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

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.

“All the more reason to get out of here.”

“True.” I can see him assessing the situation, working the possibilities out, like someone playing chess.

“Plus, I really need a drink,” I say, feeling slightly giddy at the thought of that cool vodka tonic fizzing in my throat. “Nobody’s going to stop, anyway.”

“Pretty grim view of humanity,” he says.

“I’ll brighten up soon as you get a little vodka in me.”

We’ve just managed to bungee Medea’s box onto the back of his bike when the bus and everything I own erupts in a loud, surreal orgy of light and heat. I start to laugh. I don’t know why; it’s just the sound my body emits, without any consent. The whole thing’s an omen of some sort, but right now I’m too hot and hysterical to guess at what it all means.

“Come on,” I yell. “Let’s go!” The air is alive with the smell of gasoline, and the waves of heat are so intense it’s like swimming in an ocean just this side of scalding. He looks at me, puts his helmet on my head and says something, but I can’t hear him now because my ears are engulfed in padding. I think I can read his lips, though; I think he’s saying, “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

CHAPTER 2

We should have done away with marriage long ago; by now it should be a fuzzy historical footnote, like eight-track tapes.

Unfortunately, knowing this didn’t save me from getting engaged last spring. I’d been a die-hard Amazon since my parents’ divorce, arguing with anyone who’d listen that a girl should never trade her leather bustier for a Whirlpool dishwasher, but in my late twenties, I temporarily forgot. Having sex with the same person on a regular basis can really mess with your understanding of pertinent details, like who you are, for example. I should have known things were taking a turn for the worse when Jonathan, who always prided himself in being wildly original, popped the question on one knee in a nauseatingly sunny and not at all offbeat setting. It was April and we were picnicking at a quaint park; the trees were sparkling after a light rain and toddlers were toddling across the grass and tulips were waving in the breeze, for Christ’s sake. It was mortifying, how Sound of Music it all was—especially when you consider that both Jonathan and I insist musicals are the lowest form of entertainment, right below public lynching.

Why continue submitting to a proven recipe for disaster? Take two cups pressure to conform, equal amounts fear and isolation, add a dash of childhood trauma and you’ve got marriage. Put that in the microwave with sexual urges and animal behavior, cook on high until the whole thing either caves in with apathy or explodes with infidelity. There is no such thing as a genuinely happy marriage, there are just varying degrees of skill in the performance of one.

Cynical? Maybe. I’ve earned my cynicism, though. I wear it like a Purple Heart.

My parents split up when I was eleven. My father, the shop teacher—skinny and slouching, sporting horn-rimmed glasses and pants that showed his blinding white socks—started giving it to a twenty-six-year-old dental hygienist with major cleavage. Simon does Sally. It was a mess. Calistoga (think sleepy, claustrophobic, its only claim to fame a line of mediocre beverages) had a great time laughing about it behind cupped fingers.

After the divorce, my mother moved to Marin County, studied numerology, unblocked her chakras and became an embarrassingly successful hypnotherapist. Her main clients were miserable bleach-blond divorcées driving Beemers and wearing dream catcher earrings. She started marrying with a vengeance, always with an unerring eye for the clod who would make her (and, by association, me) most miserable. I called her a serial wifer. She didn’t need them for their money; she was driven by something much deeper, more compulsive and masochistic. She once said to me, “Claudia, I don’t marry because I want to. I marry because I find it impossible not to.”

As for my father, he married the dental hygienist, who turned out to be a hypochondriac. She got out of her dental career, claiming the drills exacerbated her migraines, and sponged off my father, consuming his modest but carefully stashed savings, until a guy rolled into town who built swimming pools, and she went off with him. It was a weird time in my life, watching the drama of my parents’ love and (worse yet) sex lives unfold with the creepy predictability of a B horror flick. At first I dug my nails into my arm and tried not to scream, but by the time I was into my teens I observed it all with cool detachment, bored by the snowballing disaster of it all.

Cynical? Isn’t observant a little more accurate?

Anyway, now that my Jonathan-induced amnesia is safely behind me, I have every reason to be thrilled that he fell for a jailbait temptress and ran off with her. I should send them a dozen roses with a note: Better you than me. Let them indulge in each other’s flesh until they’re surfeit with sex and kisses and don’t-ever-leave-me-I-love-yous and the slow, torturous monotony of the future stretches out before them like the open ocean before seasick stowaways. I’m done with it all. From now on, I’ll be a warrior for non-monogamy. I’ll fight the good fight, protesting the evil of the bridal industry and romantic comedies wherever they rear their treacherous, sycophantic heads.

CHAPTER 3

Clay Parker takes me to a filthy dive on Mission Street called the Owl Club. It’s a Tuesday afternoon and there are only three customers, two old guys with faces like worn baseball gloves and a woman in tight cords playing pool by herself. She also appears to be having a solo conversation, and since no one’s bothered to feed the jukebox we can hear most of it—something about the FBI and Walter Cronkite, but it’s so complicated I tune her out after a few minutes. I’m feeling really guilty about poor Medea, who’s puffed up like one of those troll dolls after too many twirls, so I bring her in with us and hold her shaking body in my lap, trying to stroke her into submission.

“I guess we should call the cops, or something,” Clay says as he returns from the bar with our drinks.

“Cops?” My head swings toward him too quickly.

“It’s a bad time for a fire like that—could get out of hand,” he offers, but I can see by the way he’s studying me that my panic is apparent.

“I can’t.” I spent most of the ride here trying to concoct a good story, but I’m a rotten liar. I’ve been acting since I was six years old and still I can’t fib my way out of a goddamn dental appointment, let alone grand theft auto and arson, so I’ve resigned myself to telling this hapless stranger the truth. “Look, I hate to get you involved in all this,” I begin, stirring my vodka tonic quickly before downing half of it. “The thing is, I sort of—well—borrowed that bus.”

“Borrowed it?” In the dim light of the Owl Club, I can’t be sure what color his eyes are—somewhere between blue and green—but there’s something remarkably comfortable and familiar about his face. He has a stare that makes you lose your train of thought, and for a long moment I can’t remember what I’m doing here, or what I’m supposed to confess.

“If I seem incoherent, I’m sorry,” I say, looking away. “I’m a little tripped out. God, this is absolutely the most delicious and the most needed vodka tonic I’ve ever tasted.”

“You didn’t steal it, did you?”

“Well…” I try a smile, but it’s all wrong. The woman playing pool breaks and the smack of the balls makes Medea sink her claws into my thigh with alarm. “Ouch!” I cry, quite loudly, and everyone turns in my direction. I sink a little lower into the booth. Psychotic Car Thief and Mad Pussycat Apprehended at the Owl Club. “It was my boyfriend’s,” I whisper. “I just borrowed it, but he doesn’t know.”

“Aha. And where’s your boyfriend now?”

“Ex-boyfriend. Sorry. I can’t seem to get that right. He’s in New York, having sex with a teenager.”

“Charming.” He leans back, looks at the ceiling, and I can tell he’s wondering what he’s gotten himself into.

“You don’t think it’ll start a fire, do you? I mean, of course it was on fire—the explosion and all—but do you think it’ll catch?” What an idiot. Why can’t I speak?

One of the old guys at the bar laughs violently at something, and this time Medea makes a break for the door. I scramble after her, but Clay’s quicker by half; he scoops her up into his arms and has her purring in his lap before I’ve even managed to lay a hand on her. Jonathan never did get along with Medea. He claimed he was allergic, that she gave him a headache and an itchy tongue, but I always suspected it was more of a jealous grudge than a physical reaction.

Now that I’m standing, I feel a warmth spreading into my underwear again, and I realize that in my haste to get a little vodka down my throat I completely forgot about changing my tampon. I excuse myself to the ladies’ room, which turns out to be a disgustingly neglected converted broom closet. There’s a sink stained brown with rust, the floor is covered with miscellaneous paper products, and the single-stall door has been delightfully decorated with a vast array of rants, insults and warnings, the most prominent of which reads, Die Puta Bitches.

I study myself for a moment in the small, cracked mirror. My hair, even on a good day, is immune to threats with a comb. Each curl finds its way into its own contorted expression of chaos; trying to interfere leads only to excessive frizz. Today the curls have twisted to ambitious dimensions, resulting in a Medusa-on-crack look. I’m wearing this little orange sundress—the most comfortable thing I own for long drives (now, I remind myself, the only thing I own). It’s not exactly the height of chic, especially since it’s all wrinkled, the armpits are wet and the bodice is smeared here and there with the sooty remains of Jonathan’s bus. I think of Mr. Indecently Attractive out there, nursing his beer and petting my cat; perhaps it’s just as well that I’m so horrifically unpresentable today—there’s less chance of me wandering into something I really shouldn’t.

Tampon, Claudia. Focus. Oh, but goddammit, my stash of OB is now being cremated on the shoulder of Highway 17. There is a machine, thank God, but I haven’t got any change. I could go back out there and get the bartender to give me quarters. But then Clay will see me and it’ll be obvious or at the very least odd (think about it, Claudia—wouldn’t incinerating a stolen vehicle qualify as plenty odd already?). I know the chances that I’ll create a favorable impression at this point are slim (not to mention unnecessary. Remember? On the rebound, delirious with heat, on the rag, homeless, with all possessions currently blowing amid Tuesday traffic in form of ash. Do not, I repeat, do not indulge in a messy entanglement with Gorgeous Motorcycle Boy). But still, I don’t want to make things worse with one more faux pas.

There’s a gentle sniffling coming from inside the bathroom stall. I freeze. It never occurred to me that I wasn’t alone in here. A quick check under the door reveals a pair of pink flip-flops. A couple seconds pass, and then the toilet flushes and out comes Beach Barbie.

She’s wearing a tiny tank over a bikini top and miniature turquoise shorts, cut high enough to reveal her mile-long legs. Her eyes are bloodshot and her nose is pink from too much blowing, but neither this nor the seedy setting is enough to detract from her overwhelming California glow.

I try not to gawk as she squeezes past me to the sink, washes her hands and then her face, pats both dry with a paper towel.