“So listen,” my mother said, causing my guard to go up. That was how she usually prefaced any information she was about to give me that I wasn’t going to like. And she was speaking too quickly, another giveaway. “It’s about the car.”
“The car?” I set the pizza on the plate to cool. Without my noticing, it had stopped being a plate and had become
the
plate. I was pretty much just using, then washing, the one plate. It was as though all the rest of the dishes had become superfluous.
“Yes,” she said, stifling another yawn. “I’ve been looking at the cost to have it shipped on a car carrier, along with the cost of your plane fare, and well …” She paused. “I’m afraid it’s just not possible right now. With the house still not sold, and the cost of your brother’s facility …”
“What do you mean?” I asked, not following. I took a tentative bite of pizza.
“We can’t afford both,” she said. “And I need the car. So I’m going to need it driven out here.”
The pizza was still too hot, but I swallowed it anyway, and felt my throat burn and my eyes water. “I can’t drive,” I said, when I felt I could speak again. I hadn’t driven since the accident, and had no plans to start again any time soon. Or ever. I could feel my throat constrict at the thought, but I forced the words out. “You know that. I won’t.”
“Oh, you won’t have to drive!” She was speaking too brightly for someone who’d been yawning a moment before. “Marilyn’s son is going to drive. He needs to come East anyway, to spend the summer with his father in Philadelphia, so it all works out.”
There were so many things wrong with that sentence I wasn’t sure where to begin. “Marilyn?” I asked, starting at the beginning.
“Marilyn Sullivan,” she said. “Or I suppose it’s Marilyn Harper now. I keep forgetting she changed it back after the divorce. Anyway, you know my friend Marilyn. The Sullivans used to live over on Holloway, until the divorce, then she moved to Pasadena. But you and Roger were always playing that game. What’s it called? Potato? Yam?”
“Spud,” I said automatically. “Who’s Roger?”
She let out one of her long sighs, the kind designed to let me know that I was trying her patience. “Marilyn’s son,” she said. “Roger Sullivan. You remember him.”
My mother was always telling me what I remembered, as if that would make it true. “No, I don’t.”
“Of course you do. You just said you used to play that game.”
“I remember Spud,” I said. I wondered, not for the first time, why every conversation I had with my mother had to be so difficult. “I don’t remember anyone named Roger. Or Marilyn, for that matter.”
“Well,” she said, and I could hear her voice straining to stay upbeat, “you’ll have a chance to get to know him now. I’ve mapped out an itinerary for you two. It should take you four days.”
Questions about who remembered what now seemed unimportant. “Wait a second,” I said, holding on to the kitchen counter for support. “You want me to spend four days in a car with someone I’ve never met?”
“I told you, you’ve met,” my mother said, clearly ready to be finished with this conversation. “And Marilyn says he’s a lovely boy. He’s doing us a big favor, so please be appreciative.”
“But Mom,” I started, “I …” I didn’t know what was going to follow. Maybe something about how I hated being in cars now. I’d been okay taking the bus to and from school, but my cab ride home that night had made my pulse pound hard enough that I could feel it in my throat. Also, I’d gotten used to being by myself and I liked it that way. The thought of spending that much time in a car, with a stranger, lovely or not, was making me feel like I might hyperventilate.
“Amy,” my mother said with a deep sigh. “Please don’t be difficult.”
Of course I wasn’t going to be difficult. That was Charlie’s job. I was never difficult, and clearly my mother was counting on that. “Okay,” I said in a small voice. I was hoping that she’d pick up on how much I didn’t want to do this. But if she did, she ignored it.
“Good,” she said, briskness coming back into her voice. “Once I make your hotel reservations, I’ll e-mail you the itinerary. And I ordered you a gift for the trip. It should be there before you leave.”
I realized my mother hadn’t actually been asking. I looked down at the pizza on the counter, but I had lost my appetite.
“Oh, by the way,” she added, remembering. “How was the show?”
And now the show had closed, finals were over, and at the end of the driveway was a Subaru with Roger the Spud Player inside. Over the past week, I’d tried to think back to see if I could recall a Roger. And I had remembered one of the neighborhood kids, one with blond hair and ears that stuck out too far, clutching a maroon superball and calling for me and Charlie, trying to get a game together. Charlie would have remembered more details—despite his extracurriculars, he had a memory like an elephant—but Charlie wasn’t exactly around to ask.
Both doors of the Subaru opened, and a woman who looked around my mother’s age—presumably Marilyn—got out, followed by a tall, lanky guy. His back was to me as Marilyn opened the hatchback and took out a stuffed army-style duffel and a backpack. She set them on the ground, and the two of them hugged. The guy—presumably Roger—was at least a head taller than she was, and ducked a little bit to hug her back. I expected to hear good-byes, but all I heard him say was “Don’t be a stranger.” Marilyn laughed, as though she’d been expecting this. As they stepped apart, she met my gaze and smiled at me. I nodded back, and she got into the car. It pulled around the cul-de-sac, and Roger stood staring after it, raising one hand in a wave.
When the car had vanished from sight, he shouldered his bags and began walking toward the house. As soon as he turned toward me, I blinked in surprise. The sticking-out ears were gone. The guy coming toward me was shockingly good-looking. He had broad shoulders, light brown hair, dark eyes, and he was already smiling at me.
I knew in that instant the trip had suddenly gotten a lot more complicated.
But I think it only fair to warn you, all those songs about California lied.
—The Lucksmiths
I stood up and walked down the steps to meet him in the driveway. I was suddenly very conscious that I was barefoot, in old jeans and the show T-shirt from last year’s musical. This had become my de facto outfit, and I’d put it on that morning automatically, without considering the possibility that this Roger guy might be disarmingly cute.
And he really was, I saw now that he was closer. He had wide hazel eyes and unfairly long lashes, a scattering of freckles, and an air of easy confidence. I felt myself shrinking in a little in his presence.
“Hey,” he said, dropping his bags and holding out his hand to me. I paused for a second—nobody I knew shook hands—but then extended my hand to him, and we shook quickly. “I’m Roger Sullivan. You’re Amy, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. The word stuck in my throat a little, and I cleared it and swallowed. “I mean, yes. Hi.” I twisted my hands together and looked at the ground. I could feel my heart pounding and wondered when a simple introduction had changed to something unfamiliar and scary.
“You look different,” Roger said after a moment, and I looked up at him to see him studying me. What he mean by that? Different from what he’d been expecting? What had he been expecting? “Different than you used to look,” he clarified, as though he’d just read my thoughts. “I remember you from when we were kids, you and your brother. But you still have the red hair.”
I touched it self-consciously. Charlie and I both had it, and when we were younger, and together all the time, people were always stopping us to point it out, as though we’d never noticed ourselves. Charlie’s had darkened over time to auburn, whereas mine stayed vividly red. I hadn’t minded it until recently. Lately it seemed to attract attention, when that was the last thing I wanted. I tucked it behind my ears, trying not to pull on it. It had started falling out about a month ago, a fact that was worrying me, but I was trying not to think about it too much. I told myself that it was the stress of finals, or the lack of iron in my mostly pizza diet. But usually, I tried not to brush my hair too hard, hoping it would just stop on its own.
“Oh,” I said, realizing that Roger was waiting for me to say something. It was like even the basic rules of conversation had deserted me. “Um, yeah. I still have it. Charlie’s is actually darker now, but he’s … um … not here.” My mother hadn’t told anyone about Charlie’s rehab and had asked me to tell people the cover she made up. “He’s in North Carolina,” I said. “At an academic enrichment program.” I pressed my lips together and looked away, wishing that he would leave and I could go back inside and shut the door, where nobody would try and talk to me and I could be alone with my routine. I was out of practice talking to cute guys. I was out of practice talking to anyone.
Right after it happened, I hadn’t said much. I didn’t want to talk about it and didn’t want to open the door for people to ask me how I was feeling about things. And it wasn’t like my mother or Charlie even tried. Maybe the two of them had talked to each other, but neither of them talked to me. But that was understandable—I was sure both of them blamed me. And I blamed myself, so it made sense that we weren’t exactly sharing our feelings around the kitchen table. Dinners were mostly silent, with Charlie either sweaty and jumpy or swaying slightly, eyes glazed, as my mother focused on her plate. The passing back and forth of dishes and condiments, and then the cutting and chewing and swallowing process, seemed to take up so much time and focus that it was really amazing to think we’d once had conversations around the dinner table. And even if I did think about saying something occasionally, the silence of the empty chair to my left killed that impulse.
At school my teachers had left me alone, not calling on me for the first month afterward. And then after that, I guess it just became habit that they didn’t. It seemed like people could revise who you were very quickly, and they seemed to have forgotten that I once used to raise my hand and give my opinions, that I once had something to say about the Boxer Rebellion or symbolism in
The Great Gatsby
.
My friends had gotten the message pretty quickly that I didn’t want to talk to them about it. And without talking about it, it became clear that then we really couldn’t talk about anything. After not very long, we just stopped trying, and soon I couldn’t tell if I was avoiding them or they were avoiding me.
Julia was the one exception. I hadn’t told her what had happened. I knew that if I told her, she wasn’t going to let me off the hook. She wasn’t going to go away easily. And she didn’t. She’d found out, of course, and had called me constantly right after, calls I let go to voice mail. The calls had tapered off, but she’d started e-mailing instead. They came every few days now, with subjects like “Checking In” and “Worried About You” and “For God’s Sake, Amy.” I let them pile up in my in-box, unread. I wasn’t exactly sure why I was doing it, but I knew that if I talked to Julia about it, it would become real in some way I couldn’t quite handle.
But as I looked at Roger, I also realized that it had been awhile since I’d had an interaction with a guy. Not since the night of the funeral, when I’d invited myself to Michael’s dorm room, knowing exactly what was going to happen. When I left an hour later, I was disappointed, even though I’d gotten exactly what I thought I wanted.
“It’s not true, you know,” said Roger. I looked at him, trying to figure out what he meant. “Your shirt,” he said, pointing. I glanced down at the faded blue cotton, emblazoned with
ANYONE CAN WHISTLE
. “I can’t,” he continued cheerfully. “Never have been able to.”
“It’s a musical,” I said shortly. He nodded, and silence fell, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say on the subject. “I should get my things,” I said, turning to the house, wondering how the hell we were ever going to get through four days.
“Sure,” he said. “I’ll load my stuff in. Do you need a hand?”
“No,” I said, heading up the stairs. “The car’s open.” Then I escaped inside, where it was blessedly cool and dark and quiet and I was alone. I took a breath, savoring the silence, then continued into the kitchen.
The gift my mother had sent was sitting on the kitchen table. It had arrived a few days ago, but I hadn’t opened it. If I opened it, it meant that the trip was actually going to happen. But there was no denying it now—the proof was making comments about my T-shirt and putting his duffel bag in the car. I tore open the package and shook out a book. It was heavy and spiral-bound, with a dark blue cover.
AWAY YOU GO!
was printed in white fifties-style script. And underneath that,
Traveler’s Companion. Journal/Scrapbook/Helpful Hints
.
I picked it up and flipped through it. It seemed to be mostly blank pages, with a scrapbook section for preserving “Your Lasting Memories” and a journal section for recording “Your Wandering Thoughts.” There also seemed to be quizzes, packing lists, and traveling tips. I shut the book and looked at it incredulously. This was the “present” my mother sent me for the trip? Seriously?
I tossed it on the counter. I wasn’t about to be tricked into thinking this was some sort of fun, exciting adventure. It was a purely functional trip that I was being forced to take. So I didn’t see any reason to make sure I’d always remember it. People didn’t buy souvenirs from airports they’d had layovers in.
I walked through the rooms on the first floor of the house, making sure that everything was in order. And everything was—Hildy the Realtor had made sure of that. All our furniture was still there—she preferred not to sell empty houses—but it no longer even felt like ours. Ever since my mother hired her, she’d taken over our house to the point where I sometimes had trouble remembering what it used to feel like when we were all just living in it, and it wasn’t being sold to people as the place where they’d always be happy. It had started to feel more like a set than a house. Too many deluded young marrieds had traipsed through it, seeing only the square footage and ventilation, polluting it with their furniture dreams and imagined Christmases. Every time Hildy finished a showing and I was allowed to come back from walking around the neighborhood with my iPod blasting Sondheim, I could always sense the house moving further away from what it had been when it was ours. Strange perfume lingered in the air, things were put in the wrong place, and a few more of the memories that resided in the walls seemed to have vanished.