“Stop jumping up and down and tell me what this is about.”
I put my hand on my chest to quell my thumping heart. “I got into that writing program. In New York City. And if I don’t say yes right away, they’re going to give my space to someone else.”
“New York,” my father exclaims. “What about Brown?”
“Dad, you don’t understand. See? Right here: summer writing course. June twenty-second to August nineteenth. And Brown doesn’t start till Labor Day. So there’s plenty of time—”
“I don’t know, Carrie.”
“But, Dad—”
“I thought this writing thing was a hobby.”
I look at him, aghast.
“It isn’t. I mean, it’s just something I really want to do.” I can’t express how badly I want it. I don’t want to scare him.
“We’ll think about it, okay?”
“No!” I shout. He’ll think about it and think about it and by the time he’s thought about it, it will be too late. I shove the letter under his nose. “I have to decide now. Otherwise—”
Finally, he sits down and actually reads it.
“I’m not sure,” he says. “New York City in the summer? It could be dangerous.”
“Millions of people live there. And they’re fine.”
“Hmmmm,” he says, thinking. “Does George know about this?”
“About my acceptance? Not yet. But he was the one who encouraged me to send in my stories. George is all for it.”
“Well—”
“Dad, please.”
“If George is going to be there—”
Why should George have anything to do with it? Who cares about George? This is about me, not George. “He’s going to be there all summer. He has an internship with The New York Times.”
“Does he?” my father looks impressed.
“So going to New York for the summer is a very big Brown thing to do.”
My father takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s a long way away—”
“Two hours.”
“It’s another world—I hate to think I’m losing you already.”
“Dad, you’re going to lose me anyway, sooner or later. Why not get it over with sooner? That way you have more time to get used to it.”
My father laughs. Yes—I’m in.
“I guess two months in New York couldn’t hurt,” he says, talking himself into it. “Freshman year at Brown is intense. And I know how difficult this year has been for you.” He rubs his nose, trying to delay the inevitable. “My daughters—they mean so much to me.”
As if on cue, he starts crying.
“You surprise me,” Donna LaDonna says a few days later. “You’re a lot tougher than I thought.”