Cross the Stars (Crossing Stars #1)

by Venessa Kimball

  The one place my father openly admonished.

  His eyes move from the screen to me. “I don’t want to persuade you one way or another, but it just so happens funds were granted by our benefactor specifically for volunteers of this program. We are partnered with Caritas, which is a humanitarian organization...”

  Before he can continue, I interrupt him. “Funding for the volunteers?”

  “Yes, the placements through WorldTeach have a commitment fee. Summer placement fees hover around $2,500.00 and that is to cover the visa sponsoring, literature on preparing for the placement and arrival, orientation, teacher training, cultural and language immersion, as well as needed safety and security.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t realize I was going to have to pay for the placement. I can’t afford to pay a placement cost.

  Tom explains, “Chile will have a placement fee, but Amman will be covered with the granted money. Again, I don’t want to pressure you in any way. It’s your choice.”

  There really is no other choice. If I’m going to do this, I need to take Jordan.

  “Yes, it does help with my decision. I would like to apply for the program in Amman.”

  “Are you sure?” he asks somewhat warily, which makes me put up my defenses.

  “Why wouldn’t I be sure?”

  He sits back in his chair again. “Amman, Jordan is an extreme culture shock for many volunteers. I just figured you might want a placement not so ... contradistinctive to our society.”

  “You couldn’t be more wrong about me, Mr. Stern. You don’t know my story and I would appreciate it if you would let me decide what I can handle.”

  I have stumped him, maybe even shocked him by my response. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  With all the events transpired over the last twenty-four hours, I can wholeheartedly say deciding to volunteer abroad is the one event in my life bearing a silver lining to the darkened clouds in my life. Maybe a complete culture shock is exactly what I need.

  Not wanting to dwell on the awkward moment, I move on. “It’s all right. I’m sorry if I came off rudely. I’m just solid in my decision and want to do this. What’s next?”

  The actual application was lengthy and some of the questions I couldn’t answer since things like my immunization records were at the apartment. Once I was done I handed the application back to him. Ready to leave, I put my purse on my shoulder. “Thank you again for meeting me so soon after speaking. I will wait to hear from you.”

  “Wait, where are you going?” he asks, holding my application in his hands.

  Confused, I answer him, “Don’t you have to go over the application, then get back to me in like a couple of weeks?”

  He smiles. “Yeah, but there is no point in handling this later with you sitting in my office right now. You are here on a Saturday before ten in the morning. No college student would get up before noon and drive to a recruiting office unless they wanted to speed up the process.”

  I set my backpack down on the ground next to the chair. “I didn’t drive. I took the bus.”

  He reads through my application, pausing to make tick marks at certain spots. He looks up at me, noticing I’m still standing. “Please have a seat, Ms. Wallace.”

  I sit patiently as he reads through my application. When he finishes, he flips back to the first page. “Do you have your immunization records up to date?”

  “Yes, I left them at home, but I can get them to you.”

  “Clean bill of health? Regular doctor’s’ visits?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it through the University?” he asks as he readies to write.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I can get it directly from them.” He pulls out a form from his desk drawer and hands it to me. “Just give me authorization to access the records.”

  I sign off on the sheet after adding my school and student ID.

  He continues, “I think I told you this yesterday. With you being an English major, it will be a great benefit for this placement in particular. However, you will be teaching students English, which is somewhat different. Do you feel you can handle this?”

  How hard can it be? “Yes.”

  He nods and reads on. “You put Allison Brown as your emergency contact. What is her relation?”

  “She is a friend.”

  He glances up from the paper. “We usually like to list the first of kin, like a parent if they are living. Are they living?”

  “Yes.”

  Fuck, I really didn’t want to put Mom or Dad down.

  He clicks his pen to life on the desk, then readies himself to write. “Okay, which parent will you put down?”

  I sit there for a moment, thinking about my father getting a call in the middle of the night explaining there has been an emergency with his daughter in Amman, Jordan. If I survived the emergency he would do everything in his power to remind me how he warned me about doing this. My mother would break down emotionally, but it would quickly turn to frustration for always choosing the hard road for myself.

  “Ella?”

  Tom is staring at me, waiting for my response.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  Seeing my visible concern, Tom tries to calm me. “Ella, let me reassure you, emergencies are rare since we have an extensive in-country field staff to assist with security and safety for the volunteers. In my ten-year experience of being abroad with WorldTeach, I have never experienced a dire emergency.”

  His confidence that contacting my parents will be only circumstantial eases my concern. “My father, Byron Wallace.”

  His eyebrows arch upon hearing his name. “Byron Wallace, the congressman?”

  I nod as he stares at me with surprise. I can almost see the questions stirring behind his eyes.

  “That is interesting,” he says as he writes my father’s name. Many times I have heard people consider it “cool” or “amazing” that my father is Byron Wallace, then ramble off questions about how it fucking makes me feel to have a political figure as my father, but Mr. Stern’s response of “interesting” is a first.

  “Does he know about you going abroad?” Mr. Stern asks directly.

  “Why?”

  He stops writing and looks up at me. “It is just most students going abroad tell their parents, so they can share in the experience. I would suspect being that your father is involved politically he would have some opinions on your traveling.”

  Yes, he definitely has opinions.

  I answer cut and dry, “They know and if they have an opinion it doesn’t make a difference to me.”

  Unsure of my readied answer, Tom returns to my application but remains watchful as he reads on. Shit, what if he attempts to call Dad to make sure he knows about this? It will only cause problems and if he screws up my chances of being selected I swear I will go ape shit. “Are you going to call them? I mean you don’t need his permission or anything. I am pretty much supporting myself so he really has no say in anything I do.”

  He clears his throat and goes back to my application. “No, there is no need to contact them unless it is necessary. It says here that you are on financial aid and you just said you support yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  He writes a note to the side. “Your parents don’t pay for your education?”

  “They wanted to, but I declined.”

  Once again, I have gotten Tom’s attention as he places his hands down on the desk. “You declined?”

  Barring the long story, I explain quickly. “Yes. We don’t agree on what I want in life.”

  He gives me a stiff grin, then goes back to the application, flipping page after page onto his desk until he gets to the last one. “Okay. Looks good. Do you have any questions for me?”

  “This decision to do this is on me and I want it to stay that way. Can we just put aside that my father is a political figure and stick with the reason I am doing this? No one needs to know who I am or who my family is. I’m just another voluntee
r. Okay?”

  Tom folds his hands over my application, his expression tender. “Your application is confidential and only seen by Caritas and upper-level staff. I have not stated anywhere on the application your father’s political influence and I don’t anticipate saying anything more about your family’s history beyond this room. Now, one more thing. You said your decision is on you. Tell me, why did you decide to do this, Ella?”

  Too many reasons to list, but one stands above all the others. “To find a purpose, something greater than just me.”

  Mr. Stern smiles, seeming content with my reason, unlike my father’s reaction.

  “When will I know if I have been accepted?”

  Tom puckers his lips as he looks at his laptop, scrolling down the screen with this mouse. “The deadline on this placement is this Friday, but with all of the openings still available I don’t see why you wouldn’t be accepted. I can give you a confirmation call on Monday to make it official though.”

  I want to make sure I am hearing him right and not reading into anything. “So, the possibility that I am going is high.”

  Trying to relieve my anxious curiosity, he smiles widely and says, “If I could stamp approved on the form now, I would, but for the sake of rules, I need to wait to welcome you into the program until Monday. We depart for Amman three weeks from today.”

  “We?”

  Was he going with us?

  “Yes, I’m going to help staff this placement. We need all the hands we can get over there.”

  He rises from his chair and I follow. “Thank you again for allowing me to apply today, Mr. Stern.”

  He nods and we shake hands. “No thanks necessary. Thank you for wanting to be a part of the program. And please call me Tom.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  Walking down the hall to the elevator, I open my bag to put the copy of my application and the book Tom has given me on traveling abroad with WorldTeach. As I hear the doors open, I misplace the book in the bag and it falls to the ground.

  “Shit,” I hiss, grabbing it quickly, then rise, walking right into a foreign-voiced man talking on his cell phone. His broad chest sends me backward, but before falling, he catches me, pulling me to my feet.

  “Whoa,” his voice drops, and I feel like such a fucking idiot. I push the book into my bag and escape onto the elevator. Just as I turn to face the closing doors, he picks up his phone and looks up at me. The familiarity of his light-brown eyes and gold flecks against bronze skin to the guy last night is uncanny. As he tilts his head with recognition, I reach for the button to delay the closure, but the space between us is already sealing.

  Descending, I consider riding back up for a half second, then decide how idiotic it would be, like I’m some creepy stalker or some shit like that. Plus, I could have totally been imagining the gold flecks in his eyes. Three hours of sleep and a hangover can do that shit to you.

  Opening the door to the apartment, I see Allison standing in the middle of the living room with her arms crossed, hair sticking out in all directions and still in her pajamas. “Where were you?”

  I haven’t seen her since yesterday afternoon and last night I didn’t bother to wake her to tell her what happened. I walk toward her and start to speak when I see a figure in the corner chair; Jilly. “Hi, El.”

  “Jilly? What the hell are you doing here?” As I move to her quickly, thoughts of her running away from home and coming here race through my head.

  I pull her too me and hug her tight. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I just needed to make sure you were okay and return your stuff,” she says softly.

  Allison walks to the kitchen as Jilly pulls away and points to my backpack next to the chair. “Nat came by this morning.”

  Of course she did. Rather than coming to drop it off here, she wanted to stir more trouble to get back at me by running to my parents.

  “She told Mom and Dad you left her at the party, just ran off,” Jilly says. I’m worried she believes the lie.

  Allison speaks up from the kitchen, “You went to a party last night?”

  I roll my eyes and keep my focus on Jilly. “Do you believe I would just run off?”

  She shakes her head. “No, I don’t. I was just so worried. I know Mom and Dad would never bring your backpack. They would expect you to come and get it yourself, and with the way things went last night at dinner, I don’t think you will ever come home again.”

  Jilly starts to sob and I pull her to me. “Jilly.”

  Her sobs taper and she pulls back from me. “You are still going to go abroad, aren’t you? You haven’t changed your mind?”

  I glance over Jilly’s shoulder at Allison, who is standing in the kitchen blowing on her steaming cup of coffee. I hadn’t told her yet, which will be a whole other lengthy conversation I’m sure.

  I know Jilly desperately wants me to change my mind, but I can’t. I won’t. “I need to, Jilly. Too many arrows are pointing me in this direction.”

  “You mean forcing you,” she says as she wipes her nose on the sleeve of her oversized sweatshirt. Her understanding of my circumstance makes me realize how grown up Jilly is becoming.

  I shake my head, surprised by her being here. “How did you get here?”

  “My friend brought me. I told Mom and Dad I was going to breakfast and the mall with her. She is going to pick me up out front in ten minutes.”

  I’m sick she had to lie to come see me, her own sister, but I’m glad she did at the same time. “This isn’t the safest of neighborhoods, Jilly.”

  “It is safe enough for you and Allison,” she says between sniffling.

  I don’t want to fight with her, especially with only ten minutes to spare before she has to leave. I notice Allison leave the kitchen and walk into the hallway back to her bedroom, giving us privacy.

  I move away from her and sit on the futon. “Jilly, remember how free spirited Grandma Wallace was? How she felt she needed to have purpose?”

  Jilly comes to sit down next to me. “Yeah.”

  “She took risks to find purpose in her life and I don’t want to live my life without meaning. Right now, I feel like it doesn’t have any.”

  “What are you saying, El?”

  “What I am saying is I need to find myself.”

  She nods and looks down at her folded hands. I place mine on top of hers and squeeze them tightly. “How will I talk to you while you are gone?”

  “It will just be the summer, Jilly, and then I will be back.”

  “Can I write letters. Do they have email?”

  I remember reading something in the application about email being accessible to volunteers and use it to cheer her up. “Yes, we can email back and forth.”

  The crease in her forehead softens now, knowing we can still communicate while I am away.

  “It will be like a pen-pal thing.”

  I smile widely in an attempt to raise her spirits.

  She laughs again, then shakes her head. “I’m going to miss you, El.”

  I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “Me too.”

  Three weeks later...

  My bedroom looks like a fucking bomb made of clothing has been detonated, fabric shrapnel scattered on the ground and bed where I sit taking it all in. Two open suitcases in the corner of the room, waiting to be filled with the long list of items from the orientation and information packet I received on the first day of training two-and-a-half weeks ago. Once Tom confirmed my being accepted to the program, I have barely been able to come up to breathe.

  I hear the phone ring in the living room, then moments later a swift knock on my door before it opens. I expected Allison to hold the phone out to me and say it was my mother or father, or maybe Natalie wanting to speak to me, like a last attempt to ask me to stay. Instead Allison is phoneless, looking down at my bed, then up at me as I sit there holding this damn packing checklist.

  “Uh, you are leaving for the airport in like two hours, right?” she asks cauti
ously. “You are not backing out, El!”

  I can see why it would still be on her mind. Processing my visa, vaccines and immunization, language and culture training, safety and security training, and add in the last week of school and finals, I was bound to blow. It just so happened to be hours before leaving for Amman, Jordan.

  What was I thinking? I mean, really. Who am I? I’m just a college student with no clue what she is getting into!

  “I rushed into this, didn’t I?”

  Allison marches over to me. “Stop it. You did not rush into anything, El. It is just cold feet, completely normal. Remember, it’s an opportunity of a lifetime!”

  I want to speak up, ridicule myself into believing this is all wrong when I know in my heart what I’m doing is right. That would be easier, less scary now that this journey is staring me right in the fucking face.

  She rests her hands on my shoulders, pulling my attention back to her. “Don’t give in to what they have told you your whole life.”

  She doesn’t have to call them by name for me to know she is talking about my parents. Her voice becomes softer as she continues, “You’ve got this, El. You are one of the strongest, bravest motherfuckers I know. Just like your grandma, you are going to...”

  Allison pauses and stares off in the distance. “Wait, what is it she said again?”

  “Cross the stars and steal the moon,” I mumble.

  Her voice is strong and baritone when she looks back down at me and repeats the words. “Cross the stars and steal the moon, Ella.”

  I laugh a little as she pulls me into a hug.

  An hour and a half later, Allison is pulling one suitcase out of my bedroom to the front door while I pull the other behind her. I hear the ominous sound of a horn; the taxi I asked Allison to call while I finished getting dressed. He’s early. “Shit.”

  “It’s fine,” Allison tries to calm my nerves. “He will wait.”

  I let out a very sarcastic, “Ha, yeah right,” as I follow Allison out the door of our apartment. “Taxis don’t wait, especially around here, Allison.”