Copyright 2016 by Kim Culbertson

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Culbertson, Kim A., author.
The possibility of now / Kim Culbertson.First edition.
pages cm
Summary: After years of overachieving at her elite school, Mara James has a
complete meltdown during her calculus exam and, embarrassed by the incident
and the viral video evidence, goes to live with her ski bum father in Squaw Valley,
where she hopes to find a place to figure out where her life is headed, and maybe
even finally understand her father.
ISBN 978-0-545-73146-1
1. Life change eventsJuvenile fiction. 2. Fathers and daughters
Juvenile fiction. 3. Squaw Valley (Calif.) Juvenile fiction. [1. Self-perception
Fiction. 2. Perfectionism (Personality trait)Fiction. 3. Fathers and
daughtersFiction. 4. Squaw Valley (Calif.)Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C8945Po 2016
813.6dc23
[Fic]
2015016518
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the U.S.A. 23
First edition, February 2016
Book design by Yaffa Jaskoll

16 17 18 19 20

One

make lists to survive. Im not alone in this. You cant Google anything without getting hit in the face with a list. Once, I searched for
Why do people make lists? Besides giving me 127 reasons why we
love lists, I stumbled onto even more lists: 11 New Uses for a Paper
Clip, 15 Regrettable Marriage Proposals, 23 Places to See Before
You Die.
When did we start doing that? Maybe on a wall way back in a
dark cave, a shaggy-headed caveman scratched: Kill mammoth, make
fire, stand upright.
As humans, we must just crave them. And after what happened
to me, I need my lists now more than ever.
What are you thinking about? Moms eyes flick to me, then
back to the road in front of us.
Nothing. I shift in my seat, staring out the car window at the
beige California scenery along the I-5. Every fifty miles or so, Mom
finds a new way to ask if I want her to turn around, go home, forget this
whole thing. Each time, watching the landscape outside slip farther
from the bleached earth tones we left behind in San Diego, I tell her
a version of I want to do this, keep driving, I have a plan.
Scratch that. I have a list. And I love lists. Its just not like any
list Ive made before.
1

Were heading north, tracing the 5, until eventually we will

reach the highways that connect us to a dense stretch of Tahoe
National Forest and, soon after, to Squaw Valley.
To Trick McHale, my biological father.
Thats how Mom always refers to him. Trick McHale, your biological father. I got an A in AP bio freshman year. She doesnt have to
remind me of the genetics. Besides, thats not how I think of him.
Mostly, I dont think about him at all. To me, Trick McHale is
another list: nine birthday cards (three with twenty-dollar bills),
five phone calls, and one visit to the San Diego Zoo when I was seven.
Which is why, when I blurted out five days ago that I wanted to go
live with him for a while, just to take a break, to put my bad day
(Moms words) behind me, Moms surprise was second only to my
own. I dont blame her. It was random. Especially for me. It hadnt
been on any list of mine anywhere. But here I am. Heading north.
Whats more shocking than the asking is that Mom said yes.
Thats how bad it is.
Only its really not that bad. Its Not. That. Bad. The day after
my bad day, I made a list and taped it to the back of my bedroom
door. My Get a Grip List.
No one has died.
No one has cancer.
No one has dropped me in the middle of a war-torn
country.
I have not been sold into child slavery.
I have not joined a cult where I only eat wheatgrass and
limes.
I have not lost a limb.
2

Only it feels a little like I have. Lost a limb.

If I turn around at this exit, we could be back home by dinner.
Mom peers into the rearview mirror before changing lanes, passing
a dusty white minivan. A little boy in the backseat watches us glide
by, pressing his small hand flat against the glass.
Maybe Ill feel like eating in Squaw Valley. I adjust the red
half-inch binder resting on my lap. I like to put my long-term-goal
lists into binders, real ones I can hold and not just electronic ones.
Im old school that way. I have a system. Yesterday, I printed out a
cover for it, reading the now list against the backdrop of a Hawaiian
sunset. Nothing says live in the now like a sunset, right? I squint at
it, bubbles of doubt forming in my gut.
The semi trucks on the 5 stack up like toy trains, and Mom
pushes the Lexus past a line of them. We pick up speed as
Mom adds, Or we could just turn around. I really think its starting to blow over.
If by blowing over she means still going viral. The YouTube
video had 616,487 views the last time I checked it.
I clear my throat and try for a bright voice. No, Im good. I
think this will be great! I sound like a Disney princess on her third
helium balloon.
Mom notices and frowns sideways at me. Yeah, you sound great.
I try to dial it down. Seriously, think of this like my semester
abroad, only Im going for a quarter and its Tahoe instead of Italy or
South America. Like an exchange student. But without having to
change money or wonder why they dont put ice in my drink.
Her frown lines deepen, telling me she feels this trip is nothing
like an exchange program. Shes already told me what she thinks
this is.
3

Running away.
I still dont know what happened. Not really. I mean, I know
what happened; Ive seen the video footage. But I still dont
know how it happened. One minute, my calculus teacher, Mr.
Henly, was telling us to use a number two pencil, and the next minute I was shredding the test and sobbing, It doesnt matter, none
of this matters, it doesnt matter, over and over until Mr. Henly
called someone from the office to come get me.
I swear, this is going to be great, I say again, my voice thin,
watching the blank middle of California spool away behind me. I
made a list.
Mom purses her lips and stares at the road before us.
A few hours later, as we trade Southern for Northern, replacing
palms for pines, Mom asks again, Are you sure you dont want me
to turn around?
I wish shed stop asking. Were basically there. I clench my
binder in sweaty hands and try to breathe in the quiet scenery.
She pulls onto Highway 89 toward Squaw Valley, passing campgrounds on our left, dark tops of picnic tables peeking through the
snow, the campground sign draped in plastic. Its hard to believe we
left San Diego this morning and now were here. Where Trick lives.
We stopped only once, to grab some sandwiches and more coffee,
so we made good time. Mom loves to make good time when were
driving, so I dont tell her I have to pee. Were close and I cant stand
to watch her check all her clocks any more than she already has.
Mom always seems to have backup timepieces. On her wrist. On
her phone. The car dashboard. She checks and double-checks their
synchronicity. It seems to both calm her down and rev her up.
Im not sure what Tricks living situation will be like. Mom
4

peers at the snowy road ahead. Im just giving you a heads-up. He,
well, lives differently than we do. She says it as if he lives in a tent
in the middle of a field. Looking around, this seems suddenly like an
actual possibility.
My only memory of Trick McHale in person is the day he took
me to the San Diego Zoo. Mom had given us passes and money for
lunch and told me shed wait in the parking lot in case I needed her.
Inside the zoo, Trick wandered around with me, sipping at a beer
hed smuggled in by tucking it into his sock. What I remember most
about that day is the way he laughed a deep rumble at my horrified
reaction to the naked mole rats. It says they arent completely naked,
he said, studying the sign where it explained that they had over a hundred hairs that helped them find their way around. But they seem butt
naked to me. I lost it then, one of those little-girl belly laughs I still
sometimes get with my best friend, Josie, and he looked so surprised
and pleased. I didnt stop laughing until we reached the Arctic fox.
Almost a decade has passed and I havent seen him again, the
time between birthday cards and calls elongating. Mom has never
told me I couldnt see Trick. It wasnt like that. There was never any
animosityonly absence. All those years, shed rarely mentioned
him, and hed never made an effort, so I hadnt, either. I was busy. I
had Mom and my stepdad, Will, and my little twin brothers, Seth
and Liam, and a busy school life. Our one trip to the zoo felt like a
dream, but once, a few years ago, I found a childrens book called
Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed and sent it to Trick because it made me
think about that laugh and the way it had surprised him.
I dont know if he ever got it.
You doing okay over there? Mom glances at me. Shes been
asking me that a lot lately.
5

I fiddle with the heating vent, letting warm air wash over me.
Yeah, thanks.
After my bad day, I barricaded myself in the house for the entire
holiday break. Mom and Will spoke in overly bright voices. Josie
came with pizza and movies and tried to coax me to the mall, but
I wouldnt go. A Christmas tree went up and down. I stared at
the sea of wrapping paper and plastic toy packages Seth and Liam
had left in their wake. Mostly, I tried not to think about the numbers of views my excruciatingly public meltdown was now racking
up online.
Miss Perfects Epic Meltdown.
When I watched it, just once, I barely recognized the girl with
the ash-blond ponytail, wearing the pale blue ONeill hoodie Will
had bought me on a windy day in Hawaii last April. But it was
my face, pinched like a peach pit, ripping my test and all those
other tests into paper rain. All those bits of test confetti filtering
through the shocked air of the classroom while, outside the tall
windows, the palm trees bent against the blue Windex sky of San
Diego. I never want to watch it again.
But I told myself it was Not. That. Bad.
Each day, I added things to my Get a Grip List.
I have not spiraled into drug addiction.
I have not been kidnapped.
I have not lost the love of my life to a terrible disease.
Only I kind of had. If the love of my life was being valedictorian and the disease had hashtags like #checkoutthisfreak and
#whatadramaqueen and #ihatethisgirl.
6

Still, I thought I could go back to Ranfield Academy. After all,

my parents and Ranfield and countless movies and bumper stickers
had raised me to rebound. All those years in tennis and soccer and
the early years of swim team, the mottoes had been clear: Shake it
off. Get up. Get back out there. Its a mental game.
It definitely is.
Because in the grocery store five days ago, my first trip out of
the house, the small hairs prickled on the back of my neck as people
whispered behind their hands in the milk aisle and the produce section and near the bakery.
The girl who freaked out.
That valedictorian girl from the video.
What a psycho.
Finally, I told Mom Id just wait in the car. When shed deposited the groceries in the back and slipped in beside me, I blurted, I
want to go live with Trick in Tahoe for a while.
Mom told me that you cant care what other people think.
Josie told me people are jerks; dont worry about them.
Will told me humans have the attention span of gnats; let it go.
Great advice. Im just not sure how to actually do any of that.
Not care. Not worry. Let it go. Am I missing a certain gene?
Through the window, I see the Truckee River tumble into view
on our left side, glittery in the pale sunlight. Everything in this
landscape is sharpwhite, blue, gray, silver. Even the green is
deep and charcoaled. It will be like studying abroada foreign
country where the only whispering sounds will be the snow falling
through the pines.
Mom slows at a light and turns right at a large sign reading
squaw valley usa, international mountain resort. Squaw Valley
7

hosted the 1960 Winter Olympics, she tells me, gliding along
Squaw Valley Road. We wind back into the valley, passing a turnoff for the Resort at Squaw Creek. As we curve to the left, a
snow meadow comes into view, and beyond it, a wall of winter
mountains.
Wow, I breathe, taking in the snowy peaks.
Yeah, I know. Its gorgeous. Mom pulls the car into a parking
lot near a massive cluster of brown alpine-style buildings. The
Village, she tells me, her voice holding a trace of the distaste that
appears the few times Ive asked her about why she left Squaw Valley
when I was barely three. Were here. She shuts off the engine,
hesitating, her fingers plucking the keys swiftly from the ignition.
As she studies the resort in front of her, I can almost see the flashes
of memories move across her features. She goes quiet, whatever it
was that took her away from here crawling back out from under all
the snow.
Mom? She must be freaking out. Mom also makes lists, keeps
color-coded files of necessary forms, and has a master Google calendar for me and for the twins with different-colored fonts for each of
us. Purple. Blue. Green.
My bad day in the middle of junior year wasnt anywhere on her
lists.
Right, sorry. She jingles her keys slightly and then, without
warning, reaches across and grabs my hand. You can say hello, just
stay for a night and clear your head, and get in this car with me
tomorrow and drive home. You know that, right?
A vulture of doubt circles me. I know.
I also know she doesnt want me to do this. Shes thinking
now is not the time to change directions and shes probably right. I
8

realize that if I get out of this car and walk to meet Trick, I will take
myself off the path weve planned, the one that would have me show
up at school today with my head held high, not worried about everyones whispering, the one where I do shake it off and get back on
track and win a scholarship to the right sort of college. One of the
schools on Moms ever-evolving list.
On this right path, I pity the person who posted that video of
me because they are mean and petty and small. I write a college
essay about how I hit a rough patch but righted myself and stayed
steady and faced my fears and it made me stronger. Maybe I start a
support group for kids like me, victims of cyber shaming. Those
future admissions committees would nod understandingly and
applaud me for getting back up, dusting myself off, and making the
best of a bad situation.
Mara James. Accepted. Future secured. Take that, high school.
That sounds a lot like what old Mara would do.
Problem is, I cant seem to bring myself to hold up my chin,
start that support group, write that essay. I dont feel pity or strength
or resolve. I feel broken and small and confused.
Im ready, I lie.
Mom slips on a periwinkle knit beanie, the purplish-blue darkening her eyes. Or maybe its disappointment that darkens them.
Okay, then. She sighs. Lets go see how Neverlands holding up.

The Now List

1. Learn to ski: green runs, blue runs, black runs??

2. Internet cleanse (no social media, no news, Skype okay!)
3. Meditationat least 10 minutes a day!!
4. Sleep until 8 on a school day
5. Essential oils to relaxlavender, chamomile, orange
6. Simplify & downsize!!
7. Kiss a cute snowboarder!! (Josies suggestion)
8. Breathe! (obviously)
9. Be brave (from Will)
10. Read for fun? (see attached suggested book lists)

10