Authors: Ginger Voight
“
Some old friends are treating me to dollar beer at the Karaoke Klubhouse tomorrow night, eight sharp. You are cordially invited
.”
It only took a minute for Dylan to reply.
“Sounds like fun, count me in
.”
I half-glared at Olive, who returned once again to her
heap of nachos with a wide, shit-eating grin on her face.
If only they knew that the real source of my insecurity was not rooted in the fact I
couldn’t get Dylan Fenn into bed.
It was that I did
, and it had ruined everything.
June 24, 1988
“Veronica!” my mother hollered from the living room. “We’re leaving in ten minutes!”
I rolled my eyes as I stuffed another outfit into my overstuffed suitcase. We were going camping for a week, but I was taking enough to last me a month. It was my first independent foray into the wilderness and I wanted to be prepared.
I didn’t want to get caught literally with my pants down in the middle of BFE, with no one but the Moms and Dylan Fenn to witness it.
Since we both were leaving home in the fall, me, to UC Fullerton to pursue a business degree and he to NYC to study drama, our mothers, whom we had long ago affectionately dubbed ‘The Moms,’ had decided we all needed to get nice and cozy our last summer together as a family unit.
It was a fitting farewell to our twelve-year living arrangement.
We didn’t look like other families, but we had long been operating as one. Dylan and I divided the chores between us, and generally fought over the bathroom and the TV in the den just like actual siblings. The Moms found support in their friendship, to fill the gaping holes left by their husbands. Not only did they share the expenses, they shared the experience of parenting teenagers while juggling full-time jobs.
They were sisters by choice, bonded with love and respect rather than shared DNA.
And now that the baby birds were due to leave the nest our Moms wanted one last family vacation before we all went our separate ways. We were traveling up north to the Sequoia National Park to camp for a week in our own private cabins.
Honestly I would have preferred to stay home. Bryan and I had a lot left to do before we started college in the fall. The first and most pressing order of business was to find an apartment to share.
After the rigors of high school, I didn’t particularly care to live in a dorm with strangers. I’d much rather share a two-bedroom apartment with my very best friend in the world, the only other human being alive that I knew I could trust implicitly.
I’d saved enough money to pay for my half, and I knew he had plenty of money for his. We just had to find a place and furnish it, which, frankly, was the most exciting prospect of all.
My own space.
I couldn’t wait.
But since I had yet to spring it on my mom that I was moving in with a boy at the end of summer, I thought I’d add some good karma points and go along for the trip. I could only hope it would soften the blow.
If nothing else I would remind her that she used to watch
Three’s Company
religiously. She already had a good grasp on co-ed, but strictly platonic, living arrangements.
Besides, she had to know that I was still a virgin. My love life was non-existent all through high school. I never socialized unless it was with my Leftovers or with Dylan. If I could live in the same house with one of the most desirable boys in my age group for a dozen years straight, I felt we all could be relatively sure my
chastity belt was bolted solid for the immediate future.
Maybe that was why nobody blinked an eye when I opted to ride in Dylan’s brand new, cherry red Corvette his father had bought him for graduation. Because he couldn’t be bothered to travel across the country to see his only son graduate in person, the gift had to be even more elaborate than usual.
On our way up to Sequoia, Dylan confided in me that was one of the reasons he had decided to go to school back east. His father lived in Connecticut, so Dylan’s living in New York would give them ample opportunity to make up on all the time they’d missed.
The elder Fenn was still a prestigious Manhattan doctor, still on call and would likely put his career ahead of his son, but if he was willing to pay the tuition so that Dylan could pursue his dream of being an entertainer, then who was Dylan to squabble over the minor details?
“Not seeing your dad is a pretty big detail,” I reminded.
“I’ll see him more going to school in New York than I will going to school out here,” he shot back. “Besides, it’s New York. I hear if I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.”
I rolled my eyes at his joke.
“You should come with me.” I laughed out loud. “Come on. I’m serious. What better roommates than people who have already lived together for so long?”
I shook my head. “My place is here. Mom’s here. My friends are here. Unlike you, I have no reason to go to New York.”
“You have me,” he grinned and I quickly averted my eyes. I hated it when he said stuff like that. I knew he didn’t mean it.
“I have a life here,” I corrected. “I know it’s not all that exciting to you, but I’m actually really looking forward to it.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “I can’t see you living in a dorm.”
I cleared my throat as I looked out the window. “I’m not moving into a dorm.”
He shot me a quizzical glance. He already knew that both the Moms had decided to scale down after we moved out, selling the house and getting another place, perhaps separate places, all of their own. A new phase of their lives had begun, and kids weren’t exactly a part of it. “Where do you plan to live?”
“With a friend,” I answered noncommittally. He let the question linger in the silence that followed. Finally, I said, “Okay, I’m going to tell you but you can’t breathe a word of it to our Moms until after the trip.”
He used his finger to cross his heart. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“Bryan and I are getting a place together.”
I watched him mull that over quietly. “It makes sense,” he finally conceded. “You guys have been close for years.”
“The closest,” I agreed.
“Your mom is still going to have a conniption.”
“The biggest,” I agreed again.
A moment of silence passed before he asked quietly, “Are you sure you’re ready to take that kind of step,
Roni?”
My answer was immediate and emphatic.
“More than ready. I can’t wait.”
He nodded and
that was the last we spoke of it on the drive north. We stopped for lunch, and then hit the road once more. Dylan kept me occupied with all his new music. He still favored metal, although hair bands had been replaced by more aggressive bands. He shared some of his new favorites (Guns N’ Roses) and we talked about his favorite movie (
Crocodile Dundee
.) I mostly smiled and nodded. I knew he wasn’t interested in my favorite band (Bon Jovi) or my favorite movie (
Big
.) I had well-worn cassette tapes in my bag but I would never suggest that he play them. Most of my newer tastes leaned toward pop and dance, especially after hanging out at Eleete. I would have been embarrassed for him to see my guilty little pleasures.
He carried the conversation all the way up Route 99, over the
Tejon Pass and through the heartland of the San Joaquin valley. It was after four in the afternoon before we reached the Sequoia National Park.
My breath caught as I stared at the majestic
trees that where hundreds of feet tall and thousands of years old.
It made me feel small and insignificant in comparison.
The Moms decided we should settle into our cabins. The drive had only taken six hours but we were all ready to head to our private quarters and freshen up.
It was the first time I had a place to myself and I was really looking forward to it. The cabin was rustic and it was small, but I didn’t care. For one week only, it was mine all mine. I unpacked my suitcase and made myself at home.
My mom dropped off some groceries and personal supplies from the bounty they had stuffed in the back of her station wagon. I already had my boom box going, playing my music at last, as I spread my blanket on the bed and adjusted the pillows I had brought from home.
“Doesn’t this look cozy?” she praised with a happy smile. She laughed as she wiped away tears with the back of her hand.
She had been crying a lot this past year. She cried when I took my graduation photo with my cap and gown. She cried when Bryan and I went to my senior prom. She cried from the audience as I walked across the stage and accepted my diploma.
Her baby was growing up. And I knew this was bittersweet.
“I wish your dad could have lived to see this,” she had said to me at graduation. “He would have been so proud.”
I nodded, though I couldn’t have said anything if I wanted to. Whenever big events happened in my life, I always felt the big, gaping hole left by my dad’s death when I was a kid. It was like an emotional sucker punch.
What was sadder still was that I no longer really remembered him. All memories were frayed by time, out of focus and blurred, as though they belonged to someone else entirely. I didn’t remember what his face looked like or the stubble of his beard or the sound of his voice. I could no longer feel the big hugs that lifted me right up off the ground or his broad shoulders under me as he carried me piggyback wherever I wanted to go.
I just remembered the idea of him, and how when he was around I didn’t feel so empty.
I also didn’t feel so scared. It was back before I knew life could turn on a dime, and no one was promised anything.
Actually that wasn’t true. We’re promised plenty when we’re kids, our futures filled in with all these things accepted as universal experiences, like having a dad to walk you down the aisle, or having your parents live long enough to retire somewhere in Florida, where they can spoil their grandkids with annual trips to Disneyworld.
When I was six, I learned all that was bullshit. There was only one guarantee. You love someone, you risk losing them.
I don’t think I ever forgot it.
“I’m sorry,” she said to me now as she giggled at her overly emotional response. It dawned on me then that my mother loved me, and now I was leaving her, too.
“You don’t have to be sorry,” I said as I stopped what I was doing to give her a big hug. My mother was my hero. She had worked so hard for so long to give me the best head-start that she could. Because of her, I was heading off to pursue higher education, likely writing my own ticket for my own life, which never had to depend on a man at all.
Thank God for the 1980s.
But I knew that the transformation was not going to be an easy one. It was both terrifying and exhilarating to think that in a few short months, I would be out on my own. Thanks to living with Bonnie for more than a decade, my mother had been able to squirrel away enough to pay for my schooling and give me a modest living allowance. I was stunned when I saw the check, which she gave me as a graduation present. If I lived frugally enough, I could make
most of it last while I was studying full time, which meant I only had to find full-time work during the summer.
This meant my time as a carefree
high school student was over. Gone were the mornings sleeping in, the set schedule of classes that had me home by four, with only an hour or so of homework to work around my robust TV-watching addiction. I was a brand new adult, and I would be making my own sacrifices from now on.
I envied Dylan’s confidence. Here he was moving to a strange city on the other side of the country, far away from everyone and everything he knew, to try and mend fences with a virtual stranger. Yet he looked as carefree as he always did as he helped the Moms prepare our dinner that night on the deck.
The sun cast fading light on the majestic mountaintops. All I could do was suck in fresh air and stare at Mother Nature in all her glory.
After dinner Dylan asked me to join him on a walk down to the nearby river, but I shook my head. I was really tired after our long drive. Nothing sounded more heavenly than retiring to my private cabin for the night. I cracked the window and slept like a baby until dawn broke the next morning.
The Moms cooked breakfast, which we all shared as the sun inched higher in the cloudless sky. Then we drove a couple of miles into the park to start the first official day of our vacation.
We headed right to the Giant Forest to meet the iconic General Sherman at last. Standing 275 feet high, this proud giant sequoia had presided over its surroundings for more than two thousand years. I got dizzy as I stared up at it, so much so Dylan had to steady me with one hand.
My surroundings invigorated me. It was almost too beautiful to be believed. I wanted to keep walking, to see everything, to experience it all. I was still raring to go even after The Moms had pooped out after a four-mile hike. We ultimately turned back toward the cabins, where the Moms decided to spend their afternoon on the decks reading a couple of books.
This time when Dylan asked to head down to the river, I didn’t hesitate.
We headed down the hill together. The terrain was flat but rocky, with tall trees surrounding the area like sentries on guard. He lit up a joint, which I shared. I inhaled deep the smell of the trees and the dirt, feeling like we were at one with the universe.
“We should go rafting,” he suggested.
I shook my head. “This is perfect,” I said as I sat on one of the rocks near the foamy river. It was large and flat enough for me to lie on my back and stare through the tiny opening in the trees toward the blue, cloudless sky above. I took another hit and just allowed myself to be a part of it.