“Just forget it.” He waves his hand in the air, maybe trying to swat away what he just said. “It was really stupid of me to think—”
“Um, this has been a weird night for me, so I’m just going to be honest. I actually find you very attractive, and you seem like an amazing uncle, which is cool. I’d probably sleep with you just so I could steal your Too Fast for Love original vinyl and then feel guilty and ask you out for a meal or something afterward to make you feel better about losing such an amazing rock artifact. We might even make it a regular thing, who knows? But I just left my husband—like yesterday. I’m back in South Jersey for the first time in years, and I’m now forced to deal with my incredibly fucked-up mother. I’m not in the best shape emotionally. I should probably tattoo the word trap on my forehead for the well-being of nice honest men like yourself. Then I find out about Mr. Vernon being beaten with a baseball bat, and—”
“I loved Mr. Vernon. That was a real shame, what happened to him.”
“You were in his class?”
“One of the best experiences of my life. I’ll never forget it. He gave us these cards on the last day of school. ‘Official Member of the Human Race,’ it says. Did he do that for your class too? I can actually quote the whole card by memory, because I’ve been carrying it in my wallet—I have it on me now, in fact—and I read it at least once a day just to remind myself that . . . well, anyway, I loved Mr. Vernon. Loved him like a father. Best teacher ever.”
I fight an urge to wrap my arms around Chuck’s neck.
I’m blinking back tears.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
“You think that’s weird, right? Still carrying that old card Mr. Vernon gave everyone at the end of high school? Dorky, I know, but that class—and, well, that card got me through a really tough time in my life. Why am I telling you—I’ve never even told Danielle about—I’m such an asshole. Why would you even care about any of this?”
“I really have to go, Chuck,” I say.
“Yeah, I’m a douche.” He smacks himself in the head. “Who quotes ‘Talk Dirty to Me’ as a pickup line the first time he meets a woman? Ridiculous! Not even a shirtless Bret Michaels in his prime could get away with that!”
He’s sweating.
It’s like he’s fifteen.
I think of Jason Malta, and suddenly I’m smelling Drakkar Noir in my mind.
I’m tempted to believe in good men again.
Just a tiny bit.
His still having that card Mr. Vernon gave us on the last day of school, our shared love of Mötley Crüe, those bright eyes . . . it all seems like some sort of undeniable sign—maybe even like the beginning of something—but it’s all happened much too quickly, and I need time to think, process, and catch my breath.
“Good night, Chuck,” I say, and then walk up the steps of my mother’s home.
Inside I find Mom asleep in front of the Buy from Home Network.
An attractive middle-aged man sporting a sharkskin suit and a widow’s peak is encouraging viewers to build a crystal menagerie piece by piece as lights shine and sparkle off various glass animals—panda bears and giraffes and wolves and pelicans and starfish and so many other alluring shapes that easily persuade people like my mother to spend what little savings they have, only to stick the knickknacks on shelves to collect dust until their owner dies and the menagerie gets sold at a fraction of the purchase price or thrown away by uninterested daughters like me.
My mother looks like a passed-out-drunk-on-its-back rhinoceros in a pink sweat suit—tree-trunk-thick neck, giant belly, stubby arms and legs.
There is junk stacked everywhere around us.
And I think about how that nun I met on the airplane used the word quest in the letter she wrote me.
Like I’m a modern female version of Don Quixote.
Quest.
I’m going to write that crazy nun, I think.
Why not?
I’m not afraid of windmills.
“You can have a crystal zoo in your cabinet,” the slick man on TV says. “Gaze at your sparkly little friends daily and feel a little less alone.”
“Bastard,” I say.
I stare down at my mom, and then I have another lawn-dart-to-the-eye moment.
I will not become my mother.
I will leave this house and have adventures. Go on quests, even. Hear the universe’s call.
And Mr. Vernon is out there somewhere—most likely alone. He’s probably a mess after what happened. Who wouldn’t be absolutely fucked in the head after being beaten almost to death with a baseball bat by one of his own students?
I need to make sure he continues to do what he was called to do—teach. Who will help the fucked-up kids if he quits?
Save Mr. Vernon.
My three-word quest.
Maybe this is why my marriage failed, why I haven’t been able to accomplish anything in life so far, why I never even attempted to write the novel Mr. Vernon encouraged me to write “when I was ready.” Maybe I was being groomed and conditioned and led to this very mission. By the universe. By God? Whatever you wanna believe in.
And to think I almost killed Khaleesi and Ken with the Colt .45 just last night—how close I was to failing.
Fate.
Greek fucking theater.
I’m living it now.
“Everything suddenly makes so much sense,” I whisper in the glow of my mother’s TV. “It has to.”
PART TWO
NATE VERNON
CHAPTER 6
Albert Camus and I begin the day as we always do, by eating breakfast.
He has once again beaten me by cleaning his bowl in less than thirty seconds, inhaling the food as if he’s afraid I might take it away, which I believe happened to him on a regular basis before we began living together.