Instructions for a Broken Heart.

Kim Culbertson.

FOR.

PETER AND ANABELLA.

All through his boyhood he had mused upon that which he had so often thought to be his destiny and when the moment had come for him to obey the call he had turned aside, obeying a wayward instinct.

-Stephen Dedalus.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man before the envelopes.

The costume barn wasn't much to look at. Just an old, rusting shed out behind the theater. Years ago, some realtor guy in town had donated it. Hauled it over on a flatbed trailer, depositing it to its final resting place. White paint peeled to gray on its exterior, its eight-by-ten-foot frame was starting to cave on one side, and the door never latched quite right, leaving a smile of an opening above the entrance.

But inside, it was a portal to endless worlds.

Jessa hurried toward it. Having just spent every afternoon last week organizing it with three other girls from the Drama Academy, she knew right where the hat was that Mr. Campbell had been asking about in cla.s.s last period, the black felt derby that Kevin wanted to wear in a scene he was doing with Lizzie for cla.s.s tomorrow. She'd just grab it for them so they could have a chance to rehea.r.s.e with it. In fact, since her Community Club meeting was canceled, maybe she'd spend the extra hour giving them a few notes before heading to her SAT tutor at four-thirty.

Swinging the key chain around her finger, she clicked through the double doors that led out to where the barn squatted on a patch of black asphalt; it looked tired and worn in too much spring afternoon light. She could hear the baseball team practicing on the field out beyond the parking lot, that clean crack of the ball against the bat. It was warm for spring, the air full of cut gra.s.s and the easy tilt toward the break coming up the following week. Heading toward that smile of the barn's door, she could already feel the calm that greeted her every time she stepped through it onto the barn's spongy flooring.

Over the past few years, she had spent countless hours in the barn's shadowy rows of dresses, suits, capes, and robes. She melted into the chaotic order of the place-the velvety suits in the back, the Dr. Seuss hats resting atop wide, angled jackets from the musical version of Horton Hears a Who! they'd performed for the nearby elementary school last fall. Jessa would lose herself in the dusty air, the material bin oozing bolts of velvet, satin, denim, and a seemingly endless length of silver tulle. In the feathery light of the bare, swinging bulb, she would run her hands along the rack of satin pajamas they had all worn for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the gossamer fairy wings still attached to the backs.

The buzz that seemed always in Jessa's ears emptied during those hours, took refuge somewhere else, leaving her head clear and vast, a landscape for dreams or, better yet, for nothing at all. She could just let her mind empty, drain all those equations from chemistry, forget her horrible time at the last track meet, or ignore that stupid thesis statement she just couldn't get quite right for honors English. She just floated in the haze of the place, buoyed by the number of worlds around her waiting to explode onto a lit stage-each costume a possibility.

The barn held a log of her friends. The ice-blue dress Carissa wore for the Shakespeare festival where she won a gold medal. The gold-threaded tunic Hillary wore as Polonius. Christina's silver pajamas for t.i.tania in Midsummer. And there was a whole rack of Sean, her boyfriend of nearly a year. The velvet Hamlet suit, the Oliver! knickers with the funny bows at the knees to keep them from gaping, the letterman jacket he wore in The Breakfast Club. He'd been in that Hamlet suit for their first kiss-stage left, behind the sway of a heavy, black curtain. When Jessa worked in the costume barn alone, she would run her eyes over all those costumes, reading the map of her high school days so far, knowing some of those empty, hanging clothes were just waiting to make new memories for her.

As she held the key out to the lock on the barn door, she frowned. It was open and dangling from its funny hinge. Stupid beginning drama cla.s.s. Mr. Campbell shouldn't let them anywhere near the barn. She tucked the lock in her pocket and heaved open the door, inviting the cool whoosh of dusty air into her nose.

At first she thought a cat had crept into the barn again. That big, sweet tabby that had a habit of making a nest out of the poodle skirts and petticoats. She could hear him toward the back rustling around. Jessa swore under her breath, hoping he hadn't turned the chiffon into a giant frayed mess. She swiped at the dangling cord for the light.

It wasn't the tabby.

There, on top of the Oliver! knickers box she had worked so hard to pack, Sean froze, his arms wrapped around Natalie Stone. It took Jessa only seconds to focus in on the red dress tangled haphazardly around their legs, binding them to one another. The dress she'd worn to play Kate in The Taming of the Shrew, the one they'd had to take the bust in on, the costume mistress with pins in her mouth, her eyebrows all scrunched up, sighing to Jessa, "I just have to take this in even more."

Jessa's eyes fastened themselves to that red dress mostly because she couldn't bring herself to keep looking directly at them. Like the sun. Or a blinding light from an alien s.p.a.ceship. More like that.

Because what she was seeing could not in any version of Jessa's universe be happening to her. Sean twisted into some sort of human pretzel with Natalie Stone. Or as Carissa always called her, the b.o.o.b Job.

Jessa must have let out some sort of sound, some sort of small, injured animal sort of sound, because they untangled themselves at the same time, tripping over that dress, the fabric tearing.

The alien s.p.a.ceship started landing on Jessa's dress-needs-to-be-taken-in chest.

"Jessa, wait...I," Sean stumbled, that dress tripping him up, for probably the first time he even realized he was tangled up in it. He frowned at it, kicking at the fabric, then caught his balance against the rack of suit jackets Jessa had spent an hour sorting by size and color. Green, taupe, gray, black, pinstriped. He leaned mostly into the pinstripes, the jaunty double-breasted section, the section with his Hamlet suit. With her breath coming in jagged bursts, Jessa's eyes pinballed around the now-mussed-up barn, lighting on the spilled box of shiny men's dress shoes, the overturned tub of ties, the box of bright feather boas spilling onto the neatly swept floor-what had they been doing in here?

"I thought you had Community Club today." Sean's voice rasped across what felt like miles but must have been only feet. She could have reached out and touched his arm.

"Canceled," Jessa said, her own voice sticky, thick, sounding like she'd swallowed cotton. Or maybe a red dress.

The cotton migrated to her ears, everything m.u.f.fled, far away.

"Jessa, did you find that..." Mr. Campbell's voice trailed off as he stepped inside the barn behind her. "Oh."

The floor creaked beneath his weight. A breath of air from the open door fluttered a rack of druid gowns, empty ghosts shuttering in the stale air. Like sad angels.

No one said anything.

"What did you say to him?" Carissa's voice crackled into the phone. She must be out at the stables. Her phone got c.r.a.p reception at the stables.

"Nothing." Jessa huddled on her bed, her clean laundry piled on top of her belly and legs, its clean, lemony scent a force field. She switched her phone to her other ear. Les Mis blared from her stereo, the music bathing her.

"Nothing?"

"Carissa, you don't understand what I'm saying. You should have seen them. I think I said 'canceled.'" Jessa watched a fly crawl across her weekly calendar board. Monday: "Community Club 3 pm-don't be late!" Her stomach turned. She pulled a folded pair of socks across her eyes.

"Canceled? Like your relationship?"

"No. He asked why I wasn't at Community Club."

Carissa blew a wind tunnel of a sigh into the phone. "That's so humiliating."

"I'm aware of the humiliation factor, thank you." Jessa sat up, laundry tumbling around her. She scribbled her blue dry-erase pen through "Community Club 3 pm-don't be late!" Then quickly scratched out "SAT tutor, track, chem study group." She hadn't gone to any of it.

"Turn off Les Mis." Even Carissa's voice could roll its eyes. "You're just making it worse. You don't need to spiral into some eponine-On-My-Own-pity-pool."

"Supportive. Thanks." Jessa s.n.a.t.c.hed a gray Williams Peak volleyball T-shirt from the pile on her legs. She rubbed the shirt across her white board, erasing most of Tuesday's activities along with the fateful Community Club. She paused at Wednesday: "Leave for Italy 9 pm bus!!!"

Carissa wind-tunneled again into the phone: "Don't be p.i.s.sed at me. I wasn't kissing Sean in the costume barn. And I'm not continuing this conversation until you turn off the pity-palooza!"

Jessa clicked off her music, then threw her shirt at her laundry hamper. Missed. "Why are you being so b.i.t.c.hy? You're supposed to be consoling me right now. I can't believe I have to go ten days in Italy with both of them there. I wish you were going."

Silence on the other end.

"Carissa?"

"Yeah?"

"Oh, I thought the phone cut out or something." Jessa flicked a piece of hair from her eyes.

"So you're still going to go?" Carissa's voice sounded small, quiet.

"You think I shouldn't go?" Jessa rubbed her pulsing temple with her free hand.

"Do you really think you should go?" Carissa was feeding her horse. Jessa heard the crunching.

"Could you not feed Jumper right now? It's kind of obnoxious." Jessa studied her packing job-her clothes lined up in little piles on her dresser; her small tubes of shampoo, moisturizer, toothpaste all organized and ready to go into her suitcase. "No, I'm going. I don't care. He doesn't get to take Italy away from me too."

"Well, I have to baby-sit for the Jensens all week," Carissa reminded her. "To help pay off Santa Cruz."

"I know," Jessa sighed. "I just wish you were going."

"Sorry." Carissa was feeding Jumper again. The crunch, crunch, crunch of the carrots sounded like a trash compactor. "Jess, I gotta go. No Les Mis-I'm serious. It's hazardous to your general emotional health right now."

"Right." Jessa clicked off her phone and turned the music up well past the agreed-on limit her dad had notched onto the stereo k.n.o.b with a Sharpie.

Panic attack. One minute Jessa was staring out the airplane window into the dawning sky and the next she was sweating, her chest squeezing against her sweater like it might implode and that bag of b.u.t.ter toffee peanuts would make an encore. The seat belt was splitting her in two. She had to get out of here. Had to get somewhere, anywhere but this seat. Staring at the back of their two stupid, lying, cheating heads. OK, his lying, cheating head and her stupid, over-dyed, bad-highlights head.

Jessa pulled her iPod earbuds out, cutting off Carol Burnett's "Shy" from Once upon a Mattress in mid-yowl, snapped open the buckle of her seat belt, and stumbled across a still-sleeping Tyler and down the aisle to the back of the morning-hushed plane.

Breathe.

She pushed her way into the bathroom, avoiding the mirror at all costs. She already looked like she had the stomach flu from crying so much and not eating right, and airplane mirrors just made her look all blue and washed out. Last thing she needed was a reflection like that right now, like a Smurf with the stomach flu.

What had she been thinking, getting on this plane? It wasn't so bad flying through the night, the eye mask firmly clamped across her tired eyes, but now, with the plane starting to wake up, with everyone starting to move and shift and the small plane windows letting in daylight, she couldn't believe she had actually thought this was a good idea.

She took another breath. Her dad would tell her to evaluate the situation. Very practical. a.s.sess the scenario. Look at a.s.sets and obstacles. OK, good. Her breathing was normalizing. Scenario. Somewhere behind her, the sun would soon rise over her own little town in the northern California foothills. Her dad would head to the office. Her mom would tell her sister Maisy, sprawled in front of the Disney Channel eating Oat Swirls from Trader Joe's out of the box, to turn off the TV and put on her school shoes. And Jessa was here, suspended in blue sky, flying to Italy for spring break with fifteen other members of her Drama Academy. She'd wanted to go to Italy since she was six and had seen her grandmother's pictures of a trip to Florence. It had taken until junior year, but soon she'd land on Italian soil-well, after connecting in Washington, D.C., and then flying another eight hours. But it was still a good scenario.

OK, now a.s.sets: eight hundred dollars on a Visa card she'd earned from saving birthday money, baby-sitting, and filing at her dad's law office. A very cute new pair of jeans that fit exactly the way jeans should fit. Her iPod full of all her favorite Broadway musicals and as many songs as she could afford to download from the various Glee soundtracks. Her journal and a new black pen. And Tyler let her have the window seat, albeit after playing a rigorous game of rock-paper-scissors. Best three out of five. Still, the window seat. Actually, Tyler Santos sitting in the plane seat next to her was a huge a.s.set; at least she had one ally on the trip. All good. All a.s.sets.

OK, obstacles. Two huge ones. Seats 12C and 12B. Sean and the b.o.o.b Job. How could he? And with her? The summer before their soph.o.m.ore year, Natalie Stone had been flat as a board, not even training-bra material, and then suddenly at the start of tenth grade she showed up with a pair of Jessica Simpsons. Even the teachers stared. "I hit a growth spurt," she told Kara Jenkins during volleyball tryouts. More likely, she hit up a plastic surgeon.

Someone knocked on the door. "Excuse me?"

Jessa slid the door open and the heart-shaped face of the flight attendant appeared, her eyes heavy with taupe shadow. "Hey, honey, we're going to land in D.C. soon. You OK?" Her words sent a whoosh of spearmint gum into Jessa's face.

Jessa blinked back at her. "Not really."

"Can I do anything?" The attendant adjusted the collar of her crisp white shirt, and Jessa wondered briefly how the flight attendants stayed so pressed and polished when just sitting on an airplane put wrinkles into every inch of Jessa's own clothes.

"Can you make the guy in 12C not be a lying-jerk cheater?"

"I could drop a drink in his lap." She ushered Jessa out of the bathroom. Clearly, a line had been forming and that man in the Baltimore Ravens cap looked annoyed.

"Sorry," Jessa mumbled as she moved past him toward her row, noticing with some vague satisfaction that the line of pa.s.sengers appeared just as wrinkled and wilted and red eyed as she felt. She paused in the aisle.

Tyler was sitting in her seat.

"No fair."

"Don't whine. I was just sitting here until you got back. Just think, only ten hours left." He slid back over into his middle seat, the buckles on his leather jacket jingling.

"Ugh." Jessa inched into her seat. "I'm not going to make it."

"But I have a gift."

Jessa noticed the large, bulky envelope in his lap. "What is it?"

"It's from Carissa, and it's nonnegotiable." He flipped his black hair out of his eyes. Probably on purpose since Tyler always seemed halfway committed to an Elvis impression. At least, before Elvis got fat and started wearing jumpsuits.

Jessa frowned. Tyler was using his stage manager voice-that mix of patience, attentiveness, and condescension that made Jessa feel both safe and three inches tall, like at any moment he would usher her in perfect time onto a lit stage or give her a graham cracker and a cup of apple juice. Right now felt like the latter.

Tyler patted the empty seat next to him. Condescending.

Jessa didn't budge.

"Come on. Sit down." He smiled at her, that smile he had that shot through his dark eyes and made his face gleam. Patient. Attentive.

Thing was, Tyler was a really good stage manager.

She sat.

#1: the polka-dot.

incident.

Outside, the sky was losing the flashes of pink that had been streaking the sky.

"Open it." Tyler motioned to the envelope in Jessa's lap. "I think it will make your day."

"Promises, promises." She turned the package over. The front was labeled: Top Twenty Reasons He's a Slimy Jerk b.a.s.t.a.r.d: Instructions for Getting Over One Pathetic Excuse (Key Word Ex) of a Boyfriend Jessa couldn't help but let a smile sneak out. Under the t.i.tle it read: Open it, Jessa!

She slid her finger under the half-sticky film of the opening, then peered inside. More than a dozen small white envelopes peered back.

"What is it?"

Tyler raised his eyebrows. "Instructions are in there."

Jessa dug through the sea of envelopes and extracted a piece of pale-blue binder paper covered in Carissa's neat print: This has an order-a method to my madness (see...I paid attention, even if I didn't get the part I wanted in the stupid play)...anyway-digressing! The envelopes. They're numbered 120, enough to open two a day on your trip but the IMPORTANT thing is that you read and think about each reason and THEN do the instruction before moving on to the next envelope-no skipping ahead! Pinky swear with Tyler right now that you won't skip ahead! I'm waiting. Do it!

Jessa held her pinky up to Tyler. "Pinky swear I won't skip ahead." They locked pinkies and shook their hands three times.

And make sure you save the last two envelopes for the plane ride home. Each envelope has a reason why he's a jerk and not worth the dirt on your shoes. And each one has an instruction, something you have to do-NO CHEATING. Tyler knows he's to be ON TOP OF THIS! I'm doing this for your own good-you're in no state right now to argue. Ciao!-C.

"What a nut." Jessa folded the paper and handed it to Tyler.