Authors: Emma McLaughlin
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Coming of Age, #Contemporary Women
Dedication (22 page)
“Sorry, Undecided, that’s my ride. Good luck—I mean, I guess, good luck to us.”
“Thanks!” I watch him jog off and realize I’m smiling. And flirting. And, for one second, forgetting.
“…Further compounding the devastation,”
the British voice intones from the Motel 6 TV,
“is the inability of the baby elephant to leave his mother’s body once the hunters have removed her tusks. He will stay by her side, crying, until eventually he, too, dies from dehydration and starvation.”
She lowers her glasses to shoot me an inquiring look from where she sits on her own double bed, reviewing her staff’s lesson plans for next year and drinking Fresca. I hate her. Hate her look. Hate her glasses. Hate her lesson plans. I even hate her Fresca.
“Yes, Mom, if hunters shoot you for your precious silver drop-ball earrings I will stay by your side, keening, until I, too, die of dehydration and starvation.”
“Good.” She returns her attention to the pile of binders in her lap, neither of us discussing the day or my undecided-ness. Or the fact that I hate her. Hate her.
“The ivory is then smuggled across the border…”
My eyes swing from the screen to my backpack hanging from the chair, its small side pocket filled with hoarded quarters.
“We’re switching over to
90210
at nine, right?”
She makes a red swoop on the page with her ballpoint. “I want to see how this ends.”
“The world runs out of elephants and all we have to remember them by are a few Babar cartoons and
Horton Hatches the Egg.”
She pauses her sanguine marking. “That was a wonderful book. That’s when we got you Mr. Lephant.” She smiles. “You couldn’t pronounce elephant.”
A group of men encircle the felled animal with hacksaws. “Mom, seriously, this is stressing me out.”
“Perspective. It’s meant to give you perspective.”
“So that when I end up snorting blow with Jessica in matching dog sweaters I’ll think, hey, this sucks, but at least no one’s trying to kill me for my eyeteeth?”
“Exactly.” She scribbles a note on the last page and sets it down, not looking at me. “Does that mean you’re still undecided?” It means I need to call my fucking boyfriend! “I hear Swarthmore has a high rate of cannibalism, actually. Not surprising, given the aroma emanating from that dining hall.” She takes another swig of Fresca.
“Isn’t your soda warm?” I ask, hopping off the faded floral coverlet.
“Kind of.” She swishes the can in a little circle before sliding it onto the table.
“I’ll get ice.”
“Oh no you won’t.” She points her pen to freeze me, the backpack already slung over my shoulder. “This is the land of and-we-never-saw-her-again.”
“Are you kidding?”
“We are probably the only guests of this establishment”—she circles her Bic in the air—“who don’t have a teenager gagged in the trunk of our car.”
I pick the plastic ice bucket off the table by the window and un-chain the door. “I’m going to college next year.”
“And here I thought this was a pleasure cruise.”
“I mean I’ll be doing this on my own,” my voice tightens in annoyance as I gesture to the world beyond the closed curtains.
“On your own? Or with the
ice
you’re getting?” Her fingers bob in cruel quotation marks.
“On my own.”
I grip the door. “And you have
forfeited
your right to worry—prod—pretty much have any kind of opinion at all. So, just stop, okay? Stop pretending like you’re still my mom, because it makes me sick.” I finally release the phrase that’s been ricocheting through my head since her car pulled up at Jake’s. “You make me sick.”
My backpack thumping against my side, I race along the long concrete walkway and down the steps to the lobby. “Pleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease,” I intone with every rushed step. I pull open the glass door to the cramped room, relieved to see the pay phone unoccupied.
“Help you?” The manager sticks his head out from the office, where I can hear a rerun of
Three’s Company
starting.
“Just using the pay phone.”
“Oh. ’Kay. Just don’t take too long. That there’s communal,” he grunts, retreating.
I set my backpack down on the shiny plaid loveseat and retrieve a fistful of quarters. Holding the receiver, slick with trucker hair cream and sweat, to my ear, I dial carefully, punching the numbers with force enough to make him be home.
The phone rings and rings. “Pleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease.” And rings. I wait eight, sixteen, twenty-four rings. Finally the line cuts.
“Shit.”
The head pops out again.
“Sorry!” Girl Scout cookie?
“Hmph,” he grunts.
I drop the quarters in again and redial. On the second ring it answers.
“Hello?” Susan’s voice snakes through the line.
“Hi! It’s Katie. Is Jake home?”
“Jake, are you home?” she asks snidely. “He’s right here,” she says without enthusiasm.
“Hey.” One low syllable and the tense hours and tours and Public Broadcasting and Wendy’s and moldy showers all swirl away. “Hold on, I’m gonna go pick up in my room, okay?”
“Sure,” I reply uncertainly, pulling out my last clump of change. I drum my fingers on the scratched plywood wall, pumping in another twenty-five cents each time the line starts to beep.
“Still there?” his voice finally fills the connection, low and husky.
“Yes,” I say, turning into the phone as if it could put its arm around me.
“How’s it going?”
“Seventy-two hours in a car with my mom—what’s not to love?”
“But you’re almost done, right?” he asks encouragingly.
“Yeah, we’ll be back late Sunday night.”
“That’ll be me, throwing Brainy at your window.”
I smile, the corners of my mouth suddenly trembling as I try to imagine going months without seeing him, our life together lived only on greasy pay phones.
“I’m glad you called,” he says.
Swallowing, I try to relax my mouth. “I couldn’t get through before.”
“Oh, was that you? Yeah, we were fighting.”
“What about?”
“Same old shit. Well,” he pauses, “not exactly. I got into UVM.”
“Jake!” I try to exclaim, but my throat constricts around the air as I push it out. “That’s great! You guys’ll all be together.”
“Yeah, Sam’s already trying to see if we can room and Laura’s figuring out sharing a car,” he laughs, but his voice sounds no more enthused than mine.
“That’s so…great. Congratulations.” The last word comes out strangled as the tears break.
“Hey, hey, don’t be sad.”
“But I’m leaving all of you,” I choke out. “You’ll all be together, building these great college memories and I’m going to be…Jake, UVA was so much more beautiful than any of the other places even though it’s, like, a sixteen-hour trip home. People seem nice and relaxed, but not too relaxed, and they smile, but not like zealots. It doesn’t feel like they’re going to be snorting vitamins with Westies—”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I reach into my backpack for a wad of napkins. “No, that’s great,” I repeat, “It’s really great. I’m so happy for you.”
“I love you, Katie.”
Now it’s my turn to, “What?” as I blow my nose.
“I love you. And no amount of distance is ever going to change that. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” I affirm.
“No. Listen. I—love—you.” His voice slows, as if trying to carve these words into me. “And
no
amount of distance is ever going to change that. Remember that? Promise.”
“So does that mean—so what should I do?”
The line starts to bleat, having swiftly digested my last quarters.
The manager sticks his head out again, his gaze suspicious, resentful.
“Katie? Katie?” cries down the line. “Promise?”
“Jake?!”
My arms tightly crossed, I slouch in the passenger seat and struggle to keep my eyes closed. My mouth dry from a night of crying, it’s easier to pretend to be asleep than admit consciousness and risk another round of screaming. The car thuds rhythmically over the highway joists and I lift a lid to peek out at as we go over a bridge. The sun glints off the water below. Screw it. I “blink” awake. Mom grips the wheel, her face taut and pale.
“I’m not trying to make you perfect,” she says quietly, her voice hoarse. I stare out the window at the dandelions spotting the wayside beneath a sign informing me that this mile is being maintained by Bette Midler. “I’m not aiming for perfect and I never have. Neither has your father.”
I clench my jaw at her invocation. “I know that, Mom.”
“I took a week off from work to do this—”
“Because Dad’s library job just started.”
“
Because
I want you to see what your options are—how big the world is. You think I’ve forfeited my right to advise you, Katie, but you
need
to see—” She waves her hand. “How big your life can be.”
“I know. And I don’t want to rent an apartment over a convenience store in Burlington and be a waitress.”
“I only said that because if you’re so sure that your life is about Jake Sharpe, then we’d rather see you take a semester off and
really
see what it’s like to have Jake be your first priority.”
“We’d?”
I bite the inside of my cheeks. “Okay, well, I’m
not
so sure.” I throw my arms open. “About anything—any of this! How could I be? I know you’ve done it before, I know, but you’re not me, you’re you.” I take a deep rattling breath, feeling the loss of her. “And you didn’t have a Jake.”
“Not at seventeen, I didn’t.”
“So you don’t know, either. About anything.” I root around for napkins and, giving up, swipe my sweater across my face. “It just sucks that the one thing I do know right now, and I do mean
one thing,
is that I love him and he loves me, and that’s a really good thing. And to choose to leave that behind like it’s a box of my old toys just ’cause I’m supposed to follow in this path that
arbitrarily
comes in September feels so…
reckless. Reckless,
Mom. You guys always said it’s people that matter and here I am making this decision and you’re questioning my priorities and I…I…” My chest shakes with sobs. I feel her warm hand on my head, which only makes me cry harder. “Fuck, Mom, why didn’t you just let me apply to UVM?”
Hearing nothing, I look up to see tears streaming down her face as she pulls to the side of the highway. Hunched over the wheel, she pushes the leather into her forehead and scrunches her eyes.
“Mom?” She turns her face away from me, her shoulders shaking. Cars race by honking loudly. “Mom, maybe we should put on the hazards?”
She whips her head up and throws the switch as she pulls her hand across her nose. “No fucking napkins?”
I feel around fruitlessly again. “No fucking napkins.”
“Okay, Kathryn. Here’s the truth. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. Neither does Dad. And I miss him. And I fucked up. But I’m still your parent. There you go.” Tears roll down her cheeks and she focuses her eyes in the distance.
“Okay,” I say, thinking I’d finally feel better with this admission, but instead feel only more nauseated at the seemingly bottomless revelations of their fallibility.
“We wanted to throw you a big graduation party in the backyard and send you off to an amazing adventure somewhere wonderful and new that you could make all your own and instead, every single discussion we have about what’s next for you is a ringing chorus of JakeJakeJake. He can’t be the core criteria for your life planning, Kathryn. I know he’s been a wonderful friend to you through this…this time, but you can’t plan your life with a man as the primary building block.”
I feel the ache of another hit. “You say that like I’m ruined.”
“You’re not. You’re not ruined.” She leaves off the
yet.
“You’re great.”
“This again.” She smiles, licking under her nose. “I’m making this decision for myself, Mom, not you or Jake or Ms. Hotchkiss.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
“Really?” I inquire sarcastically. “’Cause it feels like when we get home you’re going to sleep in my room and follow me everywhere.”
“I am!” she says, flicking the hazard lights off and scanning over her shoulder for a spot to pull back on. “Everyone should. You’re such a charmer, especially since you ate those sour cream and onion potato chips for breakfast.”
“You showed a lot of restraint there.”
“I’m ‘letting you go,’ remember? God, we need napkins.” She sniffles.
“And snacks.” I crack my window, letting the racing air dry my face.
“And a prom dress!” She flourishingly flicks the turn signal as she nods at a billboard for a mall. “Think they have a family therapist at the Jessica McClintock Factory Outlet?” She pulls us onto the exit ramp.
December 23, 2005
Jake pulls us into the Croton Falls Country Club, driving the length of the empty parking lot and around to the back where the last trickle of kitchen staff emerge, hunching against the wind as they stride to their allotted parking spaces at the far end.
“Here, this way,” Jake says, hopping out of the front seat and coming around to my door. He pops it open, holding out his hand.
Immobile, arms crossed, I stare at the weather-beaten changing cabanas. “Jake, it’s closed.”
“Just come on.” He smiles entreatingly. “Please?”
I glance at my watch. “Can’t we just sit in a heated diner and have a discussion like normal people do in the middle of the night?”
“Not unless you want it broadcast in thirty-two countries.”
“Why here?” I point at the dark brick building.
“We’re gonna have ourselves a prom. If you would please get out of the fucking car.”
Rolling my eyes, I nonetheless extract myself from the vehicle and fall into step with him across the recently plowed concrete. As the last two men round out of sight he points to where the service door is still propped with a brick. “See? It’s practically an invitation.”
I look at him, trying to suppress a smile.
“Come on.” I nod and, ducking, follow him as he snakes through the kitchen and into a darkened back hallway smelling of salmon steaks and tartar sauce. “This way.”
“How do you know?” I whisper.
“We played here, like, a thousand times.”
“Right,” I remember, as we hustle along the corridor in the dark. “Your ‘Feelings’ had ’em on their feet every time.”
“
That
is an underrated song.”
“Really?”
“No.” He pushes against the swinging door to the dining room and we stand at its edge. The starkness of the round folding tables, bare without their starched linens, is softened by the moon reflecting off the snow-blanketed golf course, filling the space with a milky light.
Even though I haven’t grown a centimeter since senior year the room feels, if slightly ethereal, predictably smaller and infinitely less glamorous—the walls ringed with fake holly wreaths, the stage offering a small tinseled tree. Jake walks backward away from me across the parquet dance floor, his arms outstretched. “So? What was it like?”
“What was it like?” I echo.
He stands in the middle of the floor. “Yeah. Describe it for me.”
“Well…” I look around, the room filling in my mind’s eye with beaded satin and rented tuxes, the ecstatic couples, the stag tables, swept-up hair and let-down girls, open disappointment and hidden flasks. “This is all through a thick veil of tears, mind you.”
He nods, his acknowledgment buying him a guided tour.
“Okay, the theme was Shoot for the Stars, so there were star-shaped Mylar balloons all over the ceiling.” I gesture up to the fire-proof tiling. “Which sounds heinous, but I thought it looked like the ‘Modern Love’ video and kind of liked it.” He raises his eyebrows. “It was
controversial.
Anyway, everything was silver and twinkly. Michelle and her crew had put in a lot of effort and…it was a prom.” I shrug. “The drink tables were set up here, I think…and here.”
Jake is watching my arcing arms, looking at each place I point as if it were all reappearing. He beams at me.
“Sam, Todd, Benjy—they were playing. Sam sang.”
“And I’m up there, too. In this version.”
He hops effortlessly onto the stage and stands by the unplugged microphone. “What were you wearing?”
“A pink satin Jessica McClintock bubble dress.” I gesture to mimic the pouf.
“Hot.”
“Donna Martin wore one just like it.”
He smiles and starts to sing,
“Is it getting better, or do you feel the same?”
his voice filling the room with “One,” which he’d always dedicated to me. Prophetic. “Then we’d finish our set and the DJ’d take over and we’d all get to come dance with our girlfriends.” He steps off the stage. “May I?”
“I—” I protest, but, continuing to hum the song, he slides his fingers into mine, lifting my hands to the back of his neck where they rest against his warm skin. His hands grasp my hips and we start slow dancing. And I am overcome by how good this feels as we sway to the suggestion of music that vibrated out into the universe over a decade ago. I breathe in deeply, smelling his skin beneath the cologne he endorses, that familiar scent I always likened to fresh sweet corn.
He whispers in my ear. “Prom…check. What else you need?”
The realization strikes me. I summon the strength to suspend this fantasy in order to get what I have come for. I pull back to look him in the eye. “I need you to break up with me.”
He casts his gaze to the floor.
“I need to hear it.”
“Okaaay.” Raising his lashes, he searches my face. “Um, I guess I would have told you—”
“No.” I shake my head. “Not ‘would have.’”
He nods, getting what I’m asking. “Katie?”
“Yes?”
“There’s something I’ve been needing to tell you, trying to…figure out how to tell you. You know how that scout came and saw us play and…well, he wants me to come out to L.A. He thinks he can get me a record deal.” He rubs his chin, slipping into seventeen.
“Wow, that’s amazing,” I say, feeling an unexpected flicker of authentic enthusiasm.
“So, I’ve thought about having you come with me, and I’ve been playing it through and playing it through, but…”
“But?” I peer at him, desperate for this impossible question to finally be answered.
“You have college and I have no idea what it’s going to be like out there and…and…everything in your life is so fragile right now.” He slides his hand through my hair to cradle my head, his expression agonized. “If this doesn’t work out, I couldn’t live with myself if I drag you down with me. Anyway, I know I’m going to miss you so fucking much it’s going to be hard to breathe. I know I’m going to wake up every day…
every
day and wonder if I made a huge mistake…but I’ve gotta go. I just have to, Katie.”
“I know,” I say, finally able to give the benediction denied expression.
“You do?”
“I do. Everything, everything you’ve achieved, Jake, I wanted for you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You are?” I lunge once more. “For what?”
“For ever leaving you.” He leans in and our lips meet and we sink into each other, our hands sliding under wool, finding skin. He tastes the same. Tastes exactly the same.
“You taste the same,” I murmur into his hair as he kisses my neck. Knees bending we melt onto the scuffed parquet, hands finding familiar tracks. Then he undoes his buckle, pulling a condom out of his pocket.
“No, no. Oh, God, no, stop.” I sit up. “We can’t do this.” I pull down my shirt.
“Yes. Yes, we can.” He reaches for my belt.
“Well, obviously, yes, we’re physically capable. But you have a fiancée. Here. Now. In 2005. And three friends who you do owe, yes, Jake,
owe
royalties and credit. You have
got
to make good on that.”
“But we’ve wasted—”
I shoot him a look.
“I’ve wasted too much time.” He slides his hands back around my hips.
“Jake.” I unlock his grip. “This is…I don’t know what this is. A time warp. Remnant hormones.” I stand, collecting myself as I refasten my bra.
“Come on, we’ve already done the deed before, so it doesn’t really count.”
“That’s the most specious argument I’ve ever heard.”
He leans back on his elbows. “My point is, our confessional lists won’t get any longer. Come here.”
I stare down at him. He pulls himself up to standing, stepping close, our faces almost touching again. “Jesus, Katie, are you telling me you don’t feel this?”
I blink and steady myself, trying to reconnect with every minute of my twenties spent ranting in a parking lot outside some event that had just been sabotaged for me by its own soundtrack, swearing that if I ever got the chance…Pulling the words from half-remembered speeches that once pounded through my head on long morning runs, “I’m telling you that you don’t deserve it. Yes, this was prom and you fucked it up. Yes, we have chemistry.
Huge
chemistry. Multiplatinum chemistry. Yes, you’ve been missing out all these years. But you left, Jake. You left. And I built a whole life that has nothing to do with you. Which, and let me be abundantly clear, is not available to you as creative material. Nor those of its auxiliary players, no matter how poetic their actions may strike you. So, while I appreciate the apology, I’d appreciate it even more if you took me home so I can finally get on with it.”
