Songs for a Teenage Nomad (15 page)

He’s quiet for a minute. “I’m not totally sure I know who that is.”

“You will,” I say. “And I won’t tell anyone. About you and Cass. Everyone deserves to have secrets. To have time to figure themselves out. I think we’re all just trying to figure ourselves out. I mean, I think that’s sort of the point of being a kid. Or a person. My mom’s still trying to figure it out.”

As I stroke my thumb across the back of his hand, he says, “I just need another chance.”

Now it is my turn to look sad. I had lost my evening, my life, in his story, and it all comes crashing back. I’m leaving. Even with my fit tonight, as good as it felt to say those things to my mom, I know I’ll be getting in that car and driving away. “I can’t, Sam.”

He nods, hurt, and pulls his hand away. “I was afraid of that.”

I shake my head and take his hand back. “No. Not because I won’t give you a chance. But because we aren’t staying here.”

He looks sharply at me. “What?”

“I wanted to come tonight and see you, to hear what you had to say, but mostly to tell you good-bye. My mom and I are leaving tomorrow morning. And I don’t know where we’re going.”

“Why? I thought the job was working out. The apartment was fine.”

“They are fine.” I find my own pockets and stare out at the water, Van Morrison low in my ears. “It’s not that.”

I tell him. Everything. The meeting at the coffeehouse, the miniature golf, the scene I walked into tonight. My father selling drugs, our running from him. I watch his face as I talk, taking in all the shadows, the line of his jaw, the fullness of his lower lip. My stomach clenches like a fist.

Throughout my telling, his face pales, becoming as washed as the moonlight. “Can’t the police do something? A restraining order or something?”

“I told her I was staying, that I’d live with Alexa, but that’s crazy, right?”

“No.” He shakes his head, his eyes lighting with possibility. “No, you could stay. A lot of kids do it, stay with friends to finish high school.”

“What kids?” Maybe I could stay?

He looks at his hands. “Well, I don’t really know any, but I’ve seen it on TV.”

I look away, swallowing my reality. Ready to face it. “I don’t think I can. I’d never see her. She would just be gone. It’s too hard. I mean, you understand about that.”

He nods, his eyes once again on the night water. “Yeah.”

We listen to the waves, deflated.

“So, that’s it?” he asks. “You’re just gone? Out of my life?”

“I guess.” A numbness begins to set over me. It spreads like water filling the cracks of a sidewalk, each limb, each finger, each toe going numb. I have felt this before, and I hope it takes over the whole of me, so I won’t have to feel the ache that is fighting for air underneath it.

“It’s not fair,” he says.

“I know.” The ache scratches its way to my surface.

“Will we…can we write, email, call?” He stumbles through each option, aware of how insufficient they feel.

My heart thumps in my chest and crushes my lungs. I can’t breathe, but I try to sound strong. “Email, sure. When I can get to a computer, for sure. I’ll email you.”

He nods and fiddles with his iPod again. Springsteen’s “Secret Garden” begins to play. I love this song so much. I can’t believe that he’s playing this song, that I have to leave this boy behind who plays me Van Morrison and Springsteen and writes me my own song. This boy who maybe loves me, even if he can’t figure out how to show it.

He stands, then reaches and pulls me to my feet.

“Come here,” he says, holding me closer.

I melt into the soft wool of his jacket and sway to the music all around us—Springsteen, but also the waves and the sounds of the night birds over the water. In this, our only dance together, I am the closest to him I’ve ever been, but I’ve never felt more alone.

***

At home, my mother sits on the couch in the dark living room. She stands as I shut the door behind me.

“I looked everywhere for you,” she says, her voice thin and tired. “I couldn’t find you.” She has clearly been crying.

“I’m sorry.”

“I was so worried,” she takes a step forward. “Calle, I…”

“We can go, Mom. I know we need to go.”

She pulls me to her, her hand rubbing my hair like she did when I was a child, over and over.

A clock sits atop a box. It’s the only thing she hasn’t packed. It reads 2:06.

Tick, tick, tick.

***

In the yellow light of the street lamp, the night filling again with cloud cover, we pack the gray Honda Civic my mom bought three weeks ago, taking only the essentials, and climb into our seats. Pulling away from the dark apartment, my mom pushes the
Almost Famous
soundtrack into the CD player. I stare straight ahead as we drive away, a sleeping Andreas Bay slipping by us. At the first gas station, we pull over.

“Get me a Snickers and a bottle of water, okay?” My mom hands me a ten.

As we push open the doors, a highway patrolman pulls in to fill up his tank. He smiles at my mom. “Late night?” He nods at me.

“We’re heading out,” my mom says lightly. “Trying to get an early start.”

“South 1 is going to be blocked for a couple of hours,” he tells her. “I hope you weren’t going that way.”

“Why?”

“There was an accident. A Ford Escort hit a tree. It’s a mess.”

“We’re going north,” she tells him, but I see her face.

We get back in the car and go south.

***

We see the lights first.

A white spotlight and flashing red and blue from the emergency vehicles illuminate the dark trees on the side of the highway, the colors jagged and scattered. My mom pulls off the road when the cop standing in the street motions her aside. Up ahead, a black Ford Escort is crumpled against a tree. We get out of the car. Shards of glass glitter on the ground, catching the light of the police cars, the fire truck. An ambulance is parked near a cluster of men on the ground.

They are working over a body.

I know before I see him that it is my father.

“Excuse me, but you’re going to have to stand back.” The road cop comes up next to her. He has ginger hair and young, sad eyes.

“I know him,” my mother tells him. “That’s my ex-husband.” She pauses, then adds. “And this is his daughter.”

“You both need to wait here.” He walks away, his face a mask.

My head is throbbing, the spinning of the emergency lights making me sick. The cold, damp air burns my lungs. Someone comes to talk to my mom, but I can’t hear them, their voices murmur and hum in my ears.

I float toward the men working on the ground. Red light all around. Or maybe it’s blood. They are not hurried; there is no panic about them. They ease him onto a stretcher as if not wanting to wake him. As if he’s sleeping. His face is pale and shot across with cuts and slashes. There is glass in his hair.

“It’s a crazy corner,” a tall EMT says to the little guy next to him.

“Cop back there says there were no skid marks before the tree,” the little one says back. He shakes his head of brown curls.

“Poor bastard.”

They slip a white sheet over his face.

No skid marks.

I sink onto the wet ground, the smell of eucalyptus trees strong in my nose. I feel my mom’s arms circle around me, her tears on the side of my face, in my hair. Like glass.

“Come on, sweetie,” she says. “We need to go.”

“There weren’t any skid marks,” I tell her. “He didn’t try to stop.”

“I know, I know.” She curls with me, rocking. Shivering, I pull her jasmine smell into me. “We’ve got to go now,” she says. “They’re cleaning up. They’ll call us later today.”

Today. The sky is already lightening, a shiny husk across the night.

“He’s gone,” I say, my body shivering, not moving.

“I know.” The hush of her voice covers me. “I know. We’ve got to go now.”

“Where?” I ask. “Where will we go?”

She pauses, sighs, and releases something. In the wet air, with the smell of the trees and her jasmine, with the flashing lights disappearing away into the dawn, I feel her body drain, ease, and become pliable against me. Settle. I look at her eyes, clear and strong.

“Home.”

You Can’t Always Get
What You Want…

…my mother does an aerobics video in the living room of the house of a man whose name I can’t remember. She sings along with the Rolling Stones song the bouncy blond in the tape has playing in the background and takes an occasional sip of her Diet Coke. Gleaming with sweat, she waves to me where I sit on the couch, reading. I smile at my mother, at her wide, hopeful face. At her sudden energy and eagerness, at her sips of soda between sit-ups…

“I think that was a knock at your door,” Sam says, looking up from the copy of
Julius Caesar
we’re reading for English.

I finish highlighting a quote I plan to use for our in-class essay tomorrow. “A knock?”

“Yeah, you know. A standard sign of desire to enter.”

“Shut up,” I say, smiling.

I cross the small apartment and open the door.

On the step is a man I don’t know. He wears beat-up jeans, an old army jacket, and a red baseball hat that reads, “Highland Day Spa,” though I’m pretty sure this guy has never been to a spa in his life.

“Yes?” Something in my voice brings Sam to my side. I feel his arm curl around my shoulder, a feeling I’ve grown used to over the last few months.

“Can we help you?” he asks, his voice lowered.

“Calle Winter?”

I notice the man holds a box in his hands, a battered orange Nike shoebox.

“Calle Smith,” I say, my voice catching.

The man frowns. “You Jake Winter’s kid?”

I nod. We buried my father almost three months ago to the day. Sam came and held my hand. My mother placed a handful of purple daisies against my father’s simple headstone.

“His favorite,” she said, wiping her eyes. They seemed small and delicate, just a splash of color against the pale gray of the stone.

“Are you looking for Jake?” I ask. “Because I’m sorry to tell you this, but he’s…passed away.”

“I know,” he says, shifting awkwardly on the step. “He told me if anything happened to him, I was supposed to give this to you.” He shoves the box into my hands. “He gave me three hundred bucks. Sorry to take so long, but…I just got out.”

“Oh,” I take the box. “Okay, thanks.”

Without another word, he turns and shuffles away down the street. I watch until he rounds the corner.

“What is it?” Sam asks.

I shrug, feeling the weight of the box in my hands, and set it on our little dining table.

“Open it,” he says.

I open the box.

Inside, I find returned letters addressed to me in my father’s jagged script. Under these, I find a thick leather book tied with a red string. As if in a dream, I untie the string and open it.

It’s a journal.

I leaf through the seemingly endless pages, written with no margins, back and front in the same heavy black pen. I catch snippets of his narrative. “…almost found her in Sacramento. She plays soccer there. I bet she’s real good at soccer…” and “…Alyson didn’t return my call…” and “…when I get out of here, I’ll go to San Diego…to get her, if they’re still in San Diego…” Tears drip on the pages, smearing the ink.

“Calle?” Sam whispers. “Can I get you something?”

I shake my head, flipping the pages and reading pieces. Then I come to the end. A half-finished entry written the day I chased after him down the side street at Insomnia’s.

I met Calle today. Amazing. She is beautiful and funny. And smart. I can tell she won’t let me get away with anything. She’s got quite a mouth on her. Good girl. I say, give ’em hell! I like it here. It fits me. I can get an apartment. A job. A real one. Maybe Calle could even live with me part time. I have to talk to Alyson. Maybe we can start things over…

Sam holds me while I bring my sobs under control.

“Shhh,” he whispers. “It’s okay.”

At the end of the journal, there is a CD fastened to the inside cover with bright, blue duct tape. It reads: “For Calle.”

Sam takes it from my shaking fingers and tucks it into our stereo.

My father’s rich voice fills the room:

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

I clutch the journal to my chest. I found him.

“…in the jingle jangle morning, I’ll come followin’ you…”

Thank you to music. To musicians. To songs. We all have a soundtrack in our lives, and each one is tailored to our experiences, our memories, our loves, and our losses. This book is not about the specific songs mentioned but rather the way music impacts a life in an individual way.

There would be no book without my students. A special thank you to all of you. You are in every page of this book.

So many people have nurtured this book along the way—too many to name—but a few specifically are Rachel McFarland, Tanya Egan Gibson, Ann Keeling, Jaime Williams, Kirsten Casey, Krista Witt, Michael Bodie, Loretta Ramos, Scott Young, Richard and Daisy Sagebiel, Caryn Shehi, and Erin Dixon. A huge thank-you to Gail Rudd Entrekin and Charles Entrekin for giving this book its first pair of wings at Hip Pocket Press.

Thank you to my agent, Melissa Sarver, who just gets me, and I love her for it. Thank you to my wonderful editor, Daniel Ehrenhaft, and everyone at Sourcebooks (especially Paul Samuelson, Kay Mitchell, Kristin Zelazko, and Kelly Barrales-Saylor).

Thank you to all the librarians, students, teachers, schools, bookstore owners, bloggers, and other readers who have already been so supportive—I am grateful to all of you.

Thank you to my whole family, but a special nod to my parents, Bill and Linda Culbertson, who handed me my first journal and have been encouraging me ever since.

And, finally, Peter and Anabella—so many of the favorite parts of my own soundtrack involve the two of you.

In the novel, Calle keeps a song journal. She titles each entry with a song title, and in the entry records the memory the song gives her. In the first chapter, she tells Mr. Hyatt that: “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.”

The pieces of Calle’s journal entries that begin each chapter center around her mother, some of them are arguments or places, and some of them are small details that help paint a picture of their relationship. For example, chapter two begins with the following journal entry:

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…

Many people have songs that make them think of a place or experience in their lives. Perhaps the song reminds them of a trip they took, or of a sport they played, or of a friend who is important to them. Music is an important part of our culture, and one that is also deeply personal.

You can keep your own song journal too! Here’s how!

• Select songs that have significance to you somehow.

• Each journal entry should use the song as the title to the entry.

• In each entry, describe a scene/memory in your life that this song brings to you. Focus on using specific detail and sensory description to “show” the memory rather than just tell the memory (look closely at what Calle does in her journals).

• Create a cover for your journal

These journals make great gifts for family and friends and can be a fun thing for families to do together. Email me some of your song journal success stories at [email protected].