One Week - By Nikki Van De Car Page 0,1
we have in common. I like mayonnaise on my fries, he likes ketchup. I like my privacy, my father wishes we had our own reality TV series. I hate everything about LA, and my father thinks it's the holy land.
I take several deep breaths, like I learned in the one yoga class I made it through. My heart rate is beginning to slow down. Talking to Julia helped—it made everything more normal, but at the same time it highlighted exactly how wrong everything about my life is.
So I'm just going to go. I am. I'm leaving. I'm seventeen years old, and I have a bank account with plenty of funds…that, so far, has never been used on anything but clothes and music, but still. I'm just going to go, and I won't look back.
I'm just not sure where I won't be looking back from.
I'm sitting in a cab and we're stuck on the 405, so I have plenty of time to think about that. I told Mr. Cabdriver to take me to LAX, but it occurs to me that maybe that wasn't the best idea. Then the purchase would show up on my bank statement and my dad could trace the flight and he'd see where I'd gone. It's not like you can just hop off a plane whenever you feel like it. What about trains? Do they still let you get on and off like Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy did in Before Sunrise? Probably.
“Um, excuse me?” I try and get the cabdriver's attention. “What's the nearest train station?”
The driver glances at the rearview mirror blankly. I guess no one travels by train anymore. “Union Station?” he asks, sounding uncertain. “It's back the other way.” He gestures behind us.
“Okay, that's where I want to go.”
“But it's back the other way,” he says, sounding insistent. I see a sign that the next exit isn't for another four miles, and we're sitting still. As are the cars heading the other way. I shrug.
“Well, that's where I want to go,” I say. “I don't care when we get there.” I pull out my iPod and close my eyes. It'll be a while. I can hear Mr. Cabdriver muttering to himself, but honestly, what does he care? This'll be a huge fare.
Two hours later, we pull up to the curb at Union Station. I hand Mr. Cabdriver the money, and he burns rubber pulling away. I gave him a generous tip, but he still seemed pretty pissed off.
I hoist my giant bag over my shoulder, head for the ticket booth, and get in line.
Watching the same ten people while we all stand in line for twenty minutes is not what I'd call entertaining. There's a mother with a whiny baby—and in need of a diaper change by the smell of things. Behind them is an old woman with a cane and three giant bags that she's doing her best to shove along, but she won't let anyone help her. Okay, she's kind of funny, just because she's so crabby. Does she really think people want to steal her stuff? There's a half-assed Goth geek with cheap home-dye black hair and a ratty-ass duffle bag. He's the most boring of the bunch, because he does absolutely nothing. He doesn't look around, he doesn't roll his eyes, he doesn't check his watch or sigh with impatience or anything. He just stands there, staring straight ahead.
Oh, thank the sweet god of train stations. The old lady is finally moving on, or attempting to, while glaring at the helpful porter. I wish for her sake she'd just pay the guy his ten bucks and grab her cane and give herself a break. At the rate she's moving those bags, she'll miss her train.
Goth Geek is much faster. He has exact change out for his ticket, he knows where he's going, and what platform his train is leaving on. Very well-informed.
Hey, a destination. That's probably something I should have been working out while waiting in line. I take some more deep breaths. I'm so out of it I can't think straight.
The trouble is, there's really nowhere I want to go. I want to be Away From Here, I want to go to Not LA, but that doesn't really narrow things down.
“Miss? Are you ready, or what?” the ticket agent snaps.
I jump, startled, and walk over to the window.
“Um, yeah. I'd like to go to…East. I'd like to go East.” Everything is East of California, right? I can make