Christy thought of her life as complicated. There was National Honors Society if she became an overachiever, after school help if she became an underachiever, and Community Service if she just wanted to look good on a college application. Yet now, as she walked along Mary Anne Way, on her way home after her encounter with Rey and Nadines Puppies, her eyes on the horizon, life seemed simple. There was her, walking along the earth, staring at the sun in the sky, and that was all.
When she thought about the last time she felt so free, worry-less, and at peace with her circumstances and her surroundings, she felt maybe she had felt this way when George pushed her on the swing set as a little girl. She could remember screaming as she got higher and higher and George would pretend she’d knocked him over with the force of her return. The swing set was still there, now covered with fall leaves, and visible from Christy’s room on the second story of their white stucco home. To Christy, it always looked sad, perhaps because it was imbued with so much nostalgia.
However, regardless of all the time that had passed, Christy would always be George’s little girl. He got angry with her plenty, and Christy had spent her share of dinner times alone in her room with hardly a few bites in her stomach, but George never decided favorites between her and Brianna. It didn’t matter to George that Brianna had a 3.8 GPA and attended Leander; it was common practice for each person at the dinner table to get a chance to talk about each of their respective lives as equals. In an hour they would, no doubt, continue with this tradition.
It was 3:45, and the sun was sitting on a crown of purple surrounded cumulus clouds. Christy picked up her pace because she was expecting a call from Annette at four o’clock and wanted to make it back in time. Soon enough, the trees in her neighbor’s yard scrolled by like the backdrop of an old movie and her driveway came into view. George’s blue metallic Chevy Equinox was in the driveway. He was home early.
George was a Structural Engineer. His passion for order and style dominated the Lane’s impressive looking but unemotional home. The living room was hard wood floors holding black leather chairs and a glass coffee table. Their kitchen was walled off by wooden criss-crossing walls that were see-through due to the large number of missing triangles in them. Across from the kitchen, and down a hallway, were two flights of stairs, which led to Christy and Brianna’s bedrooms.
Christy cut through their front yard, heading for a big boulder between the only two trees in the yard. She jumped on it happily as if it were a button that administered a shot of serotonin to her brain. She bypassed the path of red bricks that led from the driveway to their front orange door. When she opened the door, Ruffenstein, a male Yorkshire Terrier with a mustache on both sides of his snout, began barking. Christy rubbed his head which quickly calmed him down.
She jogged up the steps, hearing computer keys clicking in George’s office, and entered her room where a smattering of inspirational posters always caught her attention first. One read: “The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places.” The motivational maxims kept her from procrastinating. She had a blue rug and bedspread, which friends often told her was boyish, but Christy had never liked pink. She had painted her desk purple, and had a purple cordless phone to match. She threw her backpack on the floor and dove onto her bed, turning over and reaching for the remote control on her night stand as she often did.
A popular children’s cartoon called Skywarriors was on. Skytopps, one of the hero’s was picking up a helicopter, propelling himself into the air, and throwing it at one of the villains, named Geotine. Skywarriors were manufactured by a company called Payne who sold them for a little under one-hundred dollars each. They had a helicopter blade on their back that allowed them to fly. Brianna once bragged to Christy how she extorted fifty dollars from a woman while working at Lots For Littles. The woman was under the impression the toys were reserved. “Fifty bucks,” Brianna had said conspiratorially. The woman was so ecstatic to be able to buy one for her nephew that she gladly surrendered the cash.
Christy didn’t feel like changing the channel, largely because she was exhausted from the afternoon’s events. Her purple phone rang, two short rings and then a long one, and she picked it up. When she heard Annette’s voice she smiled.
“Hey Christy. You sure get around,” Annette said with mock disapproval. This always made Christy laugh.
“Annette, who told you?” She said.
“Freddie Prinze Junior and Orlando Bloom.”
“They’re always talking about me. It’s so not cool.”
Annette laughed. “Speaking of sluts, is the bitch back yet?” She imitated a movie advertiser’s voice. “This fall, from Leander, ‘the bitch is back.’”
“No, she’ll be home at four-thirty.” Christy laboriously got up and put her feet on the floor letting out an expression of exasperation.
“I just got back from volleyball practice. We kicked major butt. Did you do your math homework yet?” Annette had transferred out of standard math because she thought it was too easy. Ms. Aster, however, was not one to be a pushover, and Annette had to call Christy nearly every night for help with math homework because she had missed so much material from the beginning of the school year.
“No. I haven’t been home.”
“Where have you been?” Annette asked.
Christy blew her bangs off her forehead. “Running from Huxley.”
“Get out.”
“You sure you want to hear this?”
“Yes, darlin’. Spare no detail.”
Christy told her all about the trials of the afternoon. She told her how Rey had offered to walk with her, about confronting Huxley, Der, and Joe, and running through the woods. She even told her about the deserted home, the turret, and the basement like door. Annette interjected every once in awhile with a question or a quiet, “Oh my God.” Christy finished by explaining that she was able to walk home in peace, that they weren’t waiting for her.
“Christy do you think they might really hurt you?”
“No. They just wanted to scare me. I hope.” Then after a long silence on the line: “I have no idea.”
“Saying that to Huxley must have been such a rush.”
Christy looked at an 8-ball on her desk, as a meaningless message rose to the surface. As she had walked down Daphne St., she had put her feelings about the afternoon’s events into words. Christy and Annette had been friends for almost two years. They met in seventh grade swim class when Annette had told Christy she really needed to cut her toe-nails and this had started a discussion filled with laughter. To this day, Christy rarely went a few days without checking to see they hadn’t grown too long.
Christy sighed. There was a silence on the line. “All the time, no matter where I am, I feel this feeling. Like a weight. Like a storm cloud. That was the first time I didn’t feel it. Running from Huxley.”
“What do you think causes it?”
“Brianna. And being second.”
“Christy, you can’t spend your whole life competing with your sister. Who cares what Brianna thinks? And especially, who cares what Huxley thinks. The only reason Huxley said all that stuff is because he thinks your sis is hot.”
“It really hurt my feelings.”
“Well, hopefully you really hurt his.” Annette was suddenly struck by a notion. “Christy, maybe you should go out with him.”
Christy put the eight ball down and stood up. “With who?”
“With Rey Naresh you little bimbo. Who else?”
Rey was all right looking she supposed, but Christy had never had a boyfriend before, and would never have expected to start a relationship running from Huxley and friends. “I don’t know.”
“You so should. Do you know Mike Elsetta kissed Gabrielle Reese?”
“Yeah. You told me.” Christy hit the power button on the remote and turned off Skywarriors.
“Have you met Mike Elsetta’s foreig
n exchange student?”
The ninth grade French class was doing a foreign exchange program and the Americans had spent the summer with their student in France. “No.”
“Her name is Blanche Dupont and she thinks she’s the prettiest girl ever. Last Friday, Mike wanted me to hang out with him and Blanche at the reservoir in the middle of the night. And...”
“What’s at the reservoir in the middle of the night?”
“The towns water supply. And drinking Bud Light.”
“Oh.” Why hadn’t Annette invited her? Maybe Annette thought she’d never go for it.
“Blanche was there and all she did the entire time was talk about her face, all the flaws on it, which there are none of course. And every time Mike said something about her looks she would blush. That’s the last time I’m hanging out with Blanche Dupont.”
“All the guys think she’s hot.”
“Yeah, well, guys will think any French foreign exchange student is hot.”
“Huxley likes her.” Christy only realized that now because she had noticed him talking to a pretty girl she hadn’t seen before in the hallway. That must have been Blanche.
“Huxley can blow horses for all I care. Today he pinched Viola Speck’s butt and offered to sell her to Jason Masago for three dollars.”
“That’s so messed up.”
“Viola is such a sweet girl Christy. I mean she can’t help that she’s fat. Besides, she played volleyball like all the time to try to lose the weight. She stopped playing volleyball this year though and no one knows why. She was the best setter and everyone loved her. There’s some rumor going around about her and Mike said that it’s too horrible to repeat. I’ve got to know what it is.”
Christy fell down on her bed; a short silence. “I don’t know Annette. It is horrible.”
Annette was chewing on a Nutri-grain bar now and Christy could hear her munching as she said, “Tell me.”
Christy felt her eyes tearing up. She wiped them with her hands. “Her father beats her.”
“Oh no. Who did you hear that from?”
Christy heard noises downstairs. She listened for a moment and heard Brianna coddling Ruffenstein. Christy rolled her eyes when she heard Brianna say to the dog, “Hey Ruffenstein. My warrior prince.”
“Brianna’s home.” She adjusted her weight on the bed. “I heard it from Blair Carlyle in science class. I think everyone in the ninth grade is talking about it.”
“Christy we have to do something.”
“Have you ever met her father?”
“Yeah. Lots of times. His name’s Jack. He’s very macho. But I mean so is Dwayne Johnson. Yet, I did see him at The Pub every time we went this summer.” Annette sounded disappointed in herself, like she should have stopped the abuse before it started.
“Why did you go to The Pub?”
“Lois, my brother’s girlfriend, would drive us. We would go there and order cheese fries. When we had the munchies.” Annette sounded a little too happy to just be talking about cheese fries.
“You were smoking?”
“Only a couple times.”
Christy knew she would never smoke marijuana even if they legalized it. She felt a distance growing between her and Annette. Annette was acting loose-tongued. Perhaps Annette was trying to measure up to Christy’s interesting story about Huxley with stories of her own.
“Christy, come downstairs,” Radelle called. “And say hello to your sister for God’s sake.”
“Jeez,” Christy said.
“Christy, don’t worry,” Annette said. “I’m not going to smoke at all during the school year. It was just a couple times. Because Lois does it.”
“No. That wasn’t what I was saying jeez to. My sisters downstairs. I have to go.”
“All right. Call me later. I need your help on section 3.2. And we’ll talk about Viola.”
“Okay. Bye Annette.”
She hung up the phone. The patterns on the ceiling seemed to be calling her attention like clouds in the sky that took certain fortuitous shapes. She stared for a short while before going to face her family. How odd it was to come upon that home in the woods, she thought – how extraordinary, the turret, the stained glass windows. “I wonder what they were pictures of?” She asked herself out loud. She removed the scrunchy from her hair. She headed for the stairs and George was standing on the opposite flight, two stairs up, smiling at her.
“How’s my little lady doing?” George asked.
Christy shrugged. “Okay. I guess.”
“Great. Then put on your best happy face and don’t start any fights.” George turned, stepping down the steps.
“Well then can you tell her to wear a mask.”
He walked back towards her. “If you don’t want dinner, you just go right back upstairs.”
“All right, I’ll try.” Christy began to fall on each step as if she weighed a ton.
When the entire elementary school heard from Brianna that she had just had her period, Christy felt a murderous rage for her sister. That moment had a way of time traveling, meeting up with her, regardless of how long ago it was, and weighing her down. No amount of mediation on the part of the principal had helped. Brianna refused to see a guidance counselor with Christy. Over the years, Brianna had become less confrontational -- Christy remained unrelenting.
Brianna was now sitting at the table barking at Ruffenstein. Brianna had dyed her hair and eyebrows dark brown. She wore her hair in a bun and would say to almost anyone, “When you look like Audrey Hepburn, you can wear your hair however you want.” Boys agreed. Brianna looked like a movie star. The part that was called for, judging from the non-prescription dark rimmed glasses she wore, was a promiscuous secretary.
Christy walked through the entrance way to the kitchen. George was sitting down at the head of the table to a meal of meatloaf, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Brianna would be served a steak because Radelle wanted to make her feel special. Christy took a quick second to notice what Brianna was wearing: bootleg jeans, a violet v-neck T-shirt, and yellow rimmed glasses.
“Welcome home Brianna,” Christy said.
“So nice to see you too, Miss Christy,” Brianna said as she placed a napkin on her lap. “And how are the other ninth graders?”
“Oh, they’re just fine. Looking for you I imagine.”
“Christy,” George warned like she was a dog staring at a bagel on the table.
“Oh, father. Let her express her latent sexual frustration, or else she’ll become a lesbian or kill herself,” Brianna said cheerfully.
Radelle put a plate in front of Brianna, and began serving herself a large spoonful of mashed potatoes. “So Huxley and the boys didn’t try to string you up?” Radelle asked.
“No, they did,” Christy said.
Radelle was quite familiar with Christy’s jibes at her parenting. “Well Christy, you are still alive.”
“Someone helped me.” Christy felt a small smile on her lips and looked up from the green beans to see Brianna glaring at her.
“A Prince Charming rescued her from the depths of despair,” Brianna said.
Christy wiped the smile off her lips. “No, it was just some boy. I barely know him.”
“That’s good, Christy,” Radelle said. “Ninth grade is a fine time for boys. What’s this boy’s name?”
“His name is Rey Naresh or something.”
“Is this some ‘spic and span’ boy?” Brianna said bitterly, picking Ruffenstein up.
George looked sideways at Brianna. “Not at the table.”
“‘Spic and span’?” Radelle asked.
“Dad,” Christy said, “She’s making racist comments.”
“‘Spic and span’ isn’t racist Christy,” Brianna said. “‘Spic and Span’ means Hispanic and Spanish.”
“The way you said it was racist. And, of course it’s racist. There’s no reason to call someone Hisp
anic and Spanish, they mean the same thing.” Christy felt she gained some more rope in tonight’s tug-of-war with Brianna.
“Actually,” Brianna said, “Spanish is the language and the people who speak it are Hispanic. Portugese and Brazilians speak Spanish but they are known as Lusitanic. But you wouldn’t know anything about that now would you Christy.”
“Christy’s right,” George said. “It’s a disrespectful term. You’ve used it before and we’ve overlooked it. But I don’t want to hear it at this table again.” George smiled and raised his eyebrows. “Around the table we go. Each person gets a chance to talk about their day, their life, and no one interrupts. Understood?”
“Tell us the story, Christy,” Brianna said, a little too interested to be sincere, “about this Prince Charming who rescued you from the evil clutches of Nadine’s Puppies.”
Christy tugged on the rope, saying, “aren’t we supposed to start with you Brianna?”
“But my life isn’t embarrassing,” Brianna said.
“Tell us what classes your taking, Brianna,” Radelle said.
“Okay,” Brianna said. “I’m taking Myth and the Modern Man. That’s my English course. I’m taking French – the language of L-O-V-E. I’m taking an online course called Crime and Punishment. Mr. Taylor is the bomb-diggity. I’m taking Introduction to Logic. And I’m taking Political Science, of course, since that’s going to be my major. Mr. Dagan, my Political Science professor, says I’m one of the most promising students he’s ever taught.”
“Promising what,” Christy mumbled.
The three of them ignored Christy.
“My roommates name is Ariel,” Brianna continued, “She likes to knit.”
“What do you do on the weekends?” Radelle asked.
“The weekends are going to be righteous. I need some cash-ola and Deedee still works at Lots For Littles so she said I can come back. So Friday I’m going to take the bus here and work Saturday and Sunday.”
Christy nearly dropped her head into her mashed potatoes. She was going to have to see Brianna every weekend? She felt the storm cloud above her pulsating with moisture and ready to burst.
“I remember college weekends at Leander,” George said. George had gone to Leander and majored in Civil Engineering. “You won’t be missing much. Just a bunch of kids getting drunk.”
“Those are her week nights, Dad,” Christy said.
“Ariel and I knitted Ruffenstein a sweater.” Brianna glared at Christy. “Ariel is a genius at knitting and this sweater is the best. Ariel hurt her finger in a paper shredder so she’s pretty much crippled. Her finger isn’t so bad she can’t use it but she’s still pretty much crippled.”
“It’s not as if cripples have anything better to do than knit your dog a sweater.” Christy bit down on a mouthful of mashed potatoes, as if trying to kill herself with an excess of them.
“Stop it, Christy,” Radelle said.
“Mom, you don’t even know who she is,” Christy said.
Christy had heard Brianna hooked up with frat boys two at a time in 11th Grade. There was no telling the kind of mischief she got herself into at Leander. It certainly didn’t include knitting.
“Brianna, this is your family,” Radelle said. “You don’t lie to us. If you don’t knit, you don’t knit.”
“Okay. So I don’t knit. But school is going really well. I feel like I’m going to do something really big with my life. Really important.”
“Like doing Mr. Dagan,” Christy said.
George slammed his fist down like a judge would a gavel. “We’re not going to listen to that kind of talk.”
“Brianna’s coming home on weekends now,” Radelle said to Christy, “and we’re not going to do this at dinner anymore.”
George turned to Radelle. “We should just put a jar in the middle of the table. Every time she says something she has to put five dollars in.”
“Yes,” Brianna said, clapping. “That would be so so splendiferous.”
“If you insist on being a brat,” Radelle said to Christy, “you can pay for it. And if you continue to do it tonight you can go back to your room.”
“Yes mother,” Christy said, in a drone like she was a slave.
“All right,” George said. “I got the job on the Pemota Fitness Club.”
“Wonderful,” Radelle said, “You didn’t tell me.”
“The Pemota Fitness Club is already built,” Christy said. The Pemota Fitness Club was in North Pemota and was owned by Arnold and Dia Hallan. Jenine had told Christy that one day at lunch, having frequented the club often.
“They’re building another one,” George said, “In South Pemota. Dia says so many people in South Pemota take Karate they want some of that business. We’re going to design it for the plot right across the street. It’s going to have an indoor pool, basketball court, the works.”
“That’s awesome, Dad,” Brianna said.
“So I’m going to drive out to Ontario,” George said, “They want me to see the first club they built years ago.” George looked up from his meatloaf. “Radelle?”
“Oh, nothing exciting ever happens in my life.” Radelle was a Librarian at Avery Library in West Pemota.
“Now that it’s populated,” George asked Radelle, “What did you think of Leander?” Radelle had only seen Leander during school vacations when the red brick buildings were empty and the common area a sight of nothing but grass.
“All those people,” Radelle said, “all so ambitious. Stone-faced. I don’t know how Brianna does it. And she’s getting great grades, already. With that competition. It’s amazing. I’m just so proud of her.”
“I knew our valedictorian had it in her.” George smiled at Brianna.
Brianna picked at her steak awkwardly as the entire table thought the same thing: Brianna wasn’t valedictorian of her high school class. Brianna believed she had been robbed of the title, valedictorian, by Carolyn Parker, her ninth grade health teacher. Ms. Parker gave Brianna an A-. And according to Brianna, it was no coincidence that three years later, Ms. Parker’s daughter Carrie was awarded the title of valedictorian. Had it not been for that A-, Brianna would have been first in line. At the graduation ceremony Brianna stood behind Carrie like an Olympic figure skater that had had both her legs broken by the winner.
Christy didn’t know why George brought this up. It invited her to say something. But perhaps that’s what George wanted. His patience was being tested tonight and he thought unnecessarily.
“She wasn’t valedictorian, Dad,” Christy said, “Carrie Parker was valedictorian.”
George threw his hand down again. “Christy, if you say one more word you can be excused from the table.”
Christy saw then that her father was looking for an excuse to send her to her room.
Brianna looked as though she might cry. “One A-.” Brianna then lunged forward at Christy and would have tackled her were it not for the table. “In health class.”
“All right, Brianna,” Radelle said compassionately.
“Maybe you deserved an A-,” Christy said, who was done eating and didn’t care if she got sent to her room. “Ever think of that.”
“No phone for the rest of the night,” George said to Christy.
This couldn’t have come at a worse time. “Dad, I need to help Annette with her math homework,” Christy said.
“Well,” George said to Christy, “You should have thought of that earlier.”
“In health class,” Brianna said to herself, staring at a plate that now seemed unappetizing.
“Christy, you’re excused,” Radelle said.
Christy dropped her fork on her plate with a loud clang and stood up to head back to her room. She could hear them talking about her as she went up the stairs.
“I’m glad you did that George,” Radelle said, “She deserved it.”
“The girl has got to learn to hold her tongue,” Georg
e said.
When Annette called, Radelle would tell her that Christy had had her phone privileges taken away. Annette would be crestfallen.
Christy collided with the door to her room. Soon, George and Radelle would begin doing dishes and having desert with Brianna. That could take almost a half-hour. There was a good chance Christy could get away with a phone call if she called now, and spoke quietly.
She threw the blue Jansport backpack on her bed. Didn’t Rey have a blue Jansport backpack too? she asked herself. She guessed a lot of people did.
She unzipped the largest pocket of the backpack and her heart began pounding. She pulled out a binder. She looked at the papers inside. She ran her eyes over designs, doodles, and algebraic equations. She looked back inside the backpack and saw a Five Star Notebook. None of this was hers. A name on one of the pages caught her attention: “Rey Naresh.”
This was Rey’s backpack. Christy sighed. With feelings of
trepidation she looked at the telephone.