365 Days Alone

by Nancy Isaak

  “Be serious,” Jay scoffed. “Jacob goes there for the waves and the babes.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, probably.”

  “Don’t worry,” Jay said. “All boys mature eventually.”

  “Have you met my father?” I grimaced.

  * * * *

  There was one of those huge family portrait photos hanging over the fireplace. I went over and studied it. All five of the Riker family members had been photographed at the beach, wearing blue jeans and those white cable-knit sweaters that seem to always be popular around wintertime.

  I could see where Jacob got his ice-blue eyes. His mother was obviously of Scandinavian stock, because she had long, white-blond hair and the most beautiful light-blue eyes under dark black eyelashes.

  His dad was no slouch either. Like Jacob, he had brown hair and blue eyes—but regular blue eyes, not the icy-kind of the mother and son. There were also two younger brothers, Kieran and Rhys. Unlike Jacob, these siblings had the eyes of their father and the blond hair of their mother.

  “I hope they’re okay,” I said, wistfully, studying the photo. “They look like such a nice family.”

  “Very white bread,” Jay nodded.

  “They look like they actually love each other, don’t they?”

  “Jacob always says nice things about his parents,” Jay admitted. “He even seems to like his younger brothers. Maybe they really are a nice, normal family.”

  “Does that actually happen in California?”

  That made us both smile.

  (The truth is that both Jay and I are immensely jealous of families like the Rikers. It’s something that we both desperately want and know that we’ll never get. Unfortunately, I have a father who gave up his pride, his family, and most of his fortune to buy a couple of boob-bags for his younger mistress. Meanwhile, Jay’s family has promised her in marriage to a second cousin after she graduates from college.)

  * * * *

  The first thing I noticed about Jacob’s bedroom was the ‘scent’.

  I’m not talking about that nasty ‘locker-room-sweaty-armpit-stink’ that so many guys our age emit, but what I can only refer to as a ‘Jacob-smell’—a little musky, part sun and sand, part suntan lotion and Ivory soap.

  His bedroom was actually quite large and surprisingly neat for a guy. The bed was set against the far wall, right underneath a large window that faced Sumac Park. Overhead was a surfboard, hanging from hooks. There was a bulletin board underneath the surfboard and, pinned to it, an assortment of photos and surfing ribbons.

  Sitting down on Jacob’s bed, I reached out to touch one of his ribbons—a blue and white rosette.

  “I didn’t know that he surfs competitively,” I said to Jay, who was standing in the doorway. “He never brags about it like most guys would.”

  “Guess you aren’t as good a stalker as you think you are.” Jay moved into the room and began pulling open drawers. “No camping equipment in here,” she said, facetiously. “You think maybe we’re searching in the wrong area? You think maybe we should try the garage?”

  “Very funny, Jay.”

  With an amused snort, she came and sat down beside me on Jacob’s bed. “You want to know what’s really funny, Kaylee?”

  “What?”

  “Well, you’re so ‘Jacob-high’ being in his bedroom right now, that you don’t even see what’s right in front of your face, do you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Jay motioned toward the bulletin board above our heads. “See it?”

  I looked closer, trying to figure out what had caught her attention.

  My eyes started at the bottom of the bulletin board—two rows of surfing ribbons. Moving up the left side—photos of family skiing, boating, and just basically clowning around. Up across the top—a row of “Star Wars” playing cards. Down along the right side—photos from football games, more clowning around, this time with pals in the school hallways—and one long-distant shot of a blond girl painting in the park.

  Huh?!!...

  My stomach did a sudden loop-de-loop—that wonderful nervous-excited feeling you get—full of anticipation and hope.

  Jay giggled. “Guess you really do suck at stalking, if you didn’t even realize that your husband-to-be was stalking you back.”

  “That’s me!” I said, astonished. “Jacob Riker has a picture of me on his bulletin board!”

  “Yes, he does.”

  “Why does he have a picture of me on his bulletin board?”

  She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Why do you have a picture of him on yours?”

  “Ohmigod!” I cried. “Do you think Jacob actually likes me?!”

  “I think that’s pretty obvious, don’t you?”

  “But he’s never said anything to me. I mean, he doesn’t even say hi to me in the hallways or anything.”

  “Which is kind of strange when you think of it,” said Jay, “because he says hi even to me. That’s who he is. Jacob says hi to everybody.”

  My emotions were doing flip-flops.

  I fell back on his bed—all dreamy. “Look,” I pointed. “He can see my picture when he lies here. It’s like the last thing he sees when he goes to sleep.”

  Jay immediately rose from the bed. “Okay, now you’re just icking me out. I’m going to the garage to see what they have camping-wise.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to stay here a little bit longer.”

  “I figured as much,” Jay said, shaking her head in amusement.

  * * * *

  When I heard her steps disappear down the hallway, I sat up and took a closer look at the photographs Jacob had on his bulletin board.

  Sure enough, mine was the only one of a girl (who wasn’t his mother).

  From the angle, it looked like the photo had been shot from his bedroom window with a telephoto lens. I wondered if this meant that he knew I had been in the park because of him.

  Did he take that picture because he liked me? Or did he take that picture because he was just taking a picture?

  But, no, it couldn’t have been that, I decided. Because, why would he have the picture on his bulletin board? It wasn’t that exceptional a photo—just a girl painting in the park. No, Jacob would have placed the picture on his bulletin board for a very specific reason.

  And right then, I could come up with only one logical answer.

  Jacob Riker actually liked me!

  * * * *

  I think I spent a good half-hour in Jacob’s bedroom that day—lying on his bed, dreaming of alternate futures, or looking through his photo albums—pictures of family, friends, surfing, and football.

  And no matter how hard I looked (and I looked hard!), I found only one photo of a girl who didn’t seem like a relative—mine.

  To say that I was desperately, hopelessly, head-over-heels in love with Jacob Riker at that moment was an understatement. For that half-hour, in that bedroom, I became completely immersed in ‘that-which-was-Jacob’.

  I went through his things…everything connected to him. You could say that I was being nosy and, no doubt, I was.

  But it was more than that for me—because I loved this boy.

  And these things, his things—they were all I had left of him, all I would probably ever have of him.

  * * * *

  When I finally left Jacob’s room, I was at odds—feeling both sad and elated at the same time. I was elated to know that the boy I loved actually cared about me. But I was also incredibly sad that we would never be able to express those feelings to each other.

  Jacob Riker (and the future I had hoped we would share)—ultimately—would exist only in my dreams.

  * * * *

  I found Jay sitting on a couch in the living room, reading a book on hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains. She held it up to show me. “I’m going to take this back with us. It’s got a map of all the trails around here and you never know when we might need something like that.”

  I held up my
own booty, grinning.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “A couple of shirts and a photo of Jacob.”

  “Necessities,” she teased. “Did you also leave him a note? Just in case.”

  “Maybe…yes.”

  “Did you tell him where we are?”

  “Maybe.” I pointed to the box at Jay’s feet. “What’s in there?”

  “I went through the garage. They’ve got a lot of stuff for camping, just like we thought. I didn’t find anything that we could use for a toilet, though. But they had some great freeze-dried food—granola, veggie chili, and even some of that astronaut ice cream. Not exactly Baskin-Robbins, but it is ice cream, right?”

  “Any ice cream is good ice cream.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Jay rose from the couch and picked up her box of camping supplies. “Also, they’ve got a lot of bikes in the garage. I think we should grab a couple for the ride home.”

  * * * *

  Besides bicycles, the Rikers had air pumps and tire replacements and all sorts of other things that are apparently necessary for riding. We spent some time packing it all into a couple of backpacks that we found in the garage.

  Then we started for home, ultimately passing by the Ralphs strip mall once again. The calico cat was gone from the Starbucks’ roof, but the note we had left was still fluttering on the front door of the supermarket.

  It made me nervous to see it.

  As much as I wanted to know the identity of our condiments-survivor—one emotional event was all I could deal with that day.

  Stupid me—I should have knocked on wood.

  * * * *

  On the way home, Jay decided that she wanted to ride down Driver Avenue and come up the back way through our townhouse complex. Even though we were pretty sure that there were no pets left inside the townhouses, Jay still wanted to make one last trip through the units we missed—just in case.

  I was okay with that. Although, I didn’t think we’d find any pets, I did think it would give us a chance to look for weapons. Now that we were pretty sure that there were other people still alive—well, at least one—it just made sense to arm ourselves with something a little more deadly than our cop-socks.

  * * * *

  As we rode past Agoura High School, I must admit that I felt a flicker of anxiety. There is something about seeing your high school—dark and abandoned—that makes you feel (well, makes me feel) ‘unsettled’.

  I had always looked forward to my high school years—with thoughts of boyfriends, and school clubs, and cheerleading.

  Of course, the only club I ever joined was the school yearbook (guess we’re not having one this year), I never made cheerleading (I’d like to say it was fixed but, the truth is, I’m clumsy and can’t hold a beat), and the only boy I ever wanted to date disappeared from the world.

  Needless to say, I’m not having the best sophomore year right now.

  * * * *

  There’s a circular drop-off area just in front of the high school’s main office. I stopped my bike there, looking toward the office’s front door.

  “What is it?” asked Jay, stopping beside me.

  “I don’t know. Guess I was kind of hoping that someone might have left a note like we did at Ralphs.”

  “You’re thinking there might be someone else alive from our school? That they put a note on the main office door?”

  “That’s what we would’ve done, right?”

  Jay shrugged. “Maybe. But maybe they would have put it up near the entrance to the football field. Or maybe over by their locker. I mean, honestly…with the size of our high school, there’s a gazillion places where they might have left a note.”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “There’s really only one way to make sure, you know. We’d have to go through the whole school.”

  While I knew that Jay was right, I just didn’t feel like going through my high school at that moment—too many memories and unfulfilled futures. Mostly, I just wanted to go home, lie down, and have a good think about the boy I loved.

  I was about to say as much when I heard a faint barking.

  It wasn’t coming from the high school, but from directly across the street and up a slight slope—where part of our townhouse complex could be seen through the trees, lining the top of the nearby hill.

  “Do you hear that?” I asked. “Coming from the townhouses? And it doesn’t sound like a coyote. It sounds like a dog—a small dog.”

  “I knew it!” cried Jay. “I knew we should have checked all the townhouses. Come on!” And she took off, pedaling hard.

  I waited a moment before following her—turning my head this way and that—trying to focus in on the barking. It appeared to be coming from a two-level unit in a straight line directly across from me and up the hill.

  * * * *

  I caught up with Jay just as she turned onto Conejo View Drive.

  “Remember what they said in health class?” Jay yelled at me, as she pumped steadily up the small hill that curved into our townhouse complex. “You can survive in three’s—three minutes without oxygen…three days without water…three weeks without food. Which means that, as long as a dog has water, it can still be alive.”

  “It’s obviously still alive or we wouldn’t be hearing it barking,” I yelled back.

  “Yeah, but if there is one animal alive, then there might be others. We’re definitely going to have to go through all the townhouses we missed!”

  Oh joy…

  See, that’s the problem with having a conscience (like I mentioned before).

  It just doesn’t leave you alone.

  While someone more selfish and self-absorbed would just think—poor dog—and leave it at that, people like Jay and me are compelled to try and rescue every stray we come across.

  Frankly…it’s tiring.

  * * * *

  By the time we reached the top of the hill, both Jay and I were covered in sweat and breathing heavily. We biked slower now, threading our way along a path that snaked around the back of the townhouses. Through the bushes there, we could just see down the hill and across Driver Avenue to the front door of the high school.

  “It looks like we’re in the right place,” Jay said, looking down. “That was where we were standing when you heard the barking.”

  “I think it came from over there.” I pointed to the two-level I had seen from across the street.

  The townhouse, of course, looked like all the others around it.

  By Home Owners Association rules, alterations to the exterior of the buildings are forbidden. That said—as with all us owners and renters—there are little things that we all do to express our individualism.

  In the case of this particular townhouse, the occupants had installed flower boxes over the patio walls; coral-colored geraniums bloomed within, their blossoms cascading over the edges. On the patio, meanwhile, two large hooks held children’s bicycles. And in the far corner, was a green, bouncy-ball (one of those big ones with handles—you sit on it and bounce up and down—love them!).

  “They have children,” said Jay, quietly.

  “At least two,” I agreed.

  Suddenly, there was movement at one of the windows—a slight darkening through the slats of the blinds—as if something very small had passed by inside.

  If anything, Jay became even more excited. “That has to be it…that has to be the dog!”

  “It looks like it’s just a little thing,” I said.

  Laying her bike and backpack down on the path, Jay ran to the front door of the townhouse and jiggled the door handle.

  “It’s locked,” she groaned.

  “Check the usual spots,” I suggested. “See if there’s a hidden key anywhere.”

  We both started looking—under the doormat and inside the window boxes. Finding nothing, I pulled on the patio doors and Jay tried pushing open windows.

  “Ohmigod!” Jay suddenly screeched.

  I raced over quickly
, to find Jay with her forehead scrunched up against a window. She was peering inside of the townhouse, into the kitchen.

  “What are you seeing?” I asked.

  Jay turned to me, grinning.

  “It’s a pug!”

  SOMETHING ABOUT CHERRY

  Jay had fallen in love with pugs from the first moment Cherry Winslette had walked onto the Agoura High campus with one of the little dogs tucked inside her voluminous faux-leather fringed purse. When stopped and questioned by—of all people—Traynesha Davis (of the Foxes), Cherry had freely admitted that she had stolen the little dog. She said that she was going to sell it for $200.00, so that she could buy some meth.

  Needless to say, even Tray (who was definitely not the most ethical person) was horrified. Teachers, the Lost Hills Sheriffs, and—finally—Cherry’s parents were called in to deal with the situation.

  And while Cherry was facing down a bunch of very angry adults in the Principal’s office, it had been Jay (as an Administrative volunteer) who had happily sat outside—cuddling the little mush-faced mutt, who simply couldn’t stop giving my friend sloppy pug-kisses.

  From that moment on, Jay was in love with pugs.

  (Unfortunately, for her, Mr. Sitipala was not!)

  * * * *

  To understand Cherry Winslette, you first need to understand the relationship between Agoura High and the ‘Continuation School’. While many communities had more than one high school, few shared the same campus and, often, the same classrooms.