Return To Sender (Letters to Nowhere #2)

Chapter 16

~jordan~

"We totally kicked ass tonight," TJ says, thumping me on the back.

            The pain pill from earlier is already wearing off and that thump causes aches to spread everywhere, all the way to my bones.

            But he's right. We kicked ass. TJ did a double back flip off my hands and I managed a double front over him and another guy. The kids went nuts. I think I saw Karen's mouth hang open when we were performing Irina's choreography. I haven't exactly hidden the fact that I'm not a terrible dancer, but the opportunity to pass this knowledge on to her hasn't presented itself before tonight. 

            "Maybe we'll be exempt from leotard wearing for the rest of the summer." I'm trying to match TJ's energy, probably to deny the whole "I'm sick again" issue.

            "We better." He shakes his head, aiming his flashlight a few feet in front of us so we can see the path back to the cabin. "What's the deal with that Stevie chick? She's not underaged, is she?"

            I snort out a laugh. "Did you not see the death glare she was giving you during the whole show tonight?"

            Stevie and Karen are still back in the gym signing autographs for campers. They're so popular after the Pan Am games I won't be surprised if they get hand cramps tonight from all the signing.

            "Oh, I noticed." TJ grins. "I'm having a lot of fun getting under her skin. It's too easy."

            "Well, she is adult age, but Stevie's way tougher than you're giving her credit for. Never underestimate the power of a world champion." I'm not kidding with this advice either. TJ's got the tough guy wall up and he maintains it pretty well, but I have a feeling Stevie could hit him right where it hurts most. She's dealt with rejection on so many levels. I think TJ would throw in the towel at the first sign of rejection. But I could be wrong.

            "I'm just having some fun, man. Quit getting all philosophical on me."

            We've just arrived at our cabin. After walking into our room, I crawl onto my bottom bunk and TJ heads for the shower, yelling something about another coach throwing a party in his cabin tonight. I can barely understand him with the water running, but I already know that I'm not up for a party. I spend fifteen minutes attempting to read some of the material Stanford sent me to help choose a major—something I've been procrastinating for way too long. The pamphlet says, "Your Major, Your Career, Your Life—Placing Your Foot on the Right Path from Day One."

            Somewhere between analyzing the percentage of undergraduate Library Science majors and figuring out what kind of career evolved from a Multi/Interdisciplinary studies degree, I must have dozed off. Next thing I know, TJ is gone and Karen is leaning over me, dressed in pajama pants and a tank top.

            "Must be interesting reading?"

            I rub my eyes and glance at my cell phone—I've only been out for thirty minutes. "Guess I'm more worn out than I realized." I slide back toward the wall and pat the space beside me. "Lie down with me."

            "You're not going to the party?"

            "Are you?" God, I hope not because then I will have to go.

            "Nina would kill us," Stevie shouts from across the hall, in her and Karen's room.

            "She's right." Karen finally slides in next to me, stretching out on her back and holding the pamphlet up so she can read it. "Big decisions, huh, Geek Boy?"

            "Apparently, if you have no major, then you have no career path, which in turn means you have no future." I toss my arm across her stomach and bury my face in the space between her chin and shoulder. My eyes drift closed again.

            "This is like goal setting," she says, still reading the information. "I'm very good at goal setting."

            "What are you going to major in?" I figure she's just as clueless as me, being so focused on gymnastics right now, but of course I'm wrong. Karen's always got her shit together. Unlike me.

            "Either communications or kinesiology and maybe a minor in political science in case I want to go to law school."

            I give her a squeeze and kiss her bare shoulder. Karen's dad was a lawyer. Maybe she's thinking about following in his footsteps. "I feel extremely inferior right now."

            "We just need to explore the realm of possibilities," she says, quoting from the pamphlet.

            It's adorable how dead serious she is about this. "All right, what are my realms?"

            "Start with things you're good at." She flips to the next page and scans it quickly. "There's music . . ."

            "Unless I want to teach music, which I don't, or be a classical musician"— like my mom, I can't help thinking; she went to Juilliard—"which I'm not made for, then I don't need Stanford's seal of approval on anything music related."

            "Okay." Karen nods. "What do you think were your admission strengths? GPA? Test scores? Extracurricular stuff? Essays?"

            "I'm in the top quarter of my class, but not the top ten percent, so it isn't GPA. I got twenty three hundred on my SATs—"

            Karen slaps a hand to my back and shakes me. "Seriously? You got like two hundred points higher than me! I hate you right now."

            I laugh and kiss a new spot on her shoulder. "You had a scholarship regardless of your SATs, so get over it."

            "Fine," she mutters.

            "My essays were my strongest application point," I admit. "The lady who interviewed me said that, anyway." I wrote about remembering a piece of music my mom used to play on the cello note-for-note, but not being able to recall details of her face without looking at photographs. And about remembering the tone of my older sister, Eloise's, voice when she used to read to me, but not being able to picture her moving around me, walking and interacting. Except for her voice, she's become two-dimensional in my memories. Her English accent leaps out in my mind. What would she be like here in America? Would she have been too old to lose her accent like I had?

            Sounds and words. That's what seems to stick with me more than a face or physical trait.

            "Jordan?"

            "Uh-huh?"

            "Writing," Karen says like she's repeating something I must have missed seconds ago. "You're good at writing. Plus you're daring and adventurous. What about journalism?"

            I roll that idea around in my head for a minute. "That's . . . a possible option."

            Karen's face lights up. "Really?" I nod. "Okay then, want me to Google the required courses at Stanford for journalism majors? I'll read them off to you."

            There's no point in answering her. She's already got her phone out, her index finger flying over the touch screen. "I think journalism is a masters-only program so you would do English literature or communications as your undergrad. These courses look interesting."

            "Interesting, huh?"

            She begins reading course titles and already the sound of her voice is etching itself into my memory just like my mother's cello and my sister's British accent. I close my eyes and enjoy the warmth of Karen beside me so much that I fall asleep, and the last words I hear are—English 103H: The Active Life or the Contemplative Life?