by Amy Andelson
Flynn tries the glass door again, but it won’t budge. I know because I locked it myself. I also know I should get up and open it for her, but I’m not sure I want to. So she stands there—looking at me. And I stare right back at her. And we both know that there is so much more than this glass wall between us now.
He’s such an ass. Amos is enjoying this way too much. Suddenly I’m wishing I had stayed at Sawyer’s. When I finally went downstairs last night, I found Neel in the living room, stoned and watching Elf with the stragglers still at the party. I joined them on the sofa, but I couldn’t get into the movie. My mind was somewhere else. I finally stopped fighting sleep and let myself drift off. Eventually, Neel must have crashed, too, because when I woke up later, the sun was starting to come up, and he was there sleeping next to me. I contemplated waking him, but decided to slip out instead. He certainly didn’t need to witness this. And it’s already worse than I even expected.
I mean, is Amos just going to leave me standing out here all day? Nice, Amos, real nice. As if I don’t already feel shitty enough. Isn’t it just like him to rub my nose in it? He holds me in his unrelenting gaze. Always so moralistic. I wonder what the altitude is like up there on his high horse. But because I can’t let him get away with feeling so smug and self-satisfied, I adopt an air of self-confidence, even though I’m feeling anything but. I steel myself to be stranded, standing out here for the long haul, but just as I do, Amos gets up.
“Well, well,” he says, all indignant as he slides the glass door open without officially making eye contact with me. “Look what the cat dragged in.”
“What’s your problem, Amos?” I fire back, trying not to let my voice crack.
“I don’t have a problem.”
“Right.”
“You know what? I take it back. I do have a problem,” he says. And then, outrageously: “You. You’re my problem, Flynn.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve always been my problem.”
I’ve been wanting to talk, I mean really talk, to Amos for so long—why does it have to be happening now? When I’m standing here, already at such a distinct disadvantage. In this stupid dress, with my body aching, my head throbbing, and a hunger in my stomach that I feel too ill to satisfy. Still, I’m not about to let the opportunity slide. So I ask him, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“From the second you showed up in New York like a sad, lost little mouse in the big city—”
“No one asked you to take me under your wing.”
“No one thanked me, either.”
“Is that what this is about? You don’t feel like you’ve been properly exalted? I wasn’t aware that I was such a charity case. So is that it? That’s why you left? I was too big of a burden?”
“You know why I left.”
“No, I don’t, actually. Because we’ve never talked about it.”
“Don’t play innocent, Flynn. It’s a little late for that.”
“Fine. You want to talk? Let’s talk.”
“Whatever,” Amos says dismissively, looking down.
“Don’t whatever me. Suddenly you have nothing to say? Let’s hear it, Amos. I can take it—”
“Forget it. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. They’re on their way.”
“What do you mean? Who?” I ask.
“Aliens. Who do you think? Jack and Louisa.”
My heart drops, and all the air escapes my chest. “What?”
“I called them. They’re coming to get us.”
“Yeah, right.” He can’t be serious.
“They land at LAX later today.”
Holy shit. He is serious. Everything deflates. My cheeks sting as if this slap in the face were as real as it feels. So not only are Amos and I not on the same team, but he’s gone and unilaterally changed the rules, and apparently now we’re playing for keeps.
“Why would you do a stupid thing like that?”
“Because, Flynn, it’s all over.”
“Now it is,” I say, feeling like the whole world is crashing down around me. “But it didn’t have to be.”
“I’m tired of pretending this divorce isn’t happening. I’m tired of denying reality.”
“That’s ironic,” I reply. “I can’t believe you would do this to us.”
“I’m sorry you’ll have to cut your lovefest short. But I’m sure you and Neel will—”
“No, Amos. I can’t believe you would do that to us. You, me, and Poppy.”
“We’ll be okay. You’ll move back to the Bay Area. You fit in better there anyway. I’ll be done with school soon enough. And…” His voice trails off.
“And what about Poppy?”
I have Amos there. He tenses his brow—his face is stricken with guilt. For the first time this morning, his humanity is showing, and I can tell he did what he did out of spite. He didn’t properly think it through, and now he’s run the clock. It’s over.
“Poppy will be okay,” he says. But I know he doesn’t believe it at all.
“Amos, you and I both know what happens to her when they get divorced.”
“But, Flynn, it was inevitable. You and I, we couldn’t have protected her from it together any better than we could have apart.”
“She’s going to be crushed.”
Amos nods, and then we’re silent for a long time. What have we done?
“Who’s going to tell her?” I ask finally.
“I called them. I’ll do it,” he says, resigned.
“We can do it together. When do Jack and Louisa get in?”
“We have until seven tonight to face the reckoning,” Amos says with a sigh.
This really does feel like the end of the road. But even after everything, I’m still not ready to let go. I look outside; the sun is shining. “You know, it’s so early. We still have all day.”
Amos thinks about it for a moment. “One last hurrah?”
“The three of us.”
I’m having a dream. I’m on the merry-go-round in Central Park. Except it’s not the merry-go-round in Central Park. It’s the Ferris wheel at the Santa Monica Pier. Except Flynn and Neel wouldn’t take me on the Ferris wheel. And I’m not at the pier. I’m in a strange room. And it’s not me that’s spinning. It’s the room. And it’s not a dream. I feel sick, like I may throw up again, but I don’t remember where I am, or where the bathroom is. I try to open my eyes, but my lids feel too heavy.
“Popsicle…you awake?” I can’t remember the last time Amos called me that, but it still makes me smile. When I manage to open my eyes, I see Amos and Flynn hovering over me. Flynn’s eyes are a little red and puffy, and I want to hug her and tell her that whatever it is, it’s going to be okay, but my mouth is too dry to speak.
“Wanna go to Disneyland?” Flynn asks.
“For real?” I must still be dreaming. But they nod. It’s really happening! I jump up from the bed and squeeze them both so tightly.
“I guess that’s a yes?” Amos says.
It doesn’t take us long to get dressed since we only have our plane clothes. My head still hurts, but I’m too excited to care. I’m in the kitchen eating my second piece of toast, which Amos promises will help me feel better, when I ask Flynn how much longer Neel is going to be. I wanna leave already.
“That guy is not coming with us,” Amos insists.
“Fine by me,” Flynn answers as she zips up her backpack. “Today’s about us. If we leave soon, we can be gone before he wanders back. You got all your stuff packed up, Pops?”
I double-check that I’ve got my camera in my bag. “Got it!” I say. “But how are we going to get there?” I wonder. And I seem to have stumped them. I can feel the day falling apart before it’s even begun.
“Wait a second,” Flynn says. She looks around the kitchen, and her
eyes fall on a key rack hanging on the wall. “Who has a pen?” she asks. Amos opens a bunch of drawers until he pulls out a blue Sharpie and a pad of Post-its. He tosses them across the center island to Flynn, and she jots down a note. “Well, I think this qualifies as the biggest IOU ever.”
“You can’t be serious?” Amos says.
“What? We’ll obviously bring the car back, and repay him for everything.” She grins mischievously as she pulls Neel’s credit card out of his wallet, which is resting on the counter. “Including this.”
“You’re insane.” Amos shakes his head.
“Come on!” We follow Flynn through the laundry room. She opens a door to a garage with so many sports cars, it looks like we’ve stepped into a James Bond movie.
Flynn clicks the button on the key, and the lights of a fancy black car flicker. “Bingo,” she says.
“A Maserati?” Amos shrugs. “Don’t mind if we do.” As he turns on the engine, Flynn and I hop into the car. The garage door slowly inches its way up, and we zoom out onto Pacific Coast Highway.
I don’t know if I want to scream or cry or laugh at this point. I’m so tired that I’m past the point of actually feeling tired. My eyes burn, my throat aches, and every bone in my body feels wrecked. It’s almost hard to believe last night happened. But of course it did. All of it. And I feel…Well, I don’t know how I feel. It’s weird.
I flip down the passenger-side visor and look at myself in the tiny mirror. I brush my wind-blown hair out of my face and stare back at myself. Do I look different? More like a woman? Like a non-virgin? I guess a part of me is relieved that the whole mess is over. All the buildup, the wondering, the shying away from lunchtime conversations. All because I did this one thing. I flip the visor back up.
What will I tell the girls at school? I can already hear the whispers: “Flynn Barlow ran away, and lost her virginity at a party in LA.” And it’s not like there’s anything so wrong with what happened, but now, the morning after, it doesn’t feel like there was anything so right, either. Somehow, I got so caught up in the idea of having sex that I forgot about the most important part—my heart. Maybe that’s why it feels so empty right now. Why didn’t I wait for someone I love, and who loves me, too? And I like Neel. But now that he’s seen me—and I mean really seen me—it doesn’t feel like he knows me at all. Maybe I won’t tell the girls at school anything, considering I’m probably moving away anyway. I break out into a cold sweat and put my head in my hands.
“Are you gonna throw up, too, Flynn?” Poppy pipes in from the backseat.
“Do you need me to pull over?” Amos asks. I shake my head. He turns his attention back to the road. Miraculously, he doesn’t seem as utterly exhausted as I am.
“I’m okay, Poppy. I promise,” I assure her. I can’t be the thing that gets in the way of today. Because after today, this will all be over. I know we can’t run forever. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a part of me that wishes we could.
Amos redirects the air-conditioning vent to face me, and the blast of cool air makes me feel like I can breathe again.
“Thanks,” I say to him.
“You’ll feel better soon.”
I nod, wanting to believe him. I hated seeing him so angry earlier. I hated being so angry. It wasn’t any way for us to really talk. Not when we’ve waited this long. And the crazy thing is, even though I’ve been having pretend conversations with Amos in my head for the past six months, I still don’t know what I would want to say to him.
Sure, I drafted about a hundred emails to him while he was at Andover. But there was never the right way to say, Hey, Amos! About that time we kissed…weird, right?! Or, Amos, what if we just forget about what happened? I’d think about hitting send, but then I’d remember that leaving the state of New York seemed like a better option to him than spending one more night living across the hall from me. I know I’ve never understood boys, but I thought I understood Amos. When he left, it was like a whole new kind of loss in my life. Why couldn’t I just say, Dear Amos, I love you. And I have no idea what that means?
I have to admit, this Maserati is pretty damn sweet. After spending the past two days stuck in the backseat of Neel’s Land Rover, it feels nice to be behind the wheel. To be in control. The GPS says Disneyland is an hour and fifteen minutes away, although at the speed I’m going, we’ll probably get there sooner. I’m driving too fast, but it feels too good to slow down.
I learned how to drive when I was fourteen. It’s the one thing Jack taught me. We had just arrived at the house in Amagansett for the last few weeks of summer. It was our first morning there, and Louisa asked Jack to go into town for some coffee and croissants from the farmers’ market. “Why doesn’t Amos join you?” she said in a way that was more of a demand than a suggestion. I didn’t care enough to object, so I followed Jack out the door. As we walked down the gravel driveway to his 1978 Mercedes SL, he tossed me the keys. “You’re up,” he said. I looked at him, confused.
“Quick, before your mom sees.”
As I got behind the wheel and buckled up, Jack told me he wasn’t going to have me be one of those sissy Manhattan schoolboys who didn’t know how to drive. I put the key into the ignition, my hands shaking. Jack loved his Benz. But he seemed confident that I wouldn’t crash his car or kill us both.
“There’s nothing more dangerous on the road than fear,” he said. I nodded, trying my best not to look as afraid as I felt.
I slowly turned the key, and jumped from the roar of the engine. It reverberated in every bone in my body. I put the car in drive and slowly tapped on the gas. We jolted forward, and I slammed on the brake. Jack just laughed.
“Let yourself feel the car,” he said. I nodded, and cursed myself for being such a wuss. I adjusted the mirror again. I ran my fingers along the steering wheel, feeling the smooth leather under my skin. Again I lifted my foot off the brake, but this time I placed it on the gas and pushed on it gently. The engine purred, and man, it felt good. We glided forward, and I pressed down on the gas harder. We drove a couple of loops around the property until I started to get the hang of it. Finally, he gave me the go-ahead to turn onto Main Street. I had never felt power like this before. I pushed down on the gas even more.
“Whoa, now,” Jack said. “Let’s not get ourselves pulled over.”
Just a mile down the road, at the glorified farm stand, Jack ordered two espressos to go, and handed one to me on our way out. I took a sip of the drink, and even though it was painfully bitter, it tasted exactly like being an adult.
Jack and my mom had been married for seven years, but he and I had never spent much time alone together. We weren’t exactly going to throw a football around in the park on a spring day. But for the rest of that summer, Jack would offer to run random errands for Louisa, and I’d nonchalantly agree to tag along. The drives became our thing. And it was weird, because for the first time, I found myself wanting Jack to like me.
When Flynn arrived a few months later, I thought it meant that Jack would be around the apartment more, but somehow he was around even less.
“Amos, you’re going kind of fast,” Flynn says. I hear the faint sound of police sirens in the distance, and slow down. But the wailing gets louder and louder, and I see a police car approaching in my rearview mirror.
“Uh-oh,” Flynn mutters as she looks back over her shoulder.
“You don’t think Neel called the cops on us, do you?” I ask her.
“No,” she responds. And then, more dubiously: “I don’t know.”
“Just tell them there’s been a misunderstanding,” Poppy suggests. “That’s what they say when things like this happen on TV.” The kid’s got a point.
The sirens are getting closer. “Just let me do the talking, okay?” The girls nod. I signal, and look over my shoulder, as I start to pull over to the side of the road. The cop car is right behin
d us now. I take a deep breath, steadying myself. But then…the car zooms right past us. We all look at each other, confused and elated, and so completely relieved.
“I guess things can always be worse,” Poppy says. And then we just start laughing—at ourselves, at the ridiculousness of this whole scenario. Flynn messes with the radio and settles on some pop song. It’s catchy and annoying, and I hate that I know the words to it. Flynn sings along, and soon Poppy does, too. Flynn looks at me with a slight smile. We both seem to have surrendered ourselves to a sense of temporary calm, which I’m grateful for. And so I smile back at her, turn up the volume, and join in.
We’re here! We’re here! Dear Neel Khan, thank you for letting us borrow your car and credit card. Well, I guess we didn’t borrow them, because he didn’t actually offer them to us. But if there is a God, and I’m not totally sure there is, I think he would understand that right now we have to bend the rules a little. I hate breaking rules, but I think it’s okay. At least, I hope it is.
Luckily, just as I’m starting to “spiral,” as Susan calls it, Amos turns to me. “Ready, Fred?” he asks. Sometimes we call each other Fred. Like “ready Freddy.” He holds up three giant passes, waving them around like we’ve found the golden tickets. Flynn and I fly over to him, and then we’re off!
We pass through the big gates, and I’m so excited I can barely breathe. Main Street, U.S.A., is everything I hoped it would be and more—it’s like I’ve stepped into Meet Me in St. Louis or something. But better. And because it’s Christmas, there are Mickey-shaped decorations, and twinkle lights sparkle on a giant tree. Did you know Main Street is actually based on the town Walt Disney himself grew up in? I read that in one of my books. The buildings here all look like they’re from the 1900s—with colorful awnings and quaint little storefronts. There’s an opera house, and a cinema and a redbrick fire station. Everything looks simple—nothing like the massiveness of Manhattan. Four men ride by on one bicycle and wave. They’re in different-colored pin-striped suits, and singing in perfect harmony.
