Maine Squeeze (32 page)

I crept over to look more closely. It was the calico cat I'd almost fallen onto a minute ago, right near the gangplank. It had sneaked onto the ferry. But that didn't make sense. What did a cat want on the mainland?

The cat came out and rubbed against my legs. It had black-colored fur around its eye that almost looked like a pirate eye patch.

How did the cats get to the island? One took the ferry; one came from a pirate ship
.

I smiled. I couldn't wait to see Dad and Mom.

Banana Splitsville

How hurt do you have to be to sue for emotional distress?

Do you have to be completely devastated? Or can you just be extremely mad?

What about “really, really pissed off”? Does that hold up in court? I need to call
Judge Judy
. I need to be
on Judge Judy
. She'd rule in my favor. She would. After I made a devastating case against him. Which I think would be easy, even though I haven't exactly gotten into law school yet.

Is it bad form to drink a diet Squirt at 9 in the morning?

Well, I don't know, and I don't care. I don't even know why I'm writing this down—I don't keep a diary. But I have to jot this down—for history's sake. The History of Jerks.

Nothing I do could be in as bad form as what Dave did last night. I haven't even slept. Well, except from 4–8.

I can't believe I'm about to write this down. Dave actually broke
up
with me.

Broke up with
me
!

Sorry if I'm writing in really bad form, what Mr. Arnold calls “choppy” in my essays. But I feel a bit chopped up.

What was even worse than the fact he dumped me was how he did it. So tacky. Over the BBQ, while I watched my veggie burger burn, tempeh breaking down into flames like my life. I invite him over for a cookout, so we can plan how we're going to move all his stuff to Boulder next weekend. And he has a soda and some chips and then proceeds to tell me he's going to move on with his life now, thank you very much. Like I'll ever be able to eat again. He comes to my house and does this. Doesn't he know anything about how to break up with someone?

Oscar was running around the yard, yelping, like he does before a big thunderstorm and during fireworks every July 4th. Animals can
sense
these kinds of things coming—why didn't I?

What follows is actually what he said. I'm not making this up. I wish I were.

“We'd probably break up in October anyway, so we might as well do it now, start the year free and clear.”

Free and clear—that's like a
deodorant
, right? No, wait—that's a cell phone plan. Are you listening to the words coming out of your mouth, I wanted to say. Do you realize you are rhyming really offensive words, like “year” and “clear”?

“Yeah, and we'll probably die one day, so we might as well kill ourselves now,” I said, following his brilliant logic.

“Courtney. Don't be like that,” he said.

“Me? You're going to tell me how to be now?” That was when I got a little hysterical. Like he had the right to stand there and calmly eat barbecue-flavor potato chips and tell me my personality needed work. He's about as sensitive as a day-old hamburger bun. Which I wish I had served him. Maybe with nails inside the bun. He had orange-red powder on his lips from the chips and a speck or two on his soul patch. I was going to make fun of him, but I started thinking really depressing things like how I'd never kiss him again.

Then he thought he was getting through to me, because I was crying. So he went into his “this is really for
your
benefit” speech. “It'll be so different, with me away at college, I don't want to burden you or hold you back—”

“You're the one who doesn't want to be held back!” I said. “You don't want a high-school girlfriend. You want to go to frat parties and pick up girls—”

“I do not!” he said. “That's not why I'm doing this at all.”

“Then why
are
you breaking up with me?” I said.

Ha. He didn't have a comeback for that.

But unfortunately I got caught up in staring at him while I waited for his comeback and I realized he was wearing that T-shirt I bought him when we went on that trip to Phoenix and Taos last spring and it's all faded now and looks really good on him because the washed-out blue kind of matches his eyes. And I got so furious at him for being able to look good while being such a jerk that I told him to leave.

“I'll call you,” he said.

“Don't,” I said, indignantly, like you're supposed to. Then he drove off, just like that, and I started bawling like a two-year-old. Okay, like
Bryan
when he was two years old.

People warned me about this. Said it might happen. Alison (supportive big sister as always) said we
should
break up, because “that kind of relationship never works.”

“What
kind
?” I said.

“Long-distance,” she said.

“He'll be in the next town,” I said. “It's a half hour
drive
. When the traffic's bad.” From Denver to Boulder is nothing, people do it every day as a commute. They have buses on the half
hour
. Crowded ones. And we even live slightly on the west side of the city, which is that much closer. He could get here by bike, even.

“Same thing. You're not in school together anymore. It wouldn't work.”

Well, sure, it definitely wouldn't work
now
. After all the stupid things he said, about how we needed to grow and how we might find out we wanted to get back together, but we'd cross that bridge when we came to it.

I'm not crossing that bridge. I'm not even looking for it on a map. As far as I'm concerned, I was on that bridge, and he cut the rope on the other side, and now I'm hanging over a raging river, and people are going by in their kayaks and laughing at me. You know, those people who are really good at kayaking and never take off their sandals, not even in the winter. I hate those people. I think kayaks should be banned, except that extremely buff guys seem to paddle them bare-chested a lot.

I have to go back to school in a week. Ugh. Everyone's going to ask how my summer was, and I'm going to have to tell them me and Dave are over. That's so humiliating. Couldn't he have waited until October break or something? His timing sucks. Just like everything else about him. I can't believe what he did, I can't believe him. I'm never going out with another guy again. At least not for a long long long time. Mom doesn't care about men. Why should I?

Anyway, Dave's whole position is just so absurd. Alison, college girl, actually tried to
explain
his viewpoint. What does Alison know about relationships? She hasn't even had one since first grade with Timmy What's-His-Name.

Of course, she did sit up talking with me and Beth until 2
A.M
., and she did go out and buy Ben & Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie for us (which I technically don't eat anymore) (yum). We asked her to go, since Beth was so upset she was afraid if she went, she'd buy a pack of cigarettes. (She never gets asked for an ID. She's looked 20 for the last 3 years. Must be nice.)

Jane kept calling and we put her on speaker phone so she could join in the Dave-bash. Dave and I have been together for over a year. A whole year. Twelve months. We met last summer, and we were like John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John in
Grease
, only I have straight reddish hair and would never wear Spandex pants. Plus we fell in love in the summer and we didn't break up when school started. (At least, not
last
year.) And we didn't sing.

Anyway, now he wants to forget the whole thing and “move on” and “grow,” like a transplanted house plant in fresh soil. Mom tries that all the time. Each one
dies
. That's why she has the world's largest rock garden. Rocks, she can grow—or steal from national forests.

I hate plants.

I hope he gets replanted in that expansive soil that houses sink into and disappear. I hope he gets … what's that thing where you try to save water in your garden? Zeroscoped … xeriscaped … whatever. No water for Dave.

Mom and Alison left for Oregon today. I am supposed to be taking care of Bryan.

Like I'm not depressed enough.

Why is it so easy to write the first entry in a diary—and so hard to write the second? Is it because you read over what you wrote the day before and realize how dumb you sound? You tell yourself that you should never write in a journal when you're upset, because it ends up being so embarrassing to read it over. But the only time you really want to write in a journal … is when you're upset.

It's like a trick that blank book companies came up with. We keep grabbing for them, spilling out our guts, then getting embarrassed and throwing them out because we can't go on with page 2. Then we get upset three weeks later and buy another blank book and do the same thing. Total conspiracy. So forget it, journal industry. I'm not giving in, no matter how dumb-looking and dumb-sounding this is.

I could just … rip
out
the embarrassing pages, maybe. But that would probably ruin the binding. I'd really like to tear off the cover, except it's great camouflage because no one would ever guess this is mine. It's this disgusting pink-and-blue floral rose corduroy thing.
So
not me. It was a gift from Grandma Callahan (a Von Dragen by birth), who's still trying to feminine-ize me after all these years—like a pierced belly button with a small silver hoop isn't feminine.

Anyway, this book has about ten lines per page. Like I write that big anymore, like I'm a seven-year-old. I've already run over seven days with the first entry. That's okay; last night felt like it lasted a week.

Of course this style comes in handy on days when I don't want to write anything. Like, today.

Panicking about school. Contemplating calling in sick to Bugling Elk. For the entire year.

Home schooling works, right? People get into college from home schools.

Dropping out. Is the stigma really that bad? I mean, tons of kids do it, right?

I didn't tell Mom the whole story. She hates men enough already. I told her breaking up was a “mutual decision.”

That wouldn't explain why I was bawling while I watched
The Serengeti Scene
tonight. Lions, tigers, Dave. Oh my.

Oh crap.

Okay, I've figured out what I need. A new diary = a new attitude. Will throw this one out as soon as I get through this. Which, as much as I'm writing lately, won't be long.

Whatever I just said doesn't make any sense. Another reason to throw this out soon.

I'll buy a cool sketch book with a black cover so it looks like I am drawing or only writing brilliant thoughts that don't require lines because they come so fast and furiously.

Alison called me tonight. She's settled into her new dorm room at Stafford and she likes everything and Mom is on her way back.

There was this really loud music and high-pitched screaming in the background. I kept asking her what was going on and she said, “Oh, nothing.”

???

Since when does Alison hang out listening to loud alternative music with screaming girls? She hates them. She's supposed to be in like the conservatory or something. Playing concertos. Duets. In like … adagio. With a candle burning on top of the grand piano.

Then Dad called. Same old story from Phoenix. He's loving life and loving Sophia. Then he said he was very excited about becoming a grandfather soon.

“Don't push it, Dad,” I said. “I just told you that Dave and I broke up. Alison's perennially single, and Bryan is
so
not ready.”

He laughed and said he wasn't talking about
us
, he was talking about his stepdaughter, Angelina, who's having a baby in December, didn't he tell us?

Dad never tells us stuff and always thinks he has. It's chronic. Like when he was moving out.

(Sorry, but that still makes me mad.)

Angelina is only 17! And I'm not being judgmental, but I just can't imagine being a parent right now. I can barely take care of a dog. Do you give babies their pills in hot dogs, too?

Three days until school starts. Back to Bugling Elk High. Or, as I like to call it, Bulging Elk. I keep staring into my closet, as if there are answers in there, as if there are clothes I like in there. As if Dave's hiding in there.

I can't walk down the same bulging halls, sit at the same table we always sat at, listen to the same stupid bells ringing between classes. Also, after considering every item in my closet, my outfits suck. I'll need to focus more on outfits this year. Apparently I'm
single
now. I need to find dates and stuff.

Or not.

Beth and I had the same shift at Truth or Dairy this afternoon, masterfully mixing smoothies. Today was my day to be dairy and her day to be truth. I hate those days, because I guess you could say I'm pretty lactose intolerant. Or just sort of generally intolerant.