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Tart
Jody Gehrman
Meet Claudia Bloom. She's having one of those years.First she steals her ex's VW bus and drives it from Austin to Santa Cruz, where it promptly explodes. Next she lets herself be rescued by Clay, a cute DJ on a motorcycle, falls hard and meets his somehow-never-mentioned estranged wife while searching frantically for her panties. She tries to forget about Clay and focus on her tenuous new career teaching theater at UC Santa Cruz, only to discover Clay's wife is her colleague and his mother is her boss. Could it get any worse? When her neo-Deadhead cousin shows up with a horse-size mutt, Rex, and the two of them take up residence on her couch, Claudia's pretty sure things have hit rock bottom.Set in the über-hip beach town of Santa Cruz, this novel explores the rocky terrain of family secrets, forbidden fruit and all things Tart.
Advance praise for Tart
“Jody Gehrman writes with a poet’s vigilance and a comic’s wit, both steeped in deep affection for her characters. In between laughing breaks, you’ll appreciate the keen eye Gehrman trains on life’s small, fine, bitter moments. Tart is aptly named.”
—Kim Green, author of Paging Aphrodite
“I loved this book. Tartis an exquisitely written and deliciously witty treat.”
—Sarah Mlynowski, author of Monkey Business
Praise for Jody Gehrman’s debut novel, Summer in the Land of Skin
“Poignant and affecting, Gehrman’s debut is brimming with vivid characters and lyrical prose. Like all good summers, you don’t want it to end.”
—Lynn Messina, author of Fashionistas
“Gehrman’s writing is crisp, her observations astute, and her story utterly absorbing and affecting.”
—Booklist
“Gehrman’s debut skillfully draws the reader in…. Her characters are confused, believable and utterly human, which is one of the main reasons the book strikes so many lonely, bewildered and true notes.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A beautifully written page-turner about love and music.”
—Lisa Tucker, author of The Song Reader
Tart
Jody Gehrman
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the professionals in my life who help keep me focused, specifically my agent, Dorian Karchmar, my editor, Margaret Marbury, and my Web designer/all-around girl genius, Rosey Larson. My continually supportive and enthusiastic colleagues at Mendocino College deserve huge kudos, especially my cohorts in the English department for their flexibility, warmth and humor, and Reid Edelman for sharing with me his favorite tales of directing disasters. Thanks to the Ukiah Writers’ Salon for helping me with my fledgling attempts at PR. An enormous thank-you to Bart Rawlinson for reading an early draft of this and for talking me down during revision-induced panic attacks. Thanks to Tommy Zurhellen, one of my most generous readers and best friends. It goes without saying that I’m completely indebted to my family for their love and inspiration, as usual. But most of all, thanks to David Wolf for helping me to believe in and laugh at myself in equal measures.
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
FALL: PART 1
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
WINTER: PART 2
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
SPRING: PART 3
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
PROLOGUE
It’s midnight in Austin, and I’m starving, but I refuse to indulge in French fries at the all-night diner; I’ve got a bus to steal.
The air is warm and rich with jasmine in an upscale, arty neighborhood near the university. It’s a Saturday night, and I can see a girl in a white halter top smoking a cigar in the kitchen across the street. I feel a pang of envy; I want to be her, a carefree chick in a skimpy ensemble, playing the tart at a party, preparing to start the school year with a hangover. I used to be her, but things have changed. Just look at me now: sweaty and furtive, crouching behind an SUV, psyching myself up for a life of crime.
The party crowd spills out onto the porch. I watch the pretty twentysomethings clutching red plastic cups and pray they’re all drunk enough to be unreliable witnesses. I inhale deeply, whisper my mantra, “He gets the jailbait, I get the wheels,” and make my move.
FALL
CHAPTER 1
I’m almost to Santa Cruz when my engine catches fire. I’ve got my entire life savings stuffed into my bra, my hair is so wind-matted I can’t even get my fingers through it, and I desperately need to change my tampon.
Things could be better.
It’s mid-September, and California’s crazy Indian summer is just getting started. The hundred-degree weather cools only slightly as I careen closer to the Pacific, where a slight tinge of fog is always hovering; it’s still plenty hot, though, and I’m sweating profusely, cursing as my temperature gauge lodges itself stubbornly in the red zone. Highway 17 is the quickest route through the Santa Cruz Mountains, but I’d forgotten just how manic it is: the crazy curves force everyone on the road into race-car-style cornering. Three pubescent surfers in a beat-up Pinto station wagon keep swerving into my lane as they pass a joint around. I honk at them instinctively; all three towheads swivel in my direction, and the car veers unsteadily toward my front fender again. I hit my steering wheel with the palm of my hand and ease onto the brakes, praying the Jaguar in my rearview mirror won’t slam me from behind. “Cunt!” one of the surfers yells. “Chill, lady,” another one adds. Did he just call me lady? Jesus, I could use a drink.
When the engine makes a sound so primal I can no longer ignore it, I pull over onto the narrow, crumbling shoulder and get out to assess the situation. The bus is producing enormous clouds of black smoke, and bright orange tongues of flame are licking at the air vents. I haven’t even bothered to check the oil since I left Austin three days ago. I knew the bus was making increasingly alarming noises, starting around El Paso, but I told myself that’s what hippie vehicles do, and turned the radio up louder. The smoke is so thick now I can barely see, and I’m afraid to open the door to the engine because I’ve got this sinking feeling it will blow my face off. Woman Found by Highway; Face Found 100 Yards Away.
Shit.
Medea, my cat, is yowling a pathetic, drugged-out plea from the back seat, so I quickly stuff her into the cardboard pet taxi and carry her out onto the shoulder with me. Then I start thinking about the cat Valium in the glove box, wondering how many of those tiny pills I’d have to take before this whole scene would take on an underwater, slow-motion sheen.
Of course, there’s something about the utter destitution of the situation that appeals to me. In theater, we’re taught that people are only as interesting as their current crisis. Jerry Manning, my favorite professor back at UT, used to scream at us, “Disaster defines you. Where’s the disaster? Come on, give me your disaster!” I feel a tiny trickle of blood as it forms a damp spot in my underwear. Medea scratches at the cardboard, her panic momentarily breaking free from the straightjacket of drugs I’ve kept her in. Her terrified mewling has gone from meek to murderous. “Here you go, Manning,” I whisper. “Here’s my disaster.”
Unfortunately, my only audience is the steady stream of traffic roaring past me at breakneck speed, making the bus shudder like a cowering animal. I stole it from my boyfriend, Jonathan, who is now officially my ex-boyfriend, but I haven’t managed to force him into the past tense just yet. If you must know, the bastard’s a Taurus and he’s got beautiful hands and he writes plays that make people swear he’s some freaky genetic hybrid: two parts Tennessee Williams, one part David Lynch. He moved to New York several months ago with Rain, this nineteen-year-old acting student with slick black hair that hangs below her ass and a five-thousand-watt smile.
The flames shooting from the engine are getting more insistent.
This is not good.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead and begin fantasizing about a very stiff, incredibly cold vodka tonic: I can see the ice, smell the carbonation, taste the green of that freshly cut lime swarming with bubbles. I think again of the cat Valium and wonder if I have enough time to secure the stash before Jonathan’s beloved VW explodes in a pyrotechnic burst of orange, like something from a Clint Eastwood flick. Woman’s Charred Remains Found Clinging to Glove Box. I squeeze my thighs together in an effort to keep the blood from running down my leg.
A guy on an old dented BMW motorcycle pulls over and takes his helmet off. He’s got a crooked smirk and a twenty-year-old body that looks oddly mismatched with the lines around his eyes. His hair is damp and stands up in hectic disarray like a child who’s just waking from a nap. The leather jacket looks ancient enough to be a hand-me-down from James Dean himself. He looks at the bus, at me, and back at the bus again.
“Need help?” he yells over the whir and wind of the passing traffic.
“Naw. Thought I’d just hang out, watch the show,” I yell back.
He shrugs and starts to swing his leg back over his bike.
“I’m kidding!” I shriek.
He turns toward me again, and a grin appears from the five o’clock shadow: white teeth, substantial lips, a nose that saves him from too pretty with a slightly swerving bridge where I’m willing to guess he broke it years ago. He’s the perfect Hamlet; he could play moody and build to insanity with enough sex appeal to keep the audience hot and bothered as Ophelia. He’s a little dirty, but in a good way. I could tell if I took a couple steps closer I’d smell the powerful perfume of leather and sweat.
Hold it together, Bloom. You’re just rebounding and road-delirious. Your cat is thrashing about in a cardboard box and you’ve stolen a vehicle that is about to go the way of Chernobyl.
He comes closer and says into my ear, “I don’t think this one’s going any farther.”
“Thanks. Excellent diagnosis.”
“What’s in the box?”
“My cat.”
He just raises his eyebrows at that. Then a huge semi comes rolling around the corner and practically knocks us over. “This isn’t a good spot,” he says.
“No kidding.” It’s a bad habit of mine: the more I need help, the more I behave like a snotty twelve-year-old. A dry, hot wind washes over us and the flames are reaching outward, like the arms of needy children. “Are we supposed to pour water on it, or something?”
“I don’t know. You got any?”
“No,” I yell, shaking my head for emphasis. Is it my imagination, or is the traffic getting louder the longer we stand here? “I’ve got a six-pack of Vanilla Coke in the back seat—will that help?”
“Not likely. What are the chances one of these assholes has a cell phone?” He watches the passing traffic with a tired, cynical expression. Jeez, strong pecs under that T-shirt. Jonathan’s chest was practically concave. With his shirt off he looked six years old. Watching this guy’s profile, with his once broken nose, his dust-smudged, stubbled chin and his blue-green eyes staring down each car as it blurs past, he looks a touch dangerous. It occurs to me that this could be a bad situation turning worse. Woman and Cat Found in Dumpster.
He starts waving his arms at the truckers and soccer moms. Medea is now yowling pathetically from the cardboard box, which I’m afraid to put down because the Valium seems to be wearing off and every five minutes she does a little body slam that nearly knocks her from my arms.
“Where’s the damn CHP when you need them?” he grumbles. At this point it occurs to me that I have every reason to avoid cops right now—or anyone who might call cops. Psycho Woman Sets Stolen Car on Fire. I squeeze Medea’s box with one hand and grab Biker Guy’s waving arm with the other. “Whoa—hold on—do you think you could just give me a lift somewhere?”
He looks at me. “Well…shouldn’t we…?” He eyes the flames. “We can’t just leave it here.”
I’ve got to think fast. I lean closer and speak into his ear, so I won’t have to yell. “Look, there’s no room here for anyone else to pull over, anyway. It’s too dangerous. Plus, what are they going to do?”
He cradles his helmet between us and studies the hillside. “Lots of dry grass around here just itching to go up in flames. It could explode,” he says.
