Things I can’t Explain Read online

  I couldn’t help thinking about Nick in the middle of it all. Rodgers noticed almost immediately that caffeinated beverages have become a loaded issue for me.

  “As my granddad in Trinidad used to say—you’ve got to get a stiff upper.”

  “Stiff upper what?” I asked.

  “Lip, sweetie—not whatever’s on your dirty mind,” she said. “What I mean is that Nick is a great guy, but if he can’t stand up to Roxie, then he’s not good enough for you.”

  I knew she was right and I had to get over him, but I didn’t stop wondering about Nick and how he was doing, and I didn’t stop hoping that he’d call now that I wasn’t afraid to answer my phone. But as the weeks went by, I kept my chin up per Rodgers’s instructions and learned to tuck all that into a tiny place in the back of my heart and let it rest.

  Then surprise, surprise: I got a letter from Sam! Unbelievable, huh? I never thought I’d hear from him. It’s big, thick, and smells like fish. But I can’t bring myself to open it.

  That’s why I’m standing down here at my spot under the Brooklyn Bridge. I wanted to see how much I’ve actually healed and how much farther I have to go. I hadn’t even considered visiting my secret hideaway since the night I almost killed Nick with a dish of shrimp.

  Tonight, though, I decided to test myself.

  I’ve always hated when people deem things “bittersweet.” I mean, how can something be bitter and sweet? It’s like when people say “same difference.” Come on, it’s either the same or it’s different. But I guess there’s no other word for the feeling I have standing here, watching the ferries shuttle like gargantuan water bugs across the East River, their lights shimmering in the dusky light turning to darkness as the sun goes down on the other side of the island. Autumn is close and there’s a crispness in the air, along with a sad cool whisper coming off the water hinting that summer is over.

  I’ve been thinking about everything that’s changed, trying to count my blessings even if I feel like the train tracks never really switched back after the “spill that got away,” inserting me into a multiverse not of my own choosing.

  The lights from Manhattan’s skyscrapers flicker on the water and you can see quite a few industrious souls with their offices in full-on fluorescent glow, working through the night. New York is good for working. It always makes sense to work here. Falling in love, not so much, at least not for me.

  As beautiful as my secret, only-view-of-its-kind, Manhattan sanctuary is, it doesn’t feel the same. I’ve worked as hard as I can, writing as many stories as possible and hoping to forget. But I can’t stop seeing Nick’s slow smile light up his face every time he saw me enter the Daily Post building.

  Looking down at Sam’s letter, I wonder why I don’t want to open it. I mean, what can it say after all this time? How can it repair the giant hole in my heart that’s been years in the making and that I’ve tried so hard to overcome?

  I realized after my extensive soul-searching sojourn of the last few weeks what Mom and Dad and, yes, even Dr. Leisl Lyman were trying to get me to understand about my wishful thinking. AvPD is what they call it in the DSM-V, Avoidant Personality Disorder. Gotta love those shrinks, they have a disorder for every normal thing that happens in life as if it’s a disease we all need meds for.

  My ego has been bruised and it’s taken a lot of hard thinking to see the part I’ve played in Sam’s disappearing act. Here’s my unpleasant self-damning conclusion: I believed what I wanted to hear and managed to take Sam for granted when I least should have. Sam may have never wanted to move back to Manhattan. After all, he’s a marine archaeologist. That means you have to go where the antiquities and water are. You don’t see a lot of that stuff down here near Wall Street. I just assumed he’d go wherever I did. He was always there before, ever since we were tweenagers. My guess is that Sam couldn’t bring himself to tell me or figured I wouldn’t listen anyway.

  I put Sam’s letter back in my pocket. I don’t think I can bear to read it right now.

  The night seems immense, the stars are luminous, and in the breeze I think I hear Nick’s voice:

  Funny how you find the coolest things when you’re not even looking for them.

  He totally understood. He knew why I came to this place without me even having to explain it to him. Maybe things you don’t have to explain, and the people you don’t have to explain them to, are the ones that matter most.

  Time to go home. Time to call it a night and get up early and work again. New York is the place for work and I’m lucky that I have work to do. Writing is the only thing that fills my mind up with enough to think about. That way I don’t think about all the other things I can’t understand anymore.

  I turn to leave.

  “You can’t go,” a voice says in the darkness, and I freak a little bit, worrying I’m imagining the breeze talking again. I dig in my purse for my pepper spray. Generally speaking, in New York, this is the kind of thing that would have you running, screaming for help. The only thing that keeps me from doing so is the fact that I actually know that soft voice.

  “I’ve been coming here every night, waiting for you for too long. Don’t leave.”

  Standing by the water in the dark, in the reflected light of the East River, I see a silhouette. I hold my breath and Nick emerges from the shadows. I’m tempted to reach out and pinch him, just to see if he’s real.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, stepping closer into the half-light, half-darkness beneath the streetlamps. “Sometimes I doze off and, well, you never come down here anymore, so I didn’t see you at first.”

  I can see that behind him, far off in a corner, is his Harley.

  “I thought you were in LA. Roxie said…”

  “I was, for a while. But I came back and I’ve been trying to build up the courage to find you. I knew calling wouldn’t work. I felt sick and pretty confused. I knew you thought I’d lied to you and I let you down. I saw it in your eyes.” He sighs and steps closer. I can see his whole face and his downcast eyes, trying to overcome his shyness. I can feel the warmth of his breath in the space between us. “If you’d looked mad, I could have handled it. But you looked hurt. And that scared me more than anything ever had before … because I was responsible for it.”

  He glances out toward the river, gathering his thoughts. “I’m kind of messed up that way. When I think someone feels disappointment, I guess I disappear. Not the best way to deal with it.”

  Again. Surprising amount of information for such a shy guy.

  “I was beginning to think you’d never show up. There’s so much I want to tell you.” I close the gap between us with one step and place my finger to his lips.

  “You don’t have to explain anything,” I whisper. “And you know what?”

  “What?”

  I give him the tiniest grin as I go up on tiptoe. “Right at this moment, neither do I.”

  As he brushes his lips against mine, I understand that sometimes the only explanations that really matter are the ones that don’t require a single word.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  DEAR READER,

  We may have never met face-to-face and perhaps never will, but I am grateful to have been connected to you through the quaint convention of television watching, even if it’s a bond that occurred decades ago. It was satisfying enough to hear that you remade your bedroom, improvised your fashion style, doubled down on your Doc Martens, felt empowered to create your own video games, disregarded gender politics, and learned to write your name backward. But discovering that you remembered and thought seriously about all those Clarissa-inspired things in your twenties and thirties was beyond my anticipation. You inspired me to write this book.

  I also want to thank my multitalented editor, Brendan Deneen, at Macmillan, who knows how to juggle more balls in the air than I do; Barbara Marcus, publisher of the Children’s Division at Random House, who was instrumental in launching my career as a novelist; Myrsini Stephanides, my agent, who loved
the idea of this book from the beginning; fashion designer Lisa Lederer, who designed all the original awe-inspiring clothing from Clarissa, and who has been my fashion guru and arbiter of everything cool on this book and others; and Nicole Sohl at St. Martin’s Press, who has steadfastly navigated this book to publication. I want to particularly thank Demi Anter, for her inspired, spontaneous illustrations.

  My thanks for this book extends beyond these pages to many of the people who made the very idea of Clarissa possible, because without Clarissa Explains It All, there wouldn’t be anything to keep explaining.

  First and foremost is Melissa Joan Hart, who continues to embody everything that is forthright, honest, and high-spirited about Clarissa. You can write those qualities in a teleplay or screenplay, but if you can’t find someone who truly personifies those values, the character would never spring to life. She was my daughter before I had a daughter, and I couldn’t be more proud and astonished at all she has done. Most important, she has kept her humanity and integrity intact in a business that has very little tolerance for those qualities.

  Next is Gerry Laybourne, who had the vision, the fortitude, and the moxie to make Nickelodeon happen in those days. It was her directive to explode kids’ TV that drove those of us working for her to create highly creative and totally original programming that has endured the test of time and generations. She gave us the chance to reset the clock on television for kids, establishing new paradigms for animation, sitcoms, and other forms. Without that mandate, none of our creative ideas would have made it to the screen.

  It’s impossible to thank everyone else who worked on Clarissa. But know this—you can’t make television by yourself. The producers, writers, directors, performers, graphic designers, costume department, editors, and technicians all did their part to make Clarissa come to life. They have all gone on to be highly accomplished people in their own right.

  For a long time I’ve felt that the Clarissa I knew was freeze-tagged before she could really show the world everything she was capable of. Hopefully, with this book, Clarissa is free again, and who knows what’s next? As Sam would say, “Yeah, what’s the worst that can happen?”

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  MITCHELL KRIEGMAN has been published in The New Yorker, The National Lampoon, New York Press, Glamour, and Harper’s Bazaar. A winner of four Emmy Awards and a Directors Guild Award, he was also a writer for Saturday Night Live. Kriegman was the creator of the classic groundbreaking television series Clarissa Explains It All, as well as the executive head writer on Ren and Stimpy, Rugrats, and Doug. He is currently teaching writing and filmmaking at Stonybrook Southampton. You can sign up for email updates here.

  ALSO BY MITCHELL KRIEGMAN

  BEING AUDREY HEPBURN

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Epigraphs

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Mitchell Kriegman

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

  THINGS I CAN’T EXPLAIN. Copyright © 2015 by Mitchell Kriegman. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

  www.thomasdunnebooks.com

  www.stmartins.com

  Clarissa Explains It All® is a registered trademark of Viacom International Inc.

  Illustrations by Demi Anter

  Courtesy of Soft Reality LLC.

  The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 978-1-250-04654-3 (hardcover)

  ISBN 978-1-4668-4679-1 (e-book)

  Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at (800) 221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].

  First Edition: November 2015

  eISBN 9781466846791