Your Destination Is on the Left

by Lauren Spieller

  YiaYia voted for us to keep traveling—she announced it as soon as the count was over, insisting that she could support the family financially while we got back on our feet. I think Cy voted against us settling down too. As for the third . . . I have no idea. Maybe Mrs. McAlister. Maybe Jeff. But it doesn’t matter. Mom, Dad, and Rodney will arrive in Charleston in two and a half days, just in time for Dad to start work the next morning. The other families will probably visit us for a few weeks, and then they’ll move on.

  But me? I’m staying here. At least for tonight. After the show, I’ll figure out the rest.

  I help Rodney load his suitcases into the storage compartment underneath the RV while my parents walk down the block with the other families. I imagine the conversations they’re having, about how I’m breaking up the families even worse than Dad is, or how long before my family returns to traveling full-time. If we ever go back to it at all.

  “Everyone’s gone,” Dad says as he and Mom come back up the driveway. “We better hit the road too.” He puts his arm around me. “Be good, kid, and let us know how it goes.”

  I hug him. “I will.”

  Mom takes my hands in hers. “Don’t do this,” she pleads. “You can still come with us.”

  I’m not going to argue with her—there’s no point. Instead, I rest my forehead against hers. “I’ll see you soon.”

  She sighs, then kisses the bridge of my nose. “Good luck tonight.”

  Dad starts up the RV. “Drive safely!” YiaYia calls from the front door to the house. “Call me when you get there.”

  Dad waves to us. “We will.”

  The RV pulls out of the driveway, and YiaYia goes back into the house. I’m about to follow her, when Cyrus runs up the driveway. “Dessa, wait!”

  I spin around. “What are you doing here?” I exclaim. “Your dad already left.”

  “I made him let me off. I didn’t want you to be alone tonight.”

  My eyes fill with tears, and I throw my arms around him. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Thank you so much.”

  “We should hurry, right? Doesn’t it start soon?”

  I check the time on my phone. “Shit! We’re already late.”

  “Good thing I kept the Suzuki.”

  • • •

  The motorcycle screeches to a stop in front of the gallery. I’m off the bike before Cy even has a chance to take his helmet off.

  “You go in!” Cy yells through his visor as I toss him my helmet. “I’ll find you.”

  I run into the gallery, eyes scanning the crowd for Fiona. The exhibit started twenty minutes ago, and there are people everywhere. They’re dressed really nice—dresses and suits, even a few tuxedos. I’m a mess. I didn’t shower, my hair is tangled and wild from blowing in the wind, and I’m wearing cutoff jean shorts, two tank tops layered over each other, and a bunch of mismatched necklaces that look like they came off a table at a roadside flea market. Which they did. But I don’t care. All that matters is that I’m here, that I’m going to finally see something I made with my own hands, hanging in a gallery.

  “Dessa?”

  I turn to find Jordan staring at me, her mouth open. She’s wearing a floor-length white gown and her head is newly shaven. She looks like she stepped off a runway in New York and landed in downtown Santa Fe. “Where have you been?” she says in her clipped British accent. “And what in god’s name are you wearing?”

  “Where’s Fiona?” I ask, searching for her. I need her to know I’m here.

  Jordan grabs my arm. “Come with me.”

  She pulls me into a bathroom. “You can’t meet potential buyers like this.” She yanks a paper towel out of a basket on the back of the toilet and runs it under cold water. She wipes at my face, my neck, my arms. She bats at my clothing, then tugs at the bottom of my shirt. “Now flip your head over and shake out your hair.”

  “Jordan, I need—”

  “You’re not leaving this bathroom until you’re presentable.”

  I groan and do as she says, so that when I stand up, it lays flat. More or less.

  Jordan takes a purse out of one of the folds in her skirt, and produces a black eyeliner. She grabs my chin to hold my face steady, and quickly lines my eyes. “Almost done,” she mutters. Then she bends over and yanks her heels off. “Here.”

  “What?”

  “Put them on! I’m tall enough without them and my dress is long—no one will notice.”

  “Are you sure?” I say, looking down at my dirty brown boots.

  She rolls her eyes. “If I wasn’t sure, I wouldn’t have taken them off. Now hurry up. I have to get back out there before Fiona gives away everything for free.”

  I toss my boots under the sink and pull on Jordan’s heels. They’re too big, but I can still walk. And I have to admit, pairing heels with my shorts makes me somehow look purposefully casual. “Better?” I ask her.

  “Much. Now get out there. Fiona is terrible with potential buyers. She’s always telling them how cheap her materials are. It doesn’t make people want to spend money.”

  I hurry back into the gallery, and immediately spot Fiona just outside the exhibit. She’s wearing an incredible purple dress that skims her collarbone in the front but plummets in the back, plus chunky silver jewelry and strappy heels. She spots me and waves.

  “Dessa!” she yells, startling an old lady so badly that she almost drops her glass of wine.

  Fiona gives me a hug, and I feel all the muscles in my body go limp. I made it.

  “Let’s go in.” She grabs my hand and leads me into the main exhibit area, all the way to the back. But something is wrong: The giant bicycle sculpture we’d planned on placing on the far wall is gone. Instead, there’s a small, square piece of art covered with a sheet, blocking it from view. “Oh god. Was the sculpture stolen?”

  Fiona shakes her head. “Nope, it’s over there.” She points to the front of the room, where the sculpture is sitting in a corner.

  “Then what . . .” I look back at the sheet-covered square. “You’re kidding. That’s mine under there?”

  “Yep. I was going to put it in the corner, but then I showed it to Jordan and she insisted it would be more dramatic if we put your piece on the far wall.”

  “Jordan said to put it there?”

  “We both love the scale—your work isn’t big, but that will make it stand out even more on that white wall.”

  A waiter wanders by with a tray of champagne. Fiona takes two glasses and hands me one. I take a sip. It’s delicious, even better than the stuff Cy and I had. “I could get used to this.”

  She laughs, and we clink our glasses together. “Are you ready?” she asks, nodding toward my sheet-covered art.

  People have gathered around us, curious about what Fiona’s about to unveil. My hands start to shake. “I’m ready.”

  Fiona motions to one of the gallery workers. He steps forward and picks up the top edge of the heavy white sheet, then pulls it away with a flourish.

  Alternating spirals of color spin hypnotically before me. The blue and green glass of the Santa Monica coastline, rolling in like a sparkling wave; vibrant, hand-painted southwestern tiles from my YiaYia, and shards of glass in yellows, oranges, and reds from my mother; hundreds of jagged shards of the broken mirror from Taryn, each reflecting my own face back at me. Apart, these pieces each tell a single story, of where I’ve been, or how I cried, or who helped me along the way. But together, radiating out from the single piece of Fiona’s yellow glass flower at the center, they tell the story of everything I’ve experienced and put myself through in hopes of finding my own path.

  I look at the beautiful mosaic I’ve created, and I’m filled with something I haven’t felt since I first made the sunburst painting.

  Pride.

  All around me, the gallery patrons ooh and ahh appreciatively, and a few even clap. I turn away to hide my blush.

  “Oh, there’s something missing,” Fiona says. She reaches into her purse and pulls
out a small rectangle of white paper, and then steps forward to affix it to the wall. Written across the middle in fancy cursive is a note:

  Into the Unknown, by Dessa Rhodes

  Price: $1,000

  My hand flies to my mouth. A thousand dollars is more money than I’ve ever even considered calling my own. It’s enough to help my family pay back some of their loan. It might even be enough to help my mom forgive me and my dad for keeping such a huge secret from her.

  At the thought of my parents, my heart constricts. They should be here to see this. They should have come with me. But then I find Cyrus’ face in the crowd, and remember that YiaYia will be here soon, and force myself to stay focused on the good.

  “Thank you so much,” I say to Fiona. “For everything.”

  • • •

  An hour into the show, tons of people have stopped to look at Into the Unknown. An older man even asks Fiona who this “Dessa Rhodes” is and whether she’s had an exhibit in Santa Fe before. Fiona just smiles and says this is “the artist’s first show,” but that he should keep an eye out for me, because my work is going to be big someday. As he walks away to tell his friends, she winks at me.

  But no one has offered to buy it yet. Cy does his best to keep me calm, bringing me snacks and trying to talk to me about the art, but by the time I drink my second glass of champagne, I’m jittery with nerves, and my stomach hurts. “You might want to slow down on the booze,” he whispers.

  “Why?”

  He jerks his chin to the front of the room. I follow his gaze, and practically drop my glass.

  Standing in the doorway, looking super nervous, is my family—all ten of them, plus YiaYia. But unlike me, they’re not dressed for traveling. Dad, Jeff, and Mr. McAlister are wearing hastily ironed suits, and Mom and Mrs. M are in skirts. Even the twins are dressed in their white confirmation dresses. Only Rodney seems to have gotten away with wearing jeans and a button-down shirt. Probably because he’s growing so fast he doesn’t fit into his secondhand dress pants anymore.

  I push through the crowd, a bit unstable in Jordan’s shoes—not to mention from the champagne—and hurry over to my parents, my heart hammering in my chest.

  I’m almost to them when Jordan appears in front of me. “Have you seen the waiter?”

  “No, sorry,” I say, craning my neck to see past her. My parents are already halfway across the gallery, only steps away from my piece. My palms start to sweat. Seeing them here, in the middle of the show—it’s like I’ve been living two different lives, and now they’re crashing together.

  “He’s supposed to be serving canapés,” Jordan whispers angrily, “but I just overheard someone commenting on cheesecake. It’s way too early for desserts to be out. Dessa, are you even listening to me? This is a disaster.”

  I look at Jordan for the first time. “Jordan, it’s never too early for dessert. Everything is fine, I promise. Now . . . I have to go.”

  I walk past her, to where my parents are standing directly in front of my piece. I wipe my sweaty palms on my shorts. This is it.

  “Um . . . hi.”

  Mom turns around. “Dessa, you made this?”

  “Yeah . . .” I clear my throat. “Yes. Last night.”

  “It’s . . . I didn’t . . .” She looks to my dad for help.

  “It’s okay if you don’t like it,” I say quickly. “But I’m really proud of it.”

  “Are you kidding?” Dad says. “It’s incredible.”

  I let out a sort of half laugh, half sob. “Really?”

  “Absolutely.” Mom pulls me into a rib-crunching hug. “I’m so sorry we left, sweetheart. We should have been here for you.”

  Dad wraps his arms around both me and Mom. “We were wrong.”

  “It’s okay,” I say, smiling into my mom’s shoulder. “You’re here now.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The crowd clears around eleven thirty. As soon as the last person is out the door, Fiona takes off her heels and grabs a piece of cheese off a mostly empty platter in the corner. “What a night,” she says. “Did your family have a good time?”

  “They did, but they were getting hungry for more than just cheese and cake, so they took off.”

  “How are you getting home?”

  “My friend Cyrus is taking me. He’s outside, talking to the valet guy about driving a stick shift.”

  “Is Cyrus the one who keeps checking on the motorcycle out front?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Oh, good. If you didn’t already know him, I was going to suggest you check the guest book for his name so we could track down his phone number for you.” She winks at me.

  Jordan marches into the gallery, her bare toes barely visible under the bottom of the white dress. “I’ve got the initial bids if you’d like to see them,” she says, tapping the clipboard in her hand. “But I have a feeling we’ll get more in the morning.”

  I suck in a shallow breath. This is it. This is when I find out if my work can hold its own in a gallery. If all this work was worth it.

  Jordan hands the clipboard to Fiona, who quickly scans the page of item numbers. Her finger comes to rest on a listing at the bottom of the page. “Who made this offer?” she asks, looking up at Jordan.

  “Samuel Breen. He’s a private collector, but he’s been thinking of donating his works to our gallery for some time. It would be a small but permanent collection, which means the public would still have access to the piece, not just Breen.”

  “Interesting.” Fiona hands the clipboard back to Jordan and turns to me. “I have good news and bad news. What would you like to hear first?”

  I look from Jordan to Fiona and back again, but their faces are identical masks of calm. “Uh . . . the bad news, I guess?”

  “The bad news,” Fiona says, “is that you’re going to have to part with a piece of art that you have just created, and that is going to be very hard.”

  I stare at her for a second, the words sinking into my brain. “It . . . sold?”

  “It sold.”

  “Oh my god!” I spin around in a circle, almost falling over in Jordan’s heels. I come to a jerky stop. “Wait . . . is it rude to ask for how much?”

  Fiona turns to Jordan. “Show her, please.”

  Jordan passes me the clipboard. She points one long, manicured fingernail at the bottom. I look closely . . . and scream.

  “Twelve hundred freaking dollars! Oh my god, that’s even more than what you asked for.”

  I throw my arms around Fiona, and she bursts out laughing. Next I hug Jordan, who gives me a little pat on the back. But when I pull away, I catch her smiling.

  “Thank you, Jordan. For everything. I learned a lot.”

  She inclines her head. “You’re welcome. But um . . . my shoes, if you don’t mind?”

  “Oh, sure.” I pull off the heels and hand them to Jordan, who quickly slides her feet inside and heads back to her office.

  “There’s one last thing I want to ask you, as well,” Fiona says once we’re alone. “I’m sure you’re looking forward to spending more time with your family now that your internship is over, but I’m wondering if you might consider a different plan.”

  I think of the endless hours of driving ahead of me, and the nonexistent pull of settling down in Charleston. “Like what?”

  “You have a very bright future in the art world no matter what you do next, but I know college is important to you, and I agree that having a degree will benefit you no matter what you do. Especially if you choose to minor in something like business. But you have almost a year before you can apply again. So . . .” She clears her throat, and I realize she’s actually nervous. Fiona, nervous about talking to me.

  “In the meantime,” she continues, “I want you to stay in Santa Fe. Become my full-time, paid assistant. I’ll teach you everything I know about art—the craft and the business side. Do a good job, which you will, and at the end of the year I’ll write you the best damn letter of recommenda
tion you’ve ever seen. I’ll even personally deliver it to my friend on the admissions board at the University of New Mexico.”

  I stare at her, my mouth hanging open.

  “I know it’s not UCLA,” she says, “but it’s a great school with a wonderful art department. Your grandmother also mentioned during the show that you’re technically a New Mexico resident, so going to an in-state school would help your family with tuition. We might even be able to get you a scholarship.”

  “I . . . that’s . . .” My heart pounds so hard that I think it’s going to rip through my shirt. The ground swims beneath me. “Do you mind if I sit down for a second?”

  I walk to the nearest wall and sink into one of the chairs we set out for elderly guests. I press my hand to my forehead, as if with enough pressure I could contain the flood of emotions crashing through me. For months my fear has towered above me, an unscalable, unmovable wall. But I did it. I proved to myself that I was good enough. A smile spreads across my face, and I press my fingers to my lips. I want to memorize this feeling, lock it up tight and never let it go. The feeling of having everything I’ve ever wanted.

  Except, if I take this job . . . will I lose Cyrus?

  “This is an incredible offer, but is it okay if I give you my answer tomorrow?” I say at last. “I need to talk to my family.”

  “Of course,” Fiona says. “Take as long as you need.”

  • • •

  Cyrus is waiting outside to give me a ride home. I’m so shocked by Fiona’s offer that I forget to be scared of riding his motorcycle. Still, my legs shake as I climb off. Cyrus takes my hand to steady me, and doesn’t let go.

  “Is everything okay?” he asks as we walk up YiaYia’s driveway.

  I shake my head. “Inside. I’ll tell you inside.”

  My parents and Rodney are seated in the living room with YiaYia, snacking on leftovers from last night. Even though it’s not everyone, my blood pressure still spikes at the sight of them all sitting there, waiting for me.

  “Why are you holding hands?” Rodney demands.

  I completely forgot Cy had taken my hand when I got off the bike. I try to let go, but he keeps a firm grip. I glance over at my parents, but instead of looking shocked or uncomfortable, I catch them giving each other a knowing smile.