On the Way Home

Chapter One

Technically, it was still morning, but I didn’t care. I wanted a gin and tonic. I needed a gin and tonic. Considering where I was headed, there wasn’t enough booze in the world to keep me sane. I didn’t care what the flight attendant thought.

I pinched the little plastic cup between my fingers, tilted my head back, and shook the cup, desperately rattling the ice for any remaining droplets. The guy in the seat beside me cleared his throat and flipped another page in his magazine, as if to say that my desperate attempts at getting buzzed were ruining his in-flight ambiance.

I crunched on the ice and desperately glanced around for the flight attendant. I wanted another. I chomped a little harder on the ice, making even more noise as the guy in 17A coughed conspicuously.

Screw him, I thought to myself as I slurped an ice cube.

He pulled out his phone and started texting even though we were still at our cruising altitude. Probably seeking revenge for my irritating ways, exacting vengeance by using his cell service to addle the plane’s navigation and send us all down in a picture-perfect tailspin.

I should be grateful. Going down in flames was starting to feel preferable to the alternative.

On my other side, a woman draped in feathery scarves gazed out the window, her eyes wide and dreamy as she took in the landscape below: California. Judging by her fancy yoga pants and her mascara (who the hell puts on makeup just for air travel?), she was either coming home to San Francisco or visiting for the first time. Probably the latter. Another tourist overjoyed by the prospect of pomegranate froyo and the exteriors from Full House.

One of her artisanal shawls kept drifting over to my side of the armrest. I suddenly wondered if I could subtly tug on one of its threads and unravel the whole silly thing by the time we landed. She’d stand up to grab her purse only to find her lap was filled with thread.

I gripped my cup until the thin plastic snapped. I really needed that second drink. After all, we were close to San Francisco, too close, and I needed another buffer zone between me and Northern California. Because I wasn’t going to classic San Francisco — the famed Redwood Forests, the Golden Gate Bridge, or any of the hip spots that were springing up left and right. I was headed for a layover, another flight even further north to where civilization disappears into the thick trees and twisting coastal highways.

I was heading home.

I ordered steak and red wine at the airport, both cursing my layover for being so painfully long, and thanking my lucky stars for the extra time. A final taste of freedom before I arrived in the utter letdown that is the town of Waning Ridge. Before I had to spend one whole week locked in a remote cabin with a dozen of the worst people ever placed on God’s green earth: bridesmaids.

And not just any bridesmaids either. All of them were women I’d known in high school, girls who had done everything in their power to make my life a living hell. They didn’t succeed — I always had my ways of disengaging and distracting — but still, I held their efforts against them. I didn’t care if a dozen years had passed since I walked across our high school gymnasium to claim my diploma. Even now, I can close my eyes and see Lily Rampling and Cassidy Sinclair giggling as they tape Victoria’s Secret ads to my locker, their eyes locked on me, each mouth curling into a glossy, strawberry-scented rictus.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on them. They were kids, after all, and I know I did a few things at seventeen that I’ve lived to regret.

Maybe I should blame Katie, my angelic little sister who earns the love of everyone she meets. Then again, Katie can’t help it. She always has her hands in her pockets, a curtain of dark hair falling across her sweet, demure eyes. Even when she’s calling you out for being a jerk, she manages to do it in the gentlest way possible. She’s good at that type of thing, at making people feel comfortable. It might be why the very girls who hated me in high school fell so hard for her, or why Kyle, the former high school track star she’s dated since her sophomore year, finally talked her into getting married. Plus, she’s the bride, who’s always above reproach.

I swished the wine and watched the legs trail down the glass, suddenly hoping I could lose myself in that soft, slow motion — in the dark, sleepy drip. Really, I should blame the town itself. Waning Ridge, a name that summed up the entire community in two words. Decreasing, shrinking, setting. The sun dissolving into the horizon, only without any of the beauty.

Waning Ridge is on the edge of everything: the edge of the coast, the edge of the forest, and if you spend enough time in the town itself, you start to feel as if you’re on the edge of civilization. I think it’s the tourists who did us in, caravanning up the coast in their rusty, wheezing campers, belching out black exhaust and searching for places to drain their sewage. The irony of it all is that they come to our town — the last real one that exists between California and the Oregon border — for a little peace and quiet, for serenity, an escape from the world. But their pilgrimage invites all kinds of vices to follow along, and in our town’s attempt to cultivate some semblance of economy, Waning Ridge is now a collection of littered campgrounds, kitschy souvenir shops, and dumpy motels.

I spent every summer working at the Special Stop, a combination souvenir hotspot and diner. Most of the customers were families either on their way in or out of a camping trip. Either way, it was the same story: loud kids who were tired of the car and harried parents who regretted ever contemplating the prospect of a family vacation. Children running wild, spilling syrup and demanding lemonade refills, and adults too tired to care anymore. My mother was always working the register, showing off a happy face as she sold Redwood snowglobes and fluorescent T-shirts. Just the memory of that August racket is enough to give me a headache.

Or maybe it’s the guy sitting a few tables away from me at this airport’s rendition of a steakhouse. He’s watched me for the last thirty seconds, looking directly at my face. I’ve been avoiding his eyes because I know what’s coming, because it’s always happening these days. Most idiots would give up but this guy won’t, and it’ll all end a bit faster if I take the bait. I bite and look his way.

First he frowns at me, his lips curling up into a pout, his forehead full of deep lines. Then he breaks into a grin and gets on his feet, throwing his hips back and forth while his elbows stab through the air. Then, the jingle. Always the jingle:

Can Insurance Guy really save you hundreds on car insurance? he sang. Does a librarian do a happy dance when the stacks stay quiet? He laughs and dances my way.

That’s you, right? he asked. Hilda the Happy Librarian from—

Yeah, the Insurance Guy commercial, I said quickly, glancing around to see if anyone else could overhear. That’s me.

I knew it was, he says with a wink. Still dancing, too.

Well, you’re very observant.

You know, you’re really cute, he added. "They did a good job of making you look