This Golden State, page 19
“When I found out you were homeschooled, and I listened in on your conversation with Professor Alexiev, I knew how badly you wanted to stay in the class and how frustrated you were that you couldn’t keep up. I was worried. I imagined you trying to get out from under controlling parents like me and I wanted to throw you a line. I knew my dad’s company had that internship. That Allison from class now has.”
I half-laughed, trying to keep things light, but I wished he would stop talking about his impression of me.
Harry nervously flipped the console up and down a few times. “I’ve been thinking I need to distance myself. That it doesn’t matter how soft your voice is or how you become more and more gorgeous every single day, how sexy you are with your summer tan and even darker freckles.” Surprised, I looked over at him. “How you’re so multilayered and textured and smart. And how you seem to just get it. To get me. And how fucking lonely everything can be when you make yourself unknowable.”
My eyes welled up. What he’d said was so nice. And he was right—I did get it. I knew the loneliness. I knew exactly.
Harry shifted in his seat. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but everything about you makes me want to keep you safe. When you said those words about bad things happening in families? It made me feel safe. But how’s it going to work, Poppy? I don’t know if you still want to be with me after the way I’ve acted. And after what you saw. And know. I’m fucked up,” he said.
“You have no idea how fucked up I am,” I said. An unexpected tear slid from the corner of my eye.
“I’m sorry you saw my dad like that. The sight of me has been setting him off all summer.”
“It’s not your fault, Harry.”
“Why does it feel like it?”
“That’s the shitty thing about shame,” I said.
At that, Harry looked exhausted but so much lighter. As he’d spoken, a weight seemed to come off him, his secret easing off his shoulders. It was a beautiful thing to see. It must have taken so much to expose your deepest shame and then say what Harry did next.
“It’s never worked out when I’ve gotten close to people. Still, I really want this.” He looked at me, finally.
At that moment, the car crested the tree line and plateaued. The Pacific Ocean stretched to infinity.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Pacific was a gray-blue, and the beach was quiet and pristine. I saw four surfers in wet suits, two older women strolling the long expanse of state beach, and a couple about our age as they ventured into the water to their shins. Harry and I stared out at the powerful waves, the couple getting sprayed and laughing with surprise, then glee.
Am I really here? For years—while living in the crappiest apartments with leaking roofs, skittering roaches, and broken heaters—I’d stared at my mother’s painting of the ocean. I remembered arriving at one dirty apartment, sitting on the very edge of a ripped-up sofa, afraid but holding it in. I’d looked to the painting for some kind of hope. Now here I was. It felt like I’d finally arrived. That inexplicable feeling that I’d come home.
“Why is the beach so empty?” I asked.
“It’s the middle of the day on a Monday. And Northern California surf is rougher and colder than Southern California’s. I used to go to boogie-boarding camp in Malibu.”
“Of course you did,” I teased.
“Yeah, yeah.” Harry got a little embarrassed. I was reminded that he wasn’t who I’d thought he was. Before, it was thrilling enough that he was interested in me, that he’d made my birthday special before things went off the rails. But part of my old impression of him had stuck with me: that he was shallow because he could afford to be, that I was summer entertainment, that he would move on to the next thing soon. Maybe because of that, I’d thought he was safe. I’d labeled him as my infatuation, too cool for me, a rich kid with fine everything: fine features, clothes, stuff.
But I had never shaken the feeling that I couldn’t quite pinpoint him. And he had kept surprising me. He was more broken than I could have guessed, but also deeper and far more kind. Still playing in my mind was his surprising vulnerability in the car.
Wind whipped through my hair. I grabbed it into a ponytail, then held on to it with one hand.
“You cold?” Harry asked.
“Only a little.”
I was surprised when, in response, Harry moved behind me and slowly enveloped me in his arms, like he was giving me plenty of opportunity to say no. He was scared that I’d changed my mind about him. But when I leaned back against him, I felt his muscles relax. He was relieved I still wanted him to touch me after I’d seen a part of him kept carefully hidden.
The two older women passed us on their walk and one of them smiled. “God, what was it like to be that young?” I overheard her say to her friend.
“Heaven.”
* * *
My shirt came off and I was sitting in Harry’s front seat in a bra and skirt. We’d escaped the cold wind and we needed to start driving back. But one thing had led to another and well …
Harry’s shirt came off, too.
“No one can see us. These windows have tinting,” he said.
“But I can sometimes see you when you drive away.”
“Shhhh,” Harry murmured against my lips, laughing.
I pulled away and scanned the parking lot. There were only two other cars and an honor-system pay station made of splintering wood.
“One more minute and then we have to go,” I said. I reached for him again, wanting the skin-to-skin contact. The way Harry kissed me now seemed different. Almost more intimate rather than just dazzling me with his skills.
I ran my palms down his chest, feeling the delineation of the six-pack on his stomach with my fingertips. “How do you have so much muscle? You’re so skinny!”
“That tickles. I don’t know,” Harry said, catching my hands when they moved to his sides, over his jutting ribs.
I could not stop touching Harry. I was so attracted to him. Not only when I was half-naked with him. Always. Sitting next to him in summer school, in the car, watching him tear into the classroom late.
“You’re so pale here. You even have freckles on your chest,” Harry said and leaned back to look.
“Stop staring!” I was only sort of joking.
“Why? I love it. I love you,” he said.
I wasn’t sure I’d heard right. Before I could react, Harry’s lips were on mine and he was kissing me intensely to distract from what he’d accidentally said. He didn’t mean it. He’d been talking about how I looked.
But even in the one hour since Harry had told me about his family, he seemed happier, more fully himself because he’d let go of his secret.
I’d had a lot of time to think about what it takes to keep a secret. You have to suppress parts of yourself. You have to compartmentalize in order to keep a secret safe.
Witnessing Harry’s happiness made me wish I could let go and be myself, too.
* * *
Harry stroked my knee while he drove on the freeway home, avoiding the curvy roads.
I scooted closer. My shirt was unbuttoned a button too low, the hem of my denim skirt was a few inches too high, and Harry’s hand traced over the bare skin. My hair was tangled from the wind and loose around my shoulders. In the side mirror, I saw that it had lightened and reddened to a strawberry blond.
It’s okay, I told myself. Enjoy your time with him while you can.
“What are you doing after this?” I asked.
“Skate park,” Harry said decisively. “It’s better if I go.”
“What do you mean?”
“I stay out late. Stay out of the way. And I go insane if I don’t skate.”
“Because you love it that much?”
Harry didn’t even skip a beat. “That, and I need it.”
“You need it?”
“I feel free. I have some control. I don’t know, that’s where I get calm.”
“You also get hurt a lot,” I said.
“But I love it,” Harry said.
Like you love your dad, I thought. And he also hurts you. I’d seen the magazine clipping of his father taped above Harry’s computer. Whether or not he said it, Harry was proud.
“You can love and hate the same thing. Sometimes at the same time,” I said, worrying for Harry.
Harry’s eyes became guarded, knowing from my tone exactly what I was suddenly referring to. “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”
“What?”
“You’re not pissed off?” Harry asked.
“About what?” I edged my shoulder closer to my window.
“That you don’t have any freedom? Look, we have to get you home by four o’clock. The look in your eyes when you tell me that, I don’t mess with it. I know you mean it.”
I didn’t have a response. I inhaled long, relieved at the cool air circulating through Harry’s car.
I hadn’t been talking about myself.
Then why, in my heart, did I so completely understand Harry’s complicated emotions?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“Poppy? This Friday? After class, I have time to meet,” Professor Alexiev said, looming over me and consulting the calendar on her phone.
I’d thought the promised meeting had slipped Professor Alexiev’s mind, and I’d been a little sad about it. When we’d sat down to discuss my assessment, she’d mentioned discussing what classes I could take after ours ended. It was all for nothing, but I was excited for her extra attention. I liked seeing myself through Professor Alexiev’s eyes, hearing what she thought I was capable of.
“Yes!” I said a little too enthusiastically. So much for acting cool about it.
“Wait, why are you meeting with Professor Alexiev? Didn’t you already have your conference?” a kid named Cliff asked. Harry gestured with a tilt of his head that he’d meet me outside. The next three hours were ours.
“We’re going over some things?” I said, not sure how to answer. Cliff looked from me to the professor’s back, wondering how he could get an extra meeting. Harry had told me how so many kids and their parents were after a teacher recommendation from Professor Alexiev for college applications. They believed that a recommendation from her would help differentiate them from the competition. I was on the outskirts, but over the past weeks, I grasped the pressure my classmates felt. The scent of overachieving was practically in the air.
Outside the classroom, I saw Harry sitting crisscross-style on the lawn and laughing to himself at something on his phone. When he laughed, his entire body shook and his eyes sparkled, even at the dumbest things.
“What was up with Cliff?” Harry asked. He grabbed my hand in full sight of the rest of the class as they trickled out of the room. Harry had been doing that today—acting far more affectionate in public.
“Oh, he’s wondering why I get extra time with Professor Alexiev on Friday.”
“You’re going over test stuff?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know. She mentioned advising me on what I need to complete in order to apply to colleges. Since I don’t have all my grades because of homeschooling.”
Harry looked at me. “Wait, you don’t?”
“Don’t what?”
“I guess I thought you were doing some master homeschooling program that colleges accept.”
“It’s a little more haphazard than that.”
“But you know a lot of math, so it’s not that haphazard. Are you mostly self-taught, then?” Harry was distracted by his phone buzzing and pulled it from his pocket to check.
“I’ve been to some schools.”
Harry replaced his phone in his pocket. “You never told me that. Where?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does! I want to know you better.” Harry walked backward a few steps, facing me. He caught my waist to stop me, then leaned in. I gently held his cheekbones with my fingertips while we kissed right in front of the school entrance.
A shadow passed over us as someone walked by. Harry pulled back.
It was Allison from class. Her eyes were wide from witnessing Harry’s and my make-out session. Harry surprised me by giving a little smirk, then moving in to continue the kiss.
“I thought you wanted to be secret about this.”
Harry simply shrugged one shoulder.
* * *
“You’ll get me back on time?” I asked Harry.
“Have we been late yet?”
“Almost,” I said. My foot was tapping incessantly, my knee bouncing up and down. I didn’t even realize until Harry placed a hand on my knee to still it, then intertwined his fingers with mine.
Harry said he was starving so he wanted to take me to a café where I could “work” and he could eat. My continuously aborted search for Carol was hanging over me.
I’d been close to letting it go. It was beyond stressful. Also, leading nowhere.
But then, before I’d left for class that morning, my dad asked to see my phone. I’d obediently handed it over, biting my tongue. He’d scrolled through, then handed it back to me without a word of explanation. In a way that made me feel … helpless.
“Your hand is ice-cold. I can turn off the AC.” At a stoplight, Harry turned down the air, then enclosed my hand in both of his to warm it up.
It was weird how my body seemed to register my uneasiness about the search before my mind. I felt fine, but my hands were cold and I could feel my pulse in the backs of my legs.
“I saw your family that day,” Harry was saying. “They seemed nice. I mean, that was your dad, right? With your sister on the back of his bike?”
I’d been worried about my dad seeing Harry. I hadn’t given much thought to what Harry saw. I assumed he’d driven off, uninterested in my family.
“That was your dad, right?” Harry asked again.
“Yeah.”
“What’s his job? I mean, it’s cool that he’s free in the middle of the day to pick you up and to ride around with your sister. Did he sell a company or cash out his options like seemingly everyone else who lives around here?”
I settled on: “He has a pretty flexible schedule,” hoping that would end it.
But Harry kept talking. And talking. He’d told me earlier that he was hungry because he’d forgotten to take his ADD meds that morning. “It was nice. Your dad was so happy to see you. He looked proud of you. And he looked psyched to be a dad and looking after your sister in the middle of the day. Damn, he’s in great shape and about a million years younger than my dad. You run together, right?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, fiddling with the air vent.
“Well, he seemed really cool and normal. I imagined this oppressive dude with all of your rules, but you looked excited to see him. It was nice how your dad got off the bike so he could walk next to you. And your sister was sitting on the seat in the back and singing. You guys could have been a portrait from the seventies with that old bike.” Harry smiled to himself, and I thought he was off the subject when he turned his head to glance at the juice bar on the corner. But then he asked, “He’s your real dad?”
“What?”
“I mean, the DNA test. I just thought maybe…”
I didn’t answer, hoping Harry would get the message and back off. Harry was asking more questions. Like he’d said—wanting to know me better.
I’d been hurt when Harry said he preferred to keep things secret and low-key. But in hindsight, that made sense. Harry had wanted to protect himself. Keeping things casual was where he felt okay. In Harry’s experience, trust equaled pain. That was the case in his relationship with his father, with the girl he had recently dated. Even to a lesser extent with his mother, when she left him to fend for himself with his dad.
I felt myself falling for Harry all over again when I realized how big a deal it was that he was letting me in and trusting me. Me of all people. The one person who would never be honest with him.
The thing about our agreement … it had worked for me too. Now Harry was holding my hand in public, and today he’d kissed me out in the open.
A darker, more mature part of me was beginning to sound warning bells. Harry was making me nervous with his questions. It was a problem that he wanted more.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Without a word, Harry slid his laptop across the small round table in the café. It was the lunch rush and the place was packed. I looked longingly outdoors at the fountain, dogs tied beneath tables, children meandering with food in hand. Harry had planted us in a corner inside and I hadn’t spoken up.
“I’m buying you lunch. What do you want?” Harry asked directly, nonchalantly, as if we always went to restaurants together.
“No. Let me buy you lunch. As thanks for letting me use your laptop,” I said quickly, shaking my head.
“Some other time. I’ll get in line. You probably want to get started on your research. The passcode is my birthday—1226. There’s Wi-Fi here. What do you want to eat?”
I looked at the slate menu board and couldn’t even focus. “That’s nice of you. Surprise me. I like everything.” Harry turned toward the line. “Harry,” I called. “Thank you.” He nodded and gave me a small smile.
I’d learned that every second I had by myself counted. I made sure Harry was in line and back on his phone, as usual, before I opened the laptop. It was so new, the hinge was stiff when I folded it back. I entered 1226. It took a moment to connect to the Wi-Fi, and then I was off. Alone with Carol Gilbert.
Finally, I could click on the third Carol Gilbert listed on the white pages.
Age: 75; Lives in: San Francisco; Related to: Joseph P. Connelly, Jr., Harold Gilbert, Julie Gilbert; Used to live in: Pacifica, Redwood City.
My heart drummed as my fingers hovered above the keyboard. Now what? Harry was talking on the phone and looking around outside the restaurant, searching for something. The line was still long ahead of him.
