Songs for a Teenage Nomad

by Kim Culbertson

  But Drew ignores her. He’s suddenly the MC of the tree crowd, announcing me, his wrist covered thickly with brightly colored rubber bracelets. “This is Calle. She’s from San Diego. She listens to sucky music, but we won’t hold it against her. I flush. Drew had pawed through my CD case during English, declaring each disc “Crap!” He now sees my face. “Hey, no judgment.”

  Everyone has their own version of hello. Even Black Tank Top gives a wave as she flips through a day planner.

  “Have a seat.” A girl in a lime-green T-shirt and jeans pats the ground next to her. “I’m Tala.” Her hair is pulled into elaborate twists and braids like a Star Wars princess. Her whole face smiles.

  “Hi.” I settle on the ground next to her, removing my lunch from my bag, my stomach churning.

  Black Tank Top snaps the planner shut and eyes me closely. “I’m Sara,” she says, not unfriendly, but not with the same sweetness as Tala. Her eyes are the prettiest shade of green I have ever seen, deep and yellow flecked. She’s older than the others, maybe even a senior. And she has cleavage. Real cleavage.

  “Nice to meet you,” I say, pulling apple slices from my lunch bag and trying not to stare at the cleavage, even though I think that’s kind of the point.

  She nods, taking small bites from her peanut butter sandwich, and shifts her gaze to the note she’s unfolded in her lap.

  Drew settles himself next to me and looks around. “Where’s Toby?”

  “Cigarette.” Cheetos Bag informs on him.

  “Gaven?”

  “Kissing Hecca’s ass.” Sara makes a face. “Auditions aren’t even until next week, and he’s already picking a monologue.”

  Drama kids. They’re at every school. Reading Shakespeare for fun, dressed in black, talking about famous directors. Ignoring the rest of us. I have no idea what to say to them.

  Sara turns to me. “Do you act?” Her voice has a competitive edge.

  Alexa, the girl from English, looks at her pointedly. “Not everyone under this tree has to act, Sara.”

  “I was just asking.” She looks back at me, rolling her eyes. “Alexa gets pissy when we say ‘act.’” She makes little quotation mark signs in the air with her fingers. “She’s a stage manager and set designer.”

  “I’ve never acted,” I tell them, unless my recurring role as New Girl counts. I tried out for a play once in sixth grade. Well. Not exactly. I stood on a blank stage and held the paper we were supposed to read from, my legs shaking. Then Missy Pinkle started giggling in the front row, whispering something to Erica Jenson, and I ran from the stage. No one liked Missy Pinkle—she was a stuck-up, prissy snob—but it didn’t matter. I haven’t been on stage since.

  Sara stares at me like I have a disgusting bug on my face. “Are you in drama?”

  “No.”

  She glances at Drew. “Oh. Well.” She sucks in her lower lip, looking back at me. “That’s cool.” She eyes my journal, her first real smile of the day breaking through. “Oh! You’re a writer.” She smiles again and pops open an orange soda. “We do student-written plays in the spring.”

  I don’t tell her that for me the spring is a long way off.

  “Hey, guys,” says a voice behind us.

  The whole group turns. A boy with black-ink-marker hair flops down next to Drew. He has Asian lines to his eyes and freckles across his pale skin. It’s actually a relief to see this kid. This town’s so white it makes Wonder Bread look multi-grain.

  “What did the Buddhist monk say to the hot dog vendor?” The black-haired boy asks, a smile already coming across his face.

  “I don’t know, Eli,” Sara says. “What?”

  “Make me one with everything.” He beams, looking hopefully around the group. Cheetos Bag laughs, kicking his flip-flopped feet into the ground.

  I laugh too, watching the boy closely. He notices, reaches across Drew, and offers his hand. “Eli.”

  I shake it. “Calle.” He doesn’t let go right away, just nods and repeats my name.

  “Eli wants to be a stand-up comedian,” Tala explains, her gaze curious as it slips between us.

  “What’ll your day job be?” I say, smiling at him. I instantly regret it and carefully remove my hand from his grasp. But his smile widens, his dark eyes soft, studying me, and something in his gaze makes me flush clear to my ears.

  CHAPTER 3

  WHEN I COME AROUND

  …Mom screaming at me to turn Green Day down. Rob has a headache. We’ve known Rob three days, and he already gets to be the volume police. I sprawl on the lawn, the sky above me tangerine, lighted tropical colors everywhere, like the world has been swallowed by a mango smoothie…

  The box sits in my lap, but I’m afraid to open it. The wood is smooth, the color of cream, heavily polished. There is no lock. I have never seen this box before.

  And I wasn’t supposed to find it. I’m certain of that.

  When I got home from school today, I just wanted Golden Grahams in my favorite bowl. The ceramic one with the duck painted on the side that I made at one of those paint-it-yourself places with my mom’s ex-boyfriend, Blue Aerostar Greg, when I was eight. He had outlined the duck for me in black, and I painted in the yellow. Greg was the only one of my mom’s boyfriends who wrote a note with my name on it when he left. They all drove away in Fords, but he was the only one who left a note just for me.

  But I couldn’t find the bowl. Instead, I found this box. Shoved against the back of the shelf over the stove. I sit on the counter with it in my lap, all around me the sound of the empty kitchen. I’m supposed to be getting ready for the Welcome Back Dance at school. I hate dances, but Drew and Alexa talked me into going.

  I open the box.

  Inside, I discover some of my mother’s old driver’s licenses, all with different married names and various hairstyles. Mom blond. Mom with braids. Always smiling, newly married, hopeful. Before everything goes wrong. There is a Polaroid of me at my tenth birthday with chocolate cake all over my face. I smile at the memory. The first and last time my mother baked my birthday cake from scratch. I ate it, even though it tasted like sand.

  Under the picture, nestled in a curl of blue silk ribbon she used to tie in my hair, is a gold wedding band. A man’s band. Maybe Red Mustang Ted’s. I’m pretty sure she sold all the others. Sometimes when it doesn’t work out, Mom’s not as sad as other times. She was sad after Red Mustang Ted. It’s probably his. I find a smooth rock from Arizona and a key with a plastic tag that reads “Waves Inn.” We stayed in that run-down inn near the beach for two weeks after Mom split with Nick, a personal trainer she met in Santa Barbara who always wore workout suits and way too much musk cologne. Neither of us misses Nick. Even if he did drive a very sweet ’67 Ford Fairlane.

  There are a few more pictures that other people must have taken. My mom is in all of them in various smiling poses. In them, she is the light in the room. She’s always the light in the room. Until the current guy leaves. I’ve never been able to guess when he’ll leave. I just know he will. I flip through the rest of the pictures. I’m not in any of them.

  Shrugging, I push everything aside. Another box, small and dark, rests at the bottom. A music box. Small, gold flowers curl around the broken lock. I open it. The music box part has been removed, revealing black velvet that has been cut away in places.

  Nestled there is a single black-and-white photograph. A man. Dark-eyed. Smiling at the camera beneath a white cloudless sky. He wears a pea coat with the collar turned up against a wind that tousles his hair. “JAKE,” it says on the back, and below that, “WINTER.”

  My breath catches. I have his eyes, and I see myself in the hard line of his jaw. A picture of Jake Smith. My father. Under a white winter sky.

  ***

  Music pulses hollowly as we walk through the doors. Small, white twinkle lights trail like ivy around the walls of the gym. A makeshift dance floor covers the gym to half court where a curtain has been pulled to separate the gym into two parts. The basketball h
oops have been pulled up into dark, crouching vultures in the rafters.

  Drew wrinkles his nose. “Smells like feet,” he says above the din of Duran Duran. “Welcome to the Awesome ’80s,” says a sign hanging on the far wall.

  Toby and Tala move past me. I just met Toby outside, and I’m convinced he’s really too tall to look at. Tala’s neck must hurt all the time. He sees the sign and frowns at Tala. “You didn’t tell me about the ’80s theme.”

  Smiling, Tala squeezes his hand. “You wouldn’t have come,” she says, pointing to Eli and Alexa standing by the snack table.

  “They’re supposed to be watching movies at Sara’s,” Drew mumbles. I’m quickly discovering that Drew hates to be out of the loop. We follow him across the semi-empty dance floor, Toby and Tala’s hands laced together in a casual weave of fingers.

  “What’s up?” Drew asks Eli.

  Eli pops the top from an Oreo and licks the white middle. He hands the cookie top to Alexa. “Sara only wanted to watch Fight Club for the ten-millionth time. I refuse to watch Brad Pitt’s naked torso anymore. Besides, there’s food here.” He pauses. “Hey, Calle.”

  “Nice outfit.”

  Eli always seems to be in something leather or plastic, a vinyl shirt, slick pants, or the thick bracelets he wears on both wrists like manacles. Tonight, he wears black pleather head to toe and a pair of red Converse sneakers. Leather ones.

  “Thanks.” He leans forward to pluck another Oreo from the stack. A blush deepens the smatter of freckles on his face.

  I smile, feeling off balance in this new place with the music around me and the warmth of all the bodies. I’m still reeling from the first glimpse of my father. His picture is tucked away in the folds of my song journal, but I put the box back over the stove. No need for Mom to know I found him. Not yet. Before the dance, I plugged Jake Smith into Google, but more than fifteen million results came up. Where to start? My father might be somewhere in those pages of people and lives.

  “We need to talk.” Alexa cuts into my thoughts, pulling my arm and starting toward the bathroom. I follow her. The swing of the bathroom door spills a ring of light into the dimly lit gym as two giggling girls pass us in their exit. Alexa pushes the door open, and we enter the bathroom. The walls are tiled with tiny pale-green squares; paint chips off the stalls; and half of the fluorescent light fixture pulses on and off in slow, shuddering lapses, casting us into bleached light, then shadow, then light again.

  “Okay, so…” Alexa starts, sticking her face close to the mirror and wiping beneath her eyes for stray mascara. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Eli’s crushing on you.”

  “Oh…” I stumble, dismantled. Boys don’t like me…that way. “I don’t think so…”

  She looks at me quickly, our eyes meeting in the mirror before she digs through her black Dickies bag and plucks out an eyeliner. She lines her eyes in thick, smoky violet, two sideways parentheses. “Oh, he does. But don’t worry. It’s just the way Eli gets…he gets crushes on everyone, so don’t worry. It’ll pass.”

  Like the flu.

  “He used to like me too,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Whatever.” She pushes through the swinging doors again.

  Is she mad at me? I don’t want to come between her and Eli. If there’s one thing being the new girl teaches, it’s that you don’t mess with the mounds of history that were here beforehand. That’s dangerous. Best to keep under the radar.

  I follow Alexa back to the snack table. Drew holds a cup of sweet-looking pink punch and talks to Tala about the play auditions yesterday.

  Eli glares at Alexa, who shoots him a wide smile. She doesn’t look mad.

  Drew is trying to talk above the Bon Jovi playing. “I think the cast list will be up Monday. It’s not like her to wait this long.” He takes a tiny sip of punch. “This stuff tastes like battery acid.” He takes another sip. “Want some?” He holds the cup out to me.

  “I’m going to get some water,” I tell them. “Is there a water fountain?” Tala points to the wall close to the door. I’m surprised Tala even knows where the fountain is. She never seems without her black Sigg bottle.

  Behind me, I hear Eli say, “What the hell did you tell her?” but then I’m lost on the dance floor, which moves in small clusters of wriggling bodies. It is easy to cut through them to the fountain. I bend over it, the water cool against my lips.

  Someone slams into me.

  My face crashes into the fountain as water goes streaming down the front of my shirt. Pain surges through my face. My song journal tumbles to the floor. Fumbling, rattled, I look up, the dance a woozy, swirling rush around me. Feeling something wet down my front, I wipe my crushed nose. Sticky, not water. Blood.

  The boy from English class looks back, his eyes wide with concern and embarrassment. He’s holding a toppled ladder. The end of the sign he’d been hanging dips sadly on the ground, a large tear down its middle.

  “Oh, jeez. I’m so sorry.”

  He scrambles to pick up my journal and hands it back to me. My father’s picture has fluttered out, and he hands that back too. I stuff it quickly inside the pages, hoping I’m not getting blood all over it.

  He takes in my face. “I’m so sorry. Oh, my god! You’re bleeding. I wasn’t watching…the ladder slipped…are you okay…I’m so sorry,” he keeps repeating, struggling to right the ladder against the wall. He grabs a handful of napkins someone left on a chair. “Here.”

  I press the napkins to my bloody nose and clutch my journal to me. I nod, pointing to the ladder. “You know, you should get a license if you’re going to be operating heavy machinery.”

  He laughs. “Yeah. That’s funny.”

  We both know it isn’t. I pull the napkins away and look at the dark-red blood.

  “Jeez, that’s bad.”

  “It’s fine.”

  He jams his hands in his pockets. “So…you’re in my English class.”

  “Yeah.” I’m at a loss for words. Desperate, I morph into a parrot. “English class.”

  “Sam.”

  “Calle.”

  “Hi.” We both look at anything but the other. My heart is beating ridiculously fast. I focus on the Cure’s “Why Can’t I Be You?” which is inducing a frenzy on the dance floor. My mom loves this song.

  “Samuel!” Blond Girl from English flounces over beside him.

  She wears a matching shell-pink halter top and miniskirt, strappy heeled sandals that I would break my neck in, and a diamond necklace that stands out against her smooth, tanned skin. I feel like a dump truck next to her.

  “What happened? Oh. My. God. Did you fall off the ladder?” I have never understood girls like her, voices shrill and dramatic, speaking as if a ladder falling marks the twenty-third most tragic thing to happen in her life today. “The sign. It’s ruined. The raffle starts in twenty minutes!” She shakes her head at the torn paper.

  “The ladder slipped,” Sam apologizes.

  “This wouldn’t happen if Kayla could ever finish anything on time!”

  “I almost took Calle’s head off.”

  “Who’s Calle?” This girl has no power of deduction. I am, after all, the only other person directly involved at the moment.

  “Me,” I say lamely, muffled by napkin.

  “Oh.” She turns to Sam. “Samuel.”

  “Amber.”

  “Will you please help me tape this sign up? If Kayla couldn’t manage to get it up before the dance at least we can get it up before the raffle.” She sighs, studying the sign like a homicide detective at a murder scene. It’s all very grim, this slaughtered sign. “We’ll have to tape up the middle.”

  Sam smiles at her. He has slightly crooked Tom Cruise teeth, charming teeth that haven’t been fixed into conformity by braces. So white. “Sorry about your face. It was nice meeting you, Calle.”

  “My nose thanks you.” But he doesn’t hear me.

  Like a shadow, I walk back to the snack table where Eli has left half a plate of Oreos. He’s g
one, and so are the rest of them. I get more napkins for my nose and watch Sam tackle the ladder once again as Amber waves a roll of masking tape at him from below.

  The music has shifted to OMD’s “If You Leave,” practically my mom’s favorite song ever. Pulling my journal from my bag, I wipe a smudge of blood from one corner of my father’s picture and make sure it is tucked securely inside. I find an empty chair in a corner as memory floods me: Mom crying at the end of Pretty in Pink when Andrew McCarthy chooses Molly Ringwald in the parking lot instead of the snotty rich girl he’s supposed to be with. Through her tears, Mom telling me, “That’s never happened. Nobody ever chooses me…”

  CHAPTER 4

  PERFECT BLUE BUILDINGS

  …Mom plays Counting Crows all morning in the yellow light of the apartment. I am a shadow lingering about her. She looks through me, wanders the rooms. The curtains are drawn tight against a brown LA sky. Ted is late again, and Mom cries while she sings…

  “She can’t put Icy Hot on her face, stupid.”

  Eli looks crushed. “Why not?”

  “It will, like, burn her face off.” Alexa snatches the tube away from him and shakes her head at me like he’s a toddler who just keeps eating paste.

  I spent the weekend nursing my cherry-tomato nose and raccoon bruises. I had hoped it would look better by Monday. No such luck.

  “It looks bad, Cal.” Eli pokes at my nose.

  “Ow! It’s fine if you don’t touch it.”

  He sighs and offers to carry my backpack. Shaking my head, I watch down the hall where Sam hoists Amber’s pile of books into his arms. She talks on her cell phone. Probably to someone at another locker.

  Alexa follows my gaze. “Ugh, did he even apologize?”

  “Sure. I mean, who doesn’t apologize when they hit someone with a ladder?”

  “Her.” Alexa points a finger at Amber, who is now walking past us. She doesn’t notice the other finger Alexa gives her.