The Middle of Somewhere by Sonja Yoerg

necessarily clarify anything. It’s like staring at an electron micrograph. You’re closer but nothing’s any simpler.”
    â€œSo much for optimism.”
    â€œI’m trying to figure it out. I really am.”
    â€œI know,
carina
.” He leaned over and kissed her lightly. “I’m so tired. Let’s sleep.”
    She repositioned her makeshift pillow and settled into her bag, her limbs sinking into the ground. She conjured an image of Gabriel. His features were vague, but distinct enough that she winced with shame. Maybe she had never seen him for who he was, never understood what he wanted from their marriage. Maybe she never realized that she, the person who had had so little, was the one who wanted more.

CHAPTER NINE

    L iz and Gabriel went to high school together in Santa Fe, but ran with different tribes, or, more accurately, he was a member of a variety of tribes while she had only a small circle of friends, mostly two. She might have been more than a bit player in high school except her sarcasm and wit were underappreciated. That and she didn’t give a damn about being popular.
    Gabriel Pemberton didn’t have to give a damn about being popular. He just was. And he managed it without being a jerk most of the time. He as handsome in a clean-cut, East Coast prep school way, and disarmingly candid, and girls found their way to him. He befriended them all and dated only three. It could have been forty. Liz was not a prospect. She was more than pretty enough, but chose not to put herself forward. Boys, including Gabriel, assumed she was aloof, awkward or a lesbian, possibly all three. In truth, she didn’t think much of men, and teenage boys did nothing to argue the opposing case. She went out a few times with a couple of boys from other schools (simpler all around), but thought she might wait until the selection improved, or she died, whichever came first.
    They both ended up at UCLA, he on a track scholarship (middle distances) and she because it was the best school that offered her a place. In the spring of their second year, they met outside a dorm party where he was helping a friend vomit into the bushes. She watched them from the steps, deciding if she would wait for Valerie, already a half hour late, or simply return to her aunt’s house. By the time she’d thought it through, the vomiter was taking a nap on the lawn. Gabriel climbed up and sat beside her.
    â€œYou’re Liz, right?”
    â€œGuilty.” She was surprised he remembered her. “And you’re the fellow who needs no introduction.”
    He flashed his knock-the-girls-out smile. “You cut your hair. I like it.”
    She’d worn it chin length when everyone in high school had tresses streaming down their backs. Now it was cut in a pixie-style. “You like guinea pigs. What a coincidence. So do I.”
    For the next two hours their conversation flowed as freely as the beer they were missing upstairs. Turns out, sarcasm is an acquired taste. As for Liz, it was now permissible to fall for a guy like Gabriel. In a city of fifteen million, teeming with actors, would-be actors and surfer dudes, he really wasn’t all that popular.
    In the days that followed, their conversation continued between classes, over meals and, after two weeks, in bed. They talked as if no one had ever listened to them before. For Liz, this was more or less true, particularly where men were concerned. She had grown up without them. Her mother, Claire, was a sculptor with a small talent and a large trust fund. When Liz was eight, she asked her mother why she and her father were not married. “We’re both much too selfish.” Liz took it as the truth, at least about Claire. Her father did marry, but she had no idea how it turned out, because her mother waved aside her questions with a bored flick of her wrist. And Liz never dared to ask her father directly.
    So she lived with her mother in