Page 7 of Before We Say Goodbye
Otis and Rebecca spent the first three hours on the bus dissecting politics and religion and playfully jousting in cultural warfare, but when they diverted toward personal topics, when Otis tried to maneuver past her defenses and learn more about her life, she’d sidestep and deflect.
He explained what had brought him to the States, how his American uncle, Jim, had been diagnosed with cancer, leaving his aunt Morgan to take care of a cattle ranch. Otis’s father had not hesitated when he’d heard of their troubles. In no time, they were on a Pan American flight soaring to a land Otis had never seen. Their belongings—the remnants of their English life—followed behind in a slow boat.
Being the new kid proved to be an ongoing fight throughout his grade school years. Not only was he new, but he was a city boy from London so different from his new classmates. His London education had far exceeded that of the Bozeman public school system, which was why he had skipped a grade and would only be a few weeks into seventeen when he started at Berkeley.
In Montana, he’d found himself surrounded by cowboy types who lived off the land. Dads who rode the rodeo and raised animals, 4-H kids lined up to follow suit. Otis had tried his best to fit in, even triedwearing cowboy boots and a wide-brimmed hat for a while, but in his later teenage years, he’d given up and accepted his role as an outsider.
In the five years since he’d moved to the United States, he hadn’t found a shred of clarity—until now, in the earthy tones of this girl’s eyes, and in the endless universes behind them. But he couldn’t quite muster the courage to tell her that, so he mounted his own defenses, this time insisting that she talk about herself for a while.
They were passing signs for Reno when she finally acquiesced. “Okay, okay, if you really care that much.”
“I do!” he insisted, grabbing the attention of everyone sitting near them. In a lower voice, he asked, “How can I know who you are without knowing your origins?”
She frowned. “Let’s hope who I am is not a product of where I come from.”
Realizing he’d gotten himself into trouble, Otis passed a hand through the air. “Please forgive my intrusion. It’s none of my business.”
“No, it’s fine. Maybe it’s good for me to talk about it.” She took a moment to sift through her thoughts and then fed Otis a few morsels about her life.
Rebecca Bradshaw had been raised by unambitious and troubled parents in Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco. Her father was a carpenter who could be a good man when his affection for beer and his La-Z-Boy didn’t get in the way. Her mother was often plagued by a noisy congregation of regret—her lack of ambition, her poor choice of a husband, and her often misguided relationship with God—but she had bouts of strength, chunks of time, sometimes months, where she found renewed hope in the world. Rebecca said she vacillated between the defeated housewife and the optimist who always found a second chance at life. Either way, her mother always attempted to take care of everyone in the family, even at the expense of taking care of herself.
The Bradshaw household was one of bipolar dysfunction, and it had turned out two seesaws for children, Rebecca and her older brother,Jed, both of whom could be propelled by the winds of life, but could also be swept up like debris in a tornado by them. Jed, in particular, had been troubled since birth, plagued by dark clouds, and Rebecca said that she’d always had to protect him from her father, whose disappointment knew no end.
Rebecca understood her family dynamics in such an incredibly self-aware way and described them with such eloquence that Otis thought she’d make a great writer herself. He feared his own elocution would stymie his chances of possibly pursuing something with this young woman. Not that he was sure that she was interested in him romantically. He hadn’t determined whether she looked at him as a safe co-traveler or as someone with whom she might be interested in a relationship. If it was the latter, then she certainly had a screw loose. Of course, it sounded like her mother had poor taste in men as well, so maybe Otis would get lucky.
Cars zipped by the purple bus as it chugged along through the sweltering desert. The enthusiasm of the hippie passengers had slightly waned, quite possibly because they were all knackered by the copious amounts of weed they’d already smoked.
Things got sticky when Otis asked how often she went to visit her folks. Rebecca closed in on herself.
“We don’t speak right now,” she finally said. “Long story. Blah, blah, blah.” Catching herself, she came back to him with more enthusiasm. “And you, my new friend. What are you going to do with a fancy degree from Berkeley? Write for a newspaper like your old man?”
Otis allowed yet another deflection, not wanting to subject her to any more of the pain that had glimmered in her eyes. “Yeah, write for a paper somewhere, or a magazine. I’d love to write forThe AtlanticorForbes. MaybeLifeorTime.”
“Look at you,” she said with wide eyes. “It must be nice to have it all lined up ahead of you. Sixteen years old, and you know exactly what you’re meant to do. What a rare specimen you are.”
The potential sarcasm in her voice disturbed him. “My father says you must pick something and go with it. That’s how you get ahead. The passion will come later.”
“Sounds like an ambitious man.”
“You have no idea.”
“That’s a lot to live up to.”
Otis let out a chuckle. His uncle had said something eerily similar on his deathbed. Uncle Jim had been days away from succumbing to cancer when he’d grabbed Otis’s forearm, squeezedhard, and said, “You have big shoes to fill, kid. Don’t let your family down.”
Rebecca dragged a delicate finger across her chin. “My father always said that ambition breeds disappointment. He taught us to dream small and to accept our place.”
“Not much of a world-is-your-oyster kind of fellow. I hope you know he’s wrong.”
Gloom lifted her eyebrows. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we? So you inherited your father’s gift for words then?”
There she went again, batting away his intrusions. “I know my way around a typewriter, but my dad says the secret to becoming a great writer is leaving a lot of words in your wake.”
Rebecca sat back and looked up at the roof of the bus. “You’re lucky. I feel like I’m a long way from even figuring out which direction to point myself. Forget about what I’mmeantto do or what I wouldloveto do.”
Otis sat up straight, desperate to make a point. “I’m not sure that Ilovewriting. I’m good at it. School comes rather easily to me, but it’s not something that I wake up eager to do. Perhaps it will grow on me.”
She twisted toward him. “It’s kind of sad, isn’t it, the idea of just going with something? Not that I have a contrarian argument.”
