Anywhere But Here, Chapters 16–18
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a young adult novel, 3 chapters at a time (start here)
AWBH is a work in progress and an experiment in crowd editing + serial posting. Your feedback is invited! Want to help out a fledgling writer? Leave me notes or highlight your favorite lines. I know it’s not perfect — yet!
The story is told in alternating points of view between Sandra (mom) and Emily (teenage daughter).
Chapters 1–3 | Chapters 4–6 | Chapters 7–9 | Chapters 10–12 | Chapters 13–15| Chapters 16–18 | Chapters 19–21 | Chapters 22–24 | Chapters 25–27 | Chapters 28–30 | Chapters 31–33 | Chapters 34–36 | Chapters 37–39 | Chapters 40–42 | Chapters 43–45 | Chapters 46–48 | Chapters 49–50 | Chapters 51–53 | Chapters 54–57 | Chapters 58–60 | Chapters 61–63
Chapter 16: Emily (Summer 2012, SF)
“Emily, meet Parker,” her mom said, giving Emily a furtive, silent glance to be polite.
Emily automatically extended her hand to her mom’s new boyfriend. Parker ignored her hand, and wrapped her in a hug. “You could have been your mom’s twin in high school! You have the same beautiful smile she never wanted to show anyone.”
“Um, hi?” What…? Her mom knew Parker from high school?
“Wearing shorts in the summer like a San Francisco native,” Parker said, looking at the goosebumps on Emily’s legs, “come in, I’ll show you around.”
“But Orbit?” Emily looked back at the car.
“I’ll get her,” Emily’s mom said, walking back down the stairs.
“Orbit?” Parker asked. “Goldfish? Chia pet?”
“Cat,” Emily said absently, watching at her mom opening the car door.
Parker frowned. Emily noticed and stayed silent.
“The tour stopped at the hallway?” her mom came in, handing Orbit’s carrier to Emily.
“Sandra, sitting room,” Parker said, steering her mom through a doorway to the right, closing the door. Emily sat on the floor, overhearing.
“About that cat,” Parker said.
“Allergy?” her mom asked.
“No, aversion. To their hair and puke and scratching and noise and everything.”
“Parker, please? I can’t ask Emily give up her cat. She’s given up everything.”
Emily held her breath for the minute that felt like a decade. At least her mom stood up for her. That was a surprise.
“I really hate cats,” Parker said, shaking his head.
Her mom whispered something she couldn’t hear. Emily didn’t want to know what bribe her mom offered. Something she didn’t want to think about between her mom and this guy. Or plans to send Emily on the first train back to Folsom to live with her grandma, along with Orbit. But her grandma hated cats too. Maybe her Grandma should live with Parker.
“I won’t let them give you away,” Emily whispered to Orbit, swallowing down tears as her bare legs grew colder in the hallway.
Hearing the door click, Emily scrambled to stand up.
“Here’s the deal. Your cat can stay, as long as you keep it out of my bedroom.” Parker frowned, then smiled, shifting back to affable. “And be careful with door listening. Sometimes it’s better not to know.”
“No kidding,” Emily mumbled.
Parker smirked. Crap. She didn’t mean to say that out loud.
“Ready for the tour?” her mom asked, too brightly.
Emily looked down the hallway, dark red and brown, three doors on the right hand side. It could have been a kid’s drawing of a tunnel, ending in the bright light of an approaching train which was going to obliterate her life further.
“It’s a railroad style Victorian with the hallway straight back to the kitchen, all the rooms on the right,” Parker said.
He pointed through the first doorway into a narrow room with a dark wood paneled fireplace.
“Authentic Victorian settees, restored from unloved malaise,” Parker said, pointing at twin high-backed love seats with a pale floral pattern. “Much more elegant than over-sized armchairs with built in beer holders.”
Like Dad’s, Emily thought. When her dad was traveling Emily would sleep in his La-Z-Drew recliner. It smelled like him, warm and comforting, like she was wrapped in a big hug.
This furniture is designed for time outs and punishment, Emily thought. She swallowed down another tear.
“That doesn’t look very Victorian,” Emily said, pointing at the big flat screen TV over the fireplace.
Parker laughed, “Sarcastic much? The bathrooms aren’t original either, but I can hunt down a chamber pot if it bugs you?”
Emily stuck out her tongue at Parker when he turned around.
“Emily!” her mom whispered angrily in her ear, “Be nice! We’re guests!”
Guests. Why wouldn’t her mom admit they were here forever?
Chapter 17: Sandra (January 2012, Folsom)
“Sandra, you expect me to believe that Parker is just your friend?” Drew questioned. “You lied about going to San Francisco, lied about who you were with, and didn’t even tell me about this guy from high school. You stayed at his house overnight.”
“Why is it inconceivable?” Sandra wouldn’t divulge the one detail that would substantiate her story.
“And what kind of cracked-up manager hires someone at a party? I bet it’s not a real company, but you want to pack up our lives, throw them in the back of the car, and move on your whim? Your paycheck is going to bounce.”
Sandra imagined Drew rolling up his perfect green lawn and tying it with a red ribbon. She stifled a laugh.
Drew was still ranting, the same rant repeated on loop over the past two days, but Sandra couldn’t hear him. Any more than Drew could hear her.
She considered the past fourteen years she’d shared with Drew, years where most of the pleasure and joy drained out, drop by drop, replaced by loneliness.
Old dreams of San Francisco swooped in that unlikely Sunday morning, a vision Sandra could see beyond this argument with Drew. A city that burst and bustled with life, color and noise, which she’d loved now for almost as long as she loved Drew. Almost as much as she loved Emily.
Emily, who needed her less as a teenager, than as a toddler. At fourteen, Emily could core her own apples, or eat them whole if she was lazy.
When is it my turn to be happy? The thought echoed again and again, since Drew’s phone call when she was in the club with Parker, and again on the drive home. She imagined her future as two distinct directions when Emily would be at college in a few years. Alone in Folsom, and the suffocating, empty nights while Drew traveled. Or San Francisco, bright and vivid. She hadn’t listened to her gut for so long, was surprised that Francesco would hire her based on his gut.
Something tickled her, whispered, faint enough to be ignored, or swallowed down. She had smothered her dreams so thoroughly.
She adopted Drew’s dream to travel, but got grounded in the process, frequent flyer miles accumulating like an abandoned bank account, for a someday that she didn’t trust would come.
“Sandra, are you even listening to me?”
“No,” Sandra said, “I’m not listening.” She saw the two paths again in her vision, and took one precarious, terrifying step forward. “It’s not up to me what you believe. I have a chance to do something I’ve always wanted, and I’m going to take it.”
After that night, Sandra watched the life she had been so willing to abandon dissolve as Drew took charge. The “For Sale” sign implanted in the middle of Drew’s pristine lawn, people touring through her house on Sundays, days the three of them scattered in opposite directions, all finding something to do, on a day they could have taken an Anywhere trip.
She didn’t feel like she had the right to be sad.
Memories were wrapped in clean newsprint and packed alongside china they never used. Drew grumbled about all of the crap, how did they have so much crap? Didn’t Sandra throw anything away?
Funny how you never realize, Sandra thought, how attached you are to a sofa, or a crystal vase, and the incumbent memories until you see them loaded and shoved into a small storage container, and hope you’ve packed them well enough to survive the damage.
She didn’t dare cry in front of Drew or Emily, waiting until late at night when Drew closed the guest room door with an audible click. She curled up fetal-style in the massive king bed that she was accustomed to sleeping solo. For years she wanted Drew home more often; she never envisioned it like this.
“There’s nothing to decide, Sandra,” Drew said, when she brought up Emily. “She has to go with you; my travel schedule is booked out the next six months, and it would be career suicide to change my role now.”
“What about your Mom, couldn’t Emily stay there if she wanted to be in Folsom for high school?”
“Convenient excuse not to bring her. No, I’m not burdening my mother with Emily,” Drew growled.
She didn’t know how to console Emily, who had gone ice cold with silent rage. Sandra accepted every grimace Emily gave her. I deserve it, Sandra thought.
From Drew, she got anger and constant verbal jabs, which she guessed were a façade over the depth of his hurt. She didn’t see anyway out of this mess.
When the Realtor hammered a Sold sign at the front of their house, tears spilled from Sandra’s eyes unrestrained.
“I don’t know why you’re crying,” Drew said, “you wanted this.”
I didn’t want this anger, this guilt, this destruction of our family. All I wanted was to try out a new city with my family. Evidently dreams have a hefty price tag. Words Sandra thought, but didn’t voice, not even when she saw Drew staring into the back yard, wiping a tear away from his face. Maybe she should tell Drew the truth about Parker? she wondered. Maybe it would help?
But she stayed silent.
The house was empty the last night before the move. Drew had left on a business trip; she knew he was going to India only because she overheard him talking to Emily.
Sandra and Emily slept with blankets and pillows on the floor in family room. She tried to prevent that first tear that would lead to a million, but when Emily dragged her pillow and blanket upstairs, with Orbit tucked under her arm, her grief erupted in a geyser.
Chapter 18: Emily (Summer 2012, SF)
Pale light filtered through the Victorian double doors when Emily woke from a drugged, restless nap a few hours after they arrived in San Francisco. She heard the front door shut and footsteps echoed down the hallway towards the kitchen. She rolled up to sitting, her toes reaching for pale tan carpet that wasn’t there. She made her way to the hall, in need of the bathroom, wishing she didn’t.
“Honey, are you hungry? I was going to order Chinese.”
Do I have to answer? Emily wondered. Her rebellious stomach grumbled. The tan moving boxes from her Mom’s car lined one side of the hallway, making the path more narrow and confining. Our past life, Emily thought, already in the way.
Her mom was waiting outside the bathroom when Emily exited. “How about chicken fried rice? That’s your usual at home.”
Home. Emily tried to glare and nod simultaneously.
“You’ll have to talk to me sometime, Em.” She didn’t look up to see the hurt on her mom’s face; she could hear it in her tone. Great, let her be hurt.
“Parker left us a transit map of San Francisco. Do you want to help me figure out how I get to work tomorrow or where you might want to go this week?” Her Mom looked even more despondent, “I wanted to take a week off to explore with you, but my new boss needs me to start as soon as possible.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. All Emily heard was “money.”
Now I have to worry about money? Emily had never thought about money. Her weekly allowance that came whether she did her chores or not. Would she still get an allowance?
“Isn’t this place great?” Her mom forced cheerfulness into her tone. “So trademark San Francisco.”
Her mom opened a colorful map on the bar in the small kitchen, looking for the red dots that Parker had left to show the location of his house and her new office. Emily watched her Mom trace her finger through quadrants on the map, finding one red dot near a lot of big rectangles that must be buildings. “That must be my office. Parker said it was close to China Town.”
“You’ve never been there?” Emily was shocked out of her silence.
“Nope!” Her mom effused fake bravado. “I got hired by the founder at a party, and everything else has been conducted by phone and email.”
“Who hires someone at a party?” And since when did her mom go to parties?
“Strange, right? Parker said it wasn’t the first time he’d heard of that, so maybe it’s more common here.”
Emily watched as her mom traced lines on the map with her index finger. “We’re right off California near Fillmore. Parker said the 1-California would be good. I’d rather drive, but parking lots are expensive downtown.”
The doorbell interrupted with a loud, metallic buzz. “That will take some getting used to,” Emily heard her Mom say as she walked down the hall. Her mom returned with two plastic bags. “Our first meal here and it’s take out,” her mom was apologetic, “the grocery store is supposed to be nearby but I didn’t want you to wake up alone.”
Emily was silent while they ate, not tasting the food she pecked at with her fork. She gave up after a few bites, hunger forgotten. Gone on their first night? Parker was a pretty rotten boyfriend.
Boyfriend. Probably her mom’s high school boyfriend, finally, gloriously, reunited. Her mom didn’t care what price Emily had to pay.
“Parker said he’d keep his door shut, and if we could remember to keep the sitting room door closed as well, then Orbit could wander around.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Emily looked down at her plate. The habitual words had escaped her, and Emily realized she hadn’t used them in a while.
They washed the dishes in silence. “Parker’s a bit of a neat freak, so let’s be as clean as we can,” her mom said.
She followed her Mom into the sitting room, where Orbit peeked at her through the opaque white curtains covering the doors to her dungeon. Her cat meowed plaintively. “Mom, I think Orbit needs her litter box.”
“Let her out the back door.”
Emily frowned.
“We’ll watch her closely,” her mom said, opening the back door to a small wooden deck with ornate topiary and flowering plants surrounding. “Put her down, Em, she’ll be fine.”
How could her mom promise that? Emily imagined Orbit scaling the nearest fence and disappearing into the vast city, trying to find her way back to Folsom. That’s what I would do.
Orbit sniffed and scratched around, slowly stretching her front legs far up the wooden fence, the cedar planks gray with age. Emily caught her right before she climbed over the fence. “You’ve got to stay in here, girl,” Emily chided her and put her back down on the ground.
They walked back into the sitting room where her Mom had turned on the TV, randomly flipping through dozens of channels. Normally Emily wouldn’t have cared, going up to her own room and her own TV. But tonight she sat for a minute before heading into her room and shutting the double doors. Why do I feel guilty? Emily thought. She grabbed a book from her backpack, laid on the bed, and stared at the ceiling.
It seemed like her Mom wasn’t happy at all.
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