Instructions for a Broken Heart (18 page)

Everyone, it seemed, had Jessa’s seat. Or was it the other way around? Jessa had already moved twice. First, a ridiculously tall German woman told Jessa she had the wrong seat. She wasn’t very nice about it, probably because she was used to being able to squash people like grapes. Then it was a grandma in an “I Was Romed” T-shirt, which didn’t make any sense, who didn’t act very grandmotherly. Now, a short, blue-suited Italian man sitting next to Jade looked apologetically up at her. The flight attendant tried to tell Jessa that she would have to find her another seat, but the man stood, gathered his newspaper, ushered her into the seat, the kind of gentleman they didn’t seem to make in California anymore.

Already, Jessa felt coated with a thin film, dust or sweat or some sort of hybrid body excretion that rears its head only on airplanes. She settled her bag on the floor in front of her, nodding at Jade, whose pen scritch-scratched across the pages of her journal. Jessa’s eyes surveyed the plane. A row up, a gorgeous couple sat thumbing through magazines, probably on their way to be Armani models or something, one giant advertisement for why the rest of the world was just too ugly to breathe. They whispered quietly, he in what sounded like German, and she in Italian. Nothing like a Europe trip to make you realize how stupid you were when it came to languages. Jessa vowed to pay more attention in Señor Allen’s Spanish class.

Italian filtered out over the speakers, announcing their departure—instructions never sounded so beautiful, and Jessa took another peek out the window but it just looked airporty.

Ciao, Italia.

***

Jessa checked the big envelope again, pulling out all the smaller envelopes. One by one, she set them on her pull-down table, trying not to wake Jade who slept next to her with tiny, purring snores. Eighteen envelopes. She knew she’d left one at the place where she’d had dinner with Giacomo, but where was #20? She hadn’t opened #19, thought she’d just open both and then maybe sleep the rest of the plane ride. It would be so like Carissa to just forget to put in #20 or maybe it would be waiting for her on her pillow at home. Dramatic flair.

She peeled open the last envelope.

Big Fat Reason #19: Air, Not Just for Breathing Anymore

He took you for granted.

Air: Not Just for Breathing Anymore

Breathe it, fly through it,

spill our dreams into it,

color it with rain. Air—necessary

and totally taken for granted.

No instruction with this last envelope. Maybe the poem was the instruction even if it was more like a decree. The world according to Carissa. Did Sean take her for granted? Did Jessa take Carissa for granted? Probably. Maybe air was a lot like love, or friendship. It was noticeable when you suddenly lost it and were left gasping. But up until that loss of it, did she notice it? Jessa had the horrible feeling that she’d yet to scratch the surface of all she’d been taking for granted her whole life. She’d sure taken Tyler for granted on the trip. Rolling her head from side to side, Jessa folded all the notes back into the larger envelope and tucked them back into her bag, then sat back into her seat. Breathe—breathe air.

Sean turned in his seat several rows up, caught her staring. They hadn’t talked since her reading, but the crackling bridge of ice between them, the one that held her from him but also fastened her to him, had thawed, melted, leaving only a few icy tendrils, ones that could be seen only in direct light, tiny diamond sparkles. She felt like she was seeing him for the first time. Teenage boy in bone-colored shirt, great hair, slightly crooked nose, long limbed—far from her, miles from her. She smiled, and with their history framing his face, he smiled back, then returned to his magazine.

Jade stirred next to her, mumbled something that sounded like, “Rwar awr me?”

“The polar route over the ice caps,” Jessa said, pointing out the window. Both girls pressed their faces to the window. Below them, the beautiful blinding ice stretched out, rippled and textured, rolling away into vastness and then sudden glimpses of blue sky shot through thick as paint.

“It’s like
The Golden Compass
or something,” Jade breathed. “We can imagine we’re bounding over it in a huge, red balloon.”

Jessa nodded, wanting very much to imagine that. “Do you think there is life there?”

Jade’s eyes sparkled, taking in the ocean of ice below. “I imagine dozens of ice creatures living in tunnels beneath the snow, eyes like slits, creatures who use smell the way we use sight, who can feel the difference between snowflakes, who have a million nerve endings at the end of their fingers.” Her eyes darted quickly to Jessa. “Oh, God. You probably think I’m such a total freak that I just said that.”

“No way.” Jessa leaned closer to the window. “It’s just that the creatures in my head have huge orb eyes instead of slits. And they live in cavernous glass domes beneath the ice.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Jade smiled, her white teeth even, organized squares. “I’ll have to text Dylan Thomas when we land. He’d love that.”

“You two had a good connection, huh?” Jessa felt an icy pool gathering in her own belly, felt Jade’s creatures taking refuge there.

Jade nodded. “He’s a really sweet guy, so smart and funny. We had fun.”

Jessa hesitated. “Are you guys, um, together now?”

“What? No! I’ve been with Trevor Johns for, like, two years.”

Trevor Johns! Jessa had totally forgotten about Trevor—senior, president of Project Green, long-distance runner, overall crunchy-granola cutie pie. He basically wanted to marry Jade and live in his Eurovan. How had she so easily popped him right out of her mind?

“Oh, yeah. Duh.”

Jade pulled her curls off her shoulders, tying them into a knot with a strip of cloth at the base of her neck. “Trev’s in Mexico building houses this break. This trip’s just a little too consumer splurge for Trev. Can you imagine him with that other group?” Jade giggled. “He’d be all, like, um, Cruella, are you aware of your global consumer impact?” Jade’s love for her boyfriend wrapped each word with music. “That would be hilarious.”

“He’s very earnest, your Trevor,” Jessa smiled.

“Oh yeah. He’ll change the world.” Jade pulled her journal out of her woven bag. “But I wanted to see Italy. Because it’s really, really pretty.”

“So pretty,” Jessa agreed.

Jade held her journal up. “Gonna write about our glass-dome cave creatures. Might make a good song.”

Jessa nodded, the ice pool in her belly evaporating. The in-flight movie blinked on, and she pulled on the headphones, curled into her seat, cradled in all the air surrounding her, buoying her, as they hurtled through the sky above the wide expanse of ice, the frozen ocean below.

Jessa peered into the bleary light of the Sacramento airport. Was it just her or did the light here seem beige, so unlike the fairy wing light of Italy? All around her, beige people wheeled beige bags, sat on beige chairs, ate beige food.

“Culture shock.” Mr. Campbell rolled his suitcase up next to hers. “It passes in, oh, well,” he shrugged, “never.”

“Once Italy gets in…” she started.

“It never leaves,” he finished, nodding. “Good trip.” With a tired smile, he wheeled his bag away from her through the glass doors to where a bus idled outside.

Jessa scanned the airport, desperately wanting a Starbucks before she climbed on another bus. Maybe a little caffeine would pop her out of her funk.

She blinked. Did Sacramento have a problem with mirages? Was she just that tired that she was imagining beautiful Italian men standing by the Cinnabon shop? She probably rubbed her eyes, because people in movies rubbed their eyes when they thought they were seeing things that couldn’t, under any circumstance, be standing right in front of them. Of course in the movies, the thing in question was always there.

“Is that Giacomo?” Tyler rolled his suitcase up next to her.

They couldn’t both be having the same hallucination. Could they?

Her stomach back flipped.

Giacomo saw her. His face lighting, he strolled over. “I knew that your flight was coming in. I flew in last night, left Capri, and headed out. Thanks to you.” He nodded at Tyler, who studied him with some skepticism but nodded back.

Jessa’s mouth felt stuck together with paste, cemented. What was he talking about?

Giacomo held an envelope in his hand. “You are missing one, no?”

#20.

The mouth paste turned to sand. Jessa nodded, took the envelope in trembling fingers, stared at it, turning it over and over in her hands.

“It’s sort of random that you’re here, dude.” Tyler raised his eyebrows, waited for an answer.

Jessa’s heart was suddenly like one of the neon smoothie machines from the airport food court, all swirls and churning. “Why do you have this?”

“I found it on the boat leaving Capri. I almost threw it out, but I wanted you to have all twenty. If you are still opening them?” He squinted his dark, liquid eyes at her, cocked his head to the side. “You did something for me. Now I do something for you.”

“So you came all the way to California? To give me this letter? Just in case?” All the airport sounds, the voice in the speakers, the beeping of carts, the whirl and whine of weary travelers, all of it heightened, pounded Jessa’s ears like it was being pumped into her head through earphones.

Giacomo’s eyebrows jumped. “Oh, what? Oh, no. I should have explained…” Then he laughed—hard. Held a hand over his belly, even wiped a tear from his eye.

Tyler cleared his throat. “You can see where she might get that idea. Since you are standing here in the Sacramento airport holding an envelope. Since you are standing right here.”

Jessa could kiss Tyler.

Giacomo got himself under control. “I flew here yesterday. Because of Aaron.”

“Who?” Jessa and Tyler asked at the same time.

On cue, a tall, blonde boy of maybe nineteen joined them, a bag slung over his shoulder. He had face dimples and eyes like the ice capped sky they had just flown over.

Giacomo put an arm around him. “This is Aaron. He attends UC Davis. For art. He is…” he paused, his eyes locking on Jessa’s. “He is the reason I left. To come here. Like we talked about.”

“Ohhhhhh.” Jessa could just imagine the light bulb blinking on above her head right about now. Narrow minds, he had said. Narrow minds. He had to leave. His whole cryptic discussion of love in Capri. She held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Aaron.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said, shaking her hand and then Tyler’s.

“That key was to my…What do you call them?” Giacomo was all ease around Aaron, his smile without its edge of sadness.

“Safety deposit box. Where his passport was,” he explained. “Thanks, by the way.” And if it was at all possible, his smile might have outwatted Giacomo’s. Jessa let herself take a little bath in it for a second.

“Jessa! Tyler!” Ms. Jackson stood several feet away, her own suitcase behind her, watching them curiously. “The bus is here.”

“You have my email,” Jessa said quickly to Giacomo, giving him a hug. “Congratulations,” she whispered into his ear.

His strong arms engulfed her.

Waving to him over her shoulder, she followed Tyler through the sliding doors of the airport.

***

Another bus.

As they pulled out onto the highway toward home, she studied the bulky northern California landscape—beige.

Had it only been ten days?

Tyler sat next to her, polishing off his last bag of gummy bears.

She studied the envelope in her lap. #20. The last one. She peeled it open.

Empty.

“He’s kind of stealing my thunder,” Tyler said through a mouthful of bears. “Showing up here with the envelope I thought you’d lost. Stupid, charming Italian guy.”

“What are you talking about?”

Sifting through her airplane-mussed bag, Tyler pulled out the copy of
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
. He opened the front cover of the book, plucked out a different, smaller envelope that was nestled there, held it up like a visual aid. “Reason #20,” it read. Only it wasn’t written in Carissa’s purple pen.

It said “
JESSA
”—in thick, black pen. Boy-writing pen.

“Tyler…” Jessa’s voice edged a warning.

“Carissa wanted the last one written by someone I thought should write it. You know, based on the trip.” He flipped black hair from his eyes and as much as he was trying not to, he couldn’t quite mask his grin.

Jessa shook her head. “I saw the manual. She didn’t say anything about this.” She took the envelope as if it might burn her, or sing to her, or spill infinite light on her, something like that.

Tyler shrugged, his smile winning over. “There may have been an addendum.”

“Tyler! Seriously, you and Carissa…”

“Just stop,” Tyler interrupted. “You know, he’s right—for a smart girl, you can be a real dumbass sometimes. Good thing we love you so much.”

Jessa’s skin rippled with sudden heat.

Dylan Thomas.

Tyler kicked his knees up on the bus seat in front and pulled the hood of his sweatshirt down over his eyes. “Just read it.”

She opened the envelope, extracting a piece of stationery, the top emblazoned with the swirled script of the hotel name from their last night in Italy.

This is not a reason, not an instruction, not a memory

of something to unfold for you so you can hold its mirror self

up to your face, study it for answers; it is not advice or

judgment or laughter or a history of us.

There are no answers.

It is simply this:

You are human—flesh, blood, bone, soul, heart,

dreams, memory.

But you are so much more, Jessa.

You are an artist, a poet, a dreamer.

I stand at a window, looking out at a dark world streaked

with light. And I see what you see,

my eyes filled with a constant threat of tears,

at all the desolate beauty in the world.

Her heart flushed with air, with all of the Italian sky at once in her soul, with the words in black and white in her lap. Dylan Thomas—a poet. How ironic and wonderful and obvious.

She read the poem again. “Oh, Tyler.”

Tyler studied her from under his hood. “I know.”

As the landscape of her normal life whirled by the window, her own mind flashed to the day at Pompeii, everyone sitting on the grass, Dylan Thomas playing guitar.
You’ve got terrible vision if you don’t see that I’m in love with you…

She did. She really, really had terrible vision. Terrible, sucky missing-the-point vision.

Her mind filled with pieces of him, a little Dylan Thomas mind collage: dancing around her singing
Mamma Mia!
; walking alone on the beach, his face bathed in a sheet of light; chatting with Mr. Campbell at the front of the bus; his brow pinched in anger about Sean’s kiss; last night, outside the bus, the weight of his hand on her wrist like a familiar bracelet whose metal had grown warm against her skin.

I’ll miss you, you poor poet, you
—said in the way only another lonely artist could say it, another soul finding its way through the fog.

Tyler already had her phone in his hand. Grabbing it, she clicked to Dylan Thomas’s number.

She texted:

Is there room at that window for another pair of eyes?

A minute later, her phone rang.