The Year of Living Awkwardly

by Emma Chastain

  “I don’t think it’s a problem,” she said.

  “What if I crash?”

  She shrugged. “You won’t.”

  “My vision is weird, too.”

  “Key in the ignition,” she said. She was so calm and so sure of herself, and I’m so used to taking orders from her and not arguing back, that I found myself putting the key in the ignition and turning it.

  “Throw it in reverse,” she said. “Arm over the back of my seat. Give it a little gas. Turn the wheel to the right. More gas. Whoa! OK, that was good.”

  I was still shaking. I still couldn’t see well. But I was doing what she told me to do.

  “Foot on the brake. Whoops, the brake! There you go. Straighten the wheel out. Put the car in drive. One more click. There you go. And step on the gas. That’s it! Want to take a right here? Push the wand up. Other side of the steering wheel. You got it.”

  I was doing it. I was DRIVING! I was still shaking and my heart was still pounding, but I hadn’t crashed yet.

  Miss Murphy turned on the radio. It was a song I didn’t know, but she did, and she started singing along. Her voice is beautiful.

  “What if the music distracts me?” I said. I could barely talk, I was so focused on gripping the wheel and remembering which pedal did what.

  “You’re good,” she said. “I’m not worried.”

  She sounded so genuinely relaxed that I relaxed a little. She trusted me. I could do it. I was doing it.

  We kept going around the neighborhood. I was driving 20 miles an hour. Whenever a car came in the opposite direction, I slowed down to 10. A few times I pulled over and stopped so someone behind me could pass. Sometimes Miss Murphy said stuff like, “A little close to the lawn there,” or “Try to make almost constant tiny adjustments to the wheel, rather than occasional big ones,” but mostly she sang along to the radio and looked out the window.

  We did a loop, then took a left and drove into the new development. We doubled back and took Ross Lane up the hill and around by the fields. After half an hour, Miss Murphy said, “Getting hungry?” and I nodded. I was still too tense to speak.

  After I’d pulled into the driveway and turned off the car, she looked over at me, and her eyes were full of affection.

  “You did it,” she said.

  “I did it!” I said. I was exhausted, but my heart wasn’t pounding anymore, and my hands weren’t shaking, and I could see.

  “And you did well,” she said. “I knew you would.”

  She didn’t make a move to get out of the Jeep, so I didn’t either.

  “Do you know what scared you so much about driving?” she said. “Scared,” past tense. I felt a surge of pride that I’d gotten over my fear and tried this thing I was so petrified of.

  “How dangerous it is,” I said.

  She nodded.

  I said, “And I always picture Dad dying in a car accident. Like, blood in his hair. How his body would look if his neck broke. Sick stuff like that. So then I thought, if I’m driving, I could kill him, or someone like him, or myself.”

  She nodded again.

  I looked out the window at a bee floating through the air and thought about Mom leaving. I never expected it. It shocked me. And now it feels like I have to be on the alert for other terrible surprises. I trusted the world before. Now I don’t. Now I know people can disappear.

  Like she’d read my mind, Miss Murphy said, “I started worrying about death after my dad left.”

  “How did you make yourself feel better?” I said.

  “I tried to comfort myself with statistics. I still do. It’s overwhelmingly likely that we’ll die of old age after living long, happy lives. We’re extremely lucky. And most people we love won’t run out on us. Even if they do, we’ll be OK. ‘Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ right? If I ever got a tattoo, that’d be it.”

  I want to know the future so badly, because I want to know that no one I love will die young, or decide to leave me. But I can’t know. Maybe Miss Murphy and Dad will get married. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they’ll have a baby. Maybe they won’t. I have to be OK with waiting to find out, and in the meantime, I have to feel so grateful that my dad’s girlfriend thinks about me, and worries about me, and believes in me so much that her belief seeps out of her and into me.

  “SHE DID IT!” Miss Murphy told Dad when we got inside. She sounded so proud.

  Saturday, August 5

  Dear Mom,

  Obviously things aren’t great with you and Dad, or with you and me. I will admit I’m still angry at you for leaving. I’m also angry at you for trying to get custody of me when it’s not what I want, and now for vanishing into Mexico City. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive you for doing these things, but you’re still my mother, and you always will be. If you want to email sometimes (and I don’t know if you do), I’ll be happy to write back.

  Take care. I hope you’re doing OK.

  Love,

  Chloe

  I don’t know if it’s good or bad for me to have a relationship with my mother. Maybe cutting her out of my life completely is the right thing to do. For now I think it will make me feel worse to ignore her than to email her occasionally. And if anything goes wrong, I can ask Miss Murphy for help.

  Sunday, August 6

  I’d texted Hannah and Tris every detail of the Grady situation, but today was the first time I got to talk to them about it in person. They came over and we sat on the deck and gossiped while eating Popsicles.

  “I love everything about him,” I said. “Like, I love the smell of his spit.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Hannah said.

  “That’s how I felt about Roy,” Tris said.

  “Poor Elliott!” Hannah said.

  Tris waved his Popsicle in the air dismissively. “Oh, Elliott’s fine. He’s not going anywhere. I like having him around.”

  “Very romantic,” I said.

  “At least you have a boyfriend, Tristan,” Hannah said. “I don’t think I’ll date anyone else until I get to college.”

  Tris and I both burst out laughing, and Hannah looked wounded.

  “Sorry, Han,” I said. “It’s just that you’ve been single for about two weeks total since we started high school.”

  She gazed off into the backyard. “Do you ever wish we weren’t so obsessed with guys?” she said. “I think about them more than I think about school, or my parents, or anything else in my life.”

  “I do wish that,” I said. “But it feels out of my control. I try to stop obsessing, and I can’t.”

  “Please,” Tris said. “We’re in high school. Of course we think about boys all the time. Soon we’ll be old and we’ll have to think about our mortgages, or whatever, and we’ll look back and wish we’d relaxed and enjoyed this part of our lives.”

  I am enjoying this part of my life. I really am. I don’t want it to ever, ever stop.

  Monday, August 7

  “I miss Grady,” Nadia said today. “He gets back from Canada on Wednesday. I don’t know if you knew that.”

  “Um . . . ,” I started to say, but she kept talking.

  “As soon as I see him, I’m going to tell him I like him,” she said. “I get the feeling Reese wants him back, and I have to talk to him before she tries anything. Don’t you think?”

  “I have to confess something,” I said.

  She cocked her head at me and looked alert.

  “Grady and I are together,” I said. She frowned in confusion, so I elaborated. “I mean, he’s my boyfriend.” Now she looked downright disbelieving. “I should have said something earlier, but I didn’t think anything would happen, so it seemed pointless.”

  She studied me for a second and said, “That’s interesting.” It was obvious she didn’t believe me. Mere weeks ago she was scared of me, and now she was coolly insinuating I’m a liar right to my face. And she was so unbothered, and so sure of herself, that I panicked. Does it mean something sinister that I haven’t heard fro
m Grady in days? OK, he’s in another country, but if he liked me, wouldn’t he call, or at least text? Did he text Nadia? Is that how she knew he’d be back on Wednesday? And is he my boyfriend? Yes, we were joking around about getting married, but that’s so obviously hyperbolic. If you really wanted someone to be your girlfriend, you wouldn’t talk about getting engaged, because you wouldn’t want to scare her off.

  I’m being crazy, right? It’s terrifying to like someone this much. I take it back: I want to be Tris, not Elliott. I want to be Mac, not me!

  Tuesday, August 8

  Tomorrow’s the day. God, I can’t wait, I can’t wait, and God, I’m so terrified to see him again. What if I’m right—what if there’s something wrong? I have a bad feeling. What if he changed his mind? What if he met someone in Canada? What if he spent his trip realizing he likes Nadia? What if he walks into the pool tomorrow with a serious expression and says, “We need to talk”? What if he’s chilly to me in front of Reese?

  I can’t eat. I’m shaking with hunger and fear. Grady, Grady, Grady!

  Wednesday, August 9

  Reese and I were on the morning shift, and Nadia and Grady were working the afternoon, so I had to gut it out for six hours, watching Reese preen and apply lip gloss and stretch her legs out like a cat. At ten of two, Nadia walked in and practically skipped over to the concession stand.

  “I’m so excited to see Grady today!” she said, and as I was wondering whether to try to convince her, again, that he’s not available, he walked in. When he saw me, he raised both of his arms in the air like he’d scored a touchdown, then dropped his bag on the grass, whipped off his hat and his T-shirt, dove into the water, swam the entire length of the pool without coming up for air, hoisted himself onto the deck, reached into the concession stand, and pulled me out over the counter. I was laughing and screaming. “Grady! You’re insane! I’m getting soaked. Oh my God, my LEG! GRADY!”

  “This is my girlfriend!” Grady was shouting. He had me over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. I was dimly aware of Nadia staring at us with a shocked expression, Reese glaring from across the water, and all the mothers and nannies looking at us indulgently.

  “I’m going to marry this girl!” Grady yelled, and then he jumped into the water with me still on his shoulders. I came up choking and laughing and screamed, “Grady! This is the second pair of my sneakers you’ve ruined, you maniac!” Then I swam over to the ladder and sat on the second rung, and he swam over to me, held on to the handrails, and stared into my face.

  “I missed you!” he said.

  “I missed you so much,” I said.

  “Would someone report me to Mrs. Franco if I kissed you right now?” he said.

  “Definitely,” I said.

  “OK,” he said, looking at my mouth. He was inches away from me, and the sun reflecting on the water lit up his beautiful skin, and his small overbite, and the pen strokes of his eyebrows, and his thick eyelashes.

  “Let’s stay in the pool,” I said.

  He nodded, looking serious, and said, “Let’s stay in forever,” and then he did kiss me, and I kissed him back, and I felt the sun on our heads and the water all around us, and when I opened my eyes, he was already looking at me, looking at me like I’m precious to him, and although I knew we’d have to get out eventually, and I knew we’d have to keep growing up and messing up and struggling along through our days, it felt like if we tried hard enough, we could stay in our snow globe, frozen in this moment, floating in the pool of our happiness, for the rest of our lives.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, Jesseca Salky.

  Thank you, Melissa Albert, Sydney Navarro, Suzi Pacaut, Lauren Passell, and Emily Winter.

  Thank you, Patricia Anne Chastain, David Chastain, Carl Chastain, and Laura Emmons.

  Thank you, Liesa Abrams, Mara Anastas, Chriscynethia Floyd, Caitlin Sweeny, Alissa Nigro, Vanessa DeJesus, Katherine Devendorf, Jessica Handelman, Sara Berko, Mike Rosamilia, Jessica Smith, Christina Pecorale, Karen Lahey, and the whole team at Simon Pulse/Simon & Schuster.

  Thank you, Jared Hunter, Wesley Hunter, and Malcolm Hunter.

  I love you all so much!

  About the Author

  EMMA CHASTAIN is a graduate of Barnard College and the creative writing MFA program at Boston University. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and children.

  Simon Pulse

  SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK

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  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/teen

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Emma-Chastain

  Also by Emma Chastain

  Confessions of a High School Disaster

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Simon Pulse

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition July 2018

  Text copyright © 2018 by Emma Chastain

  Jacket photographs copyright © 2018 by Anna Wolf (girl, dog, and float), Getty Images (pool and bushes), Thinkstock Images (sky and diving board), and David Field (fence) Photo composite by David Field

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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  Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman

  Interior designed by Mike Rosamilia

  Jacket designed by Jessica Handelman

  Author photograph by Jacqueline Mia Foster

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Chastain, Emma, 1979- author.

  Title: The year of living awkwardly / by Emma Chastain.

  Description: First Simon Pulse hardcover edition. | New York : Simon Pulse, 2018. | Summary: Chloe Snow, now a sophomore, struggles to cope with being

  cast as a lowly ensemble member in the school musical, her parents’

  looming divorce, and complicated relationships with friends.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017023951 (print) | LCCN 2017038490 (eBook) |

  ISBN 9781481488785 (hc) | ISBN 9781481488808 (eBook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Diaries—Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Friendship—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.C4955 (eBook) | LCC PZ7.1.C4955 Ye 2018 (print) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017023951