Your Destination Is on the Left

by Lauren Spieller

  We stare at each other for a moment, the distance between us somehow way too far and yet much too close. If this were a movie, we’d throw our bags down and reach for each other again.

  “You’ll get in somewhere else,” he says. “Right?”

  His eyes are worried, but also full of hope. Even though he doesn’t want me to leave him and the families, he still wants me to succeed.

  How am I supposed to tell him I’m an even bigger failure than he realizes? How am I supposed to tell any of them?

  There’s a rumble of thunder overhead. I hitch my mom’s biodegradable tote up my shoulder. “Come on,” I say, my voice barely more than a whisper. “We should get back.”

  We walk in silence for a while, and I can feel all the unspoken words bouncing between us like a current.

  Cyrus finally clears his throat. “Do you think that maybe . . .”

  “What?”

  He licks his lips. “Don’t take this the wrong way, okay? I love your work, but . . . do you think maybe the problem was your portfolio?”

  I tighten my hands into fists. It’s one thing for me to think it, but I can’t believe he’d say that to me, especially after it’s too late to apply anywhere else. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say through gritted teeth. Cy opens his mouth to defend himself, but I cut him off. “I chose the pieces based off the student work they’re showcasing on the college website. Clearly that’s the sort of thing they’re looking for.”

  “Okay, okay,” he says, holding up his hands in surrender. “I just wonder what would have happened if you submitted that other painting you were working on.”

  I frown. “Which one?”

  “The sunburst, remember? Those colors were amazing. It was like the reds and yellows were busting off the canvas.” He mimes an explosion with his hands, throwing his arms wide. “It was awesome.”

  My chest constricts at the mention of the sunburst. It was one of the fastest paintings I ever did—under an hour, while Dad was having the oil changed. You could tell, too. It was messy and bright, nothing like the careful studies in shape and color I’d been doing for months. It felt reckless and alive. I don’t know if it was because I was sick of being cooped up in the RV, or because of the argument about extracurricular credits I’d had with my mom earlier that day, but from the moment my brush touched the canvas, it was like being caught in a tornado. I couldn’t see where I was going. I just had to ride it out.

  In the end, I loved it so much that I had planned to hang it over my bed when I got to college. But then the rejections started coming in, and I couldn’t bear to look at the blazing sunburst. It’s lived in the storage compartment by my bed ever since.

  “UCLA wouldn’t look twice at that painting,” I say. “It’s juvenile.”

  “You’re the expert,” Cy says with a shrug. “I’m just trying to figure out why you didn’t get in, that’s all.”

  I’ve been asking myself the same question over and over again for weeks, ever since I got my first rejection. I told myself it was about something other than my work. They had a lot of really talented applicants. They were looking for sculptures, not painters, like me. Budget cuts forced them to take fewer people. But now that I’ve been rejected from every single school, those excuses don’t work anymore.

  I didn’t get into art school because I don’t belong there.

  We continue down the street, past the single-story houses with perfectly manicured lawns and freshly painted doors. Above us, the clouds sag under the weight of their collected water, their bottoms gray. We turn the corner, and the neat homes become a row of apartment buildings.

  Cyrus swings his plastic bag through the air, letting it fall back against his leg with a thud. “I love when the sky looks like this,” he says, staring up into the moody sky overhead. I don’t look up; it’s going to take more than the weather to distract me.

  We round another corner, and the three RVs come into view up ahead. I stop walking and face him. “You can’t tell them about UCLA. About any of it.”

  “I won’t. But you’re going to, right?”

  I picture the sad sympathy on my parents’ faces, and it about turns my stomach. “I don’t know.”

  There’s another rumble of thunder above us. I glance up at the clouds, but Cyrus doesn’t look away. “Dessa, you have to.”

  “I will, eventually. But not right away. I need time to think.” A trickle of rain begins to fall. I start toward the RVs. “We have to get inside.”

  “Dessa, wait.” He catches my hand in his. “You did your best. That’ll be enough for them.”

  I look down at our hands, his fingers laced in mine. “But what if it’s not enough for me? What if I want more?”

  “You’ve done everything you’re supposed to,” Cyrus says, pulling me toward him. The rain falls harder, clinging to his black hair. “Maybe try doing something you’re not.”

  I swallow. “Like what?”

  His lips curl into a slow smile, and he spreads his arms wide. “Stay out here with me until the rain stops.”

  “What?” I say, pulling my canvas bag to my chest. “We can’t do that.”

  “Why not? It’s just rain.”

  There’s another roll of thunder, and the sky opens up. Rain pours down on us, soaking through my clothes. “Don’t go,” Cyrus says, his brown eyes serious. “Give it a chance.”

  Water streams down his face, turning his dark skin shiny. He’s so handsome it hurts to look at him. I imagine myself closing the distance between us, wrapping my arms around his neck as he presses his lips to mine. I imagine his warm hands on my back, how I’d hold him so tight and never, ever let go—

  A crack of lightning splits open the sky, and I jump back. “I’m sorry,” I say, and take off running across the dirt lot toward the RV.

  Cy calls my name, but I don’t look back. If I do, I might turn around and go back. I might kiss him and kiss him and kiss him, just like I do in my daydreams.

  CHAPTER 2

  I launch myself into the RV, slamming the door shut behind me. The inside is warm and cheerful, the compact kitchen table illuminated by the electric lights. As much as I want out, right now I’m grateful for this tiny piece of home.

  “Oh,” Mom says, gazing at me from the passenger seat. “You’re soaked.”

  “No kidding.” I slide onto the bench seat and look out the window, hoping for a glimpse of Cyrus, but I can’t see him. Only mud, wet concrete, gas pumps, and Jeff, ripping jeans and T-shirts off the clothesline attached to their RV.

  I pull my dripping brown hair into a ponytail, then prop up my elbows on the table and let out a long sigh. The kind my mom says is a sign of “bad energy.”

  “What’s wrong?” she asks.

  Outside, Cyrus finally appears. He jogs over to help his dad save the laundry. It’s too late—everything is already soaked—but Cyrus keeps tugging at the fabric anyway, his wet white T-shirt clinging to his broad chest.

  “This rain sucks,” I say, my gaze lingering on Cyrus. I force myself to look back at my mom. “Let’s go somewhere else. Anywhere else.”

  “You’ve been complaining for months that we move too often.”

  “But—”

  “You loved Asheville the last time we were here. You tried to convince us to stay, remember?”

  “I know, I know.” When we stopped in Asheville a few years ago, I spent all my time wandering the artsy downtown streets, a cup of hot chocolate clutched between my fingers. I loved the way the mountains towered above us, sending messages on the wind that whistled between the trees and down the streets. I’d begged my parents to enroll me in school here, like a regular teenager. We could still live out of the RV, still take short trips on the weekends, but the rest of the time we’d just be a normal family.

  We’d packed up and left the next day.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Mom says, swiveling around in her seat. “Let’s give it a few days, and if the rain hasn’t stopped, we’
ll go somewhere else. Never stop moving, right?”

  I smile at her words. I can’t help it. Whenever I’m tired of traveling, whenever Rodney complains about sleeping in the pullout bed, whenever we run out of gas, Mom says the same thing: Never stop moving. It’s the traveler battle cry, and every family in our caravan lives by those words, for better or for worse. It’s only a matter of time before someone asks me to paint it on our RV alongside the bright orange California poppies I did last spring. But as often as I make fun of it, I’m proud that it’s our slogan. Because even in my bleakest moments, it reminds me that there’s still something to love about this life: Travelers never give up.

  “Did you get the spinach?” Mom asks.

  I upend the damp canvas bag onto the table. Two bunches of spinach, a package of feta, a box of phyllo, and an onion come tumbling out. Everything we need for my Greek grandmother’s family recipe.

  “Good girl. But you’ll get sick if you stay in those wet clothes. Change, then we’ll get started.”

  I glance down the length of the RV, and when I’m sure my dad and brother are gone, I strip out of my wet clothes and into a pair of pajama pants and an old T-shirt.

  “Where’s Rodney?” I ask when I’m done.

  “Oh, he’s up in your bed,” Mom says. I roll my eyes. So much for Dad and Rodney being gone while I changed.

  “Sweetie?” Mom calls up to my brother. “Come down here and help your sister squeeze the spinach.”

  Silence.

  “Rodney?” Mom calls out again.

  I lean out of my seat and peer up at my bed. It’s tucked into a nook over the driver’s seat, but I can just make out my brother’s bare foot. “Rodney, I can see you.”

  My brother pulls in his foot but doesn’t respond.

  “Rodney,” I say, louder this time, “if you help us with the spinach, I’ll let you stay up there for an hour the next time we move, even though you’re not allowed on my bed.”

  My brother’s upside down head drops into view, his brown hair hanging like a curtain. “Two hours.”

  “One and a half.”

  “Be down in a second,” he says, then disappears again. I try not to think about what kind of havoc he’s wreaking up there.

  Mom carries the spinach to the sink. While she washes it, I reach under the table for the small box of broken glass I have stashed there. For months after I first saw Fiona Velarde’s art, the families helped me collect glass bottles and broken shards of windowpane for a two-by-two-foot mosaic of the Santa Monica coastline. I only kept the most vibrant pieces, the ones that reminded me of the rolling waves and the clear sky. I’ve only been there once, back when we visited UCLA, but it’s burned into my mind. I pick an aquamarine piece and hold it up to the window. The light glints against its watery surface, shining blue-white-blue. It hurts my heart just looking at it.

  “Are you going to start the mosaic?” Mom asks, shaking the wet spinach over the sink.

  I shrug and drop the piece of glass back into the box. Mom hands me a roll of paper towels. I tear off a long sheet, then another, layering them until the foldout table is covered. When I’m done, Mom spreads out the clean spinach, making sure none of it overlaps, then slides into the bench seat at the table. “Remember, we have to get all the water out, or the whole thing will come out soggy.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  Outside, a cloud moves, releasing a beam of sunlight that cuts through the rain and into the RV window, splintering into a rainbow of colors when it hits my mom’s chunky silver rings. She twists the one on her middle finger around and around, a sure giveaway that she’s about to say something that makes her nervous. I brace myself.

  “Sweetheart, I know you don’t want to hear this,” she says, “but I’m worried about you.” She picks up a handful of spinach and squeezes, the green juice running between her fingers and soaking into the paper towels. “You’ve been so preoccupied lately. Sometimes it’s like you’re not even here.”

  I poke at the spinach in front of me. “Yeah, well, I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  “But now that school is mostly over and you’re done with your applications, maybe you should focus more on the families. On all of this.”

  She gestures around us, as if we’re sitting in the middle of a magnificent oasis, instead of an old RV with a pile of already-withering spinach spread out between us like an uncrossable green ocean.

  Mom reaches under the blue circle scarf around her neck, not caring that her spinach-stained hands are dripping green water everywhere, and pulls her silver leaf pendant free of the fabric. “Remember when we got these in Flagstaff?”

  I rub my fingers along the matching pendant that hangs around my own neck. We had started traveling a few months earlier, and everything was still brand-new and exciting. Sleeping in my cabover bed was like living in my own personal tree house, and sharing an airplane-size bathroom with four people was fun. When we were ready for our first cross-country drive, Mom decided we should all find something special along the way to commemorate the journey. Rodney chose a stuffed dog from a toy store in Chicago on the second day of our trip, and Dad bought a fancy Swiss Army knife in St. Louis a day later, but Mom and I took our time. We wanted something unique, something we’d keep forever. I was the one who found the necklaces, tucked into boxes in the back of a store in Flagstaff. For years, the pendant was my lifeline. Sometimes things got hard, and I’d miss my room, or my friends back in Chattanooga. But then I’d look at the leaf pendant, and remind myself that I was on an adventure. I was lucky.

  Now all I see is the life my parents chose for me, one I’m going to be stuck with forever.

  “I remember,” I say, tucking my necklace back under my shirt. “But I’m not twelve anymore. People change.”

  “They don’t have to,” Mom says quietly.

  I pick up a huge fistful of spinach and squeeze as hard as I can. Green juice runs down my hands and arms, pooling on the paper towel. I drop the spinach and pick up a second handful. I squeeze so hard it hurts my fingers. Mom gives me a worried look, but I ignore her and keep squeezing.

  An hour later, my hands are stiff and stained green, Mom and I still aren’t speaking, and Rodney is back in my cabover bed having helped for approximately fifteen seconds before he complained his hands hurt and gave up. Just as I squeeze the last bits of moisture from a handful of spinach, the side door opens and Dad climbs into the RV. “Damn this rain.” He shakes his head, spraying water all over the floor. He reaches into his pockets and pulls out four Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups—one for each of us. Mom wrinkles her nose.

  “Stage one complete?” Dad asks as he appraises the wilted, dried-out spinach.

  “Finally,” I grumble. But the truth is I’m glad I had something to occupy me for the last hour. It’s better than sitting up in my bed, wishing for a college application do-over.

  Dad hands me the candy, then leans over and kisses Mom on the cheek. “Have you seen my wrench?” he asks her. “The McAlisters’ awning is stuck again. I told them not to buy their RV from that guy in Reno, but did they listen?”

  “It’s in the toolbox in the storage compartment,” Mom says. “Under the RV.”

  “I looked there, but—”

  “I’ll show you.”

  She gets up, waving off the umbrella he offers her. Outside, the rain hasn’t slowed, but the sun is still peeking out from behind the clouds.

  When they’re gone, Rodney hangs his head down from my bed. The skin around his eyes is black and he’s holding my liquid eyeliner in his hand. He looks like a raccoon. I jump up and grab the tube from him. I splurge on makeup for the first time in months and it ends up all over my brother’s face. Figures.

  He wipes his eyes, smearing the makeup over his nose. “I heard something while you were gone.”

  I drop the tube into my purse. “Oh yeah?”

  Rodney grins. “Dad said Mark’s an ‘unforgiveable ass.’ ”

  I clap my hand over Rodney’s
mouth. “Shhh. Not so loud. Who did he say that to? Mom?”

  He pulls my hand away. “No, someone on the phone.” Rodney points at the candy in my hand. “Can I have one?”

  I open the package and give him a Peanut Butter Cup. He immediately shoves the whole thing into his mouth, then disappears back into my bed. I lean against the kitchen counter and stare out at the rain. Dad would never talk badly about a client, especially not Mark. He’s one of Dad’s biggest accounts, and Mark helped him find lots of other marketing work too. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard Dad say that if it weren’t for Mark, he’d still be stuck behind a desk in Chattanooga, working for a soulless design firm. But if Rodney’s right, then something is very wrong. Without Mark, there’s no paycheck, and without a paycheck, we might not be able to afford to travel.

  I shove a Peanut Butter Cup into my mouth. As much as I want a break from this life, I’ve never wanted it to disappear entirely.

  • • •

  The next morning, I wake to a fine layer of frost clinging to the windows, and the gut-busting realization that this is the first day of my new life as a non-college-bound graduate. I close my eyes, willing myself to go back to sleep. But the cold air creeps under my blanket, and I’m forced to accept that this is real life. I’m not going to college. The end.

  I peer over the edge of my bed down at the kitchen table. Dad is reading a local newspaper, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. He’s wearing his winter coat.

  “Why is the heat off?” I ask, clutching my blanket closer.

  He takes a sip of coffee. “Saves money.”

  “But it’s freezing.”

  He shrugs. “Put on a sweater.”

  First Rodney hears him call his boss an ass, and now he’s not turning on the heat? Not good. I pull a pair of clean pants out of the cabinet next to my bed and shimmy into them under the sheets. Then I climb down the ladder, my right hand clutching the blanket around my shoulders. When I reach the bottom, Dad hands me his cup without looking up from the paper. I take a sip and grimace. “This is weak.”