The Suggestion Box (Volume 1)

Part 3: Golden Gate Wishes (1)

Based on the following Suggestions:

Names: Neal D. Parker, Suzannah
Times: Winter Solstice, 5 minutes to midnight, 11:59 PM, 1988
Places: San Francisco Bay Area, cave hidden behind a waterfall
Objects: baby, electric A-frame guitar

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On the Greyhound Bus headed south on Interstate 5, she was barely noticeable. Just another brown-haired girl in a dark grey-green jacket with a ruffled floral mini over black leggings peeking out from under it, and a tan shoulder-bag draped across her lithe frame. Leaning against the window, letting its cool comfort her in the steaming, stuffy interior. There were a few groups traveling on the same bus, some couples, several solo travelers—nearly every seat had been taken, but a well-timed dirty look and a carefully erected aura of standoffish-ness had deterred any company on the two seats next to her. No young, antsy traveler pounded the back of her seat; no oblivious senior confused her row for his own. A wall of unwelcome could very well have fenced off that entire row. She preferred it that way; no one could know that, in her mind, those seats held the ghosts of the mother and the boyfriend she'd left behind.

She could see them in her mind's eye; they had been following her with their disapproving stares ever since she left Los Angeles. Her fingers curled into a fist as she recalled the last time she ever saw her boyfriend.

He should have known she'd be hurt; he should have known that there are no words to fill the void left vacant by his absent common sense. She cried, she begged, she made all her promises and reminded him of the ones he had yet to fulfill, but he was through. There was nothing she could do to make him stay. He didn't even hear her any more, over the sound of his own voice, making excuses. He talked and he talked—but he was already at the door, already leaving. He walked out without so much as a backward glance.

That's when the last tether holding her back from everything she imagined their life could have been together, keeping her in Los Angeles—had snapped. She had nothing else in LA, if not him. Why she had entered into the relationship expecting anything different from the quintessential Hollywood wannabe, she couldn't say. She recovered from her grief sometime around evening. With the vulnerability gone, all she had left were walls, steely determination and fierce independence. She felt driven out of the place she had referred to as "home" for so long. She started to pack.

In the blazing orange light of the sunset outside the bus as it sped across the iconic red suspension bridge, she snorted to herself. Of course, her mother would call while she was packing; she chalked it up to a mother's intuition to know if and when her daughter and the boyfriend have a fight, just so she could call and make her daughter even more uncomfortable.

"So what are you and He doing today?" her mother's voice was light and casual; she'd liked Him—mostly.

"Nothing," she'd replied, hoping her mother would get off this painful topic and be distracted by the real reason she called.

Apparently, her relationship was the reason her mother called. "Nothing? I don't believe it for a second; you two lovebirds are always doing something!"

"Not today." Please! Just hang up the phone and go away!

"Is it that he perhaps made plans and didn't tell you? Oh, He would be one to plan a surprise! Do you think He wants to propose?"

"Mom! Please! Just—He didn't make any plans for either of us. I'm going on a trip—like now, so—"

"A trip? When did you decide—Oh, Suzannah!" Her mother realized the truth and gasped.