Less Than Nothing (13 page)

“Oh my god. That means it’s an eleven,” Melody says in awe.

“I’m pretty sure a scale of one to ten doesn’t have an eleven,” I correct.

“You know what I mean.” She reaches out and unwraps a Reese’s and pops it in her mouth. “There’s only one thing you can do, Sage. And I’m totally serious about this.”

Both Blair and I watch her, waiting for her pronouncement.

Melody’s always had a flair for the dramatic. She finishes chewing, swallows, and washes the candy down with a mouthful of beer. Blair cringes. I don’t. I know Melody too well.

When she speaks, it’s with the authority of a diplomat.

“If it’s a ten, you need to go with him to New York. That’s the only option.”

“What!” I blurt, wondering if Melody’s got anything stronger than beer.

“You heard me. It’s obvious. You need to go with him and stand by your man.”

“He’s not my man.”

“And he never will be if you don’t go,” Melody says.

“That’s…you’re out of your mind.”

“Maybe, but I know when you meet the dude that rocks your world, you need to hang on for dear life. Those are too rare.” Melody sets her finished beer down on the table, and Blair nods her agreement.

“Mel’s right.”

“Okay, this isn’t helping. First of all, he’s not…we haven’t done anything. We haven’t even kissed. So he’s not even close to being my man. Second of all, I don’t know anything about New York. I don’t have any friends there or anything. All I know is it snows and people are mean.”

“Total stereotype,” Blair says. Melody nods.

“I don’t have any money.”

“So what?” Melody asks.

“So what? You need money to survive.”

“But you’re living here with no money. What difference does it make where you’re broke?” Blair asks. That’s not the kind of help I was hoping for.

“You’re both assuming he’d even let me come along.”

“Let you? Girl, you need to be all, ‘Try stopping me!’ This is up to you, not him,” Blair says.

“And what if nothing happens and it doesn’t work out?”

“The talent show?”

“No. Between us.”

“Why wouldn’t it work out?” Melody asks. I feel like they’re tag-teaming me now. Blair does the swing kick, and Melody’s on the ropes, waiting to do the body slam.

“Just because. Sometimes things don’t work out.”

Blair’s eyes narrow. “Sounds like maybe you don’t want them to work out.”

That stops me dead. Maybe she’s right.

Melody pats my knee. “Or maybe she’s afraid it won’t and figures it’s safer to blow the whole thing off than take the risk?”

“I’m right here, you know,” I say, getting angry. This is way more personal than I wanted to go tonight.

Melody takes my hands in hers, doing her mom thing now. “Sage, you’re a big girl now. You need to take charge of your life. Decide what you want, and then do whatever it takes to get it.”

I pull my hands away. “Now you sound like him.”

Melody looks at Blair. “Swoon.”

Blair clears her throat. “Mel’s right. If you don’t really care about this guy, hey, no biggie. But if you think he might be the one, you need to fight for what’s yours, baby girl.”

“I don’t believe there’s any such thing as ‘the one.’ That’s a myth,” I say.

Blair regards me quizzically. “Really? How do you know?”

“I just know.”

She nods, as if agreeing. “What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.”

“Right. Because you’re never wrong about anything. But let’s just pretend you might be,” she says, and I remember she’s a 4.0 student.

“Blair, for me, there’s no such thing. I just know that in my gut.” I don’t tell her about my parents, my dad disappearing when I was almost eleven, leaving us with no prospects, or about Ralph’s toxic behavior. I know she’s Melody’s friend, but some things are nobody’s business but mine.

Blair smiles sadly. “My dad says something all the time: ‘If you believe you can, you’re right. If you believe you can’t, you’re also right.’”

“Okay, Dr. Freud. Whatever,” I toss off. But I’m thinking about what she said. And about Elvis. About Derek’s conviction that he’ll do well regardless of the odds.

“Or you can just take your clothes off, grab a bottle of something strong, and figure out how much you really like each other,” Melody chimes in with a wink and pushes herself to her feet. “Last beers?”

When she returns from the refrigerator, Blair switches the TV volume back on, and we watch a special on Animal Planet about dogs that won’t behave. Thankfully they’ve gotten tired of the topic of Derek, Derek, Derek, but as I pretend interest in the Chihuahua that bites when his owner tries to take his food away, my brain’s working furiously on…Derek.

I can’t just go to New York. The bus ride from my little house in Clear Lake seemed like a trip to the other side of the world. Hitchhiking cross-country is crazy talk. It’s fine for them to throw it out there like I can just snap my fingers and bam, there I am in New York, but reality isn’t like that.

Besides, he hasn’t asked me to go anywhere. He’s just told me what he’s going to do. In response to a direct question, after trying to dodge it.

And finally, there’s the niggling fact that I’ve only known him for three days.

People don’t cross the U.S. to be with someone they just met.

Do they?

The truth is that I’m more affected by Blair’s observation about creating your own reality than I am by Derek at the moment. What if that’s true, and I’m creating one without someone to be close to? What if the reality I’m building every day is punishment for sins I never committed? Punishment for not being good enough for my mom to stay sober?

Or for my dad to stay, or even keep in touch?

I can hear Ralph’s ugliness in my head, telling me I’m a loser, an arrogant, snotty little brat who’s worth nothing. Less than nothing, to be exact. A liability, a drain on his generosity.

And I can feel the sting of his slap on my face. The burn of his calloused hand when I talk back to him or roll my eyes, lashing out like a snake and hitting before I can see it coming, his expression always completely calm, like nothing’s happening. I can hear him telling me he’ll wipe that smirk off my face in his raspy hiss of a voice, threatening to give Yam to Goodwill, to rob me of the only things in the world I love.

What if I can make a reality where I leave that all behind? Can it really be that easy?

I don’t believe it.

Which is part of the problem. Or maybe it
is
the problem. “If you believe it’s possible, you’re right. If you don’t, you’re also right.”

Our interest in the TV wanes by 1:30 a.m. with yawns and final chocolates. I sneak another look at Melody’s phone as I hand it to her, Derek smiling from it, and I want to throw it across the room and smash it. Some primitive cultures say you steal their soul if you take a picture of them, and I can relate – that’s how it feels, like she’s taken a part of him she doesn’t deserve, something that’s mine, that she shouldn’t have. I know I’m being silly, and instead of stomping it into pieces, I smile, hoping my thoughts aren’t written across my face.

I take the couch while Blair and Melody stumble off to her room. After brushing my teeth, I spend the rest of the night tossing and turning, my thoughts ugly, as uncomfortable as I’ve ever been, even with impossibly soft cushions instead of concrete for a bed.

At around four, when I finally drift off, I’m still thinking the same thought, over and over, a buzz of anxiety churning in my core as the words echo in my head like the pounding of a drum.

What if Blair’s dad is right?

The next morning I’m sitting cross-legged on my blanket when Derek arrives. I’ve splurged for three cups of coffee since leaving Melody’s at 7:40, and I’m in danger of floating away. Derek gives me a concerned glance that tells me all I need to know about how I look, and when he tries to make small talk with me, asking how my night went, my responses are noncommittal and short.

The day drags by in slow motion, and even though we sound good and the money’s coming in, everything seems flat and dull, and I can’t wait for it to be over. I’m not hungry when he offers to get lunch, and the afternoon stretches endlessly, each song taking forever.

We pack it in early with ninety dollars in the kitty, and I beg off when Derek invites me to dinner. Every minute I’m around him confuses me more, and by the time he walks away, guitar case in hand, I don’t know what to think or feel.

I turn to comfort food, two slices of pizza and a smoothie, and watch the sky fade to purple as the fog rolls across the bay. I spend the night in some of my old spots, getting a total of five or six hours of sleep, none of them satisfying or restful.

This is my old routine, from only a few days earlier, yet it seems alien to me after meeting Derek. As I start another day and walk to the bagel shop, I wonder at the odd way my life has changed. There’s everything pre-Derek, and post-Derek. My pre-Derek reality seems lifeless and dismal, life in an old black-and-white movie, and post-Derek a kaleidoscope of color.

Todd’s standing by my spot with his bicycle, talking to a tall guy with jet-black long hair when I arrive. He gives the stranger a high five and then turns his attention to me.

“Hey, Sage. Whassup with your bad self?” he asks, always cheerful.

“Same as ever, Todd. How’s it going?”

He considers the question like I asked him for launch codes. “Could be worse. Been a good week so far.” He eyes me. “I hear you got a partner now?”

“Yeah. What’s the word?”

Todd strokes his goatee and nods. “All good. Seems like a cool move.” He returns his gaze to me. “You okay?”

“Sure. Why, don’t I look okay?”

“You always look like a spring morning to me, you know? But maybe you seem a little down, is all.” Todd’s got this weird way of talking, this cadence like he’s from Denmark or something, yet he’s from San Bruno. I’m used to it, but it can be really strange to listen to.

“Maybe I am. A little,” I admit.

“What’s wrong? Anything I can do?”

“Oh, just shit, Todd. Some days the world’s just all shit, you know?”

He looks taken aback and gives me this perplexed scowl. “What? No, it isn’t. It’s all groovy. I mean, hey, we’re here on a planet that’s traveling at like ten thousand miles per hour, we’ve got oceans and flowers and puppies and everything, and we’re alive. It’s like, every day’s a miracle.” He grins. “Don’t let it get you down, Sage. Don’t ever let it get you down. It’s all good, all the time. You just have to look for the good.”

Sure I do. “Some days are harder than others.”

He nods again. “You bet. Without the bad days, you’d never appreciate the good, you know what I’m saying? It’s like, bad days are the universe reminding us how good most days really are.”

That’s one of the things I love about Todd’s personality. He’s a bike messenger, makes only a little more than I do in a week, yet he’s always the happiest guy I know.

I envy him right now. I hope it doesn’t show.

“Hey, well, if you want to hang out after I get off work, we can play video games or something. I got some new ones,” he offers, and I return his smile. He’s good people, and I know he’s just trying to cheer me up, not jockeying for anything else. I need more like him in my life.

He rides off on his bike, and I change my strings. The prior day’s melancholy still hangs over me as I wait for Derek to arrive. For all the thinking I’ve done, you wouldn’t know it – nothing’s any clearer. If anything, it’s worse than ever.

Derek comes sauntering around the corner, his shoulders square and his head held high, his distinctive swagger unmistakable, and my stomach does a somersault. I realize I missed him last night. I hardly know him, but I missed him, I admit to myself, even as I hate the weakness it implies.

I’m analyzing why I think missing someone equals being weak when he drops his rucksack and sits next to me. I’ve got coffee I brought from the bagel shop, and I’m about to ask him if he wants me to get some for him from Peaches and Cream when he gives me one of his intense eye freezes.

“We need to talk,” he says, and I’m suddenly five years old again, having knocked a plate off the coffee table and broken it.

“Okay. This is us talking,” I say, sounding like the tough street chick I present to the world.

“You know what I mean.”

“No. I’m not sure I do.”

“Something’s wrong.”

Something? Try everything.
Which I don’t say. I decide to hear him out rather than launching into my banter. So I wait. Which doesn’t work. He’s just staring at me. It’s freaking me out.

“You’re kind of staring at me.”

He nods. “I am.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to figure out the best way to say what I need to tell you, and I rehearsed it all the way here, but now it’s sort of evaporated.”

The low-level sense of anxiety I’ve been feeling blossoms into full-scale panic, but I try not to show it. “Try just telling me.”