Glitter and Glue Read Free Page A

Libby and her very crazy brother, whom everyone called Uncle Slug. By eight o’clock on any given night, I was up in my room—the room where my great-great-aunt Gerty lived until she died in the rocking chair that still sat by the window—highlighting
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
until my next move became clear.
    If I really wanted to grow, well, that was not going to happen while I was living with my granny, driving my shit Honda two miles to the office every day, clocking in to happy hour on Water Street at five P.M. , hoping some club lacrosse player would try to suck my face behind the phone booth after pounding a Jägermeister shot. I needed to get out. I needed an adventure. So I found a round-the-world ticket on sale in the back of
The New York Times
and talked Tracy into coming with me. One year, seven countries, bang-o—odyssey!
    When I laid out the plan for my parents, my dad said, “Lovey, FANTASTIC!” He would know. He went to Australia with a lacrosse team back in the late fifties. “Go get ’em, Lovey!” He’s a Life Eater, my dad.
    My mom said, “You haven’t been out of college two years yet. You need to focus on making money, saving up.”
    “I
have
saved. How do you think I’m paying for the plane ticket?”
    “You should be using that money to get established, get your own health insurance, not traipse all over creation,” she said. “I certainly hope you’re not expecting help from your father and me.”
    “I’m not.” (Hoping, maybe.)
    “Good. You don’t want to come home to a mountain of debt.”
    “Mom, I get it.”
    “You get it. I bet you get it,” she said, mostly to herself, as she cut a sliver of lemon rind to toss in her five o’clock drink.
    “Anyway, I’ll go back to work when I get home.”
    “You better hope they’ll take you back.”
    “They will.”
    She looked at me like I thought I knew everything. “You really think you know everything, don’t you?”
    “Here’s what I know: I want Life Experience!”
    “You know what’s good Life Experience? Life. Real life is excellent life experience,” she said, pleased with her retort. “How does running around Australia apply to anything … like working, marriage, family?”
    “Mom—God! You know what? Things happen when you leave the house.”
    “What?”
    “I’m not going to magically become interesting sitting onthe sofa. I’m not going to learn anything—my values, or purpose, or point of view—at home. Things happen when you
leave
, when you walk out the door, up the driveway, and into the world.”
    “I don’t know why you don’t walk out the door and go to an office, like everyone else.”
    Despite my mom’s total failure to get behind me, I liked everything about the odyssey plan. I even liked the vocabulary of travel: distant shores, exotic vistas, excursions, expeditions. Show me the poetry in
ground-beef special, informational interview, staff development
.
    Two months later, my parents walked me to the gate at JFK. I spotted Tracy from a hundred yards away—she’s six feet, a head taller than all the Taiwanese in line for our flight to Taipei—with her mom. They have the same haircut because they go to the same hairdresser; they share clothes and shoes, sunglasses and jewelry, which they can do because Tracy’s mom has pierced ears, like a normal person. My mom wears clip-ons that feel like little vises on my earlobes.
    As my parents and I approached, Tracy and her mom started their goodbye. They said
I love you
and
I love you, too
and
Have the time of your life!
They kissed and hugged, and when they pulled apart, they both had tears in their eyes, which made them laugh the exact same laugh at the exact same moment.
    My mom stood in front of me with her pleather pocketbook snuggled cautiously under one arm.
    “All right, now,” she said, “be very careful with your passport and your travelers’ checks.” She had said this ten times in the last two weeks.
    “I