Chapter One, the Journey

28 2 3
                                    


My ears popped like five times on the plane and didn't stop popping on the shuttle up. The shuttle bounced on this windy, whipbacked road that wound like a snake up the mountain. I sat at the back, holding my backpack in my lap, more nauseated by people's perfume and cologne than the twisting motion of the shuttle. The other passengers were impossibly rich. I figured that out because they were talking about visiting their second or third house in Hinterland. I don't know Hinterland, but so far it scared the crap out of me because I knew I was waiting at the airport for a shuttle and I knew the shuttle was going to eventually take me to Crazy Creek and the only shuttle there had WELCOME TO HINTERLAND splashed across the sides, with low-res cartoon people skiing and snowboarding. Right as the shuttle started to gun, a security guard kindly asked me if I was waiting on someone, and when I managed to find my shuttle ticket, he sprinted across the parking lot, waving his hands, bellowing STOP! There was a little talk about how I'm an Unaccompanied Minor (just like getting onto the plane back at home) and he let me on. I really wish I thanked him. I tried to call him up now; round, soft brown eyes, brown skin with raises freckles. He reminded me of brownies, which reminded me of home, which made me wish he found $100 on the ground and got a job in a movie and got to work wherever he wanted and someone married him and loved him.

Anyhow, Hinterland. Sorry, I keep going backwards. Hinterland is the town before Crazy Creek. It's in a little basin in the mountains, so there's a 360 degree mountain view anywhere in the town. Everyone was talking about how they were visiting their second or third home, but as if they were annoyed at it. "I just want to stay home, one home!" exasperated one lady. Across the aisle, two men were talking—"If it were up to me, I'd stay in a hotel, but the wife—!" I don't know where that man's wife is, but maybe he and the woman who just wants one home could get married, and their partners can marry each other. No one wanted to say they were happy to have a second or third house, their "Hinterland Home". It seemed like they thought it was gauche to be excited about going somewhere. Only their kids were excited, and the grownups kept scolding them for swinging their feet, breathing on the glass, and pointing at things out the window.

"See that girl?" asked one mom, pointing. "She's sitting quietly. You can do that too." The kid she was talking to barely glanced at me, seemingly humiliated to be scolded in comparison to the image of a strange girl, averting her eyes humbly from the epitome of good behavior.

Yeah, sure, be more like me. You're in a new place and you barely look out the window. You brought a book but you can't even read it. You can't bring yourself to get your headphones out and listen to music, because you're worried your battery will freak and die if you use your phone for even one non emergency. Just be so depressed and anxious that nothing matters to you. Just sit and be quiet. Isn't that the best thing to be?

If the security guard was here, he would probably look at me and roll his eyes and I would roll mine back and feel better. I started to imagine him there, sitting beside me, but I realized I didn't ever look at him properly so I wouldn't conjure him to mind. It was just the dark eyes, the raised freckles, the big waving hands.

When I was a kid, I was lonely. My mo—

my d—

my parent's didn't get me, I guess, and they were always busy. Sometimes my—one of them would look at me and then look at the other like, whose idea was it to have a kid again? Sometimes they would say, isn't she your daughter? Oh wait, I thought she was YOUR daughter! Well I didn't have a daughter, did you? And go on and on. I guess they thought it was a funny joke? But I'm pretty sure it was... real. Whether they knew it or not. Sometimes I would say something like... something I guess that wasn't normal but it wasn't bad. Like I think the last weird thing I said was "I think all spoons should be wooden. It's the best material for spoons." I mean, the way your lips wrap around a spoon... you want it to be a good material, right? And wood is soft and comforting, and it goes well with the flavor of stuff like oatmeal and soup and—well, obviously, it's hard to explain. But my dad just looked at me like I was... gross or weird or something. And they looked at each other and then one did a little sigh and they didn't say anything.

Party LineWhere stories live. Discover now