Chapter 9: Skylar

Mostly Jo Beth slept, but when she was awake, her face was lifeless and her hair was droopy and greasy. She stopped showering and for weeks she languished, waiting for her knee to heal while she barely talked to me. It was like she was living her own version of Becoming Ophelia or Prozac Nation. All day she’d loudly sing along to the Ramones and take selfies, photos where she pouted for the camera and then posted them to Facebook, with captions like “so sad, can’t talk about it…”

I found a lot of excuses to stay with Mom and Dad, until one evening I came home to Jo Beth’s condo and found it empty, her clothing and prized possessions all packed up, except for her silver medal, which still sat in its display case.

She’d left a note on the refrigerator:

Sky,

I’ve decided to backpack through South America. I’ll contact you when I can, but they don’t have a lot of cell phone towers there and I hear the internet connection sucks. Feel free to stay in my condo as much as you want; in fact, it’s better if the place looks lived in. And don’t worry. I still love you.

Jo Beth

The moment I read the note I turned around and drove straight back to my parent’s house. "Mom!" I yelled as soon I walked through their front door. I assumed, and rightly so, that Dad would be in his garage-turned art studio. But instantly I found Mom in the living room.

"Mom! Jo Beth is gone."

Mom sat in her favorite chair, an old fleece blanket with its permanent chocolate ice cream stains draped over her lap. She was reading the latest most popular novel. This was predictable behavior for her, since Mom spent most of her expendable income on books from the best-seller shelf at Barnes & Noble. I plopped down on the couch adjacent to Mom's chair and handed her the note. She took it without speaking and read it calmly, as if it was another page from the book she’d been reading.

 

"South America, huh?" She handed the note back to me. "Interesting choice. I would have picked Europe. It's much easier to get around and way more people speak English. She’ll be so isolated in South America.”

"That’s precisely why she chose it. So we can't get a hold of her.” Fat tears began their slow escape from my eyes. "It's all my fault. She left because of me."

Mom leaned forward and patted my knee. "I'm sure that's not true, Honey. Jo Beth has been unhappy lately, and not just because of what happened with the Olympics and the fight you two had." Mom took a deep breath, rolling back her shoulders as she inhaled. “She needed a change of scenery. Her celebrity has faded a little and I could tell she was getting stir-crazy.” Mom’s eyes shifted, straying off towards the distance. “Jo Beth can be like me in that way."

"What do you mean, stir-crazy?"

Mom bit her bottom lip for a moment, choosing carefully what she was about to say. "Just that her ups and downs are rather extreme, and lately she's mostly been down."

Perhaps I'd noticed this tendency in Jo Beth, but I was only sixteen, and I'd never really thought about it too hard. I certainly didn't know what Mom was talking about when it came to herself. She was the steadiest person I knew.

 “What do we do now?” I asked.

“There’s nothing to do,” Mom replied. “If Jo Beth wants to explore the world, we can’t stop her.”

“But aren’t you worried? What if she’s the victim of a drug lord, or she gets Yellow Fever, or she falls into the Amazon?”

“Bad things can happen anywhere, Sky.”

“Yes, but she’s in way more danger there than she is here.” Absently, I tugged at a snarl in my long brown hair. “And if Jo Beth did get into trouble here, we’d be aware and we could do something. But if she’s in Argentina, or Brazil, or Portugal, we wouldn’t even know and we certainly couldn’t help.”

“Portugal is in Europe.”

“Mom! Take this seriously.”

Mom pushed up her wire-rimmed reading glasses so they sat right below her forehead, and brushed a lock of her auburn hair (courtesy of Revlon, shade 5R) behind her ear. She gave me a thin-lipped smile and the seconds dragged out as I waited for her magic words, the ones that would make everything all right.

“Darling, you can move back in with Dad and me. In fact, I insist. You’re way too young to be living in an empty condo all by yourself.”

I didn’t say anything; I just let the truth settle over me like a dense fog. Jo Beth was gone, and not even Mom could bring her back.

Junior year ended, summer passed, and then I was a senior, which meant a light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted to be somewhere different, somewhere with ivy-covered towers and stone pathways along a wide river, where I’d find people to pontificate with about the complexities of the Brontës’ work versus Jane Austen. And maybe, if I wore a wool pea coat and leather boots instead of a parka and Sorels, I’d finally feel comfortable in my own skin. Consequently, I stayed focused, studied hard, finished my college essays, and kept my fingers crossed about getting into Cornell.

I spent my days with my chin down, eyes focused on my text books, working hard, and keeping up my GPA. My only social life came from ski club, because I’d occasionally attend a party after we won a meet. I’d never had a boyfriend, unless you counted guys like Nick from The Great Gatsby or Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. But I fancied myself a true literary heroine, and inside my mind I took risks, unafraid of where my imagination led me, ready to jump over the pitfalls of uniqueness on my way to maturity.

After the school day let out, if I didn’t have ski practice I would walk to my mother’s bakery and usually I’d help her by washing dishes or kneading bread. One afternoon the smell of pumpkin bars hung in the air for blocks before I reached the bakery’s door, and I could almost taste the buttery, spicy, goodness that would become my after-school snack. Yet when I walked into the bakery, it wasn’t my mother I found behind the counter, but a boy I sort of recognized as having graduated last spring.

“Um, hi,” I said. “Do you work here now?”

When he smiled, his baby-face grew slightly leaner. “You’re Skylar. I remember you from art class.” He reached a hand over the counter to shake. “I’m Gavin. Your mom just hired me.”

As we shook hands I gave him the once over. His medium brown hair was short in the back but flopped onto his forehead; his large, crooked nose gave his face character; and his plump lips looked soft. For a brief, unintentional moment, I imagined those lips on mine, but I shook that idea off quickly.

“Hello again,” I said, pulling my hand away. “I didn’t know my mom was hiring.”

His grin expanded, making the right side of his mouth rise up half an inch higher than the left. “She wasn’t, but I came in with a plate of these—” he pointed to the pumpkin bars,“—and I convinced her to take me on.”

“Oh.”

“Here, try one.” He nudged the platter toward me and I took a bar.

“Oh my GOD!” I said, after my first bite. My taste buds were exploding. “How did you learn to make these?”

“I’m guess I’m pretty much self-taught,” Gavin answered. “Trial and error, you know? And I read a lot.”

“Yeah, me too.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, hoping I wasn’t smearing cream cheese frosting across my chin. “I mean, I don’t read books about baking, but I read a lot of books on my own, trying to learn about literature, and writing, and well, you know…”

I let my voice trail off, aware that I sounded pretty inarticulate, especially for a self-professed English scholar. Yet Gavin looked at me like I’d just uttered the wisdom of the ages.

He raised his eyebrows. “You’re a writer, right?”

Oh, God. Did he remember the Facebook incident with Neal?

“I always saw you writing in your notebook,” he continued. “Usually at lunch and you’d have such a serious look on your face that I assumed you were writing something really deep.”

I laughed, embarrassed. “Not really. I never had anyone to sit with, so I tried to look busy, because that’s less pathetic than looking needy.”

“Yeah.” He blinked at me and I marveled at how comfortable I felt. Admitting this truth to him was like a long exhale after holding my breath.

“High school cafeterias are the worst,” he said. “I wish I’d known, though, that you were maybe up for some company. I’d have introduced myself a long time ago.”

My smile started in my stomach, right at the spot where that pumpkin bar had landed. Now I’d be looking forward to my afternoon bakery visits for the entire day.