[LJ Idol 10: Week 12] Last Summer
Melissa's gotten used to the ocean. That might be the best way to say it. The shore of Lake Michigan just isn't the same.
She's "home" for the summer, back in Dearborn, running a soccer camp for four and five year olds in the morning, then putting in in long cashier shifts in the evening. It should feel comfortable, and familiar, but it doesn't. Not now.
She goes to work at Kroger with her Price Chopper savings tag on her key ring. She's not sure if the older cashiers, the ones who come to work after their husbands get home to watch the kids, are really thinking the things she worries they think about her, if they're looking at that tag and at her U Conn tote bag and laughing to themselves about how that college girl doesn't belong here anymore. Or, worse, if they're thinking something like, "Sure, she's gone off to the east coast for now, but she's not one of them. She's one of us, and she'll be back here soon enough, she only thinks she's better than us."
Melissa doesn't think she's better than them. Not really. Better at soccer, which is how she ended up with a full scholarship several states away instead of staying home with her parents and juggling Kroger and community college until she either got married or didn't.
Even when she left, she didn't think that she'd stay gone. That's part of why she'd agreed to come back home every summer and run soccer camp for the little kids. It's been a universal language through the demographic shift - whether your family's from Ireland or Iran, you still know about running and kicking the ball. And she thought, those first two summers, that in the end she'd have her teaching degree and she'd come back to Dearborn or somewhere else near Detroit and have an elementary school class to call her own. That she'd fit in where she came from.
But then there was Katie. Katie, working by her side, playing by her side, living by her side, and falling in love with her. Katie, who would take the blame from Melissa's family for "making her different" if they knew. Not that there was anything different. Just - when you're working and practicing and studying and your parents are keeping a close eye on you to make sure you don't get in trouble, not-dating girls doesn't look that different from not-dating boys. And when you do get around to getting a boyfriend but then break up because there's just no time and besides you're going to college halfway across the country from each other, it's not about not liking boys. Melissa likes boys just fine, but now she loves Katie and she wants to stay with Katie and she misses Katie all the time.
This is going to be the last summer. Next year is her senior year. Next summer is the summer that Melissa's going to have to make it obvious that she isn't coming "home" again.
Next summer, she'll have Katie, and the ocean, not just a sweatshirt hidden under her pillows that still smells a little like both.
Next summer, saltwater that isn't sweat and tears.
She's "home" for the summer, back in Dearborn, running a soccer camp for four and five year olds in the morning, then putting in in long cashier shifts in the evening. It should feel comfortable, and familiar, but it doesn't. Not now.
She goes to work at Kroger with her Price Chopper savings tag on her key ring. She's not sure if the older cashiers, the ones who come to work after their husbands get home to watch the kids, are really thinking the things she worries they think about her, if they're looking at that tag and at her U Conn tote bag and laughing to themselves about how that college girl doesn't belong here anymore. Or, worse, if they're thinking something like, "Sure, she's gone off to the east coast for now, but she's not one of them. She's one of us, and she'll be back here soon enough, she only thinks she's better than us."
Melissa doesn't think she's better than them. Not really. Better at soccer, which is how she ended up with a full scholarship several states away instead of staying home with her parents and juggling Kroger and community college until she either got married or didn't.
Even when she left, she didn't think that she'd stay gone. That's part of why she'd agreed to come back home every summer and run soccer camp for the little kids. It's been a universal language through the demographic shift - whether your family's from Ireland or Iran, you still know about running and kicking the ball. And she thought, those first two summers, that in the end she'd have her teaching degree and she'd come back to Dearborn or somewhere else near Detroit and have an elementary school class to call her own. That she'd fit in where she came from.
But then there was Katie. Katie, working by her side, playing by her side, living by her side, and falling in love with her. Katie, who would take the blame from Melissa's family for "making her different" if they knew. Not that there was anything different. Just - when you're working and practicing and studying and your parents are keeping a close eye on you to make sure you don't get in trouble, not-dating girls doesn't look that different from not-dating boys. And when you do get around to getting a boyfriend but then break up because there's just no time and besides you're going to college halfway across the country from each other, it's not about not liking boys. Melissa likes boys just fine, but now she loves Katie and she wants to stay with Katie and she misses Katie all the time.
This is going to be the last summer. Next year is her senior year. Next summer is the summer that Melissa's going to have to make it obvious that she isn't coming "home" again.
Next summer, she'll have Katie, and the ocean, not just a sweatshirt hidden under her pillows that still smells a little like both.
Next summer, saltwater that isn't sweat and tears.