Along for the Ride

by Sarah Dessen

  ‘Well, look at that,’ my mother said, taking it in. ‘It’s your favorite color.’

  I felt this like a sudden slap, which was exactly how it was intended. ‘I don’t like pink,’ I said, my voice as stiff as I felt.

  She smiled at me, then reached over, ruffling my hair. ‘Methinks you doth protest too much,’ she said. ‘And your choice of outerwear says otherwise.’

  I looked down at Heidi’s jacket. ‘This isn’t mine. I told you that.’

  ‘Oh, Auden, relax. I’m just kidding.’ She took a deep breath, then let it out, closing her eyes. ‘And besides, maybe it’s to be expected that you’d change a bit, down here with Heidi and these people. I suppose I couldn’t expect to keep you as my very own doppelgänger forever. Eventually, you’d want to try the Booty Berry, so to speak.’

  ‘I don’t,’ I said, and now I could hear the edge in my voice. She did, too, her eyes widening, but just slightly. ‘I mean, I’m not. I just work there. That’s all.’

  ‘Honey, it’s fine,’ she said, ruffling my hair again, but this time I stepped out of her reach, hating her condescension, the way she smiled, shrugging. ‘We all have our dirty little secrets, don’t we?’

  It was only pure chance, and nothing else, that led me at this exact moment to look over the fence behind us to the hotel pool, which was deserted, save for one person. One person in black, square-framed glasses, his skin pale enough to be translucent, wearing red trunks and reading a small, hardback book that you knew at one glance was Literature. I glanced at my mother, catching her eye, then turned back to him, making sure her gaze followed mine. When it did, I said, ‘I guess we do.’

  She tried to keep her face relaxed, but there was one, quick twitch as this remark hit home. But I didn’t feel good about it. I didn’t feel anything.

  ‘Well,’ she said after a moment. ‘I’m sure you need to get back to your job.’ She said these last two words the same way she referred to my dad’s book, making it clear that she doubted it mattered or even existed.

  She leaned closer, offering me her cheek to kiss, but I stayed where I was. She smiled at me again, then said, ‘Oh, darling, don’t be bitter. It’s the first instinct of the weak.’

  I bit my lip, turning away from her, and didn’t respond to this. Instead, I dug my hands deep into Heidi’s jacket, as if to tear the pink right off it, as I walked away. Someone else might have called after me, but I knew my mother wouldn’t. She’d gotten her last word, and it was a good one, and to her, that was all that mattered.

  On the way back to Clementine’s, I kept my head down, trying to swallow over the thick lump that had appeared in my throat. Clearly, it was my defending Heidi that had set her off, even though I’d only said that she wasn’t ‘that much of a ditz’, and then paid her two small compliments. But that was enough, in my mother’s eyes, to put me squarely in the big pink camp. If I wasn’t in total agreement with her, I might as well have been Heidi. There was no middle ground.

  Thinking this, I felt tears fill my eyes, just as I pulled open the door to Clementine’s. Luckily, Esther and Leah were clustered at the counter with Maggie, all of them discussing their evening plans, as always. They barely paid me any attention as I walked past to the office, where I sat down at the desk, fully intending to get back to work. But after about twenty minutes of my numbers blurring as I wiped my eyes with the back of my hands, I decided to call it a night.

  Before I left the office, I pulled my hair back in a rubber band, then arranged my face to as stoic and unbothered an expression as I could manage. Two deep breaths, and then I was walking to the door.

  ‘The thing is,’ Leah was saying as I came onto the floor, ‘I’m never going to meet a hot guy at a coffee shop.’

  ‘Says who?’ Esther asked.

  ‘General logic. They just don’t hang out there.’

  ‘What about the hot, sensitive, artistic type? They live at coffee shops.’

  ‘See, but,’ Leah said, ‘artistic isn’t hot to me.’

  ‘Oh, right. You only like greased-up frat boys,’ Esther replied.

  ‘Grease is your specialty, actually. It’s the artistic types who don’t bathe.’

  I was hoping that this conversation was engrossing enough that they’d hardly notice me. But no luck. When they saw me coming, I had their full attention.

  ‘So, I’ve got to go,’ I said, keeping my voice casual. ‘The receipts are done, and I’ll come in early to finish payroll tomorrow.’

  ‘Okay,’ Maggie said. ‘Hey, did you have fun with your –’

  ‘You know,’ Esther said suddenly to Leah, ‘I kind of resent that remark. I have never dated anyone as greasy as that air force guy you met last summer.’

  ‘That wasn’t grease,’ Leah said, picking up her phone and scanning the screen. ‘That was hair gel.’

  ‘I think it counts.’

  ‘It doesn’t.’

  ‘You sure about that? Because…’

  Thankfully, due to this, I was able to pretend I hadn’t heard Maggie’s half question, and slip out the door without further explanation. Not that she seemed to notice: when I glanced back, she was laughing at something Leah was saying, while Esther rolled her eyes, the three of them securely in their little pink world, as always.

  I hit Beach Beans, which was a few stores down, for a large coffee, then found a place on the sand and drank it while the sun set. After downing the last drop, I pulled out my phone and hit number one on my speed dial.

  ‘Dr. Victoria West.’

  ‘Hi, Mom. It’s me.’

  There was a slight pause. Then, ‘Auden. I thought I might hear from you.’

  Not a good start, but I pressed on anyway. ‘I just,’ I said, ‘I wanted to see if you might want to have breakfast tomorrow morning.’

  She sighed. ‘Oh, darling, I’d love to, but I’m heading back very early. I fear this trip was ill advised, to be honest. I forgot how much I dislike the beach. Everything is just so…’

  I waited for the adjective that would fill this gap, knowing it probably was meant to describe me, as well. But she let it trail off, sparing both the coast and myself.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said after a moment of too-noticeable silence, ‘it was lovely to see you. Do let me know how your summer progresses. I want to know everything.’

  It was not lost on me that this was exactly what she’d said to me the day I left. Then, though, we’d both known she meant the gory, mockable details of my dad and Heidi and their silly lives. The life that I, with one pink raincoat, was now living as well.

  ‘I’ll do that,’ I said. ‘Have a safe drive back.’

  ‘I will. Good-bye, sweetheart.’

  I shut my phone, then just sat there, feeling that lump rise in my throat again. I’d always had to work so hard to keep my mother’s interest, wresting it away from her work, her colleagues, her students, my brother. I’d often wondered if it was ridiculous to feel this way. Clearly, though, my instincts had been right: her attention was not only hard to come by, but entirely too easy to lose.

  I sat there for a long time, watching as people walked up and down the beach in front of me. There were families, kids running ahead and dodging the waves. Couples holding hands. Groups of girls, groups of guys, surfers dotting the distant breakers, even as darkness began to fall. Eventually, though, the sand grew empty, as lights came on in the houses behind me and on the pier in the distance. The night was only just starting, and there was still so long to go until morning. The very thought made me tired, so tired.

  ‘Auden?’

  I jumped, then turned my head to see Maggie standing beside me. Her hair was blowing in the breeze, her bag over her shoulder. Behind her, the boardwalk was a row of lights, one right after the other.

  ‘You okay?’ she said. When I didn’t respond, she added, ‘You seemed kind of sad when you left.’

  I had a flash of my mother, the dismissive way she’d looked at Maggie, the bikini bottoms, the Booty Berry, and then me, all
of us grouped in the category of Not to Her Liking. But it was vast, that place I’d struggled to avoid for so long, as wide and long as the beach where we were right then. And now that I finally found myself squarely in it, I realized I was kind of glad to have company.

  ‘No,’ I said to her. ‘I don’t think I am, actually.’

  I wasn’t sure what I expected her to do or say to this. It was all new to me, from that second on. But clearly, she’d been there before. It was obvious in the easy way she shrugged off her bag, letting it fall with a thump onto the sand, before sitting down beside me. She didn’t pull me close for a big bonding hug, or offer up some saccharine words of comfort, both of which would have sent me running for sure. Instead, she gave me nothing but her company, realizing even before I did that this, in fact, was just what I needed.

  Chapter

  EIGHT

  ‘What I find,’ Maggie said, ‘is that when you get gum, you always need something else. Because gum isn’t really a snack.’

  ‘So true,’ Esther agreed.

  ‘If I do get gum, I always grab some chips, or maybe a cookie two-pack, as well. That way you know you’ve got your food and something refreshing for afterward.’

  Leah shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘What about Tic Tacs? They’re like gum, but I’ve been known to eat them for a meal before.’

  ‘Tic Tacs you actually swallow, though,’ Esther pointed out. ‘You own a Tic Tac. Gum is just borrowed.’

  Maggie turned to her, smiling. ‘Impressive.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Esther replied. ‘I always feel inspired here at the Gas/Gro.’

  I, however, was not feeling inspired. Or impressed. If anything, I felt completely out of my element, a stranger in a strange world. One minute I was alone on the beach, and the next, I was here, a girl among girls, maybe even a store-goer.

  When Maggie had first sat down beside me, I’d had no idea what to expect. I had friends from the various schools I’d attended, but the one common denominator was that I’d never really done the girly thing with any of them. Our interactions, instead, were mostly limited to academic discussions, our solid common ground. So all I had to go on were the snippets of chick flicks I’d caught here and there on basic cable, where women only seemed to bond while drinking too much, playing disco music, dancing together, or all of the above. But since none of these things was going to happen on my watch, even in my depressed state, I had to wonder what, exactly would. When Maggie finally spoke, though, she managed to surprise me. Again.

  ‘So your mom’s kind of a badass, huh.’

  I turned to look at her. She was staring out at the water, her hair blowing around her face, knees pulled to her chest. I said, ‘That’s one word for her.’

  She smiled, then reached over for her bag, plopping it between us and then reaching a hand in to dig around for something. After a moment, she pulled a magazine out, and I braced myself for some celebrity analogy, God help me. Instead, I was shocked to see it was a college catalog from the U as she pulled it into her lap, flipping through a few pages until she found one with the corner folded down. Then she handed it to me.

  U ENGLISH AND YOU it said. The words were somewhat hard to read, as I had only the distant glow of the house behind us to go on. But the picture of my mom – sitting at the head of a seminar table, her glasses in one hand, clearly mid-lecture – I would have known in any light, any distance.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ I asked her.

  ‘It came with my application package. The English department was the main reason I applied there.’

  ‘You’re going to the U?’

  She shook her head, and I felt bad for asking, as a rejection had to be a sore subject. ‘I did tons of research, though. I knew your mom looked familiar in the store today. But I couldn’t figure out why until I went home and found that.’

  I looked down at my mom’s picture again, then slowly shut the catalog. ‘She’s… complex,’ I said. ‘It’s not always easy being her daughter.’

  ‘I think,’ she said, ‘sometimes it’s hard no matter whose daughter you are.’

  I considered this as I handed the catalog back to her and she returned it to her bag. For a moment we just sat there, both of us quiet, looking at the water. All I could think was that of everyone I’d met so far in Colby, she was the last person I ever would have thought I would end up with like this. Which reminded me of something else.

  ‘You know,’ I said finally, ‘Jake really was nothing to me. I’m embarrassed I ever had anything to do with him.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘He tends to have that effect on people.’

  ‘Really, though. If I had it to do over…’ I took in a breath. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘And you,’ she said, stretching her legs out in front of her, ‘were only with him for one night. Imagine wasting two years of your life, like I did.’

  I couldn’t, of course. I’d never even had a real boyfriend, even a crappy one. I said, ‘You must have really loved him.’

  ‘I did.’ This was said simply, easily. The truth. ‘I guess everyone has that, though, right?’

  ‘Has what?’

  ‘That first love. And the first one who breaks your heart. For me, they just happen to be the same person. At least I’m efficient, right?’ She reached into her bag, rummaging around again, before finally pulling out a pack of gum. She went to pull out a stick, then furrowed her brow. ‘Empty. Time to hit the Gas/Gro.’

  I looked up at her as she got to her feet, brushing sand off herself before grabbing her bag. ‘Well,’ I said. ‘Thanks. For checking in on me.’

  ‘You’re not coming?’ she asked.

  ‘To the Gas/Gro?’

  ‘Or wherever.’ She hiked her bag over her shoulder. ‘I mean, you can just sit here, I guess. But it seems kind of lonely. Especially if you’re already feeling rotten.’

  I just sat there, looking at her for a moment. I felt like I should be honest, let her know that lonely actually appealed to me, even at my most rotten, and at times was actually preferable. But then I remembered how I’d been feeling, sitting there watching the sun go down, and wondered if this was still true. Maybe. Maybe not. It seemed a lot to decide, right in that moment. So instead, I went with another truth, one that was never in doubt.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I guess I could use some more coffee.’

  Then, somehow, I was standing up. Chucking my empty cup in a nearby trash can. And falling into step beside her, down the sand to the boardwalk, past the gathered tourists, to the Gas/Gro, where Esther and Leah were sitting outside on the bumper of a beat-up Jetta, waiting for us.

  Now, I watched as Maggie grabbed a pack of cookies and her gum, and paused, her hand over the Twizzlers, before deciding against them. Esther, beside her, was studying a package of sunflower seeds.

  ‘All night I’ve been thinking about these,’ she said. ‘But now, here in the moment, I’m just not sure they have enough snack bang.’

  ‘Snack bang?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s the amount of taste and sustenance you get from any given snack,’ Maggie explained as Leah grabbed a box of Tic Tacs, shaking them. ‘So, like, sunflower seeds have very little. But beef jerky has tons.’

  I said, ‘You know, I have to be honest. I just don’t get this.’

  ‘Get what?’ Leah asked.

  ‘This whole obsession with stores, and snacks, and analyzing the minutiae of every single choice and pairing,’ I said. ‘What is that all about?’

  They all looked at one another. Then Esther said, ‘I don’t know. It’s like, we’re headed out somewhere. You never know what’s going to happen. So you stop for supplies.’

  ‘The store-going comes first,’ Maggie added, ‘and then the adventure follows.’

  They headed for the register, and I grabbed a fresh cup, filling it up with GroRoast. It was simple: I required nothing else. But on my way to the register, I found myself suddenly reaching out to grab a pack of two chocolate cupcakes.
I knew they were extraneous, highly caloric, a waste of money. And yet I had to wonder if they were right. When you don’t know where you’re going, maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing to have more than you need.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Esther groaned. ‘Like we haven’t been here before.’

  We were standing in the driveway of a big house right on the beach. There were people packed on the front steps, moving in shadows across lit-up windows, filling both decks and scattered across the sand below. Plus, there still were cars arriving, parking behind those already lining the narrow road and cluttering the cul-de-sac. In the two minutes we’d been standing there, at least fifteen people had walked past us, heading in.

  ‘And because we have been here before,’ Esther continued as a car drove by behind us, radio blaring, ‘I vote that we leave now, while we still have our dignity.’

  ‘I’m not planning to be undignified,’ Leah said, opening her Tic Tacs and popping one in her mouth. ‘I just want to have a good time.’

  ‘Same thing.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, it is not,’ Leah said. ‘Would you just relax, for once? This might be fun.’

  ‘This kind of party is never fun,’ Esther said. ‘Unless you like having beer spilled on you, or some meaty guy grab your ass in some crowded hallway. Which, apparently, you do.’

  Leah sighed, blowing her hair out of her face. ‘Look. Last night, I went to Club Caramel and sat there while that girl played the xylophone and sang ten songs about communism. And did I complain?’

  ‘Yes,’ Maggie and Esther said in unison. Esther added, ‘Loudly.’

  ‘But I went,’ Leah continued, ignoring this. ‘And in return, I got to choose what we did tonight. And I pick this. So let’s go in.’

  She didn’t wait for agreement, instead just pocketing her Tic Tacs and starting toward the house with long, confident strides. Esther followed along behind her, decidedly less enthusiastic, while Maggie glanced at me. ‘It won’t be that bad,’ she said. ‘I mean, it’s just your typical weekend house party. You know.’