Читать книгу Another Little Piece Of My Heart - Tracey Martin - Страница 7
ОглавлениеChapter Two
Two months after fate vomited all over my plans, my Miata is, in fact, driving me somewhere. We’re going to the beach. If that’s not what normal people do when facing a financial crisis, then this is just further proof that we are not normal. That my dad is bringing his personal secretary along with us is like an insanity bonus track.
Fortunately, my dad is not crazy enough to be renting the beach house himself, given his financial situation. We’re crashing with my aunt and uncle, and my two cousins. It should be...interesting. I don’t know either of my cousins well these days. Hannah is my age, and Lisa is a couple years older. When we were younger and they lived nearby, we used to play together at family gatherings. Then my aunt and uncle moved to Virginia, and that was that. I talk to Hannah online sometimes, but she’s barely a friend no matter what her Facebook status claims. Since I really only use my account to promote the band and talk to other musicians, I know more about strangers than my relatives.
As I pull onto the highway, April sticks her bare feet on the Miata’s dashboard, and I swat at her leg. “Get them off there.”
She lowers her sunglasses my way. “Please, as soon as I get my license, this car becomes ours. Our car. My feet.” She wiggles her pink-painted toes.
“The license plate still has my name on it.”
“That can be changed.” April crosses her arms. “You have to share.”
The emphasis she places on the last word is evidence that she’s still bitter that she’s no longer getting her own car when she turns sixteen. It’s one of the reasons my dad opted not to sell the Miata. He doesn’t want to have to chauffeur April or I anywhere, and heaven forbid his younger daughter should have to take the bus to school. That would be beneath us.
Appearances have always been way too important to my parents, and my dad in particular. He can pretend the house is too big for the three of us, and that he’d only bought the boat to make my mom happy, but getting rid of the Miata or his Mercedes would look too bad. As for me and my lack of college in the fall, my dad likes to wax poetic to his friends about how I’m taking a year off to explore the world, broaden my horizons and deepen my piano studies.
Right.
I grit my teeth. “We’ll share. Until then, feet down. Now. You’re smudging the windshield and blocking my view.”
April groans and lowers her feet. “This sucks. Why New Hampshire? I didn’t even know they had beaches there.”
I turn on the radio because if April is going to complain the whole time, this is going to be an even longer drive than I feared. “Yes, darn Aunt Anita for not growing up somewhere more fashionable, like Martha’s Vineyard.”
“I don’t care where she grew up. I just don’t understand why she has to go to the beach in that state. Why not Florida or the Caribbean?” Her phone sounds with a text, and suddenly I’m being ignored in favor of the friends she’s leaving behind.
That’s fine. I turn the radio tuner, considering whether I should put on some of the music I brought instead, when I land on a classic rock station. Janis Joplin is belting out “Piece of My Heart” in that scratchy but powerful voice of hers, and it’s like an anthem that calls to my blood. The memories this song brings to the surface aren’t ones I want to relive, but I can’t make myself change the station, either.
This was my song. After the first time I heard “Daddy’s Girl,” I blasted Janis from the car’s speakers and just drove and drove and drove because I had to get away from the mess Jared created of my heart. So hearing this song now? It’s so appropriate as I leave behind Connecticut and every place I ever visited with him. For the first time since my dad told me that college had to be deferred, I feel hopeful. Like maybe this summer won’t completely suck.
I crank the volume and press down on the accelerator.
As the music washes over me, I’m fifteen again, at Michelle Rosenberg’s party the September of my sophomore year. Michelle doesn’t go to my school, but some of my friends know her from summer camp. They’re invited and take me along.
It’s my first real party. The music is loud and bad and mostly I wander around Michelle’s house, trying to act like I’m having more fun than I am.
At last I enter a new room that looks just like all the other rooms with its beige walls, muted carpets and overstuffed furniture suffering under the weight of drunk high school students. Except in this particular room a guy sits on one of those overstuffed couches, and the beige fades away until he’s all I see.
His hair hangs almost to his shoulders, the same mousy brown as my own, but his has these golden streaks running through it, like he spent a lot of time in the sun over the summer. There’s something so right about him that my chest feels as though it’s constricting. Then he turns and catches my eye and grins, revealing a perfect dimple on his left cheek.
The burning shocks me. Kristen develops a new crush almost every month, and each one, she swears, is the best guy ever. Not me. I’m not some romantic who believes in love at first sight or anything, but I have to talk to this guy. I have to find out who he is.
My feet move, taking that huge grin of his as an invitation. So even though I’m never so forward, I plop down on the sofa next to him. “I’m Claire.”
“Jared,” he tells me, resting his head against the sofa and looking me up and down. This close, his eyes are an amazing shade of clear blue. He starts to say something else, then a song by this new group, The Frantics, comes on the stereo, a very popular—very annoying—cover of the Beatles’ “She Loves You.”
Jared sighs. “Lennon and McCartney must be rolling over in their graves.”
Whoa. He’s gorgeous, and he knows of the awesomeness that was Lennon and McCartney? I might swoon. “Really? You hate this song, too? I thought I was the only one.” I bounce in my seat a bit. “Though I’m pretty sure Paul McCartney is still alive.”
Jared shakes his head. “After what he did with Wings? He’s dead to me. So are you a Beatles fan? What’s your favorite album?”
We debate the merits of Abbey Road versus the “White Album” versus Revolver. Soon enough I know Jared’s a junior at one of the nearby public schools, and he’s been playing guitar since he was twelve and writes his own songs. I’ve been wanting to teach myself guitar ever since my piano teacher introduced me to sixties rock, and I have to stop myself from drooling.
We discuss our favorite modern bands and movies. Then somehow the conversation changes to things I never talk about with my friends—politics and religion and weirder stuff, like what if all those ancient gods were actually aliens doing experiments on humanity.
Maybe it’s the pot smoke that clings to the air, but it’s the most fun conversation I’ve ever had. Before I know it, the party’s dying, and my friends are ready to leave. Jared and I have talked for three hours.
He calls me the next day and we talk for two more, and from that day on, we’re practically conjoined. Jared picks me up after school, which my mom is okay with until she sees his ten-year-old pickup truck with the bumper held on by duct tape. All I can do is hope she never sees his house because then she’ll really flip.
Jared’s bedroom is the size of my bathroom, no exaggeration. It’s cluttered and messy and comfortable in a way my room with its enormous four-poster bed and white lace duvet cover can never be. Posters of his favorite guitarists line the walls: Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and George Harrison, who Jared claims is so underrated. There’s barely enough room for us to sit between the piles of clothes on the floor and the albums and CD cases because Jared’s a freak about needing to own multiple copies of his favorite music. Yet somehow he clears space and teaches me guitar. He’s an awesome teacher, and it doesn’t hurt that when he helps me position my arms and place my fingers on the frets, his touch sends electric shocks singing through me.
“You need to relax your right arm,” Jared’s telling me as we sit in the middle of his room, the October afternoon sunlight pouring in through the window. It illuminates the dust that covers his furniture but also coats the room in a surreal honeyed glow.
Jared takes my upper arm and tries to position it for me. “Don’t tense up your shoulder.”
How am I supposed to not be tense when he’s touching me?
I grumble, trying to do as he says. “It’s awkward and uncomfortable that way.” The fingers on my left hand are screaming in agony from pressing down on the steel strings. I’m never going to get the hang of this.
“That’s because the guitar’s a bit big for you. Here, try this.” He comes around behind me and drapes his arm over mine.
My heart beats so fast I’m afraid I might pass out. Jared’s face is so close. His breath tickles my ear, faintly peanutty because we’ve been working our way through a bag of Peanut M&M’S, but warm and so sweet. My eyes close inadvertently. Just as I’m starting to feel stupid for thinking about his lips instead of my arm position, his grip on my forearm slackens and I feel those lips kiss my ear.
Arm? What arm?
He tucks my hair behind my ear and pulls away. “Claire?”
He sounds adorably nervous about what he did, and I don’t want to know what he wants to tell me. If he’s talking, he’s not kissing me anymore. So I twist around—not easy with the guitar on my lap—and kiss him back before he can say anything else.
And that ended my music lesson for the day.
Still, a month later, I’ve made progress amidst all the kissing, and Jared helps me pick out my first guitar. He takes me one day after school. I’ve been to this shop a few times to buy piano music, but I’ve never ventured into the room that’s wall-to-wall guitars. In spite of my lessons, I feel ridiculously out of place, especially since the clerk has blue hair and more piercings than a pin cushion. She also can’t be that many years out of high school herself, and she’s on a first-name basis with Jared.
While he tells her what we’re looking for, I catch my reflection in a security mirror and wonder what he sees in me. It’s not my looks that bother me, although I have to admit the clerk owns that blue hair in a way I only wish I could. As a result I’m feeling really plain as well as absurdly preppy in my hideous school uniform with its sweater vest and pleated skirt. But what really eats away at my insides is that I feel like such a poser. Part of me wants to run over to the keyboards in the next room and bang out some Beethoven just to prove that I have the tiniest bit of talent.
When Jared adjusts the tuning on one of the guitars then plays one of his own songs, my insecurity reaches new heights. I’m a string ready to snap, tempted to dash out of the store and declare myself a failure before I ever give this playing thing a fair go.
The clerk totally doesn’t help, either.
“Isn’t he amazing?” she says, offering me a guitar to try. “Watch for it. This dude is going to be famous one day. I’m calling it now.”
The guitar she hands me is a better size for me than Jared’s, but it feels awkward and misplaced in my arms anyway. “Yeah, no doubt.”
Jared just laughs and rolls his eyes. “You’re both crazy. Claire’s the talented one. I can barely read music, but you should hear her on the piano.”
“It’s hard to totally suck when you’ve been taking lessons as long as I have,” I say. But Jared’s compliment gives me enough confidence that I play a few chords. I still wish the clerk would go away, though, so I can relax.
She seems to read my mind because she gets up a minute later. “I think I can leave you two at it. Will I be seeing you Saturday?” she asks Jared as she heads to the doorway.
Saturday? My fingers pause, and I look at Jared curiously. He nods without glancing up.
After the clerk leaves, I place my thumb back on the strings but my mind is elsewhere, overrun with more insecurities. “What’s Saturday?”
“It’s nothing, just this thing they do. The owners are partnered with some organization that helps underprivileged kids. I’ve been volunteering with them, giving some of the kids guitar lessons.”
“Really? That’s awesome.” You’re awesome, is what I think. Why didn’t I know he did that?
But Jared shrugs. “It’s fun. Some of the kids are really into it. So what do you think of that one?” He motions to the guitar, seeming eager to change the subject.
“It’s all right. I don’t know. How did you pick yours?”
He sets down the one he’s been playing with and takes the guitar I have. “Actually, I didn’t. It was my dad’s.”
“I didn’t know your dad plays.” His parents got divorced when he was young, but so far Jared’s rarely mentioned his dad.
“Played,” Jared corrects me. “He used to be good enough to get some paying work, supposedly. That was before I was born. Then he quit.”
“Because of you being born?”
Jared shakes his head. “Because it wasn’t enough for him. He couldn’t be happy with what he had. It’s one of the reasons he and my mom got divorced. He’d get frustrated and take it out on her, pick fights and run off for days. That sort of thing. He’s an asshole. He threw the guitar away during the divorce. My mom rescued it from the trash and saved it for me.”
I’m not sure what to say to that so I fall back on the lamest thing possible. “That sucks.”
Jared scowls. “Hey, it means I got his guitar. It’s the only good thing he ever did for me.”
I lean over and kiss his cheek to save myself from saying anything else stupid, and he smiles and hands me a different instrument.
“Try this one. You just need to pick the one you like—one that sounds good and fits comfortably in your arms. Kind of like picking a girlfriend.”
I poke him and knock the guitar out of tune. “You like me because I sound good?”
“Sound good, look good, are good.” He returns my kiss on his cheek with a kiss on my ear, and an idiotic grin spreads over my face. The same dumb smile is mirrored on his own. Then he taps the guitar. “Play good, too.”
I laugh my disagreement because he’s wrong about that part, but his kisses make me giddy and he dares me to believe it. And as the weeks go by, with him at my side, I do get better. By the end of the year, we’re writing songs together. We have great plans. Ridiculous fantasies. One day Steele-Winslow will be the new Lennon-McCartney.
It’s Jared who takes a part-time job so he can buy me concert tickets for Valentine’s Day. And it’s Jared whose shoulder I cry on when I can’t contain my worries about my mom and the chemo. It’s always him, the first to come through for me on anything. Sometimes we have whole conversations without saying a word because we can read each other’s expressions so well.
I don’t know when my parents morph from being wary of him to outright disliking him, but their annual Christmas party is a good bet. Such a party is not for the faint of heart under the best of circumstances, but I thought I’d prepped Jared well. He looks good in his borrowed suit, he keeps a respectful distance from me at all times, and he calls Grandma B “ma’am” when she speaks to him. All goes well until my parents ambush us by the tree in the den.
“So, Jared,” my dad says. His cheeks are Santa-pink, courtesy of the champagne. “You’re a junior, are you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Started looking at colleges yet?”
Jared squeezes my hand. “No.”
“No?” My parents exchange glances. “Well, you can’t start that sort of thing too soon. Claire’s a year behind you, and we’re already making plans for which schools she’s going to visit this coming summer.”
“Oh, come on,” I say. “You’re making a plan. So I can visit Yale.” That’s where my dad went to school, and he has high hopes of me following.
My dad’s chest puffs with pride. “Because it’s a fine school and ought to be a family tradition. Where did your father go to school, Jared?”
“Um, he didn’t go to college.” Jared kicks at the carpet, clearly aware that was the wrong answer. So he tries to atone. “But he owns his own business.”
“Good for him,” my mother says. She seems particularly frail tonight, washed out in her gold gown, and the tree’s twinkling lights reflect off her pale skin, giving her a mottled appearance. “What kind of business?”
Jared fidgets with the silver ring on his thumb. “A bar in New Haven.”
“So.” I clear my throat. “That puts him kind of close to Yale, right?” Jared’s caught midway between a smirk and a wince, but my dad gives me a knowing look. “He’s got time, Dad.”
“Yes, you do,” my mother agrees. “But what are you thinking of studying?”
Jared’s half smirk vanishes, and my right hand might never recover from the crushing he gives it. His grip isn’t the only thing that’s tight, either. Although his expression never truly changes, I can see how his shoulders have clenched and his eyes have narrowed. I’m going to hear all about how nosy my parents are later. “Um, not sure.”
Actually, I’m fairly sure that this conversation is the most thought Jared’s ever given to college at all. When we’re not playing and writing songs, I’m often helping him with his schoolwork even though he’s a year ahead of me. It’s not that he isn’t smart, but he doesn’t have much interest in it.
“Well, what do you want to do?” my dad asks. “Surely, you have some thoughts. A doctor? A lawyer? Lord help you, not a teacher or an accountant, I hope.”
“I want to be a musician, I guess.”
“Oh, yes,” my mom says. “You’re teaching Claire guitar, aren’t you. I do love Andrés Segovia. We should hear you play sometime.”
His wince returns in full force. “Sure, I guess. But I won’t sound anything like Segovia. He plays a classic guitar, and I have a steel-string because I mostly play rock.”
Given the horror that sweeps across my parents’ faces, this must translate as: my boyfriend aspires to be poor, do drugs and drop out of school.
“Well, that explains your hair,” says my dad.
It’s the beginning of the end.
From that day forward, Jared becomes ever the more obstinate about avoiding my parents. And for their part, my parents become ever the more argumentative whenever Jared’s name comes up. He’s a blemish on the Claire sculpture they’ve tried so hard to mold.
But though my parents have done their best, personality is only so malleable. They started with the piano and tennis lessons in elementary school because, according to my mom and her mother before her, all girls should know how to play both. While those were ongoing, I was made to appreciate art everywhere from the Met to the Louvre, taken on shopping expeditions from Fifth Avenue to Florence, and the gaps in my pricey private-school education were filled in with horseback riding and sailing lessons.
And although I can’t deny some of my mom rubbed off on me—I stuck with the piano long after April quit and I pretty much adore all things Italy—she didn’t create a little version of herself. I prefer funky boutiques to high-end designers. I’d rather watch a game at Yankee Stadium than a match at Wimbledon. And I want a Strat and a set of amps for my sixteenth birthday instead of the new car my parents are offering.
Worse: I love Jared even if they don’t. As a result, I begin the downward slide from simply being the misfit child to the bad daughter. It’s a process that’s been fifteen years in the making.
The harder they try to make me into their version of Claire, the harder I fight back. If I’m not hanging out with Jared, I’m hanging out with Kristen. Anything to get away from the tension at the Winslow house. My parents’ tendency to favor April, which they staunchly deny, becomes even greater. It’s as if we communicate so infrequently and irregularly, that sometimes they forget I exist. Or maybe we start speaking in two totally different languages.
Take, for example, my cousin Alison’s wedding. Alison is my mom’s brother’s daughter. She’s ten years older than me, and I see her maybe once a year. Our paths cross so infrequently that I can’t even give an opinion of her. But that’s not about to stop Alison from using me and April as decorations in her wedding party.
Alison is determined to have the most badass (read: expensive) wedding known to humanity. Something so ostentatious that members of Greenpeace should probably be picketing the event for its gratuitous use of natural resources. As such, she requested April and I be junior bridesmaids. What a junior bridesmaid does besides wear an ugly dress, uncomfortable shoes and a fake smile is not something anyone can explain to me, but that’s beside the point. April is excited about dressing like a princess, and my mom is excited for the high-society photo op.
Alison planned a shopping date for bridesmaid dresses with my mom, and in typical Winslow family fashion, my mother conveyed this information to April, but not to me.
“Jared’s picking me up at four,” I say as I come down the stairs on Saturday and help myself to the platter of bacon.
“Picking you up for what?” my mother asks. She looks healthy. True, she lost a bit of weight on the last round of chemo, and she hasn’t regained it. But since her motto is “never too rich or too thin,” she’s far from bemoaning the fact that she once again fits into her size two jeans.
“For the concert.” Technically, it’s called the Music or Lose It Tour, and it’s headlined by one of Jared’s and my favorite bands, but there’s no way I’m bothering to explain that to my parents. “Remember? He got us the tickets for Valentine’s Day. It’s up in Hartford tonight.”
This is when my mother informs me of the dress shopping plans and tells me that trumps any silly concert.
I force down the bite of bacon. “When did you decide this?”
“A few weeks ago. We had to pick a day that didn’t interfere with April’s practice schedule.”
“Well, what about my schedule? You didn’t think to ask me?”
“I’m sure we did. You didn’t mention any prior commitments.”
“Um, hello? Concert? If you’d asked, I would definitely have mentioned it!”
My father puts down his newspaper. “Claire, this is your cousin’s wedding. That takes a bit more priority than your boyfriend.”
A wedding for a cousin I see once a year and who spelled my name Clare in the email telling—excuse me, asking—me to be a junior bridesmaid. How is that more important than my boyfriend of seven months? You know, the guy I see every freaking day?
I attempt to be rational. “That’s not the point. You didn’t ask me, and Jared spent a couple hundred dollars to get these tickets.”
“And your aunt and uncle are spending a hundred thousand dollars on your cousin’s wedding. Your dress isn’t even included in that because we’re paying for it.”
That’s supposed to make me feel better? Jared had to take a part-time job to pay for these tickets. My Uncle Doug might be insane, but I’m guessing he didn’t work extra hours at the office to afford the wedding. Telling my parents about Jared’s job, though, is a bad idea. They’ll only turn up their noses even further.
The smell of the eggs on my plate is screwing with my stomach. “I’m not blowing off the whole wedding. I just can’t go dress shopping today.”
“You’re going.”
“I’m not.”
Across from me, April smiles, perfectly smug, and stuffs another forkful of scrambled eggs in her mouth.
“Yes, you are,” says my dad. “You don’t have my permission to go to this concert. The discussion is over.”
“You gave me permission last month.” I should have gotten it in writing.
“I gave permission to let a seventeen-year-old boy drive my fifteen-year-old daughter to Hartford for some concert? No, I don’t think so.”
My parents love to play the age game with Jared. Although he’s only one year ahead of me in school, thanks to his birthday being in the spring, he’s currently two years older.
“And in that piece-of-shit truck of his?” My father reddens with the very idea. “It’ll probably break down before you reach I-91.”
My mom smoothes her napkin out on the table so the embroidered violet lies flat. “If he gave you the ticket as a gift, then it’s your choice whether you go. There’s nothing that says you have to. He should have asked about the date first.”
“You should have asked about the date. The concert was already planned.” I can’t take it anymore. I push away from the table and lock myself in my room.
I went to the concert, too. I called Jared, snuck out the back of the house, and spent all day with him until we left, my cell phone off. I knew I’d pay for it later, and sure enough a massive grounding followed. In fact, that would turn out to be one of the pivotal events cited by my parents as a reason I should break up with Jared. The good, pre-Jared Claire would never have done anything so horrible.
The radio station jumps to commercial break, and I’m abruptly pulled from my memories.
“What do you think of these?” April holds her phone up to my face.
I shake my head. “I can’t look now. I’m driving.”
Driving? Hell, I’ve been zoning. It’s only April and the heavy traffic that dragged me off memory lane and back onto the Mass Pike.
I rub my eyes beneath my sunglasses. “What are you looking at anyway?”
April frowns into her phone. “Shoes to go with my dress for the Michelsons’ party.”
“We still have to go to that thing?”
I swear I can hear April rolling her eyes. “You really thought we could get out of it? Dad was talking about it the other night. Which you’d know if you hadn’t had your earbuds in.”
I haven’t the faintest idea what other night she’s referring to, nor the desire to ask. Absently, I scroll through my music. Janis and the radio station are long gone. I want something more current now. Something that promises the future instead of replaying the past.
April continues to shop, undaunted by the size of her phone screen. “I’m looking for you, too, since you don’t want to do it. Feel free to thank me anytime.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Gee, thanks. I know it’s a hardship for you.”
Just another way my sister takes after our mother—the shopping gene. More so than tennis or organizing fundraisers for the local art museum, my mother loved to shop. And I don’t just mean for clothes and shoes and all the usual things either, and certainly not just for herself. She was annoyingly generous that way, buying me new backpacks, earrings or whatever else she thought I needed to update more frequently in my life than I did.
In fact, the longer I was with Jared, the more she tried shopping for a new boyfriend for me, shuffling through the possibilities like boys were something you bought off the rack at Nordstrom.
Do you like the blue sweater or the green one? The brunette or the blond? Oh, honey, pick any boy but that Jared one. He’s too shabby for you and he clashes with your future.
Speaking of the Michelsons, the most blatant memory I have of her doing just that was the afternoon of their annual party two years ago. My mother’s hairdresser has come to the house to fix April and me with elaborate up-dos because that’s what you do before going to the Michelsons’ gala. I’m not even sure how my dad knows the Michelsons, but we’ve been going—and I’ve been suffering—through these parties once a summer for as long as I can remember. Think champagne, caviar, ice sculptures, boasting and evil gossip disguised by tuxedos and glittering jewelry. It’s a lot like how I imagine The Great Gatsby went down only without the cool flapper dresses.
“What about Sam Cohen?” my mom asks.
The hairdresser yanks too tightly on my head and I wince. “What about him?”
“He’s cute.” My mom so innocently tries on one of her wigs, scrunching her face up as if that will help her figure out which one goes best with her gown.
I stare wistfully at the bowl of blueberries several feet away. I can’t eat while Candy tortures my scalp, and I can’t fight with my mom right now although I know where this is heading. “No, he’s not.”
She clucks her tongue at me. “He thinks you’re cute. His mother told me so.”
“Of course, he thinks that. I’m adorable. But that doesn’t change his face.”
She knows where this is heading too, but that makes her smile. “The Hendricks’ boy then? What’s his name?”
I pretend I don’t know it.
Undaunted, she lists off every boy within my general age range who is known to attend the gala. “Really, Claire, one of them ought to be good enough for you. Todd is even a musician. I’m sure you’d get along well. I can talk to his mother and—”
“Todd has a girlfriend.” And, you know, I have a boyfriend. But duh—she knows. That’s why we’re having this conversation. She wants me to exchange my boyfriend for a new one.
My mom puts the second wig on the bureau and smoothes down her pixie-ish hair. “So what? Relationships shouldn’t be so serious at this point in your life. At your age, you should be going out on lots of dates with lots of different people. You should be exploring and living it up, not locking yourself down with one person. Shop around, sweetie. Keep trading up until you find the best match. Isn’t that right, Candy?”
Candy bites her lip, clearly not want to be dragged in to this conversation. “If you’re going to date around, high school is the time.”
Beautifully noncommittal. I silently applaud her.
In retaliation, she takes the curling iron to my hair, and I wince because I’m not a fan of having hot metal so close to my face. “I hate shopping, remember? I prefer the old and comfortable to the new and shiny. Anyway, it’s bad karma to replace what works great. Wasteful. Bad for the environment.”
“Oh, Claire.” My mother clucks her tongue at me. “I just don’t want you missing out on new opportunities or settling. Live a little. For me. Shop.”
Boys are not interchangeable objects, I want to say. And unlike a sweater that doesn’t care if I add a new one to my collection, Jared would not be pleased.
But my mom runs her hand over her super short hair again, and her guilt trip is achieved. Live a little for me. With the unspoken ending: because I don’t know how much longer I’ll live myself.
So I curl my hands into fists and say nothing. I love my mother, I tell myself. I just wish she could love that I also love Jared.
But she can’t, and it only gets worse that summer. That’s when April overhears me talking to Kristen, and the word condom or sex or something equally blab worthy is mentioned. She squeals about it to Mom and Dad, who panic.
Mom spends too much time crying because she’s worried about me making bad choices. She fears I’m going to ruin my life, and she won’t be around to help me pick up the pieces. Dad’s angry all the time because I’m upsetting my mom.
I know none of this is an act; they’re genuinely freaking. I’m worried sick over my mom, and all the lectures I’ve gotten about how bad an influence Jared is are starting to nibble away at my confidence in our relationship.
I love Jared, but I don’t want to cause my mom any more stress. I don’t want to make her sicker. I don’t want to lose her. She’s my mother. I grasp at any hope and start to wonder: since stress makes people sicker, will breaking up with Jared help her get better? Is this a choice between my mom’s life and my boyfriend’s heart?
All my agonizing comes down to a single, almost unconscious decision. Jared and I are at the mall on a Saturday morning. Neither of us wants to be there, but it’s ninety degrees outside and his mom’s AC died. Among the food court, the piped-in soft rock and the generic clothing stores, we can breathe. Yet it’s a stupid way to spend the day, and we both know it.
“Can we go back to my house, please? I hate the mall, and we can go swimming.” I cross my arms, but Jared ignores me. Again. He shuffles toward the arcade, and I kick the railing in frustration. “If you don’t want to come over, just say it already.”
“Fine.” He spins around, his arms raised in defeat. “I don’t want to go to your house, okay? I can’t stand the way your parents talk down to me.”
“They don’t—”
“Yes, they do. They hate me, and I don’t want to deal with them.”
People scurry by, sucking on soft drinks with amused expressions. My cheeks flame, and I suspect it’s because deep down, I know Jared isn’t entirely wrong. “That’s not true.”
Jared pushes his hair out of his face. “Are you kidding? Christ, Claire, I can’t believe you’re defending them. I thought you were better than that.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Never mind.” His shoulders slump and he turns his back on me.
I feel funny, like my brain’s been injected with Novocain. Maybe it’s stress or self-doubt, or maybe it’s simply the irrational urge to protect my mom, but whatever it is, I can’t stop the words from dribbling out. “You know, if that’s the way you’re going to be, if that’s what you think of me, then maybe we need to back off for a bit.”
That stops him walking away. “What?”
“Maybe my parents were right, and we shouldn’t hang around together so much. We should take some time apart.”
“I can’t believe you think that.” Those blue eyes of his go dead gray. “You’re going to pick them over me?”
I close the distance between us, dropping my voice so the gawkers in the food court won’t hear us. I feel as though I’m having some kind of out-of-body experience, like I’m watching myself have this conversation because I sure can’t be doing it for real. My heart pounds against my chest, trying to beat the seriousness of what I’m doing into my head. And yet my mouth plunges forward. I’m sick of walking this tightrope between family and Jared, and my mom needs me. She must need me more than Jared does. Besides, after all she’s ever done for me, how can I not do this one thing for her? Sitting through ten years of piano recitals is reason enough that I owe her.
“I’m not picking anyone. I just can’t deal with you bad-mouthing them right now. My mom’s sick, and—”
“And I’m supposed to be okay with the way they treat me because of that?”
“That’s not it....” I swallow, but a lump in my throat gets in my way. “She’s my mom.”
“And I’m nothing?”
“Stress is bad for her.”
“Right, and I stress her out because I’m not good enough for you. I get it.”
The greasy food court stench makes my stomach roll. “No, you don’t. I....” Jared gives me a second, but I can’t collect my thoughts. I have too many, and I’m still in shock over what I’ve done.
“Yeah, I do. Your parents are a couple of stuck-up assholes, I’m a loser and you care more about appeasing their snobbishness than you do about hurting me. That’s fine. Believe me, I get it.”
He storms off, and I have to call Kristen to get a ride home. When I explain to her what happened, she swears I made the right move. But then why doesn’t it feel right? Why do I feel slimy and evil, like I just condemned a million puppies to death? Why is there this hole inside my chest?
Within hours, I’m wishing I could take it all back because I feel worse than ever. Jared has a temper, but he usually cools off quickly. It never crosses my mind that this time I might have wounded him too badly for it to blow over.
But when I call him, he doesn’t answer. So I leave messages. I text him. He never responds. I cry until I puke. A week later, I hear through the gossip mill that Jared’s taken off to spend the rest of his summer with his sister in New York City. I remember what he told me about his father—how when he’d get angry, he’d run away. But I can’t believe Jared would act like his father, the man he loathes for running out on him and his mother. And yet...
I try to forget, but everything seems to remind me of him. Even the new Miata my parents buy me for my birthday can’t distract me. What good is a car when I don’t have Jared to ride around with in it? So I give my mom rides instead. I throw my heart into making up for all the quality mother-daughter time I lost out on when I was with Jared, but this only convinces my mom that she won. She harps on why Jared was so bad for me, and even though she means well, each time she does it’s like she’s digging her nails into my heart.
“Have you heard from him?” she asks constantly. My parents want to make sure I haven’t relapsed.
But I can say truthfully that I haven’t. Jared could have died for all I knew.
Then, six months later, rumors spread around my school that some guy from the public high school has befriended the lead guitarist of Purple Waters, the “it” band du jour. With some digging, I discover the guy in question is Jared. But I dismiss those rumors as wishful thinking until I hear about the tour invitation and the recording contract, and then I go online and discover it’s all true.
“I just want you to be happy,” my mom says as I wander around the house, dazed and glum over the news.
But how can I be happy when everyone is conspiring to make me miserable?
She has information about colleges spread across the table—Yale, Cornell, Vassar and small liberal arts schools I’ve never heard of. “We need to think about your future. You’re more like me than you think. I also had a thing for bad boys and was too prone to dream when I was your age.”
I think she’s wrong, but I don’t say it because I want her to believe I’m not so bad. But I’m furious at her. And my dad. Furious that they misjudged Jared’s talent yet were so right about him being bad for me. Furious that their dreams for me interfered with my dreams for myself.
Then even more furious at myself for being angry with them in the first place because being angry with my mom is the cruelest, most terrible thing I can be. More proof that I’m the bad daughter.
“Claire?” She reaches for my wrist, and her hand feels too light. Like paper. “What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing,” I tell her as I give her a hug. And I tell her nothing. Nothing about how strange it is that we’re talking about colleges and dream schools when my so-called loser ex-boyfriend achieved the dream they never thought he could.
I never tell. Never yell. Never cry in front of her or my dad because there are more important and stressful things for us to deal with. Instead, I hoard all those thoughts inside and let them eat away at my sanity like my own little emotional cancer.
Then, months later, my mom dies. And just when I could have used Jared the most, he’s singing to the world about how I’m a shallow bitch. My parents are vindicated, but my broken heart is scattered in a thousand little pieces, and I’m reduced to that girl in her red Miata, cranking Janis Joplin as she floors it down the highway, screaming at the alien gods to take it.
Take it all.
