Surviving Valencia

by Holly Tierney-Bedord

  After they were gone, and I was trying to make sense of their loss, I wondered at times whether too much good fortune may have caused them to have some kind of cosmic implosion. I told myself when things were particularly grueling and difficult that my misfortune was my insurance policy and that I was saving my luck for later on in my life.

  There are dozens and dozens of photos of that glorious birthday treehouse day. In one of them, if you look closely, you will see, parked against a withering lilac bush, a rusty little pram that looks like it was left over from the 1960’s. A burgundy buggy designed to hold twins. And in it you may notice a homely little bundle wrapped up in a poop-stained bed sheet. That’s me.

  I was a month old. Which tells me, in a comforting sort of way, that, considering the building of the treehouse bookended my arrival by months, my father’s lack of interest in me started before he even met me. It was not necessarily because of something I did wrong. My mother on the other hand, grew to hate me. But wait, I am stumbling off course. My point is that, if I went back far enough, I could find evidence of normalcy and love. Evidence of parents who could be generous and kind. If not to me specifically, at least to our family as a whole. And for years I was caught between obsessing over the possibility of bringing it back and mourning its loss.

  It had been easy to try to hold on to those memories, or rather, hard to let them go. They made me believe we could be happy. What is there besides happiness?

  I used to do a lot of that believing-in-luck thing that children do: If the phone rings in exactly one minute, this last few years will be a bad dream that only I know about and everything will be okay. Valencia and Van won’t go to college. They’ll stay here.

  A minute would pass and the phone would not ring, so I would revise it to five minutes instead.

  I let it all go my sophomore year. I stopped missing everything I had lost and stopped thinking about how differently things could have gone. I was still aware of my parents’ disappointment and annoyance towards me, but I officially stopped expecting them to change their ways.

  In letting go of all that bitterness and expectation, I was left with an empty hole that made me feel light enough to blow away.

  One person in particular noticed the new me. It was my Algebra teacher, Mrs. Hoeney. Shortly into the school year, she called me after class and harshly demanded, “What’s the matter with you?”

  I did not know her well and was stunned. “I don’t know,” I said.

  “I told Dave Douglas that you are coming to see him. Do you know who Dave is?”

  Of course I did. He was the guidance counselor. Not the one who told you whether you should be a veterinarian or a pastry chef, the one who helped you with your problems. Dave Douglas lived and breathed guidance counseling. We were to address him by his first name. He had plants in his office, hanging from macramé holders. He walked the halls a little too slowly, sipping tea from a mug that said Fort Worth Stockyards. There were rumors that he and a former teacher’s aide had gotten into trouble at a hot tub party once. He wore jeans and sandals with socks all year round, and he had a Rollie Fingers mustache. Until now I had avoided him, but I had not been oblivious to his strange syrup and cigarette smoke scented presence. I had literally had nightmares about him. And now I was going to be one the members of his club?

  “I’m not interested in seeing Dave Douglas,” I told her.

  “He’s interested in seeing you.”

  I cringed. “How is this your place to get involved?”

  “Watching out for my students is part of my job,” she said.

  I wanted to argue that sitting in her class for a few hours a week didn’t make me hers. Instead I simply said, “No thank you. I’m going to pass on this opportunity.”

  “Are you on drugs?” she asked me.

  I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. Drugs? It seemed that to adults, “drugs” looked like Good & Plenty candies. “Drugs” was a self-conscious, fuzzy idea balled up in their heads, put there by Good Housekeeping magazine. It was all-encompassing, with crack and marijuana being equally foreign and doomful. What they were sure of, though, was that we kids were taking them and they were the reason we were bad.

  I had never used drugs in my life or even been to a party with them. Well, I had never been to a party, period. But still. In truth, the majority of the sophomores using drugs were in parents’ and teachers’ heads.

  “Aren’t drugs scary and dangerous?” I asked. “I have heard that they turn good kids into monsters. What drug would you say I am behaving like I am on?”

  “Very funny.”

  I smiled. She responded with a smug, sneering smile meant to tell me she was tougher than I thought she was.

  “I have to go to my next class,” I told her and walked out of there.

  The next day I was called over the loudspeaker to the principal’s office. I was not surprised when I reached his office and saw Dave Douglas and Mrs. Hoeney seated in the cushy leather chairs beside his desk.

  Being fifteen is a lot like having everyone you know drop you off at a psychiatric ward and tell the keepers that you are crazy. You are a defenseless victim and anything you say just makes them think you’re crazier. Resigning myself to my fate, I tried to clear my mind and soul of all traces of my essence, the way I heard prostitutes have to do. I began to feel like I was watching myself on television and I thought it must be working.

  “Well, hello there! We’re going to get on fine,” said Dave, reaching out his hand to me and pulling me in for a pat-on-the-back-style hug. I held my breath, feeling completely violated. Apparently it was harder to remove yourself from the physical world than I had thought. The principal and Mrs. Hoeney smiled and nodded, and Dave escorted me down the hall to his office, a place I had previously only glimpsed.

  It was a tiny interior office loaded down with coffee-ringed papers and crocheted pillows. There were Far Side clippings taped everywhere, and heavily piled shelves: Miniature motorcycles, a row of jade Buddhas, and tons of books about child psychiatry that any thinking person would have hidden out of our site. I began fantasizing about the garage sale I could have. An ashtray piled high with cigarette butts sat between us, for back in those days faculty could still smoke in their offices, and despite its filthy contents, the ashtray had a funky, old-fashioned look to it that I admired. Two dollars, I thought.

  Dave Douglas waited for me to get settled in, then he leaned back and stretched, and either accidentally or on purpose to ease the tension, let go a small, stinky fart.

  “Whoopsie,” he said, giggling like a ninny and popping his hand over his mouth as if he had just belched. It may be unladylike to say this, being that I hold a coveted position within the Savannah Junior League, but he was a total douche.

  Right away, and again at the beginning of every subsequent session, he made a point to say, “You can tell me anything and it’s just between us.”

  Right. None of this was between us. Every Tuesday and Thursday I was assigned to visit him. My classmates saw me get up, hand one of his passes (a big, bright orange slip of paper) to the study hall monitor, and go, obviously, to his office. If I didn’t show up, which happened one day when I was reading and forgot, he would buzz the study hall monitor and ask over the intercom where I was. And when I was in his office, any and all other students were free to watch me through the window in his door that he had ineffectively covered with a torn scrap of paper.

  The second problem was that he had some very confusing techniques. After a couple of times without much to say, I tried helping the sessions move along by telling him about book reports I was working on. He kept interrupting with the most asinine questions: “Are you Boo Radley?”

  “What? No, I’m a girl.”

  “So you see yourself more in Scout?”

  “Not really.”

  “So maybe a little?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, alrighty. How did you feel about Atticus?”

  “He was nice?
”

  “Yes, yes he was,” Dave Douglas agreed, scribbling on his yellow tablet, then returning to stare at me in anticipatory silence.

  “So do you want to hear more about my book report?”

  “No, that’s enough. You know I’m your friend, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Are you feeling scared, or nervous?”

  “No.”

  “You know that your sister and brother did not go away because of something you did wrong, right?”

  “Wrong right? That sounds funny.”

  “You think it’s funny?”

  “I meant the way that sounded. I didn’t mean what happened to them. Forget it.”

  “You know, death is a lot of things, but I wouldn’t call it funny… I notice you’re wearing your sister’s class ring.”

  I nodded. The garage sale never ended. I had discovered a box of bowling trophies in the corner, awaiting a shelf, and I mentally priced them at fifty cents apiece.

  “Did they give that to you after your sister passed?”

  “Passed?” I asked, pretending I did not understand what he meant.

  “Um… After your sister died.”

  “She’s not dead. She’s just missing.”

  His eyes lit up. Finally, he was thinking, she has exposed herself as delusional. The break in the case every counselor dreams of. “What do you mean?” he asked, feigning concern.

  “You do know that they never found her body, right Dave?”

  “Oh. Really?” He scribbled on his notepad, clearly not familiar with the details of the case. He looked up at me, testing the situation, and asked, “What about your brother?”

  I yawned. “What do you mean?”

  “Do you think he’s ‘missing’ also?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Dave scribbled on his pad some more, aware that he had better find out what happened or he was not going to be able to evaluate how messed up I was.

  “I have so much homework to do. Do you think I could leave a little early today?”

  “No can do, Kiddo,” he said, tapping his watch.

  “No problem,” I said, flexing my foot to keep it from falling asleep.

  “So what’s on your mind?”

  “Do you want to hear how my book report ends? Because there is kind of a twist to it.”

  “I’m talking in the grander scheme of things. Do you think you’re responsible for what happened to your siblings? I mean, do you think you are responsible for what happened to your brother and sister?”

  “I know what siblings means.”

  “Okay. I know that. Sorry about that, Kiddo. Of course you know what siblings means.”

  “Anyone over the age of seven knows what it means. Not to mention, it’s an expression I’ve heard a lot.”

  “As I was trying to say, do you think you’re responsible somehow?”

  “Well, I did put banana peels on that bridge…”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere! I’m giving you permission to let go of that guilt. It wasn’t your fault. It was not your fault! I’m your friend and you can believe me.”

  Never joke with these people.

  Sessions with Dave lasted my entire sophomore year, and I feared they would be a part of the rest of my high school curriculum. Along with being ridiculous and gross, they marked me as a loser. Whenever I slid that orange hall pass across the desk, someone always snickered. It never got old. Then to my surprise on the last Thursday of the school year, Dave announced that I was “fine” and wouldn’t need to see him the next year.

  “Unless you feel you’d like to keep up with our sessions,” he said.

  “Dave, I’m going to get my driver’s license soon.”

  He looked at me blankly, not getting it. What I was trying to say is that I had bigger fish to fry.

  “Well, the school’s closed during summer months. Of course,” he said. “So if you do need me, just try to hold on until fall.”

  I handed him my stack of leftover orange slips of paper.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Save a tree!”

  “Bye, Dave. Thanks for your help.”

  He saluted me with his Fort Worth Stockyards mug and took a lukewarm sip.

  Chapter 49

  “So this is what we’re going to do,” said Adrian, who had smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in four hours.

  “I’m listening,” I said, trying to appear calm. There is so much I don’t know about you, I was thinking, as I watched my non-smoking husband light one off the tip of another, over and over.

  “You are taking my car to Atlanta. You are going to stay there for three nights. I already booked the room. You stay in the room and everything you order, you order in twos. In the morning you can go out and pick up some coffee and a paper or whatever, but you buy two coffees and you use your credit card so there is a nice, traceable record of it.”

  “But you don’t usually have coffee. You have juice,” I pointed out.

  “Right,” he said. He sucked in on his cigarette, shaking his head at his carelessness.

  “And I’m not supposed to be drinking all this coffee since I’m pregnant.”

  “Good point. Get juice for me. Get whatever you want for yourself. Now remember, when you order room service you need to at least pick at it all, right Honey? Don’t just push the cart back in the hall with my meal on it. You’re eating for two though, so it shouldn’t be hard to have a little extra. Okay, all you have to do is lay low. Don’t walk around the hotel much because there are cameras. And don’t go in the pool, whatever you do, because there are always cameras in there! Just stay in the room as much as possible. And use the peephole! Don’t answer the door unless you absolutely have to. I think actually you should order just dinner, no lunch, so there’s less coming and going. Could you do that? You’ll be eating two meals, is it okay with you if they are both dinner?”

  “Yes. What are you going to do, Adrian? How are you going to find him?”

  His eyes met mine for the first time in what felt like hours. For a brief moment they softened and once again became Adrian’s eyes. They seemed almost pleading. I felt my heart break. Then he looked away, inhaled, shrugged it off, and continued, “I’m taking your car since you never get the oil changed and there aren’t any current records of the mileage. Once I get there I will park it at the Mall of America, I think, and from there I am going to take a bus since a car with Georgia plates is going to stick out up there. At least it’s just an old Volkswagen. What if we had bought you a new car already? But we didn’t yet so we’re okay. And we cannot, do you understand me, cannot, call each other. People on vacation together don’t call each other. Plus, they can tell where cell phone calls are happening. Just don’t call me, okay? What else am I forgetting? Have you used our computer to search for John Spade or anything like that?”

  “No. Adrian, what are you going to do?”

  “The important thing is that I want you to relax and take care of the baby and yourself. On second thought, be sure not to watch those Lifetime movies all day. You should rent some pay-per-views. Some action movies, but mainly porn. Soft-core. Nothing too over-the-top or violent. Stay away from anything weird. It needs to look like I am there and we’re having a little getaway. I’m sure they can track that too. Yeah, keep the pay-per-views coming in case they check. Bring some books so you don’t get bored. Honey, you better start packing. Pack a bag for me too so you can leave it open by the door. You know what? Spray the room with my cologne too. I’m going to drop Frisky off at the kennel right now while you pack. I will be back in a half hour.” He set a baseball bat that appeared from out of nowhere in my hands. “Keep this with you. I’ll see you soon.”

  “Adrian, wait! It’s not too late for us to find a way to fix all of this.”

  “I know, that’s what I’m doing.”

  “What does that mean? Are you really going to drive there? It’s twenty hours away! And what if he’s not there? I told you, I think he was at the p
sychic’s house right here in Savannah! If he could be here, he could be anywhere.”

  “Enough about that stupid psychic,” said Adrian, shaking his head in exasperation.

  “And what are you going to do when you get there? How are you going to find him? And what if this John Spade guy isn’t even the right guy?”

  “Don’t worry. I have it all worked out, and anything I didn’t figure out, I can sort out while I’m driving.”

  “Wait,” I said. “What if we hired someone to do this?”

  “That’s how we got into this situation.”

  “Is it?” I asked.

  Adrian inhaled and looked at me, his eyes cool and dull. Then he blinked and smooshed out his cigarette on the dinner plate he was using as an ashtray. “I need you to trust me,” he said, kissing me on the top of my head. He turned away and yelled, “Frisky, come on boy!”

  I did not know what else to do, so I started packing.

  Thirty minutes later, Adrian was back. He threw a couple things in a backpack and handed me a piece of paper. It said sexxylady9348 and shoesalesmendoitbest3. “You’re Shoe Salesman Do It Best Three, okay?” he said. “And I’m Sexxy Lady.”

  “What?”

  “Listen, Baby, I realized we really do need a way to be in touch, so once you get there, go to some coffee shop and set up a hotmail account with this ID. There’s no way these names are already being used. Well… On second thought, add the number five to the beginning of each, just to be safe.”

  I watched as he penciled a number five in front of each name. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Now remember,” he continued, “mine won’t be set up until probably a whole day from now. But this way we can be in contact. Don’t write anything incriminating! We’ll have to talk in code! And the first email should ask about something really benign, like a question about how to get over the flu, so we know for sure we’re really talking to each other.”