Shine Until Tomorrow
this is a genuine rare bird book
Rare Bird Books
453 South Spring Street, Suite 302
Los Angeles, CA 90013
rarebirdlit.com
Copyright © 2020 by Carla Malden
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, including but not limited to print, audio, and electronic. For more information, address:
Rare Bird Books Subsidiary Rights Department
453 South Spring Street, Suite 302
Los Angeles, CA 90013.
Set in Berling LT
epub isbn: 9781644281819
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Malden, Carla, author.
Title: Shine Until Tomorrow / by Carla Malden.
Description: Los Angeles, CA : Rare Bird Books, [2020] | Audience: Ages Teens. | Audience: Grades 10-12.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020014066 | ISBN 9781644281420 (hardback)
Subjects: CYAC: Self actualization (Psychology)—Fiction. | Time travel—Fiction. | Bands (Music)—Fiction. | Love—Fiction. | Family life—California, Northern—Fiction. | California—Fiction. | California—History—Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.M346953 Shi 2020 |
DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020014066
Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms quite clear, no doubt, somehow
Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now
Bob Dylan
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Reading Group Guide
CHAPTER
1
The dream is always the same. Every time. Speeding through dense fog. Foot stomping brake. Car galloping, careening through mist. Zero visibility. Then it appears—the Golden Gate Bridge. Stomping on brake. Again. Again. Nothing. Only acceleration. Bridge looms closer. Distance distorts, some weird parallax. Suddenly, a curtain of fog obscures everything. Airless. Suffocating. Jerking the steering wheel, but the car remains out of control. On the bridge now, speeding faster and faster. Flashes of the city slice through the fog. It should be getting closer, but it keeps receding into the distance, always a little too far to reach. And there’s one more thing. The bridge doesn’t extend far enough. No reaching the other side. Telescoping in—faster, closer, faster, closer. The car flies off the edge. Ocean rushes up. Car plummets down, down. Crashes through the surface. Smack.
That’s when I wake up. Every time. In the sliver of air that hangs over the bay. In that split second before the whoosh of water. In that last breath. I bolt upright, gasping. My hair sticks to the back of my neck, glued with sweat. My heart pounds in my temples. My throat is dry, like I swallowed a cotton ball, a wad of cotton balls. Thank God it’s just a dream. The dream—the one I’ve had ever since I realized that, someday, I was going to have to drive a car. I flop back down, sink into my pillow, reach for my phone, killing the alarm before it has a chance to go off. The date on the screen reminds me—last day of school. So where’s that summer feeling?
I drag myself through my morning routine. It’s a whirlwind (I say facetiously) of checking texts and emails, punctuated by the obligatory teeth-brushing and face-washing. Mom bought me some new face wash containing not one, not two, but three different kinds of acid. It boasts about them right there on the front of the bottle. Mom says you can’t start taking care of your skin too soon. And, oh yes, don’t forget your neck. Be sure to moisturize your neck. That’s one of those things she wants me to learn from her mistakes; she neglected her neck and there’s simply no backtracking. Apparently, a neck neglected is a neck permanently creased. I cannot project into a future where I worry about my neck, but I use the new face wash because it smells like grapefruit. For some inexplicable reason, the smell provides me with a good minute or so of optimism about the day.
Optimism quickly dashed by a look in the mirror. There’s something about the way my features come together that’s disheartening. They don’t. Come together, that is. My face is round, but my nose is long. My mouth is wide, but my upper lip is thin. And my forehead is too high. You could only describe my hair as no-color brown. The last time I got it cut, which was at least a year ago, the haircutter told me that highlights would make a world of difference, give me a whole new outlook. I didn’t bother to explain that highlights could never be up to that task. My general physiognomy is a study in mismatchedness, facial Mad Libs. Whatever.
I check my phone again. Not that I ever get anything worth mentioning—just the usual spam and a text from Sarah about some stupid party tonight. She thinks it might be fun, as though the two of us could ever have anything remotely resembling a good time at a party with all the kids from school. Why would we want to put ourselves through that kind of torture? After all, we have the entire school day to luxuriate in the feeling (again, facetiously) that we’re from a different planet from everyone else. It’s not exactly a feeling you want to extend beyond its mandatory 8:30-3:00 parameters. Sarah may be my only true friend in that place, but sometimes she has really lame ideas.
I run a brush through my hair. It’s still a little damp at the nape of my neck from sweating my way through the bridge dream. I yank on a pair of black leggings and a black T-shirt. Where is it written a person has to wear sherbet colors just because it’s June? I head for the kitchen.
My mother has already left for work. She must be showing that house over in Ross and wants to make the place look perfect, like no real people have ever actually lived there. I sit at the breakfast table and pick at a slightly burnt oatmeal cookie. My mother baked a batch last night to set out at the open house. She’ll stick them in the oven at the Ross “property” for a few minutes before the prospective buyers arrive so that the house will smell like cinnamon. Realtor tricks. My mom knows them all. She put too much cinnamon in these. They have a weird aftertaste that prickles the back of my tongue.
I wash it away with a swig of coffee. My mom left a pot, nearly full. I pour some into a mug, the one I gave my mom for Mother’s Day when I was seven. I had it made at one of those kiosks on the wharf where they take your picture and it ends up on the lid of a heart-shaped ceramic box or on a plate or a mug or something. I keep thinking I’ll develop a taste for black coffee one of these days because that’s the way my dad drinks it. I like the visual of black coffee in a thick white mug—just the way my dad likes it—but the taste for straight black hasn’t kicked in yet, so I add milk. Lots of milk. I prefer soy, but we’re out. It’s kind of weird to watch my little kid self rise toward me as I raise the mug to my lips.
My lips are a little chapped even though I sanded them last night with a toothbrush. I read in some magazine that gently brushing your lips with a dry toothbrush is a good way to exfoliate them. Good idea to keep your lips kissable at all times, the article said. I’m definitely not about to re
quire kissability any time soon. But for some reason, I decided to take the dry toothbrush method for a test drive. I had nothing better to do at 11:30 on a Thursday night, the last night of junior year. It’s a pain to have to do all those things that keep a person smooth and silky, but I do them anyway because you never know. I mean, I kind of really do know, but you never one-hundred-percent know when you might wish your body was, at the very least, not all stubbly or flakey-lipped. I’m presuming this might be a worry in my semi-near future as opposed to the far distant future of the saggy neck, but I repeat: unlikely.
I pick up a flyer for a four-bedroom with a pool. My mom left a stack of them on the table. She keeps saying she’ll make a killing if she can find a buyer for the place. A killing—seriously. The copy is full of phrases like “the coveted flats of Kentfield” and “exceptional indoor-outdoor flow.” I think the place looks butt-heinous in the photo, like someone stuck a false Shakespearean front onto the Brady Bunch house. But what do I know about Northern California real estate?
I toss the paper aside and pick up my copy of “America’s Best Colleges.” I leave the book there, on the kitchen table, because I eat alone a lot of the time and it sort of keeps me company. I know that’s weird, but when I leaf through the pages, it’s not exactly like I pretend I’m there in the library at Oberlin or at an a cappella concert at Williams—I mean, it’s not quite that pathetic—but it does take my mind off of life as it is in the here and now. If briefly.
When Sarah and I were little, like in elementary school, we used to play this game we called “college.” Fairly self-explanatory. It was like playing house, but it was us being in college—having boyfriends, going to parties, that kind of thing. Being egghead kids, our actual favorite part was creating our class schedules. I guess when I look through “America’s Best,” it’s like playing college again. But for real…or real at one remove…or what will be real if I can make it through one more year.
Multicolored Post-its poke out all through the book. But it’s the entry marked by the single orange Post-it at the end that I read over and over. Almost like a tic, or to be strictly accurate, a compulsion. I’ve never technically been diagnosed or anything, but I probably do have a little OCD when it comes to certain things, this college book being a prime example. The orange Post-it is stuck on Yale. I know, like me. Rimshot, please. I’m applying Early Decision to Yale. I mentally rewrite my essay every night as I’m falling asleep. (Some people count sheep; I count extra-curriculars.) In a few more months, I’ll be sending it in. I don’t know how I’ll fall asleep after that.
My college counselor thinks I actually have a decent chance. She let slip that more than one of my teachers has said I’m too smart for my own good. I think she meant it nicely—a left-handed compliment. Or a right-handed insult depending on how you look at it. But the truth is, being smart is the only thing I’ve ever been halfway good at. It doesn’t require any fundamental interpersonal skills like the ability to make small talk or hide what you’re really thinking. When you think about it, in terms of human beingness, it’s actually the easiest thing to be good at. That’s the thing about Yale, or at least my well-refined vision of Yale: since I’m basically biding my time by waiting to get there, I picture it as a place full of other people who’ve also been biding their time waiting to get there to meet people like me.
I grab my camera off the counter and hang it around my neck. It’s a vintage Leica, a hefty piece of equipment—so anti-digital—and the weight of the thing makes me feel a little more like I have a reason to exist. Sometimes when it’s hanging around my neck, I run my hand over its surface. It’s got this great texture. I don’t know exactly what it’s made of, but the feel of it—sort of pebbly, like alligator hide—connects me with my father and his father before him. One, I never knew; he died before I was born. The other, I hardly ever see anymore. The world around me is completely different from the world that was around each of them when they were my age, but I get to look at it through the same lens.
—
Even though we are mere hours away from summer vacation, the Marin County fog has settled over school. It has found its way into all the crevices, nestling between buildings and blanketing the expanses of grass, like it’s staking its claim on summer. I don’t mind. I like the cool morning air. Besides, it’s easier to get a good shot when it’s overcast. Photography is all about light, really, and clouds filter the sunlight, softening contrast and shadows. Sometimes when I take a picture on a gray day and look at it later, I see details I never saw in person. Like magic.
I plop myself down on a bench and pull my legs up under me to wait for the first bell to ring. I raise my camera to my eye and scan for a decent shot. A banner is stretched across the quad: “Congratulations Class of 2007!” Three kids sit beneath it—two girls and a guy. One girl is jabbering on her phone. The other is texting on her BlackBerry, thumbs moving like the wings of a hummingbird. The guy communes with his Game Boy, jerking his upper body in sync with the zap of a laser or the slaying of a medieval monster. I snap the tableau. Click.
Over by the lunch table, several of our award-winning cheerleaders are signing each other’s yearbooks. They hand them back to one another with air kisses. I snap their picture. Click.
A smiley guy in a basketball jersey struts across the quad, one bicep-sculpted arm slung over his girlfriend. Corey-and-Cassidy. Every school has their Corey-and-Cassidy couple, I bet. They’ve been a thing all year, but she still looks up at him with what appears to be unadulterated adoration. He slam dunks his textbooks into a trashcan. Click.
I can’t help but eavesdrop on a gaggle of my classmates. It’s okay. When I’ve got my camera up to my eye, I’m invisible. You might say it’s one of the major perks of being the photography nerd, though many in my class might argue that invisibility is one of my salient features, camera or no camera.
Vanessa is the leader of the pack. She turns to Amanda who’s been trailing her like a puppy hoping for a treat since about eighth grade. Rachel and Kelly are just happy to be cool-girl-adjacent.
Amanda’s eyes go wide. “Matthew Wilson alert,” she says.
“Who cares?” says Vanessa. “He’s got major commitment issues. I can’t believe I was so obsessed with him.”
Even so, she checks her reflection in Kelly’s mirrored sunglasses and flips her hair out from where it was tucked behind her ear. She cocks her head so that a few strands sweep down over one eye. Click.
Turns out they saw me after all. Amanda looks straight into my lens and flips me off. With a perfectly polished nail, Tahitian Aqua or something. I can feel the heat rush to my face as I look away. I know my cheeks must have gone all blotchy magenta, my personal hallmark of broadcasting humiliation. I can’t do anything about it. I have no control over my autonomic nervous system. All I can do is pretend I didn’t notice Amanda’s little gesture.
The girly-girls saunter over to me. I busy myself by fiddling with the lens on my camera so that I’m the very soul of nonchalance by the time they’re standing there next to me.
“Hey, Mari,” says Rachel. “Are you going to the party tonight?” She doesn’t mean it sarcastically. Even though she’s part of this group, Rachel has basic niceness in her DNA.
“Well,” I say, “I never actually received an epistolary notice, so in keeping with customary social convention, which God knows I strive to do at every possible turn, I will not be in attendance.” I do that sometimes—just launch full-throttle into a crazy word thing. Weirdly, it’s easier for me than a simple “yes” or “no.” I’ve known these girls since middle school. I was paired with Amanda to build a cross-section of a volcano in sixth grade. I did a dramatic recitation of Coleridge’s “Xanadu” with Kelly in World Lit. I was Vanessa’s lab partner in Bio. But when they’re in a clump, a congealed mass of conditioned hair and skinny jeans, they make me feel like it’s the first day of kindergarten. And then I pull out every fif
ty-cent word I know and toss them all together—like a make-your-own scramble on a breakfast menu. I’m not proud of it, but I’m also not going to lie. It makes me feel better to see the looks on their faces go from blank to blanker. It reminds me that if I can just hang in there, I’ll be out of this place and end up in a place (Yale or, God forbid, a Yale runner-up) where there might be a few more people like me.
Sure enough: Vanessa crinkles up her face to make sense of my nonsense, but gives up. “See you later,” she says. And they’re off.
Just then Sarah appears. “What did they want with the likes of you?”
I’m not insulted. It’s a perfectly legitimate question.
“Just to torment me,” I say. “About that party tonight.”
Sarah sits next to me on the bench and starts braiding her hair. She thinks a braid camouflages the frizzies, which she abhors, but when her hair is braided, the ends stick out even more and actually emphasize the frizz. I would never tell her though.
“You didn’t answer my texts” she says. “I think we should go. To the party.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah shrugs. “Maybe kind of like a sociological study.”
“No, thanks,” I say. “Not I. Anyway, my father’s got me this weekend so the point is, shall we say, moot. You go ahead, Margaret Mead.”
“She’s anthropology,” Sarah says.
“Point: Sarah,” I say.
“Thank you very much.”
“Besides, parties are against my religion.” Sarah mouths along as I say that. She’s heard it before. More than once.
“You know what, Mari?” Sarah says. “Sometimes you can really let the air out of the old exuberance balloon.”
“My specialty,” I say. “My calling.”
It’s true: knee-jerk negativity is my default setting. But Sarah has been my tell-everything-to person since third grade, so I owe her something a little more last-day-of-school celebratory. “At least we have three months of freedom to look forward to,” I add.