One Year (New & Lengthened Edition)

by Charlotte Byrd

  I sigh and sit back down. It’s about USC. I know it. I look into her deep blue eyes and wait.

  “I know your dad is overjoyed about you transferring to USC,” my mom begins, “and I am, too. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to have you close by. We can go shopping and out to lunch. It would be really fun. I miss those Saturdays we used to have together when you were in high school.”

  “I miss those, too,” I say. Suddenly, thinking back to them, I feel like I’m going to cry.

  “But the thing is that I don’t really understand why you’re doing this. And maybe that’s not my place. Maybe you don’t want to tell me, and that’s okay. But I just want you to really think about this. I don’t want you doing this because things aren’t working out for you in New York. Certain problems you can’t just run away from. It’s strange and hard to believe, but for some reason, they tend to follow you around. Even across three thousand miles.”

  “I know,” I say, nodding. Though I don’t really know if I agree with her.

  “And it’s not just certain problems. It’s really all problems. What I’m trying to say…rather ineloquently, I guess, is that I want you to come back here for the right reasons.”

  I nod. I’ve heard that before, that you can’t fix your problems just by changing geography. But changing geography would change a lot of aspects of my life. For one, I would not be living near Dylan anymore—my soon to be ex-husband. And I wouldn’t be living in the same space as Tristan anymore—the love of my life, up until now, the guy who broke my heart, and the guy whose best friend I married. Oh, what a mess. I promised myself that I wouldn’t think about this anymore. None of it. At least while I’m in LA. But I’ve only been here for a few hours and I’ve already broken that promise ten times.

  24

  I’ve spent my week in Southern California walking along the sand in Malibu, hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains and eating outside multiple times a day. I think that’s probably what I’ve missed most about California. Eating outside is an important part of the culture here. Almost all restaurants and coffee shops have outside areas to eat. Some have simple awnings. Others have elaborate tables, closed off porches, and heating lamps. And there’s no shortage of them in the Commons area near my parents’ home.

  There’s something magical about eating outside under the bright blue sky and the sunlight. The food tastes different, too. Everything has more flavor. Every kernel is somehow more delicious. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been stuffing myself with every greasy thing that came my way. Oily French fries. Hamburgers glistening in fat. Pizza with different types of shiny cheese. There is something about the bleakness and the darkness of New York at this time of year that made me want to eat every unhealthy thing that any vendor or restaurant within walking distance of my dorm would offer. And so I gorged myself, all in an effort to make the darkness go away. Of course, I was unsuccessful.

  But here, under the high sky, which is so high that it looks like not even a rocket could reach it, I suddenly feel free. I don’t want grease or fat or oil. No, now I crave something healthy. Something green, definitely organic, and absolutely refreshing. Looking back on the week, the only things I seemed to have eaten all week are fruits and vegetables in a million different ways—smoothies, salads, fresh from the little containers from the farmer’s market. Just this morning, I had one of my mom’s famous green smoothies, which taste amazing by the way, and five juicy strawberries as big as my palm.

  “Are you sure these are organic?” I ask. My mom is a stickler for organic produce. She would be horrified to know what I’ve been living on for the last two months. My mom believes that the body is like a machine. So in order to have a healthy mind and body, you have to power it on healthy foods.

  “Yes, of course. Why?” she asks, taking a big bite.

  She’s splurging today, apparently. She made homemade whipped cream—something she never does when my sisters and I aren’t home—and we are covering each strawberry that we stuff into our mouths with a generous amount of it.

  “I don’t know,” I say, laughing. “These strawberries are just so huge. I thought that they just had to be zapped with something.”

  “Well, I got them from Clara at the farmer’s market on Saturday. She has the most delicious berries.”

  “Oh, you’re just saying that because she’s young and is a farmer and you admire anyone who can grow their food.”

  “Of course I do! In today’s day and age, what’s more miraculous and uncommon than that?”

  I smile, taking another bite. The whipped cream melts in my mouth and cuts the tartness of the strawberry perfectly.

  “I can’t believe you’re leaving already,” my mom says wistfully. “I miss you already.”

  “I know. The week just flew by. But I’ll be back in two months. For good.”

  “For good?” my mom asks.

  I think about that for a second.

  “Well, I meant the summer,” I say.

  “And then?” she asks. “Have you given some thought to what I’d said?”

  “Yes.” I nod. “But honestly, I don’t know. I don’t really have a good reason for leaving New York except that I want to. But I’m not completely decided yet.”

  My mom smiles and tosses her hair. She has such an easy and effervescent quality to her. She’s absolutely gorgeous, but it looks like she doesn’t even know it. I just hope that in the future, I’m half the put together and confident woman that she is. In fact, it would help a lot if I were that woman already. Then I’d have a lot fewer problems, that’s for sure.

  My flight is in a few hours and I go to my room to pack. Wistfully, I put away all the clothes that I don’t need back into my closet. It’s been wonderful wearing all of these tank tops, light, long sleeved shirts, shorts, and capri pants for the week. I must’ve changed my outfits three times a day just to take advantage of all the clothes that I could wear here that I can’t wear in New York. I put away my flats and flip-flops and drag out the Ugg boots that I’ll be traveling in. I’ve had these Uggs since last year, so they are technically my California Uggs. But in New York, I don’t wear them with shorts and spaghetti straps. No, there, these boots are my go to boots and they’re often not even that particularly warm.

  After completely depressing myself, I decide to take a shower. I put on some Miley Cyrus. I’ve decided to quit Adele cold turkey because her lyrics and songs were doing nothing good for improving my mood. I need to listen to happier music, I decided on the plane here. And for a whole week, I was happy with Miley and Meghan Trainor. But now that I’m going back somewhere I’m dreading, my heart yearns for Adele.

  No, I say to myself silently in the mirror. When you’re starting to feel down, that’s exactly when you need to avoid the things that only bring on more clouds. I skim through my phone for some other music.

  Ah!

  “Hips Don’t Lie” by Shakira.

  An oldie, but a goodie. It’s upbeat and fun. Exactly what I need. I turn up the music and climb into the shower.

  When I lather up my hair, I hear a knock at the door.

  “Yeah?” I yell out over the music.

  “Hey, honey? I can’t find my phone anywhere,” my mom says, opening the door. “Have you seen it?”

  “No,” I say. My mom is always losing her phone. Honestly, not a week goes by that she doesn’t call me on my dad’s phone, completely frazzled by the fact that, this time, she had finally done it, lost it for good.

  “Well, I can’t find it anywhere,” she says. “Would you mind if I used yours? I just have to call your dad about something.”

  “Sure.”

  My mom leaves and takes my music with her. But the good mood that the beginning of that song put me in doesn’t wear off. I close my eyes and let the hot water run over my face and body. Light streams in through the window. I love the way its warm rays feel on my eyelids. When I open eyes, I’m greeted by a curious blue jay investigating me from the windowsill. I want to wav
e to her, but I don’t want to scare her, so instead, I just admire the way her feathers dance in the breeze.

  And then, right there and then, as I’m watching the blue jay cock her head from side to side inquisitively, for absolutely no reason, something occurs to me.

  Oh. My. God.

  Noooooooooo!

  I turn off the shower and wrap a towel around myself. I don’t secure it well and it falls down right before I reach the door. I have to scramble to get it up over my breasts. My hair is completely soaked and water from it runs down my shoulders. My feet leave little puddles on the hardwood floors.

  I look into each bedroom that I pass, looking for my mom. Maybe she didn’t see it. Maybe she just called my dad and that was it. Please, please, please let that be it. My heart jumps into my chest and I can’t take a full breath. I try to slow down my breathing, breath through my stomach like I had learned at yoga, but I’m freaking out. And nothing’s working. Where the hell is she?

  Finally, I get to my parents’ bedroom. Unlike all the other doors, the door to this one is closed. I open it quietly, but don’t bother knocking. I walk in and see my mother sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at my phone. Her shoulders are slumped. Her hair is dangling lifelessly in her face. She’s completely motionless. She looks like she has seen a ghost. Or found out that her daughter not only got married without telling her, but is also now getting divorced.

  Shit.

  I know right away that it’s too late. She has read my text messages. But I think that maybe she hasn’t heard me. So I try to tip toe out of the room. Please, don’t hear me. Please, please, please.

  “Alice,” my mom says quietly. She has a stern tone in her voice, very much unlike her usual tone.

  “Hey,” I whisper. My mouth is completely dry. I cough a little.

  “What is this?” she asks, turning to face me.

  Her back straightens out and her chin flies into the air. She’s no longer sad. Now, she’s angry.

  “What?” I ask. Even though I know exactly what she’s looking at. I don’t know what it is about me, but I have this tendency to deny when I’m put on the spot.

  “These text messages,” she says, shaking my phone in her extended hand, “from Dylan.”

  I shake my head. I don’t know what to say.

  Of course, I can get angry about her going through my phone and reading my private messages. But something holds me back from going that route. I hate to admit it, but a small part of me is happy that my mom found out. This has been a heavy burden to carry around with me and now it’s out.

  “Alice?” my mom asks. “Do you care to explain?”

  I look away and shrug. She throws my phone on the bed. After crossing her arms, she taps her foot a little, waiting for me to say something. I glance over at the screen.

  You’ve been dragging your feet enough about this. My message is highlighted in green.

  Sorry. Dylan’s message appears in grey.

  That’s not good enough. When are we finally going to get a divorce?

  It’s happening, don’t fret!

  How can I not? It has been forever since we got married. At first, you promised me an annulment. And then that was not possible. And now you’ve been playing games with this divorce. I want to know when.

  I don’t know.

  I can only see part of the exchange on the screen, but I know it word for word.

  “When did you get married?” my mom asks. “Oh my God, I never thought that I would ask my daughter that question!”

  “Mom, it was an accident. I was really drunk. Tristan and I just sort of broke up. I don’t even remember it happening, really.”

  Her blank face tells me that she doesn’t quite get it.

  So I start from the beginning. I fill in all the details about every little thing and, close to an hour later, she seems to finally get it.

  After listening carefully and intently, my mom takes a deep breath. I’m shaking from the cold—I’m still wearing my towel, after all. But so much time has passed that my hair is dry in parts and some of the puddles that I’ve made walking barefoot on the hardwood floor have dried up.

  “I have to go get ready,” I say, turning to walk back toward the bathroom. “I have a flight to catch.”

  My mom nods. She isn’t angry or upset anymore. She’s just looks lost. Despondent. Not quite here.

  “Before you do that,” she says to me, “regardless of all of this, and how hurt and disappointed I am that you didn’t tell me about this, I still want you to remember what I said to you before.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s a little clearer why you want to transfer to USC. But before you do that, I want you to think about this for a moment. It seems like transferring will make you leave all of your troubles behind in New York. And that by simply getting away from New York, you won’t have any of those problems anymore. And you may very well be right. But the thing about problems is that they tend to haunt us. They tend to follow us around, as if they’re on a leash. Because they’re not tied to geographical locations, they’re tied to us.”

  I nod.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying, Alice?” my mom asks.

  “Yes, I do. And I’ll think about it.”

  And I mean it. Truly.

  25

  On the plane back to New York, I’m wedged into the middle seat between an old woman with bright orange nails who looks like she’s about to chat me up for the whole flight and a large man who spills over into my seat and doesn’t even try to contain himself in his. I quickly put in my earbuds and turn up the music on my phone. I want to zone out. This is going to be a really long flight.

  But no matter how hard I try to fall asleep, my mind keeps racing. I try a breathing exercise from yoga—breathe in through my nose and breathe out through my mouth. But after a few minutes, I’m just as awake as before.

  The thing that I keep coming back to is how disappointed my mom looked after I told her what had happened. The flicker and brightness in her eyes seemed to have dimmed. She sighed these big, exasperating breaths and her skin seemed to lose all color in a matter of seconds.

  I wanted her to yell at me, curse me out, anything but this. I felt like I had actually physically hurt her and I’ve never wanted to take something back more than I did that.

  Shit. I really messed up. I kick myself over practically every decision I’ve made this semester. Even getting back with Tristan at the end of last semester now seems like a completely foolish idea. If we had never gotten back together, we’d still be friends. I wouldn’t have cared about his busy schedule so much and I might’ve even started dating someone new. Huh, what an idea.

  I haven’t given that much thought, but I am young. Not even 20 yet. And I’ve only really been in one serious relationship. And a very not-serious marriage! Dylan, Dylan, Dylan. Why is getting a divorce from you so difficult? Why has it been dragging on for this long?

  I shake my head to try to clear it. But thoughts that I have no interest in thinking just continue to wash over me like ocean waves. I turn up the music and put on my eye mask. Maybe this will help.

  * * *

  Juliet gets back to the dorm a little bit after me. Unlike me, she didn’t opt to go home to Staten Island for spring break. No, she had a proper spring break, full of drinking and partying in Daytona Beach, Florida. She comes back refreshed, though not very well rested. But her skin has a nice deep glow to it and her hair has streaks of highlights—all evidence of a spring break done right.

  “Why are you not tanner?” Juliet asks, showing me her bikini tan lines. “Didn’t you spend the week in sunny California?”

  “I am a little tan,” I say. But unfortunately, I don’t have any tan lines to show off. “But California is different than Florida. The sun there is very powerful and the air is thin. So it’s hard to get a nice tan as quickly as in Florida.”

  That’s always a surprise to everyone who hears that I’m from Califo
rnia and I’m not the color of an apricot.

  “I can only get that tan,” I say, pointing to her shoulders, “in the summer when I spend all the days at the beach.”

  “Well, I say that you had missed out then,” she says with a quick smile. “Honestly, it was a blast. I won’t lie, I did black out a few times; I’m not completely used to drinking from morning to night, but wow, what a party.”

  “I’m glad you had a good time,” I say.

  She went with a whole group of Columbia spring breakers. She didn’t know a soul before she went, but is now probably best friends with every last one of them.

  “I’ve got to say, it’s nice to get out there and meet new people,” Juliet says. It seems to me that all she does is meet new people throughout the semester. “It gets a little boring to hang out with the same people all the time.”

  I stare at her. I’m about to say “thanks” sarcastically, but she quickly adds, “No offense, of course.”

  “None taken.”

  “You should really get out there more,” Juliet says. That seems to be her solution to every problem. And at this point in my life, I sort of think that she might be right. I do need to meet new people. Try to shake things up in my life, but in a good way.

  “I will,” I say. And then it occurs to me. Maybe this is as good a time as ever to tell her about my plans for next year. She might even approve.

  “So, speaking of next year,” I start.

  “We weren’t speaking of next year,” she points out.

  “Okay, you know what I mean.”

  “Oh yeah, about being roommates next year, you mean?” Juliet asks, changing into her pajamas. They are purple and have little coffee pots on them. I’m actually quite jealous of how cute they are. “I’d love that,” she says. “When I said that it’s nice to meet new people, I didn’t mean that I didn’t want to be your roommate anymore. You’re an awesome roommate. There are lots of people out there that are way more obnoxious than you and I’d hate to end up with one of them.”