Goodbye, Rebel Blue

by Shelley Coriell

  I paste on a tired smile, and he pulls out the chair next to him. My uncle is a bean counter. He sits all day in an office counting beans or, in this case, taxpayer dollars for San Diego County. His office is a gray cubicle: gray carpet, gray walls, gray computer and desk. And he’s surrounded by other gray cubicles filled with other people who get math and are more comfortable with numbers than words. Even his name has a gray quality. Bob.

  But Uncle Bob has always supported me. He insisted I have Nova so I could have something of my mom. He’s always been the quiet, stoic resident of the bungalow, but the look on his face after Pen knocked the time capsule to the floor killed me. He looked as broken as Pen’s headless Polly Pocket doll.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m sorry I made a mess of things with the time capsule and upset Pen. I’m sorry—”

  Uncle Bob rests his hand on my fingers, which are plucking the woven threads on a rooster place mat. “It’s okay.” With his other hand, he reaches under the table and pulls out a metal box, the family time capsule. “This evening after the track meet, your aunt and I sat down and had a word with Penelope, and she told us about the list. As usual, Reb, I don’t understand half the stuff you do, but I know that when you take something on, it’s important to you, just like it was to your mother.” He taps the top of the box, a metal clank filling the kitchen. “I got everything to fit, including your sea glass and jelly beans, and it’s all sealed up.”

  I run my finger along the thick line of hardened glue sealing the time capsule, and a lump forms in my throat. Uncle Bob likes numbers and isn’t good with words. That bead of glue around a metal box is his way of saying I’m a member of this family. That I belong here. I throw my arms around his neck and hug.

  When I go to the room I share with Pen, the lights are out, but I can make out Penelope’s form under the designer quilts. Her back is to me, her breath fast and uneven. I’ve shared a room with Pen for too many years not to know when she is faking sleep to avoid me.

  Kicking aside the throw pillows scattered on the floor, I sit on the edge of my bed. “I’m sorry, Pen. I’m sorry I got disqualified from the track meet, and I’m sorry I made a mess of things with the time capsule. I’m sorry I hurt your feelings. Do you hear me? I’m sorry.”

  Pen says nothing. Maybe she’ll never speak to me again. Maybe she’ll hate me forever. Who knows? There’s so much about this world we don’t know. We can make choices, but they don’t always go the way we plan.

  At the end of the week, Macey and I head to the farmers’ market after school. Today the market is crowded. Summer looms, and the bins are bursting. Long before we reach the fruit stalls, I smell the peaches, sweet and ripe, full of sunshine and sugar.

  Macey picks out a half dozen plump peaches and pays.

  “Is there an award winner in here?” I ask.

  Macey’s lips quirk. “Maybe.” Macey’s latest innovation is vodka in her pastry. Apparently when the pie bakes, the alcohol evaporates and the crust becomes light and flaky. She engineered a topping—sugar-dusted blueberries and dollops of whipped cream—that will be the perfect complement to the golden peaches. She held taste tests. She waited for the peaches to ripen. And she found makeup to cover her scars. Now is the time for the perfect peach pie.

  And time to mend a screwed-up life. In the past month, I’ve managed to piss off my family, Nate’s family, and the entire track-and-field team, all in my efforts to connect with others because I’m tired of being alone. Now it’s time to put aside the list for a few days and try to mend fences.

  On the way out of the market, we pass a citrus cart showcasing mountains of brilliant yellow, green, and orange. I stop and buy a dozen oranges so plump and bright, they look like tiny suns about to burst.

  “So what will you do with all the money if you win the Great American Bake-Off?” I ask Macey as we leave the market.

  Her bony shoulders shrug. “I haven’t thought about it.”

  “A purist. You’re in it for the pursuit of the perfect peach pie.”

  She pauses and ponders. “I guess so. Somewhere along the way this stopped being an assignment, and I started to care about pie.”

  “Wait a minute. What do you mean, this stopped being an assignment? You don’t have a FACS class.”

  Macey unhooks her helmet—I now have two—but doesn’t put it on. “You know that day we were in detention together, when Lungren made us write bucket lists?”

  “That would be the day you bailed.”

  “I bailed from the room but not the assignment. Lungren wouldn’t let me. You know how she is, thinking she can change lives and all? Anyway, she tracked me down after I left, and I kind of had a meltdown in her office, and when I scraped myself up off the floor, I found myself with a bucket list.” She lifts the bag of peaches.

  “One of your bucket-list items is to enter the Great American Bake-Off?”

  “It’s the only item on the list.”

  “Seriously?”

  “I know, I’m not a normal person.”

  I toast her with my bag of oranges and toss them into Nova’s basket.

  After I drop Macey off at her house, I drive back to school. It’s almost four o’clock, and the regional meet will start soon. I talked to the coach the day after I missed the qualifier. She didn’t exactly kick me off the team, but she suggested that perhaps I might prefer tennis or golf. The track team doesn’t need me, and while I don’t need them, I failed them, and I need to make amends.

  I park Nova in the lot near the track, smiling at the row of Red Rocket trees Percy and I planted. The manager at the plant store said these are fast-growing trees and in a few years will be providing shade to cars parked here for sporting events. Kennedy would approve.

  Once I get to the track, I haul a five-gallon water jug to a small table near the benches for runners. I take another jug to the other set of benches near the field events, the seats where Pen and the Cupcakes sit, waiting for the meet to start.

  Pen jumps from the bench. “What are you doing here?”

  “Helping Liia set up.”

  “We don’t need your help.”

  Ignoring the glare from Pen and perplexed frowns of the coaches, I fill water cups and cut oranges. A discus player from another team walks by my table. “Do you mind if I take a few orange slices?”

  “Take ten, twenty. If you’d like, I can run to The Garden Spot and get you an entire tree.”

  The 100 Club project to enhance the nesting grounds for the California Least Terns, aka sea swallows, is done, and the birds have arrived. I have no reason to interact with Nate Bolivar, other than I miss him.

  Yes, my shriveled little heart misses Nate. Of course I miss his kiss. I miss the dimples slashed across his cheeks, but most of all I miss being a couple, that feeling of being part of something bigger, something greater than myself. From Nate I learned that when you’re a part of a couple or a family or a team, you sacrifice. You miss baseball practice so you can watch your brothers and sisters. You swing in the batting cages even though you’re tired because it will help the team. You go to prom even if you’re not a prom kind of girl because the guy you’ve fallen for is a prom kind of guy.

  In biology I try to get Nate’s attention, but he’s too fascinated with Mr. Phillips’s tie. After the final bell, I stop by Nate’s desk. “Can we talk?”

  “Nope.” He makes a beeline for the door.

  Even Mr. Phillips seems surprised by Nate’s rudeness. “Problems with the sea swallow project, Rebecca?”

  “No, we’re done.” With the project. But if I have my way, not with us.

  After school I run to the baseball field. I immediately spot Nate talking to one of the coaches near the batting cage. Nate says something I can’t hear. The coach throws up his hands and walks away, shaking his head. As Nate passes a five-gallon bucket of balls, he kicks the bucket. Balls spill across the ground.

  I jog toward him, but Bronson, who’s on the other side of the waist-high chain-l
ink fence, catches my arm. “Leave him alone, Reb. He doesn’t need anything from you right now.”

  I consider pulling away, but Bronson is one of Nate’s best friends, and if I want a future with Nate, I have to make nice with Bronson. Not nice nice, but we need to get to the point where we’re not tearing off each other’s heads.

  But I’m not good at small talk. “Why do you hate me?”

  Bronson toes the turf. “It’s not that I hate you, more like I don’t get you.” He wears cleats, good for digging in.

  “But you get that I like Nate, right?”

  The bald patch of dirt grows.

  “Listen, Bronson, I need to talk to Nate.”

  “You hurt him once already. I’m not going to let you do it again.”

  “You think I like seeing him that way?” I rest my hands on the top of the fence.

  “I have no idea what you think. Like I said, I don’t get you, and I don’t like what’s happened to my best friend.”

  The metal of the fence digs into my palms. “Which is why I need to talk to him. Something’s wrong. He’s skipping practice, and you have a game tomorrow.” I know because I checked the sports calendar on the school website. Being the other half of a couple with a sporto means parking my butt in the bleachers and shaking a pom-pom.

  “Nate quit the team.”

  I suck in a fast breath. He finally admitted the truth and made a choice. A part of me celebrates Nate’s decision, but I worry about him, because he’s dealing with fallout that often comes when you blast your own course. “Help me, Bronson. How can I reach him?”

  Bronson stops kicking the helpless grass and jogs away from the field.

  I hurry along my side of the fence. “Doesn’t it make sense that if I broke everything, I can try to fix it?” Or make a fool of myself trying. He keeps jogging, and by the time we reach the men’s locker room, I have no more words, no more arguments.

  Bronson walks by me toward the door, mumbling something that sounds like My barber is kind of grungy or Try the harbor on Sunday.

  When I get to the harbor late Sunday morning, I go straight to the kayak rental shop. Since the storm a few days ago, we’ve had smooth waters and buckets of sunshine. The shop owner tells me I can find Nate at a bay of kayaks near the loading beach. When I arrive, Nate’s standing at the water’s edge with an older couple, showing them how to paddle. His skin has soaked up more sun and is a deeper bronze. He wears a white tank, knee-length surf shorts, and no shoes.

  After the paddling lessons, Nate jogs to a trailer of kayaks. I could watch Nate all day, but that would get me no closer to prom.

  My bare toes digging into the sand, I join Nate at the trailer. “We need to talk.”

  “I’m working.” Which means he can’t bail on me.

  Thank you, Bronson, thank you. “I’m sorry I called you a liar.”

  Nate unfastens the straps anchoring a kayak to the trailer. “You were being honest. I’m not living my own life, not being true to myself. I—”

  “But—”

  “—can’t tell people no.” He lugs the kayak onto the sand. “I lied to myself that I want to play baseball and run for class president. I lied about wanting to get my MBA.”

  “But I didn’t have to say it the way I said it.”

  “Sometimes people need a good slam upside the head.” He wraps the kayak strap around his wrist. “Gets them out of bad situations.”

  “So I’m a bad situation?”

  “There is no situation. There is no us.” Yanking on the strap, he drags the boat through the sand.

  I follow him. The older couple stands at the end of the loading ramp in plastic spray skirts that remind me of oval tutus. Excuse me, Grandma and Gramps, but can you please go pirouette elsewhere so I can grovel without an audience? They don’t budge.

  “Nate, you’re a good guy.”

  He drags the kayak to the edge of the loading ramp.

  “I was an idiot not to hold your hand in public.”

  He takes the paddles from Grandma and Gramps and sets them on the concrete ramp.

  “And not to accept your offer to go to prom.”

  Taking a towel from his waist, he wipes the sand off the seats.

  “And a hundred other things in the How-to-Screw-Up-a-Relationship Handbook.”

  The older couple stares from me to Nate, as if we’re playing tennis.

  “So what I’m trying to say is,” I continue, “would you go to prom with me?”

  The waves lap against the kayak. The old couple inches closer.

  “Come on, Nate, say something. Or tell me why you’re avoiding me. I deserve that.”

  Nate looks at the sky. “You’re complicated.”

  “You don’t like complicated?”

  “No. Yes.” He runs a hand through the sides of his hair. “The problem is, my life got complicated.”

  “Because of me?”

  “No, because of me, but technically, you’re involved. You made me look at who I was and what I wanted, and you know what? I stared into the mirror and saw quite a bit I didn’t like. That made me angry.”

  “And there’s always something under the anger.”

  “What?” Nate asks. He helps the older woman into the kayak and clips her spray skirt to the seat opening.

  “Pie therapy,” I say. “There’s something under the crust, something more substantial. So you’re more than angry.”

  The older man steps into the kayak, and Nate clips his spray skirt into place. “The truth,” Nate says, “is that it scared the hell out of me. Do you remember Herman the shark from Mr. Phillips’s biology lecture, the one that didn’t move out of a ten-foot space even though he had an Olympic-size pool?” He jabs his chest with his fingertips, the movements hard and jerky. “I’m Herman. I’m. Herman.” His hands fall limply at his sides. “For years I’ve had my life planned, and everything within that little box has been fine. Baseball scholarship, undergrad work at a major university, business school, which at one point is what I wanted, but somewhere along the way, I stopped wanting that.”

  “People change. Dreams and plans need to change, too.”

  “Tell that to my parents and baseball coach, or to Gabby, who I was going to send to fashion-design school, or Marco, who I was going to send to the seminary.” He runs a weary hand down his face.

  “Something tells me you already have told them.”

  “Yeah. Didn’t go over too well.”

  Hope sparks deep in my gut. “So it can’t get much worse from here. Go to prom with me.”

  Nate’s eyelids plunk closed, as if he’s too tired to take on the arduous being that is me.

  “Go to prom with her, dear,” Grandma says.

  “She seems like a nice little gal,” Gramps adds.

  Nate finally opens his eyes. “I can’t. I’m going with a girl from my calculus class.”

  AS I’VE LEARNED FROM BOTH PERCY AND AUNT Evelyn, when life gets messy, you need blue cleaning products. I’m not sure why that makes me laugh, but it does. Swallowing a giggle, I carry Aunt Evelyn’s cleaning basket from the laundry room to my bedroom. Nothing should be very funny right now. I dug into the deepest part of my heart, carved out a chunk, and gave it to Nate. Nate, however, is going to prom with someone else, a girl from his calculus class.

  Ouch.

  Once in my bedroom, I have no idea where to start. I’ve heard of hoarders, people who acquire things and can’t give them away. Some compulsive hoarders have so much stuff, they live in homes with little pathways winding through piles of clutter. I’m not a hoarder; more of an annoyer. Someone like Macey’s therapist would have a technical name for this condition. For years I amassed stuff on my side of the room because it annoyed Aunt Evelyn and Cousin Pen. The truth is, it also annoys me. Nate isn’t the only one who’s been lying to himself.

  I start with the floor, folding and putting away clean laundry. I gather all my color-coordinated pillows and arrange them, or at least I try to. The jumbl
e of pillows looks like the pillow fairy barfed on my bed.

  “What are you doing?” Pen stands in the doorway with a frown.

  “Cleaning,” I say.

  “Why?”

  “My side of the room’s a mess.”

  “You just had this epiphany?”

  “No. Yes.” Next I start scooping up papers: school reports, homework assignments, old sketches and drawings. “Don’t make this any more complicated than it needs to be.”

  “You’re the one who complicates things.”

  “I know.” I toss papers into the wastebasket next to my desk until it overflows. “I remember what you said. Your parents never fought before I came to live in the bungalow.”

  “And this could be some part of your master plan to pit my dad against my mom.”

  I reach for the wastebasket near Penelope’s desk. “Or not.”

  Pen snatches it back and places it on her side of the room before stomping out the door.

  “Hey! I’m trying to do good!”

  With the floor clean, I dust furniture, wall hangings, and the glass jars sitting on the windowsill. I spray blue stuff on the window and mirror and scrub. As the dust and grime wash away, I feel light-headed. I wonder if Aunt Evelyn gets a cleaning high or if it’s the blue products. When everything else is clean, I dig out the stuff under my bed.

  It’s funny the things that accumulate under one’s bed over time: dust bunnies, a half stick of deodorant, a single soccer cleat, a person’s past. Aunt Evelyn loves boxes, especially stackable plastic boxes you can tuck under beds. The one storage box under my bed is twenty-four by eighteen inches with a red lid. It doesn’t look like a coffin, but inside rests everything that’s left of my mom.

  I hook my fingers around the latches but don’t open. My mom never had much. Travel Light types rarely do. She never owned a house, never rented a storage shed, and most of her stuff burned in the car crash.

  Slowly, I slide off the lid. My mom’s past smells like sky and smoke.

  Inside there’s a camera and a few lenses, her favorite denim jacket, and a tiny charm bracelet with a single daisy. At the bottom lies a large manila envelope. This doesn’t belong to Mom but to me. Six years ago, I made the choice to tuck it out of sight.