The guys resume their work, smiling at me as I wave politely, even though my natural urge is to kiss them all goodbye. It doesn't seem appropriate though, so I resist.
Mom waves when we come around the front of the house. She pushes the rocking chair back with her heels and rocks back and forth a few times before standing up and opening her arms for a hug.
“Really, this is such a surprise!” I breathe. “How was Wyoming?”
“Wyoming is enormous,” my dad smiles. “We had a great time. Actually, we got an offer to do a follow-up film in China.”
My eyes go wide. “China? Well… that's amazing! You guys have never done anything in China before.”
“I know. We were shocked too,” my dad explains. He settles against the fence rail and crosses his ankles casually. I sit down next to my mom and lean my head on her shoulder. It feels really good to be next to her.
“A foreign distributor saw our work, thought it might be good to cooperate. We’re going to look at some primate sanctuaries in China. Doesn’t that sound cool?”
“It really does,” I nod sincerely. “I'm sure you guys will put together some great work there. Congratulations!”
Mom strokes my hair, smiling wistfully into the distance.
“So… want to come with us?” my dad says, slapping the dust from the knees of his jeans.
My mouth falls open. “Well… I have this job…”
He waves his hand in the air as though brushing the job away with that simple gesture.
“Your passport is still good,” he explains. “Then you need shots… and the visa only takes a few weeks to get. You can finish up here first!”
My stomach starts to feel sick. Tight.
“Well, I like my job,” I explain slowly. “And it won’t be done for a while. Even after the harvest, there's juice to work on. Or something. Actually I don't understand the whole process yet. But I'm learning!”
“I'm sure you are,” he nods. His smile seems stiff. Glued on. “You can learn a lot from us too, you know. I mean, maybe that would interest you? Filmmaking? I know we didn't really talk about it all that much before. But it is definitely still a possibility. We could have a family film empire, of sorts. What do you think?”
My discomfort starts to turn into something else. Something like irritation. Anger even.
“I think I want to stay here, like I said,” I repeat. “Thanks for coming. Really. It's great to see you.”
Dad looks around, glances at my mother, and cranes his neck to see into the orchard again.
“You're saying you're fine here? With all this?”
“Yes. Totally fine here,” I repeat.
“And these men? They’re… appropriate?”
I glance at my mother, trying to figure out what's really going on here. This is not something my parents talk to me about, as a rule. Long ago, they gave me some hippie speech about how my sexuality was my business. Suddenly, their opinions seem to have changed.
“They’re perfect gentlemen,” I sigh.
Gentlemen might be loosely applied here, but I’ve said it and I'm sticking with it.
Dad sighs heavily, dropping his head into his hand and knuckling the space between his eyebrows.
“Listen, Vanessa,” he starts again. “I think we’ve been really patient here. We gave you two choices, you decided to do something else. So we thought we would go ahead and let you experiment.”
“Experiment?” I repeat, incredulous.
“And now the experiment needs to be over,” he continues like he didn't hear me. “Now it's time to move on, I think. You understand what I'm saying? You could still get into school. Late application fees can't be that much. And your grandmother said that she would even pick you up.”
“Experiment?” I say again.