Songs for a Teenage Nomad
Read Songs for a Teenage Nomad Online
Authors: Kim Culbertson
Copyright © 2007, 2010 by Kim Culbertson
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“Mr. Tambourine Man” by Bob Dylan. Copyright © 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc. Copyright renewed 1992 Special Rider Music. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiou
sly. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Culbertson, Kim A.
Songs for a teenage nomad / by Kim Culbertson.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Having lived in twelve places in eight years, fourteen-year-old Calle Smith knows better than to put down roots, storing memories in a song journal while she keeps the world at a distance, but friends—even a boyfriend—are there to help when she learns why her mother has always been on the run.
[1. Moving, Household—Fiction. 2. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 3. Memory—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Fathers and daughters—Fiction. 7. Family life—California—Fiction. 8. California—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C8945Son 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2010014381
for peter
“…Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me. In the jingle jangle morning, I’ll come followin’ you…”
—Bob Dylan
Inside my dreams sits a song, way back in the shadows. It calls to me, and I wait to know it in the daylight, wanting to pull it like taffy from the haunts of my mind. Somehow, my memories begin with this song. I can’t seem to put an image to it; it’s a memory blurred and swirling, with no shape…
Get Out the Map
…the air smelling like honeysuckle, I dangle my arm from the passenger window, aware only of the honeysuckle air, Indigo Girls on a scratchy radio, and a white sun. And that everything we own has been packed into the back of a battered orange moving van…again…
“My dad named me Calle after a cat he had in college that ran away. He really loved that cat. I always thought that was funny since he was the one who ran away from me…and my mom.”
“Calle? With just the “e” at the end? Not C-A-L-L-I-E?” the counselor asks.
“Just an ‘e.’ It’s how he spelled the cat’s name. The Smith part’s easy, though.”
Mr. Hyatt, the counselor, shifts in his seat and scribbles something on a yellow legal pad. He has on a Mickey Mouse tie and red shoes. Vans. I’ve seen the uniform before. Mickey tie because he has to wear a tie but doesn’t want students to think he’s stuffy. Vans because they’re Vans. The nameplate on his desk says “Hyatt Way,” like a street sign.
I watch him write, making sure I don’t say more than I should. I always give away too much information, and sometimes it gets me in trouble. My mother once said I inherited this from my father. I don’t remember him, have never even seen his picture. I take her word for it. And don’t ask questions about him. It just makes her mad.
But the talking thing. I’m working on it. I’ve always admired the type of kid who can sit in silences and not need to fill them. There is one of those silences now.
“Your mom is remarried?” He flips through the manila folder with my name written in black marker on the tab.
“Yeah. Rob.”
“Rob,” he repeats, over-rounding the letters. Raawwbb. Annoying.
“He works in computers and stuff.” Actually, I have no idea what Rob does for a living, but I figure he probably has a computer wherever he works. He married my mom a month ago in San Diego where we used to live. She’d known him only four months. Now we live here. Andreas Bay, a snag in the Northern California coastline. The only thing I know is that he drives a Ford like all the others and makes a bunch of promises like all the others.
“How’d you guys end up in Andreas Bay?” Mr. Hyatt looks up from my folder, his pen poised.
“Same way we find every town. My mom tosses a penny onto a map of California, and we go wherever it lands.” He nods and pretends this isn’t strange. Usually that story gets at least a raised eyebrow.
He finishes writing, caps his pen, and pushes my new schedule across the desk. “You like to write?” He points at the journal in my lap, with its faded purple velvet cover that looks like corduroy pants.
I instinctively clasp a hand over the cover. “It’s my song journal.”
“Song journal?”
“Last year, I started writing down memories I get from songs. I hear one, mostly older songs, and I write down the memory it brings. Like glimpses of my life as I remember it. Snapshots.” His nod is directed over my shoulder. A black-haired girl in a Betty Boop T-shirt and skinny jeans hovers by the door. I shrug. “It’s just something I do.”
“Cool. Sounds really cool.” Trying
too hard.
“My mom’s not the type to keep photo books. So I sort of have to keep my own version.”
I don’t tell him I’m hunting for the Tambourine Man who plagues my dreams.
***
“You’re sure you don’t want a nicer shirt to wear?”
In the mirror, I look at my mother, perched on the side of the tub, holding a coffee mug the size of her head. Her dark hair is wet from the shower and combed back away from her face.
I spit toothpaste into the sink. “I like what I’m wearing,” I say for the third time. Swirling water around my mouth, I stare at my reflection. Faded blue T-shirt, jeans, brown eyes, shoulder-length brown hair. I look the same as I always do. A blurry, ordinary version of the beauty sitting behind me.
People say I look like her but it’s in an out-of-the-corner-of-your-eye sort of way. We both have dark hair and eyes, but her genes lined up in the right order; her dark hair thick, her eyes wide. Her angles drawn straight, her limbs long. My genes used some sort of splatter method for me, with everything not quite in the right spot. People notice my mom no matter what she’s doing. If I wanted to be noticed, which I usually don’t, I’d have to hire a band and some fireworks.
“First days are so critical,” she continues, sipping out of her trough.
I catch her eye in the mirror. “I think I know something about first days.”
This shuts her up. For about one second.
“You’ll be fine,” she says. “It’s like riding a bike.”
“What is?”
“First days.”
I roll my eyes. My mother has a tendency to launch into speeches that start sounding like the bad television she watches. I say nothing. I don’t want to encourage her.
“The school is beautiful,” she says, trying a different tack.
I nod, leaning in to inspect what looks like it might be a pimple on my left cheekbone. “Ocean view. Not bad.”
“You’ll really like it here.” She tightens the sash of her yellow terry robe with her free hand. “It’s a really nice town. Small, independently owned stores. A real community.”
“You’ve been reading way too many billboards for subdivisions off the freeway,” I say.
She frowns into her coffee. “I just think it’s really cute. Rob loves it here.”
“Rob sits in an office all day. He eats boring for breakfast.”
“Calle…” I can see her start to falter, the tears just around the corners of her large eyes.
I back off.
“It’s great,” I say, and she smiles over her coffee. “Cute.” Though I wonder how cute it will be when she realizes that she’s not a tourist and that she actually lives here.
I take a last look in the mirror before walking into the hallway for my backpack. She follows me out, her bare feet slapping against the ceramic tiles. “You’re sure you don’t want to borrow my red shirt with the Buddha? The cute one with three-quarter-length sleeves?”
“I’m sure,” I say, slinging my backpack over my shoulder and trying not to roll my eyes. Two years ago in seventh grade, she convinced me to wear a green dress the first day. I spent the next four months as “Gumby.” No thanks.
She gives up. “Okay, sweetie.” She leans over to give me a peck on the cheek, the one that’s not getting a pimple. “Good luck on your first day!”
I open the door and smile back at her. She looks genuinely hopeful for me, the way she always does when we come to a new place. She even packed me a lunch.
“Thanks,” I say, holding up the brown sack. Giving a little wave, I pull the front door closed behind me.
Outside, drowning out the sound of gulls, I pull on my headphones—Jack Johnson’s guitar soothing the frenzy of nerves in my gut—and begin the eight-block walk to school, buoyed by the cool sea air. I take in the green hills and the small, flat-roofed houses, and spot a flash of ocean as I round the last corner toward the school. It’s actually one of the more beautiful places we’ve landed, and I sigh, wondering how long I’ll get to have this view.
Small Town
…my mother turns the radio up because she has always been in love with John Cougar Mellencamp, insists on the Cougar part of his name, even if the singer has dropped it. We sprawl on the sloping lawn of the park, my mother letting her lunch break run way long. Light glints off her silver-rimmed sunglasses as she hands me half a tuna sandwich with extra pickles…
My new school smells like pickles, salty, and clogged with a sea of faces that all look the same. The campus stands on a low hill facing the ocean. Across the road from the main office where I babbled to Mickey Mouse Tie, there’s a small strip of buildings: a café, a hair salon, a movie rental place, and a doctor’s office whose large brick walls keep the students away from the coast.
I watch the students clumped around me in their between-classes packs. I stay close to a row of outside lockers, wedging myself between the bathrooms and the library building. I want a good view of the quad without being too much out in the open. Even here, I can feel people eye me. The new girl. No matter how many times I’ve done this, my stomach is always full of bees. Newness is nothing like riding a bike. Your body has no memory of it, and it doesn’t end with a fun ride.
My eyes fall on a group of girls in short skirts who are laughing with some boys. A zipper-thin girl with a thick blond ponytail has her arm draped casually around a dark-haired boy in a blue and green football jersey. Popular. I look away. I realized by third grade I would never be one of those girls. I’m not tiny or bouncy. I’m cursed with big bones and one-toned brown hair that refuses to fall the way it should. Not like their hair, lightened, glossy, and smelling of flowers and fruit. Even when I buy special shampoo, my hair smells like hair.
And fashion. Not a chance. I have a midriff that doesn’t want to break dress-code rules and no money to finance a wardrobe worthy of notice. So I wear my standard uniform of jeans and a T-shirt, with a sweatshirt if it’s cold out. I have an old gray sweatshirt with holes around the cuffs that I can wear and wear and never get sick of.
But I don’t hate those girls with their color-coded outfits, with their rules and gossip and fashion-magazine group quizzes: “Is He Cheating?!” They invent complicated lives because their lives aren’t that complicated. I prefer my holes-in-the-cuffs sweatshirt.
The bell rings for third period. Damn. I spaced out trying to disappear. I look around me. The sea of faces has rinsed into the surrounding classrooms like water down a drain, and I am left alone with a warm sun and no idea where I’m supposed to be. I look at my schedule and then walk all the way around the squat, box-like 400 building twice, looking for Room 406, Freshman English. But all the rooms are numbered in random order, with 405 next to 410 and then 407. No 406.
“You lost?”
A voice from behind startles me. I turn. The boy is skinny and smooth-skinned. He wears black jeans and a black shirt that says in bold white lettering, “pissing off the planet one person at a time.” He points at my schedule. “Do you need help?”
“Room 406.” My voice sounds high in the quiet air. This is the fastest anyone has ever spoken to me at a new school. At Hamilton Middle in Manteca, no one said a word to me the whole first week. A personal record. “Who numbers these stupid rooms?”
“Monkeys. Room 406?” He doesn’t have a backpack or any books. “The Cell. Follow me. I have that class too. I’m Drew, by the way.”
“Calle.” I follow him down a hallway into the center of the building. “You’re a freshman?” He seems way older and walks like he’s been here awhile.
“Not really.” He turns and smiles a mouth full of straight white teeth. Orthodontically straight. “I flunked Freshman English last year. Repeat offender.”
“Oh.”
He pushes open the door to 406. The windowless room is pasted floor to ceiling with movie posters. Jennifer Lopez’s glossy face from
The Cell
provides a centerpiece.
“Mr. Billings.” A youngish man in a tie at the front of the room looks up from a roll sheet. “Nice of you to join us.”
“I was helping the new girl find your room.” Drew glances around. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
The teacher tries not to smile. “Thanks,” he says.
Aware of the eyes locked on me from the various round tables in the room, I shift my weight and look around. Blond Ponytail Girl from earlier sits at a nearby table, twirling a lock of her hair around and around her finger while smiling coyly at the dark-haired boy next to her. The boy catches my eye, smiles slightly, and then focuses on Blond Girl. My stomach flutters as his hazel eyes flit back to me.
“You’re Cal, then?” The teacher mispronounces my name. I look away from the boy. Mr.—I check my schedule—Ericson. Not his fault, though—no “i.”
“Call-
e
. Sorry I’m late. I couldn’t find the room.” My eyes wander around the classroom. My last English class had perfectly even rows, and a teacher who smelled like oranges and cigarettes.
“Just don’t make it a habit.” He pauses, checking something off on his clipboard, and then continues. “Well, welcome, Calle. You and your knight in shining armor can have a seat over here.” Mr. Ericson gestures to a round table next to Blond Girl. A red-haired girl dressed in black sits alone at the table, softly sketching on her binder.
As we scoot by, my backpack grazes a girl in a purple tank top sitting next to Blond Girl.
“Hey!” she yelps, clutching the back of her head as if burned.
“Sorry,” I say, quickly slipping into my seat, cheeks flaming.
“Don’t worry,” the redhead at my table says, not looking up from her binder. “Nothing in that head to damage.”
“Bite me, Alexa,” Purple Tank Top hisses.
Alexa smiles.
I sink down in my seat, glancing at the next table. Is it my imagination, or did the boy smile too?
***
“You gotta eat, right?” Drew finds me several periods later.
“Wow, Mr. Welcoming Committee.” I try to sound casual, but inside I am flying. I’ve never had a lunch invite on the first day. Last year, at Bell Middle, I spent the first day’s lunch period in the nurse’s office with a fake stomachache.
“Follow me.”
We weave our way through the clumps of students sitting on the lawn in front of the school toward a large gnarled tree. It casts an arc of shade, its roots spilling onto the sidewalk that separates the road from the lunching teenagers. I stare closely at the group of students lounging under the tree, recognizing the red-haired girl we sat with in English. Alexa. She laughs at something a boy in a Weezer shirt says and flips her head, as if her cropped hair had not always been so short.
“Hello, AN-drew,” drawls a round-faced boy. He sits with his back to the tree, his hand jammed into a bag of Cheetos. “Who’s your friend?” His jeans balloon around him down to frayed edges, exposing remarkably thin pink ankles and banana-yellow flip-flops.
A girl in a tight, black tank top squints up at us. “You picking up strays again, Drew?” she asks smiling. I can’t read her, can’t tell if she’s joking. I might end up back in the nurse’s office after all, only this time I won’t be faking it.
But Drew ignores her. He’s suddenly the MC of the tree crowd, announcing me, his wrist covered thickly with brightly colored rubber bracelets. “This is Calle. She’s from San Diego. She listens to sucky music, but we won’t hold it against her. I flush. Drew had pawed through my CD case during English, declaring each disc “Crap!” He now sees my face. “Hey, no judgment.”
Everyone has their own version of hello. Even Black Tank Top gives a wave as she flips through a day planner.
“Have a seat.” A girl in a lime-green T-shirt and jeans pats the ground next to her. “I’m Tala.” Her hair is pulled into elaborate twists and braids like a
Star Wars
princess. Her whole face smiles.
“Hi.” I settle on the ground next to her, removing my lunch from my bag, my stomach churning.
Black Tank Top snaps the planner shut and eyes me closely. “I’m Sara,” she says, not unfriendly, but not with the same sweetness as Tala. Her eyes are the prettiest shade of green I have ever seen, deep and yellow flecked. She’s older than the others, maybe even a senior. And she has cleavage. Real cleavage.
“Nice to meet you,” I say, pulling apple slices from my lunch bag and trying not to stare at the cleavage, even though I think that’s kind of the point.
She nods, taking small bites from her peanut butter sandwich, and shifts her gaze to the note she’s unfolded in her lap.
Drew settles himself next to me and looks around. “Where’s Toby?”
“Cigarette.” Cheetos Bag informs on him.
“Gaven?”
“Kissing Hecca’s ass.” Sara makes a face. “Auditions aren’t even until next week, and he’s already picking a monologue.”
Drama kids. They’re at every school. Reading Shakespeare for fun, dressed in black, talking about famous directors. Ignoring the rest of us. I have no idea what to say to them.
Sara turns to me. “Do you act?” Her voice has a competitive edge.
Alexa, the girl from English, looks at her pointedly. “Not everyone under this tree has to act, Sara.”
“I was just
asking
.” She looks back at me, rolling her eyes. “Alexa gets pissy when we say ‘act.’” She makes little quotation mark signs in the air with her fingers. “She’s a stage manager and set designer.”
“I’ve never acted,” I tell them, unless my recurring role as New Girl counts. I tried out for a play once in sixth grade. Well. Not exactly. I stood on a blank stage and held the paper we were supposed to read from, my legs shaking. Then Missy Pinkle started giggling in the front row, whispering something to Erica Jenson, and I ran from the stage. No one liked Missy Pinkle—she was a stuck-up, prissy snob—but it didn’t matter. I haven’t been on stage since.
Sara stares at me like I have a disgusting bug on my face. “Are you in drama?”
“No.”
She glances at Drew. “Oh. Well.” She sucks in her lower lip, looking back at me. “That’s cool.” She eyes my journal, her first real smile of the day breaking through. “Oh! You’re a writer.” She smiles again and pops open an orange soda. “We do student-written plays in the spring.”
I don’t tell her that for me the spring is a long way off.
“Hey, guys,” says a voice behind us.
The whole group turns. A boy with black-ink-marker hair flops down next to Drew. He has Asian lines to his eyes and freckles across his pale skin. It’s actually a relief to see this kid. This town’s so white it makes Wonder Bread look multi-grain.
“What did the Buddhist monk say to the hot dog vendor?” The black-haired boy asks, a smile already coming across his face.
“I don’t know, Eli,” Sara says. “What?”
“Make me one with everything.” He beams, looking hopefully around the group. Cheetos Bag laughs, kicking his flip-flopped feet into the ground.
I laugh too, watching the boy closely. He notices, reaches across Drew, and offers his hand. “Eli.”
I shake it. “Calle.” He doesn’t let go right away, just nods and repeats my name.
“Eli wants to be a stand-up comedian,” Tala explains, her gaze curious as it slips between us.
“What’ll your day job be?” I say, smiling at him. I instantly regret it and carefully remove my hand from his grasp. But his smile widens, his dark eyes soft, studying me, and something in his gaze makes me flush clear to my ears.