Surviving Valencia (22 page)

“He’s dead.”

Dave scribbled on his pad some more, aware that he had better find out what happened or he was not going to be able to evaluate how messed up I was.

“I have
so
much homework to do. Do you think I could leave a little early today?”

“No can do, Kiddo,” he said, tapping his watch.

“No problem,” I said, flexing my foot to keep it from falling asleep.

“So what’s on your mind?”

“Do you want to hear how my book report ends? Because there is kind of a twist to it.”

“I’m talking in the grander scheme of things. Do you think you’re responsible for what happened to your siblings? I mean, do you think you are responsible for what happened to your brother and sister?”

“I know what siblings means.”

“Okay. I know that. Sorry about that, Kiddo. Of course you know what siblings means.”

“Anyone over the age of seven knows what it means. Not to mention, it’s an expression I’ve heard a lot.”

“As I was trying to say, do you think you’re responsible somehow?”

“Well, I
did
put banana peels on that bridge…”

“Now we’re getting somewhere! I’m giving you permission to let go of that guilt. It wasn’t your fault
. It was not your fault!
I’m your friend and you can believe me.”

Never joke with these people.

Sessions with Dave lasted my entire sophomore year, and I feared they would be a part of the rest of my high school curriculum. Along with being ridiculous and gross, they marked me as a loser. Whenever I slid that orange hall pass across the desk, someone always snickered. It never got old. Then to my surprise on the last Thursday of the school year, Dave announced that I was “fine” and wouldn’t need to see him the next year.

“Unless you feel you’d like to keep up with our sessions,” he said.

“Dave, I’m going to get my driver’s license soon.”

He looked at me blankly, not getting it. What I was trying to say is that I had bigger fish to fry.

“Well, the school’s closed during summer months. Of course,” he said. “So if you do need me, just try to hold on until fall.”

I handed him my stack of leftover orange slips of paper.

“Thanks,” he said. “Save a tree!”

“Bye, Dave. Thanks for your help.”

He saluted me with his Fort Worth Stockyards mug and took a lukewarm sip.

“So this is what we’re going to do,” said Adrian, who had smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in four hours.

“I’m listening,” I said, trying to appear calm.
There is so much I don’t know about you
, I was thinking, as I watched my non-smoking husband light one off the tip of another, over and over.

“You are taking my car to Atlanta. You are going to stay there for three nights. I already booked the room. You stay in the room and everything you order, you order in twos. In the morning you can go out and pick up some coffee and a paper or whatever, but you buy two coffees and you use your credit card so there is a nice, traceable record of it.”

“But you don’t usually have coffee. You have juice,” I pointed out.

“Right,” he said. He sucked in on his cigarette, shaking his head at his carelessness.

“And I’m not supposed to be drinking all this coffee since I’m pregnant.”

“Good point. Get juice for me. Get whatever you want for yourself. Now remember, when you order room service you need to at least pick at it all, right Honey? Don’t just push the cart back in the hall with my meal on it. You’re eating for two though, so it shouldn’t be hard to have a little extra. Okay, all you have to do is lay low. Don’t walk around the hotel much because there are cameras. And don’t go in the pool, whatever you do, because there are always cameras in there! Just stay in the room as much as possible. And use the peephole! Don’t answer the door unless you absolutely have to. I think actually you should order just dinner, no lunch, so there’s less coming and going. Could you do that? You’ll be eating two meals, is it okay with you if they are both dinner?”

“Yes. What are you going to do, Adrian? How are you going to find him?”

His eyes met mine for the first time in what felt like hours. For a brief moment they softened and once again became Adrian’s eyes. They seemed almost pleading. I felt my heart break. Then he looked away, inhaled, shrugged it off, and continued, “I’m taking your car since you never get the oil changed and there aren’t any current records of the mileage. Once I get there I will park it at the Mall of America, I think, and from there I am going to take a bus since a car with Georgia plates is going to stick out up there. At least it’s just an old Volkswagen. What if we had bought you a new car already? But we didn’t yet so we’re okay. And we cannot, do you understand me, cannot, call each other. People on vacation together don’t call each other. Plus, they can tell where cell phone calls are happening. Just don’t call me, okay? What else am I forgetting? Have you used our computer to search for John Spade or anything like that?”

“No. Adrian, what are you going to do?”

“The important thing is that I want you to relax and take care of the baby and yourself. On second thought, be sure not to watch those Lifetime movies all day. You should rent some pay-per-views. Some action movies, but mainly porn. Soft-core. Nothing too over-the-top or violent. Stay away from anything weird. It needs to look like I am there and we’re having a little getaway. I’m sure they can track that too. Yeah, keep the pay-per-views coming in case they check. Bring some books so you don’t get bored. Honey, you better start packing. Pack a bag for me too so you can leave it open by the door. You know what? Spray the room with my cologne too. I’m going to drop Frisky off at the kennel right now while you pack. I will be back in a half hour.” He set a baseball bat that appeared from out of nowhere in my hands. “Keep this with you. I’ll see you soon.”

“Adrian, wait! It’s not too late for us to find a way to fix all of this.”

“I know, that’s what I’m doing.”

“What does that mean? Are you really going to
drive
there? It’s twenty hours away! And what if he’s not there? I told you, I think he was at the psychic’s house right here in Savannah! If he could be here, he could be anywhere.”

“Enough about that stupid psychic,” said Adrian, shaking his head in exasperation.

“And what are you going to do when you get there? How are you going to find him? And what if this John Spade guy isn’t even the right guy?”

“Don’t worry. I have it all worked out, and anything I didn’t figure out, I can sort out while I’m driving.”

“Wait,” I said. “What if we hired someone to do this?”

“That’s how we got into this situation.”

“Is it?” I asked.

Adrian inhaled and looked at me, his eyes cool and dull. Then he blinked and smooshed out his cigarette on the dinner plate he was using as an ashtray. “I need you to trust me,” he said, kissing me on the top of my head. He turned away and yelled, “Frisky, come on boy!”

I did not know what else to do, so I started packing.

Thirty minutes later, Adrian was back. He threw a couple things in a backpack and handed me a piece of paper. It said sexxylady9348 and shoesalesmendoitbest3. “You’re Shoe Salesman Do It Best Three, okay?” he said. “And I’m Sexxy Lady.”

“What?”

“Listen, Baby, I realized we really do need a way to be in touch, so once you get there, go to some coffee shop and set up a hotmail account with this ID. There’s no way these names are already being used. Well… On second thought, add the number five to the beginning of each, just to be safe.”

I watched as he penciled a number five in front of each name. I had no idea what he was talking about.

“Now remember,” he continued, “mine won’t be set up until probably a whole day from now. But this way we can be in contact. Don’t write anything incriminating! We’ll have to talk in code! And the first email should ask about something really benign, like a question about how to get over the flu, so we know for sure we’re really talking to each other.”

“What?”

“What part are you needing me to explain?”

“Nothing. Never mind.” I stuffed the sheet of paper in my pocket.

“So you understand the plan?”

“Yes Adrian.
God!
Are you enjoying this?”

“No. Not at all. We need to go,” he said. “Are you packed?”

I pointed to two small pieces of luggage on the bed.

He picked them up and handed me another piece of paper. “Here’s the name and the address of the hotel. I got you a room right by one of the side doors; it’s reserved in both our names. It’s downtown. It’s really old so hopefully they don’t have many cameras. We’re just going to have to hope. Maybe we can stay there for real sometime. Don’t lose that piece of paper with the email addresses on it. Memorize them if you can. Swallow it if you have to. Okay… I think I thought of everything.”

He put the bags in the car and hugged me. “I’ll see you in a few days. Don’t speed! Don’t get pulled over. Did you pack your vitamins?”

“Yes,” I lied. Who could think of vitamins at a time like this?

We kissed goodbye. Then he got in my car and I got in his and we both pulled out, heading toward the freeway.

To my surprise, my dad wanted to help me shop for my first car. I had not expected my parents to allow me to have a car, but they actually seemed enthusiastic about it. I told them I had four hundred dollars saved, instead of four thousand, and this was to be the down payment. I just couldn’t own up to having all that money; they could be so unpredictable. I would have to get a job during the school year to pay for insurance and my monthly payment. After three or four long hot Saturdays of shopping, we found a 1986 Toyota Camry. It was black with a tan interior. I loved it. There was even a tape deck in it.

“You’re going to have to work a lot to pay for this,” said my dad, preparing to co-sign the loan with me. “If you miss a payment they’re going to come looking for me, and I’m going to tell them to load it up on their trailer and take it away. If that happens, don’t come crying to me.”

His words did not bother me; they seemed gruff and dad-like, and appropriate. I took the keys, beaming, and I even gave him a hug.

So I had a car, which is of vital importance in high school, and I had a crush on a new boy who had just moved to our school. I felt that I was primed for victory. I had always had the most luck with new kids because they didn’t know they were supposed to hate me. This boy’s name was Alex Wescott and
he
pursued
me
. From the first day of geometry class, he couldn’t stop staring at me. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. And he was cute! Medium height with a muscular build and droopy brown eyes like a Bassett hound, but in an adorable, sexy way. It was obvious enough to aggravate the popular girls, who just that summer had all gone through name-puberty, maturing from Jenni, Kari, Jessi, and Keeli to Jennifer, Caroline, Jessica, and Keely.

Alex was from Chicago and he was
so
smooth. “Is this seat taken?” were the first words he ever spoke to me.

“We have assigned seats,” I plainly told him, because I was not so smooth. “It’s reserved for Paul Dunkel. I guess he’s running late.”

“Oh,” said Alex, nodding. He sat down in Paul’s seat and looked me up and down. I did not realize he had mistaken my obliviousness for cool detachment. Intrigued, he raised an eyebrow at me and said, “So are we going out tonight or what?”

The popular kids heard him say this. I felt myself growing hot, my nerdiness spreading from my neck up to my hairline in an itchy, scarlet wave. I waited for someone around us to set the record straight, let this guy know he was barking up the wrong tree, but they watched us in silence.

I had never done
anything
with a boy! Alex Wescott, with his worn leather jacket and stubble (
stubble!)
looked like he ate out prostitutes for breakfast. In that frantic moment I got the clear, sure conviction that I must have sex with someone uncool for practice before accepting his offer. The question was, who? Of course, it had to happen soon, before someone else stole away Alex’s attention.

“I already have plans tonight,” I told him.

“Oh. Okay, that’s cool,” he said. Then he added disinterestedly, “What are you doing?”

“Nothing special. Just going into the Cities for a concert with some friends who are in college.”

“What concert?”

“Hmm. Some band they’re friends with. I think they’re called the Middleweights. I’m just going along for the free drinks.” I don’t know where that came from but Alex believed me, I could tell. Feeling bold I said, “Why don’t we go out Friday night instead?”

“Sure,” he said.

I shrugged nonchalantly and went back to reading a diagram in my geometry book, my pulse loudly thumping in my windpipe. From the corner of my eye I saw Alex turn away from me to pick at his fraying hem, and I tried to steady my breathing. This gave me four days to get rid of my virginity.

The logical victim, the
only
candidate I could think of, in fact, was Dougie the Lawn Boy. Twenty-four and still living at his parents’ house, cutting people’s lawns in the summer and spending the off-season high in the basement. I figured his reputation as a helpful guy around the neighborhood who kept to himself made him a solid choice, so I gave him a call.

“Hi, Dougie,” I said. “This is your neighbor calling and I need a little favor.”

“Who is this?”

“Remember Valencia?”

“Sure!”

“This is her sister.”

“Oh.”

“I’m sixteen now. I was wondering if I could come over.”

“Okay.”

I went over there and he answered the door in boxers and a t-shirt. He had a body like a fifty year old man: skinny, skinny everything, with a huge gut.

“Do you have protection?” I asked him.

He did. We kissed for a while because I needed the practice at that too, and then we tried to have sex. I hadn’t seen any real-life penises before that day, so how was I to know that he was hung like an elephant? We tried and tried but it wouldn’t fit.

“Are you bigger than normal guys?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so. Quite a bit bigger, I’ve been told.”

“Good, cause this feels awful!”

When I said that he got off me.

“No, no. Don’t stop. Just shove it in there! I don’t care if it hurts!” I told him.

“Shhh… My parents are right upstairs!” he told me.

Finally I told him to just forget it. I had light years of experience compared to the day before, and I was ready for Alex.

“Thanks, Dougie. Now remember: You can’t tell anyone this happened!”

“I won’t!” he said, sitting down on the edge of his bed to play
Street Fighter
.

Alex offered to pick me up Friday night but I told him that I would meet him. There was no way he was coming to my house! I was working at a coffee shop a few nights after school and on weekends, and I told him to meet me there.

“You work at a coffee shop? Cool. Can you make me a cappuccino?”

“Sure.”

I got behind the counter when he arrived and made us both cappuccinos, whipping the foamy froth expertly while he watched.

“You’re so fucking hot,” he said. My coworkers Lyle and Sherry looked at us in disbelief.

“Hot?” I saw Lyle mouth to Sherry.

“Fucking hot?” she mouthed back.

It didn’t matter to me if they thought I was hot; Alex Wescott was crazy about me! Suddenly I was catapulting to coolness. Skipping all the gooshy prom dates and dinners at the Olive Garden, landing in the funky Bohemia of twenty-something-ness. I was leaving the Jennis and Karis in a cloud of my dust!

Alex and I drove around in my car, smoking cigarettes and listening to Tom Petty. We stopped at a Greek place for dinner and Alex casually ordered a beer. The waitress didn’t even flinch, so I ordered one too. Moments later she brought them to us on a round tray, a paper doily attached to the bottom of each sweating glass. I felt like we were, like, twenty-four. I drew on my vast history of movie watching to come up with bored, clever comments. We were
Heathers
and
Pump Up
the Volume
and
The Breakfast Club
all rolled into one.

“Is there a park around here we could go to?” Alex asked after dinner.

I knew what
that
meant! “Sure,” I said, eager to put my experience to the test.

I took him to Willow River State Park, just a mile or two away. When we parked he said softly, in a voice that frightened me with its sincerity, “This is really nice.”

Instead of attacking me or at least reaching for my hand, he closed his eyes and leaned his seat back until it was almost horizontal. “My parents are divorced. That’s why I moved here. You were probably wondering what made me come here, right? Yeah, they split up. I’m with my mom and she wanted to come here because her sister lives here,” he started in.

What? Was I his psychiatrist all of a sudden? We couldn’t be characters in a John Hughes movie anymore if he was going to act all needy and nice.

He poured his whole life story out for me and by the end I was pretty sure he was gay, but that didn’t stop us from going out for the rest of high school. We didn’t have sex for almost a year, and then we only did it about five times before the subject just stopped coming up. And that made the whole Dougie thing so much more pointless and regrettable.