1
Starlee Nye.
That was my great-grandmother’s name.
Movie star. Legend. Pioneer.
She named my grandmother after herself, who then named my mother the same and out of some kind of forced tradition, my mother named me Starlee, too.
It’s weird because the name is unusual—unique—my classmates mocked it. Their parents frowned or rolled their eyes, thinking it was just another special-snowflake name. That my mother was trying to be “different” and wanted me to be “different.”
The problem is, name or not, I am different from other people. Other teenagers. The other Starlees.
Sure, we may look similar. Put the four Starlees in a row and there’s a resemblance. Dark hair, blue eyes and fair skin. None of us are very tall, but the first three Starlees made up for height with spirit. Me? Somehow the charisma that flowed through these women dissipated by the time I was born.
Honestly, I’m a little bit of a freak.
Who wouldn’t be after five years of being isolated from other kids my age? Spending all my time at home. Locked away with stacks of books and my mother as my only true companion.
That is, until I started online school and I made some friends—virtual friends, but still friends--and suddenly it’s like a whole world opened up to me. A real world, even if it was just through instant messages and witty comments.
Those friendships, those messages, and one fateful night are why my mother is driving me through the desert to the home of the original Starlee Nye to live with the second Starlee Nye, my grandmother.
It’s why I’m staring out the window of the tiny rental car with my two suitcases stowed in the back, one filled with clothes, the other books.
The outside world isn’t for me. It’s too dangerous. Scary. So, I’m being punished and sent to the most desolate place on earth.
The landscape of barren rocks and dry earth passes by, mile after mile, while the sun beats down from above. I’ve never seen the desert before. I thought it would be more sandy—more like an endless beach, but this isn’t like that. It’s just long, endless stretches of infertile ground that leads to jagged, gray mountains off in the distance. The mountains intrigue me; never getting closer, never revealing life, but maybe. Maybe if I could touch one, something would change.
“I know you’re mad,” Mom says from the driver’s seat. She tries to keep the worry off her face, giving me a nonchalant glance. “But this is a choice you made, Starlee. Your choice. There’s no right or wrong here, but I need you to understand you’re making it, not me.”
There’s truth in what she’s saying. I’ve spent my life not making decisions and allowing my mother to make them for me. Somewhere along the way, things got mixed up. Confused. My heart thumps as she says all of this, trying to pin me into making a decision. Trying to push the responsibility. My therapist tells me I have control over things. Choices.
What about Sarah? I want to say. She was a choice. One I’m being punished for now.
Despite what my mother says, I’m allowed choices as long as they’re the right ones.
I shrug, unwilling to commit. I did have a choice in this move. I could have stayed at home, but after getting caught, after our fight, I knew we needed a break from one another.
That didn’t make it any easier. What if I make the wrong decision? What if something bad happens if I choose to stay with Mom? What if something good happens to her if I leave? I want her to be happy. I don’t want her worrying about me. So by default, coming out here to stay with the second Starlee Nye seems like the right choice.
Right?
I turn to respond to my mother, considering telling her all that, but I’m lost in thought for so long that she’s already moved on, used to my non-answers, and peering into the distance.
“What is that up there?” she asks. “Because I hope it’s a bathroom. I’m dying over here.”
Of course, she’s dying, I think, eyeing the half-full diet soda in the cup holder. She always has to pee. Constantly. Me? I can hold it forever. Mostly so I don’t have to talk to anyone or see anyone or answer any questions.
Mom shifts in the seat and says, “Look at the map...is that a town? A mirage? Please tell me it’s a bathroom.”
I pull out the paper map; my mother insisted on it since there’s limited cell service out here. I run my finger down the highway that leads straight from the small town of Baker where we ate lunch to the little dot we’re fast approaching. “Shoshone,” I say. “It’s a town. You’re not imaging things.”
“Good,” she said, with genuine relief. The town, if you can call it that, comes into view. There are about six buildings total. A post office, a tiny brick building that had a restroom sign, a general store, and then across the street a little bungalow, a small restaurant, and then a building that looks like an old gas station but now has a rusty sign over it that says ‘Shoshone Museum.’
The car has barely stopped before my mother unlatches her seatbelt and jumps from the car, running to the tiny bathroom. I didn’t move but as I survey the tiny town, I feel compelled to go out onto the hot, flat road and feel the desert heat.