Going Vintage (4 page)

“No. You’re
too
good for him and he’s a jerk who says awful things about you.” She pauses. “So you need to move on. Eduardo! Let’s find you an Eduardo!”

“Awful things?” I ask. “Jeremy never even talked about me on the e-mails. I’m invisible.”

“No, the stuff he wrote on his Friendspace.”

My stomach nose-dives. “
What
stuff on Friendspace?”

Ginnie is silent.

“I’m getting Dad’s computer.”

“Mal, now might not be the best time to look.”

I’m not listening. I’m scrambling up the stairs. Dad’s left his netbook on the counter. I log in to my Friendspace account with shaking hands. My page is filled with comments and questions from friends. I click on a picture of Jeremy, and it redirects me to his page.

There’s a feature to list your top five friends and include a bunch of random, inside jokes about those people. So you could have “Hank Inkley—Sloppy Slippers!” and, of course, that probably only makes sense to Hank, but then everyone sees how tight you are. Jeremy’s had “Floater Fish” next to my name forever—we were at a party once, and he said I fit in with everyone, that I just swim back and forth between groups like a fish. Which was actually pretty insightful—I’ve never had a best friend apart from my sister; I’ve always just had a few goodish friends. And so then whenever he would see me mingling, he’d make a fish face, looking so cute that I’d want to kiss those puckered lips right then.

But now, the inside jokes are gone, and Jeremy’s relationship status says two words.

“OVER IT?” I say out loud. When Ginnie doesn’t respond, I look around, realizing I threw the phone onto the kitchen counter. “He makes it sound like he broke up with me. But I dumped him. And I didn’t even dump him, because we haven’t
talked
.”

“It’s just a defense mechanism. He’s trying to save face.”

“Did you see the comments?” I ask. “Someone said I hooked up with Corbin Griffin? I don’t even
know
Corbin Griffin!”

“Didn’t he run track last year?” Ginnie asks.

“And Jeremy’s responding to the comments! Joking! Someone calls his girlfriend a slut and he smiley-faces back. What self-respecting human being answers that with an
emoticon
?” I slam the screen shut. “Jeremy elopes with a flavor of gum and
I’m
the bad guy.”

“Everyone knows Friendspace isn’t real,” Ginnie says. “Look, I can see why you’re upset. But don’t you think this will blow over? Tomorrow Friendspace will be all about some picture of a baseball player passed out with a Sharpie mustache. Jeremy’s relationship status will be forgotten and you can heal in peace.”

My phone vibrates with a text. “Hold on.”

I glance at the screen. Thirty-two texts. Seven are from Paige and Cardin, my two closest friends when I’m not with Jeremy or Ginnie. Paige’s texts are full-sentence diatribes. It’s a good thing her parents aren’t on the pay-by-the-syllable plan. And Cardin’s are just … Cardin. Sound effects to punctuate her mood, most definitely as she reads through the Friend-space battleground.

And there are six texts from Jeremy, starting with WHERE DID YOU GO? to WHY DID YOU HACK INTO MY ACCOUNT? to IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK. to I’M NOT GOING TO FREAKING STALK YOU to CALL ME to SO THIS IS HOW IT IS.

But some texts? Some are from people
I don’t even know
, like someone posted my number on a People to Hate message board. I scroll through but stop reading after the fourth text from a stranger.

I CANT BELIEVE THAT YOU WOULD MESS WITH JEREMY.

I WILL CUT YOU IF YOU HURT HIM ANYMORE!!! TRUST!

The only thing worse than personal anguish is when that personal anguish is grotesquely twisted and broadcast in an untrue light. These people don’t know me—they don’t have any clue what happened. They’re just jumping onto a thread train, gleefully commenting on a topic that happened to pop up on their daily news feed.

“I’m done!” I scream, the rage raw in my voice. “Done with computers and phones and … and … fake fakeness. I’m talking complete isolation. No networking or chatting or texting or computering.”

“Good.” Ginnie’s voice is encouraging. “That’ll be healthy for a couple of days. Focus on yourself.”

“Forget that. Try
forever
. I am so over this decade, this century.”

“I don’t think this century is your problem.”

“You’re right. Technology is the problem.”

“But you’re using technology right now,” Ginnie says.

I hold my phone out, giving the gadget a look of severe disgust. I switch to speaker, so I don’t have to get too close to The Battery-Operated Evil. “Yep. And do you know what cell phones cause? Cancer.”

“Mallory.”

“And people die texting while driving. They’re villainous contraptions. Computers? Oh man, Internet predators lurk,
lurk
, online. For all Jeremy knows, BubbleYum is a fifty-eight-year-old pervert in Ohio.”

“I hope she/he is,” Ginnie offers. “Wouldn’t that be poetic?”

None of this is poetic. I slide Dad’s netbook into his briefcase. Netbook. A modern version of a
notebook
. Which reminds me of something. Grandma’s pen-and-paper, honest-to-goodness notebook. “Wait. I found this list of Grandma’s from when she was sixteen. You know what she was worrying about?”

“The still undiscovered effects of secondhand smoke?”

“Learning how to sew. Sewing, Gin. Her life was much easier because it was much simpler. Wholesome. And that’s why she’s so incredible now—because her past was so perfect. What if we went back to that?”

“You mean, like, wear thrift-store stuff? You already do that with your eighties phase. And remember your forties military trend—ugh, so much khaki.”

“I’m not talking about clothes. I want to go back to how life was when Grandma made that list. To simplify. Connect. Get to, I don’t know, my core. If they didn’t have it around in 1962, I’m not interested. Not just technology, either.”

Ginnie gives a low grunt. “But this is kind of your deal. You jump in on a crazy whim but ditch the idea before lunch-time. You need to think of a long-term solution for your pain. Like Eduardo.”

“Would you
shut up
about Eduardo?”

“All I’m saying is a list won’t fix your problem.”

“Of course it won’t. That’s not my point.” I start to pace the room. “I can’t fix the past, but I can fix my future, right?”

“How does ignoring your cell phone have anything to do with Jeremy being a tool?”

“If Jeremy didn’t have a computer or the Internet, he wouldn’t have met BubbleYum. If I didn’t have this cell phone, strangers couldn’t text me threats. Technology is the reason my life is falling apart.” My voice rises. I’ve never felt this passionate about anything before—the world, or my world at least, is suddenly so much clearer, like everything before was a big surface float, and now, for the first time, I’m diving into the deep end of life. I have to say it out loud, I have to commit, I have to prove that fulfillment is still possible. Unplugged. “If I go back to when people actually talked in person, to when things were real, then maybe it
will
be real. That’s what I need. Some good, old-fashioned, legitimate reality.”

“You’ll be texting by sundown.”

“No way. Trust.”

“You’re really doing this?” Ginnie just as well could’ve asked if I was scaling Everest in flip-flops. Which, naturally, makes me want to give up technology and do this list even more. To prove her wrong. No, to prove the world wrong.

“I am absolutely committed. I give you my vow.”

“You
give
your word. A vow is something you
make
.”

“It doesn’t matter! I vow. Vowed. It’s happened. This time
is
different. You’ll see.” I have a goal, a purpose. And I’m going vintage until I accomplish every task on Grandma’s list.

Chapter 4

Gifts from Jeremy:

1. The Purple Paper Clip: Jeremy and I did this English report together last year, right after we’d started “talking” but before we started “dating,” which basically meant we were hooking up but not acknowledging that in front of polite society yet. Jeremy’s job was researching nineteenth-century English writers, mine was to put all our thoughts together (read: write the paper), and then he printed out the report and made a poster with selective
works and author photos. Right before class, he handed me my copy, held together by a purple paper clip because, as Jeremy said, “that one time I wore a purple shirt and my friends were laughing about it and you said your favorite color was purple and that shut them up.”

My favorite color is actually yellow, for those playing along at home, but I kept the paper clip all the same
.

2. Playlists: I’m not big into the music scene, but I know what I like when I hear it. And Jeremy knew (knows?) music so well that if I told him one song I liked, he could find me thirty other bands I would love. One weekend, he stole my iPod and made me playlists with themes like Happy Mallory, Sad Mallory, Studying Mallory. Oh, and Ready-to-Go Mallory, the most commonly played
.

I wonder if that weekend, when Jeremy was shuffling all those songs around for me, he was also e-mailing BubbleYum. If he made her playlists. What HER themes were
.

3. One of those cologne cards from Hollister with Jake, Jeremy’s scent
.
I had three or four of them: in my desk, in my purse, by my bed. When I missed him, I’d sniff. Yes, I’m a lame little sniffer
.

4. The ruby pawnshop ring: I’m going to sell the ring next time I’m at the pawnshop, let someone else build a better history with it
.

5. A broken heart. Nonreturnable
.

Dad and I go into a packing frenzy. It isn’t moving-to-a-new-house packing—Grandma Vivian doesn’t plan on keeping most of her stuff, and the furniture stays for the new renters. A third of the boxes will go to Goodwill, another third Dad deems “of value” and will be stocked in our garage and inventoried. The rest is the good stuff, the pictures and journals and knickknacks that make my grandma’s life her life. All I have to do is weed through baby pictures of my dad and his siblings, through the family reunions, to teen Vivian. Even one picture will help.

Despite boxing up his childhood, Dad’s benevolent enough to offer Morgan’s Steakhouse. We rarely go somewhere expensive, only on birthdays or when he’s sold a house. Lately, birthdays—which, as you know, are
annual
events—feel like the more common occurrence.

That remark is the kind of thing my mom grumbles to herself when she’s paying the bills. It’s an unfair jab, especially since the man is offering me steak.

“Get the steak if you want,” Dad says. “Surf and turf this baby. I know Rodney’s train set will get me five hundred, easy.”

“Get
you
five hundred dollars, or Uncle Rodney?”

Dad tears off a piece of bread and slathers it with butter. “Uncle Rodney makes more in a month than I do a year. He’s not going to miss the train set.”

“Even for sentimental purposes?” I ask.

“If he was sentimental, he’d be down here helping me.” Our waitress appears and Dad beams at her. “Two wedge salads and two surf and turfs. Bloody on my steak, burned on hers.”

“Petite filet. I don’t need the surf,” I say. “And don’t burn the steak, just sear it before it’s cooked. I like a little pink.” The waitress nods and starts to walk away. “Wait! And can I also have some sautéed mushrooms, but not, like, soaking in butter.” The order reminds me of the time Jeremy and I went to a pizza place called Mellow Mushroom, even though he hated mushrooms, and he picked them all off, until it was pretty much just bread. “Wait, again. Never mind on the mushrooms.”

I haven’t eaten since Pizza Hut the day before, and steak probably isn’t the best stomach filler, but dad looks happy and hopeful and he’s selling his brother’s train set for this meal. I dig into the wedge salad and hope the stomachaches I’d had all day are due to hunger and not the waves of heartsickness that come every time something reminds me of Jeremy, which is nearly everything because we dated longer than most
celebrities are married. Unlike him, I cherished moments beyond our lip locks, like de-mushrooming a pizza. I know that’s not deeply romantic, but at least I thought it was real.

“So!” Dad plunges his knife into the butter, bringing the bread to butter quota to 1:1. “Find anything interesting today?”

“You mean Dad-wants-to-sell interesting, or Mallory-wants-to-keep interesting?”

“Either. Both. Selling does pay the bills.”

I play with the cloth napkin, consider telling Dad about The List. But then he’ll ask why I need The List, or act like The List isn’t important, and either way I know he just isn’t going to understand, bless his butter-eating male heart. A moose head looks down from the fireplace, sternly rebuking me for the lie I’m about to tell. “No. I didn’t find anything interesting, except for a dress I’d like to keep.”