Anywhere But Here, Chapters 58–60
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This novel is an experiment in fiction + serial posting on Medium. I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo 2012.
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 58: Emily
Emily’s Mom had left her two twenties and a five, with a note apologizing that’s all the cash she had in her wallet. Emily didn’t know where Livie shopped, but didn’t think $45 would go far. She checked her savings, tucked into an envelope in a jacket hidden in the armoire closet, and pulled out two more twenties, just in case. This was one of those moments she missed her dad, and that he could always produce a $100 from his wallet.
Livie arrived a few minutes early, and rushed Emily off before she had a chance to resist.
“I only have $90, will that be enough?” Emily asked.
“More than enough, you’ll be surprised what you can get for that.”
I hope we’re not shopping at K-mart or a dollar store. Emily thought. But she was happy just to be out of the house, and traipsing along with Livie.
“First we need to get to Van Ness — do you know the best bus route from here?”
“I thought you knew all the routes in the city!”
“I know all the routes that go to my house, but not from your house!”
Emily handed Livie her transit map. Livie opened it and squinted. “I’m guessing we are here, at the red star?” she laughed. “My Dad used to do the same thing on my map, so I could always find my way home.” She traced lines on the page, and then announced. “38-Geary, that will do the trick. We have a short walk from here.” They had stopped on the corner of California St, but now Livie took off in a burst of speed.
“Livie! Slow down!”
“Oh! Sorry. Always walk fast when heading towards shopping!”
The bus lumbered up as they waited, packed full of people. The driver stopped to let a couple people off, then closed the doors and accelerated quickly before they could board. Emily looked to Livie, who was nonplussed. “It happens,” she shrugged.
They didn’t wait more than five minutes before another bus arrived, less than half full.
“So,” Emily said as they sat down, “Where are we going?”
“Mystery, won’t reveal.” They changed to the 47-Van Ness line at the corner of O’Farrell and Van Ness Ave. Emily was happy their destination wasn’t here, as she looked around at dirty homeless faces, and a greasy looking woman.
“Not a woman,” Livie said.
“What? She looks like a woman. A prostitute, maybe, but a woman.”
“Look at the hands, and the feet. Those are the giveaways.”
Skinny and tall as the woman was, her hands and feet were much larger than Emily would expect. “Man?”
“Likely, at least at birth.”
Emily was afraid to ask what that meant.
The bus lumbered in stops and starts down Van Ness, a busy artery street with multiple lanes of traffic. Emily spied a movie theater. “Movies!” she exclaimed. That’s what she used to do in Folsom.
“I don’t usually go for mainstream movies.”
“Mainstream?”
“Yeah, I like indie films, but they often have subtitles.”
Maybe that was better than no movies, Emily thought. The people on the bus changed from a heterogeneous mixture to predominantly Spanish-speaking, she noticed. She took Spanish in middle school but could never remember much beyond colors and ‘where is the bathroom’ outside the classroom.
“Have we been to this part of town before?”
“Kind of. We’re close to where we were riding bikes the other day.”
“Oh,” Emily said. That didn’t explain much. She watched out of the window as the buildings became shorter, with a mix of store or restaurant on the bottom floor, apartments, or flats, she corrected herself, on top. Except most of the restaurants were Salvadorian.
“Almost there!”
Almost where? Emily almost said aloud. Were they shopping for convenience store snacks or Salvadorian food, and was that different from Mexican?
Emily stood up after Livie, and got off the bus. “We’re here!” Livie announced.
“We are?” Emily looked across the street and saw more of the same: bars, taquerias, and store fronts full of backpacks with animated character logos.
“Not there, there,” Livie pointed behind them, to a store Emily hadn’t noticed. Masks like wrestlers wore on WWF stared with empty eyeholes at them through a window, and varied articles of clothing hung from hangers on a metal rack outside the front entrance, proclaiming clothes and coats for $6.
“This,” Livie started, animatedly, “is my favorite second-hand store in the city, which is saying a lot, in a city with more second hand stores than taquerias!”
“We’re shopping in a thrift store?” Emily paused on the sidewalk, dumfounded.
“Of course we are! Let’s see what they have!” Livie walked inside and greeted the girl behind the counter, “Hi Tangerine!”
The girl was not much older than herself, Emily guessed, and had vivid orange hair that stuck out in short braids above her ears. “She hates it when people call her ‘Pippi,’ be warned,” Livie whispered.
“Liv! It’s been a while, we have some new stuff on the back racks you might like.”
Emily hated shopping. She never found anything she liked, and thus ended up buying jeans, t-shirts, and sweatshirts that looked the same as everything else she had.
Livie never wore anything the same, and she’d never seen her in jeans, much less a hoodie. Emily guessed they wouldn’t go with her magenta hair.
The thrift store was crammed full of clothes, with long straight racks and circulars. Things appeared to be organized by category and then color. It was shopping insanity, Emily thought. How could she find anything, and if she did, what were the chances it would be the right size?
“It’s like a treasure hunt,” Livie said, “in someone’s attic. I look through the aisles, waiting for something unusual to catch my eye.”
“That’s the problem,” Emily responded, “if it catches my eye, it’s too flashy for me to wear.”
Emily spotted a rack labeled Pirate Wench, and figured this was as far from Macy’s as she’d ever shopped. “Maybe we could come back for Halloween?”
“Halloween! Don’t get me started!” Livie had already found a half dozen items draped over her arm. “You haven’t found anything?”
“Does everyone in your school dress like you?” If so, maybe she didn’t want to go there after all.
“No,” Livie said, laughing, “nobody dresses like me.” She looked at Emily. “They dress like you. But I’ve never been a ‘blend with the crowd’ kind of person.”
“Does everyone meditate?” Emily pictured a school assembly, with rows of students inconceivably chanting Om.
“Hardly! I started a meditation club but nobody came. I guess the benefits of having a clear, bliss-full mind aren’t an easy sell to the high school crowd.”
“Makes a difference though.”
“Yeah,” Livie said, “it does. Now quit stalling and find something! Pick the most outrageous shirt you can find and try it on, even if it goes right back to the rack.”
Emily still couldn’t find anything. “Fine. Try a hat. Go ask Tangerine to help you pick some. That’s a low risk try-on.”
Ten minutes later, Livie walked up with an armful of clothes. “You can do this, I promise the clothes won’t bite.”
Emily wasn’t sure; the place smelled like her grandparent’s closet. “They’re clean, right?”
“Yes, yes,” Livie urged her into a fitting room. “And come out and show me!” She handed Emily three hangers. A bright blue formal dress, beaded ostentatiously, and leopard print leggings.
“Are you serious?” Emily shouted, but put on the dress and leggings came out of the fitting room to twirl in front of Livie. “Satisfied?”
“That’s the ice breaker. But now I know bright blue is a good color on you. Now try these.” Livie handed Emily more hangers, this time with a oversized sweater and a pair of subtle patterned leggings, that Emily thought she could almost be convinced to wear outside of the store.
Over the next hour, Emily tried on a dozen outfits, nothing remotely resembling the clothes she owned. It was fun, if not outrageous, and there were a couple items she liked. They paid Tangerine at the register and left. Emily had spent $12 on three items.
“Have you experienced the San Francisco burrito yet?”
“Is it like Chipotle?”
“Hardly.”
The walked a few blocks and stopped in front of a restaurant with a Spanish name. A long glass display counter showed off burrito options: grilled chicken, chicken in a sauce, grilled beef, something that might be pork, three kinds of beans, two kinds of rice, and at least four kinds of salsa. “Okay, you’re right, this is different.”
“Want me to order for you?” Emily nodded. “Veg okay?”
“Sure.” Veg was better than trying to guess and look stupid.
After they paid, Emily looked at the colossal foil-wrapped cylinder on her plate, watching Livie to figure out where to start.
“I should have gotten one burrito for us to share, I never eat more than half,” Livie said. “If you’re up for it, we can hit the big Goodwill on Van Ness on the way back?”
“I think I’ve hit my shopping quota for today,” Emily said. “Is there something else we can do?”
“How about window shopping? Or we can just walk around Mission, or a block over on Valencia?”
“Sure.”
Chapter 59: Sandra
“Just follow him around and ask questions, he’s not always easy to work with,” Sandra counseled Joe, on working with Tad.
Relieved to drop IT responsibilities, she opened a web browser and looked for sublets. She clicked on the category a couple headers down from rentals on Craigslist, she never would have looked at the category normally, because sublets weren’t something that people in Folsom did, in the land of month-to-month apartments.
She decided to keep her price range, but not consider the cat for this search. She’d tell the owner, eventually and hope any “no pets” restrictions would be flexible. Hoped. It’s hard to build a life based on hope, Sandra thought, but she seemed to be doing it a lot lately.
Ideally, she thought, I would find one place, with two bedrooms, somewhere central, and in a decent neighborhood. Is that even possible?
“House hunting?” Dana asked, walking up behind Sandra, who quickly tried to switch screens on her laptop to something that looked like work.
“Um, maybe?”
“Relax, I don’t represent the productivity police. Any luck?”
“No, although there are lots of places available. Many are one bedroom with roommates, which is what I have now, but worse.”
“What’s your dream list?”
“Am I allowed to dream?”
Dana nodded, “Sandra, YES, you are allowed to dream. Always.”
“In a perfect world, there would be a gorgeous, sunny somewhat modernly furnished place with two bedrooms, a decent clean kitchen, and available for at least three months that is okay with a cat.”
“That’s not entirely impossible. Let’s see if I can help sort through the list with you.”
“And in a decent central neighborhood.”
“No Tenderloin dreams?” Sandra frowned at Dana. “It’s ambitious, but let’s see what’s here.”
Dana scrolled through the list. “First of all, if anything says 2 bedrooms or more, and it’s under $1000, it’s likely one room with roommates, so skip those. Let’s change your search so the minimum is $1000, and max is…?” Dana paused.
“Eighteen hundred?” Sandra said, doubtful.
“Okay, let’s see what comes up,” She looked over at Sandra, “and I’m going to skip the cat part for now.” Dana looked at the search results.
“Inner Richmond, 24th& Fulton… not central. Next. Mission, lower Haight, good. Let’s look at a couple of these. Skip the ones with more than 3 bedrooms, too, that means roommates.” She clicked on an entry. One by one, as she looked, Dana rejected each listing for various reasons. “Mission, but two rooms for $1100 each, and a sometimes roommate. You’ve got that now, and I bet you’re paying less.” Sandra nodded, smiling. “Next! Hm, this is interesting, 2 bedroom sublease in Nob Hill. Could be central enough, only available for a month though. Put this one on the list,” Dana paused while Sandra wrote down the title, then added, “put the price too, the area, and how long.”
“One month is pretty short,” Sandra commented.
“Yes, but not if you don’t like it. It’s annoying to move around so much, but not if you don’t move furniture. Remember it’s different than renting, you get to try out a place and return it.” She continued clicking, rejecting many on the list so quickly that Sandra barely had time to read the first line.
“Have you done this before?”
“You could say that. The last few years before I met my fiance I seemed to move every year, and had a slew of roommates. I figured out quickly to not be primary on the lease, and to have all of my roommates on the lease. Nothing worse than having to be the responsible one and badger folks for rent checks.”
Sandra had never had a roommate, since before she lived with Drew.
“Here’s one that looks promising, in the Mission, and within your price range. Did you figure out where Emily is going to school?”
“Mission High School, for now, but I’m trying to get her into a charter near Geary.”
“Location is pretty central either way. Want to email this one now?”
“Okay?”
“Here, move out of the way, I’ll write it for you. Do you have a yahoo or gmail account?”
“No, why do I need that?”
“So the people you’re writing to don’t see where you work!” Dana responded. “The email address is a giveaway. Here I’ll use mine for now.” She typed up a quick message and hit send. “I’ll go through the rest of the list and let you know what I hear back. How many do you want to look at this week?”
“Three or four?”
“Good number; more than that and you won’t be able to keep them straight. We’ll find you something, I promise!” Dana walked away, Sandra stunned at how sublet hunting got resolved in five minutes.
Chapter 60: Emily
In a conflicted, almost guilty way, Emily was happy and sad that her Dad was coming to pick her up today. She wanted to see him, but she wanted to hang out with Livie for the last few days before school started.
Her Mom woke her as she left for work, saying she wouldn’t call Emily unless something urgent came up. “Not even at 8:30?” Emily joked, then fell silent as her Mom looked like she’d cry.
“Not unless you want me to?”
Emily didn’t know what the right answer was, so finally she said, “It’s okay Mom, you can call if you want.”
She had an hour before her Dad would arrive. She wondered if he’d have trouble finding parking, or know that he could double park briefly in front of the place. She wondered if they were staying in the city, or going somewhere else. Maybe “Anywhere but here?” she wondered, hopefully. It felt like years since she’d been on one of her dad’s adventures, and not sure how it would be with her mom absent.
She packed a few clothes, for hot and cool weather, just in case, and put her backpack near the front door. She paced up and down the railroad hallway, counting down the minutes. She thought about meditating, just to pass the time, and settled on the front couch, crossed her legs, then uncrossed. She’d leave the pretzel meditation poses for Livie.
Her breath had just started to roll smoothly in and out, with Orbit curled into her lap, when the doorbell buzzed with it’s metallic shock, making her jump. She exhaled deeply, pausing for one full moment before taking the few steps to the front door, and flinging it open.
Her Dad. On the front steps. Looking almost the same as always, with salt and pepper gray hair, and a new goatee to match.
“Emi-bear!” her dad said excitedly, with a touch of wistfulness, grabbing Emily in a big bear hug and lifting her off the ground. Tears came to Emily’s eyes, which she didn’t try to hide.
“I missed you, Dad.”
“Me too, Emi. Ready to get out of here?”
“Do you want a tour? It’s period Victorian,” Emily said, teasing.
Drew looked nervously down the hallway. “Is your Mom home? Or her boyfriend?”
“Her boyfriend? Um, no, Dad. I’m the only one home.” Her dad didn’t know. Should she tell him? How would she tell him?
Her dad looked past her into the living room, “That’s okay, my car is double parked outside, we better go.”
“Anywhere but here?” Emily suggested, trying to hide her excitement.
“Yes, you could say that again.” Did he miss the trademark name for their adventures?
They got into his sleek black Lexus, so clean that Emily wondered if he had it washed in the city before picking her up today. “Did you find that statue I asked about?” Emily asked.
“There were so many statues of Indian deities, I got you a few. You wanted the monkey one, right?”
“The elephant head one.”
“I got you that one too.” They didn’t say anything further, as her dad consulted his GPS on how to get out of the city.
“Where are we going, Dad?”
“Do you want to go home? We can stay with Grandma and you can see your old friends?”
Emily didn’t know how to respond to that. Was Folsom home? Did she want to insert herself back into her friends’ lives after weeks of silence? She hadn’t checked her email, even when she saw her mom’s laptop at home. She had created a bubble around herself in the city, one that somehow Livie had managed to enter.
“Sure, I guess?”
“You don’t sound excited. Is there something else you want to do?”
Emily felt awkward and sad. She thought this would be fun, that he’d have a grand plan for some wonderful adventure she could be proud to tell Livie about. She had held onto a fragment of hope that her mom would be on this trip too, hope that was now squashed like that fat bumblebee on her dad’s windshield. She thought for a moment, and spoke before she could talk herself out of it. “Dad, I have to tell you something.”
“Sure, Emi, what?” He stared ahead at the traffic on Geary.
“It’s about Parker.”
Her dad cleared his throat and frowned.
She had to say it before she lost her nerve. “Dad, he’s not Mom’s boyfriend.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, he’s not mom’s boyfriend. She doesn’t have a boyfriend.”
“You’ve been living with this man for the past month. How can you be so sure?” her dad pressed on the accelerator, then braked hard as he saw brake lights in front of him. “Slow down, Drew,” he mumbled to himself.
“Maybe you better pull over? Dad, but Parker likes guys. Parker has a boyfriend, not mom.”
“Parker has a boyfriend?”
“Yeah. But Mom does not.”
Her dad had pulled over to the curb, next to a mattress store. He was silent for a long time. So long that Emily wondered what he was thinking as he stared straight ahead at the road. Then he started driving again, turning north and still silent as they drove under the majestic red arches of the golden gate bridge. Emily watched the sailboats gracefully skating across the bay. “Someday list, for sure,” Emily said to herself.
“Someday what, Emi?”
“I want to ride on a sailboat in the bay, even though it looks scary.”
“I used to sail a lot when I lived here.”
“What? You lived here?”
“You didn’t know that?” He glanced at Emily, who shook her head no, “Yeah, I lived here in the year I took off between undergrad and grad school. Rented a tiny place with three other guys. Good times. Mostly.” He smiled briefly, remembering. “That was a long time ago, in the years before Emi-bears, which speaking of, do you want to go to Folsom, or somewhere else?”
“I don’t know, Dad, not sure I am ready to see my friends there.” She couldn’t call Folsom home, but was the city home? “I don’t know what I want to do.”
“Anywhere but here, you said, right?” Drew’s eyes lit up with acknowledgement. “Let’s stop and get a map, and we can pick somewhere new.”
“Great!” Emily smiled, feeling more hopeful, but she wondered what her dad was thinking about Parker. About her mom.
The adventures of Sandra and Emily will continue, as soon as I edit the next three chapters.
Thanks for reading!
