to blend into the background.’ Some of us didn’t pop out of the womb wanting to be lawyers.”
“I don’t want to be a lawyer!” Sophia said so loudly that a man walking his dog across the street stopped and stared. Sophia waved at him and muttered, “Mind your own business.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Teddy said. “You’ve wanted to be a lawyer since we were kids. You’ve always been so good at arguing.”
“No, Mom wanted me to be a lawyer,” Sophia corrected her. “Don’t you remember what it was like after Dad left? Mom became a walking copy of whatever the nineties equivalent of Lean In was. She was always, like, researching colleges and buying me SAT prep software programs and talking about my big future as a powerful lawyer and it was . . . I don’t know. I didn’t realize I could want anything else, you know?”
Teddy nodded. They turned toward Grandview Avenue. Teddy crossed her arms and smiled at someone walking a greyhound.
“I remember what you were like when you were a little kid,” Sophia said as they walked past a hair salon. “You had so much energy, and you didn’t care what anyone thought. I was miserably full of hormones and I so admired that about you. It was like you weren’t concerned with impressing anyone; you were just yourself. You were . . .”
“Hell on wheels,” Teddy said quietly.
Sophia smiled. “Yeah, basically. But then, after Dad left, you changed.”
Teddy thought about it for a moment. “I don’t think you can be hell on wheels forever.”
“Maybe we should try, though,” Sophia said. “I wish I had a little bit of that young Teddy spirit.”
Teddy frowned. “So do you really not want to be a lawyer? Seriously?”
Sophia shook her head vigorously. “No. Craig keeps telling me I should quit and go back to school, that we have money saved up. He always says you shouldn’t spend your life following someone else’s dream.”
“Craig said that, huh?” Teddy asked, nodding slowly. Apparently he held hidden depths when he wasn’t shoveling food into his mouth. “So what do you want to do?”
“I want to be a teacher,” Sophia said. “A high school teacher. Is that ridiculous?”
Teddy smiled. “No, Sophia. It’s not ridiculous at all.”
Sophia sighed. “You don’t want to run a toy store, do you? I’ve never once heard you say that was your dream.”
Teddy could feel herself getting defensive, but willed herself to push her shoulders down and take a deep breath. “Maybe life isn’t always about dreams, though. Maybe it’s about making the best of what’s in front of you.”
Sophia chewed on her lip. “Yeah. You’re right; sometimes it is. But I don’t think that’s the situation you’re in, and I don’t think you want to do this. Rarely is there a situation where your only choice is to run a vintage toy store.”
Despite herself, Teddy smiled. “Well, thanks for the advice.”
Sophia groaned. “I’m sorry. I’m being annoying. It’s just . . . I care about you, okay? And while I’m on a roll . . . what happened to that guy?”
“Everett?” Teddy asked. “Well . . . I kind of broke up with him.”
Sophia frowned. “Why?”
Teddy sighed. “He has a big life, you know? Big dreams. Big goals. And I don’t know if I can handle that again. I don’t want to lose myself in someone else.”
Sophia thought about it for so long that Teddy thought she wasn’t going to respond, but then she said, “Yeah, but you only lost yourself in Richard because he sucked. When it’s really love, you don’t have to lose yourself. Falling in love should make you more yourself.”
“Maybe instead of becoming a teacher, you should start writing self-help books,” Teddy joked, and Sophia elbowed her. But Teddy’s mind snagged on her words. Was Sophia right? Was there a way she could be with Everett without losing herself in the process?
But then she realized where they were and stopped walking. “Did you see that we’re right in front of Jeni’s?”
Sophia glanced up at the sign and her face looked exactly the same as it had when they were kids and she saw ice cream. “Well, we have to go in, right?”
Teddy nodded. “I don’t see any other option.”
* * *
—
AFTER SHE GOT back home, Teddy spent the rest of her afternoon cleaning up. She still needed to keep busy to avoid thinking about Everett, but luckily going through the boxes of clothes she had brought from the town house kept her occupied.
When her