1
ONE MONTH LATER
T ime to call my brother and give him proof of life.
I park my new Buick Skylark, a behemoth of a car, at the gas pump and crunch across the dusty parking lot of the Gas ‘N Go to find the one pay phone that’s been around since the seventies. Although I have a cell phone, there’s something about using a pay phone that feels very road trip.
I’ve finished my last part-time shift at Rita’s, a sleepy mom-and-pop Mexican restaurant in downtown Winslow, Arizona.
It was a relaxed waitressing job, but the tips were good and the exertion minimal.
I’ve kept my remote job at the travel agency, managing their social media account, but I like the boots on the ground style of working locally.
Everyone needs a helping hand and if I can be that person, I’ll step in.
Diners and bars are easy part-time gigs that let me move on when I want to.
And trust me, I’ve been moving on.
A week after my near-death-hit-and-run-squirrel experience, I went to my cardiologist one last time, then left Indiana.
The last month I’ve seen and done things I’ve never experienced.
I got a tiny tattoo of an EKG line on the inside of my ring finger in Charleston.
Danced in the second line in New Orleans.
I’ve seen houses on stilts in Galveston and had the best pie of my life in Key West.
For the first time in my twenty-six years on this earth, I feel alive.
Like I’ve fixed a hole inside of me I didn’t know was leaking.
I am greedy and feral and in love with this life. And I want to see more. See it all. Take risks.
Sometimes—and I can never tell this to Max—I don’t want to go back home.
I want to keep running and never stop.
As I drop a coin in the slot, a man in ripped Wranglers tips the brim of his dusty cowboy hat to me as he passes by. Rugged and weathered lines crease his tan face, giving him a wise and magnetic appeal.
Fascinated, I beam at him and wave. Then I tuck the map I purchased at the gas station under my arm, pick up the sticky receiver and dial numbers I know by heart.
Max answers with a curt, “Come back.”
I gasp, smiling at the sweet way he tries so damn hard to charm me. “Never.”
“Where are you?”
“You know I can’t tell you that. Super-secret sister business.”
Not that my father or brother have any legal pull if they track me down. I’m an adult of sound mind and body, but they have the powerful ability to make me feel guilty until I come home, which is why I’ll keep my whereabouts off-limits.
If I’m gone, it means my father and brother can get back to their lives. No more worrying about me, no more obsessively hovering. They’re well-meaning and want to protect me, but being away from them is like a heavy weight lifted. I can live.
And so can they.
Max lets out a long-suffering sigh. I close my eyes and rest my forehead against the glass.
I can’t win. Either way, I can’t win. I hurt them when I’m there, and I hurt them when I’m gone.
A shadow enters his voice. “I worry.”
My eyes pop open, and I rush to reassure him.
“Don’t. I have pepper spray. And I haven’t had a flutter since January, you know that.
I’m taking all my medication, and I have weekly Zooms with my doctor.
See? I’m on the straight and narrow.” I gape as a gorgeous black Cadillac passes through the parking lot.
“I do not plan to go hog wild. I plan to live, Max.”
And damn the consequences.
“What if you’re alone and something happens?”
“I’ll find a hot cowboy to give me mouth-to-mouth.”
“Hardy har har.”
I can see Max’s sullen scowl over the phone.
He worries, but he shouldn’t. By now, I know the signals my body sends me when it’s close to shutting down.
I sweat more than humanly possible. Rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath accompany the pounding sensation in the neck and chest. To ensure I don’t keel over, I have to pay attention to small bodily rules.
Light on alcohol, light on caffeine, light on exercise.
Extreme stress, exhaustion, exercise—best-case scenario, I faint.
Worst-case scenario, my heart stops.
“What’re you doing for work?”
“Waitressing.”
“Yeah, well, make sure you turn it down a notch so your heart doesn’t explode.”
I roll my eyes. Death doesn’t scare me like it does my father and my brother. Being angry at my heart and condition never helped me in life.
Since my diagnosis, I’ve been told I can’t do this, or I can’t do that.
No riding bikes with the neighborhood kids.
I had to give up the dance class I loved so much.
All because my dad and brother were worried about the what-ifs .
It didn’t matter if they didn’t know whether it would affect me.
They just assumed it would, and for the betterment of my health, sheltered me.
I spent my life not knowing what I could do. Not knowing who I am.
Now it’s my destiny. My choice. My what-ifs .
In fact, I would rather rip my life apart than live in fear that someone—or something—will take it from me.
Just like I have rules for my heart, I have rules for my new life.
A to-do list scrawled in my journal that I’m continually adding to.
While Max rambles all the negatives about my trip, I write each happy thing I plan to accomplish on my cross-country road trip in the dust on the glass side of the phone booth.
Ruby Bloom’s To-Do List (so do it!):
1. Get a tattoo.
2. Have sex. Good sex.
3. Stay up all night and see the sunrise.
4. See a California sunset.
5. Swim in the Pacific.
Say yes.
Say yes to everything, because for so long others have said no.
Except regarding love.
I am temporary. I don’t get to let anyone love me. I’ve seen where it got my father and mother.
Gingerly, I run my finger over the delicate opal and silver cuff bracelet on my wrist, the most precious thing of my mother’s I own.
She made it herself, affixed opals that look like the sky, ocean, and sand onto the ends.
Hammered the silver until it pebbled. That was back when she was a beautiful starving artist in Malibu, the summer before she met my father and fell in love with him and his purple roses.
Max’s growl intercepts my daydream daze. “I want you to come home.”
I stick my tongue out at my reflection. “This is my life, Max. Don’t take it from me.”
“Goddamnit, Rubes.” Exasperation cracks in his voice. “I’m not trying to do that. I’m trying to keep you safe. Keep you around.”
“I will be around,” I say, even as my lungs constrict. “You’ll probably be sick of me when I come rolling back into town, ready to kick your bony ass.”
He chuckles. “How long you think you’ll be gone?”
“Why? You miss me?” I ask, watching the man with the cowboy hat exit the Gas ‘n Go with an ice-cold bottle of Coca-Cola. He goes to his pump, taking a long sip as he funnels unleaded into his lowrider.
“Hell no. I hate this job of yours.”
When I graduated from college five years ago with a degree in marketing, I started up my family’s small business social media account. Built it up from two followers to a healthy five thousand.
Over the line, I hear the slam of a keyboard. “I don’t know how you do it. Everyone bitching about something when all they are is just fucking flowers.”
“They’re not just flowers, Max.” I instantly smile. Flowers are safe. Soft. But they prick when ruffled. “They’re bright sides.”
Everything has a bright side. Even with my condition, even when assholes on social media tear up the comments, you can always make it better. You can always survive it.
“Here’s a tip, Max. Don’t feed the trolls. And smile.”
Get a life. Go date a girl. Go have good sex.
“I don’t smile,” he grumbles. Then, in a resigned voice, he says, “So far, what’s been your sunflower on this trip?”
Our long-time game perks me right up. “Hmm.” I decide not to tell him about riding the mechanical bull in Nashville. “I saw a merman at an alligator farm and petting zoo. It was incredible and terrifying in all the best ways.”
“Oh, yeah?” There’s a smile in his voice. “Where was that?”
I laugh. “Nice try. I’m hanging up now. I love you. Tell dad I love him too.”
I end the call and exit the booth.
With a hopeful exhale, I stretch my arms out and tilt my face to the sun, drinking in its warm rays.
I love the southwest. I love the wicked sun and the dust and the palm trees sweeping the glossy blue sky, letting me know I’m alive.
I love wearing tank tops and flip-flops and feeling half-naked and wild and free.
This rugged country is not meant for everyone, but I have lived here for a week and survived.
And next?
Beach or mountains. But how to choose?
An idea comes to me.
“Excuse me,” I say, rushing up to Mr. Cowboy Hat to intercept his empty pop bottle. “Can I have that if you’re done?”
He blinks and lifts the brim of his cowboy hat to see me better. “It’s trash, senorita .”
“It is, but it’s my trash.”
He looks puzzled as he hands it over to me. With a bounce in my step, joy blooming inside me, I head to my car and spread the map out on the sun-warmed hood. I place the bottle on top of it. And I spin.
It’s not a game, but living a life I don’t have to take seriously feels like one. I can ramble and roll and have hopes and dreams, too.
As I watch the glass bottle’s tip go ‘round and ‘round, I wonder about destiny.
You can only do so much , my Dad would constantly remind me.
Watch your triggers. You wouldn’t want to pass out on the treadmill, would you?
Doctor Lee might warn. You’re psychotic for even doing this , Max would tell me.
You can have a good life despite your heart, or a bad one because of it, my Aunt Jonnie used to say. So, choose, toots.
I choose the good life.
I choose my life.
All these little white pills in my purse, this tattered map, my twenty-dollar sundress, this beauty of a bucket list. They will all get me to some wild, wondrous adventure I cannot yet imagine.
The bottle stops.
It points north. The tip of it lands in a state that shakes me awake inside.
My heart shivers, a familiar sensation of hope taking root in my soul.
Montana. The mountains.
Cowboy Hat steps up, his eyes crinkling in a beguiling grin. He holds out his sunglasses. “You need these, senorita , to have a little fun.”
I meet the man’s smiling eyes and warm tears of gratitude fill my own. Cheap plastic gas station shades have never looked so beautiful. I clutch them to my heart. “Thank you.”
He nods.
I lower myself into the car and take a deep, slow breath. My mother once said, years before she died, years after everyone warned her not to have that last baby, “ Honor your heart until you become it. ”
Well, my heart is open wide.
And I intend to use it.