Random (Going the Distance) (28 page)

My brain rebels. “What? They said she was getting better?”

“She took a turn overnight. They couldn’t save her. I’m sorry.”

I’m not sure why this last bit of news should weigh so much, but I tilt forward, dissolving into my own lap, my arms around my knees. I feel hollowed out. “I lost my job today. Rick came in and started a fight, and I got fired. And the new guy? He’s in jail because he broke parole. He did fourteen months for manslaughter and never said a word about it.” I shiver. “I don’t have the rent and I don’t have a job and I have no idea what to do.”

Her hand is still and steadying between my shoulder blades. “You’ll figure it out. You’re strong.”

I raise my head. “Am I? I don’t feel like it.”

She pats my hands. “Have a good cry and wallow overnight, then pick yourself up and get moving again tomorrow.” At the door, she pauses. “Sorry about your friend.”

Wallowing sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I crawl into my bed and cry until I don’t have any more tears left. I cry for Tyler, who seemed like a magic answer to all the things that were wrong in my life, cry for the illusion he presented to me.

I cry for the loss of a job that had real promise. I cry for Virginia, who died way too young, leaving two little boys, and would probably kill to be me right now, in a cozy house without a job. Just to be alive.

Then I sleep for fourteen hours in a row, only waking up when the sun blasts me in the face. I hear the words of Mary Oliver’s poem in my head, as if she is standing beside my bed, reading them aloud to me.

“What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

I lie in my bed, and it suddenly seems both reckless and obvious what I have to do. Sitting up, hair falling around me like a curtain, I unplug my new iPad, which I’ve hardly even been able to play with, and I text my other dad.

I broke up with my boyfriend, my friend died, I lost my job, and I’m probably going to have to move back to my stepdad’s house, and he’s really nice, but I can’t stand to live there. I don’t know you and you don’t know me, but if you meant it that I can come see you, this would be a really good time.

I hit send and fall back on the pillows, feeling winded.

Maybe it’s running away. Maybe it’s just another way for me to duck out of my life and not deal with it. But, honestly, I’m tired. Tired to the heart of me. So tired I almost wouldn’t mind dying.

My iPad dings.

I’ll buy a ticket today. Tell me when you want to come.

And that’s how my life changes for real.

It isn’t random at all.

* * *

Everything moves with even more speed than it has been lately. Henry, as always, is a big help. He lets me pack all my stuff and bring it to his house and put it back in my old bedroom, joking that he’ll never even know the difference. He’s also the one who digs out my old New Zealand passport and all my papers, stuffed with a bunch of my mom’s things in a closet. There’s a whole box of things I’ve never seen: a photo album and letters from people I don’t know, and letters from my other dad. I can’t stand to dig into it right now when I’m feeling so raw and ask him to put it in my bedroom with everything else.

It’s kind of a headache to get the passport stuff done, but because I’m a New Zealand citizen—who knew?—and my dad is very eager to get me there, I have a new passport in three days. I also have a round trip ticket with an open ended return. I leave on Monday.

Virginia’s funeral is quiet, only me and a few other people there. Her boys are crying and crying on their dad’s shoulder, but he seems like a good guy. I introduce myself to him, tell him I’m sorry and that we were working together the day the car came through the restaurant. He nods, but really, he has no idea who I am.

Neither Tyler nor Rick has called or tried to message me through Facebook. I guess Rick finally got the message, and I’m relieved to finally get around to blocking him.

I don’t block Tyler. I can tell he’s out of jail because sometimes I see the little green dot beside his name on Facebook and I know he’s there. I’m still furious with him for keeping such a huge secret from me, but I guess he’s furious with me, too. It was my fault his house of cards came down on his head, actually. Directly my fault. If I hadn’t called 911, Rick would have gone to the emergency room and Tyler would have served out the last
two months
of his parole without incident.

But I did call.

On Sunday I take my uniforms back to the Musical Spoon, clean and tidy. Sam told me he’d give me a check for the three days I worked, which means I won’t be totally broke when I fly across the world to see the dad I hardly know.

It’s quiet when I come in through the open back door. I half expect Tyler, but of course he’s not there. Sam spies me and waves me toward the windowless office where he’s working on a computer. From a desk drawer he pulls an envelope and then reaches for the neatly folded uniforms. “Sorry it all worked out like this,” he says.

“No, I get it.” I shrug. “I’m sorry I ended up causing so much trouble.”

“Did you know?” he asks. “About Tyler?”

“No. I’m still not completely clear on what happened. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who kills someone.”

“He’s not,” Lena says from behind me. “It was his sister’s ex-boyfriend back in Aspen.”

I look at her, and against my will tears fill my throat.

“I know,” she says. “It’s a bad story.”

I bow my head, feeling worse than ever.

“It’s not your fault,” she says. “That’s one fucked up family. I’d stay away if I were you.” She turns on her heel and leaves me standing there feeling demolished. Because, you know, I wouldn’t want to just feel okay for one single day.

“Has he been by?” I ask Sam. “Do you know what happened?”

“I heard he made bail right away, but I haven’t heard anything else.” He hands me the envelope with my pay. “Good luck. You seem like a nice girl.”

“Thanks.”

Out in the hot afternoon, I look toward the mountains that have been the backdrop of my life and feel wretchedly, painfully homesick before I’ve even left.

What am I
doing
?

I’m walking to my car, trying to stave off a full blown panic attack, when I see my mom. She’s sitting on a half-wall beneath a tree, wearing one of the little sundresses she liked. She doesn’t seem to see me at all, which is weird. I tell myself I’m not really seeing my mom at all, that it’s some other person who looks like her, but that’s not true, since I can see her wedding ring and the sandals she liked, with these crazy rhinestones on them.

Then it occurs to me that I’m having a hallucination, probably brought on by panic, so I take a couple of long breaths and blow them out. She’s gone.

But when I get in the car I smell her—cigarettes and Juicy Fruit gum—and goose bumps break out all over me. “Mom?”

There’s no answer.

Of course there isn’t, because I’m just having a mental breakdown.

As I start the car, though, I wonder. If she was here to tell me something, what would it be? To stay? To go?

When she was seventeen she left home and traveled around the world, never looking back. When she was ready to come back to the US, she came back. She
chose
her life, right or wrong. Random things happen to everybody, but what really counts is how you manage them.

With that in mind, I realize there’s one thing I need to do before I leave. Instead of going home, I head to Manitou and Tyler’s house. I can’t leave without talking to him face to face.

Clouds are rolling in, predictably, as I drive into town and up the steep street to his house. My hands are shaking with nerves as I get out of the car, and my heart squeezes as I look at the porch and the studio windows where we made love. A thousand moments press into me all at once—and I’m hungry and tired and full of too much love, thinking of his mouth and his laugh and the tattoos on his body that I haven’t yet read.

There’s a good chance he won’t even talk to me, I know that. But I have to try.

I get out of the car and walk up the steps, but before I can knock he’s standing there behind the screen door in jeans and a white t-shirt, his feet bare. In his hands is an artist’s palette covered with fresh paint. He says nothing.

“Hi,” I say. “Is this an okay time?”

“I guess.” He doesn’t push the door open or invite me in, and I realize that I’ve been imagining a happy reunion, thinking that he’d be so desperately glad to see me that he’d sweep me up and kiss me and everything would be on the way to better.

Not so much.

I take a breath. “Lena told me why you went to prison. And I’m really sorry that I caused you so many headaches.” To my horror, my voice breaks, and I have to bow my head to hide my emotions for a second. When I’m calm, I look at him again. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to New Zealand, and, um, I guess I didn’t want to leave without telling you goodbye.”

He still doesn’t say anything, and I can’t read his expression through the screen.

I turn to go, and I’m almost to my car, tears blinding me so much that I stumble.

“Wait,” he says gruffly. “Come in for a minute.”

But now I’m crying too hard, and it’s so embarrassing, and really, until this very second, I didn’t realize how much I loved him, how much I’ll miss him. I was mad at him, but I didn’t mean to completely ruin it. I really didn’t.

Then he’s behind me, his hands on my shoulders. “Jess,” he says, wrapping himself around me from behind, breathing into my hair. His arms are tight around my waist. “I love you. I
really
love you, but I don’t want to ruin your life. I’m a total fuck up, I have been for years, and I can’t seem to stop doing things that wreck my life.”

I turn in his arms and we’re kissing, and I don’t know if I taste my tears or his tears are mixed in there, too. It’s not the kind of kissing we’ve done before, so full of sex and heat. These kisses are soft and bittersweet. His hands are on my face. “I’m so sorry,” he breathes. “Everything about that day was my fault. You didn’t deserve it.”

“I didn’t,” I say, “but I really didn’t have any idea that you’d be in so much trouble if I called 911.”

He presses his forehead to mine and our noses just touch. “I should have told you, but you still would have had to call an ambulance.” He frowns. “You’re not seeing him, are you?”

“No.” With some exasperation, I pull his hands from his face. “I wouldn’t do that. When you’re jealous like that, you’re not giving me any credit. When you kick his ass after I tell you I’ve got it under control, you’re not giving me enough respect.” I pause and swallow. “When you humiliate me over sexual stuff that you started, it really hurts me.”

He closes his eyes. “I know. I was wrong, so wrong. I’m sorry, Jess.”

Raindrops start splatting on our heads, and he takes my hand. “Come inside. Just for a minute.”

I allow myself to be led up the steps and through the living room, into the kitchen. It breaks my heart a little that I had imagined myself here, living here, maybe. He tugs me on, into the studio.

“I’m not there yet,” he says. “But maybe I’m getting closer.”

There are dozens of sketches, maybe hundreds, tacked to the walls, all of me, or some part of me, rendered in the slightly off-scale, surrealistic style he uses. My hands, showing how dry my nails are from waiting tables and scouring things. My face, peeking out from a curtain of hair, wise and shy at once, which is a sweet one but still looks a lot like those velvet paintings. I smile, pointing at it.

He inclines his head. “I know. There’s still something I can’t quite get, but I will.”

There are drawings of my shoulders and my sleeping form, of my mouth. In one he’s sketched a pair of glasses and added a giant book, and when I see it, I blink hard. “That one,” I say.

He nods slowly. “Getting there.” He doesn’t touch me. “I wish you were going to school instead of New Zealand.”

“Ty, I don’t have a job. I don’t have any money. I don’t have anybody to pull strings for me when everything falls apart. I don’t have my rent for next month and my step-dad is a hoarder and the guy I thought I was falling in love with was in jail.” I shake my head. “I had to do something.”

For a long moment he looks at me. “I know.”

“What about you? What happened with the parole violation?”

He sinks onto the bed, rubs a hand over his face. “Because Rick was arrested after assaulting you, I’m probably not going to have to go back to jail. The lawyers are pretty hopeful.”

“But?”

“Rick is suing me for damages. Going after the trust fund. Which infuriates my father. Not sure what’s going on with all that yet.”

He sounds almost as exhausted as I felt the night of the fight. I sink down beside him and take his hand. “What are you worried about?”

“They’re rich boy problems,” he says with a wry little smile, looking down at me. “When do you leave?”

I look at the Felix clock on his wall. “In approximately 14 hours.”

“Shit,” he says, and then he’s kissing me, tumbling me backward, and as the rain starts to fall we make love. Kissing tenderly, exploring and looking and going slowly. I read every single tattoo on his body, the Emerson and the Mary Oliver, some Cat in the Hat, and some nihilistic stuff from Nietzsche that must have been done right after the accident. He kisses my face and hair and belly, he twines his fingers through mine, and we lace our legs together and talk. Talk about silly things and foolish ones and sad ones. When full dark falls he goes to the kitchen to bring us back some cheese and bread and cold water.

We make love one more time, then both of us set our alarms for three hours, and we sleep together, entwined and aching, hearts broken but also healing.

We wake up before the alarms. “What now?” he asks.

“I don’t know. We can write letters. Talk on Facebook.”

“How long are you staying?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a while.”

“Can I come see you if they drop the charges?”

“Of course!” I rise up on one elbow. “I’m not leaving
you
, Tyler. I’m just trying to find a life that means something.”