On Saturday morning, Aunt Christy's asleep on the couch when Willa wakes up, which is surprising for maybe half a second before she remembers that yesterday was the divorce-iversary. There's a few empty beer bottles on the coffee table, and the bottle of whiskey Dad keeps "hidden" behind the granola she doesn't like (dream on Dad, like she hasn't found it by now? Come on) is almost empty, lying sideways on the floor next to the couch.
Willa's fifteen now, she knows how this works. Old people need booze to handle their emotions, because they're much more tired and fragile and emotionally crippled. She and Dylan have an entire theory worked out about it. There's an entire section about how all the beer and emotional dishonesty also increases your likelihood for arthritis.
It's cool. She doesn't mind. Willa tiptoes around to the bathroom, listening to Christy's snores - they're impressively loud - and because she's feeling generous and sort of cheerful, tiptoes to the kitchen and makes a full pot of coffee, too. Then she goes to wake Dad up, which is definitely her favorite part of any morning, but especially so on Christy mornings - he's way, way grumpier. It's pretty funny.
Dad always locks his bedroom door when he goes to bed, but since you can force it open if you wiggle it a little, it's mostly just something he does for show. Willa doesn't even really notice it anymore, to be honest.
"Get out," he says, before she even gets the door all the way open.
"Morning, Daddy!" Willa replies, and tugs his curtains open. He yells out loud when the light breaks through, a sort of cross between a groan and a snort, like an angry lion with a sinus infection. "Rise and shine, it's nine o'clock! The sun says hello!"
"Why," Dad growl-yells, "are you like this?"
"I made coffee," Willa says enticingly, and hops up on his bed, settling on her knees right next to his floppy, scowling head.
"I didn't raise you like this," says Dad.
"No, this comes naturally to me. Like breathing," Willa replies.
"Well quit it," he says, and buries his head beneath a pillow.
Willa tugs it away easily - he had it at a weird angle, so he couldn't get a good grip on it. Amateur move - he must really be tired. "Come oooon, Christy's here. She's awake and she's going through all your stuff."
"Kill her for me," Dad mutters.
"I can't, Dad," Willa says, exaggeratingly sad. "That's illegal."
"Okay, listen." Dad lifts himself up on one elbow, shaking his hair out of his face. He's only got one eye open, and for some reason he's wearing one of his basketball tank tops, and he's got his head through the wrong hole, which doesn't exactly add up to 'intimidating.' Willa bites her lip against a grin. "I will pay you a hundred dollars to let me sleep for another hour."
"No deal," Willa says. "Grandpa gave me that much last weekend."
"He did what? Jesus Christ, why?" Dad sits up a little more, rubbing his face.
"For my car fund," Willa explains. "Because I helped him clean out the deep fryer, remember?"
"I didn't know he was gonna give you that much," Dad grouses. "That's too much Wills, you gotta give him some of it back."
"I did, though! He tried to give me two hundred. It took me all afternoon to negotiate him down as much as I did."
Dad grunts, flopping back down on his back. "Of course he did. Fine, fine. Whatever."
His eyes are starting to droop closed again, so Willa starts the second stage of the wake up process, which is annoying poking. Dad grunts at her again, swatting half-heartedly at her hand. "Dad. Come on. Get up. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad. Dad - "
"Oh my God," Dad says miserably.
"Nine o'clock, Dad, that's our compromise weekend time, no matter how late you stayed up the night before! And you promised we could go to the pool today, remember? We were gonna play volleyball, and Dylan's mom said that she could come too if we had time to drop her off at her music lesson after and I need to go get supplies for my science project too and it's Cookie Bar day at the diner and I want Christy to do my nails for my audition on Monday and - "
"Fine," Dad says, and kicks the blanket off, "just - oh my God. Stop poking me. Let me take a shower."
"Thank you I love you thank you," Willa says, rolling off the bed to give him a clear path. That's the trick, to the final waking up stage - getting out of the way. Even the slightest obstacle, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual, will send him sliding back to stage one faster than Aunt Lorelai on six shots of espresso. "Remember there's coffee! I'm gonna wake up Christy."
"No, let me do it, she hits when she's half-asleep," Dad calls, grumbling his way towards the bathroom. Beneath the twisted-around basketball tank, he's wearing a pair of sweatpants with a giant rip in the left leg, so altogether he sort of looks like a tired victim in a disaster movie. "Just go - do teenage girl things for awhile. Give us a bit to wake up."
"Teenage girl things," Willa repeats skeptically. Dad looks up from his dresser drawer to give her a belligerent look. "Fine! Fine, I'll go...braid my hair and think about a cute boy."
"Ugh," announces Dad, and disappears into the bathroom. Willa takes a moment before she leaves to do a quick victory dance.
Mission accomplished: as usual.
Willa loves their house, because it's an amazing house. It used to be a barn, so Willa's room has like a big sliding door on it, sort of like a horse stall, which is incredibly cool. The rest of the doors are normal, but that's because they had to build all of those rooms from scratch when they renovated it. Willa's the only one who got the real deal.
Dad and Grandpa did a lot of the work themselves, because Grandma Liz had guilt tripped Dad into hiring T.J.'s company to do it, and of course that ended up being a disaster. Willa was only like eight or nine when this was happening, so all she remembers about the whole thing was how cool it was to walk through the wall frames before they put the drywall in, but apparently it was like a two-year-long feud that remains the reason why Dad doesn't let T.J. come to Thanksgiving dinner anymore.
Anyway there's Willa's room, which is amazing and painted lavender inside and has a great antique light on the ceiling with a dimmer switch on it, and the living room has this like, sunken-in area in the floor that you have to step down into, which is also really cool. The kitchen has these barstools that Grandpa and Willa built together a couple summers ago, and Dad's office is in the loft, which she's not allowed into by herself anymore since the time she spilled chocolate protein milkshake all over his laptop. Not her fault - totally Dylan's - but she respects the decision. Fair is fair.
Willa does a lot of the cooking nowadays, since she got all into it last summer when she started working at the diner. Plus, it's safer that way - it's not that Dad's bad at it exactly, it's just that he's usually distracted by something because he tries to do other stuff at the same time, like reading, or working on whatever he's writing at the time, or yelling at people on the phone about either of those two things, and so he usually ends up burning stuff. Willa's eaten more soggy pasta and scorched curry than any person should ever have to endure, but - like she said, Dad's an old person, stuck in his ways. You just have to sort of grin and bear it and then sneak into the kitchen early and make your own breakfast.
Saturdays are waffle days, which she's got down to an art, so by the time Dad and Christy shuffle their way in, she's got a whole spread ready. Dad doesn't even blink, but Christy stops short in the doorway and her eyes get really wide and sparkly, like she's about to cry.
"Oh my God," she says wobbily, "there are waffles in here."
"Coffee too," Willa says helpfully, right before Christy attacks her with a weirdly emotional hug. Willa coughs twice, hugs her back, and glares at Dad, who is laughing into the cupboard in the corner. "Uh, morning, Aunt Christy."
"You're so amazing," Christy says tearfully, finally releasing her with a shuddery breath. She's rubbing at her face too, her cheeks splotchy and red. "You're just - you're so amazing. You're so grown up, I can't believe it. Jess, she made waffles, can you believe this? Amazing."
"Yeah, it's a miracle," Dad says dryly, pouring himself a mug of coffee. "Wills, is there creamer left?"
"I put it on the table already," Willa says.
Christy scowls at him, her face still sort of flushed. "Don't be a jerk. She made waffles. Appreciate her. Willa, does he appreciate you? Oh my God, there's chocolate in them!"
"Would you relax? Drink this and calm down," Dad demands, shoving the coffee mug in her hands and pushing her towards the table. "They're bribery waffles, Chris. She does this every weekend. Don't be fooled."
"Bribery waffles with chocolate!" Christy cries, scrambling into a seat at the table. "Willa, get over here and hug me again."
Willa laughs, leaning over for a side-hug on the way to her own seat. "It's no big deal, Christy, I really do make them every weekend. I like it."
Christy seems to get a little choked up again, and quickly buries her face in the mug. Willa smiles at her nicely and sits down without commenting; it's divorce-iversary weekend, after all. And Christy has been crying about all kinds of random stuff ever since she started going to therapy.
Dad has no such concerns, though. "You're doing it again," he says, nudging Christy's shoulder as he sits down.
"Shut up," Christy says, but her face is back to its normal coloring, and she picks up the top waffle from the pile and starts eating it with her fingers, so he must be onto something, Willa thinks. "God, every weekend though? Holy crap, these are unbelievable. I should sleep over more often."
"You totally should," Willa says, taking a couple waffles for herself. "It's stupid for you to pay for a room at the Dragonfly when you could just stay here."
Christy shrugs. "Lorelai always offers to comp me, but I'd feel kinda bad about accepting."
"She'd never admit it to us, but she needs the business," Dad says. He quirks an eyebrow at Willa. "Don't tell her or Grandpa I said that."
"I won't," Willa assures him. She never tells anyone when anyone else has been talking about them. She is in the know about some very complex secrets, some of which she's not at liberty to discuss with even Dylan.
"Are you not eating?" Christy asks Dad. "Why are you not eating, what's wrong with you?"
Dad scowls at her. "I'm not hungry."
"Your daughter made these from scratch, what are you, too good for them? Too good for chocolate waffles?"
"I actually used a mix, but," Willa says.
"Listen, you come to my house and you drink my beer and eat my food, you shut up about my kid's waffles," Dad says, pointing at her.
"I'm just saying, what kind of man turns down a chocolate waffle? A real man would eat like, seven."
"A real man?" Dad says. "A real - Willa, are you hearing this? A real man."
"Yeah, I heard it," Willa says. "I think what she's trying to say is: you're fussy."
"Fussy?!"
Christy looks over at Willa and widens her eyes deliberately, shoving another chunk of waffle in her mouth.
"What am I, a toddler? Don't answer that," Dad says, pointing at Christy again. "Gimme one of those." He reaches over and grabs two with one hand, folding them up like a taco and taking a giant bite.
"Oh, hey tough guy, slow down, don't wanna choke," Christy goads, and takes another two waffles for herself, matching Dad's bite with a giant one of her own.
Willa giggles into her own plate, watching them chewing angrily at each other. Christy mornings are definitely the best, she thinks. "You guys are such idiots."
"Hey, watch yo' mouf," Dad says, through a mouth full of waffle.
"Yeah," says Christy, spraying some crumbs into the air. She swallows with visible difficulty, brushing at the tablecloth and looking sheepish. "Um. Napkins?"
"You're disgusting," says Dad, and throws one at her head.
Christy opts out of the day in favor of more sleep and Willa's amazing memory foam pillow ("Wait," says Dad, "she gets to sleep in and she gets the pillow?") so Willa takes off with just Dad and calls Dylan from the road and tells her to get ready. Dylan responds by telling Willa to get real, because she was born ready.
"Born ready for what, a trip to the pool?" Willa asks.
"Born ready for anything," Dylan says. "Adventure and romance and swim volleyball with - " She pauses to sigh, a bit dreamily. Willa wrinkles her nose. "Your dad."
Dylan is an excellent person and an even excellenter best friend, but she has one fatal flaw that Willa is still learning how to cope with: a gigantic crush on Willa's dad. Thankfully, Dylan's parents are just as eager to discourage this as Willa is. They've had several strategy meetings.
"I'm just...not gonna comment on that," Willa says. "Twenty minutes, okay?"
"'kay," Dylan says cheerfully, and hangs up. Willa slides her phone carefully back into the zipped up pocket in her purse - she's lost two phones already, and if she loses another one Dad's not gonna pay for it - still grimacing.
"Not gonna comment on what?" Dad asks, flicking the turning signal to head onto the main highway into Stars Hollow.
"Nothin'," Willa says.
Dad smirks a little, looking amused, but he doesn't say anything else. Willa's sure that he has to know about Dylan's crush, or at least suspect - Dylan's not exactly subtle - but he's never said anything, which is nice of him. Willa's not eager to press the issue just yet. "Is it alright if I don't get in with you? I was hoping to get some work done today."
Willa shrugs. "It's cool."
"Are you sure? It's up to you, if you want me to swim with you then I will."
"No, it's fine. Dylan will be there, so it's not like I'll get bored." And it's not like she was looking forward to the experience of watching Dylan ogle him in his swim trunks, Willa thinks silently.
"Alright. Thanks, baby."
"What are you working on?" Willa asks curiously.
"Olivia Cruz sent us her revised manuscript," Dad says. "She's on some retreat out in Colorado or something, so I've got two days to read through it and approve the edits before she gets back and decides to change the entire plot again."
"Is that the one who wrote the book about communist Santa Claus?"
"That was Owen Armstrong," Dad says archly. "And it was very profound."
Willa laughs. "Okay, Dad."
Dad rolls his eyes. "Well, we sold out our first print run in like five months, so whatever," he says. "Cruz is a good writer, and she sells well too, she's just...flighty, that's all."
"What's this flighty book about, then?"
"It's one of those family saga novels," Dad replies. "You know, three generations of parents and kids, tradition and tragedy - that kinda thing. It is good, though. There's some interesting stuff with the youngest daughter that I think you'd like."
Willa likes books - not as much as Dad likes books, but still a healthy amount of like - and she especially likes books with really messy, emotional stuff, like people having affairs and bitter fights and feuds that go on for ages and ages, tragic misunderstandings and miscommunications and bittersweet, unresolved endings. Aunt Christy said once that if a story didn't rip her heart out and feed it to a pack of rabid dogs, then she wouldn't even waste her time trying to get Willa to read it.
"Does she die?" Willa asks.
"Tragically."
"Sweet." Willa grins. "I'll try it."
Dad reaches over and claps Willa on the knee, smirking again. "You can read it once we finalize the edits, if you want."
"Cool," Willa says, settling back into her seat and pulling her phone out of her pocket. Dad switches the radio to Bluetooth for her without even being asked, so in return Willa decides to play something he won't totally hate. (Positive reinforcement is so much more productive than negative.)
Technically they live in Ellington, not Stars Hollow, but since their house is out in the country it doesn't really matter. When they started looking for a real house, Dad insisted on moving outside of the official town limits so Willa wouldn't have to go to Stars Hollow High, which has apparently gotten even worse than when he'd gone there. Willa doesn't really mind; Dylan goes there and she says it's awful - she's always complaining about the other kids, and the teachers, who she says are all either bitter and mean, or super, super young, like right out of college, which means they don't really know what they're doing and usually end up leaving after like a year.
Willa goes to a magnet school on the outskirts of East Hartford, so it's much bigger, and her classes are pretty tough, but she doesn't mind that either. She also has her pick of art classes, because there are like three art teachers and they all specialize in different stuff, so she's taking all the basic ones now so she can get into the cool ones later on, like sculpture and jewelry making and pottery. There's also this program where she can start taking college classes as an upperclassman, if she keeps her grades up and can manage to test out of a few things to clear up her schedule, and Dad said that she can do it even if she doesn't save enough for a car in time. He'll drive her himself if he has to, he said.
She misses going to school with Dylan, and the junior high in Ellington she went to before she started high school, which was a lot smaller but still nice. But overall it's still good - tough to make friends, since there's so many kids, but it's only her first year, and it would've been much worse if they'd stayed in Philadelphia. Probably. Willa can imagine.
It's sort of nice anyway, to be in a small town but also not. It takes just as long to get to Hartford from their house as it does to get to Stars Hollow, and her school is kind of smack dab in the middle between the three. So they can go see Grandpa and Lorelai and Dylan and everyone else whenever they want, but they don't actually have to live in Stars Hollow, which is a pretty good compromise. When they lived above the diner, Dad was always getting roped into doing weird stuff for the festival things, even though most of the people in town didn't really like him very much, so he was always sorta stressed out and annoyed. Willa didn't mind living there so much as she minded the people, who seemed to swing back and forth between extreme friendliness and extreme rudeness, depending on what gossip they'd heard about you that day. Dad always used to say it was like living in a fishbowl, and you either take to it or you don't, and Willa's pretty sure at this point that she doesn't.
Rory and her daughter live in their old apartment now, above the diner. The baby's name is Lorelai Gilmore The Third (which Aunt Lorelai always insists on saying in entirety) but everybody just calls her Squirt. She cries a lot, but Willa guesses she's alright. Everybody in town seems to like her a lot more than they like Willa, anyway.
"Hey Mr. Mariano!" Dylan says, practically skipping out of her house as soon as they pull up. Dad winces visibly. "Hey, Wills. Guess what?"
"What?" Willa says, leaning out the passenger window as Dylan attempts to fold her gangly, deer-like self into the backseat without dropping her duffel bag.
"My mom and dad got a gig! In New York!" Dylan says everything in exclamation points. "And they said we can go!"
"Oh, cool! Where's it at?"
"A club, I think. They told me to invite you, Mr. Mariano, if you're not too busy, which I'm sure you are with your job and everything but no harm in asking, right? So, are you busy?"
"You know," Dad says slowly, "it's okay for you to call me 'Jess,' right kiddo?"
Dylan pulls the door shut, blushing brightly. "Right," she says hesitantly, "um."
Dad quickly takes pity on her. "I'm sure I can work something out. Tell your mom to text me."
"Okay! I will!" Dylan leans forward, still blushing, but holding it together rather admirably. "Wills, you're coming too, right? My dad's getting a hotel room, and my brother's gonna stay at my grandma's, so we'll have an entire room to ourselves!"
"Of course I'm coming," Willa says, because of course she is, "maybe we could go up a day early and do sightseeing stuff. Dad, what's all that stuff you're always babbling about in New York? You know, a hundred thousand years ago, when you were my age."
"I do not know what you are referring to," Dad says crisply, turning sharply back onto the highway. "I was never your age. I emerged fully grown out of my mother's vegetable garden."
Dylan snickers quietly against the side of Willa's seat. "That's like, a reference, right?" she asks.
"Whatever, nerd," Willa says. "All I wanted was a music store recommendation, jeez."
"Those, I have," Dad says. "I'll take you to all the good places, trust me. But you should ask Christy too, she goes there more than I do nowadays."
"Oh yeah, Christy's in town," Willa says to Dylan, who widens her eyes like she's trying to communicate something. Willa just frowns at her. "What?"
"Nothing," Dylan says. "Is she just visiting?"
"For a few days, just for some work stuff," Dad says, a blatant lie that nobody but Willa could call him out on. "She'll probably come with us to dinner tonight, Dylan, if you and your parents wanna stop by for a bit."
"Maybe! They have band practice usually, but I think their bass player might be out of town, so I dunno. Is she staying the whole weekend?"
Willa frowns over her shoulder at her, taken aback by the weirdness that's suddenly in the air. Not that there's anything particularly weird about the question, which is a totally innocent small-talk question (and practically a miracle in its composure, for Dylan's usual attempts at conversation with Willa's dad), but still, it's weird. Willa can sense weird.
"I dunno, maybe," Dad says, breezing past it without a blink. Willa can never tell if he notices when things are weird, or if he truly cares so little about other people's issues that he can ignore it really easily. "Dylan, your music lesson's in Hartford, right?"
"Yeah," Dylan says, widening her eyes at Willa again, like Willa is supposed to know what the hell she's on.
"That means we gotta leave the pool at three, and if you're late then you're gonna go play piano with wet hair, no exceptions. The last time I made you late for music class your mom ripped me a new one."
Dylan rolls her eyes. "She's so uptight sometimes."
"No comment," Dad says. "Hey, put your seatbelt on! This ain't the city bus."
Dylan gives Willa one last look before sliding back into her seat properly, clicking her belt into place loudly. Willa huffs at her silently. Amazing best friend: yes. Weird and inexplicable almost all the time? Also yes.
The pool they usually go to is almost always abandoned because it's in a sketch part of town and the outside building looks really dodgy, but when you go inside the actual pool is always really clean and empty and full of abandoned pool toys that nobody cares if you take home with you. Willa has slowly figured out, over the last couple years of her life really, that there are a lot of things in the world that look totally shady from the outside that aren't really when you give them a chance. Probably that's a metaphor for something.
The only downside is there aren't usually any other people their age to hang out with, but Willa doesn't mind that so much, since the pool is something she does with her dad. Even with Dylan comes, it'd still be weird for him to like, stand awkwardly to the side while she gets her flirt on with handsome water polo players, or whatever. Not that Willa likes water polo players, specifically, but - well, who else would hang out at a pool? Musicians? Please.
So she and Dylan attempt some water volleyball while her Dad kicks his shoes off and types aggressively on his laptop in a lounge chair, but the pool is pretty deserted and they get bored really fast. They try Marco Polo too, but they both suck at it, and Dad keeps helping Dylan cheat, so they give up on that too and retreat to the shady spot underneath the slide to float around and talk shit about people. One of Willa's top ten favorite pastimes.
"You totally have it in the bag," Dylan says. "That Abby girl still has mono, right?"
"Yeah, I saw on Insta that apparently she can't talk at all, just whisper."
"So she's totally out. And Brady Harris choked on the musical number in Grease last fall, so I don't think your teacher will trust her with a lead again, right? Besides, you said she likes to make things fair, and you haven't been a lead yet!"
Dylan goes to all the plays Willa's in, of course, by which she means all of them. Every single show. Not even Willa's dad can say that. "I'm not a very strong singer though," Willa says. "I mean, I'm alright, I guess, but - "
"No, nope, shut up," Dylan says, flipping the end of her wet ponytail at Willa's face. "I don't wanna hear it. You are Cinderella. Capishe? That's it, end of story."
Willa wrinkles her nose. "Filipina Cinderella," she says.
Dylan smacks her. "Don't be like that."
Willa shoots her a dirty look, rubbing the spot on her shoulder where Dylan had gotten her with one of her rings. "Um, ow?"
"I'm just saying," Dylan says, huffing. "If you start thinking like that, then other people will too. You gotta walk the walk, talk the talk." She frowns suddenly. "Wait, nobody's like, said anything to you, have they?"
"No, but - "
"Because I'll kick their ass," Dylan says earnestly, eyes wide and serious. "Willa, you know I will. I will beat the fucking shit out them."
Willa almost snorts water up her nose, she's laughing so hard. "You're such a freak," she manages.
"Just saying," Dylan says. Willa floats closer, and lays her head on her shoulder, just because, and Dylan pats her hair affectionately. "You're gonna kill it, don't worry."
"I'm so nervous," Willa confesses, because no way she'd say it to anyone else. She jerks her head up, shaking it briskly to get the nerves out. "But I don't wanna talk about it anymore. Let's put a lid on it, pal."
"Sure thing, buddy," Dylan says cheerfully. "So is your dad like, dating Christy?"
Willa almost snorts water up her nose again. "What?"
"People have been talking," Dylan says, almost apologetically.
"Is that what that was about in the car? Jeez, Dyl."
"Was I weird?" Dylan asks, looking suddenly worried. "Or pushy? I know I'm pushy. Oh my God, he probably thinks I'm a total spaz - "
Willa nudges her, hard, which has been doing the trick lately when she spirals into weird crush-on-Dad mode. "He's not dating Christy."
"Okay, but this is like, the third time she's come down for the weekend in like, two months," Dylan says. "That's what, one weekend here, one weekend home? That's dating frequency, Wills."
Willa frowns. "I hadn't...really noticed," she says honestly. "Wait - who's talking? Just your parents, or like…people?"
"People," Dylan says, definitely apologetic now. "You know half the town thinks he and Rory Gilmore are getting it on again - "
"Oh God," Willa says.
"And so of course they notice when he's always bringing a hot blonde around for family dinner. Plus, there's Kirk's running betting pool on whether or not he's Squirt's father, which - "
"Oh God," Willa says.
" - you and I both know he's not, but you know Stars Hollow," Dylan finishes with a wince. "They're all nuts, as far as I'm concerned. But…"
"But it'll blow up in everyone's face anyway," Willa says. She groans, leaning back to soak her hair in the water. "Just please tell me my grandpa doesn't know about it."
"Dunno about that," Dylan says with a shrug. She lowers the bottom half of her face beneath the water, blowing a few bubbles before rising up again, squinting at Willa. "Are you sure they're not dating? Like, would he maybe...not tell you right away, until he was sure it was like, a thing?"
Willa considers. Christy does spend a lot of time at home with them, but Willa always thought that was just...whatever, like a thing they did. Everybody has friends, even dads. Especially dads like Willa's, who are still pretty young, as dads go, and not married, or bogged down with exes and multiple little kids in multiple houses, like Willa's lockermate Sara's dad, who has four kids from three different wives. Every time he picks Sara up from school he's always got one of them with him, hanging off his arm crying or laughing or generally making a lot of annoying noise - no, Willa's dad doesn't have to deal with any of that, all he's got is Willa, who if she doesn't say so herself, is pretty fricking awesome, and really she's practically grown up already, so if he wanted to date his hot blonde divorced no-kids best friend who drinks whiskey with him in the living room at midnight he totally fricking could and -
"Oh God," Willa says again, and dunks her head under the water.
Dylan looks extremely worried when she comes back up, fiddling with the loose strap on her bikini top and eyeing Willa like she's about to cry, or something. "I didn't mean to like, give you an issue," she says.
"Don't worry, I won't hold it against you," Willa says, shooting her a dirty look. "Much."
Willa is pretty quiet for the rest of the afternoon, mostly because every time she goes to say something she gets a mental flash of Christy on the couch that morning, snoring and wearing one of her dad's t-shirts. She hadn't thought anything of it, at the time, but isn't that weird?! Maybe. But maybe not! Willa is profoundly unsure of the meaning of the t-shirt. On one hand: Christy always borrows clothes from them, because she always forgets to pack something to sleep in, and obviously Willa's clothes don't fit her. On the other hand: Willa is certain that wearing a man-friend's clothes is a romantic gesture, because she's seen it in a bunch of movies. Are movie gestures based on real life gestures, or is it just one of those things that Sandra Bullock does so everyone just thinks it's romantic? Does Willa's dad even do romance? Like, obviously, he did at least once, because Willa is right here existing, but every time somebody has ever asked her dad if he's seeing anyone or bringing a date to something he makes a very specific annoyed face, so maybe he's one of those people who just doesn't like sex.
Holy shit, sex! Willa's dad, having it? Engaging in it?! Oh God, Willa wants to die.
"Are you alright, babe?" asks her dad, as if sensing that Willa is right there at that very moment, dying inside because of his love life. "You're pretty quiet."
Willa runs through a couple options, for replies, but settles on a silent shrug, which seems safest.
"Did you and Dylan have a fight or something? She seemed a little off too, when we dropped her off."
"No, we didn't fight." Willa swallows heavily. "We just...talked about some intense stuff, is all."
"You seemed pretty intense, under that slide," Dad tries to tease, his face falling a bit when Willa doesn't respond. "You wanna talk about it with me, or is it girl stuff?"
"Just girl stuff," Willa says thinly, feeling wretched.
"Okay." Dad reaches out and squeezes her knee. "Let me know if you change your mind."
"Thanks, Dad," Willa says, a bit warmer. He really is, all around, a Good Dad. She feels really lucky sometimes, that she got a good one. Especially when so many people at school seem to have wound up with mediocre ones, weird ones, but most often really bad ones, who skip out on stuff and yell in the lobby on their phones during school concerts.
Not that her dad doesn't also yell in the lobby on his phone, but he always waits until after Willa's part is over, and he's doing it with affection, most of the time. He never yells at Willa, and that's the important part.
"Maybe you could talk to Christy instead," Dad suggests, with the naivete of all dads everywhere who have no idea what sick thoughts their teenage daughters have been obsessing about. "She's pretty good with girl talk."
"Oh God," Willa says, unable to help herself.
"What?" says Dad. "What'd I say?"
Willa just smooshes her forehead into the car window and groans.