I don’t want to talk to anyone. I shop alone. Sure, I’ll occasionally have lunch with friends at Fred’s, the restaurant at Barneys. And I’ll be sociable and make a courtesy loop or two of the store afterward, but I won’t wardrobe (aka power shop) with them. They’ll either move too slowly or claim they spotted that yellow eyelet Milly dress first. And right now, I am shopping for my first year at boarding school. This is serious. There are no Barneys in the middle of Connecticut, and online shopping should always be a last resort. And of course I don’t do malls on principle.
When “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” booms in once more, I silence it again. . . . I mean, really, Mom? We just spent the first two weeks of August in Nantucket, and I have less than three weeks before I need to leave for Kent, my new boarding school. I haven’t even finalized my bedding and drapery because Kent has yet to tell Waverly, my best friend, and me if we are permitted to be roommates. Having never shared a room before, I totally tried to finagle a private room by lying and saying that I have a serious snoring issue. But the dean of students said all roommates have to work out differences and mine will just need to wear earplugs or I’ll have to wear one of those nose strips. Since a private room isn’t going to happen, bunking with Waverly is a better option than some foreign exchange student who doesn’t shower daily.
Moving over to accessories, I model shades in the tiny mirror. After trying to remember if I have the tortoiseshell Ray-Bans at home or if I just have the white, the black, and the neon pink, I decide to buy the tortoiseshell ones just in case. I should look at round Jackie-O glasses, too, because I totally hear they’re having a revival.
Bing! bounces from inside my neon blue Marc Jacobs purse.
A text message from “her.” That’s how I put my mom into my phone. Funny, right?
Her: Family meeting, 7 pm, get home
It’s six, and I am supposed to do seven thirty sushi with the girls at a BYOB (bring your own bottle) restaurant in the East Village. My friend Sarita’s older brother taught us to frequent BYOBs, so we don’t get our fakes swiped because when you bring your own booze, the restaurants don’t even card. I guess I’ll have to be a little late to my friends’ dinner since I’ll need to swing by home.
I text her back.
Corrinne: Fine. The meeting better last only nanoseconds. I got plans.
I bring my purchases—two pairs of Notify jeans, the tortoiseshell Ray-Bans (why not?), and the orange Tory Burch flats—to the counter where Little Miss Bitter Saleswoman sits perched.
“I’d like those Hudsons I asked for,” I try to gently remind her how to do her job.
The saleswoman huffs off to find my jeans. After she packages up everything into two Barneys white and black logoed bags, I decide that I am definitely cabbing it. Those bags look heavy! And August in New York is too hot for the subway. Even though I could use the subway-stair exercise since I didn’t ride or go to the gym today, I simply can’t bear the thought of descending into hot, crowded mugginess. And especially not on a weekday: there are too many sweaty worker bees in tacky, cheap suits.
After I catch a cab outside, I text Waverly and tell her that I might be late.
Waverly: Don’t B 2 late, we might drink all the vino. And it’s never fun 2 B the sober kid.
I want to call Waverly and say there had better be wine left when I arrive, but the cabbie’s blasting the radio news. All I hear is “layoffs” this, “layoffs” that, “another Ponzi scheme.” Gross. I am sick of all this bad economic news, and it doesn’t even make any sense. Our math teacher, Mrs. DeBord, tried to explain last year when things got really bad: something about defaults, mortgages, shorts. I definitely didn’t get it. But hey, I don’t even understand algebra. Letters for numbers, really? We might as well learn hieroglyphics. At Kent, I am going to need a math tutor if I want to get into the Ivies. And I for sure want to get into the Ivies because that’s where the boys are not only cute but smart and rich.
When the recession first began last year, some kids’ parents had to pull them out of school. But it’s hard to tell who left because of money fiascos and who left for other reasons, like rehab and divorce. Thank God my dad made it through all the layoffs, and he even still got his bonus. I was scared that it was going to be a pauper’s Christmas like Tiny Tim had in A Christmas Carol, but everything I asked for, all four pages (single spaced), sat right under the tree.
The cabbie pulls up to my building at Morton Street and the West Side Highway. I bound out of the cab, buzz to open the gate, and jog up to the marble front desk.
“Rudy, favor, please: Hold on to one of these for me,” I say, extending a Barneys bag.
Rudy, our hot 6'6" doorman who models on the side, takes the package out of my hands and puts it behind the desk. I always leave one bag downstairs with Rudy so my parents don’t know how much I am shopping. Then I retrieve it when I know my parents aren’t around. This way, they’re only mad at me once a month when the credit card bill arrives versus every time I make a big spree. My mom says my shopping is “O.O.C.,” which is an abrevs for out of control; my dad says that “maybe she’ll go into fashion, and it’s an investment.” They argue about it. Actually, they argue about me a lot. Yeah, I’ve gotten a few detentions and had sit-downs with the parents over learning to filter my comments, but compared to other teenagers I know, I am practically a wunderkind. No mug shot in the Post like the girl at school who got busted for smoking pot in a club. Good thing because mug shots, as a rule, find your most unflattering angle and make even celebrities look homeless.
I nudge Rudy with my elbow: “Thanks, Rudy. You totally help my publicity with the parents,” I say, and head to the elevators.
Rudy is awesome; he keeps all my secrets, like the fact that I come in right before curfew, make sure my parents know I am home, wait for them to fall back asleep, and then leave again. And then there was the time I drunkenly threw my keys down the trash chute with the late-night pizza box. Rudy even dug them out for me. If he weren’t a doorman, I’d totally marry him. Waverly’s doorman will rat her out to her parents for a good Christmas tip, so I know how fortunate I am.
Stepping out of the elevator onto the thirteenth floor, I smell chicken. I haven’t eaten all day because I am trying to go vegan to shed some poundage for back-to-school. But still, it smells divine, and I’d kill for a little piece. I am shocked to find the aroma’s coming from my own kitchen where my mother, J.J. Corcoran, stands over a stove. She’s wearing a seriously unglamorous apron that reads “Kiss the Cook” with a gigantic lipstick mark over her perfectly coiffed clothes, a black Diane Von Furstenberg dress with a full skirt, and a long string of pearls. The black-and-white color combo highlights her naturally honey blond locks. It makes me mad to see that dress because I had picked it out on a rare shopping excursion with my mom, but the store only had it in her size: a size two. She told me that she would order me one in my size, but I couldn’t bear the depressing notion that I would be Jumbo-J.J. Being fatter than your mom is a common issue for the kids at my school. And even worse yet, my mom told my hairdresser that I couldn’t get blond highlights until I am in college. “You have such beautiful brown hair, Corrinne; you’ll thank me someday,” she said. So I am fatter than my mom and a brunette. I imagine that I will spend a great portion of my adult years on a couch discussing these two injustices with my shrink.
“Corrinne, is something wrong with your phone again? Why didn’t you answer when I called twice? You know I don’t like texting,” my mom says as she stirs the chicken steeped in red wine. She stops churning to take a sip out of a very full glass of white wine.
“Why are you cooking, Mom? And where’d you get that apron? Is Maria okay?” I say, looking around for our fifty-something Mexican housekeeper, who’s always at the apartment until at least eight at night. She’s worked for our family for years and helps to keep our lives out of madness.
“Maria’s fine. She took the train back to Coney Island this afternoon. And I’ve
cooked before, Corrinne. Just not in a while. Besides, I thought it would be nice to have some real food for our meeting.”
“Whatever; I have a dinner date at seven thirty, so let’s make it quick.”
“Corrinne, this is important. Your father’s home, um, he’s home early for it,” my mom says, and turns back to the stove.
This must be a big deal because my dad and I usually only exchange glances on Saturday mornings.
“Corrinne, one more thing: Set the table.”
About the Author
Gwendolyn Heasley is a graduate of Davidson College and the University of Missouri–Columbia, where she earned her master’s degree in journalism. When she was a little girl, she desperately wanted to be the next Ann M. Martin, so she’s grateful that the recession rendered her unemployed and made her chase her nearly forgotten dream. Gwendolyn now lives in New York City, teaches in New Jersey, and eats too much mac and cheese for an adult. She is also the author of WHERE I BELONG. You can visit her online at www.gwendolynheasley.com.
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Credits
Cover design by Alison Klapthor
Cover photograph © 2012 by Gustavo Marx / MergeLeft Reps, Inc.
Copyright
A Long Way from You
Copyright © 2012 by Gwendolyn Heasley
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
www.epicreads.com
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Heasley, Gwendolyn.
A long way from you / Gwendolyn Heasley. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Where I belong.
Summary: Seventeen-year-old Kitsy Kidd learns that there is a lot more to making original art—and relationships—than she thought when she leaves Texas behind for a prestigious summer art program in New York City.
ISBN 978-0-06-197885-2
[1. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 2. Artists—Fiction. 3. Self-Actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. 4. Moving, Household—Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y.)— Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H3467Lon 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2011044630
CIP
AC
* * *
EPub Edition © MAY 2012 ISBN: 9780062190208
12 13 14 15 16 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
About the Publisher
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1 - I’m a Waitress, Too
Chapter 2 - Ladies Who Lunch
Chapter 3 - Kitsy, Phone Home
Chapter 4 - When I Was Seventeen, I Went to a Party at The Pierre Hotel
Chapter 5 - Dorothy, You Aren’t on the Island Anymore
Chapter 6 - How High Have You Been?
Chapter 7 - Just a Small-Town Girl
Chapter 8 - A Good Liar Needs a Good Memory
Chapter 9 - The Thing About Good Girls
Chapter 10 - How to Make It in New York
Chapter 11 - In Your Own Backyard
Chapter 12 - Home Sweet Home
Chapter 13 - Taking Care of Baggage
Chapter 14 - Can You Never Go Home Again?
Chapter 15 - The Best Place to Start Over
Chapter 16 - Que Será Será
Acknowledgments
Excerpt from Where I Belong
Chapter 1 - Family Meeting
About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
A Long Way from You (Where I Belong) Page 23