six carrots and two heads of lettuce?” I tease. “It’ll cost more for the fee to grab a table than what you’ll end up bringing home.”

Mom laughs. “Yeah, maybe that idea is a bit far-fetched. I’m just excited. I’ve wanted to do this for so long, and I want to share it with everyone.”

That’s such a mom thing to say. Patty Mitchell is nothing if not a person who enjoys sharing: her time, her energy, her resources. She donates constantly. Volunteers everywhere. Invites everyone to everything.

It’s one of the things I admire the most about her, her ‘we’re all in this together’ attitude. Everyone in town loves her, and not just because she’s part of Cedar Point’s founding family. It’s because of her heart.

And her smile.

I’m the only one out of her five children who got her smile, all the way down to the slightly crooked way it sits on my face and the tiny dimple on my right cheek, and it’s my favorite thing about the way I look.

“Well, hopefully we’ll get there,” I tell her, using my gloved hands to spread the soil out evenly.

“Nothopefully,” she corrects. “Definitely. We’lldefinitelyget there.”

I grin. “Definitely, we’ll get there.”

We dive back into it, hauling over additional large sacks of potting soil to cover the tops of the remaining four beds before giving each a thorough watering. Mom has a layout etched into a notebook, accounting for things like shade and how long different sections will get direct sunlight at certain points of the year. She’s always been into gardening, but her interest in a vegetable garden is only recent, so she has been taking copious notes and meticulously reading information about veggies and their preferred environments. It’s one of the other ways we’re so alike, each of us very organized and methodical about how we approach things.

The day is nearing the end and we’re both exhausted, so the steps to plant all the seeds in the right spots will have to wait until tomorrow. Now, it’s time to go get ready for my date with Rusty.

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