Guyaholic (17 page)

Because I’m on a roll, I tell him about Sam and how I pushed him away and then cheated on him because I was scared to love and be loved. But what I’ve recently realized is that even if my mom doesn’t love me enough, there are a lot of people who do, myself included. Except now Sam has moved to California and probably never wants to talk to me again.

“Now
you
sound like the country song,” Tommy says, and then he starts chuckling.

“Is my pathetic life that funny?”

“Sorry,” Tommy says. “I just didn’t think pretty blond girls had problems. It’s kind of refreshing.”

“I’m not that blond.”

“And you don’t have that many problems.”

“Yes, I do,” I say. “I just drove all the way to San Antonio and my mom isn’t here and who knows if she’ll even come back tomorrow? She could call me in the morning and tell me she needs a few more days to pull herself together and, by the way, she’s in the South Pacific.”

“I guess that is a problem.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

We wander around the River Walk, watching couples licking ice-cream cones and mariachi bands serenading tables of tourists. After a while my sandals start rubbing the skin off my toes, so I tell Tommy I’m going to head back to the hotel.

Tommy walks me to Pecan Street, over the bridge, and up the short flight of stairs.

“Want to come in?” I ask, gesturing toward the lobby.

“Are you sure?”

“Sure,” I say, nodding.

When we get to my room, I go into the bathroom, where I brush my hair and swish with mouthwash. When I come out, Tommy is sitting in a chair, looking through the room-service menu.

I flop onto the bed. “Do you want to order something?”

“Nah. I’m just seeing who makes their guacamole.”

As I lean against the headboard, I think about how we’re probably going to chat for the next ten minutes. Then I’ll toss my hair over my shoulders and grin at Tommy, and he’ll scooch closer to the bed. Maybe he’ll angle in for a kiss or maybe, if he’s the polite southern boy that I think he is, I’ll have to advance things myself.

Suddenly, I start to cry.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Tommy asks, setting down the menu.

I wave my hand as if to say,
No big deal,
but I can’t stop. And it’s not just a little sniffle. I’m unleashing a flood of tears and way more snot than Tommy was hoping to see tonight. I’m crying because I’m doing exactly what I don’t want to be doing anymore, using a guy to escape whatever’s going on in my life. I’m crying because it won’t help to hook up with Tommy, just like it didn’t help to hook up with Nate, just like it didn’t help to hook up with Amos. What will really help, deep down, is not to let Aimee send me into these self-destructive downward spirals. I need to acknowledge that she may have controlled my past, but she doesn’t have to dominate my present and my future, too.

“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping my nose. “You don’t have to stay . . . really . . . You should go.”

“Don’t worry,” Tommy says. “I’m not leaving.”

“Why? I’m a mess.”

Tommy kicks off his sneakers and sits next to me on the bed. “You seem like you need a friend right now.”

As he slides his arm around me, I cry even harder.

“You know what I think?” Tommy grabs a few tissues off the bedside table. “I think you should call that guy and tell him you still love him.”

“But I was awful to him,” I say. “I told you how I cheated on him at that party. There’s no way he’s going to talk to me after that.”

“Tell him your head was messed up because of your mom, but you’re starting to figure things out and you want to make things better with him.”

“You really think I could say that?”

“It’s worth a try.”

Tommy clicks his tongue ring across his teeth. After a minute he says, “Why did you leave New York again?”

“To come see my mom.”

“But you knew he was in California, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And you must have looked at a map. You’ve got to know that Texas is only a few states from California.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You said your mom always lets you down. Did you really need her to do it one more time?”

“I guess not,” I say quietly.

“Maybe you were actually driving out here to see him.”

It’s a lot to think about. I lie back and rest my head on a pillow. Tommy starts stroking my hair. I’m just drifting off when he whispers, “I better go. I’ve got to work breakfast tomorrow.”

I open my eyes.

“After all,” he says, clicking his tongue ring, “I’m getting paid to serve food, not pick up the ladies.”

When Tommy stands up to leave, I say, “I want to get something from my car for you.”

I grab my keys and we head down in the elevator. As soon as we get to my car, I unlock the door and dig through the backseat until I find that compass my grandma insisted I bring along.

“What’s this for?” Tommy asks as I hand it to him.

“For helping me find my way.”

Tommy puts it in his pocket and then walks me back to the lobby and gives me a tight hug.

“Enjoy California,” he says. “I hear they have great avocados out there.”

As I’m checking out of the hotel, the concierge tells me there’s a good breakfast place on Commerce, a block from the Alamo. I park in a nearby lot and carry my atlas inside. I sit at a table, order a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich, and stare down at the map of the United States.

There are several major highways leading out of San Antonio. There’s I-35, which is how I got down here in the first place. I could always hop back on it, heading north. I could drive up through Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois, back along the Great Lakes, all the way to Brockport.

There’s a highway to Houston and a highway to Corpus Christi and a highway to Mexico. I have a month until college starts, so I suppose I could spend the next few weeks wandering the Southwest, having random adventures.

Then I glance at 10 West. That would take me across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, all the way to California.

My hands are trembling as I lay some bills on the table and ask the waiter to wrap up my breakfast instead. Once he gives me the bag, I grab some napkins, close the atlas, and head out to my car.

I arrived in Berkeley on a warm Thursday in late July.

My atlas didn’t have an expanded map of the East Bay, so I kept pulling over and asking people where I was. Finally, a woman with braided white hair sketched me the directions on the back of a protest flyer.

It was early evening when I parked in front of a run-down Victorian house on Shattuck Avenue. Rachel is the one who gave me Sam’s address. I talked to her when I was staying with Michael and his fiancée, Catherine, in San Diego. When I told Rachel where I was headed, she whistled dramatically under her breath. But I explained how important this was, and she agreed to keep it between us. My grandparents and Mara were the only other people who knew where I was going. I called my grandpa as I was leaving San Antonio and asked him to pass a message along to Aimee that I wouldn’t be making that lunch after all.

I climbed the steps and knocked on the peeling front door. No one answered. I turned and looked at my car, dusty from the desert, streaked from that sudden downpour in the mountains north of Los Angeles.

I knocked again, and in the silence that followed I wondered if I’d made a major mistake coming out here or if Sam really even lived in this house or, oh my God, if he’d gotten together with another girl and they were both inside right now.

After a few more agonizing moments, Sam opened the door.

As soon as I saw him, my heart leaped into my throat. I wanted to tumble across the threshold and wrap my arms around his neck. He was barefoot, wearing shorts and a faded blue T-shirt. His hair was longer and his cheeks were scruffier, but otherwise he looked about the same.

As I opened my mouth to speak, he gestured me inside. I followed him up three flights of stairs, into a damp attic, through a window, and onto the roof. We sat next to each other on the loose shingles, watching the sun set over the bay. I could see the arcs of the bridge stretching across the water and the distant hills and lights of San Francisco. I glanced at my toes, where the blisters were finally healing from my night in San Antonio. Then I looked over at his feet, flush against the shingles. I looked at his hands and his shoulders and his face, and I thought about how even if he told me he never wanted to see me again, I’d still be grateful for this time together.

After several minutes Sam turned to me and said, “So.”

I tried to remember all the things I’d spent the past seventeen hundred miles preparing to tell him. But before I could say anything, Sam reached over and touched the scar on my forehead. As he did, I thought about how I once believed it all started with the hockey puck. But it really all started when I knocked on the front door of a run-down house in Berkeley, even though I was terrified, even though I knew I could get hurt. And that, in the end, was the true beginning.

I am incredibly grateful to all the people who gave me feedback on this story, helped with child care so I could write, or answered random research questions such as, “What does northern Indiana smell like in early July?” My deepest thanks go out to: Lynn Harris Adelson, Chloe Annetts, Mara Bergman, Judy Blume, Meg Cabot, Anne Dalton, Erin Golden, Jenny Greenberg, Susanna Greenberg, Emma Hofman, Kathleen Jaccarino, Diane Klock, Oliver Kuhn-Wilken, Jeff Layton, Ian Mackler, Miriam Martinez, Megan McCafferty, Jim Miceli, Deborah Noyes Wayshak, Nitsa Papouras-Seidman, Ruth Rath, Stephanie Rath, Jodi Reamer, Amy Reese, Jared and Courtnee Rideout, Neal and Karen Rideout, everyone at Riverside Montessori School, Alison Seidman, Derek Seidman, Michelle Seidman, Chris Smialek, Sonya Sones, Rebecca Wertkin, Debra Wolf, and Anders Wright.

And a special thanks to Jonas and Miles Rideout for filling my life with so much love.

What do you do when your whole family is perfect and you’re not?

The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things

Carolyn Mackler

A M
ICHAEL
L. P
RINTZ
H
ONOR
B
OOK

A
N
A
MERICAN
L
IBRARY
A
SSOCIATION
B
EST
B
OOK FOR
Y
OUNG
A
DULTS

“Body image problems, family discord, a teenage contrarian narrating — is this anything new? Yes, because fifteen-year-old Virginia Shreves is so well-constructed a character that we like spending time with her.”
— Chicago Tribune

“I couldn’t help but root for Virginia as she tries to overcome her problems . . . changing from a frumpy geekster into a serious, butt-kicking feminist.”
— ELLEgirl

www.candlewick.com

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