Anywhere But Here, Chapters Ch 28–30
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This novel is an experiment in serial posting and releasing a not-quite-finished draft. I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo 2012, this is version 4. Or 5. Maybe 4.5. I’ve lost track.
I love highlights on my posts, recommendation hearts, and unlike my character Emily, walks on sandy beaches.
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 28: Emily
“This looks better,” her mom sighed audibly, opening the door for Emily to enter. “No tablecloths on the tables should mean lower prices.” The smaller restaurant had diner style tables and a worn brown decor. The prices at the Cliff House down the hill towards San Francisco’s redundantly-named Ocean Beach, had made Emily’s mom cringe.
Sandra and Emily sipped hot chocolate as they looked out wide windows at the crumbled remains of the old bathhouse below and the Pacific Ocean beyond.
Her Mom’s freak outs about money were new, and piled more fear onto their recent move. What if her mom broke up with Parker and he kicked them out. Would they have to live in the car? Should she tell her dad they needed money?
Emily fumbled nervously with the silverware, not knowing what to talk about. Dad? No. Weather? No. Parker? Definite no. Her mom’s job? Maybe? What about her mom’s comment earlier, that someday Emily might be a mom, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be anything else? Was being a mom a bad thing? Wasn’t she happy being a mom?
Obviously not, she told herself, because otherwise why would they be living with Parker, and not Dad, in San Francisco, not Folsom?
“Are you going to see your new friend again?”
“What?” Emily looked away from the window at her mom.
“The girl you met at the library, what was her name? Vivian?”
“Livie.” Hadn’t her mom asked her that yesterday? What had she said? And how come she couldn’t remember Livie’s name? “I think so?”
“I’m happy you met someone.”
“Um-hm.” Emily didn’t know what to say. Should she tell her mom that Livie had maroon-purple hair? No, that would scare her the way it scared her Dad. Best to say nothing.
They both stared out the window as waves built and crashed. Emily liked the waves from this distance, undertows, sand, and jellyfish far away from her body. She swallowed the last of her hot chocolate.
“Ready to go?” her mom asked. They paid the bill and walked to her mom’s car.
“Mom, do we have to go back to Parker’s yet?”
“No, honey, how about a drive?”
“Much better than walking,” Emily tried to joke.
They drove between towering trees leaning into the road, cypress or redwood, Emily wasn’t sure, but it didn’t feel like they were in a big city until they turned back onto residential streets with three-story houses squished together. Then one more left turn, and they were back in tall trees and greenery on a narrow two-lane road flanked by a golf course.
They meandered slowly on the street through the golf course, pausing briefly at a stately Romanesque one story building, white with white scored Grecian columns at the entrance. “Palace of the Legion of Honor,” her Mom told her.
“How do you know?” Emily asked, surprised. They hadn’t looked at a map since they got to the beach.
“I used to come here a lot,” her mom said.
“When?” Her Mom used to come to San Francisco?
“When you were a baby.” her mom smiled, almost shyly, like she’d been caught eating cookies before dinner.
“Was dad at work?” her mom nodded. “ You came here with me when Dad was at work? How old was I?”
“The last time? Maybe two?” Her mom paused, “No, younger. You weren’t walking yet, so just over a year.”
There were a million questions she wanted to ask, but none of them seemed right. “Did Dad know?”
“Not exactly…” her mom paused, pulling over to the side of the road. Emily gasped as the red peaks of the Golden Gate Bridge poked into view between the trees.
Not exactly? Who was this person that took secret trips to San Francisco?
“He didn’t know, and when he found out, I had to stop coming,” her mom wiped her eyes, “but now I’m back.” Her mom smiled out the window at the Golden Gate Bridge, disappearing from the conversation.
Chapter 29: Sandra
Sandra, she berated herself, you can’t pull the words back into your head. As she rode Muni to work the next day, she thought about Emily’s silence after she told her about the secret trips to San Francisco. How could she tell her daughter about the lack of belonging and isolation of being a new mother?
But when she’d told Emily, something shifted back into place. She had wanted to be here, in San Francisco, for so many years. Maybe it wasn’t what she pictured, because she would rather have Drew with them. But she was here.
Well, Sandra thought, time to switch gears and get to work. Let’s see if I can fumble my way through my first management meeting.
Nervousness tickled Sandra’s spine as she walked into the conference room with the other managers. Parker had helped her prepare for this meeting and the approach to take. It sounded so easy, straightforward when they’d talked last night, but sitting at the table she wanted to chew her fingernails down to the quick. What if Francesco saw she was a fake? That she had zero clue, as Emily would say, about anything? She wasn’t a manager, she was a mom with some vague customer service skills!
“Okay folks, let’s get started,” Francesco began. “Everything is hinging on app development, so let’s start with your update, Dave.”
Sandra listened attentively to words that sounded English, but were used in a foreign way: code, java, bug, and ‘powering through.’ Were there bugs powering through the coffee? Were there secret codes to special coffee rooms? She hoped Parker could translate tonight. She hoped she would remember.
The Marketing Director spoke next, the word usage almost as foreign to Sandra: time to launch, market share, and competitors. The guy in “Business Development” — whatever that was — talked about building relationships with the health insurance companies. “…and I’m struggling to get a solid contact at HealthCo.”
Sandra looked up suddenly when she heard the name of her previous employer. “Um,” Sandra started.
“Sandra?” Francesco looked at her, expectantly.
“That’s where I used to work,” Sandra started, nervously.
The Business Development guy, whose name she couldn’t remember, looked at her, “Do you have any VP-level contacts? I could use one. Getting anyone to talk to me is like breaking into Fort Knox.”
“I might…”
“Well when you do, email me an intro.”
Sandra stared at her laptop screen sheepishly. Why did she speak up? She didn’t know any vice presidents. Above her manager was a director, a junior VP… was that good enough? She hoped her comment would be forgotten by next week.
“Sandra, you’re next,” Francesco said, tapping at his laptop keyboard.
Everyone stared at Sandra as she opened her laptop. The update that she and Parker wrote on Sunday night that seemed so perfect now felt trite and unremarkable. It’s all I’ve got, Sandra chided herself.
“For last week,” Sandra started, clearing her throat, “I got my laptop started, configured, and access to email by Wednesday, and was too late to take the poll on what I prefer for lunch.”
Sandra paused, but nobody laughed. Keep going, she thought, worst they can do is fire you, which of course would be catastrophic…“Here’s what I need to know:
“First, help desk system, are we building it or buying it?
“Second, customer service system, same question, buy or build?
“Third, if it’s too soon to know those answers, perhaps I can help with the new hire introduction process because I know I could have been more productive if the information was given to me, and I didn’t flounder for a few days, feeling horrible for bugging everyone with minor questions.”
Sandra exhaled; she didn’t realize she said all of that in one breath. The room was silent, with four of the managers looking at their laptops, typing absently, and the other four staring at her, including Francesco.
“Well,” Francesco started, “We’re building the customer support system. It will be core to what we do, as will your role. As for help desk systems, give us an update by next week on the key features we’ll need, and the top two or three players in the market.” Francesco paused, “And I agree with you; it’s time to get the new hire process cleaned up. If you have bandwidth until we launch, talk to Dana,” he turned to the man on her left, “Tim, you’re next. What’s happening with financials?”
Chapter 30: Emily
One-California to 19-Polk, Emily chanted in her head. I can do this; just get on the One-California, get off at Polk, then take the 19-Polk until I get to the library.
Emily waited at the bus stop up the street from Parker’s house, watching at the display for the arrival time. Three minutes later, the bus lumbered towards her, overflowing with people. It stopped a block short, opening the doors to let people off, then closed suddenly and passed her.
“You’re kidding!” Emily exclaimed. She checked the display again; 15 minutes until the next bus. She checked her watch: 12:55PM. She and Livie had agreed to meet at the library at one, and now she’d be late. Would Livie wait? Or think she was stood up? Why didn’t she get Livie’s phone number?
Another bus lumbered up, pausing with a burst of exhaust. Emily boarded through the front door, walking past the driver until he barked at her about her fare. “Sorry,” Emily mumbled, putting three quarters into the slot. She’d been holding the coins for so long she could feel the indent in her palm.She squeezed past the first few people to an empty seat near the front of the bus. She sat down gratefully as the bus lurched forward, shoving her into the adjacent person.
“Uh-hum!” She heard a grandparent-aged voice in front of her. A cane poked her calf. A silver-haired woman glared at her, then pointed at the sign behind Emily’s head. “You don’t look like no senior citizen, missy!”
Emily jumped, knocking the woman back. “Sorry,” Emily said, squeezing past the standing passengers towards the back door. Could she get arrested for taking a seat from a senior citizen?
Emily looked outside, not recognizing any streets as they passed. Did they pass Polk already? She had no idea, reached into her backpack to take out her bus map, hitting a man next to her with her elbow.
“Um,” came a sound behind the map, “can I help you find somewhere?”
Emily cringed and held the map down so she could see the man behind it. “The library?” Emily squeaked. The man had a cleanly trimmed goatee, wild curly hair, wearing jeans, a white t-shirt, and a blazer. He didn’t look or smell homeless.
“You want Polk Street. Two more stops,” the man said.
“Thanks,” Emily mumbled, looking down.
“Once you get off, walk down the hill on Sacramento; the next cross street is Polk. Remember to wait on the opposite side of the street or you’ll be headed to the Marina instead of the Library.” The man called out as she walked to the exit.
She remembered this street from her trip with Parker. Three minutes, the automated sign displayed, until her bus would arrive. She realized as the Polk Street bus drove up that she forgot to get a transfer.
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