Notes From the Backseat by Jody Gehrman Page B

complicated. I never talk about the past with Coop if I can avoid it. I know it’s beautiful up here, rustic and quaint and all that shit, but in my mind it’s a big tangle of memories and misguided impulses, most of which I’d rather just put behind me. You were the best thing Sebastopol ever gave me and I got to take you with me when I left. Everything else I’d just as soon never talk about again. I guess that’s why Coop had half forgotten—didn’t even really know—that we were only about fifteen miles from the town where I was born and raised.
    â€œSo, what’s the plan?” Dannika was the princess waiting for her incompetent advisors to suggest a solution. I suppose it didn’t occur to her that our current situation was entirely her fault.
    â€œHow far back is Point Reyes Station?” Coop asked me.
    Before I could answer, Dannika barked, “There wasn’t any town.”
    I forced myself to stay calm. She was really starting to get on my nerves. To Coop I said, “Maybe four miles back.”
    â€œI swear to God there was nothing back there.” She sounded close to a meltdown. “The last town I saw was Stinson Beach, and that’s not far from San Francisco.”
    â€œWell,” I said, “it’s back there. Trust me.”
    â€œRight.” Coop got out of the car. “I guess I’ll try to hitch a ride and get us some gas. If worse comes to worst, I can probably walk there and get a ride back.” He leaned against the driver’s side and looked at the surfboards. “If we all go, our gear might get stolen. Then again, I hate to leave you two here…”
    â€œYeah, but think about it,” Dannika said. “We can’t all three hitch a ride—it’s easier if you just go. Besides, is Gwen going to walk four miles in those shoes?” She shot a bitchy look over her shoulder at my kitten heels. I wanted to tell her if she didn’t stop whining I’d happily plunge one of these sharp little heels deep into her heart (provided I could get past the silicone) but I bit my tongue. In some ways, I liked it better when Dannika was a pouty little wench. It made her even easier to hate.
    â€œKitten?” Coop put his hand on my head. His warm fingers made me want to curl up in his arms—more than that—I would have curled up inside his lungs right then, if it were possible. “What do you want to do?”
    As much as I hated the thought of spending the next hour or three stranded on the side of the road with the satanic blonde, I couldn’t come up with a better solution. “I guess Dannika’s right,” I said. “We’ll just stay with the stuff. But be careful about who you get a ride with. There are some freaky people out here.”
    â€œCan’t be worse than L.A., right?” He grinned.
    â€œYou’d be surprised,” I said.
    Â 
    One of the reasons I never go back to Sonoma County with you is because the land itself is polluted by my childhood. When I drive through Sebastopol, it’s like navigating a minefield. The deli on the corner reminds me of the time my dad and I went in there for Junior Mints and he left with the salami slicer’s phone number. I can’t drive past the old ballet studio on Valentine Avenue without thinking of my mother acting rude and tight-lipped with Miss Yee, my favorite teacher there; later, in the car, she blurted out that Daddy was sleeping with “that Chinese slut in the legwarmers.”
    I never took lessons there again. How could I concentrate on my pliés, when images of my father doing vague, obscene things under the covers to Miss Yee were burned into the eight-year-old folds of my brain?
    Sebastopol is riddled with these traps. Every store and restaurant, every open field and parking lot, every strip mall and house can be traced through an intricate mesh of connections back to some messed-up snapshot