Tart by Jody Gehrman Read Free Book Online

wasn’t exactly an ideal condition for conversation.
    CLAY: I’m not in love with her anymore. I want you to understand that.
    CLAUDIA: Right. You’re just married to her.
    CLAY: Not for very long.
    CLAUDIA: And you didn’t mention this earlier because…?
    CLAY: I know, I know. This looks really bad. (Repeat)
    So here I am, sitting at the Greyhound station with two homeless guys bundled into blankets, one of them reading GQ. Suddenly I’m living the lyrics of every old-timey down-and-out blues number. I’m still wearing this positively crusty-with-human-grime ensemble: orange sundress, sweat-drenched bra, bloodstained underwear, and I’ve little hope of changing into something “fresher” (as my mother would say) anytime soon, seeing as I now own no other clothing. In fact, I now own absolutely nothing.
    Oh, God. My favorite Levi’s, reduced to ash. Sea-green cashmere sweater: ditto. Everything—no—I mean everything I ever called my own is now dwelling on another plane of existence.
    I plod toward the ticket booth and realize I have no idea where I’m going. My original plan was to camp in the bus until I found a place to live—hopefully before school started. Now the bus is, for obvious reasons, not a reliable dwelling. So I’ve got to figure out where to crash until I can rent my own little shelter from the world. I tell myself this is all very Zen, very neo-Dharma bum and therefore cool (except I keep lugging my cat everywhere—did Kerouac do that?), but when I approach the glassed-in face of the ticket vendor and I look into her kind blue eyes, I find myself fighting off tears. I fumble for some dollars, pulling them from my bra, but they’re so wrinkled and wilted I can’t force them into any semblance of order.
    â€œMorning,” she says. “Where would you like to go?”
    â€œUm.”
    She smiles. “Let’s start with the basics—north, south, east or west?”
    I manage a weak chuckle. “Give me a second,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
    I sit down on one of the benches and mop at my tears with the back of my hand. I close my eyes and try to breathe. Medea squirms in her box. I open the flaps a crack. Her eyes are glow-in-the-dark as they peer up at me from within her shadowy little cardboard cage. “Shh,” I say. “I’ll get you a nice treat when we get home.” Home.
    â€œExcuse me,” I say to the ticket lady. “Do you have any buses that go to Calistoga?”
    She consults a thick directory. “Santa Rosa,” she says. “Is that close enough?”
    â€œI guess it’ll have to be.”
    â€œOne way or round trip?”
    â€œOne way, please.”
    â€œThat’ll be eleven dollars.”
    I hand her a limp twenty and she counts me out my change.
    â€œYou going to check out those mud baths?”
    â€œGod, no,” I say. “Just going home.”
    Â 
    Calistoga’s only about three or four hours from Santa Cruz by car, but by bus it’s a twelve-hour saga. I take the Greyhound to Santa Rosa, then another bus from there, and finally walk the last eight blocks to my father’s house. By the time Medea and I arrive on his doorstep we’re exhausted and snappish, having schlepped across three counties in raunchy-smelling clothes with a full cast of trying characters, including an ancient man in a wheelchair who, having mistaken me for his dead wife, wouldn’t stop trying to hold my hand, and a wiry little elf of a bus driver who threatened to kick us off when he heard Medea mewing.
    Over the course of the day I’ve developed a serious obsession with showering. That first blast of cool water on my chest, leaning in to soak my face, then my hair; the gentle massage of liquid needles against my scalp. The whole experience has become my nirvana—a longed-for state I can almost taste but never achieve.
    It would have