“Barbie, I am going to be frank with you. You are failing. And unless you want a repeat of my class, therefore being in Central for an extra year, which is entirely up to you, I am going to suggest you get a tutor.” He flops himself in his chair and straightens his glasses. He is wearing one of his signature sweaters even though it is mid-May and eighty degrees outside.
“Come on, Gregor,” I moan. “We can work something out.” I reach across the desk and mess up the front of his thinning hair. “I do not have time for a tutor.”
Unfazed, he moves my hand away. “Here is a name of one of my AP students. If you hurry, you can catch him before the bell rings.” He jots down a name and the class he is in on a hall pass. I glance at the name “Dylan Knight.” I crumple up the paper and stuff it into my bag.
“No thanks,” I give him a smile. So not happening. “Barbie.” He stops me before I make it into the hallway.
“It does not look good on college applications to fail a class,” he smiles.
“Aww, that’s sweet Gregor but you and I both know I am not college-bound. Why, I am going to be the next nymph at the Purple Lotus.” I wink at him and strut out of his room.
A nymph is what the dancers at my momma’s job are called. My mother doesn’t dance. She waits tables. She barely make enough money to pay the rent and what she doesn’t drink she blows it on whatever else that can manage to get her high. Her oily boss tried to turn it from a sleazy club into a classy one. Changing the name of a strip joint doesn’t really do anything for the class and type of people it attracts. The warped thing is her boss has actually asked me to be one of the nymphs. Yeah, I really do have a better chance at becoming a dancer than going to any college.
***
After talking to Dylan, I skip my next period and head straight under the bleacher. The bleacher is a place I go to feel numb. It is used by kids like me, no friends, burn-outs, loners, girls skipping class to get busy with their best friends’ boyfriends. Why am I here? Is it because Gregor showed some concern about me passing and potentially going to college? Ha, like that could happen. But he did open something in me that I need to numb as soon as possible. Does he not see how screwed up I am or is he one of those delusional teachers that believe in the youth of today?
I make my way to the back right corner where someone had dragged out a few rotting beach chairs and an old ripped recliner. The group of kids lounging on the chairs are the closest thing to friends I have.
I spot the one I came to find, the one I need to lick my wounds. His dark hair is slicked back in one of those messy styles he got from a cheap hair salon. His eyes meet mine and a knowing smile spreads on his thin lips. “Look what I have, a bag of little blue happy pills.” He shakes a plastic sandwich bag in front of me.
I shake my head. Even though the rumor is that I am a druggie slut, I do not do drugs. And slut, I guess that depends on your definition of a slut. If it constitutes messing around with a few boys, then yep, I am a slut. He shrugs and pops one in his mouth, putting the bag back into the front pocket of his denim jacket. Very James Dean of him.
“I have something different in mind.” I push him back into one of the rotting chairs and startle him. His body reacts instantly, his fingers find my hips as he pulls me closer digging deep into the soft, sensitive tissue. That will leave a bruise, but I can’t make myself care.
My body responds. Numbness starts to travel up my legs; my heart slows to a steady rhythm tuning out Gregor’s words. When I am in this position, things become oddly clear. My head stops spinning and the ache that I feel starts to fade, numbing me into pure bliss. I cannot feel the pain of what cannot be. His touch is like a balm to my open wound. I grind against him. Soaking in the feeling, I begin to forget, or at least push the words down deep down inside of me. I am begging to feel that sensation my body craves. Numb.
I don’t want to feel anything. I want the world and all my problems to fade away. I push Tyler’s head backward, deepening the kiss. I am like an addict, jonesing for my fix. I need to feel nothing right now more than I need to breathe. I need to make my mother fade. I need to forget about the hardships that face Everett every day. I need to lose the image of my mother. The look of disgust written on Dylan’s face. The hopeful tone in Gregor’s voice. I want it all to disappear.
Tyler’s hands snake up the front of my shirt, his fingers grasping at the thin fabric of my bra. As he bites at my neck, I lean into him. His heavy moans are bringing me to the place I want to be. His hair falls into his eyes just like Dylan’s. I groan, not numb enough. Tyler pulls me tighter against him.
Why did I agree to help Dylan? He looked at me with such disdain. Why wouldn’t he just have agreed to me flashing him? His little chunky friend was all about it. Aww, hell, the bleeding hearts of the world. If I was not turning into a softy. Was it all because he reminded me of when we were young?
He was the only kid that was nice to me. The girls didn’t speak to me, I never seemed to have the right clothes or the right hairstyle, and always wearing it in two messy braids…the only thing I could manage myself. My shoes were always too big or too small for my feet.
The boys teased me, calling me Trailer Park Barbie, a rumor that was spread by dumb ass Tyler Smalls. He told all the boys I would show them my underwear in the slide. The boys tried to look up my dress, and I got in trouble when I beat them up.
Dylan was different than the other boys. He never tried to pin me in the slide to look up my dress. He didn’t care that my hair was a mess. He would play with me any way’s, always letting me win, never catching me. He was the skinny kid with knobby knees and freckles on his nose. He wore glasses that would slide down his face. One day he stuffed a bug in my mouth. I gave him a bloody nose. Hell, I guess I feel like I owe him. He is not the same boy that would chase me. No, gone are the plastic -frame glasses, his freckles faded. He turned from a skinny kid into a hottie with lean muscles who could be a Calvin Klein model.
Tyler’s hands slide down my thighs and he begins to make his way under my skirt. I pull his hands back to my chest and bring my mouth to his. He moans against my mouth, “Come on Bee,” he pleads as his hands fall back to my thigh.
“If we don’t, it will hurt,” he groans.
I roll my eyes, my mouth still on his. “How very romantic,” I say. “But I am not about to do ‘it’ under the bleachers because ‘it hurts’ if we don’t.” I stand up.
He tries to grab for me, but I move out of the way. “You’re a tease.”
Oh, now that hurts. Not. “Oh, no! Not a tease!” I gasp bringing my hands to my mouth. “Please take off your pants and let’s do it, because I don’t want to be known as a tease.” I say sarcastically.
“You’re a real bitch,” Tyler says straightening his pants. I leave Tyler hurting and all and head home. I am numb.
***
My mother is lying on the couch in her open bathrobe. A half-empty bottle of whiskey is sitting on top of the coffee table, an ashtray full of cigarette butts next to her.
Everett runs back to the bed room. I flip off the TV, and grab the bottle on the table. I like to believe that my mother has not always been this way. That there was a time she loved us, but I know the truth. And the truth is she cannot get out of the deal she made with the bottle. She has a few pictures of when she was younger. She was beautiful and didn’t wear the tired expression that is now always present on her face.
She did not have an easy life. Her momma ran off, leaving her with an alcoholic father who up and died when she turned thirteen, leaving her with an abusive step momma. If everybody just up and left me, I might be the same as her. I have Everett, and I need to think of him first. How to keep him safe is my number one priority, it is what keeps me from sinking so low into a dark abyss.
Momma left when she was eighteen, as soon as she found out she was pregnant with me. I should be happy about that, but I would have liked to have known where I came from, my history, but momma says history is
only good for one thing and that is running.
I got my name because the only thing her momma left her with before she ran away was a Barbie doll. Momma thought that if she could just be perfect like that damn doll perhaps her momma wouldn’t have up and left her. Maybe she would have stayed if she looked like Barbie. If she had those same blue eyes, long blond hair, and a perfect smile. Well, no matter how much wishing you do, you can’t ever change the color of your eyes. Her eyes remained the same muddy brown. The more she wishing she did, the more everything stayed the same. Her step momma still beat her with a switch. Her momma never came home, and her eyes were still brown. About the time she stopped wishing and started looking for someone that would love her despite not being able to be Barbie, she met my good-looking, good-for-nothing daddy. He didn’t love her either.
When she found out she was pregnant she said if she had a girl she would name her Barbie. That things would be different for me. Well, I was born with the blue eyes and straight nose, and a perfect smile, but that did not change things for me. My life is one cruel joke. I hate my name. Maybe if she named me something normal like, Ashley or Britney, things would have been different for me.
I start washing the dishes that have been sitting in the sink for a few days. “Where did you go and put my whiskey?” My mother’s raspy voice comes from behind me. I push my hands deep into the soapy water. I don’t want her seeing my hands shake. I hate it when she gets like this, when the liquor makes her mean.
“In the cabinet.” I jump at the slamming of the cabinet door and the glass hitting the counter.
“Who asked you to touch it?” She snaps. Maybe I am not that different from my momma. Alcohol is her way to numb the pain.
“No one. I just didn’t want Everett to get into it,” I say through gritted teeth. I try to shield as much of our reality from him as I can. Why can’t she just sober up? All I want is for her to sober up. I want it so bad. Why can’t we be enough for her? I used to think I could help her. I thought if I could make her get better, that we could have a normal life.
I would dump out whatever she brought home, searching the house for her stashed pills or the bottles of liquor. I would drag her limp body to the bedroom, undressing her out of her clothes that were covered in vomit. No matter how many bottles I poured down the drain, or pills I flushed, my mother would still find more. I tried crying and pleading with her to stop but she never seemed to think that she had a problem. Making me question my sanity, sometimes I would believe momma’s words that it was all in my head. That she didn’t have a problem.
Giving up was one of the hardest things I did, but I had to focus on Everett and me. Momma’s problem sometimes makes me do things that make me feel wrong and sick. But I need to put food in our mouths, and keep a roof over both our heads. So now when I find her passed out, I search her pockets taking whatever cash she has, stashing it in my bra. Because when she wakes shaking and sick, needing to get high, she will search high and low to scrounge up enough to get a few pills or a bottle. She will do anything for that high. She cannot help it. The drink has a tight hold on her no matter how hard she fights it. It just holds on tighter. It is in her blood.
We don’t have anything of value. Those things are long gone, sold for a few dollars. You have to do what you have to do. Seeing my mother destroy herself kills me. I wish she could numb her own pain that caused her to sink this low.
My mother’s ribs stick out as she stands next to me, her robe exposing her white bra and underwear hanging loose on her hip bones that jut out. “Let me make you something to eat,” I offer.
She sometimes will not eat for days filled up on liquor. I pull out a pot and the last box of macaroni and cheese. Momma sits and starts rubbing her temples. “I don’t want any food. I just got this damn headache,” she says. Her hand shakes as she brings the glass of brown liquid to her mouth. “I ran out of my pills and you know how my headaches get. I don’t mean to snap at you. I know you mean well.”
I take a deep breath, and pour the box of noodles in the pot, placing it on the stove. “I know, Momma.”
There is no milk so I add some extra butter to the powdered cheese, trying to smooth out the lumps. I fill three bowls and we eat silently, absentmindedly pushing around the buttery noodles. Each of us lost in our own tormented world. “So how is my baby doing?” Her hands are steadier now as she reaches over taking Everett’s hand in hers. An ever-present ache grows in my chest because Everett starts to make happy noises. Not words but sounds; a sound that brings a smile to her face. Even though he cannot put it into words, he wants my mother as much as I do, and I hurt for him.
After dinner my mother gets ready and leaves for work, leaving me and Everett home alone. I wash our dishes and wipe down the counter. Then I help Everett bathe and get ready for bed before I read to him his favorite book, Green Eggs and Ham, twice, before tucking him in.
After changing into a pair of old sweat pants and a tank top. I pull out my own homework and attempt to get some studying in, but my eyes burn and I cannot keep them open.
***
A light pours in from the broken slats of the blinds wakening me. I check on Everett. He is still asleep, the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Even in sleep, he is silent. I next check my mother’s room. Empty. Bed still made with the thin floral comforter. Her perfume and make-up are lined up from smallest to largest on her chipped bureau. A picture of her when she was young hangs from the mirror. She must have stayed out after her shift. She does this often, not coming home, so I am not worried about her. But this means that she will come home with no money again.
I need to get ready for school. I decide to take my shower before waking Everett. Peeling off my sweats, I turn on the shower as hot as I can, letting the bathroom steam up before slipping in the yellowing bath tub. Today I am going to try to get Katie to notice Dylan. How in the hell am I going to do that? Because as far as I know, Katie doesn’t pay attention to anybody unless it is her own bony butt. I try to think about everything I know about Katie. She moved here in the ninth grade, so her southern accent is a total fake. She is in the student council or some shit like that. I really don’t know. I don’t vote for that crap, tend to not give a shit about school activities that promote school spirit. She is in most of Dylan’s classes except gym because she has that with me. So she is a super nerd. She is popular, not with the jocks and cheerleaders, but the preps, she is like their queen. She is a complete control freak. She matches everything in boring bland colors. She thinks navy and light pink are her colors. I would love to see here decked out in black once. Oh yeah, she uses her free period to make out with Tyler under the bleaches. She never lets him get past second base, because she doesn’t want to ruin her good girl reputation. And she looks at me like I am the gum stuck to the bottom of her patent leather loafers. But if that is what Dylan wants, I can get her for him. I don’t really care. Whatever floats his boat as long as I pass Math. Because there is no way in hell I am spending another year stuck in this poop stick of a town. No, I will just leave before that happens and it would be nice to leave with a high school diploma.
As soon as I graduate, I am taking Everett so we can run from our history. I am going to run so far and fast, it is not going to have a chance to catch us. I want Everett to have a better life. Not one that is filled with sadness and darkness like it is now. I want Everett to see the ocean, to touch it. We have seen the ocean before. We are going to get ourselves a little cottage by the ocean so we can go to sleep to the roar of it, a reminder of what we came from and are never returning to. Who knows, once we get settled maybe I will take some college classes at a local community college.
The sound of glass breaking shuts off my internal babble. “Everett, do not move!” I shout. I step out of the tub and wrap a brown towel around me. I tip toe out of the bathroom, careful not to step on any glass that might be broken. Everett is so silent sometimes you don’t hear him make a move. He is like a mouse. Once last year, wh
en Momma was supposed to be watching him, I guess she drank too much or took one too many muscle relaxers, because when I got home she was passed out in the bathroom floor and Everett was clear cross town. He was walking to the Twisty Treat. It scared the hell out of me and I vowed never to leave him alone with her again if I could help it.
“Everett,” I call as I walk toward the kitchen. I should have made him something to eat before taking a shower. That was stupid. I enter the kitchen but Everett is not in there. Instead, it is my mother, standing in the midst of a pile of brown broken glass.
Golden liquid spreads across the broken laminate tile, “Oh baby doll,” my mother slurs. Her eyes are rimmed in red as if she had been crying. I know better. She starts to cross the maze of broken glass in her bare feet. I cringe, not wanting her to hurt herself, “Momma, be careful.” I reach out to stop her, but she gets to me unharmed and wraps her thin arms around me. She is a head shorter than me. Her dark hair is pulled up in a high pony tail. She still wears last night’s uniform, black hot pants and purple push bra with sequins. She smells of smoke and liquor. When I was younger, I would breathe that smell in, imagining she was a warrior queen who just came home from battling a dragon. How easy it is to twist your world when you are a child. Reality is like a cold splash of water. There are no fairy tales or happy endings in my story, no Prince Charming riding in to rescue me. No, my reality is a harsh, cold one.
“I am just making some breakfast for Ronnie.” My mother points to the chair her boss sits in. He flicks his ashes into a cup that still holds some of the golden liquid. Apple juice? Not likely. “Ronnie, you remember my baby girl Barbie.” Ronnie’s blood-shot eyes take me in. His long blond hair is slicked back in a ponytail. He grins, his mouth full of yellowing, crooked teeth. He is younger than my mom, by a few years. His face does not wear lines in it, like my mother’s does.