Chapter 14

Jack

Saturday, June 5, 6:49 a.m.

I temper my excitement about this latest development, so I don’t come across as too eager. “That would be great!”

She smiles back. “Cool.”

“So—I guess we’re both getting out here,” I tell Oscar.

“The band is breaking up,” he jokes as we begin to gather our things and grab our bags from the trunk. Princess, excited by the sudden flurry of movement and change, lets out a series of farts that sound like gunfire from an AK-47. Parting ways just in the nick of time.

“Oh man.” Oscar rolls down all the windows and hops out of the car along with us. “This is going to be a long ride to Berkeley.”

“Well—good luck with breaking up the wedding and winning Nikki back. I hope Princess seals the deal, although I’d be careful about what you feed her between now and then,” Hallie tells him as she comes toward us around the side of the car. “I feel like we should hug. I mean—we’re kind of friends now—right?”

“Absolutely,” Oscar says as they embrace. “I hope things work out for you—on all fronts.”

“Thanks, you too,” she says as she breaks away.

Oscar turns to me and extends his hand. “Thanks for the unexpected adventure, mate. I say trust your gut. And keep choosing your own ending.”

It’s a reassuring mini pep talk at the perfect time, exactly what I need to hear.

“I’ll be first in line for my autographed copy!” he adds as he climbs back into the driver’s seat, and I realize that he’s talking about my book and not my life.

He raises one hand out the window to wave goodbye, then pulls away from the curb into the oncoming traffic. Exit stage left.

Hallie watches Oscar drive away and says, “Isn’t it weird how people come into our lives—could be for a year or a day—and then they just disappear? Or you meet someone and it’s as if you’ve always known them.”

“Yeah.”

We store her suitcase in a locker at the bus station and then check the departure screens. Delayed. The estimated time of departure is now 1:00 p.m., and I worry that she’s going to flip out again like she did last time, but she seems to take it in stride.

“Unreal,” she says. “Looks like you’re stuck with me for a little longer.”

“Challenge accepted,” I say.

“So—breakfast then?”

Which is how we end up winding our way through the downtown streets in search of a place open this early that isn’t another coffee chain. A few blocks away, we stumble upon an open taqueria with a giant red-and-white WE SERVE BREAKFAST sign out front. The building seems a little rundown, but this place has an A rating and a line, so hopefully it’s decent.

I hold the door open for her. A set of bells tied to the door handle jingles to announce our arrival. We order two breakfast burritos and coffees at the counter and then settle in at a weathered-looking, red wooden table with a wobbly leg near the window.

“You know this is probably going to be the best breakfast burrito you’ve ever had in your life.” She reaches for the bowl of creamers, pours one into her paper coffee cup, and then stirs it with her spoon. She nudges the creamer bowl toward me. “Want some?”

“No thanks, I take it unadulterated.” I pop the lid on my cup and am pleased to discover the cup is filled to the brim.

“Right. Black, no room.”

“Exactly.”

“When I heard you order it this morning at Starbucks, all I heard you say was ‘blacknoroom’ like it was one word, and I was thinking maybe that’s some fancy preparation. That is truly the difference between a caffeinated and an uncaffeinated mind.”

I laugh and look around. “Wow—my dad would have loved this place. He was always a fan of a good hole-in-the-wall joint. He used to like to watch that Guy Fieri show on the Food Network—Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. If ever there was an episode where it featured one within a two-hour radius, he would take me with him to check it out. He’d order exactly what Guy Fieri ordered every time so he could see if he agreed with the hype. It was pretty funny.”

“That sounds fun.”

“It was one of the things we used to do together. My mom was always busy with her practice and writing her books, and Alex never wanted to go. Gourmet breakfast was wasted on him. He ate a bowl of Captain Crunch for breakfast every single day. Sometimes he’d eat it for lunch or dinner too. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s sitting somewhere eating a bowl right now.” I laugh at the memory, but then my thoughts flip to my final image of Alex, forever seared in my brain.

She notices the change in my expression. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I was just thinking how the last time I saw my brother, he was unresponsive and sprawled out on the bathroom floor. I was scared he was going to die. And then when he didn’t, I was relieved and also pissed off, which was confusing.” I swallow the lump forming in my throat.

“And then you never spoke to him again after that?”

“Nope. After my parents sent him off to rehab for the third and final time, they told him not to come back, and he cut off all communication.” I blow on my coffee and take a tentative sip.

“Do you think he did it on purpose? Overdose, I mean?”

I shrug. “I’ve had that thought. It wouldn’t surprise me.”

“Does he know you’re the one that saved his life?”

“Not sure. For all I know, he might hold that against me.”

“Well, it’s about time you find out,” she says. An old guy with a comb-over and a grease-stained apron emerges from the back and delivers us two red plastic baskets filled with the most amazing-looking breakfast burritos in the history of breakfast burritos. It’s pure food porn. Then again, maybe I’m just really hungry. I’m running on the anti–food pyramid of birthday cupcakes and Taco Bell.

I tear into my burrito. “The last thing I ever said to him was pretty awful. We’d been having a celebration dinner for our mom because she’d been asked to be the guest speaker at some fancy women’s retreat near Big Sur. Alex made some crack minimizing her work, saying the retreat would be a bunch of middle-aged women in the woods masturbating their way to enlightenment.”

I realize I should explain who my mom is in case she doesn’t know. Hallie’s heard of her but doesn’t seem to care, which is a welcome change.

“That must have been interesting on career day,” she says with a smile.

“You have no idea. Anyhow, Alex was provoking my mom—trying to get a rise out of her like usual. She’d left the table crying, and my father sat there stewing, caught between them, until he got up and left too. Everything was so amplified. I yelled at Alex, ‘Why do you always have to make everything turn to shit?’”

She looks nonplussed. “Maybe it’s good you said that.”

I take another massive bite. “How so?”

She has another sip of coffee and daintily cuts into her burrito with a plastic knife and fork, making me seem like a Neanderthal. “When people say things in the height of emotion, they’re half true. Part of it is meant to hurt the other person, and the other half is their own pain about the situation. That’s where you need to start.”

It sounds like something my therapist, Carole, would say.

“I was thinking more along the lines of hello,” I tell her.

“No—I mean—maybe that’s where you start a dialogue with yourself to get to what you really want to say to him. Not just the facts and the experiences, but how those things made you feel. It might be uncomfortable, but if you can’t be honest, then what’s the point of coming all this way to see him?”

“What if he doesn’t want to talk to me? What if he shuts the door in my face?”

“What if he does? Just because you want him to react a certain way doesn’t mean he will, and you should be prepared for that.”

“How do you know all this stuff?”

She shrugs. “I watch a lot of Dr. Phil.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket again. I keep ignoring it. The more persistent the attempts get, the more annoyed I am by the intrusion. I reserve the right to not want anyone else getting in my head right now. It’s one of the few things I have control over.

“Let me handle it,” she says and holds her hand out, palm up for my phone.

“Wait—what are you going to do?”

“Will you please trust me?”

I hand her my phone, and she busies herself reading.

“Who was it?”

“A missed call and voicemail from Mother Ship, another text from Emoji Girl, and one from someone named Ajay telling you that Emoji Girl is having a meltdown trying to reach you and that he beat your high score on Pac-Man.”

“Did he say what his score was?” He’s been trying to beat mine unsuccessfully for years.

“I’m glad to see you have your priorities straight,” she kids.

“Did you know that Pac-Man was originally called Puck Man but when Midway started manufacturing the game in the United States for Namco, they changed the name to Pac-Man because they were worried about vandalism and people changing the P into an F?”

“I did not.” She types something on my phone and hands it back to me. “I sent each one a thumbs-up—the response that needs no response.”

“A thumbs-up?” I raise my eyebrows and laugh.

“It’s positive acknowledgement that lets someone know you’re alive, and that’s all you really owe anyone at this point.”

She’s not wrong.

She takes a bite of her food, and a dab of sour cream remains on her lower lip. I fight the urge to reach over and wipe it off. Instead I point to my lower lip in the universal mirroring pantomime for “you’ve got stuff on your face,” and she removes it with her napkin.

“Do you ever think about that?” I ask her. “How much you owe anyone?”

“All the time.”

“I mean—none of this is supposed to be happening. I’m not supposed to be here right now. You’re not supposed to be here right now. But the thing is—why not? Shouldn’t we be wherever we want to be, doing whatever we want to be doing? Within reason, of course.”

I pour some Cholula on the edge of my burrito.

“Define reason.” She pulls out a wad of napkins from the metal dispenser on the table.

“I can understand it in certain contexts. Like—if your parents are paying for college, don’t fuck around and party for four years and get all Ds. You’re in a relationship, so don’t sleep with someone else. You decide to have kids, so show up for them. But does my brother owe me something for saving his life? Do I owe it to my parents to go to Columbia or become a doctor? Do I owe it to Natasha to be friends?”

“Exactly. It’s like everything else we’ve talked about. At some point you need to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening. Like with Emoji Girl.”

I’m giddy at how much she would hate that nickname. “Natasha?”

“Whatever.” Hallie smiles and takes another sip of coffee. “If she’d been open to giving the whole long-distance thing a shot—if your conversation with her had gone another way—I bet you wouldn’t be standing here right now.”

I rock my head side to side, evaluating that. “True. I most likely would have stayed at the party with her, maybe gone somewhere else after. Probably not San Francisco though.”

“Exactly. But you are here. So maybe it’s like Oscar said: she was a catalyst for moving you toward where you are supposed to be. I believe people come into our lives for a reason, but it doesn’t mean they’re supposed to stay there forever.”

“Oooh, you’re good. My therapist would love you,” I compliment her.

She beams, encouraged. “Maybe this girl hasn’t figured out yet that even if the odds are against things working out, it doesn’t mean it isn’t worth trying. She doesn’t realize that everything is temporary. You—me—this burrito.”

Especially this burrito,” I say and tear off another piece.

“The real question is: What do you owe yourself?” Hallie shifts in her seat and tucks one leg under herself, staring at me.

“Oh—is that an actual question you’re asking me?”

“Like the whole college thing. It sounds like it’s a big deal to your family for you to go to Columbia. Did you always want that too? Or did you feel obligated, like you owed it to your parents to go if you got in?” She adds another creamer to her coffee. I seriously don’t understand how she can drink it like that. At least she’s not adding sugar.

“The idea of doing anything else was not even up for discussion,” I say. “I bought into the whole idea that certain schools are better than others and that if I didn’t get into Columbia, it meant I’d failed somehow. But now I’m realizing that’s bullshit. It doesn’t matter where you go; there are great teachers and opportunities anywhere. It’s what you put into it. And I don’t necessarily believe that success equals happiness.”

“Depends on the person’s definition of success.”

“Exactly.” This girl freaking gets me. “But I think you’re giving Natasha far too much credit for why I’m here. Like I couldn’t handle the rejection and so I went off the deep end. It’s not like that. But it certainly made it easier to leave.”

I yawn, and it makes her yawn.

She points her fork at me. “If you hide away what you think and feel and are just who others want you to be, it’s not the real you anyway.”

I could never have this sort of conversation with Natasha in a million years.

After breakfast, we spill back out to the street. There are still a solid four and a half hours before she has to be back. “Where do you want to go?” I ask.

“Let’s just walk,” she says.

So we do. And when we step off the curb and jaywalk, dodging traffic like we’re in a game of Frogger, she takes my hand.