“Where’s Padre Island?”
“He’ll be staying with his brother for a few weeks while I figure out my plans, but I was knocking around that house and —”
“Where’s Padre Island?” I ask again.
“It’s two hundred and fifty miles south of San Antonio . . . right near the Mexican border.”
“I still have a few more hours,” I say, “so if you leave now, we could both arrive in San Antonio around the same time.”
Aimee doesn’t respond. In the long silence that follows, I have this feeling that now, more than ever, is our moment of truth. I’m basically saying, I’ve traveled nearly two thousand miles for you. So do you love me enough to drive a few hours for me?
Aimee blows her nose again. “Oh, hon,” she says, “I don’t think that’s going to work. I wasn’t planning on having you until Monday. I’ve paid for this place, and I’m just not in the best shape right now.”
“What am I supposed to do? It’s the middle of the night, and I’m on the side of some deserted road and —” My voice catches. I swallow hard and then say, “No, forget it. I’ll figure it out.”
“I’m sure you will.” Aimee clears her throat. “I know this is hard . . . but please try to understand. I just need a little time. On Monday we can meet up in San Antonio, and I’ll take you to this nice lunch place. I can call in the morning and make a reservation. Does that sound okay?”
I say okay, but as soon as we hang up, I start crying. I’m crying so hard, my chest is heaving. I cry and cry, and, eventually, I stop crying, cut the engine, and fall asleep.
When I wake up, the sky is pink. There’s a field of parched brown grass off to one side. A seat-belt buckle is ramming into my hip and my head is pounding and it’s so hot my thighs are sticking together.
At first I don’t know where I am. But then I taste last night’s sandwich in my mouth and I smell chlorine in my hair and my throat tightens and my eyes fill with tears. Before I can stop myself, I grab my phone and do something I never thought I’d do.
“Hello?”
As soon as I hear my grandma’s voice, I start crying all over again.
“V? Honey? Are you okay?”
I catch my breath long enough to gasp, “I’m . . . I . . . can you and Grandpa talk?”
“Of course we can,” my grandma says. “Hold on a second.”
As soon as my grandpa picks up, I explain, between sobs, how I was driving through the night to see Aimee, but she’s in some place called Padre Island and doesn’t want to come back until Monday and I’m on the side of the highway and I honestly don’t know where to go from here. I assume they’re going to lay into me for driving at night or say something like, We knew Aimee would do this, but as soon as I’m done talking, my grandpa says, “Would you like us to fly out there? We can be on a plane in the next few hours. We’ll stay with you until Aimee returns.”
“Or would you like us to call Aimee?” my grandma asks. “We could persuade her to come back today.”
“I don’t think so,” I say quietly. “I don’t want anyone to have to persuade her to see me.”
“How about this?” my grandma says. “We’ll call a hotel in San Antonio and book you a room. You can relax, get some sleep, and by Monday Aimee will be back.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I mean, I can do that my-my-my —” I collapse into sobs again.
“We know you can do it yourself,” my grandma says. “But we want to do this for you. We want to help.”
“Call us back in ten minutes,” my grandpa says.
After we hang up, I wipe away the tears and fiddle with my seat belt and stare out at the dry grass. When I call them back, my grandpa gives me directions to the Crowne Plaza San Antonio. I scribble it onto a gas-station receipt and then pull back on the highway toward San Antonio.
His name is Tommy, and I can already tell we’re going to hook up.
“I make the best guacamole in San Antonio,” he says as he stands next to my table, ready to take my order.
“How would I know for sure?” I fan myself with the menu. “I haven’t tried all the guacamole in San Antonio.”
“No need to. You’re here. Your search has ended.”
“That’s a little confident, Tommy.”
“Just being honest,” he says. “Hey, how do you know my name?”
I take a sip of water. “I have my ways.”
Tommy is a waiter at this restaurant on a second-story porch overhanging the River Walk. I spotted him as I was walking on the other side of the river, so I climbed the stone stairs, crossed the arching bridge, and asked the hostess to seat me in his section.
“All the girls want to be in Tommy’s section,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“So that’s really your name?” I crunch on an ice cube. “I didn’t realize anyone is actually called Tommy anymore.”
“My dad is Thomas. My cousin is Tom. My uncle is TJ.” Tommy raises his hand to his forehead in a two-fingered salute. “Born and bred in backwoods Kentucky.”
“What are you doing in San Antonio?” I ask.
“Long story,” he says. “Preferably told after some shots of tequila.”
“Sounds good.”
I order chips and guacamole. Tommy delivers drinks to a neighboring table and then pushes the guacamole cart over to me. It’s loaded with avocados and pottery containers of cilantro, chopped onions, and minced jalapeños. I watch as he expertly mashes an avocado, squeezes a few wedges of lime over the bowl, and then stirs in the remaining ingredients.
“You’re really serious about this,” I say.
“When it comes to guacamole”— Tommy sets a basket of tortilla chips on my table —“I don’t fool around.”
“When do you fool around?”
Tommy grins as he hands over the guacamole.
“Save it for the tequila?” I ask.
“Exactly.”
Tommy is right about his guacamole. It’s definitely on the spicy side, though, so I keep summoning him over to refill my water glass. Okay, it’s not just about the water. But I don’t think he minds because every time he returns, we joke around until the neighboring tables start looking neglected.
Finally, a guy with a massive platter of ribs snaps his barbecue-sauced fingers in the air. “Waiter —” he shouts. “Are you getting paid to serve food or pick up the ladies?”
Tommy pushes the guacamole cart over to that guy’s table and offers him a free sample. But later, as he’s handing me my bill, we make a plan to meet when his shift is done at ten.
After I leave the restaurant, I wander around the River Walk. It’s cooler down here than up on the street. It’s also surprisingly tranquil, with the shimmery water and mossy stonework and lazily drifting boats.
My grandparents actually picked a great hotel. The Crowne Plaza is situated right next to the River Walk. The instant I arrived at the room, I collapsed on the bed and slept for the rest of the day. When I finally woke up, I shampooed the chlorine out of my hair, hooked on my strapless push-up bra, and wriggled into that dress I bought for graduation. Then I went out to my car, where I retrieved my strappy sandals. I hadn’t touched them since I hurled them into the back after that party where I kissed Amos.
Even as I was blow-drying my hair and smudging eye shadow on my lids, I wasn’t admitting why I was going all out. But then I spotted Tommy pushing his guacamole cart, and it was hard to be in denial much longer.
When I meet Tommy at ten, he’s changed into a clean shirt and a pair of jeans. And I didn’t notice this before, but he has a silver stud through his tongue.
“Your real name is V?” he asks as we cross the bridge.
“It’s actually Vivienne,” I say, “but everyone calls me V.”
We pause at the bottom of the stairs.
“Where do you want to go?” Tommy asks.
“You know this place better than I do. What do people want to see when they come to San Antonio?”
“Mostly the
Alamo . . . but I think it’s closed now.”
We take a left and wander past the boutiques and restaurants. Tommy points out the fudge shop where his friend works and the bar where his buddy slips him underage shots.
“Actually,” Tommy says, pausing. “About that tequila.”
“I’m right behind you.”
The bouncer informs us that Tommy’s friend isn’t here tonight, so we head to a nearby fountain and sit on the ledge, watching the lights illuminate the water.
“Do you still want to tell me why you left Kentucky?” I ask.
“Because of a girl,” Tommy says. “And a dog.”
“And a truck? Should I be playing a country song?”
Tommy runs his fingers through the water and explains how he and his high-school girlfriend adopted a puppy last summer. When she decided to move to San Antonio, he knew their relationship wasn’t going anywhere, but he loved the dog, so he came along. They broke up a month later, and she and the dog moved to Nebraska. Tommy thought about returning home, but he was discovering his talent with guacamole, and avocados are much harder to come by in Kentucky.
“It’ll be a year in September,” Tommy says.
“So you’re here for the avocados?”
“As good a reason as any.” Tommy dries his hand on his jeans. “What about you? Why are you in San Antonio?”
“You really want to know? It’s a long, pathetic story.”
Tommy shrugs. “I don’t have any other plans tonight.”
I tell him about my mom and how I drove all the way from New York to visit her, but she’d rather wallow on some island. I tell him how she bailed on my graduation last month and my school plays and my seventeenth birthday, which is why I’m an idiot to have traveled two thousand miles with this expectation that things would be different.
Because I’m on a roll, I tell him about Sam and how I pushed him away and then cheated on him because I was scared to love and be loved. But what I’ve recently realized is that even if my mom doesn’t love me enough, there are a lot of people who do, myself included. Except now Sam has moved to California and probably never wants to talk to me again.
“Now you sound like the country song,” Tommy says, and then he starts chuckling.
“Is my pathetic life that funny?”
“Sorry,” Tommy says. “I just didn’t think pretty blond girls had problems. It’s kind of refreshing.”
“I’m not that blond.”
“And you don’t have that many problems.”
“Yes, I do,” I say. “I just drove all the way to San Antonio and my mom isn’t here and who knows if she’ll even come back tomorrow? She could call me in the morning and tell me she needs a few more days to pull herself together and, by the way, she’s in the South Pacific.”
“I guess that is a problem.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
We wander around the River Walk, watching couples licking ice-cream cones and mariachi bands serenading tables of tourists. After a while my sandals start rubbing the skin off my toes, so I tell Tommy I’m going to head back to the hotel.
Tommy walks me to Pecan Street, over the bridge, and up the short flight of stairs.
“Want to come in?” I ask, gesturing toward the lobby.
“Are you sure?”
“Sure,” I say, nodding.
When we get to my room, I go into the bathroom, where I brush my hair and swish with mouthwash. When I come out, Tommy is sitting in a chair, looking through the room-service menu.
I flop onto the bed. “Do you want to order something?”
“Nah. I’m just seeing who makes their guacamole.”
As I lean against the headboard, I think about how we’re probably going to chat for the next ten minutes. Then I’ll toss my hair over my shoulders and grin at Tommy, and he’ll scooch closer to the bed. Maybe he’ll angle in for a kiss or maybe, if he’s the polite southern boy that I think he is, I’ll have to advance things myself.
Suddenly, I start to cry.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Tommy asks, setting down the menu.
I wave my hand as if to say, No big deal, but I can’t stop. And it’s not just a little sniffle. I’m unleashing a flood of tears and way more snot than Tommy was hoping to see tonight. I’m crying because I’m doing exactly what I don’t want to be doing anymore, using a guy to escape whatever’s going on in my life. I’m crying because it won’t help to hook up with Tommy, just like it didn’t help to hook up with Nate, just like it didn’t help to hook up with Amos. What will really help, deep down, is not to let Aimee send me into these self-destructive downward spirals. I need to acknowledge that she may have controlled my past, but she doesn’t have to dominate my present and my future, too.
“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping my nose. “You don’t have to stay . . . really . . . You should go.”
“Don’t worry,” Tommy says. “I’m not leaving.”
“Why? I’m a mess.”
Tommy kicks off his sneakers and sits next to me on the bed. “You seem like you need a friend right now.”
As he slides his arm around me, I cry even harder.
“You know what I think?” Tommy grabs a few tissues off the bedside table. “I think you should call that guy and tell him you still love him.”
“But I was awful to him,” I say. “I told you how I cheated on him at that party. There’s no way he’s going to talk to me after that.”
“Tell him your head was messed up because of your mom, but you’re starting to figure things out and you want to make things better with him.”
“You really think I could say that?”
“It’s worth a try.”
Tommy clicks his tongue ring across his teeth. After a minute he says, “Why did you leave New York again?”
“To come see my mom.”
“But you knew he was in California, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And you must have looked at a map. You’ve got to know that Texas is only a few states from California.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You said your mom always lets you down. Did you really need her to do it one more time?”
“I guess not,” I say quietly.
“Maybe you were actually driving out here to see him.”
It’s a lot to think about. I lie back and rest my head on a pillow. Tommy starts stroking my hair. I’m just drifting off when he whispers, “I better go. I’ve got to work breakfast tomorrow.”
I open my eyes.
“After all,” he says, clicking his tongue ring, “I’m getting paid to serve food, not pick up the ladies.”
When Tommy stands up to leave, I say, “I want to get something from my car for you.”
I grab my keys and we head down in the elevator. As soon as we get to my car, I unlock the door and dig through the backseat until I find that compass my grandma insisted I bring along.
“What’s this for?” Tommy asks as I hand it to him.
“For helping me find my way.”
Tommy puts it in his pocket and then walks me back to the lobby and gives me a tight hug.
“Enjoy California,” he says. “I hear they have great avocados out there.”
As I’m checking out of the hotel, the concierge tells me there’s a good breakfast place on Commerce, a block from the Alamo. I park in a nearby lot and carry my atlas inside. I sit at a table, order a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich, and stare down at the map of the United States.
There are several major highways leading out of San Antonio. There’s I-35, which is how I got down here in the first place. I could always hop back on it, heading north. I could drive up through Oklahoma, Missouri, and Illinois, back along the Great Lakes, all the way to Brockport.
There’s a highway to Houston and a highway to Corpus Christi and a highway to Mexico. I have a month until college starts, so I suppose I could spend the next few weeks wandering the Southwest, having random adventures.
br /> Then I glance at 10 West. That would take me across Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, all the way to California.
My hands are trembling as I lay some bills on the table and ask the waiter to wrap up my breakfast instead. Once he gives me the bag, I grab some napkins, close the atlas, and head out to my car.
I arrived in Berkeley on a warm Thursday in late July.
My atlas didn’t have an expanded map of the East Bay, so I kept pulling over and asking people where I was. Finally, a woman with braided white hair sketched me the directions on the back of a protest flyer.
It was early evening when I parked in front of a run-down Victorian house on Shattuck Avenue. Rachel is the one who gave me Sam’s address. I talked to her when I was staying with Michael and his fiancée, Catherine, in San Diego. When I told Rachel where I was headed, she whistled dramatically under her breath. But I explained how important this was, and she agreed to keep it between us. My grandparents and Mara were the only other people who knew where I was going. I called my grandpa as I was leaving San Antonio and asked him to pass a message along to Aimee that I wouldn’t be making that lunch after all.
I climbed the steps and knocked on the peeling front door. No one answered. I turned and looked at my car, dusty from the desert, streaked from that sudden downpour in the mountains north of Los Angeles.
I knocked again, and in the silence that followed I wondered if I’d made a major mistake coming out here or if Sam really even lived in this house or, oh my God, if he’d gotten together with another girl and they were both inside right now.
After a few more agonizing moments, Sam opened the door.
As soon as I saw him, my heart leaped into my throat. I wanted to tumble across the threshold and wrap my arms around his neck. He was barefoot, wearing shorts and a faded blue T-shirt. His hair was longer and his cheeks were scruffier, but otherwise he looked about the same.
As I opened my mouth to speak, he gestured me inside. I followed him up three flights of stairs, into a damp attic, through a window, and onto the roof. We sat next to each other on the loose shingles, watching the sun set over the bay. I could see the arcs of the bridge stretching across the water and the distant hills and lights of San Francisco. I glanced at my toes, where the blisters were finally healing from my night in San Antonio. Then I looked over at his feet, flush against the shingles. I looked at his hands and his shoulders and his face, and I thought about how even if he told me he never wanted to see me again, I’d still be grateful for this time together.