Page 43 of People We Meet on Vacation

I spin away as I’m pulling the door shut. “Wouldn’t you like to know, Porny Alex?”

12

Nine Summers Ago

DESPITE THE FACTthat Alex spent every spare moment of junior year picking up shifts at the library (and thus I spent every spare moment sitting on the floor behind the reference desk eating Twizzlers and teasing him whenever Sarah Torval bashfully drifted by), there isn’t money for a big summer trip this year.

His younger brother is starting community college next year, without much financial aid, and Alex, being a saint among mere men, is funneling all his income into Bryce’s tuition.

When he broke the news to me, Alex said, “I understand if you want to go to Paris without me.”

My reply was instantaneous. “Paris can wait. Let’s visit the Paris of America instead.”

He arched a brow. “Which is?”

“Duh,” I said. “Nashville.”

He laughed, delighted. I loved to delight him,livedfor it. I got such a rush from making that stoic face crack, and lately there hadn’t been enough of that.

Nashville is only a four-hour drive from Linfield, and miraculously, Alex’s station wagon is still kicking. So Nashville it is.

When he picks me up the morning of our trip, I’m still packing, and Dad makes him sit and answer a series of random questions while I finish. Meanwhile, Mom slips into my room with something hidden behind her back, singing, “Hiiii, sweetie.”

I look up from the Muppet-vomit explosion of colorful clothing in my bag. “Hiii?”

She perches on my bed, hands still hidden.

“What are you doing?” I say. “Are you handcuffed right now? Are we being burglarized? Blink twice if you can’t say anything.”

She brings the box forward. I immediately yelp and slap it out of her hand onto the floor.

“Poppy!” she cries.

“Poppy?!” I demand. “NotPoppy!Mom!Why are you carrying a bulk box of condoms around behind your back?”

She bends and scoops it up. It’s unopened (luckily?), so nothing spilled out. “I just figured it’s time we talked about this.”

“Uh-uh.” I shake my head. “It’s nine twenty a.m.Notthe time to talk about this.”

She sighs and sets the box atop my overfilled duffle bag. “I just want you kids to be safe. You’ve got alotto look forward to. We want all your wildest dreams to come true, honey!”

My heart stutters. Not because my mom is implying that Alex and I are having sex—now that it’s occurred to me, of course that’s what she thinks—but because I know she’s espousing the importance of finishing college, which I still haven’t told her I don’t plan to do.

I’ve only told Alex that I’m not going back next year. I’ve been waiting to tell my parents until after the trip so no big blowup keeps it from happening.

My parents are ultrasupportive, but that’s partly because both of them wanted to go to college and neither of them had the support to do so. They’ve always assumed that any dream I could have would be aided by having a degree.

But throughout the school year, most of my dreaming and energy have been devoted to traveling: weekend trips and short stints over breaks from school—usually on my own, but sometimes with Alex (camping, because that’s what we can afford), or with my roommate, Clarissa, a rich hippie type I met in an informational meeting about study-abroad programs at the end of last year (visits to each of her parents’ separate lake houses). She’s starting next year—senior year—in Vienna, and getting art history credits for it, but the longer I considered any of those programs, the less interested I found myself.

I don’twantto go to Australia only to spend all day in a classroom, and I don’t want to rack up thousands more in debt just to have an Academic Experience in Berlin. For me, traveling is aboutwandering, meeting people you don’t expect, doing things you’ve never done. And aside from that, all those weekend trips have started to pay off. I’ve only been blogging for eight months, and already I have a few thousand followers on social media.

When I found out I failed my biological science general requirement, and thus it would take me an extra semester to graduate, that was the final straw.

And I’m going to tell my parents all this, and somehow, I’ll find a way to make them understand that school isn’t right for me the way it is for people like Alex. Buttodayis not that day. Today, we’re going to Nashville, and after the last semester, all I want is to let loose.

Just not in the way my mother is implying.

“Mom,” I say. “I amnothaving sex with Alex.”

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