Starting From Here

by Lisa Jenn Bigelow

  I snuffled a particularly gross snuffle, and Dad leaned around me, fumbling behind the seat for the box of tissues. He tore one free, and I blew my nose twice, three times. Dad took the soggy mess from me and dropped it in the litterbag.

  “Maybe it was an accident she met me in the first place, and maybe it was an accident we got together and made you. But your mother had a choice, Bee. She could’ve gone back to her folks and done everything they wanted her to. She could’ve gotten an abortion or given you up for adoption and pretended the whole thing never happened. In my opinion, that’s what the real mistake would’ve been: living life their way instead of hers. But she didn’t. She stayed with me and had you and raised you until—well, you know. You want to talk about second chances, Bee? You were her second chance.”

  I wanted to deny it, to point out what a stupid idea it was that I could be anyone’s shot at redemption. But then I thought of Mo, as big a surprise for me as I was for my parents, and how things had changed since he came along. Not always for the better, but I’d never trade my life now for my life before I met him.

  “I’m going to take a nap,” I said, pulling away from Dad and crawling behind the seats.

  Mo, who’d been watching us anxiously from the passenger seat, crept in beside me. I stroked his velvety ears and shut my eyes as we rolled back onto I-80, gathering speed again.

  When I woke up, we were climbing into the mountains of northeast Utah, fiery cliffs closing in on us from either side. I moved up front. “Marigolds,” I said.

  “Hmm, Bee?” Dad asked, nudging the CB down a notch.

  “Third grade, when my whole class grew marigolds in Dixie cups to give our moms on Mother’s Day. Mine was so shrimpy and wilted, it wouldn’t even grow a bud. It died two days after I gave it to Mom.”

  “I remember that,” Dad said. “She thought it was sweet, how broken up you were.”

  “Yeah. I was a crybaby. But she just hugged me and kissed me, and you know what she said? That no flower in its right mind would be happy in a Dixie cup.”

  “She went out and bought a trowel and a packet of seeds,” Dad said. “You two planted a whole patch of marigolds outside the front stoop.”

  “Red, gold, orange,” I said. “They looked like flames. They lasted all summer long.”

  “I remember the time you and Mom stayed up half the night baking a birthday cake for me, so it’d be fresh when I got in from a marathon job.”

  “I remember that! Four in the morning, and we were eating pot roast and chocolate cake.”

  “That’s right,” Dad said. “I’d forgotten the pot roast. I just remember the two of you had flour all over your shirts. And you had chocolate all over your face, Bee, a chocolate mustache and beard.”

  “The neighbors must’ve thought we were crazy singing ‘Happy Birthday’ in the middle of the night like that.”

  “Well,” Dad said, “it wasn’t a problem till the candles set off the smoke alarm.”

  We laughed, hard.

  “Do you remember,” I said, “the time we all went smelt fishing, out by South Haven? And it poured all night, but we stayed out, anyway?”

  “I do,” Dad said. “I do.”

  The memories came thicker and faster, like a rainstorm unleashed from the sky, as the truck strained upward into the Rockies. We talked until we had to stop for the night.

  DAD LET ME juice up my phone on his charger, and outside Cheyenne, I called Van from atop a beat-up picnic table while Dad refueled. “How do you catch a unique rabbit?” I asked.

  “Colby, where are you?”

  “Answer the question.”

  “You ’neak up on it, duh. Where the hell are you?”

  “Wyoming. It’s so beautiful. You should see it. There are mountains all around—well, Dad says they’re not all mountains—some are only hills—but they’re mountains compared to back home.”

  “I’ve just spent spring break changing Teddy’s diapers and skating at the same old parks and parking lots, while you’re off seeing the country without me.”

  “Only what I can see from the windows. But maybe someday we can see it together. Take a big road trip after graduation or something. I’ve really missed you.”

  “Me, too.” Van coughed. “Say, uh, I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Amelia?”

  I groaned. “I’ve got three voice mails from her, but I skipped past them. I’m too scared.”

  “She’s been calling me all week, asking if I’ve heard anything from you.”

  “Why? I mean, why does she give a rat’s ass about me?”

  “Hell if I know, the way you treated her.”

  “I know. I was awful.”

  “Yeah, you were. But at least you admit it. That’s more than you can say about some people.”

  “Thanks a lot, Van.”

  “It’s always my pleasure.”

  “No, I mean it. Thank you. Thanks for always trying to pull my head out of my ass. Thanks for telling me when I’m being a jerk. Thanks for, you know, just being there for me.”

  “Except with algebra.”

  “About that. Think you could help me get through the next quarter?”

  “I think so,” Van said. “But you gotta do something for me in exchange. Uh, remember that guy from Gull Lake?”

  “Yeah? You ready to stake him out?”

  “Nope, don’t need to. I was skating downtown on the mall and saw him shopping—with his mother, I might add—and went for it.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. I admit it, Colby. I’m a gutless little twerp. There’s a reason I’d rather set you up, you know? I’m sorry about that, by the way. The whole Amelia thing. I shouldn’t have—”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “Really. Tell me about Mr. Adorable.”

  “Okay, well, I skated over, praying he’d remember me.”

  “And?”

  “And he did! He gave me his number and screen name and everything.”

  I shook my head, grinning. “Unbelievable. And what about his mother?”

  “What about her? She smiled and said ‘Pleased to meet you’ and all that. She knows about Trevin—that’s his name, isn’t it beautiful?—and she’s totally okay with it.”

  “I told my dad,” I said.

  “You did? Holy shit, how’d that go?”

  “It went okay. Better than I expected. But Van—it doesn’t really sound like you need me for anything.”

  “Au contraire,” Van said. “I need you to babysit Teddy next Saturday.”

  “What?”

  “God, Col, don’t freak out. You’ll get paid. That’s another thing: after Mrs. Van Der Beek hired me to watch her kids—”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, it was one of those times I came by last week when you wouldn’t open the door. She stepped outside in her bathrobe and slippers and said she’d seen me with Teddy and was I interested in sitting for her kids sometime.”

  “Those holy terrors?”

  “I think they’re cute,” Van said. “Anyway, now that I’ve got a decent source of income, I can support my new lifestyle.”

  “So are you saying Saturday you’re—”

  I could practically see Van’s smug, chip-toothed smile. “Yep. Donovan McIneany’s going out on the town. Dinner and a movie, my friend.”

  “And he’s not going to give you a hard time over being straight edge?”

  “Nope. He’s as clean as they come. Need I remind you, he was shopping with his mother?”

  “Good point,” I said.

  Dad waved to me. He was ready to hit the road.

  “I’ve got to go,” I said. “But this is great news. I’m really happy for you! There’s just one thing that worries me.”

  His voice went tense. “What?”

  “Does Trevin know you’ve got the corniest sense of humor in the universe?”

  There was a pause, and I felt bad for teasing him. H
e’d waited so long for this. Then he said, “You remember that Milk Dud joke? The one about the cow?”

  “Unfortunately. Why?”

  “I told it to him, and he laughed,” Van said triumphantly. “Trevin laughed!”

  Amelia’s voice mails all went the same way: “Colby? It’s Amelia again. Could you, um, call me when you get a chance? I really feel like we should talk. Um, okay, bye.”

  I didn’t want to talk over the phone. I owed her an apology, big-time. I’d ring her doorbell. Look her in the eye. I’d even bring her flowers, except I didn’t think I could pass it off in a way that wouldn’t freak out her folks.

  We pulled into Trail’s End at dusk. I jogged a couple of laps with Mo and gave him a late dinner. He was overjoyed to be home. He trotted through each room, sniffing every speck of dust that had settled in the past week, making sure everything was as he’d left it. Dad stretched and gave a yawn worthy of Mo. “Want to order a pizza, Bee?”

  “No thanks, I’ve got something I need to do. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

  “I might go to O’Duffy’s, if that’s all right with you.”

  “It’s all right with me.” I’d just spent what felt like a year’s worth of time with Dad. We’d run out of things to say. In a good way. And if he kept his promise, we were going to see much more of each other in the year to come. One more night apart was nothing.

  I showered, changed, and brushed my teeth. I wasn’t getting any ideas, but it had been a couple of days since my last truck stop shower, and I was feeling grungy. I grabbed my keys and said good-bye to Dad and Mo.

  Mrs. Hoogendoorn answered the door. Today her sweatshirt featured an embroidered cat lying in a bed of violets. Her eyes flicked to the grandfather clock in the hall, but she put on a cheery smile. “Colby.”

  Did she wonder where I’d been the past few weeks after spending so much time with her daughter? How had Amelia explained my sudden absence? What terrible things did Mrs. Hoogendoorn think of me now?

  “I’m sorry to come by so late.” Not that eight thirty was late in my version of reality, but it couldn’t hurt to be on my best behavior. “Is Amelia here?”

  Amelia was already pushing past her mother. In that first glimpse, the full weight of my stupidity fell on me. Her long hair swished past her shoulders, her cheeks were roses, and even though I was afraid what was coming wouldn’t be pretty, I still lit up inside.

  “Come on,” she said, not quite meeting my eyes. “Let’s go to my room.”

  I shucked off my shoes and followed her. She closed her bedroom door behind us and sat on the edge of her bed. I stood by the door.

  “You may as well take off your coat and sit down,” she said.

  I did, sitting far enough away that her mattress wouldn’t tip us toward each other. “Hi,” I said. And then, before I could chicken out, “I’m sorry.”

  Amelia looked down at her hands. She was wearing the same paisley skirt as the day I met her. She looked just as flushed and nervous, too. “You hurt me, Colby.”

  “I know. And I’m really sorry. I wish I could promise never to do it again, but it would probably be a lie. I’m pretty much hopeless.”

  “That day when we—I was angry. Really angry. But that didn’t mean I—”

  “I know,” I said again. “I know that now.”

  “I’ve been thinking about telling my parents.” Amelia’s voice grew hushed. “I mean, when we were together, I thought about it all the time. But then after—I thought, ‘What’s the point?’”

  “Believe me, I know how that goes.” I lay back against Amelia’s bedspread and stared at the ceiling: the tulip-shaped light, the tiny crack in the paint running from the light toward the corner of the room. “I told my dad, by the way.”

  “About you?”

  “About us.”

  She smiled and lay beside me, so close our arms almost touched. “How’d he take it?”

  “He took it fine. Just one more reason I deserve the Asshole of the Year Award.”

  “You couldn’t know how he’d react. You were scared. You were protecting yourself.”

  “And you’re way nicer than I ever deserved.” I wanted to reach for Amelia’s hand, to feel her fingers close around mine, but I didn’t dare. I kept my eyes firmly on the ceiling. “Look, Amelia, I want another chance. I don’t mean things have to go back to how they were. I mean, I’d like to try and be friends. I want to see you in the hall at school and say hi and know you don’t hate my guts.”

  “I miss Mo.”

  “You do?”

  “Thinking I’d never see Mo again made everything even worse.”

  “It hardly seems fair to keep the two of you apart on account of me.”

  “You think I could have visitation rights, is that what you’re saying?”

  I smiled. “Yeah. Have your people call my people. We’ll work something out.”

  I heard a creak in the hallway and wondered if her mother was out there eavesdropping, but Amelia didn’t seem to notice.

  “Colby,” she said, “is it stupid of me to want to start over?”

  “It wouldn’t really be starting over,” I pointed out. “I blew that. It’d be starting from here.”

  “Even so. You know what I mean.” She turned her face toward me, regarding me carefully from behind her glasses.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said.

  Amelia rolled onto her side, propped up on one elbow. Her hair brushed my hand. I reached out, rubbed the silky strands between my fingers. “I’ve missed you, too,” she said.

  “More than Mo?”

  “Well, I don’t know about that.”

  I couldn’t tell if she was teasing. I dropped my hand to my side.

  “It took you three weeks to decide to apologize.”

  “I know.”

  “So I want three weeks, too.” She bit her lip. “I need time to figure out how I feel about you after everything that’s happened.”

  It wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. I wanted Amelia to roll on top of me and kiss me so hard I felt my insides explode. I wanted to slide my hands over her hair, her face, as her hands went up my shirt. But it wasn’t going to happen. Not today.

  I took her hand. She wrapped her fingers tightly around mine. I stood up, and our fingers slowly slid apart.

  “I’ll put it on my calendar,” I said.

  “DO I HAVE to go to school?” I asked Dad the next morning over scrambled eggs and toast, rubbing my bloodshot eyes. “What’s one more day?”

  Our trip to California and back had been a full seven-day run. Now it was Tuesday, and my classmates had already returned from spring break.

  “You’re going,” Dad said. “Look, Bee. When the time comes, if you don’t want to go to college, that’s your decision. I’ll respect it. I’d like you to go—your mom would have liked you to go—but I understand life might take you other places. Until then: school. I meant it about not being a bagger for the rest of your life. Remember that marigold. A Dixie cup isn’t enough.”

  Dad sent me off with a note vaguely describing a family emergency. Still, my teachers didn’t waste much sympathy on me, piling on homework for the week I’d missed. Mr. Yang looked especially skeptical of my excuse, but I kept my mouth shut and my eyes down as I copied his algebra assignments into my notebook. Hopefully, Van could help me catch up.

  There was an Alliance meeting after school on Wednesday, and though I hadn’t gone in months, I knew it was time to go back. At the end of the day I stepped tentatively into Mr. Peabody’s room. With supernatural speed, he whipped around and said, “Colby Bingham! Where have you been?”

  Amelia looked up, and I gave her a small, crooked smile and a shrug. Liliana ran up, threw her arms around me, and planted a kiss on my cheek. Zak high-fived me and said, “Welcome back, girlfriend.” And just in case anyone had missed it, Van called, “Heeeeey, everyone, look who’s here!” I could have throttled him.r />
  But I wasn’t there to hide. I sat in the circle next to Van and didn’t budge, even when I saw Rachel making her way over.

  “Colby, hi,” she said. And in spite of everything, I felt a twinge. Maybe there was no getting over Rachel Greenstein, not completely. I’d given her my heart so easily. Taking it back was much harder.

  But maybe that’s how it was supposed to be. I said, “Hey, Rachel. What have I missed?”

  She looked surprised by my interest. I guess I couldn’t blame her. “Well, um, National Day of Silence is coming up,” she said. “And we’ve been talking about doing something for the talent show. Liliana wants us to sing ‘Born This Way,’ but Mr. P.’s pushing for ‘True Colors.’ And there’s prom, and the end-of-year party, and Pride—”

  “Great,” I interrupted. “Count me in. For all of it.”

  I knew that whether or not Dad found a short-haul job, he was going to be OTR trucking for a while longer yet. I envisioned a future of chewed-up furniture and clawed-up curtains unless I made day care plans for Mo, but that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to make things right with Robyn. I remembered what Amelia had said about rescued animals being eternally grateful to the people who saved them. I still wasn’t convinced. I think somewhere down the line, everyone forgets the awful circumstances that brought them together, and at that point there’s no pity or gratitude left. It’s nothing more or less than plain old love.

  The day Robyn saved Mo, she saved me, too. Robyn and I weren’t exactly friends, weren’t exactly family—we were just us. And I needed her.

  On Friday I parked Scarlett in the clinic’s lot. It was later than usual, and the rooms in front of Robyn’s place were dark. Slowly, Mo and I climbed the wooden stairs. I held my fist against the door but didn’t knock. Mo whined, and I reached down to stroke his ears, but I still couldn’t bring myself to knock. Van and Amelia had been so forgiving. What if Robyn wasn’t?

  Mo couldn’t take it anymore. He barked. I saw the kitchen light go on. Lenny opened the door, Oscar, Lorraine, and Fontine crowding around his legs. Mo yanked on his leash so hard he broke free and charged inside, jumping and licking and circling the other dogs in the most enthusiastic reunion ever.