Road to Nowhere

by Christopher Pike

  Bill drove her home. Rene followed in her car. Rene honked as she made the turn that took her towards her own house. Bill laughed and honked back.

  “It was great that Rene could make it to your opening night,” Bill said.

  “I was happy to have her there,” Teresa agreed.

  “She’s coming Thursday.”

  “What?”

  “She’s coming on Thursday.”

  “I heard you. Why is she coming? I mean, so soon?”

  Bill shrugged. “She wants to. Don’t you want her to?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  “She’s fun to talk to.”

  “Yeah.”

  They turned into her apartment complex. Bill parked his car next to hers, but he didn’t turn off the engine. He leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on the lips.

  “You were fabulous tonight,” he said.

  “Thank you.” She ran her hand through his hair, her favourite pastime in the whole world. “Thanks for everything. I'd never have had a night like this if it weren’t for you.”

  Bill squeezed her shoulder. “It’s late. You should get to bed.”

  “Do you want to tuck me in?” she asked.

  “I don’t think your parents would appreciate that.”

  “Bill?”

  “What?”

  “Turn off the car. What’s your hurry to leave? I want you to kiss me.”

  Bill silenced the car and kissed her. But maybe she was pressing the issue. It was late; he must have been tired. He kissed her as if his mind was somewhere else. She was the one to break their embrace, though. She took his right ear in her left hand and massaged it gently, which she knew he enjoyed.

  “We would have fun if we went away together,” she said.

  His eyes were sleepy. “What would we do?”

  “Make passionate love.”

  He chuckled. “Seriously.”

  “I am serious.” She pinched his ear when he didn't show the pleasant surprise she expected. “Come on! Don’t you want to?”

  He seemed confused. “Sure. We’d have to be careful, you know. I wouldn’t want you to get pregnant.”

  She grinned. “Well, I don’t want to get pregnant either. But I’ve read that there are steps you can take to avoid that.” She paused. “Am I coming on too strong?”

  “No.”

  “Then what’s the matter?”

  “I'm tired is all. I have to get up and go to school in five hours.”

  “I have to go to school, too,” she snapped. “And I’ve done a lot more this evening than you.”

  “Teresa.”

  “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.”

  Inexplicably, in the midst of her euphoria, she felt her heart sink. It was fine to be a star, but she wanted to be desired. “Did you mean it?” she asked.

  “Did I mean what?”

  “That you love me?”

  He sounded irritated – rare for him. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. Look, Teresa, let’s talk in the morning. I’m getting a headache.”

  She opened the car door, suddenly feeling small. “OK. I love you, Bill. This is a night I’ll always remember.”

  “I’m sure we’ll both remember it,” he said.

  “He was already in love with Rene,” Teresa told Freedom Jack and Poppy Corn. “From that point on he was just trying to figure out how to dump me.”

  “He still wanted to screw you, though, didn’t he?” Free asked. “I bet you he got his fill before dumping you. Am I right or am I right?”

  Teresa hesitated and then lied. “You got it, mister.”

  “It sounds like they liked each other from the start,” Poppy said.

  Free turned. “You’re insensitive, did you know that? Here Teresa opens her heart to us and you’re rooting for the other guy.”

  Poppy wasn’t fazed. She never acted as if she was. Not so long as she had a cigarette in her mouth. The inside of the car was as smoky as a barn on fire. Teresa rolled her window down. She had put it up so that they could hear her tale of woe better.

  “He doesn’t sound like that bad a guy,” Poppy said.

  “You just didn't know him,” Teresa said. “He was a user.”

  Poppy took a deep drag. “We’re all users.”

  “Candy sure used John,” Free said.

  “Hah,” Poppy told him.

  Free turned round once more. “How can you say that? You knew those two as well as I did. Once Candy was where she wanted to be, she never thought about John again. She dumped him like bad luggage. Just the way, I suppose, Bill dumped Teresa.”

  “There are always two sides to every story,” Poppy said.

  “Why don’t you tell us Candy’s side,” Free said.

  “Where are we?” Poppy asked, as if it mattered.

  “Thirty miles south of San Luis Obispo,” Teresa said.

  “How are you feeling, Teresa?” Poppy asked.

  “Fine,” Teresa said. She was not being absolutely honest. Her fever persisted. She must be catching a virus, she thought. Her skin felt clammy.

  She found it odd Poppy was inquiring after her health.

  Poppy sighed. “All right, I’ll tell you about Candy. If you get bored just let me know. Her life wasn’t all that exciting.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Candy didn’t go off to Berkeley when John was thrown in juvenile hall, not right away,” Poppy said. “That was June, the beginning of summer. Candy had three months of loneliness to ponder what had happened to John. She felt awful about it, and she thought she was largely to blame. She thought if she had only eaten the cheat sheet as soon as that silly Sally had called for Mr. Sims, the whole fiasco could have been avoided. But then, at other times she wondered if that was true. She had known of John’s temper from the beginning, and almost, at the start of their relationship, she had backed away from him because of it. John really couldn’t control himself when he got mad. His first reaction was to swing out with his fists. Yet he had never once come close to hitting Candy, which was probably why she had stayed with him as long as she had. But sometimes Candy saw the incident with Mr. Sims as something inevitable. If John hadn’t hit a teacher in high school, he probably would have hit one in college. John had taken so much physical abuse from his stepfather, it was as if he had to get back at someone.

  “Candy tried the best she could to see John while he was in juvenile hall. But her parents were way ahead of her. They spoke to the people in charge there, and Candy couldn’t even get past the front gate. They didn’t want their darling daughter associating with such scum. What a laugh. They were so excited about Candy getting into a good college that they had no idea it was all because of John. Candy tried to tell them that, but they wouldn’t listen.

  “September finally arrived and it was time for Candy to head north to Berkeley. John wasn’t sentenced to three months, but fifteen weeks in juvenile hall. So he didn't get out until Candy had been at school for three weeks. John didn’t go home when he was released. Candy tried reaching him there and his parents said they didn't know where he was. She left messages for him to call her. Maybe John’s parents didn’t give those messages to John, or maybe John did get them and was too mad to call Candy. But the result was the same. Candy couldn’t get a hold of John and she had to get on with her life.

  “She was a mess. She missed John terribly. The more time that went by, the worse she felt. They had been together almost two years. John was the only boyfriend she had ever had. Certainly, he wasn’t the kind of guy who was easy to replace. He had a temper, he was arrogant and tactless. But there was nobody with a bigger heart than John. He had worshipped Candy and would do anything for her. There was a lot of stuff between them that Free didn’t tell you about. Like the time John took her to the high school prom. He didn’t rent a limo and tux and show up at her door with a corsage in his hand. He got hold of a cement truck, and rented a clown’s costume instead of a tux. He made a crown out of tinfoil for her and spraye
d it gold so that Candy was prom queen the moment she walked in the door. Now that may sound embarrassing, but Candy loved it. They were the centre of attention the whole night. And afterwards John fixed a bunch of potholes in the back entrance to the school. He really was a clown.

  “But it was John, and not Candy, who stopped them from getting together again after he got out of juvenile hall. And I don’t care what Free says – that's the truth. Candy quickly started to drown at Berkeley. Do you know what a pre-med major requires? Tons of chemistry, physics, calculus, biology – not to mention the usual basic requirements. Candy was flunking out after the first month. Her classmates were way ahead of her from the word go. They had taken preparatory courses in high school. Candy had taken the same courses, but she had never done the work. She hired a bunch of tutors to help her, but they didn’t know where to start with her. They'd ask her things like, You don’t know what a derivative is? . . . You don't know what an acid base reaction is? . . . You don’t know what F equals MA means? Candy began to overload. Maybe she could have sat down and figured things out, if given more time. She wasn’t stupid. She just had never developed good study habits. All the stress made her freeze up. Plus she had no interest in the subjects she was taking. Free said it right when he said Candy’s parents wanted her to become a doctor. Candy wanted to be an artist, and in her entire schedule, just as in high school, she didn’t have one art class.

  “The first semester Candy had to drop her hard classes so that she wouldn’t have to take Fs in them. She ended up with only six credits. She got Cs in both psychology and English. Her counsellor called her into his office, and it was all she could do to keep him from calling her parents. She promised to do better. The counsellor put her on a much easier schedule and told her to forget about going to med school – she would never get in. In a way she was relieved, but at the same time she was in shock. Her parents were paying for her tuition. If they found out the way things were going, they’d be furious. She figured they would probably cut her off. Then what? She would have to crawl home on her hands and knees and get a job at the local fast food joint. Panicking, she went to the administration building and managed to have her parents’ address changed to a P.O. box that didn't exist.

  “Candy returned home for Christmas and gave vague answers about how she was doing. Her parents fell for it, for the time being. She spent most of her vacation trying to track down John. She went to his parents’ house but they wouldn't even let her in the door. All she got was John’s stepdad. He said he had no idea where John was. She went to his old job – same story. Her leads were in short supply. John had never been one to have friends. Really, that was the sad thing about John. She was his only true friend, and he had so many wonderful qualities, but people couldn't see beyond his abrasive personality. But what was equally true was that John had been Candy’s only true friend. When they had lost each other, they lost a great deal. Candy returned to Berkeley with a heavy heart.

  “She did better her second semester. It would have been hard for her to do worse. But she had no major and was basically a young woman going through the motions of getting an education. She was in a paranoid state. The axe was going to fall soon, she knew. When it did, she didn’t want it to cut her whole head off. When her parents found out she was no longer pre-med, she, at least, wanted to be able to point out that she was still fulfilling her basic requirements. For that reason, she was afraid to take an art class. It was absurd. Sometimes she’d stop by a drawing class to see the quality of work being done by the students. I wouldn’t be exaggerating to say she was better than the teachers. Candy had talent, and it was all going to waste.

  “Near the end of the second semester she met a man. She wasn’t looking for a relationship, although she was desperately lonely. It was just one of those things that happened. The relationship was cursed. The man was a teacher, and he was a married teacher, in his mid-thirties. His name was Henry and he taught art. He saw some of her work – she showed it to him in a brave moment after talking to him. He fell for her because she was a natural genius and he was an academic hack. That’s what he told her. But maybe he fell for her because he was as lonely as she was.

  “He wasn’t a bad man, Henry. He was a patient teacher. His students loved him. He just didn’t have any talent, and his wife was always nagging him to quit teaching and get a commercial job where she thought he’d make more money, but where he knew he would fail miserably. He wasn’t handsome at all, not like John. In fact, he was the opposite of John in every respect. He was so mild mannered that he had a hard time protecting his place in line at the movies. He wore thick glasses and was helpless without them. He had an ulcer and was always chewing Maalox tablets.

  “But he was a comfort to Candy. He took her to dinner and helped her with her homework. But their relationship had severe limits placed on it. He wasn’t ready to leave his wife – he told her that right at the start. And the administration couldn’t find out about their affair or he’d lose his job. They went to late dinners, late movies, and he always wore a hat. Henry’s wife didn’t seem to care. She was having her own affair with a building contractor.

  “You might think Candy was a fool to get involved with such a man and I don’t think that Candy would have argued with you. Her eyes were open. She knew where her affair was headed, which was nowhere. But she liked Henry, she really did. She may even have loved him, although not in the same way she had loved John. In her heart she had decided she was never going to love anyone as much as she loved John.

  “Strangely enough, the whole time Candy was with Henry, she drew very little. For one thing, if it was risky for her to take art classes before, it was doubly risky now. Henry couldn’t be seen with her on campus. Then there was the difference in their abilities. It was her talent that had caught his eye but when he was away from class, he later explained, he liked to forget drawing. Sure, he would comment on a drawing if she showed it to him. He would offer constructive criticism – things to do to improve. Yet he really did not encourage her. Maybe he was jealous. Maybe he was just trying to spare her a dead-end career. Berkeley had more starving artists than any other city in the world.

  “Summer break came. Candy stayed in Berkeley. She had tasted freedom and she didn’t want to have to live under her parents’ roof anymore. She got a job at a department store and one as a waitress – just to make ends meet. Her parents refused to send her money as long as she wasn’t taking classes. But she felt she needed a break from studying. She had managed to complete the second semester with a C average and hadn't dropped any more classes. She continued to see Henry. His wife went to Europe for the summer and she saw him more than ever. She even slept at his house a few times. Henry didn’t have any kids. He didn't think he ever wanted them. They were careful – they thought – and never had sex without using a condom. But condoms need to fail only once to fail altogether.

  “Candy got pregnant. School had restarted and Henry’s wife was back in town by the time Candy found out. She waited two months before telling Henry, or even checking for sure that she was expecting. She was in a classic denial mode. It couldn’t be happening to her, she thought. It would go away. She would wake up one morning and there wouldn’t be a foetus growing in her womb. But she wasn't stupid. She’d had a lot of experience with denial. She was a master at it, and knew all the signs. Finally she went to the campus doctor and had the bad news confirmed.

  “Candy told Henry while they were eating popcorn in the middle of a science-fiction movie about an alien spaceship that was really a part of the mind of God come to visit Earth to save everyone, even the wicked. Candy never did find out how the movie ended. Henry led her by the hand out of the theatre and asked her to please repeat what she had just said. He had heard her right the first time, the poor guy.

  “Henry wanted her to have an abortion. She agreed that would probably be best. He offered to pay for it, and she said OK to that, too. She didn’t have much money. He even offered to take her to
the clinic. No, she replied. Too many people might see. Her thoughts were in chaos. She wasn’t trying to deceive Henry. She wanted to think about things a little more. But she didn’t tell him that. She just said she’d take care of things.

  “Candy took the next day off school and went to San Francisco – to the Golden Gate Bridge. For a long time she stood on the bridge with the boats passing beneath her and enjoyed the breeze lifting her hair and the salty tang of the ocean in her nose. She didn’t know why she had chosen that particular place to make such an important decision. Nothing happened on the bridge that helped her make up her mind. She received no sign from God. But when she stepped off the bridge she was clear about what she had to do. She felt it deep inside – an absolute conviction that she had to keep her baby. It was good her mind was so clearly made up. Else she couldn’t have endured what was to follow.

  “Henry got mad when he heard of her decision. He spent hours trying to get her to change her mind. She was too young to be a mother. She had to finish school. He was too old to be a dad. He would get fired if the truth came out. Candy reassured him as best she could. You see, she wasn’t asking anything from him. He didn’t have to give her a thing, she said. He didn’t have to acknowledge to anyone that the child was his. Henry listened to her as she tried to explain why she needed to keep the child, but since she didn't even know why, she didn't get very far. But where was there to go? She wanted the baby and he didn’t. Their relationship ended that night, although neither of them admitted it for another month. By then Candy was seeing Henry seldom. She didn’t see him at all when she began to show in a big way.

  “Candy’s child was born on Valentine’s Day – a small dark-haired baby boy of five pounds six ounces. She named him John, but always called him Johnny. Neither Henry nor her parents were present at the birth. They weren’t to blame. Candy gave birth to Johnny in a hospital in a small town on the Oregon coast. She had moved there to get away from it all and to try to start over. By this time she had dropped out of school and gone on to welfare. In a sense her life was in ruins. She had no degree, no money, no man. But Johnny was born healthy and beautiful, and she loved him more than she had ever loved anyone. Or she loved him as much as she had loved John. She always thought of John as the father of the baby, and not Henry. It made no sense, she knew, but that was how she felt.”