Anywhere But Here, Chapters 10–12
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AWBH is a novel I’m posting 3 chapters at a time. It’s told in alternating points of view between Sandra (mom/wife) and Emily (teenage daughter).
My novel is work in progress. An Experiment. I want to know what you like and don’t; tell me what sounds original or where I slipped in a trite cliche. Highlighting your favorite lines or leaving me notes helps a lot!
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 10: Emily (Spring 2012)
Emily’s self-absorption was a luxury she recognized only after it vanished, stolen by a a poltergeist in the empty fourth chair that smugly wore an “I ❤ SF” t-shirt at her dining table. Her Mom and Dad occupied the other two chairs.
“Emily…” her mom started, interrupted by her dad.
“Let me explain, Sandra. Don’t know what trash will leap out of your mouth these days.” He turned to Emily, gruff replaced with kindness. “Emi-bear,” he sighed, “as you can guess, your mother has decided she has to move to San Francisco, or she will implode, or explode, I don’t remember her exact words.”
“Drew, that’s not fair.”
“What you’re doing, insisting we all do, is not fair, Sandra.”
“We can’t make this work? All I’m asking for is to move for a while …” Her mom started, but her dad’s vicious glare cut her off.
“Nothing good can come from living in that city,” her dad continued. “What’s that smell?” he asked suddenly.
“The lasagna!”
They ate the less-charred middle of the lasagna in violent silence. If Emily had known this would be the last dinner she’d have with both parents had known, she still would have asked to be excused from the table as quickly as possible. Nobody had asked her what she thought, not that she knew, and the poltergeist snickered, baring fangs.
“Dear, are your parents fighting?” Mrs. Whatever, across the street, screeched in her nails on chalkboard voice as Emily was walking home. Emily looked up and imagined shooting porcupine quills at the old woman in that shapeless, almost colorless cotton dress thing, with snaps down the front, her pale blue veined legs poking out the bottom. Her quills covered Mrs. Whatever from her curly gray mass of yarn hair to threadbare slippers. Maybe the darts were poisonous, and Mrs. Whatever would fall backwards onto the ground, limbs in the air like a dead bug? No, they’d be painful but not poisonous; she didn’t want the woman dead, just stunned so Emily could escape.
Some days the prying questions followed her down the block to her house, people that she never saw before seemed to be waiting, questioning, the moment the “For Sale” sign rose unwelcome on her front lawn.
“She used to be such a sweet child,” she heard Mrs. Whatever say to another old woman with a similar nest of gray hair, “and now she just gives me nasty looks when I ask polite questions.”
Emily looked over at Mrs. Whatever, shooting more stun quills, hoping she’s shut the heck up and get back to her flowers. Stupid old woman who had nothing to do all day except dig her garden trowel into Emily’s dirt. Emily wanted to tell Mrs. Whatever that the flowers she tended so carefully looked better before she moved in and smothered them. But it wouldn’t sting Mrs. Whatever enough to bother.
Each of the 41 concrete squares in the sidewalk stretched endlessly, and she stepped on each crack with forceful intention. She didn’t want her mom’s back broken, so much as she wanted her mom incapacitated, incapable of proceeding with her cracked plan.
As Emily opened her front door, she heard her Mom’s voice call from the kitchen. “Em, is that you?” Emily cringed; evidently all those cracks she avoided as a kid were pointless.
Orbit rubbed against her ankles as she closed the front door, the only one Emily didn’t want to stun with porcupine quills.
Chapter 11: Sandra (January 2012)
Sandra was sipping her second glass of red Zinfandel when Drew called. No matter what time zone he was in, he called at 8:30 every night. Sandra couldn’t remember where he was this week. Dallas? Dulles? Dubai? Did it matter anyway?
“Hi San, how was your day?” Drew asked, following script. She could hear the frayed edge of exhaustion in his voice that she’d learned not to ask about. Of course he was tired, he was always tired when he called, and always got mad when she asked.
Sandra thought for two seconds whether she should mention the customer service call today with Parker. She played out the direction the conversation could take …
“Really,” Drew would say, “an old boyfriend from high school?”
She’d explain, No, not an old boyfriend, just a friend, we were in drama together. He’d pause and calculated.
“If he wasn’t your boyfriend, then was he …”
Gay. Sandra would want to finish, yes, Drew, my friend was gay.
A hostile silence would follow, where she might be able to hear a growl of dissent, and feared what words came next.
Or alternately, Drew would ask next, “Where does he live?”
And Sandra would want to tell him any city other than the truth: San Francisco. Sandra could anticipate the cold, dead silence on the phone, a different kind of rage. That city didn’t exist on their family map, not since the last Anywhere trip Sandra had begged Drew to take.
No, the innocent call with Parker, although the bright light of her day, was not a sanctioned topic to insert into their long-distance conversation when Drew was in … “Dulles!” Sandra exclaimed aloud. “How did the presentation go?” He was speaking at some big tech conference in Washington DC today in front of thousands of people, she overheard Drew telling Emily last weekend. On something … something in technology she didn’t understand.
“Great, I hit the right topic that brought in the attendees and kept butts in seats.”
“That’s wonderful.” Sandra took another sip of that great vintage, that blossomed and expanded on her tongue, but she barely tasted.
“Is Emily home?” Drew asked.
“Yes, she’s upstairs, finishing her homework.”
“Okay, don’t bother her, I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Is that Dad?” Emily knew the nightly script as well, yelling from the top of the stairs.
“Yes, Em,” Sandra called.
She heard the click as Emily picked up the phone from her room. “DAD!” Emily screamed. How Drew’s regular call garnered such enthusiasm, Sandra would never understand.
“Hey Emi-bear! How was your chemistry experiment today? Were you able to identify the unknown ingredient?”
“We were the only team that got it right! It was corn starch!” Emily said.
“You weren’t partnered with that boy again, were you?”
“No, it was me and Lauren. The unstoppable Chemistry Team!”
Sandra realized she was still listening, and quickly hung up the phone before they noticed.
Chapter 12: Emily (Summer 2012)
It was almost easy to hide, Emily thought, as Lauren called again and again. She didn’t expect Natalie to call her, Natalie never called, although the three of them had been friends since second grade. The Terrific Trio! Lauren had coined.
Emily would join them at lunch when she had to, when Lauren wouldn’t buy her excuses for homework and let her hide in the library. “Come join us, Emie, please? I miss you!”
Emily would sit with Lauren and Natalie in the cafeteria, masking shame with apathy, and evading their questions. As if she was the third wheel she always felt, the single, unnecessary training wheel on a big kid’s bike, but now the single lug nut was loose, held on only by Lauren’s persistence.
Last Halloween they’d agreed to be a trio of gorgeous superhero-esque crime fighting women: Charlie’s Angels. Emily’s Mom helped her dress, styling her hair into big feathered rolls like the heroines of the 1970’s show. Her mom had found a sparkly retro jumpsuit, letting Emily wear tall platform shoes. Her makeup made her Dad cringe, but her Mom insisted, “Halloween is a stage, Drew.” Emily was surprised: Mom never disagreed with Dad.
The doorbell rang, and Emily wobbled downstairs in the tall shoes, flung open the door, and cringed. Her friends had dressed like Charlie’s Angels — not from the TV show of the 70’s, but from the movie that came out in 2000. Natalie’s grimmace stabbed, and even Lauren looked surprised.
“Didn’t you hear me say you were Lucy Liu?” Natalie said. “I’m Natalie, played by Cameron Diaz, because I’m blonde, and Lauren is Dylan, because she said she’d color her hair red.”
“Brunette, you said I was the brunette,” Emily said, turning to run back upstairs before Natalie could see her cry. She slammed her door and threw plush animals at the wall opposite her bed.
Minutes later, she heard a soft knock on her door. “Emie, it’s Mom.”
“Go AWAY! This is ALL! YOUR! FAULT!”
“Emie, honey, I’m sorry. I forgot about the Angel’s remake, give me a chance, I can fix this.”
Emily ignored the heaviness of hurt in her mom’s voice. Natalie is probably happy now, Emily thought, she didn’t want me around tonight anyway, always complaining I don’t know how to talk to boys.
Emily looked at the dozen animals on the floor, where they’d fallen after hitting the wall. She wanted to pull out her secret stash of Nerf foam balls but her Mom was coming back up. She’d have to settle for animals, and walked over to collect them from the floor to resume their launch. The animals didn’t have the force and accuracy of the balls.
The soft knock came again. “Emie, it’s me. We used to get ready for shows in 15 minutes, makeup, hair, costumes, everything. I know I can fix this. Give me a chance.”
Halloween was the only time Emily saw the benefits of her mom’s previous hobby. That was what Dad called it, her self-indulgent, premarital hobby. Her Mom stopped cringing with those words, so that now a stony mask glazed over her face as she stared at a spot over his left shoulder. But for Halloween, nobody could compete with her artistry.
All the animals were back on the floor, beneath the far wall. “Fine, come in.”
“Oh, Emie, what did you do to your hair?”
Emily reached up to feel the dripping wet mess she’d created when she put her head under her bathroom sink.
“Put on your robe and meet me in my bathroom in two minutes,” she waved a piece of paper, “I have a plan.”
Emily walked into her Mom’s bathroom. Multiple pictures of Lucy Liu as Angel Alex Munday were taped to the mirror. “I picked some clothes out of my closet.” Her Mom ran her fingers through the tangled nest of hairspray and Emily’s straight brown hair. “We’ll have to wash your hair and dry it again.”
Emily picked out a black silk blouse from the pile, one of her Mom’s favorites, and a pair of boots she’d never have permission to wear if her Mom didn’t feel guilty. Her Mom never wore these clothes anyway, Emily reasoned. “I’ll wear my black pants with these.”
“Good, good,” her mom said, “now sit in this chair, and lean backwards over the sink, let’s get your hair in better shape.”
Twenty minutes later, Emily emerged, transformed into a modern Angel. Somehow her mom even made her look vaguely Asian. “Lauren said they’d be at some boy’s house … Taylor? No, …”
“Taber.”
“That’s it. Do you know where he lives?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll drive you, meet you downstairs in 5.”
Her mom drove past the house where Emily pointed, “I’ll let you off around the corner and wait fifteen minutes. Come back if you want to leave.” She touched Emily’s cheek gently. “You’re beautiful, Emie.”
Emily mumbled her thanks and opened the car door. She teetered in her Mom’s tall boots and walked up to the open front door. She didn’t notice the kids around her watching her walk over to Lauren and Natalie, as Natalie flirted with Taber.
“Emie?” Lauren asked, eyes wide.
“Hi Lauren.”
“Your Mom did this? In, what,” Lauren glanced at her watch, “thirty minutes? Holy cow, Emie, you’re gorgeous!”
Natalie glared at Emily, then turned back to Taber, tilting her head to the side and smiling, “Your parents are just so cool, Taber, to let you have a party, mine would never do that.”
Emily stared out the car window as San Francisco’s skyscrapers poked into view. Natalie had been thrilled to find out that the Terrific Trio would be whittled down to two.
Keep reading … Chapters 13–15
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