American Youth
by Madeline Marcuzzi
“Are you gonna get those?”
I flinched at the question and my outstretched arm fell to my side as I turned to see who spoke. The girl standing in front of me had on a black tank top and a red plaid skirt. She wasn’t all that big, but she looked powerful. She couldn’t have been any older than eighteen or nineteen, but I still felt like a child before her. She blew her choppy bangs out of her face. It looked as if she’d cut them herself.
“Hey, are you gonna get the chips? You’re standing in the way.”
I felt like the biggest idiot on the planet as I fumbled to speak, tripping over my words for what I knew was too much time before the girl sighed and reached behind me to swipe the Doritos off the shelf. She asked me if I needed help getting a bag. Her mouth was tilted up in a small half-smile. She smelled like cigarettes and dirt. She was beautiful. Control yourself.
*
The car was sweltering hot in the beaming Utah sun. We’d been driving all day, but this wasn’t the kind of heat you could get used to. Our old, beat-up Toyota didn’t have air conditioning, or maybe it did, but it had broken years before I could remember it.
The canyons and cacti out the car window were pretty neat at first, but after a few hours it got stale. Everything felt stale lately.
My mother was in the passenger seat, desperately waving a small electric fan at her face. Her expression made her look as though she would be tearing up if the heat didn’t dry her eyes, and she’d been muttering sadly to herself for a couple minutes. My father had been driving for almost seven hours, and he was starting to get fed up with my mother's silent tantrum; when he looked as though he was really getting ready to let her have it, I knew I needed to try and defuse the situation.
“Can we stop for some water at the next gas station?” I asked quickly, trying to redirect my father’s tired irritability.
My father let out a deep breath, and told me that he didn’t want to waste daylight stopping. My mother didn’t share the same mindset.
“Oh, but it’s so hot, I’m practically melting here! Please? And the girls need some water too, they’ve been so good on the drive!” my mother pleaded with my father.
I turned to my sister to hear her opinion, but she was listening to music. She probably hadn’t heard anything the family had said for the last hour.
My father eventually agreed to let us stop for water, most likely to escape my mother’s incessant complaining about being thirsty, but he claimed we were only stopping because we needed gas. My mother craned her neck to face my sister and I.
“Clara, Eleanor, here’s some money to get the water. And you can get a treat, too, how about that! Just be quick, I don’t want your father to have to wait.”
My mother anxiously placed a warm $10 bill in my hand, and I tapped my sister to get her attention. She glared at me and motioned to her headphones. I rolled my eyes at her and unbuckled my seatbelt.
“Clara, please go inside with your sister,” my mother sighed, but she wasn’t looking at us anymore. She’d turned her attention back to her fan, and her eyes were closed. She probably had a migraine; she always had a migraine.
My sister waved us off, irritated.
I opened the car door and looked back at my mother.
“It’s fine, Mom. I can get the stuff.”
My mother didn’t speak as I hopped out of the car and made my way to the gas station convenience store, checking left and right for cars pulling in. My quick stride created a slight breeze, which I appreciated after so many hours trapped in the steaming car. I arrived at the store, gave the door handle a hard push, and was instantly met with a rush of cool air. Air conditioning was such a relief that I almost started crying.
I navigated the rows of snacks with no real objective other than finding something to eat, and even though my mother told me to hurry up, I wanted to spend as much time as possible soaking up the cool air before being thrust back into the boiling car.
I decided to get the snacks first; I didn’t want to carry around water until I found what I wanted. I went over to the chip aisle and paused in front of the Doritos. I loved Doritos, and I knew they’d taste even better now that I was starving from the countless hours crammed in the car with no food, but I stopped myself as I reached for the bag, my arm suspended in front of me.
Control yourself, I thought.
My parents hated when I ate Doritos, especially in the car, where the red dust would get all over my hands and the car floor. I heard someone clear their voice behind me.
*
She repeated the question again, and I finally found my words.
“No thanks, my parents don’t like it when I eat Doritos in the car.” My cheeks were on fire.
“Can’t you just eat ‘em when you get home?”
“We’re going to Idaho, to… visit family. We’ll be in the car for a long time.”
“Where are you from?”
“Here. Utah.”
She laughed. It was a loud, booming laugh. I hoped nobody was staring at us.
“There’s nothing to do here, is there?”
My throat had gone dry, but I managed to cough out a quiet, “Not really.”
The girl was fiddling with her silver septum piercing. She looked at me for an almost uncomfortable amount of time, before shrugging her shoulders and turning around, starting back up the aisle. Without thinking, I followed her. My heart was pounding. She stopped in front of the cash register and noticed me trailing behind her. She grinned.
“Are you getting anything?”
I suddenly realized I hadn’t picked anything out; I’d been distracted by the beautiful girl and her questions. My face went pale and I turned on my heel, walking as quickly as I could to the back of the store to grab a big bottle of water. My heart was still beating at what felt like a million times a minute. I kept telling myself to calm down, but the butterflies in my stomach wouldn’t go away.
I looked over my shoulder at the girl. She was paying for a pack of cigarettes. I took a deep breath, held it for a few seconds, and let it out.
I walked back to the register, accidentally placing the bottle down so hard the water sloshed around inside. I decided against getting a snack. I wasn’t hungry anyway.
As the cashier scanned the water, the girl looked down at me. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
“You got parents waiting for you outside?”
“Yeah.”
It felt as though her eyes were peering into my soul. My stomach filled with butterflies yet again. I silently scolded myself: You can’t think of her like that. Control yourself. Control yourself.
I paid for my water and the girl asked me if I wanted to smoke with her outside before going back to my car. I said yeah. We took the back entrance so my parents wouldn’t notice us and sat at a sad little picnic table outside. The heat was just as intense as before, and beads of perspiration immediately found their way to my face and neck.
We sat in silence for a while, then she offered me the cigarettes. I took one and fingered it for a moment before sticking it between my teeth. The girl did the same, and reached into a dirty burlap sack that appeared to be her only bag and shoveled through it until she found a lighter, which she offered me too. Control yourself.
“I’m not allowed to smoke,” I said apologetically. “My parents would get really mad at me.”
“Then why’d you take a cigarette?” She lit her own and blew out a small cloud of smoke. I watched the smoke trail up and up until it faded out of sight. I wondered what happened to smoke once it disappeared; was it still there, just invisible? But that was a question for another day.
“I dunno…”
It was hard to think with the combination of the heat and her gleaming eyes watching me. I didn’t want her to laugh at me and force me to walk back to my car in shame. To be like you, I thought, to be cool like you. To not be myself for just a few minutes.
She shrugged.
“There doesn’t have to be a reason.”
I let out a small sigh of relief and looked out at the landscape: canyons and cacti. Same as the drive here, same as the drive to come. But this time, I could see a large tree in the distance. The branches were long and wild. The strange thing about the tree wasn’t its branches, though, but the shape of its stump. The tree had a large curve near the base, before resuming its intended shape and shooting for the sky. It looked like an upside-down question mark. I knew that meant something had tried to stop it from growing years ago, but it made its way around whatever was in the way. I liked that tree.
“I’m Sydney.”
It was the first thing either of us had said in minutes. I looked at her and saw that she too was looking out at the landscape before us, cigarette dangling loosely from her lips. Maybe she was looking at the tree. Maybe she wasn’t.
“I’m Eleanor.” The unlit cigarette fell from my mouth. I had forgotten it was there. If Sydney saw it happen, she didn’t let on.
She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. It was as if the light of the setting sun was dancing on her skin, making her glow. Don’t think about her like that. Control yourself.
“We’re Mormons. That’s why I can’t smoke. We’re going to Idaho to… you know... convert people there.” I meant for my voice to sound certain, but I probably just sounded afraid. To be fair, I was a bit afraid of what this strange older girl would say.
Sydney took a long drag on her cigarette, before slowly letting the smoke fill the sky.
“I was a Mormon, too.”
My heart skipped a beat
“Really?”
“Yup. My family was Mormon. I left three months ago, the day I turned eighteen. Never goin’ back.”
She took the cigarette out of her mouth and tossed it to the ground, stomping the faint flame out with her combat boots.
“Do you miss them?” I knew it was a stupid question, and I regretted it the moment I asked.
“Sure I do. They were good folks. Crazy as all hell, but good.” Sydney lit another cigarette while I let her words sink in.
“Why? Do you ever wish you could leave?”
I’d asked an equally intrusive question, so I felt obliged to answer her.
“Maybe.”
I thought about how long I was taking. My parents were probably furious, wondering what had happened to me.
“I have to go.”
Sydney didn’t respond. I grabbed my water and turned to take one last look at the girl. Her shoulders sagged and she looked broken, her cigarette held loose and half-heartedly between her fingers. I asked her if she had a ride, and she said she was hitchhiking.
“That’s pretty dangerous,” I said.
“I know.”
“We can take you,” I was almost praying she’d take me up on my offer, but she only laughed sadly.
“Your Mormon parents wouldn’t let me within ten feet of their car.”
I wanted to argue, but I knew deep down she was right. I said goodbye. She didn’t say anything. I turned around and walked back around the gas station. I didn’t look back. I knew if I did, I would never leave Sydney, a girl I didn’t know, a girl who didn’t know me. I would never leave.
When I reached the front of the gas station, I paused for a moment. I didn’t know why, but I knew I had to do it. I had to do something. I ran into the convenience store and grabbed a bag of Doritos, slamming it onto the counter before I could change my mind. Adrenaline rushed through me as I waited for my change, and the second the coins were in my hand I dashed with my things back to the car.
My mother had been worried, but my father was beyond angry. He yelled at me until his throat was hoarse, but I would not cry. I climbed into my seat and shut the door, reaching over to hand my mother the water.
“Thank you, dear, but what do you have there? Oh no, you know I don’t like chips in the car!”
I ignored her, and she resorted to angrily murmuring. The car was as hot as before, and I kind of felt pity for my family, having to sit here all this time because of me.
My father was still seething, but by this point he’d turned his attention to the mission we were on; he said we had to be quick to convert the people of Idaho, so they wouldn’t want to legalize same-sex marriage. It’d been legal in Utah for a few months, and my father didn’t want too many more states to “have to go through that.”
I thought about Sydney. Was she safe? Maybe a bad person picked her up. Maybe she wouldn’t survive the night. Maybe she would.
I opened up the Doritos. My mother shot me a quick glare, but to be honest, I didn’t really care. I ate my chips and looked out the window once more.
Canyons and cacti, but they seemed different somehow; despite the coming darkness, the canyons appeared brighter, the cacti full of life. I thought of the tree that had grown tall and mighty despite whatever early obstacles had been in the way. I smiled to myself. That tree would keep growing, even greater than before.
And maybe, someday, I would return to that gas station, and I would see that tree again. Sydney would be there too, only she’d have a good job and wouldn’t have to hitchhike anymore. She’d offer me a cigarette, and I’d take it, and I’d finally light it.
But that was a long way away. I was still in my old car with my family, unsure of the future. But I would be okay. That tree still grew; why wouldn’t I?