Pick-Up
On a tense road trip to visit a tiny college in Washington, Clare grapples with her daughter Alison’s sudden shift—from Ivy League ambitions to a life shaped by weed and rebellion. Left alone in a rainy, unfamiliar town, Clare makes a reckless choice that stirs desire, regret, and unexpected grief. By morning, both mother and daughter must confront a painful truth: neither belongs where they thought they did.
No one Clare knew had ever heard of Evergreen State, a tiny hippy school tucked away in the ferny woods of Washington, college of her daughter's choice. Alison had found it cruising around online. Six months earlier her heart had been set on Yale, but over the summer she'd been turned onto marijuana, and now, in the fall of her senior year, she decided she wanted a more alternative, laid-back school. Clare knew laid-back was the last thing her volatile daughter was. She tried to talk to her about the lures and dangers of weed, carefully explaining that it was all right to experiment as long as one didn't get into the habit, only to be vilely snapped at: "I know what I'm doing, mother!" The cold authoritarianism in Alison's voice had stopped Clare as effectively as a hatchet to the throat. Quite simply, Clare was afraid of Alison, afraid of her withering glances, her terminal grouchiness, her horrible, edgy scorn.
On the trip from Texas to Washington State to visit the college, they barely spoke. In Seattle they rented a car. Alison would be spending the night in a dorm on campus while Clare stayed in a nearby hotel. The drive took an hour and was as silent and gloomy as the flight from Austin. Clare glanced at her daughter slouched down in her seat and felt like weeping. Until Alison was fifteen, the two had been close, more like companions than mother and daughter. But now that Alison was about to leave home, there was only the frailest rope of connection between them, a rope so stiff and frayed it seemed to constantly come apart in Clare's hands. Everything she said or did caused another little rip in the fabric. Alison chided her for the hours she spent at the gym, toning her arms, for wearing short skirts and having facials and getting her hair done frequently because she had no talent with a blow dryer and wanted to look pretty. "What you look is stupid," Alison said. "You're over fifty, Mom. Get used to it."
Evergreen State College was set in a densely wooded state park. Clare felt Alison's mood change the moment they pulled into the parking lot. She skittered out of her silence like a bird fluttering out of a swamp. Her face brightened and there was the slightest swing to her step as they made their way across campus to the admissions office.
"I think I'm going to like it here," she chirped.
To Clare the campus with its drab concrete buildings and paved quadrangle and square clock tower looked as gray and gloomy as an industrial park. The students all seemed interchangeable, mangy-looking guys with beards or dreads or both, girls in heavy sandals and dirty jeans. Everyone seemed slow, out of focus as if the weepy climate had watered them down, erased their edges. In Clare's view, Alison, who'd grown up in Texas and was used to heat and relentless sunshine, who thrived on precision, showered frequently and had the austere (if inchoate) beauty of a Vogue model, didn't fit in at all. How could she be happy in such a place? Even the secretary in the admissions office was unclear and vague.
"Alison Reed? I don't have her name down here on the schedule."
"But I spoke to you last week," Clare said. "We've come all the way from Texas."
"Yeah? Well, okay. I'll just have to find someone to take her to the dorm." She gestured to Alison. "Why don't you sit down over there on the couch."
To Clare she said, "You can pick her up tomorrow around noon."
It was five-thirty, chilly and dark. Clare climbed back into the rental with tears in her eyes, a mind-numbing sense of loss.
This was it, the first true parting from her daughter, the beginning of longer and longer separations. She felt as if she'd been orphaned.
Alison, who'd immediately stuck her nose into a magazine, hadn't even looked at Clare as she left the admissions office, and that made things worse, almost as if, without Alison to define her, Clare didn't quite know who she was. Don't be ridiculous, she told herself, backing the rental out of its spot. She was an ESL teacher at a school in Austin, had a job, friends, a life. She hadn't had sex in over a year, but that was because the right man hadn't presented himself. The right man. She thought about that as she turned onto the wide, unlit boulevard that led off campus. Clare hadn't been with anyone besides her husband in twenty-one years. The two of them had split up eighteen months ago, and since then, though she'd been out with plenty of guys, there hadn't been a single person who appealed to her. So maybe the problem was hers? Maybe she was too choosy?
It began to rain, then to pour. Clare switched the windshield wipers up high, thwack thwack thwack. The secretary at Evergreen had given her back-road directions to the Ramada Inn in downtown Olympia. She drove through an interminable black hinterland of trees, wondering if she'd gone wrong, relieved when she finally saw the glare and fluorescence of stores along a highway — Pizza Hut, Target, Wendy's, Subway. This definitely wasn't downtown Olympia, but she remembered she needed toothpaste and decided to make a run for Target. She parked as near to the door as she could, pulling her jacket over her head to keep her hair dry. Inside, she grabbed a cart and wandered the aisles, comforted by the fact that this Target was organized in exactly the same way as the Target she frequented in Austin: housewares, automotive, beauty products, linens located in just the same places. She tossed shower gel, nail polish, hair curlers, a razor into her cart, agonized over two different shades of lipstick (she took both), drifted through electronics where she considered a fancy headset, then found herself in front of a display of condoms. Never in her life had she bought condoms, but it occurred to her that she might want to play it safe and buy some now. The minute she thought that, a delicious and cunning recklessness grabbed hold of her. How did one figure the size, the thickness? She studied each of the many boxes, excitement blooming between her legs. There were so many considerations: did one want ribs, lubrication, an extra reservoir? And what brand was best? In the end she threw four different kinds into her cart and strolled nonchalantly to the checkout, hoping the sexual heat that had begun, slowly, to buzz through her system wasn't coming off of her in palpable waves.
In her room at the Ramada she prepared herself for adventure as surely as if she had a date: shaved her legs, plucked her eyebrows, creamed her skin. She applied bright red polish to her nails. She had a pair of sexy underpants that she'd brought along for no reason and she slipped her feet through those, then put on jeans, a snug-fitting black sweater, her leather jacket. It was eight o'clock. Where to go? She rode down in the elevator with a man who edged nervously away from her, sensing perhaps that she had an agenda. He was fiftyish, the right age, but droopy, with narrow shoulders. Downstairs, she glanced into the bar — only couples there, a few older men, no one of interest.
"Know of any place to go dancing?" she asked the clerk at the desk, who was rail-thin with comb tracks in his hair.
He gave her an odd look. It was a Wednesday night, sour, drizzly, workaday. "You mean like a club?" he asked.
"Maybe a place to hear music."
"No, not really."
"How about an AA meeting?"
He looked away from her. "My brother-in-law goes to those," he said, reaching for the phone. "I'll ask him."
Except for a bunch of kids hanging out in front of a tattoo parlor, the streets of downtown Olympia were empty. The pouring rain of a few hours ago had downgraded to a fine mist. Clare walked to the AA meeting the clerk had recommended, which was in a storefront not far from the hotel. She was twenty minutes late -- fine by her since all she really needed was a quick hit to soak up the atmosphere. She'd been sober twenty-two years and had long ago stopped going to meetings. Not having a drink was as habitual to her as brushing her teeth, putting on deodorant, but tonight she wasn't taking any chances.
Don't go to slippery places if you don't want to slip — that's what they said in AA and it seemed to Clare that in the hours since she'd left her daughter at Evergreen her head had become one giant skating rink. Her head and the suddenly active place of desire between her legs.
There were two women and a handful of men at the meeting, all of them sad and gloomy, as if they'd been drained of alcohol but not yet pumped up with anything else.
Clare let their blah blah about gratefulness and there-but-for-the-grace-of-God and one-day-at-a-time wash over her. As far as she was concerned there was only one truth: don't drink. Not now. Not ever. The room with its slogans and harsh lights and downtrodden little flock of people depressed her. The others were here to get sober; she was here to receive benediction before going to a bar and getting laid.
Across the room a man with snow-white hair smiled tentatively at her. The hair had tricked her into thinking he was sixty-plus, but actually he was her age, face lined (probably from booze), cute in a flannel shirt, faded jeans and old tan work boots. Perhaps some sort of fisherman? She smiled back. The meeting ended and they all stood and said the Lord's Prayer and then milled about. Clare wondered if White Hair would approach her.
She took some time zipping up her jacket. White Hair took time zipping up his. She slung her bag over her shoulder. He picked up his laptop, which was in a leather carrier, and draped it over his. They both headed for the door. "I'm Raymond," he said, when they were inches apart and he had to talk or seem like an asshole.
"I'm Clare."
"You're not from here, are you?"
"No."
"Interested in coffee?"
He owned a pet store that specialized in exotic birds and reptiles. He'd been sober five years, divorced seven. He had two sons, both grown, lived in a house he'd designed himself, enjoyed hiking and sailing. He was fifty-four years old. "How about you?" he asked Clare.
"How old am I?"
"No, what do you do?"
She didn't really want to get into all that, how she taught people who could barely read or write in their own language to speak English, the demise of her marriage.
Raymond had bright blue eyes that filled with emotion when he talked about his sons and his animals. His teeth were practically as white as his hair, and she liked his hands -- strong, unassuming hands that she sensed would feel good on her body. She wanted to be in bed with him, not here in a coffee shop pretending to be civilized and polite. On the other hand, if Alison did go to Evergreen, this was a person she might actually want to get to know and cultivate.
"I have a daughter who's visiting the college."
"Ah — that's why you're here?"
"Yes."
He waited for her to say more, blue eyes peering expectantly into hers.
"I own two dogs, a Shi Tzu and a German Shepherd, and I'm learning Spanish."
He nodded vigorously.
"1 was a comparative literature major in college, so I read a lot."
He nodded more vigorously.
"I have a room at the Ramada Inn."
He stopped nodding and one of his strong hands knocked against his coffee, spilling it all over the table.
The clerk pretended not to look as she sailed past him to the elevator with Raymond. Upstairs they didn't talk. She went to the bathroom, brushed her teeth, put on perfume and a little lipstick. Then he went to the bathroom. She was uncomfortably, embarrassingly, unendurably wet between the legs. A girlfriend had once told her a big Adam's apple meant a big penis and Raymond had a big Adam's apple. He came out of the bathroom and kissed her. "I've never done this before," she whispered.
His blue eyes gleamed at her. "That's okay."
"You don't have any diseases or anything, do you?"
"I don't think so."
She didn't think so either. He was educated, clean-cut. But she wasn't taking any chances. "I have condoms." She was nervous now, so she began to babble. "I bought them at Target this afternoon. Just for the hell of it. I'd left my daughter at the college and it made me feel kind of weird, you know? Lonely."
He kissed her again, perhaps to stop her words. His tongue was soft and warm as tapioca in her mouth. His hands went under her shirt, into her bra, palms rubbing her nipples. "Suppose we turn out the lights,” he whispered.
"All right."
He released her and unbuttoned his shirt. She slithered out of hers and out of her jeans, too. The condoms were in a crumpled-up Target bag next to the TV. She moved the bag to the bedside table. Raymond grabbed her from behind, slid off her underpants and began to feel between her legs. He was still in his boxers. His fingers went into her and she heard herself moan like an animal, low and helpless and desperate. He was going to enter from behind. That was okay with her, sexy, a big strange dick coming into her unseen in a strange room in a strange city. "Better put on a condom," she said thickly. The lights were still on. She took the bag from the table and handed it back over her shoulder to him, not looking, wondering which of the four boxes he would choose. "What's your last name?" she asked.
"Lewis."
There was the rustling of plastic as he opened the bag. Her mother's maiden name had been Lewis, Marion Lewis, daughter of Gershon and Tillie Lewis of Cleveland, Ohio. "You're not from Cleveland, are you?"
"No, why?"
"Just wondering."
He began to touch her again. By now her mind was on her grandparents, the musty smell of their living room, Tillie's too-red lipstick and dots of rouge, her powdered white skin and fleshy arms, Gershon's booming Yiddishy voice and gold pocket watch. They were dead and she'd never properly mourned them and that seemed shocking to her tonight, forty odd years later in a hotel room in Olympia, Washington with some other Lewis about to fuck her. Her mother was old too, old and about to die, so deaf and senile that she never understood what Clare was saying when they talked on the phone. "Who is this?" she'd say. "Who?" Clare felt tears prickle her eyes. "Are your still parents still alive?" she asked.
Raymond had just thrust himself inside her. "What?"
"Your parents — are they still alive?"
He stopped moving. "My mother's in a nursing home in St. Louis. My father's dead. "
"Does she know who you are?"
He began moving again. "Yeah, sure. Why?"
"Mine doesn't."
Her face was now a solid sheet of tears. She was on all fours on the floor and Raymond was going at it, wham wham wham as she wept. "Mine doesn't know anything," she said in a strangled voice.
He thrust harder, as if her grief were a plea for savage fucking. "She thinks she's in a hotel instead of a nursing home. She thinks her mother's still alive."
"We have to talk about this now?" he moaned, plunging in so deep she could feel the motion against her heart.
"Yes!" she screamed. "Yes!"
He thought she was climaxing and so he allowed himself to come, bang bang bang against her heart. "Stop!" she yelled. "Stop!"
But he was already done and he rolled off her onto the floor. "You're crazy, you know that?"
She curled up into a ball, hiding her face under her arms. She hated this man. "I just wanted to talk about my mother."
"Yeah, well there's a time and a place."
She didn't look at him or say anything, just lay there tight and hostile, and so, without touching her again, he stood and gathered his clothes.
The next day was dry and soft. Clare checked out of the Ramada, glad that a different clerk was on, a girl with honey-colored braids who wanted to make conversation. "Have a good stay?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Isn't Olympia great?"
"Well, I only really saw it in the dark."
"It's because of the college, because it attracts such wonderful people." She handed Clare the receipt. "The professors, I mean. They all actually work in their fields." Clare signed the receipt and handed it back. "You're a student?" The girl was in her late twenties, ripe as a sun-lit pear, not the college type.
"Second year. I study with Grete Sanders." When Clare didn't seem to know who that was she added, "She's this really great documentary filmmaker who kind of commutes between here and L.A."
Clare drove back to the college the way she'd come, too busy with her thoughts to notice wonderful Olympia. She'd thrown out the bag of condoms after checking to see which box Raymond had opened — Trojan, Magnum.
She felt sorry and stupid. The whole experience, as far as the sex went, had been wasted on her. Not what she'd planned, not what she'd planned at all.
In daylight the black forest of the night before was beautiful, dense and mysterious with the mildest, softest hint of sun filtering through the trees. At the college, students lounged coatless on the steps of the quadrangle. A boy with rasta hair swept under a red woolen cap played a halting melody on a flute. Clare went into the admissions office. Alison was seated on the same couch as the evening before. She was by herself and Clare could tell by the tight set of her shoulders she hadn't had a very good time.
"Ready to go, sweetie?"
"Yes.” Alison picked up her backpack and marched ahead of Clare to the door.
Outside, Clare adjusted her pace to Alison's. "So, how was it?" she asked.
"All right."
"Just all right?"
"The girl who was supposed to show me around never showed up."
"You were by yourself the whole time?"
"Sort of."
"Oh, sweetie." Clare wanted to throw her arms around Alison, but knew the girl would sooner be bitten by snakes than let her mother hug her in public. They were walking fast, heading across the quadrangle to the parking lot. Coming toward them was an older man, a professor, with a group of students. "But I still want to go here," Alison said firmly.
The man was practically on top of them when Clare realized it was Raymond Lewis in jeans and work boots, carrying his computer. He was talking animatedly to his students, gesturing with his hands. A wide-brimmed hat covered his white hair. Clare drew a quick breath and turned her head to the side. They passed without acknowledging one another. In fact, she wasn't sure if he'd seen her at all. "Why is that, sweetie?" she said, letting out her breath.
"I just like the people. I think they look cool."
They got into the car. Alison had been given a packet of catalogues, course material and information about the college. "Let me see what they have to offer," Clare said, taking one of the catalogues.
"Can't we just go?" Alison said.
"I want to have a look," Clare said, flipping through the pages. She found him in Environmental Studies: Raymond Lewis, Fall Quarter, Invertebrate Zoology and Evolution. Owner of a pet store, she thought, a professional in his field. She tossed the catalogue aside, wondering why he'd neglected to mention his position at the college.
"The teachers seem pretty cool, too," Alison said.
"Yes," Clare said dryly.
"I mean they actually talk to the students.”
Clare put the car in gear and backed out of the spot. She wished she could find a way to 'actually talk' to Alison, talk so the girl would really hear her. “Last night I went to an AA meeting," she said.
"Oh. You still go to those?"
"Sometimes."
She was about to say more, but Alison's face closed and she retreated into moody silence. Why was the girl always so miserable? Clare didn't dare ask, not if she didn't want to be cut to the quick with a stinging "None of your business, Mom." And so they drove to the airport and returned the rental and filed through security and walked to the departure gate in silence. Alison asked for money to buy magazines and a drink. Clare flipped through a USA Today someone had left on the seat. Their flight was called. They were in a row in the back. They hoisted their luggage into the overhead bin and buckled themselves in, still in silence, two strangers who happened to share the same genes and address and history and name, Reed, the name of Alison's father, Clare's ex-husband. Before that Clare had been Stern, after her own father who'd died eleven years ago when he'd slipped and cracked his skull on a patch of ice in front of his New York City apartment building. The plane gave a little lurch as they pulled away from the gate.
"Remember my father?" Clare asked Alison.
“Sure. Why?”
"No reason. I was just thinking of him."
"He used to pinch my cheek whenever I saw him."
Clare laughed. "He used to do that to me, too."
"I remember he took me to Home Alone when I was five, and for years I was terrified you’d do that to me, travel somewhere and leave me behind.”
"Oh, sweetie. You never said anything."
Alison shrugged. "It was just a kids' movie." Her face, with its beautifully carved bones and bitter little mouth, took on a ruminative quality and Clare imagined she was traveling back into the past, back over a dozen years to an old man buying her popcorn in a New York movie theatre, her tiny hand slipped into his as they exited into the bright afternoon and he asked if she'd enjoyed herself and if she'd like some ice cream. A few months later they had moved to Texas, to a house with palm trees and a swimming pool, and a year after that the old man had died, poof, gone from the little girl's life forever. Studying Alison's face, Clare could imagine the tender and precarious way these memories were stitched together, real life images so paper-thin and fragmented that when Alison got to Clare's age she might wonder if they were real, or if the reminiscences of other people had put them in her head.
"I'm going to be sad when you leave," Clare said, tears in her voice. The plane was in position for take-off, its engines roaring and shaking, so Alison didn't hear her, or if she did, pretended not to. Clare decided the latter was probably true: Alison didn't want to drop her rigid pose of teenage superiority for fear her mother, the enemy, might swallow her up in gooey emotion. Knowing this, Clare felt her own edges begin to blur. "Did you hear me?" she said a little louder.
“What?”
"I said I'm going to miss you when you leave."
Alison drew her skinny body into itself almost as if she'd been slapped. "Stop yelling, Mom."
"I'm not yelling! I'm not yelling! I'm trying to tell you I love you!"
The plane was lifting now. Alison turned angrily toward her mother, but her face changed when she took in Clare's rapid breath and desperately sad expression. "It's all right, Mom," she whispered, her eyes suddenly wide and soft.
"What?"
"I said it's all right. I love you, too."
And her bitter little mouth relaxed self-consciously into a smile.