The Boy From Hot Ice

I always got along better with my dad. He was just as absent from my day-to-day life as my mom, but at least his excuse wasn't that he was out late partying like he was 21 again.
My dad was a hard worker. He didn't have to be, but he was. He was born into a poor family, and he fought for his education and opportunity for employment. Then, 10 years after he started his job as an intern, he became CEO, and he had accumulated a massive fortune. But instead of sitting on it all, he regularly traveled to third world countries and gave his time and money to charitable causes. My dad, even though he lacked somewhat as a father, was a good man.
But he could be very controlling when it came to my personal life. I wasn't allowed to have boys over, I wasn't allowed to wear certain, more revealing clothes, and I wasn't allowed to go out with my friends. That last one wasn't much of an issue since I figured I wouldn't have many friends here.
My birthday was the day before school started. I didn't hear from my mom, but I didn't really expect to I guess. Jeremy called, of course, since he called every day, and hearing his voice was all the present I needed, though he said he had sent something for me, and it should be arriving soon.
I had forgotten in just a short year how different Washington is from California. I don't just mean the weather, either. People are generally nicer it seems, and the girls at school were much more friendly, several of them even acknowledging my existence! And the boys here weren't punks, although I had gotten to like that about Cali boys.
I sat in Algebra class that first day and noticed a very pretty girl beside me. Who wouldn't notice her? Her hair was very long, very dark, and very curly. Her eyebrows, perfect like Brooke Shields', framed eyes of clear blue with lashes that flared like a peacock's feathers. She was glowing, almost angelically, and her smile was the icing on the most beautiful cake I'd ever seen.
"Psst," I heard a noise from her as we cracked our books open. "You got an extra pencil?" she whispered.
I reached into my pencil bag and handed her an extra, and she nodded and smiled.
"Can you believe I forgot pencils on day one?" she whispered.
I smiled back, because with her, you had to. Her personality was contagious.
"I'm Amanda," she said. "What's your name?"
"Um, Liz," I whispered nervously back, noticing the teacher was now looking.
"Nice to meet you!"
"Girls, am I interrupting your pow-wow?" the teacher, a stern, wrinkled, balding man, called.
I shook my head, but Amanda answered. "I was just introducing myself, but we're done now."
His eyes - they were brown but seemed red in that moment somehow - stared down at her as he walked toward us. His tall, thin frame bent over her desk as he leaned toward her. "Excuse me?"
I stared wide-eyed at Amanda, hoping she'd get the hint by my "What-the-hell-are-you-doing" face, but she simply smiled to the teacher and repeated herself.
"You two must have a very important meeting of the minds going on, or else you wouldn't talk about it in the middle of the class." He peered around at me, and I froze.
"No, we're done now," Amanda told him. "I had forgotten a pencil, but luckily Liz had one for me, God bless her."
"One more peep out of either of you, and it's detention," he barked. Finally, Amanda stopped smiling. She looked over at me with a look of disbelief, and I just shrugged.
Oh my god, was Algebra boring. I almost started talking again just to get kicked out. The 50-minute class felt like 50 years, and Amanda, who couldn't seem to keep still for more than five seconds, wasn't making it any easier to focus. Finally that bell, a sound I had hated until now, rang out the sound of freedom, and though I was one of the farthest students from the door, I had to have been one of the first people out.
"So, you're new right?" Amanda said as she caught up with me. "I don't remember you from last year."
"Yeah," I answered. I was very, very awkward around her. Well, I was very, very awkward around everyone. And in general.
"So... where are you from?"
"California. Modesto."
"Oh, it's so pretty down there! I was down there last year during the tournament. It was so - "
"What tournament?" I interrupted, hearing a word that could always catch my attention.
"The western conference championship," she told me.
"Basketball?" I asked, hoping.
"Yeah, our guys are reigning champs right now."
I didn't remember Allendale High School coming to town the year before, but then I realized she'd said "guys."
"So, there's no girls' basketball?"
"No," she answered. "We used to have it, but when they made budget cuts a couple years ago, they cut out all the girls' sports except softball. Did you play or something?"
"Yeah. I was really good, too!" I bragged. It was the one thing I was proud of in my life right now. "I asked my dad to look into it for me, but I guess he forgot."
"Well, you can still try out for softball," she said. "Or cheerleading."
I laughed at the though, and she looked at me puzzled. "What's so funny?" she asked.
"Um, me? Me as a cheerleader? That's funny."
"Why? You're tall and pretty and I saw you smiling earlier. You seem so nice, I'm sure you've got what it takes. Come on, we could use a fresh face on the squad!"
"We? You mean you're a cheerleader?"
"Cheer captain," she smiled. I should have guessed.
"I don't know. I've never cheered before."
"Can you dance?"
"I dance a little," I smiled to myself.
"Well come down and try," she told me. "You never know. Tryouts are all week every day after school until 5 in the gym. I'll be there every time, so come by whenever!"
At that point we went our separate ways as the bell rang again for the start of class. She was so peppy and spry, and I certainly was not like that, especially considering my situation. But I promised her I'd show up, and I always kept my promises.

I was surprised to see my dad home after school, but I welcomed it. He smoked his pipe on the winding porch and waved to me as I arrived. His thinning salt-and-pepper hair hung over his ears, unkempt, a sign that he hadn't gone into work that day. This was unusual for him, and I asked him why he was home once I joined him on the deck.
"I thought we could go out and get you some new clothes," he said. "I spent the morning sorting your closets for you, and I saw that you needed some things."
He meant well, but he always invaded my privacy and I hated that. "Okay, let me make a phone call and then we'll go."
"Phone call?" He asked in his best concerned, fatherly tone. "To whom?"
"Jeremy," I answered.
"Oh, that's still going on?"
"Of course it is, dad."
He took a last long, slow puff, then walked inside the house with me. "You can use this phone here," he told me. "You have ten minutes."
"Ten minutes?" I was outraged, but I knew better than to fight. I picked up the phone and dialed, and it had barely rang one full time before I heard that voice I missed so much.
"Hey," he answered.
"Hey! How's it going?" As I spoke, my dad sat next to the phone, staring at me. I hated when he did this.
"It's going alright, I guess. I miss you."
"I miss you, too," I smiled back. "So tell me, what's new since last time? I meant to call you but I've been getting ready for school and it's been kinda crazy."
"Oh that's ok," he smiled. I could hear his smile. "Did you get that package I sent you?"
I told him I hadn't, and he promised it would arrive any day. I tried to get him to tell me what it was, but he wouldn't, and I loved that.
Before I had even started a decent conversation or had an opportunity to talk about cheerleading or any of that, my dad drew a finger along his throat, signaling that I needed to hang up. There was no way it had been ten minutes already!
"Jeremy, I've got to go," I told him sadly. "I'll call tomorrow, though, okay?"
"Okay," he said, "Talk to you tomorrow. Love you."
"I love you too," I told him as I hung the phone on the receiver.
"You're telling this boy you love him?" Dad asked me.
"I do love him, Dad."
"You're 17, Liz. You have no idea what love even is."
I knew what love was, but what parent is going to believe his teenaged daughter when she claims to love someone? "I'm ready to go when you are, Dad," I told him.
"Elizabeth," he started, my heart sinking since he only used my full name when he was going to scold me, "You can't be carrying on like this. I thought it would stop when you'd been here a little while, but it hasn't, and it needs to."
"What? You mean the thing with Jeremy?"
"Yes," he said as he smoothed his fingers over his mustache and grabbed his keys. "You guys are many, many miles apart now. Do you really think he's going to stay true to you?"
I followed him out to the car without answering. Truthfully, I had my doubts, but I couldn't admit that to my dad. He was only looking out for me, and for now I would have to let him say what he needed to say, nod along, and then disregard his advice. Since when was he so protective of my feelings? He wasn't like that with my last boyfriend. In fact, I had a whole lot of sex the last time I was living under my father's roof - much more than I had in Modesto. I would think he's be glad my boyfriend lived so far away. At least he didn't have to worry about becoming a grandfather just yet.
"You're not going to call him tomorrow," he said as we pulled away from the house, "Or the day after, or the day after that."
"Why not?" I giggled, not bothering to take him seriously.
"Because you need to focus on your schooling. I saw your grades last year, and they were terrible. And I know it was because of him."
"Ok, first of all, Jeremy and I didn't date all of last year. It was really only during the second semester, and my grades were actually up," I argued. "And second, I've never been a straight-A student. I wasn't when I was here before either."
"When you were here, you at least spent your spare time reading books and going on nature hikes."
Nature hikes. That was what we told my dad we were doing when we were actually going to his parents' cabin to get laid.
"Now, you call him every time you get a chance. What kid of focus is that?" He shook his head as he lectured me, but I still didn't take it seriously. I was his only child, his daughter, and he was just trying to protect me. But I didn't need protecting. And everything I did need lived in Modesto, and surely Dad could do nothing about that.
I wanted desperately to change the subject, so I told him about Amanda (minus the teacher's warning and talking in class, of course). I told him about how softball was all that was available as far as girls' sports, and I told him I intended to try out for the cheerleading squad. He seemed happy about it, but the look on his face, lips pursed, eyes straight forward, unwavering, indicated that he had no faith I would make it. Maybe I should have been offended, but I wasn't. I didn't have any faith in myself either.
"Amanda?" my dad asked, even though it had been several minutes since I'd mentioned her name. "Is that Amanda Grayson?"
"Um," I tried to think whether she had told me her last name or not. "I don't know."
"It must be," he smiled. "She's you age, real pretty thing, has an older brother on the basketball team. Yeah her dad and I work together," he told me.
"Really? That's pretty neat. If it's her."
"It's gotta be her. Their mother passed away last year, poor things. But they've been doing okay, I guess. Their dad's been giving all the money from her settlement to my charities. Real great people, salt-of-the-earth."
I didn't actually give a fuck.
"You know, now there's a boy I could see you with," he smiled at me.
"Wait, I thought you didn't want me having a boyfriend right now."
"Well, not a long-distance one. Not one from a family I don't know. Not some band kid."
"Can you not list all of the things you hate about him?"
"I don't hate Jeremy, sweetie. I don't even know him. I just don't think it's a great idea for you to be seeing him, that's all."
"Ok, well don't try setting me up with your buddy's kid, either. That's just creepy."
It wasn't my dad's fault that he didn't know how to properly raise me or set consistent rules or give me the correct discipline. My mother had raised me for 80% of my life, and he was left with this whole child-rearing guessing game. I think he meant well, and I know he loved me, but he ran the home like a business. Everything was black or white, right or wrong, extreme in one direction or the other. But at least he took the time to try. And that seemed like more than my mom did most of the time.
He was incredibly generous, I'll give him that. He took me to every store in the mall that I even glanced at, and he bought me everything I wanted, with the excepting of colored tights, spandex anything, and short shorts. He was very concerned about my dressing provocatively, and I admit he had every right to be. I dressed like my mom tried to, and he despised it. "A lady should look like a lady," he'd always say.
He had a lot of little phrases like that. When he was trying to teach me (uncomfortably) about abstinence, he said, "You are a beautiful piece of art, and art is only to be touched by the artist." I guess that was his way of telling me to keep myself pure for my future husband, but it didn't really come off that way to me. But I understood my dad, so I got the message he was giving me. I didn't obey it, but I got it.
And Dad, no matter how upset he ever was, no matter how many times I broke his rules or ignored him or sassed off at him or told him I hated him, never kicked me out. He never sent me away of his own free will. He didn't pawn me off to my mom any time he had the urge to visit the Caribbean. He took me with him on his trips when he could. He included me, he made me feel welcome. And even though sometimes he came off as being too busy for me sometimes, I knew he loved me. He was a good dad, and I miss him dearly.