Songs for a Teenage Nomad
Page 19
“We’re going north,” she tells him, but I see her face.
We get back in the car and go south.
***
We see the lights first.
A white spotlight and flashing red and blue from the emergency vehicles illuminate the dark trees on the side of the highway, the colors jagged and scattered. My mom pulls off the road when the cop standing in the street motions her aside. Up ahead, a black Ford Escort is crumpled against a tree. We get out of the car. Shards of glass glitter on the ground, catching the light of the police cars, the fire truck. An ambulance is parked near a cluster of men on the ground.
They are working over a body.
I know before I see him that it is my father.
“Excuse me, but you’re going to have to stand back.” The road cop comes up next to her. He has ginger hair and young, sad eyes.
“I know him,” my mother tells him. “That’s my ex-husband.” She pauses, then adds. “And this is his daughter.”
“You both need to wait here.” He walks away, his face a mask.
My head is throbbing, the spinning of the emergency lights making me sick. The cold, damp air burns my lungs. Someone comes to talk to my mom, but I can’t hear them, their voices murmur and hum in my ears.
I float toward the men working on the ground. Red light all around. Or maybe it’s blood. They are not hurried; there is no panic about them. They ease him onto a stretcher as if not wanting to wake him. As if he’s sleeping. His face is pale and shot across with cuts and slashes. There is glass in his hair.
“It’s a crazy corner,” a tall EMT says to the little guy next to him.
“Cop back there says there were no skid marks before the tree,” the little one says back. He shakes his head of brown curls.
“Poor bastard.”
They slip a white sheet over his face.
No skid marks.
I sink onto the wet ground, the smell of eucalyptus trees strong in my nose. I feel my mom’s arms circle around me, her tears on the side of my face, in my hair. Like glass.
“Come on, sweetie,” she says. “We need to go.”
“There weren’t any skid marks,” I tell her. “He didn’t try to stop.”
“I know, I know.” She curls with me, rocking. Shivering, I pull her jasmine smell into me. “We’ve got to go now,” she says. “They’re cleaning up. They’ll call us later today.”
Today. The sky is already lightening, a shiny husk across the night.
“He’s gone,” I say, my body shivering, not moving.
“I know.” The hush of her voice covers me. “I know. We’ve got to go now.”
“Where?” I ask. “Where will we go?”
She pauses, sighs, and releases something. In the wet air, with the smell of the trees and her jasmine, with the flashing lights disappearing away into the dawn, I feel her body drain, ease, and become pliable against me. Settle. I look at her eyes, clear and strong.
“Home.”
EPILOGUE
YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET
WHAT YOU WANT…
…my mother does an aerobics video in the living room of the house of a man whose name I can’t remember. She sings along with the Rolling Stones song the bouncy blond in the tape has playing in the background and takes an occasional sip of her Diet Coke. Gleaming with sweat, she waves to me where I sit on the couch, reading. I smile at my mother, at her wide, hopeful face. At her sudden energy and eagerness, at her sips of soda between sit-ups…
“I think that was a knock at your door,” Sam says, looking up from the copy of Julius Caesar we’re reading for English.
I finish highlighting a quote I plan to use for our in-class essay tomorrow. “A knock?”
“Yeah, you know. A standard sign of desire to enter.”
“Shut up,” I say, smiling.
I cross the small apartment and open the door.
On the step is a man I don’t know. He wears beat-up jeans, an old army jacket, and a red baseball hat that reads, “Highland Day Spa,” though I’m pretty sure this guy has never been to a spa in his life.
“Yes?” Something in my voice brings Sam to my side. I feel his arm curl around my shoulder, a feeling I’ve grown used to over the last few months.
“Can we help you?” he asks, his voice lowered.
“Calle Winter?”
I notice the man holds a box in his hands, a battered orange Nike shoebox.
“Calle Smith,” I say, my voice catching.
The man frowns. “You Jake Winter’s kid?”
I nod. We buried my father almost three months ago to the day. Sam came and held my hand. My mother placed a handful of purple daisies against my father’s simple headstone.
“His favorite,” she said, wiping her eyes. They seemed small and delicate, just a splash of color against the pale gray of the stone.
“Are you looking for Jake?” I ask. “Because I’m sorry to tell you this, but he’s…passed away.”
“I know,” he says, shifting awkwardly on the step. “He told me if anything happened to him, I was supposed to give this to you.” He shoves the box into my hands. “He gave me three hundred bucks. Sorry to take so long, but…I just got out.”
“Oh,” I take the box. “Okay, thanks.”
Without another word, he turns and shuffles away down the street. I watch until he rounds the corner.
“What is it?” Sam asks.
I shrug, feeling the weight of the box in my hands, and set it on our little dining table.
“Open it,” he says.
I open the box.
Inside, I find returned letters addressed to me in my father’s jagged script. Under these, I find a thick leather book tied with a red string. As if in a dream, I untie the string and open it.
It’s a journal.
I leaf through the seemingly endless pages, written with no margins, back and front in the same heavy black pen. I catch snippets of his narrative. “…almost found her in Sacramento. She plays soccer there. I bet she’s real good at soccer…” and “…Alyson didn’t return my call…” and “…when I get out of here, I’ll go to San Diego…to get her, if they’re still in San Diego…” Tears drip on the pages, smearing the ink.
“Calle?” Sam whispers. “Can I get you something?”
I shake my head, flipping the pages and reading pieces. Then I come to the end. A half-finished entry written the day I chased after him down the side street at Insomnia’s.
I met Calle today. Amazing. She is beautiful and funny. And smart. I can tell she won’t let me get away with anything. She’s got quite a mouth on her. Good girl. I say, give ’em hell! I like it here. It fits me. I can get an apartment. A job. A real one. Maybe Calle could even live with me part time. I have to talk to Alyson. Maybe we can start things over…
Sam holds me while I bring my sobs under control.
“Shhh,” he whispers. “It’s okay.”
At the end of the journal, there is a CD fastened to the inside cover with bright, blue duct tape. It reads: “For Calle.”
Sam takes it from my shaking fingers and tucks it into our stereo.
My father’s rich voice fills the room:
“Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, play a song for me…”
I clutch the journal to my chest. I found him.
“…in the jingle jangle morning, I’ll come followin’ you…”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to music. To musicians. To songs. We all have a soundtrack in our lives, and each one is tailored to our experiences, our memories, our loves, and our losses. This book is not about the specific songs mentioned but rather the way music impacts a life in an individual way.
There would be no book without my students. A special thank you to all of you. You are in every page of this book.
So many people have nurtured this book along the way—too many to name—but a few specifically are Rachel McFarland, Tanya Egan Gibson, Ann Keeling, Jaime Williams, Kirsten Casey, Krista Witt
, Michael Bodie, Loretta Ramos, Scott Young, Richard and Daisy Sagebiel, Caryn Shehi, and Erin Dixon. A huge thank-you to Gail Rudd Entrekin and Charles Entrekin for giving this book its first pair of wings at Hip Pocket Press.
Thank you to my agent, Melissa Sarver, who just gets me, and I love her for it. Thank you to my wonderful editor, Daniel Ehrenhaft, and everyone at Sourcebooks (especially Paul Samuelson, Kay Mitchell, Kristin Zelazko, and Kelly Barrales-Saylor).
Thank you to all the librarians, students, teachers, schools, bookstore owners, bloggers, and other readers who have already been so supportive—I am grateful to all of you.
Thank you to my whole family, but a special nod to my parents, Bill and Linda Culbertson, who handed me my first journal and have been encouraging me ever since.
And, finally, Peter and Anabella—so many of the favorite parts of my own soundtrack involve the two of you.
KEEP YOUR OWN
SONG JOURNAL
In the novel, Calle keeps a song journal. She titles each entry with a song title, and in the entry records the memory the song gives her. In the first chapter, she tells Mr. Hyatt that: “Last year, I started writing down memories I get from songs. I hear one, mostly older songs, and I write down the memory it brings. Like glimpses of my life as I remember it. Snapshots.”
The pieces of Calle’s journal entries that begin each chapter center around her mother, some of them are arguments or places, and some of them are small details that help paint a picture of their relationship. For example, chapter two begins with the following journal entry:
SMALL TOWN
…my mother turns the radio up because she has always been in love with John Cougar Mellencamp, insists on the Cougar part of his name, even if the singer has dropped it. We sprawl on the sloping lawn of the park, my mother letting her lunch break run way long. Light glints off her silver rimmed sunglasses as she hands me half a tuna sandwich with extra pickles…
Many people have songs that make them think of a place or experience in their lives. Perhaps the song reminds them of a trip they took, or of a sport they played, or of a friend who is important to them. Music is an important part of our culture, and one that is also deeply personal.
You can keep your own song journal too! Here’s how!
• Select songs that have significance to you somehow.
• Each journal entry should use the song as the title to the entry.
• In each entry, describe a scene/memory in your life that this song brings to you. Focus on using specific detail and sensory description to “show” the memory rather than just tell the memory (look closely at what Calle does in her journals).
• Create a cover for your journal
These journals make great gifts for family and friends and can be a fun thing for families to do together. Email me some of your song journal success stories at kim@kimculbertson.com.
ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
Songs for a Teenage Nomad won the 2008 Ben Franklin Award for Best New Voice in Children’s/Young Adult Fiction, the silver 2008 IPPY medal for Young Adult fiction, and several other awards. Kim’s been a high school teacher for over twelve years and currently teaches creative writing at Forest Charter School. She lives with her husband and daughter in the Northern California foothills, where she often finds her own soundtrack pop up over the speakers of unlikely places like the dentist office, the county fair, and once, the restroom of a Chinese restaurant.
Visit Kim at www.kimculbertson.com
Table of Contents
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Keep Your Own Song Journal
About the Author
Back Cover