“He’s worried about you,” Dad says. “He says you’re miserable.”
I withdraw from Mom and slump in my seat. Henry is a traitor. “I’m not miserable.”
“You sure look happy,” there’s a tease in my father’s tone.
A few weeks ago, I called Henry after a particularly rough fund-raiser for my father, and in my exhaustion and lapse of judgment, I might have cried a little too long to my cousin. If I had known that confiding in him would lead to this conversation, I would have never called him.
“Why didn’t you tell us you were applying for an internship with Morgan Programming?” Dad asks.
My head falls back. Henry is dead. I’m going to have to kill him. He’s the only person outside of school who knew about the internship, and he ratted me out to my parents. “Henry told you?”
“No, but your school called a few months back when you started the application process. I was wondering if the miserable Henry mentioned had any connection to this internship.”
Gaped. Open. Mouth. “You’ve known about the internship?”
“Yes, and I’ve had the school update me every step of the way.”
If I could fit into a sugar cube, I absolutely would. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew?”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mom counters.
All the air rushes out of my body because this is going to suck. “I didn’t know if I’d make it to the final stage of the interview process or not.” I didn’t want them to know if I had, once again, become a failure.
“Do you have any idea what you’ve applied for?” Mom asks.
“It’s a computer programming internship that will start in college and will last four years. I’m a finalist which means the last part of competition is to spend part of my senior year creating an app.”
One of my elective courses during my senior year will be an independent study in creating this app, and I’m expected to start that independent study over this summer. Knowing that the last part might not go over well due to my schedule for my father’s campaign, I keep that information to myself.
Mom purses her lips, and I can’t decide what that means. “Computer programming? When did you become interested in that?”
I shrug because the answer is since freshman year when I took a class that sampled new careers every quarter, and one of those quarters was on programming. I liked it. I also liked drama club and about a hundred other things, so I never thought much about it, but the truth is... “I didn’t give it serious thought until I saw the internship announced on the school’s morning news. Something grabbed me, and I thought...why not?”
“Why not?” she repeats in a slow way as if the words are new to her.
“Why not,” I say again and mentally add why not, me?
“Elle.” Mom touches her throat in search of the gold locket that contains pictures of me and Henry. “You agreed to help your father with the campaign. In fact, we’re paying you to help. You have a ton of scheduled appearances this summer. Then there is the fund-raising and...”
I sink lower in my seat. “I can still do all those things.”
“You believe you can compete in this final stage of the application process and still have time?” Dad asks.
“Yes.”
Dad shakes his head like I announced I’m attempting a solo trip to the moon. “Your counselor explained that the last stage of the application process is the equivalent to working a part-time job. How are you going to participate in the campaign, which requires traveling, keep up your grades in the fall and compete for this internship? I’m sorry, but it’s not possible.”
Dad’s not seeing the bigger picture. The last stage of the application process is to create an app from scratch. My idea. My conception. My responsibility from birth to production. “Creating the app will be considered one of my classes in the fall, and I have the summer to work on it, as well. I have time.”
“Twenty hours a week,” Dad says. “That’s the minimum the counselor said is expected of you to work on this program. Subtract the hours you’d work on the program at school, and that leaves fifteen hours to be done at home. I’m sorry, but I don’t see how it’s possible for you to create this program with the commitments you’ve already made to me and your mother.”
The ends of my mouth turn down. “So you’re saying I can’t apply for the internship?”
Mom slides the locket along the gold chain. “What we’re saying is that six months is your shelf life on anything. You try something new, you grow tired of it and then you flitter off. There’s something about your personality that loves to chase the new and shiny.”
“It’s not like that this time.” It’s not like that most of the time. Shame overwhelms me and I stare down at the table. I don’t grow tired of what I try as much as I grow tired of Mom and Dad waiting for me to be the best. When I don’t somehow become a brilliant star in the new thing I’m trying out, it’s akin to a failure.
“Elle.” Dad wants me to look at him, but I can’t. The table is the only thing I can focus on without feeling like the entire world is shattering. If I glance at Dad, what’s left of my pride will be destroyed, and that’s a loss in confidence that will take forever to repair.
“Elle,” Dad says again with a more direct and demanding voice. “I have a press conference. If you want to sit this one out, I understand, but I would like to finish this conversation before I leave. You’re my daughter, I love you and nothing makes me more proud than when you stand by my side onstage.”
My eyes flash to his then, because I want to make my father proud. I want him to want me by his side.
“We believe in you,” Dad says. “But you don’t understand commitment. Your mom and I do. We know what it takes to succeed.”
Dad grew up dirt-poor and on government assistance. Mom, on the other hand, grew up in the lap of luxury, but her father was emotionally and physically abusive. Life for them was brutal, and they had to scratch, claw and bleed to make it out of their childhoods alive.
“We’ve had to learn tough lessons with nobody there to help. Your mother and I are trying to give you the benefit of our experiences. We’re trying to keep you on an easier path and to give you everything we never had. Trust the decisions we’re making for you.
“Plus, I don’t know how I would feel if you were to win, and then you decline the internship. This is a large corporation in our state. A lot of eyes will be on you if you win. It would look bad on you and on me if you quit this like how you’ve bailed on most things.”
He believes in me, but he doesn’t. Somehow, through this conversation, I’m starting to no longer believe in myself.
“I’ll tell you what.” His face brightens like I haven’t been smashed to pieces. “Let’s pass on the internship, get through the summer and if you’re still excited about programming, and if we see a change in your understanding of commitment, we’ll allow you to take a coding class in the fall. But you have to give us a hundred percent this summer. Agreed?”
This is how Dad negotiates. He gives, I give, then we each win. But my mind is a swimming mess as, for the first time, this feels more like a dictatorship than a democracy.
Because I can’t stand the twisting in my stomach at disappointing Mom and Dad, because I want to take a coding class, I say, “Agreed.”
Dad smiles, a beaming one reserved for me when he’s