Upside Down

Book 1: Off the Map

by Lia Riley

Genres: Coming of Age; Sports; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

"Upside Down gave me all the feels. Romantic and poignant, the journey of love and acceptance lingers long after the book is closed." - Jennifer L. Armentrout/J. Lynn # 1 New York Times Bestselling Author.


"Lia Riley turned my emotions Upside Down with this book! Fast paced, electric and sweetly emotional-- I couldn't put it down!"

-- Tracy Wolff, New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author




If You Never Get Lost, You'll Never Be Found

Twenty-one-year-old Natalia Stolfi is saying good-bye to the past-and turning her life upside down with a trip to the land down under. For the next six months, she'll act like a carefree exchange student, not a girl sinking under the weight of painful memories. Everything is going according to plan until she meets a brooding surfer with hypnotic green eyes and the troubling ability to see straight through her act.

Bran Lockhart is having the worst year on record. After the girl of his dreams turned into a nightmare, he moved back home to Melbourne to piece his life together. Yet no amount of disappointment could blind him to the pretty California girl who gets past all his defenses. He's never wanted anyone the way he wants Talia. But when Bran gets a stark reminder of why he stopped believing in love, he and Talia must decide if what they have is once in a lifetime . . . of if they were meant to live a world apart.


Book 1 in the OFF THE MAP series

Release date: August 5, 2014

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

I breathe on my bedroom window and smear a spy hole in the condensation. Not much going on this morning. A lone crow dips over California bungalow roofs while in the distance Monterey Bay is shrouded in mist. I’m a Santa Cruz girl to the bone, love that fog like it’s a childhood blanket.

The downstairs phone rings and Dad turns off NPR. He’s a sucker for Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! Once I get on the plane this afternoon, the only noise in the house will be that frigging radio. Guilt grabs me with two cold fists, right in the gut. I should be plopped beside him on the couch, trying to kid around, but I’m not even sure he wants my company.

My sister, Pippa, would know what to do. She was the expert in easy affection. She’d blow through the kitchen on a Friday night, swig a sip of Dad’s beer, sling an arm around his neck, and torture him with wet cheek kisses. I’ve never been a hugger. My role was easy, the joke-cracking sidekick. But there’s no work for a sidekick without a hero. These days, if I wander into a room, Dad’s gaze automatically slides to the empty space beside me. Somehow, despite everything, I’m the ghost child. I don’t want to haunt him, so I keep to my room.

My room.

Not ours. No one’s slept in the other bed in a year and a half. My sister’s one-eyed sock monkey, Seymour, reclines in the middle of her calico pillowcase, wearing an evil expression. I know your secrets, he seems to say. What you keep hidden. I give the monkey the finger and instantly feel worse.

Seymour and I go way back. To those days after Pippa died and my room was a safe place to shatter. He saw me research phantom medical symptoms until four in the morning, curl beneath my bed wrapped in the comforter so Dad never heard me weep, watched as I knelt in the dormer window seat and counted cars, closing my eyes if I ever spotted a red one because red was bad.

It meant blood.

Death.

Seymour the Sock Monkey knows me for who I am.

The leftover daughter.

“Sorry, Pippa,” I mutter. Like my sister gives two shits about my relationship with her fucking stuffed animal. If she can see me from wherever she is, and that’s highly suspect, I’ve given her far greater cause for displeasure.

Seymour’s frayed mouth seems to sneer. We’re in agreement on that point.

There’s a knock on the bedroom door. “Hang on a sec!” I slip on my T-shirt and tighten the bath towel around my waist. My computer is open on the desk. WebMD calls my name, softly seductive, like Maleficent to Princess Aurora. In this case, I’m not offered a spinning wheel spindle but reassurance that I’m not going to die. Dr. Halloway urged me to block access to any health-related sites, but in the shower, the freckle on my right foot looked bigger. Bob Marley died from a melanoma on his toe, so I’m not 100 percent mentally unhinged—more like 85 percent on a bad day.

Despite my best efforts, I can’t stop obsessing over what-ifs. What if I have early-stage skin cancer? What if this headache is a tumor? My mind is a bowl of water that I compulsively stir. I want my brain to be still and serene, but for the love of Sweet Baby Jesus, I can’t quit agitating it.

There’s another knock. More insistent.

“Seriously, I’m changing.”

“Your mother’s called to say good-bye,” Dad says through the door. His voice is tense, pleading, like he holds something unpleasant, an old man’s jockstrap, rather than the phone.

I turn the knob and stick my hand out to grab the receiver. “Thanks.” I take my time putting it to my ear, humming the soundtrack to Jaws under my breath. “Hey, Mom.”

“Alooooha.” Wow, a perfect extension on the long o followed by a short, sharp ha. She’s been practicing.

I mime a silent gag. “What’s up?”

“Your cell went to voice mail.” She doesn’t like calling the landline. “You know I prefer not to talk to him.”

I push up my glasses and roll my eyes. “Such an inconvenience.” By him she means my dad, Scott Stolfi, the man she was married to for twenty-two years. She can’t even say, “May I speak to Talia,” without turning it into a thing. He was her high school sweetheart. They had one of those classic love stories, rich girl meets working-class boy. Now, a two-second conversation with the guy yanks her chain.

“You don’t understand.”

“And you say we never agree on anything.” I bend and struggle with the zip to my overstuffed suitcase.

I bet two coconuts that Mom’s sprawled by the infinity pool on the cliffside deck overlooking the Pacific. She’s been holed up on my grandparents’ estate on Kauai’s north shore since she bailed last year. After they took Pippa off life support, Mom locked herself in the guest room for two days while Dad tackled an endless series of home repairs. When she finally emerged, he was mending the backyard fence. “You can’t fix everything!” she’d screamed. Next thing we knew, she’d bought a one-way ticket to Hawaii. In lieu of a cheesy postcard, she sent Dad divorce papers from the law offices of William C. Kaleolani, Esq.

“Australia is just so far away. You’ve always talked about doing the Peace Corps one day, but to know you’re all grown up…” Her gusty sigh is dramatic. This phone call is her pretending to care, a big show, part of the game she still plays called “Being a Mom.” In all fairness, I shouldn’t snark, because guess who’s bankrolling my trip down under? As much as I hate to ask her for anything, I need this escape.

Mom comes from old Carmel money earned when my great-great-grandfather decimated two-thousand-year-old redwood groves. Environmental pillage made him filthy rich, but the money lost its stink over time, transformed into sustainable energy start-ups and progressive philanthropic causes.

I doubt the stumps rotting in the forest care.

“Has Logan’s cookbook arrived?” Mom dials up the rainbow cheer. She’s got to be grinding out that forced smile, the one that makes her teeth look like they’re breaking. “His tour starts next week, LA and San Francisco. You could have joined us at the Esalen Institute.”

The idea of soaking naked in a hippie retreat spa with Logan, Mom’s hump buddy/Hawaiian spirit animal, is the stuff of nightmares. To date, I’ve successfully avoided an encounter with the Wunderchimp. In her photographs, he sports a mean chest ’fro. He’s a personal macrobiotic chef to the stars and wannabe guru. His book, Eating from Within, recently released and she mailed me a personal signed copy like I give a one-eyed donkey.

I jam the phone between my ear and shoulder to shimmy into my skinny jeans. “What about the breatharian section? Like, was he serious about gulping air for sustenance?”

“The detoxifying effects are incredible.”

Whatever. I’ll wager my own enlightenment that she’s dying for one of Dad’s famous cheeseburgers.

“I’ve lost five pounds since we got involved.” There is a faint noise on the other end of the line, suspiciously like a wine bottle uncorking.

Hawaii is three hours behind.

Please don’t let her be drinking before noon.

“Hey, um, are you—”

“Sunny put a new photo of you on Facebook.” Mom’s a ninja at deflection as well as a social media junkie. She posts daily emo statuses about self-discovery alongside whimsical shots of waterfalls, out-of-focus sunsets, and dolphins. “Are those new shorts? I swear your thighs come straight from your father’s side.” She makes it sound like my genes sport cankles and triple chins, but she’s got a point. I did sprout from Dad’s southern Italian roots: Mediterranean curves, brown eyes, and olive skin.

I slip on my shoes, turn sideways in the mirror, and pooch my stomach. “Had a physical last week with Dr. Halloway. Still well within normal range.”

“Aren’t they stretching those numbers to make big girls feel better?”

Mom is a size 2. To her, everyone is a big girl.

Pippa was Mom’s doppelganger. They shared hummingbird-boned bodies and perpetually surprised blue eyes. I shove away the quick-fire anguish, slam my lids shut, and count to ten. The number nine feels wrong, so I do it once more for good measure.

“Talia? I need a little advice.” Mom hushes to a “just us girls” level.

“What?” She’s going to bash me and then get all buddy-buddy? Who replaced my real mother with this selfish hag?

“Male advice.”

“Um, wait, you’re joking, right?” This is above my pay grade.

“I just read online how pineapple juice improves semen flavor. Any tips for how to raise the subject with Logan?”

I open my mouth in a silent scream.

“He claims he doesn’t enjoy the fruit. But what about me? My needs? He tastes like—”

“Enough.” I flop beside my bed, grab a skullcap, shove it on, and yank the brim tight over my eyes in a futile attempt to hide. “You have got to be—”

“I come from a land down under, where women glow and men plunder.” Sunny bursts into my room in a whirlwind of sandalwood essential oil and peasant skirts. Beth follows behind wearing the same hand-painted silk sheath gracing the cover of the latest Anthropologie catalogue.

“Hey, I gotta jam. Beth and Sunny arrived to say good-bye.” My mom, I mouth, pretending to stab the receiver.

They roll their eyes.

“A hui hou, Ladybug. Australia waits. Discover your bliss.” When Mom gets philosophical, her voice takes on a theatrically British accent for no reason.

“Bye, Mom.” I toss the phone on my dresser and fake a seizure.

“Sounds like Mrs. S was in fine form.” Sunny tugs off my cap.

Beth’s jaw slackens. “OMG, Talia, what did you do to your hair?” She runs her fingers through her own dark flat-ironed locks as if trying to reassure herself of their continued flawlessness.

I skim my hand over the top of my head. “Box dye. Sunflower blond. You hate it, don’t you?”

“You’ll be easy to find in the dark.” Sunny waggles her eyebrows in pervy innuendo. Nothing fazes this girl. I could tattoo a third eye on my forehead and she’d chat about opening root chakras. That’s why I love her.

Beth halfway sits before realizing my bed’s buried beneath an avalanche of travel guides, bikinis, underwear, power adaptors, and multicolored Australian currency. She never touches Pippa’s bed. They were best friends. Beth had been riding shotgun in her Prius when the tweaker ran a stop sign and plowed through the driver’s side door. She never talks about that day. Neither of us do. We’ve been too deeply hurt.

For a long time after the accident we remained optimistic. Pippa’s brain showed limited signs of activity, but eventually, hope devoured the heart of my family until nothing remained but ashes and bone. Dad finds solace in warm beer and cold pizza and my mom in baby men. Me? I’m still digging out of the wreckage.

“Earth to Talia.” Sunny presses a matcha green tea latte into my hand with a wink. “We picked up your favorite swamp water.”

“Hey, thanks.” I fake a sip, not having the heart to reveal I cut off caffeine and the accompanying hamster-wheel jitters. It’s part of the Talia reboot. Talia 1.0 is outdated and it’s time for a new model. Talia 2.0 isn’t an anxious freak and is more than Pippa’s tragic sister. She didn’t lose her virginity to Tanner, her dead sister’s long-term boyfriend after the BBQ held to commemorate the one-year anniversary of her passing, and she doesn’t count precisely ninety-nine Cheerios into her bowl at breakfast to feel “right.” And she certainly isn’t going to focus on the fact that she’s not graduating in six months—a secret that no one, not her parents or even her best friends, knows.

Old Talia may have royally screwed her GPA. New Talia is focused strictly on the future. A shiny tomorrow. A new-car-smelling do-over.

These girls are everything to me, but they don’t have a clue how far I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole. I’m already one big sad story. Do I really want to be like Hey, how about my freaky compulsions?

Pretending to be a normal, functioning member of society is exhausting stuff.

“You’re wearing that on the plane?” Beth inventories my jeans, purple Chuck Taylors, and Pippa’s favorite tee.

“What?” I glance at the red-stenciled words crossing my chest—HOLDEN CAULFIELD IS MY HOMEBOY.

“There’s no way you’re getting upgraded,” Beth says.

“It’s a full flight. Besides, I needed to…” A shrug is my best explanation. The night before Pippa was removed from life support, I pinky-swore my beautiful, brain-dead sister that I’d live enough life for two. This shirt helps remind me of my promise.

Fortunately, Sunny is the resident expert in deciphering vague Talia gestures. “You want to be close to Pippa. I get it.” She toys with her feather hair extension and shoots Beth a “let it go” death stare.

“There’s an X Games competition in the city next weekend, so Tanner’s back in town.” Beth’s tone is controlled, far too even to be natural. “Did he stop by?” She gazes at me like an implacable jury forewoman, about to pronounce a verdict of guilt.

“Nope.”

The ensuing silence makes me want to curl into a catatonic ball and stare as dust motes filter through the air.

I don’t mention watching Tanner land heel kicks and pop shuvits while walking past Derby Skate Park last night. Or how he stared right through me. He’d been in love with Pippa since she was twelve. She and I had been walking home from Mission Hill Middle School when a classmate cornered the two of us on Bay Street with rape threats. Tanner spotted the encounter from the front stoop of his trailer, marched over, and clocked the kid over the head with his skateboard. When Pippa told Mom what happened, she took Tanner out to Marianne’s Ice Cream parlor for sundaes. By ninth grade, he and Pippa were going steady and that was that, until the year anniversary of my sister’s death.

Tanner will never forgive either of us for the night we got trashed, and then naked, under the Santa Cruz Wharf. I’m sure he guilty-conscience confessed the whole sordid story to Beth, but she never called me on it, a form of punishment in itself.

“What’s up, girls?” Dad appears in the hall dressed in well-worn board shorts and a ratty surf competition T-shirt. He looks more like a beach bum than a coastal geologist.

Beth gives him a little wave. “Hey, Mr. S.”

His head grazes the top of the door frame. He’s huge, my dad, but quiet, more a gentle giant. Mom used to run the show around these parts, a high-strung Chihuahua to his laid-back golden retriever. Now he wanders around like he forgot where he hid his bone. He’s not in the right headspace to deal with my crap. All I need to do is fake happy and stay alive.

“You finished yet?” He shifts his weight, eyeing the mess spread over my bed. “We’ve got to hit the road soon to beat the traffic. Don’t want you missing your flight.”

Sunny leaps up with a squeal and wraps me in a fierce bear hug. “Safe travels, honeybunch.”

She’s the only person who occasionally calls me by Pippa’s old nickname. I miss hearing it but don’t have to look at Dad to know he flinches.

“Remember your promise.” Sunny presses her forehead to mine. “You can’t call either Beth or me while you’re gone. We’ll be fine. This time’s just for you. Relax. Get a tan. Ride a platypus. Throw a shrimp on the barbie and whatnot.”

“Got it.” I nod as she gives me a final squeeze. Sunny’s firm in her belief that we can’t communicate until I return home. She wants me to escape from my family train wreck, and you can’t get much farther than Australia. I’ll have five months to screw my head back on straight.

Beth steps forward with a steely look in her gray eyes, but maybe I’m imagining things because in another second it’s gone. She rumples my hair. “Don’t forget to have fun, Tals.”

“Never do,” I crack. When’s the last time I let go, lived without an invisible boulder crushing my chest? Can’t even remember.

“Good times.” Dad grabs the suitcase with an easy swing while I cram the rest of my stuff in the bulging duffel. “There’s going to be a lot to celebrate when you get home. You three, almost ready to graduate.” He casts a hesitant smile in my general direction. He was the first kid in his family to go to college. I know it means the world to him that he can provide me with an opportunity for higher education.

My lungs go on strike. A full breath is impossible.

He’d be so proud to learn his only surviving daughter is a liar and a failure.

I’m letting him down.

Like mother, like daughter.

My core grows cold. The letter from the history undergraduate committee is torn into a hundred pieces in the trash. They denied my petition to extend my senior thesis and the resulting F is a nuclear detonation in my transcript. My GPA is blown and because I didn’t pass a mandatory class, I’ll have to repeat the semester. Dr. Halloway offered to write a letter requesting medical exemption, but that would mean owning a crazy-ass diagnosis like obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Even before Pippa’s accident, there were warning signs. Indicators like being hyperconscious about unplugging electrical devices or rechecking that I locked the front door in a certain way that felt “right.” Over the last few years my compulsions intensified. I had to eat my food in pairs, not one M&M, not three M&M’s, but two every time. Don’t get me started on setting my alarm clock, changing a car radio, or trying to fall asleep. Over the course of last semester, I became convinced I contracted leukemia, thyroid disease, and MS. My nights were spent symptom Googling my way to academic probation.

After breaking down in my childhood doctor’s office a few weeks ago, Dr. Halloway wrote me a prescription for a low-dosage antidepressant. He says the medication will increase my serotonin levels and in turn decrease the severity of my symptoms. It’s got to work. I can’t continue being a closet freak. Dr. Halloway also strongly advised cognitive behavioral therapy, stressing it would be helpful—vital, in fact—in controlling OCD impulses.

Right now, escape is preferable to weekly psychologist meetings. Once Santa Cruz and its ghosts are behind me, I’ll feel better.

“Peanut?” Dad’s frowning, so are Sunny and Beth. I’ve zoned out again, lost in my navel-gazing bullshit.

“It’s all good.” I flick on a megawatt smile because that’s what I do best, fake it until I make it. “Australia’s going to be great. Just think, tonight I’ll be passing the International Date Line. I’m going to Tomorrowland.”

Leaving is the only way to move forward.

If I never get lost, I’ll never be found.



The door to my cramped studio flings open and Marti, the Quebecois girl from next door, peeks in. “Bonjour, hi,” she chirps in her customary greeting.

She arrived from Montreal the day before me, and we live on the fourth floor of Melbourne University’s foreign student residence. Our friendship began during orientation a few weeks ago and her direct, take-no-prisoners style cut straight through the tentative getting-to-know-you stage. During the bewildering first few weeks, we helped each other decipher campus maps and dodge cars driving on the left-hand side of the road. Soon we traded giggles over the odd language hiccups like how uni means “university,” capsicum is a pepper, or that an icy pole is, in fact, a popsicle.

“How was the excursion?” Marti sashays into my room. Her hair is swept into an intentional messy bun with blunt cut bangs. Heavy eye makeup and a silver nose ring accentuate her bold features.

A history geek to the core, I’ve signed up for every single International Student Club sponsored outing: the Melbourne Museum, the Immigration Museum, and the National Gallery of Victoria. Today’s big adventure? The Werribee Open Range Zoo.

“A keeper let me help feed the kangaroos.” I remove my black-frame glasses and stand in front of the cracked mirror to pop in contacts. “A cute idea in theory until one head-butted my crotch in front of a bunch of Japanese tourists. Keep an eye on YouTu. . .