Guyaholic (15 page)

“I know,” Melissa says. “I was the one who insisted it was the best method, up on that roof in Seattle.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Melissa giggles. “I guess I created a bad habit, huh?”

We end up staying on the porch for hours. The sky is swirling with stars. Frogs are croaking and crickets are chirping, and I can’t help feeling drawn into Melissa and Drew’s world, with all their security and closeness. And the strange thing is that I don’t feel suffocated, like I usually do around families. I guess I could say I’m even liking it.

Melissa talks about being a doctor. Drew tells me about his students. I describe Brockport and, before that, San Diego and, before that, Oregon and Louisiana and Vermont. After a while we start reminiscing about Seattle. Melissa says that I was such a cute kid, really funny and independent. Drew mentions how he was so surprised that first time he saw me in the laundry room of our building, my tiptoes on a crate, stuffing towels into the washer.

“I’m sure it was an adventure growing up with Aimee,” Drew says.

Melissa shoots him a look. “You know we love your mom.”

“Of course we love her,” Drew says. “We were both so stressed in Seattle, with Melissa’s school and my dissertation. Aimee was our break from reality. Remember how she’d do anything in five minutes’ notice?”

“Like that time we packed her car and went camping at those hot springs on the Olympic Peninsula,” Melissa says.

“Or that time we drove to Oregon in the middle of the night because some band was playing at Mount Hood and Aimee was convinced we could get tickets. Do you remember that? You were sleeping in the backseat the whole time.”

“It definitely sounds like Aimee,” I say.

“She was so spontaneous,” Melissa says.

“Is she still like that?” Drew asks.

“I guess.” I shrug. “I haven’t seen her for a while.”

“Not since you moved in with your grandparents?” Melissa asks.

I nod.

“That must have been rough,” Drew says.

“Yeah,” I say. “It was.”

We’re all quiet for a minute. A cow is mooing off in some pasture, and every time it does, a dog starts barking like crazy.

“It sounds like it turned out to be a positive thing,” Melissa says. “I mean, you’re heading to college next month.”

I take a deep breath and stare up at the stars, and suddenly something dawns on me. I always assumed Aimee shipped me to Brockport because she wanted to get rid of me and be all footloose with that surfer guy. But maybe she sent me away for my own sake. Even I’ll admit things were getting crazy in San Diego, how I was smoking all that weed and wandering around with those guys in City Heights at two in the morning. Maybe she sent me to my grandparents because she thought they could get me under control. Maybe she sent me to my grandparents because she didn’t want me to turn out like her.

On Friday night I can’t fall asleep. I’m leaving in the morning and I guess I’m ready, but it’s also been such a nice week, such an escape. Also, I can’t stop thinking about Aimee. On some level I’ve been angry at her for moving us so much and not showing up all those times. But after my epiphany the other night, I’m beginning to forgive her. Also, now that I’ve had this time with Bella, I’m realizing how much work it is to take care of a kid. Aimee was so young when she had me, practically my age. If I had to give her the benefit of the doubt, I’d say she did an okay job.

I switch on the light and thumb through the cartoons in an old issue of the
New Yorker,
but my brain won’t stop racing. Finally, I crawl out of bed and tiptoe into the kitchen. Drew keeps his laptop on the table, and he’s been letting me use it whenever I want. I’ve been IM-ing with Mara, who has informed me that she and that guy from Starbucks are planning to hang out on Sunday night.

I turn on Drew’s computer and pour myself a glass of water. Mara isn’t online right now, so I quickly check my e-mail.
Oh, my God!
I can’t believe it. Michael wrote me back.

As soon as I’m done reading Michael’s e-mail, I take a sip of water and hit
REPLY
.

On Saturday morning Melissa, Drew, Bella, and I all gather on the front lawn. They’re taking a picnic to the lake for the day, and they’ve invited me along. Part of me wants to join them, but I’m ready to push on toward Texas and see my mom.

“Thanks for letting me stay here,” I say. “And for, well, everything.”

Last night Drew made this farewell meal with barbecue ribs and grilled artichokes and strawberry shortcake for dessert. And then this morning, Melissa handed me a card saying how much they loved getting to know me again and how great I was with Bella. Inside, she’d enclosed more cash than I felt comfortable accepting. When I tried returning it, Melissa said, “Consider it a graduation present, ten years of birthdays, and babysitting money all rolled into one.”

“You didn’t have to pay me for watching Bella.”

“I know,” Melissa said, touching my arm.

As I open my car door, Bella gives me a drawing of a horse and two girls, one tall and one short.

“It’s you, me, and Crispo,” she says.

“I recognized us right away.”

We all hug and then I tuck Bella’s picture into the glove compartment and pull onto the main road.

I’m already planning my escape.

I’ve just arrived in Oklahoma City. It was a long trek from Missouri, full of traffic, trucks, and tollbooths. But I was so chilled from my week at the Tanners’ that it didn’t get to me. I even had this totally un-me peaceful moment where I pulled over at a rest stop to work a knot out of my thigh. I was pacing up and down the sidewalk, and it was so hot and dusty and the sun was a huge ball of fire in the western sky and no one else was around and the only sounds were the whizzing of speeding cars and the faint screeching of a nearby oil well, and the crazy thing is that I was actually okay with it. Being alone and the silence and everything. I stayed there for several minutes, stretching my muscles, listening to everything and nothing.

But now, as I wander the lobby of this budget hotel I found in
Let’s Go USA,
I’m getting more and more agitated. I can’t seem to locate the elevator and, to make matters worse, I keep ending up at this hideous indoor fountain. Yes, a
fountain.
It’s got a statue of a boy balancing a sparrow on his outstretched arm. The water is trickling out of the boy’s ears and dripping into a mucky birdbath.

In keeping with the avian theme, the woman who checked me in said I’m the only guest who isn’t participating in the Bird Photographers of Oklahoma convention this weekend. As if she had to tell me. I’m circling the lobby, and I keep stumbling into middle-aged people toting camera equipment and wearing T-shirts that proclaim
YOU
TRY FLYING THOUSANDS OF MILES EVERY YEAR
.

Finally, I sidestep three otherwise-normal-looking men making shrill birdcalls, take a sharp left, and find myself facing an open elevator. I rush in and hurriedly push 6. Once I’m in the room, I thought I would be relieved, but I actually don’t feel any better. For one, it’s icy cold and I can’t turn down the air conditioner and the windows won’t crack an inch. I could go for a stroll, but it’s a million degrees out and, besides, the hotel is flanked by highways. The woman at the desk said there was a mall nearby. Then again, I shouldn’t blow any money. I have that cash from the Tanners, but I need to save it for the drive home and my first semester at college. Unless, of course, I can earn money while I’m in San Antonio. My mom told me the other night that she’ll try to get me a short-term gig bussing tables at the restaurant where she works. Then again, she wasn’t definite about it, so I should hang on to my money for now.

All in all, the hardest part about being trapped in this hotel room is knowing that I’m only 466 miles from San Antonio. That’d take me about eight or nine hours. I glance at the clock: 4:46
P.M.
If I left now, I could be with my mom by one or two in the morning.

I’ve already been driving all day, so it’d make more sense to leave tomorrow. Actually, I told my mom I wouldn’t be there until Monday because I assumed I’d sleep over in Dallas. But if I do some hardcore driving, I could totally make it in one day.
Oh, my God.
Tomorrow at this time, my mom and I will be hanging out in her house. Maybe she’ll make that pasta salad for me. She can tell me about Costa Rica and Florida and the Georgia coast, and I can tell her about Brockport and Sam. Maybe she’ll have remembered some vital facts about my father. When I think about that, my stomach gets all fluttery and nervous.

I dig out my phone and dial Aimee to let her know my revised plans. Just voice mail. I leave a message, telling her to call me immediately, and then I stretch out on the bed and attempt to read a book of short stories from Melissa. I totally can’t concentrate, so I dig through my suitcase for my bathing suit.
Let’s Go
said there’s a pool on the deck off the fourth floor. I throw on a T-shirt over my bikini, grab a towel, and head into the hallway. Of course, I can’t find the elevator, so I walk down two flights of concrete stairs and follow signs out to the deck.

The water is glassy and still. There isn’t anyone around, just a bunch of empty lounge chairs and this enormous golden statue of a sparrow. I toss my towel onto a table, dive in, and paddle to the shallow end. Then I close my eyes and float toward the deep end, push off from the wall, and swim underwater to the other side. I’m just emerging near the stucco stairs when a flock of people spill onto the deck and plunk themselves down two feet from me.

“Hey there!” an older woman shouts. “Are you native or migratory?”

I wipe the water off my face. “What?”

These two blond women, probably in their thirties, glance at each other. But then the older woman explains how they’ve been divided into groups to alternate their bird-watching expeditions.

“So you’re not with the convention?” a man asks. I recognize him as a bird-caller from the lobby.

I shake my head.

“You can be an honorary migratory,” he concludes, “like us.”

I consider telling him I’d rather be native, but instead I gesture to the statue on the other side of the pool and say, “So what’s up with all these sparrows?”

The two blond women stare at me like I’ve just asked them whether ice cream is cold.

“It’s not a sparrow,” the older woman says. “It’s a scissor-tailed flycatcher.”

“The state bird of Oklahoma,” the man adds.

The older woman launches into this story about how she and her daughters, who I assume are the two blond women, have been photographing the flycatcher for the past twenty years and how it’s famous for its sky dance and long scissorlike tail. I sit on the stairs, chipping the polish off my toes. For some reason, this random ornithology lesson is making me feel all emotional. I think it’s watching the mom and her daughters, doing the same thing they’ve been doing together for the past two decades, and thinking how, even though Aimee and I never had that us-against-the-world bond, we did share a lot of memories, all those places, all those moves.

I say good-bye to the bird crew, step out of the pool, and grab my towel. I sprint up the two flights of stairs and into my room, where I peel off my bikini and pull on a sundress. Then I stuff everything into my suitcase and run back down the stairs.

“Checking out so soon?” asks the woman at the front desk.

I twist my wet hair into a ponytail and say, “Yeah . . . change of plans.”

“I can talk to my manager about a refund, but I don’t think —”

“Don’t worry about it.”

I hand her my room card, head to my car, and pull back onto the highway. I take Kilpatrick Turnpike until I get to 35 South. In order to get to San Antonio, I’m going to have to drive nearly five hundred miles through the night. But I’ve waited a year and a half to see my mom, and right now I don’t want to wait any longer.