Driving With the Top Down

by Beth Harbison

  Could he not just talk to her like family? Like they even really knew each other?

  Which, she considered, maybe they really didn’t.

  “Look, Dad, I kind of did want to talk to you about something—but it’s not bad!” she hastened to add the last part when he let out a humorless laugh and seemed to take a deep, exasperated breath.

  “All right, then go for it.”

  She was losing her footing a little on what she had wanted to say.

  “Well, it’s just … I know how hard I have been for you. I am really sorry I have made you worry and I’m sorry that it’s a constant, like, fight between us. Really. I’m going to be better when I get home.” She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “Really. I want to change. I want to be different. I don’t want to be the jailbird mess-up girl anymore.”

  “You know, Tamara—” he started.

  She mentally filled in his sentence. You know, Tamara, that’s all I’ve ever needed to hear from you. Or maybe, You know, Tamara, it’s been a rough couple of years, but I love you. If you’re going to change, let’s do it together. Or—

  “—I’ve heard all of this horseshit before.” He finished his sentence, cutting off her imaginary ones.

  “No, listen—”

  “No, you listen, Tamara Jane. This is enough. It’s all well and good you want to change. Great for you. But I’m not going to believe anything until I see it. And even then, I’m still not going to have blind faith in you that you won’t just keep this same cycle of making the same old mistakes over and over. It’s just a matter of keeping you out of prison until you’re eighteen, as far as I’m concerned. And then you’re on your own, sweetheart.”

  She felt like she’d been slapped hard in the face. Not slapped by just anyone, but hit with the same beastly hand her father had. It was as strong as his words. In fact, she was sure his words were stronger. Because this sting went not from her cheek to her stomach. It went from her ears to her heart, to her now-spinning head, and to her jelly knees.

  The “sweetheart” at the end had been the real stinger.

  “That’s— Do you know how that makes me feel?”

  “Do you know how you’ve made me feel?”

  “I don’t think you’re capable of feeling anything!”

  She was veering from the point now. The point was that she wanted to make a change, and wasn’t that the first step? But instead, all he did was take this as an opportunity to yell at her some more.

  “I didn’t call you to get yelled at, Dad. I called you because I haven’t talked to you in forever and because I do want to make a change. Jesus! What would you do if I hadn’t called, or if I’m not around? Do you just yell at the cabinets and faucets? Is it just that you have to yell and scream and I’m there at the right time?”

  No more humorless laugh from him now. Just stony silence.

  “Whatever, Dad.” She was shaking now. “I call you and try to tell you I want to make a change, and you can’t give me two fucking seconds of support on it! I— What—erghh!”

  She ended the call and hurled the phone onto the ground. This time she didn’t care if it was broken or not. Didn’t care at all what her father might say, do, or think of her.

  Tamara collapsed onto the ground into crossed legs, pretzel legs, as they had called it in elementary school. That long-since-passed era, when she had been a little brunette thing with pretty eyelashes and wide, unjaded eyes. Tamara of thirteen years ago, sitting pretzel-legged on a rugged, flat classroom carpet, was unrecognizable to Tamara now. The Tamara who sat with crossed legs in the dirt, five seconds out of a screaming match with her distant father, her mother gone, star of a porn video on the Internet, who couldn’t even hang on to a boyfriend she had always considered lucky to have her. But really, who was lucky? He had a family with parents who talked to him and bought him presents, and a group of friends. Even if she didn’t like his group of friends, he did, and that’s more than she had for herself.

  She had known for so long that she was smarter than the people she surrounded herself with. Smarter than her choices. And she had figured that by being smart enough to know all that, that meant she was doing okay. She was being young. Playing the part of messed-up teenager. Getting the experiences out of the way before she went off to college where she—what?

  Another imaginary scenario popped into her head. Of her, maybe in a sorority. Her hair lightened up to its enhanced natural color. Her makeup neat and minimal. Her skin clear. A little insignia on her face as she cheered for a football team with her girlfriends. She imagined herself in those soft flannel pajamas and a college T-shirt, a crooked ponytail and light bags under her eyes as she stayed up late into the night, studying for a final.

  That’s what she envisioned for herself. And she pictured herself being good enough for a cute guy with a good head on his shoulders. But Conor, who had given her a shot in the beginning despite his probable better judgment, was too smart for a girl like her. What guy was going to continue talking to a girl when he saw a video of her blowing some other guy? On the Internet? On some amateur porn Web site?

  No one who didn’t have the understanding and patience of Gandhi.

  So no. She wasn’t as bad as she had been acting. She wasn’t. And now she was. Now she really was the girl who constantly reeked of weed, who had a handful of bad trips under her belt, and who craved a cigarette when times got hard, instead of just wanting to treat herself to a piece of chocolate cake because she deserved it. She was everything she thought she was masquerading as just to get by. She didn’t deserve the cute older guy with good taste in music. She didn’t deserve a tenth “second chance” from her father. She wasn’t giving him the win, but she was giving him enough. Giving him understanding. Which was more than he would ever be able to give to her.

  And Colleen … Colleen, who had probably dreaded taking her on her trip as much as, or more than, she had dreaded going. She had gone and screwed her. What must she have been thinking that whole night and morning? Tamara shuddered and sobbed a little harder. The kind of crying that leaked from everywhere and you just couldn’t give a damn.

  “I’m sorry.… I’m so sorry. Shit. I’m sorry…,” she muttered into her own lap, her voice echoing in the cave created by her folded arms and legs.

  She wasn’t sure who she was apologizing to most—her dad, her mother …

  Her mother. The woman who had been her everything when she was a kid. Tamara could still so distinctly recall her reaching a hand out at the store or pulling her in tight to sleep at night when “Daddy” had been away. She remembered sitting at the counter, waiting for macaroni and cheese to get made, and the patience in her mother’s posture as Tamara had sung and talked until she exhausted herself.

  Then the decline in her mom. Tamara had been too young to know much or understand a lot about what exactly had put her on the path that led to her death. When she pieced together the memories, she decided that a growing distance and stomach-numbing cold from Tamara’s father had led to her accidental increase in prescription intake. Which led to a higher tolerance. A high dosage. Higher increase in side effects. Forgotten pills, then double-taken pills, then the ultimate side effect—which was not her death, but the zombie she became first.

  She moved slowly; she didn’t talk or think right. Sometimes her personality was there to lead you into a false sense of security, but then she was gone again in the blink of an eye, and you weren’t even sure when it had happened. Like talking to a crazy person that you don’t know is crazy—first you think you’re crazy. Then you realize you’re not. And you kind of wish you were. Because at least that you could control.

  Some of her apologies were for her mother. For letting her sad and unintentional self-destruction be an explanation for everything Tamara herself was doing to self-destruct. She had been fighting fire with fire for years now. And that didn’t work. It just didn’t.

  But mostly, as Tamara sobbed harder and harder into herself, her chest a
ching with breaths she couldn’t take all the way in, she was apologizing to the bright-eyed little girl on the classroom floor. The one who had no idea that her light would be so dimmed by older-Tamara. That little girl laughing hysterically at a rhyming book had no idea that those laughing, rosebud lips would one day be so tainted by the bad choices that older-Tamara was too stupid not to make.

  The damsel in distress she had thought she was didn’t deserve to be rescued. She was just a stupid girl with too much black liner on who had tied herself to the tracks and screamed dares at the train to hit her.

  No. She was not going to be rescued. And she was not going to sit out here until Colleen came to find her, or until a bear—or, she didn’t know, a wolf?—came to put her out of her misery.

  She got up, dirt sticking to her hands and tear-drenched knees, and walked inside. She could be embarrassed to walk in like that. But she needed someone. And if she could possibly have someone for a minute … she needed it.

  Tamara walked into the kitchen. It was just Bitty sitting at the table. She hadn’t really allowed for that possibility. In her head, it had just been Colleen alone or Colleen still with the others.

  “Tamara?” Bitty leaned forward.

  “Hi…”

  “What’s—? Are you okay? Obviously not, what’s going on?”

  She didn’t want to be rude and ask where Colleen was, but her quick, “Um—” and look around must have told Bitty enough.

  “Colleen is in the back barn with Blake. Apparently, he has a lot of interesting pieces he’s been saving but hasn’t known what to do with. Do you want me to get her?”

  Tamara sniffed and shook her head, taking a seat at the table.

  “I’m sorry for crying.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” said Bitty. “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to. But if you want to … I’m here.”

  Tam considered her cuticles for a minute, her head aching. “I have made the worst possible choices. Over and over. And it’s like I expect the world to feel bad for me or something. Like I think I’m owed more than I’m earning, and I”—another sob enveloped her—“I don’t.”

  She let her head fall into the crook of her elbow, as if she were playing Heads Up, Seven Up.

  “I thought I deserved saving or something, but it’s not like anyone can tell I do if I don’t act like I’m worth it. Or, I don’t know, I’m not making sense,” she went on. “It’s just that my life continues to suck, no matter how much I blame other people, and nothing changes because, duh.”

  Tamara looked up. Bitty’s eyebrows were furrowed—or they seemed like they would be if they could be—and she no longer looked concerned or confused. She looked something else entirely.

  “Realizing that,” she said slowly, considering her carefully, “is far more important than anything that led up to it.”

  Tamara sniffed again, her breath finally calming. The two stared at each other for a moment, Tamara not sure what it was she was seeing in Bitty, exactly, but knowing that she understood. She knew that Bitty, whoever this odd, bug-catching, scrawny—less so now—woman was, she was someone who confirmed for Tamara that feeling this rock-bottom awful sure did suck. But that maybe it didn’t always have to.

  A moment later, there was laughter, and the sound of a screen door swinging open with a squeak.

  “Right? I drive all this way with all these stops and get a third of what— Tam? What happened?”

  Like her father’s questions, it was not a curious invitation for a reply; it was a demand for a response. But it was a different thing coming from Colleen.

  “Nothing, it’s fine—”

  “Tam, come on. Blake, if it’s really fine we stay here, then I think I’ll take her up.” Colleen had a firm but warm hand on Tamara’s shoulder. “Thanks again for everything. We’ll see you two in the morning.”

  With that, Tamara was guided upstairs, away from the grown-ups, and taken to bed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Tamara

  In the morning, Bitty had that sex-glow thing going on. There was no other explanation for it. Her cheeks were pink, her eyes were bright, she looked like she’d just won the Miss America contest or something.

  And, noticably, she wasn’t dressed. She wasn’t undressed, but she was wearing a big T-shirt, obviously Blake’s, and some of those yoga pants they’d had to stop at Target for. No shoes.

  “Um … Bitty?” Colleen raised an eyebrow. “We’re leaving now.”

  Bitty’s cheeks flushed even pinker, if possible. “I’m”—she glanced at Blake—“I think I’m going to stay here a little longer.”

  “Mmmn.” Colleen nodded. Total understanding. Even Tamara got it. Bitty had no place to go, her husband was a piece of shit, and she was like a dandelion wisp on the wind. “I guess Blake can get you to a car rental place when you’re ready to go.”

  “Of course,” he said with a sly smile, and he and Colleen locked eyes, the knowing exchange of old friends.

  It was kind of hard to imagine a guy that hot was so into Bitty, but whatever. Lucky her. At least she had a life she could be happy in finally.

  “Well, then.” Colleen went over to him and gave him a hug. “It was really good to see you, Blake. I hope I’ll see you again soon.”

  “Anytime, you name it.” He kissed her cheek. “Say hey to your old man.”

  “Boy, he’s not even going to believe this story. I think I’ll save it for when we’re in person so I can see his reaction.”

  Blake laughed. “I can imagine it.”

  Colleen nodded. “Me too.” She turned her gaze to Bitty. “How about you walk us out?”

  “Obviously. My stuff’s still in the car.” She laughed.

  They walked out into the bright sun. The sky was blue and the clouds were so low and puffy, they looked like dog toys in the air.

  “I’m not even going to ask if you’re sure of what you’re doing,” Colleen said, “because this is long overdue. But I do need to make sure this isn’t going to hurt your case against Lew at all.”

  “Nah. I’ll give him what he feels like is a deal. I think he’s going to be more afraid of what I can do to him. He’s worked a long time to hide his truth. It’s a shame, and I don’t honestly think I’d reveal it, because I don’t think being gay is what he has to be ashamed of—I think being an asshole is.”

  Colleen and Tamara both laughed at the unexpected bluntness from Bitty.

  Bitty hugged Colleen hard and said, “I still can’t believe we ran into each other like this. If I didn’t believe in fate before, I do now. I am just so happy we’ve reconnected.”

  “Don’t lose touch this time.” Colleen wiped a tear from her eye. “You know I’m going to be wondering how on earth this story ends.”

  “Me too,” Tam added.

  Bitty let go of Colleen and went to her. “I want you to stay in touch too, got it? Do you have my number?”

  Tam raised her phone. “Right here.”

  “Well, text me, at least. Even though I’m blind as a bat and can barely punch out words on the screen, I will answer.”

  Tam laughed. “That should be fun to see.”

  Bitty took her by the shoulders. “Listen to me. We’re saying good-bye now, and later on you’ll say good-bye to Colleen and go back to your dad, but we will always be here for you, got it? You are not alone. Don’t make the same mistakes I did. Don’t keep everything bottled up inside. Open up. It’s like”—she looked around, then gestured at the car—“it’s like driving with the top down. Technically, you’re more vulnerable, and everyone can see what would otherwise be hidden inside, but it’s the only way to really see, feel, and smell everything around you. It’s the only way to fully enjoy the sun and the wind and life. It’s so much better than keeping it all closed up!”

  Tamara was surprised by this unexpected bit of wisdom from Bitty, but her advice made sense.

  They got into the car and Colleen asked Tam to program the way back to 95
into her phone and navigate. With one last wave, they said good-bye to their third musketeer and headed north.

  Tamara was dreading it.

  * * *

  THE RIDE BACK felt like it was flying by. She thought time was supposed to fly when you were having fun, not when you’re miserable and dreading going home.

  The very thought of her stark bedroom, complete with grayish white walls and a crappy, springy bed, made her heart sink. Seriously, the bed was so bad that when you sat down on it, it sounded like it had a waterproof plastic thing on it. If ever she had anyone over, she would have felt the need to explain that, no, she wasn’t a bed wetter—this was just the cot she’d ended up with.

  She leaned her head on the seat belt. Her brain was filled with so many fears and unspent complaints that she didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t even think anymore.

  “You all right, Tam?”

  Colleen’s voice took her by surprise for some reason. Maybe because what she needed more than anything was to be asked what was wrong, and here she was being asked. No one ever asked her what was wrong. Ever.

  “Yeah,” she found herself saying anyway. No. She should talk to someone. Just this once. They were only six hours from home. From reality. From the gray room and gray life. “No. I’m not really all right.”

  “What’s going on?” Colleen lowered the music. It was Tamara’s phone playing the Neighbourhood, which Colleen said she liked. Maybe she was just saying that to make Tamara feel good. Or maybe she really did like them. Either way, it was cool. There was swearing in the songs too, and she didn’t even get all weird or stiff when it happened.

  “I don’t really know exactly what’s wrong. Well”—she gave a dry laugh—“I do, everything is wrong.”

  “No, not everything. You’ve got all the time in the world to figure it out.”

  “Yeah, but when I left, I had a boyfriend and a routine, and everything was like, fine, you know? It wasn’t great, but still. Now I’ve been cheated on, my boyfriend—my ex-boyfriend—leaked a video that will never go away, I feel like, and … just everything. My house sucks. My dad sucks. My school sucks. It’s like I want to start over, but I can’t even. My reputation is already fuc—already shot—and the kids at my school are all, like, total bums. No one there is really trying. It’s too late to start playing a sport, as if I’d even be good at one. Like, I know everything is different now, but it’s gonna be the same too.”