Songs for a Teenage Nomad (12 page)

Now, it seems, we’ve run out of things to say to each other. And it only took thirty minutes. I glance over at him. He wears a black wool coat and looks like he got a haircut. He seems different than he did at the coffeehouse. Like someone gave him a full-body shoeshine. I can see what my mom meant when she said “compelling.” He’s handsome. Even for a dad.

Around me, the miniature golf course is almost deserted. Apparently, the only people stupid enough to play miniature golf in the freezing wind coming off the nearby water are the two of us and a young couple who seem to be making out more than they are playing golf.

My ball goes nowhere near the clown’s mouth.

“Tough shot,” my father says, marking our score sheet with the stub of a pencil. He had hit it in on the first try.

I wrinkle my nose, frustrated. My hands are freezing. I retrieve my ball and try again with a little more force than I intended. The blue ball bounces off the rim of the mouth and ricochets at an angle, ending up near the hole at the next station.

“How about we just play from there?” I ask, annoyed.

My father frowns. “Aren’t you having fun?”

I blow some hair from my eyes. “Oh, sure. I love not being able to feel my hands. And I’m oh so skilled at golfing.”

He sighs, collecting the score sheet and his putter. “You want to get a slice of pizza or something?”

I nod. We return our putters and balls to the man at the little window where we picked them up. He reads a
Popular Mechanics
, ignoring us. Inside, the arcade is a bit more lively: kids play Skee-Ball, air hockey, and a variety of games where people kill each other. The air smells thickly of grease and ice cream. The dinner Mom made me is still sitting covered in our refrigerator. She’s probably on her moonlight walk by now. I should get home soon.

I slide into an empty booth near the back.

“You like pepperoni?” my father asks, depositing his jacket on his side of the booth. I nod. Soon he returns with two huge slices of pizza. “The chick at the counter is bringing our Cokes,” he tells me.

“Thanks,” I say, rubbing my hands together to regain feeling.

“Sorry about the Arctic golf. I just thought…” He shrugs. “Well, I guess I just thought that’s something dads and daughters do.”

“Here are your drinks.” A bleached blond with a belly-button ring sets down our sodas. She grins widely at Jake.

“Thanks, doll,” he says, returning the smile for a bit longer than is really necessary.

I roll my eyes. “Ugh, she’s, like, half your age,” I say, when she is safely back behind the food counter.

“She’s cute,” he says, still watching her.

I take a bite of pizza and watch Bleached Blond talk to the other guy working behind the counter. He’s in my Spanish class—Thad something. Looking back at my dad, I say, “All babies are cute.”

He laughs. “You’re really funny, you know that? You’ve got a good sense of humor.”

I tear the paper from the straw. “What I lack in looks, I make up for in personality.” I give him a wry smile.

He frowns. “What are you talking about? You’re gorgeous.”

“Okay,” I say, pulling the last napkin out of the container. “Right.”

“No, seriously.” He leans forward. “You’re not flashy pretty or anything. No one’s going to stop and gawk on the street or anything.”

“Thanks.” I can feel my face reddening. Why are we still talking about this?

“But you’re classic pretty,” he continues. “Your type of pretty lasts forever.” He leans back and picks up his slice of pizza.

I study him. “Thanks,” I say again, serious now. It’s a lot like what Sam said to me that day on the beach. Too bad my type of pretty means nothing in high school.

“So, Calle,” he says, setting his pizza down and frowning at the empty napkin container. I offer him my crumpled napkin. Wiping his mouth, he continues, “I wanted to talk to you about something.” He folds the napkin into smaller and smaller squares, his eyes cast down. “I have to leave town for a few days.”

What is he talking about? He just got to town. “Why?”

“I have some business I have to take care of over in San Francisco. There’s this band I’m representing now, and they have an important meeting with some A&R guy who saw their last gig. It could be big.”

“Okay,” I say, not sure what an A&R guy is but not wanting him to think I’m stupid.

“Hey, man,” he grabs Thad-something as he walks by. Waggling the empty napkin container, my dad says, “More napkins?”

Thad grabs one off another table and clunks it down in front of us. He doesn’t recognize me.

My father says, “I need you to not tell your mom about us, okay?” He drums his fingers on the table. “I don’t know how she’ll react. She might take off again. I just need another week.”

“Another week for what?” I ask.

He fidgets in his seat and picks the pepperonis off the top of his pizza, stacking them in a little pile on the table. He has only eaten one bite from his slice; mine’s almost half gone. “To get some money stuff together. Just a week. Maybe two. Then you and I can hang out. Make up for lost time. Sound good?”

The arcade lights are hurting my eyes, the noise of the place stuffing my ears with bells and sirens. He’s leaving.

“Sure. Good,” I say, and push the rest of the pizza away from me. Someone has just switched the music in the arcade from techno to Bare Naked Ladies. Tonight I’ll write in my journal about my father’s face across the table and his smile at the blond girl, about his announcement that he will once again be exiting my life. Only this time, I’ll remember him going.

Strange Currencies

…Red Mustang Ted listens to R.E.M. and smokes a cigarette that he tells me is very bad for me. My mother is asleep on the couch, her head in his lap. After lighting another, he asks me if I like the R.E.M. album he’s playing. I play with a stuffed Pluto from Disneyland and nod, the music a swarm of bees in my ears…

“What are you looking at?” I ask, dropping my backpack.

Alexa and Drew leap in front of the computer screen. “Nothing,” they say in unison.

I look around the almost empty library. “Sly, you guys. Never work for the CIA. What’s going on?”

Alexa shrugs and cinches her body closer to Drew. “I thought you were going to the theater.”

“It’s locked,” I say, trying to see around them. “What are you guys looking at?”

Drew sighs. “It’s just some stupid site. I’m sorry, Calle.”

“Why are you sorry?” The last word catches in my throat as they pull apart like a curtain.

On the screen is a picture. Of me. In my bra and underwear. Sitting on a bench in the locker room. It is not a flattering picture. The caption reads, “Maybe they should discuss lowkarb diets in Frosh PE?”

My legs don’t support me, and suddenly Drew is helping me into a chair. I can’t take my eyes off the screen. “Who…” I start. But I know who. Amber’s made no secret of the “amazing” camera on her iPhone.

“Hag,” Alexa growls when I tell her. “I’ll cram it up her prissy, rich ass!”

Drew closes the page and flips the computer screen off.

“How’d you find it?” I look up at him.

“It’s Blair Stevenson’s MySpace page. Where she posts stuff about school. Usually it’s just complaints about teachers, boring gossip, that kind of stuff. She used to write the gossip column for the school before Ms. Jones kicked her off for being too sexual.”

“And too stupid,” Alexa says. “Doesn’t she know ‘low carb’ isn’t one word?”

Drew frowns at the page. “And not spelled with a ‘k’? Still, she never wrote anything this mean. I was only looking at it because she does movie reviews.”

“I don’t even know Blair.” I have one class with her. Spanish. She sits in back and writes notes all period. Everything about her looks like an overexposed picture: a little too bleached, a little too bright. She spends most of her time with her basketball-playing boyfriend. I never see her with Amber.

“Will a lot of people see this?” I look at Alexa and Drew.

They don’t look back.

***

The note hits me in the back of my calf, and I jump. The classroom is in a test-induced hush, pencils furiously scribbling. I look around. No sign of who passed it. I see my name on the folded note, so I reach down and curl it into my palm, my eyes on Mrs. Bloom’s gray head as it bends over the tests from her last class. I peek through my fingers; the handwriting is unfamiliar. I’m scared to open it. Since my PE picture posted, I’ve been getting all sorts of weird notes. And too many stares.

“Calle?” Mrs. Bloom is staring at me from her desk, her large fawn-colored eyes a touch suspicious. “Is there a problem?”

“No, no,” I say, as thirty-two other sets of eyes swing toward me. “Just thinking.”

Nodding, Mrs. Bloom goes back to her grading. The other eyes go back to their tests. Heart pounding, I quickly jam the note into the front of my binder and return to the last three problems, but they swim in front of me. I’m pretty sure I get them wrong.

Outside, I read the note. It has nothing to do with the picture. It’s another poem. No one ever just writes me a “Hi, how are you?” note. No. I get riddles.

Only this one’s a song. I’m sure of that, even if I don’t recognize it.

I know that you are drifting, girl,

And look, I’m drifting too.

Only you don’t know I’m feeling

Like I can’t live without you.

How can I find the words for this?

How can I describe it?

That our connection is electrical

Even as I try to hide it.

At night, the shadows wrap me up;

They bathe me in my pain.

But in the light, I’m crazy, girl,

I stumble, and I’m strange.

I know my heart’s afraid of you

And know that you can’t stay,

But in everything you leave here, girl,

I can only hope and pray

That you’ll

Forgive me.

Forgive me.

I read the song four times, but I can’t place it. Not the song. Not the band. Not the person who wrote it.

I can only guess.

Who it probably is.

And who I wish it was.

***

“I didn’t write this,” Eli says, handing the song back. “It’s not even very good.”

“Are you sure, Eli?” I plead. I have him cornered outside his English class. “Because it seems like something you’d do.”

“Write a rockin’ song to a girl I love, sure.” He brushes some inky hair from his eyes. “But this,” he hands the song back as if it’s starting to mold in his fingers, “isn’t me, and Alexa and I have been together for three weeks. Where have you been?”

He and Alexa are together? I hadn’t even noticed, and I hang out with them all the time. Where
have
I been?

“Besides, I wouldn’t write this kind of whiny ballad because I’m not a twelve-year-old girl,” he says.

Sighing, I refold the note and put it in my pocket. “Okay, whatever.”

His face softens. “I don’t even recognize the handwriting.”

My heart starts to hammer again. “Okay, sorry,” I whisper.

“Cal, do you want me to ask around?” Eli looks worried now.

“No,” I say quickly. “No. I think I know who it is. Someone’s messing with me.”

“Does it have something to do with the picture?”

I flush. “I don’t know.”

“What are you going to do about that?”

“Well, I’ve been really busy with all the Victoria’s Secret calls I’ve been getting to appear in their catalog so I haven’t really had time to hash out a game plan.”

Eli hugs me, and I wonder why I couldn’t have just loved him. Then he and I could have been together now, and everything would be so much easier.

***

That night I have the dream again.

Only it’s not really my dream. It’s the song, low and twisting through my mind, but it’s unlike any dream I’ve had before. This time my father stands in a shadowy corner, holding a guitar. He doesn’t play it, but somehow, the song comes from it, out of the little hole in the middle that the strings cross over. I can almost see the notes unfolding in the still air of the strange room.

“Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me…”

And my father doesn’t say anything. He just smiles and holds the guitar.

Karma Police

…I lie flat on my back on the floor listening to Radiohead’s strange, haunting music vibrate the walls of the motel room. My mom is across the street getting burritos. I know it doesn’t take this long to get Taco Bell, and I imagine her in the parking lot, calling Ted Number 2 over and over on his cell phone. As the waves of Thom Yorke’s voice wash through me, I wonder if Ted Number 2 even took his cell phone to Hawaii…

Gaven lip-syncs a Supremes song, waggling a long finger at us from the edge of the stage. Drew doubles over with laughter in the front row of seats, not at the song but at Gaven. From under the bouncing curls of a blond wig, Gaven shimmies back and forth in a full-length sequined gown and heels. Next to him, two other senior boys wiggle in their own sequined dresses and curly wigs. They’re the opening act for the variety show to raise money for the drama classes.

“Hey, Calle, pass me that wide paintbrush.” Alexa points to a pile of brushes next to the stage. I toss her the brush and finish rolling out the stretch of canvas we’re cutting. The show is tomorrow night, and we’re trying to get the set together. Alexa and I agreed to come in and paint some flats black and hang a large canvas cutout of a comedy-drama mask. We thought it would only take a couple of hours, but we’ve already been here two hours, and we’re not even halfway done. A half hour ago, we sent Eli out for food.

Gaven and his “girls” finish their song; Drew applauds wildly. When Gaven notices Sara in the back of the theater, he shouts, “Hey, Sara! I’m hot, don’t you think? Kind of makes you wish you didn’t turn me down for Homecoming this year.”

Sara takes in his wig, his dress, and his shoes. Wryly, she says, “I’m quite sure Diana Ross did not wear a blond wig.” Turning her back on him, she returns to her conversation with Tala.

Gaven clutches his heart. “Ouch. She kills me,” he smiles. His gesture flashes me to the image of my father, standing below my window and clutching his own heart.

“Hey, you okay?” Alexa pauses with her paintbrush.

I stay focused on the canvas. “Sure, why?”

“You just got a really weird look on your face for a minute.”

“I just got a whiff of that paint. How can you stand it?”

Smiling, she returns to the flat. “It’s not so bad.”

“Hey, you guys,” Sara calls to us. “Tala and I are going to get food. Do you want anything?”

Alexa shakes her head. “We sent Eli already.”

Sara smiles. “Make sure you get your change back.” Laughing, she and Tala leave through the glass doors.

“Hey,” I say to Alexa. She looks up at me, hand poised over a flat. “I’m happy for you and Eli. Sorry I’ve been kind of out of it and didn’t say anything.”

She flushes. “Thanks. I thought maybe…I thought maybe you were mad about it.”

“No! Not at all. I’m really happy for you guys.”

She looks at me, eyes wide, and then giggles. I have never heard Alexa giggle like that before. She says, “I’m really happy too. He’s…he’s great.” Just talking about him makes her glow.

I nod, something tightening in my chest. “He is great.”

We get back to work.

Drew hops up on stage and speaks into the microphone. “Testing, one, two…” He’s MC for the show tomorrow, so he needs to practice his opening stand-up routine. Now that Gaven is done, Drew has the stage to himself. Lucky us.

Maybe he thinks if he kisses up enough to Ms. Hecca, she’ll forgive his lousy audition and cast him anyway. We’ll see; she posts the cast list for the spring play on Monday. No one’s very excited. This year Hecca decided to do Shakespeare instead of student-written pieces.

“Should I cut this out?” I ask Alexa, who has dragged the ladder onstage to work on the doorframe.

From the ladder she looks down and nods. “Did Hecca say she wanted a curtain on this doorway?” she asks me.

“Yeah. Or a back flat.” I move to the front of the stage and start cutting carefully around the mask Alexa drew for me on the canvas at lunch today.

“Curtain’s easier,” she mumbles, climbing down off the ladder.

The door pushes open, letting in a cold whoosh of early February air. Thinking it’s Eli with the food, we all turn, but it’s Sam, blinking away the daylight. He spots me, slides his hands into his pockets, and says, “Hi.” He looks nervously at Alexa and Drew.

Alexa freezes on the stage and looks at Drew quickly, then at me. Drew just raises his eyebrows and goes back to checking the microphone, tapping it with his finger. Thump, thump, thump.

“Hi,” I say back, still crouched over the half-cut mask.

“Umm…” Sam licks his lips. “Can I talk to you for a second?” He pauses, then adds, “Alone.”

I set down the scissors and stand up. “Sure.” Seeing him there, standing red-cheeked from the cold, I suddenly can’t breathe.

Alexa walks downstage and stands next to me, placing her hand on my arm. “What’s this all about, Sam?” she asks.

“It’s no big deal,” I whisper, my face burning.

“No, it is a big deal,” she tells me. “Some of us are tired of him jerking you around.”

“Alexa, I…” Sam starts.

“I’m not talking to you,” she snaps. She tucks her red curls behind her ears and looks at me. “You’ve been sulking around for two months. Don’t tell me he has nothing to do with it.”

I don’t tell her that. I don’t tell her that it’s Sam and so much more.

“You’re not at his beck and call, Calle,” Drew says into the microphone. It echoes off the walls. Sam jumps a little. Drew lowers the mike and stares hard at him.

“I’ll just go,” Sam says.

“No, wait!” I look at Alexa, and say, “I’m fine.”

She looks worried but returns to the ladder, casting a suspicious glance at Sam. I know she’s just trying to protect me; it’s sweet of her, but I want to see what carried him in here after weeks of ignoring me.

I walk down the aisle and take his arm, feeling their eyes on us.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s talk outside.”

Outside the light is strong and clear. Cold winter light and a thick blue sky. I shiver a bit at the temperature change and hope my nose doesn’t start running.

Trying to smile, Sam says, “Your friends don’t like me.”

I make sure I don’t smile even as my heart does little flips at his attempt. “Have you given them reason to?” I fold my arms across my chest.

“Alexa can be a little bossy.”

I shrug. “She has a point. They both have a point.”

“Okay,” he sighs, the smile long dead on his lips. “I’m sorry.”

I wait, refusing to make this easy for him.

“I’m sorry about our situation,” he says.

“What situation is that?” I try to sound casual, but my voice comes out strange, choked.

He takes his hands out of his pockets and motions to the space between us. “This,” he says. “Us.”

“I’m not aware there is an ‘us.’”

He sighs, frustrated. “You know what I mean. You and me. That nothing…that we didn’t…work out,” he finishes. “I feel like you glare at me in the hallways, that you hate me.”

“I don’t glare at you.”

“Well, it feels like you do.” His eyes search my face.

I can’t meet his gaze; it bores into me, so I stare at his shoes. “I have other things on my mind besides you, Sam.”

“You mean your dad?”

I shrug, not trusting him with this sudden introduction of my father. I haven’t told anyone about the coffeehouse, the miniature golf, the pebble at my window. “Why do you even care?”

“I care, Calle. I do. I really like you.”

Anger flares through me. “Really? Because you don’t seem like you like me. I don’t ignore the people I like, avoid their eyes, never talk to them. If you like me, you pretty much suck at showing it. You sure didn’t seem to care much when your little amateur-photographer friend decided to have a go at me!”

“I made her take it off!”

The picture had disappeared a day after it was posted. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t stop someone from putting a “Porn Star” sticker on my locker.

“I can’t believe you would be with someone who would do that to another person.”

He shakes his head as if to clear it. “I told Amber how stupid that was. She thinks she’s being funny.”

“She knows exactly what she’s doing.”

He throws up his arms in frustration. “You don’t understand, okay? I’m sorry about Amber. I’m sorry she did that to you, but I can’t take it away. That’s not the point. I came here to tell you…it’s just that…you and I…we just can’t be together right now. It won’t work.”

“That’s clear,” I say, again to his shoes.

“It’s not clear. Nothing’s clear.” There’s a catch in his voice that draws my eyes to his face. To his eyes. He is crying. I take half a step back. He wipes furiously at his cheeks. “You don’t understand my life right now…it’s too hard.”

“You don’t let me understand, Sam. You don’t give me a chance to.”

“Calle?” Eli stands several feet away with clear plastic bags of chips and sandwiches, and a tray of sodas. He looks worriedly from me to Sam. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head but say, “I’m fine. It’s fine. Thanks.” Sam turns away from Eli and puts his hands back in his pockets.

Eli nods slowly. “I got you a sandwich and a root beer. When you’re ready.”

“Thanks,” I smile at him, my heart swelling with him—his glossy hair and dark eyes. “I’ll be right there.”

“Okay.” He darts another look at Sam. “I’ll be inside if you need me.”

I nod and turn back to Sam. The door to the Little Theatre opens and shuts.

“Great,” Sam says. “Now he thinks I’m an idiot.”

I shrug. “It’s okay. He already thinks you’re an idiot. He thinks all football players are idiots.”

Sam’s face flushes. “That’s not fair…”

I interrupt, “Relax. I’m kidding.”

“Oh,” he mumbles.

“We don’t think so badly of you,” I say. I look closely at his face, the tears matting his lashes, his red-blotched cheeks. A blurred version of cute. When I cry, I look like a blowfish, all swollen and awkward.

His eyes well again. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

I pull him toward me, holding the back of his curly head with one hand, and his weight shifts down into me, the side of his face resting into my shoulder like a child’s. Through the Little Theatre window, I imagine I can see all three of them—Drew, Eli, Alexa—with their noses pressed to the glass, watching us.

***

The next week at Burger Mania, a hand reaches for my tray of fries, and I slap it away. “Just one,” Eli whines.

Laughing, I hand him the tray. “Have as many as you want. They go well with my burger you just ate.”

Toby laughs and helps himself to some of my fries as well. Sara just sips her Sprite and shakes her head. “You two are such pigs. How can you eat three cheeseburgers?”

“We’re growing boys,” Toby says, rubbing his flat stomach.

“Yeah,” Eli agrees. “Growing boys need cheeseburgers.”

Alexa stirs her vanilla shake with her straw. “I don’t think that’s actually a rule.”

“Here’s Drew,” Sara says, scooting over in the circular booth so Drew can slide in beside her. He slumps into the seat and buries his head in his arms.

“How’d it go?” Alexa asks.

“Terribly.” His voice is muffled but weighted with despair.

“Did you tell her we can switch roles?” Toby asks, eating the rest of my fries. “I’m running track this year. I don’t have time to play Lysander.”

Sara looks skeptically at Toby. “You’re running track?”

He shrugs. “Sure. It looks good for college.”

“I hope you stopped smoking, or you won’t make it once around,” she says. He shows her the patch on his arm. “Well, bravo.” She drains the rest of her Sprite. “Scooch out, Drew. I’m getting a refill.”

He picks himself up and allows her past. “Could you get me some onion rings?” he asks, brushing at some crumbs on his “I do my own stunts” T-shirt.

“Sure.”

He settles back into the booth. “She said she won’t even talk to me about the audition until tomorrow. I have to think about it and write her a letter.”

Eli smiles. “I had to write her a letter last year for the David Ives’s tribute. Just tell her you learned a lot from not being prepared for your audition, blah, blah, blah.” He motions to Sara at the counter. “More fries,” he tells her. She rolls her eyes.

Drew shrugs. “She told me to read the part, that I get to play ‘the Wall,’ and it’s really funny. Whatever.”

Toby leans across the table. “Dude, you have to switch with me. I can’t remember all those lines. She just gave me the part because there weren’t enough guys who tried out.”

“I tried out.”

“Oh, right.”

Drew slides over and lets Sara sit back down. He dunks a hot onion ring into some ketchup. “Yum,” he says. “Thanks.” Sara pats his head.

Eli looks wounded. “Where are my fries?”

“You’ve had enough,” Sara says, her green eyes laughing.

“You’re not my mom.”

“No, but today I’m your bank account, so it’s the same thing.” She smiles at me. “Did you get enough? Eli ate practically all of your food.”

“I’m fine,” I say.

“So who’s going to the Sweetheart Dance this Friday?” Sara asks, popping one of Drew’s onion rings in her mouth.

“Not me,” Toby says, chewing the ice from his soda.

“Yes, you are. Tala told me you two were going,” Sara tells him.

“Oh, yeah.”

Drew says, “I’m going.”

“With who?” Sara asks. “You have to have a date, or they won’t let you in.”

Toby mutters, “Student Council date Nazis…it’s so stupid. How can they even get away with that?”

Drew smiles. “I’m taking Greta, my blow-up doll. Let’s see them not let me in.” Toby laughs so hard he almost spits root beer across the table.

Alexa turns to Sara. “Did Gaven ask you? He couldn’t shut up about it at the show last weekend.”

“Yes,” Sara rolls her eyes. Gaven’s been madly in love with her for a year, but she always blows him off. “And to Senior Ball already. I can’t wait until he graduates. No, for Sweetheart’s I’m going with Kevin Timbers.”

Toby makes a little “whoo, whoo” noise, and Sara swats him.

“Hey, Calle?” Eli asks. “Do you want to go with me?” The table takes an audible intake of air. Alexa’s eyes widen. He says quickly, “Just friends. Alexa’s going to be in the city with her parents all weekend.”