rock_babe, you're leaving? Schade! crying Here's my entry for your last competition, and I wish you all the happiness in the world on your travels.
Themes: (1) New Beginnings, (3) Traveling
"Don't Panic"
Kendall noticed the teenager shoveling down his food above everyone else in the diner. It was a modest haul – eleven o’clock, right after breakfast but just before lunch. At this hour, the mass majority of the diners were truckers stopping over for a quick bite at the last place to eat before leaving through the Holland Tunnel. The teenager in the corner wolfing down a BLT and an entire plateful of fries, however, didn’t fit that general description.
“You’re gonna give yourself indigestion,” she said when he waved her over for the bill. She slid the pleather booklet with the tab across the table.
“I’m in a hurry,” he replied around his food. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket with one hand while the other forked fries through ketchup and into his mouth. Pausing long enough to count out the bills he needed, he tossed them on top of the check and then shoved a few singles under the napkin dispenser. Kendall was happy that she didn’t have to make change.
Snapping the book closed over the money, she stuck it in her apron and deliberately counted out his tip just to watch him. He pushed the empty plate aside and pulled on a jacket that he’d thrown down beside him.
“Where are you going?” she asked before she could stop herself.
He glanced up at her for a second, and she imagined that he was asking himself why she cared. Then he said, “California. I was supposed to leave a few hours ago, but I woke up late.”
She couldn’t help but smile a little at that. California, here we come. “Better hurry up and catch your flight. LaGuardia, right?”
“I’m driving.”
She gave him a look. He couldn’t have been more than nineteen, and yet he was driving across the country and considered himself late? She didn’t have much of a right to judge, she knew, but it was still something you didn’t see every day.
“Good luck,” she said. He ignored her and left.
Kendall was about to turn back around when she noticed his wallet sitting on the edge of the table. In his rush, he’d forgotten to put it away after taking out the money for the tab. Grabbing it, she tossed the booklet with his check onto the counter by the register and ran outside.
“Hey!” she shouted, spotting his long blond hair swinging as he ducked into the driver’s seat of a car. He looked up, squinting against the glare of the sun. Weaving in between the scattered cars and trucks, she made her way to his and handed him his wallet through the rolled-down window.
“Thanks,” he said, tossing it onto the passenger seat.
It was late fall and cold outside. Kendall blew into her hands and rubbed them together.
“Why are you going to California?” she asked.
“A close friend of the family died. I have to be there for the funeral,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” she said automatically. She remembered saying the same thing on the phone to her mother when she was told that her father had died.
“I really gotta go, though. Thanks,” he repeated, indicating the wallet on the seat, and started to back out.
Grasping his door, she backpedaled to follow him, biting her lip. He jammed on the brakes and glared at her; it was the first time that he’d shown any sort of anger or annoyance in all of her questions.
“Could I…come with you?” she asked, her voice low.
“What?” He shook his head, and she could tell that she was finally getting on his nerves.
“I –“
Kendall broke off. What was she supposed to say? There was nothing stranger than what she’d just asked, and even she wasn’t sure why she had – it had just popped out of her, like it’d been lying in wait for years and had finally gotten an opportunity to break free. Even if she hadn’t wanted to ask it, though, she understood that she couldn’t take it back and that, at the very least, she should run with it and have him say no rather than void it all together.
“I’m twenty-six,” she began quietly. “I’m a waitress at a diner full-time. I live in an apartment with two other women, one of which regularly overdoses on narcotics she steals out of her doctor’s office. I don’t have a college degree. The last time I went out for a real dinner was three years ago when my sister came and visited me from Canada. I grew up in California, and I ran away when I was sixteen and came here because my dad wouldn’t let me see the boy that I liked. The boy ditched me halfway through and I was too embarrassed to go back.”
He looked at her long and steady, hearing her out but obviously not comprehending half of what she was saying. He was overwhelmed, and she didn’t blame him.
“It’s three days and change. Can I please come with you?”
He sighed. Glancing at the clock and then covering his eyes briefly with his hands (a gesture that was more suited for a middle-aged accountant than a surfer punk teenager), he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Get in,” he muttered. She didn’t ask to go back in and grab her coat or tell the manager that she was leaving because she knew that he wouldn’t wait. Also, she knew that, if given a lot of time to think about it, she’d chicken out.
She rounded the hood of the car and climbed into the passenger seat. He backed out sharply, sped out of the parking lot like hell was on his heels, and headed for the tunnel.
--
Driving through New Jersey, Kendall learned that his name was Ariel Harrison and that he was a freelance writer. She thought it was ironic that her middle name was Ariel, too, but she didn’t tell him. When she asked what kind of things he wrote, he simply replied, “Every kind.” He’d had a few short stories published in writer’s journals (and one in The New Yorker, which she couldn’t believe even after he’d dug out the copy he kept in his glove compartment), a review or two in Philadelphia newspapers (“They’re easier to get into than New York”), and a few essays in college journals. He lived in the village, in one of those pretty houses that lined the side-streets, across from a quad movie theatre.
“You can afford a place like that?” she asked. Hearing that made her feel like shrinking into herself – her crappy little apartment by the tunnel could never measure up to a place like that, and he was years younger than her.
“No,” he said. “I rent a room on the second floor from this young couple. I have a mini fridge in there, a microwave, and a bed – all the things you need in a house compacted in one room, and cheaper.”
Driving through Pennsylvania, he told her that he hadn’t gone to college, either. Unlike her, he’d gotten in – some no-name community school – but he dropped out halfway through the second semester because he liked skipping classes to go surfing better. He’d lived in California up until a year ago and then had driven his hunk of junk to New York for a career in writing, which he’d managed to scrounge up, unlike most people.
They stopped at a seedy little motel just as they crossed the border into Ohio. She paid for half the room on her credit card and he paid for his in cash. He took a shower while she watched TV, and by the time she was done with hers, he was under his blankets, asleep. She turned off the television and the lights and followed his example.
--
Driving through Ohio, she told him about her sister in Canada. Emily was three years older than her, married, with a son. They’d been so upset over the political situation America was in that they had moved shortly after September 11, and now Emily blatantly refused to enter the country again unless she absolutely had to. That part didn’t take up much time, but talking about their childhood had. It took up all of Ohio and most of Indiana. What was left of Indiana she spent telling him about her roommates, and she got him to laugh several times when she described their antics at a more humorous angle.
They stopped halfway through Illinois for lunch at a little Italian place. There were a few underfed teenagers a year or so younger than Ariel hanging around the door. As they went to go inside, one of them grabbed Ariel’s wallet out of his jeans.
Turning around sharply, he grabbed the kid’s collar before he could run away and said, “Give it back.”
The kid tossed it to one of the other guys, who held it up and grinned cheekily. Ariel dove after him, snatching it out of his hands while Kendall stood by the door, watching. For the little bit of time she’d known him, Ariel was completely passive-aggressive – he complied with everything, quiet, going with the flow. He hadn’t fought her when she asked to come, nor on talking about his past. The few times she’d gotten him to laugh during her stories had been the only time he’d shown any real expression, so it was odd to see him able to react at all.
Ariel turned and stalked back to the door. He pushed Kendall inside, placed the wallet in her hand, and slammed the door shut behind her; then he turned back to the kids.
Kendall watched him through the glass. He didn’t win the fight – took a few good hits and a couple of slams against the pavement – but he didn’t lose, either. She figured that if he’d have been fighting just one of those kids he would have won easily. After a few minutes, they ran off, throwing glares over their shoulders at him. He stood outside the door, a hand over his eye.
She ordered a dish of spaghetti to go, grabbed a few plastic forks, and paid with her credit card. Ariel had gone back to the car by the time she came out. She slid into the passenger seat beside him, popped the lid off the spaghetti, and twirled some up on a fork.
“Here,” she said, offering it to him.
“I’m not really hungry,” he replied. There was a trail of blood on his jacket sleeve from where he’d wiped his cut lip.
“Here,” she repeated, holding it out to him for a few long
seconds. Finally, he took the fork and ate it.
She put the spaghetti between them, resting it against the gearshift. They ate without speaking, and Ariel kept touching his swelling eye. They finished it and she dumped the empty container and dirty forks in a garbage can at the edge of the parking lot.
“My middle name’s Ariel,” she said a second after she’d climbed back into the car.
He glanced over at her. “That’s weird,” he said.
She smiled a little. “Yeah.”
After a few more minutes, he sighed, turned the key in the ignition, and switched into reverse. “Ready?” he asked, and backed out before she affirmed.
--
Driving through Iowa, they didn’t talk. She knew that there was something he wanted to say by the way he kept glancing over at her, but she was too afraid to say something else and ruin his motivation, so she said nothing at all. So did he.
They stopped for the night in a nice Marriott a little bit into Nebraska. He set the cash down in a neat, smooth stack on the counter, and she slid her credit card across to the receptionist. They went up to the room and he showered first. She went downstairs to the gift shop and bought a Nebraska T-shirt and a pair of Nebraska shorts to wear while she put her things through the guests’ washing machine in the hallway. Ariel had a duffle bag full of his stuff in the back seat, and he just shoved the dirty things in and pulled the clean ones out. She could have asked to borrow something of his, but she didn’t.
He came out of the shower toweling off his long blonde hair and sat down on the edge of the bed she wasn’t sitting on. He noticed that she wasn’t wearing her uniform (black pants, white shirt with the diner’s logo on the back) anymore after a second glance. She stood up and went into the bathroom.
Kendall expected him to be asleep when she came back out like he had the night before. However, he was awake, squinting through a pair of reading glasses at a worn copy of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest. When he heard the bathroom door open, he dog-eared a page, closed it, and set it on the nightstand.
She sat down on her bed swung her legs up before leaning over to turn off the light. He grabbed her wrist before she could, though, and she looked up into his face under the harsh glow of the halogen lamp. His black eye was beginning to show its colors, and the clip on his lip was swollen and ugly.
“I wanted to say something before you went to bed,” he said, releasing her. She pulled back and looked at him warily.
“What is it?” she asked.
“My dad beat the s**t outta my mom,” he began after a second. His voice was matter-of-fact. “He got her pregnant on their second date and their parents forced them to marry because of it. He hated that – he didn’t love her, and he hadn’t been ready to get married, or have a kid, or responsibilities, or anything like that. He beat the crap outta her, and when she stopped responding to it – just shut down completely, I mean – he started beating the crap out of me. So I left. Not for New York, not yet. I was only…sixteen, I think. I went and lived with these women I knew for some reason, these lesbians. When I say friend of the family, I mean me and Waverly and Ana, not my dad or my mom.”
Kendall blinked a few times and rubbed at her eyes. Then she asked quietly, “Why did you tell me that?”
“To explain for today,” he said, and flipped off the light.
--
Driving through Wyoming, Ariel told her about the teacher of his in junior high that got him into writing. He said that she was an inspiration herself, a muse, and that everything she said and did, no matter if she was teaching a lesson or just hanging up a bulletin, was enough to make him write for hours. He said that he filled up entire journals just with her movements and habits of speech, and that from studying her so intently was he able to write everything else with such ease. Kendall watched him talk and didn’t say anything, because when he talked about his teacher, he seemed lost, in another world, and she didn’t want to ruin that for him.
Driving through Utah, she told him about the boy she gave up everything for and was abandoned by anyway. She described him with such love and care, his every feature and expression, that Ariel didn’t talk at all; he was mesmerized by the way she slipped into their conversations, their habits, the things they did and said and planned. She was an unobtrusive person by nature, he’d learned, and reserved. Talking about him, though, she lost all of her inhibitions, and composed beautiful descriptions that even he as a writer found impressive.
They stopped at a drive-through by the S.L. International Airport in Nevada for food and then continued into California. When they crossed the border, they both took a deep breath.
“What are you going to do now that you’re here?” Ariel asked her when they stopped for the night at a high-class Hilton. He handed over his cash with a rubber band around it since there was a lot to pay for half of a nice room like that, and she just handed her credit card to the receptionist, smiling as she signed the receipt.
“I don’t know,” she said. She really didn’t – she didn’t know anything regarding California, or why she’d come. What would she do? That was something to think about.
He waited a few minutes before he said, “Well, if you’ve got nothing better to do, you can come to the funeral with me. You can meet Waverly and Ana.”
She smiled slightly. “Okay,” she agreed. “I’d like that.”
He went into the bathroom and she flipped on the TV. There was nothing on, so she opened up Ariel’s worn and weathered book, beginning at chapter one. She had never read it – she was a high school dropout as a sophomore, and she was supposed to read One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest as a junior.
Ariel came out yawning and she put the book back on his side of the nightstand before he noticed her with it. Grabbing the Nebraska clothing, she went into the bathroom and took her shower. When she came back out, he’d fallen asleep with his reading glasses, the lights, and the TV on. She carefully removed the glasses and turned the other two off before she went to sleep.
--
Driving through California, he told her about Waverly and Ana. She didn’t contribute anything; she sat and listened, wondering in the world how you got lucky enough to find two great people like that. They had taken him in without a question asked and had kept him for two years – longer, if he’d have wanted it.
“Do you still keep in touch with them?” she asked when they turned into downtown Napa.
“We send e-mails pretty regularly,” he said.
He knew exactly where to go without any hesitation. Their house was a little condo slotted in between two others just like it. There were herbs growing under the windowsills and wind chimes hanging from the trees. Ariel parked the car at the curb, grabbed his duffle bag, and climbed out. Kendall did the same with her little plastic bag with her uniform – she wore the Nebraska clothes to give it a break.
They walked up to the stoop together and he pulled out his car keys. There were a few others on the ring, and he selected one in particular and inserted it in the lock. He turned and pushed and the door opened.
“Is anyone home?” she asked as they stepped in and nothing stirred. The floors were wood and she could see through the archway into the living room that the furniture was nice. Each room was painted a different color, although somehow it had managed to be done tastefully.
“It’s two o’clock on a Friday. They’re at work,” he said.
Ariel went into the kitchen and grabbed two apples out of the bowl on the counter, tossing one to her and keeping one for himself. Then he hoisted his bag over his shoulder and jogged up the stairs, which creaked under his weight. Kendall followed, her eyes going everywhere.
They went to a room at the end of the hall. The door was open, and it smelled like Lysol. This appeared to be the only room in the house that wasn’t painted a color; the walls were just white. There was a stack of magazines on the desk and the entire bookshelf was filled up, thick with Faulkner and Hemmingway and Steinbeck. Ariel dropped the duffle on the floor, and the first thing he did was to take out One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and slide it back in its appropriate spot on the shelf.
--
Waverly and Ana came home together a few hours later. They were laughing when they came through the door, swatting at each other and talking about nonsense, when Ariel came downstairs and surprised them. Kendall waited at the top, unwilling to spoil the reunion, although she could hear them shouting excitedly as they pulled him into the living room.
A few minutes later, after the noise died down, Ariel appeared at the bottom of the stairs and gestured her down. She obliged and followed him into the living room. The women were seated on the couch, holding hands and grinning like fools.
“This is Kendall,” he said, motioning to her. “This is Ana and Waverly.” He pointed to the tall, shapely blonde as Ana and the shorter, less distinct brunette as Waverly.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, smiling a little. “Ariel’s told me a lot about you.”
“We hoped we could say the same for you,” Waverly began, a little warily, looking her over. “However…we’ve never heard of you.”
Ariel explained in condensed fragments about the diner, Kendall’s explanation, and the trip. The women nodded appropriately. After a minute of digesting, they motioned to the loveseat across from them. “Sit down,” Ana said, and they did.
“So what are your plans now, Kendall?” she asked.
“I’m not really sure,” Kendall admitted. “It was sort of spur of the moment, and now I’m stuck here with none of my things and without any sort of plan in mind.”
Waverly and Ana exchanged looks.
“Well, you can certainly stay here until you decide,” Ana said after a second. “Anyone that Ariel likes is welcome under our roof.”
Kendall understood that Ana was the outspoken, friendly one and that Waverly was the skeptic without having to look very hard. While she and Ariel had very similar personalities, it was clear that these two women did not.
“Thanks,” Kendall said sincerely.
“You’re welcome,” Ana replied, smiling. “Now, who would like to eat? I know that you two must be sick of road food by now.”
--
She slept in a sleeping bag on the floor of his room that night. Waverly and Ana had gone backpacking a few times and had it stored away in the attic. Kendall slid under the cool material in the Nebraska shirt and shorts and put her hands behind her head, looking at the ceiling. Ariel was rolled over on one side in the bed, reading something off of the shelf.
“What are all those magazines?” she asked, pointing to the desk.
He looked up. “The journals I have things published in,” he said after a second of thinking.
Neither of them said anything for a while.
“The funeral’s tomorrow. Do you want to come?” he asked eventually.
“Okay,” she said.
After a few minutes, Kendall looked up and saw that he’d fallen asleep. She thrashed out of the sleeping bag and stood up. Marking his page, she set aside the book, then took off his glasses and closed the light.
--
Kendall borrowed a black dress from Ana for the funeral. It didn’t fit perfectly – the other woman was taller and had more of a shape – but it worked. Waverly and Ana drove to the church in their sedan while Kendall and Ariel followed in the little crushed tin can they’d driven across the country in.
A lot of the people there cheered up when Ariel came through the door. Kendall wasn’t sure just how close their little family unit had been with the deceased, but obviously it was something, because he seemed to mean a lot to them all. They didn’t understand why Kendall was there, and neither of them tried to explain. They sat at the end of the pew in the second row and didn’t speak throughout the service.
Driving to the cemetery, Ariel said, “That must have been weird for you.”
“I didn’t really think about it,” Kendall replied. “It didn’t bother me.”
At the cemetery, they stood in the front row of mourners and bowed their heads respectfully. It was nippy outside, and Kendall folded her arms tightly, trying to fight the cold. Ariel had a black sweater pulled over a white dress shirt and long black slacks, so he kept giving her a look that told her to stop being so sensitive. She knew that because he was being that expressive he must really have felt something for the person in the coffin.
After the ceremony, the large group scattered. Ana and Waverly kissed cheeks and waved good-byes diplomatically. Women told Ariel how much they had missed seeing him around and how glad they were that he was doing well. He nodded and smiled and agreed with whatever they said.
It started to rain on the way back to the house. Waverly ordered Chinese in the car and she and Ana went to pick it up, so Kendall and Ariel were alone at the house for a little bit. He took her through the kitchen and into the garden, which was compact and dying. She could tell that it had been pretty while in bloom, though.
They sat on the stoop, staring over the carefully manicured beds and neatly-paved paths. There was a wooden archway in the back with vines winding all through the thatches.
“Who died?” Kendall asked. The wind picked up again and she shivered. It was a grey day, and darkness was gathering in the corner of the sky to the east.
“My mom’s sister,” he said. “My Aunt Iris.”
She started, glancing over at him. “Your aunt?”
“Yeah. That’s how I knew the two of them…they were close with my aunt. I always saw them at Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and Easter. She liked to do the holidays,” he said.
“Were your parents there?” Kendall asked. It seemed like he’d spoken to just about everyone, though, and none of them had seemed like they could have been his parents. It did explain why so many of them had expressed interest in him, though.
“My mom was. She left after the service.” He looked over at her and knew what her next question would be. “She didn’t say anything to me. I just saw her by accident when I turned around.”
Kendall couldn’t think of anything to say after that, and Ariel wasn’t about to continue. They sat in silence for several more minutes.
Eventually, she asked, “Didn’t she go after you? When you left home.”
He shook his head slowly. “Dad was glad I was gone. When Dad is happy, Mom is happy. She wouldn’t jeopardize that.” She couldn’t argue with that. A second later, he asked, “Did your parents?”
“Go after me?” Kendall glanced over at him and then shrugged. “If they did, I never found out about it. I was the problem child from the start – Emily was always the golden girl. As long as they had her, I don’t think they really cared one way or the other about me. Em found out where I went, and she let them know, but…”
“But what?” His voice was quiet, and there was something in his blue eyes that she hadn’t seen before: empathy.
“I haven’t seen either of them since,” she finished, holding up her hands.
A few drops fell on her hands and in her hair. She and Ariel looked up simultaneously. There was the muted sound of a car locking out front.
“They’re back,” Kendall said. He nodded, and they went into the house together.
100
175
100
100
200
