I quietly shut my bedroom door behind me and creaked across the hallway floor, each board creaking louder than the last and as if in competition to see which one could reach the highest note. Probably the last one before the top of the stairs but who was I to crush the dreams of what had so little else to live for. I stopped outside the door to mom's room and lay my fingers gently against the wood and leaned in close. Quiet. No snores or crying, not even shallow breathing to indicate that she was still inside and had taken the day off to grief or be bad for once and give hope that I was actually genetically her daughter. I gently twisted the varnished handle and pushed it open as the creak won hands down and I cringed inwardly at the sound. Like that would make it go quiet. It was empty inside. Tidy. Not at all like my room and in stark difference to the rest of the house that always seemed to have at least one thing out of place. Bed made, carpet straight, curtains pulled back, closet door closed and photo on the bedside perfectly angled to the pillow on moms side so that every night when she went to sleep and every morning when she woke up it was the first thing I saw. I tip toed across the room – remembering halfway there that clearly she had left already and I was free to exercise my right as a loud American – until coming to the edge and picking up the stiff metal frame. It was their wedding day. Eighteen odd years ago and an 80's dress that even then was out of fashion. But they were smiling. And his hand was on hers and her eyes were bright and I could only remember the look from photos instead of being able to call it from flesh and blood memory. I ran a finger over the edge of it and smudging a finger print over the glass like a dozen others I'd made from the time I was eight and this was the picture I went to and the one mom kept at her bedside because it was her favorite and I let her keep so she'd have a smile to look at in the morning instead of a large bed and an empty side.
The door creaked loudly and scratched against the carpet all at once in the spirit of annoying wood products and I slammed it shut behind me so that it knew what I thought of that.
"Jess? That you?" Sandra called from the kitchen and poked her head out from around the corner rather than wait for me to reply and the green of her shirt darkly hitting the light and looking like the cheap tin foil you buy at Christmas at the last minute when the stores were all closed. I glanced down at myself with my arm held out like a personal self scanner – checking that I hadn't in fact turned into someone far more interesting by accident – and looked back up at her with an exaggerated looks like. She titled her head to the side with an eye roll and scoff and ducked back behind the island with a hand towel now tossed back and forth between her hands. I kicked off my shoes at the door and padded across the floor as Mr. Muggles skittered across after me, nails tittering with barely contained excitement – because if you're looking to store excitement the nails are the best place – and jumping at my ankles as if he could bring me down with beady eyes and a puff of fur that had no business belonging all to one animal. God knows how tiny he was underneath. Or how many of him there really were. Dun dun dun!
"Not now," I mumbled, pushing him away with my foot and his growl disappointed as he gathered dust on his ass and clearly displeased with the new job description. Much friendlier then my pompom idea but who was I to judge? If it were me I'd probably pick mop over pompom too. Less perky blondes that way. Depending on whose house you were cleaning.
"Jess?" Sandra asked, sounding like it wasn't the first time she had asked and her brow furrowed with concern.
"Yeah?" I asked, dropping my silent pompom / mop debate and dropping my arms to my sides to demonstrate that I was now paying attention. A pad of paper and pen would probably work better but short notice and all ...
"I said I'm making waffles. You want any?" She gestured at the waffle maker clearly advertised and a box of mix half open beside the burner. Throw in a big breasted brunette with an apron and you got a late night infomercial. Or a porno. But that had a whole other ending.
"Yeah, sure," I walked over to the island and stepped up onto the stool already pulled out for me and balancing my elbows on the counter top.
"Are you high?" I turned to look at Lyle sitting across from me, his eyebrows raised and his collar carefully folding down onto his shoulders to give off the illusion of a well respecting fourteen year old boy but the freckles dotting his nose and cheeks telling a completely different story. Freckles. Evil I tells you!
"Lyle," Sandra smacked his arm and tutted against her teeth as she looked at me through her bangs, doubting Lyle's diagnosis but trusting in her gut that something was wrong. Leave it be Mrs. B. Live in your world of waffle making and dog shows and leave the grittier parts of the world to those who deserve to suffer it.
"Where is that daughter of mine?" She asked, resting back on her ankles and glancing at the staircase through the doorway and tutting her teeth again as if she had discovered a new sound and wanted to keep finding excuses to make it. The whole world had decided to be loud today to make up for me. How sweet. "Claire!" She stalked from the kitchen, Mr. Muggles skittering after her and the puff some would call a tail – I rather refer to it as a self destruct button – standing proud behind him and giving us all a view of something we really didn't need to see this early in the morning. Or at any time of the day. I exhaled deeply and turned back to the table, the light beeping on the waffle maker and the smell of freshly cooked waffles seeping between the lids. It made sense but something like baking crocodile or something would be a bit more interesting. Not that I knew what baking crocodile smelled like – or even if it was edible baked – but that was what imagination was for though probably not for that specifically. The hairs prickled on the back of my neck and I glanced over to see Lyle staring at me, eyes darting up and down over my face and nose scrunched and freckles splotched as if thinking and not one hundred percent sure if forced facial expressions went with it.
"What?" I demanded, my voice coming out quieter and harsher then I intended but the question there all the same. He didn't react like most people would have –varying from fear to exasperated disgust – too used to seeing me in every and any mood to be bullied into backing down and licking his lips to wet them as the only sign that maybe I could still get under his skin the way he sometimes could still get under mine.
"Are you ... okay?" He asked, eyes still scanning over my face for any reaction and I drew a blank in showing one but taken back that he would ask, some part of me inside screaming "abort, abort" and checking out before I could think of a way to respond without giving a hint that I really wasn't.
"Peachy," I answered – never once finding the word in my vocabulary but now finding it's chance – sliding off the stool and walking into the hallway, a potted fern scratching my arm as I passed and raising goose bumps under my sleeve and creeping into my neck. Stupid plant. Mr. Bennet looked up from where he was standing at the bottom of the stairs, suit pressed and brief case already to go and Claire on the landing above him, hair messy and loose around her shoulders and her fingers tightened in the folds of her sweater, holding it tight against her as if she'd cave for a moment and didn't know what else would come down in the fall out.
"What?" I asked, half stupid half rude as I was obviously interrupted but not wanting to leave now that I'd seen Claire and my other option was Lyle in the kitchen and a lack of baked crocodile.
"Did you know about this?" Mr. Bennet asked, gesturing at Claire and I bit the inside of my cheek to keep back the response of "Your daughter? Yeah sorry I meant to keep her a secret but she's been so good and I thought she deserved a trip outdoors" that was almost literally dancing on my tongue. Better let it out or swallow it before the words got tangled and I ended up saying "Sorry daughter meant to be good but secret outdoors."
"The bonfire," he answered for me, stepping down one from Claire and towards me and visually suggesting that she was briefly forgotten and now I was the center of attention. "Staying out all night playing poker?" I didn't have to look at Claire to feel her watching me, fingers still tangled in her sweater and the blur of dirt coating her legs that I could see out of the corner of my eyes and I tried to ignore in the face of more pressing matters.
"Yeah it was my idea," I said innocently, digging my hands into my pockets and shrugging my shoulders as if it were stupid of him to think anyone else. Out all night staying, poker planning, Mr. Muggles hating, self loathing mess of brown hair and too small boobs. Yep, I'm your guy. Or I would be if my boobs shrank anymore and I got rid of a few other crucial body parts...
"Your idea?" He asked, an edge coming into his voice and taking it down another physical step so that he was almost on ground level. Whoops we were getting serious now.
"Sorry, it was stupid," I shrugged again, taking my hands out of my pockets to tangle my fingers and make it look like the confession of a guilty conscience. Not that all of it could be confessed in one session. And with anyone less than an ordained priest. And even then God was not impressed. "Claire wanted to call but I said it was stupid to wake you. She crashed at my place and tried to get back before you woke up. Sorry." I resisted the urge to stare down at my feet but that was probably pushing it a little too far. Plus it meant staring at the remains of my glittered shoelaces and that was just depressing. He sighed, dropping his head to stare at his own shoes – luckily glitter free – and I snuck a glance at Claire who tried to smile at me but it didn't fit right with her eyes and I felt something heavy in my chest that was difficult to breathe around.
"I'm very disappointed in you," Mr. Bennet raised his head again and I returned my eyes to his, the light and the heavy set of his glasses making it hard to see what he was thinking exactly but the tone of his voice saying enough. Though in retrospect this should have been considered a moral high for me instead of a degrading low.
"I'm sorry," I did bow my head this time, staring at the floorboards in place of my shoes and counting the cracks between each one and the nails that held it all together. They creaked as he walked over and I looked up at the last minute to see him standing in front of me, towering in both height and presence with the light green on the inside of his lenses and making his eyes look younger and older at the same time.
"You should have called," he said it quietly as if Claire was now no longer a part of the conversation and it was just me and him and what I wouldn't think about and he wouldn't say out loud.
"I know," I said it just as quietly, just with as much meaning and staring back at him so he caught it too and didn't shy away because he thought I'd forgotten it when deep down we both knew I hadn't. His eyes aged in front of me and went sad and I felt guilt turn under my skin but fade into it just as quickly like it was a mistake my body reacted to and remedied before I could acknowledge that I felt it. He sighed, backing down and literally stepping back and letting his shadow awkwardly paint over the front hall and carpet.
"This is not over," He started saying it to me then finished saying it to Claire, still waiting on the landing and allowing an innocent smile that went dark before it reached the red tint of her eyes. He walked back up the stairs to meet her and pressed his lips to her temple with a murmured 'I love you' and her quieter affirmation in reply. "There will be a throw down when I get back." His shoes echoed loudly on the wood before fading to the carpet and finally stopping as he opened and closed the door behind him, the sound of it clicking quietly behind him and out of place against the loudness of so far today. Throw down, huh ... square dancing as a form of parenting. Couldn't see how that could go wrong. Claire slowly sat at the top of the landing, feet set onto the top step and I crossed the front hallway over to her, footsteps loud again and up the stairs to meet her. She glanced up at me, hair swept back from her face and the red harsh between her eyelashes up close. I carefully sat down next to her and she slid to the side to make room and my knees touching hers on the awkward angle that I sat. She stared right ahead to where another potted plant sat by the door and I ran my fingers over the ends of her curls and letting them shape and reshape over my nails and around my knuckles. She closed her eyes and her shoulders fell as if the weight she carried went with them before her whole body shuddered in an attempt to hold back and a single tear rolled down her cheek and into her sweater, cutting the path for the dozens more that came after and followed.
"Look you can't say anything," Claire insisted, pulling back from her locker and tapping her manicured nails against the metal as if punctuating each word with a tap. Look – one tap -, you – one tap -, can't – one and a half taps -, whoops guess not. "I'm fine. He was drunk and an accident."
"What part was the accident – the rape or the murder?" Zach demanded, fingers angrily digging into his bag strap and the scruff of his jaw tightening in barely disguised anger. Though if I was anger I wouldn't hide in scruff. Might have better luck under the fingernails. Or the ears. Give me a chance to whisper evil doings into the person's head and watch the chaos unfold. I would be an evil anger.
"It didn't happen," Claire weakly defended, turning back to her locker and fingering over the picture of her and me from the grade seven / eight split class and our glee at the fact barely contained. Only time we had a class together. And probably the one time I was half way bothered to behave myself.
"Yeah, because he killed you before he had the chance," Zach pointed out, poking holes in her logic and not speaking nearly quietly enough for us to be having this conversation in a crowded hallway. Not that anyone would bother to listen. Even if they did none of them would bother carrying it into the rest of their daily lives. Weekend hookups, beer pong and football games just really don't leave much room for rape and murder. Or personal hygiene but that was a less well spread problem.
"I'm alive!" Claire declared – in my head outraged that he hadn't noticed.
"Yeah, now," he countered. "But you weren't on the autopsy table."
"Shhh," I hissed, making myself heard for the first time in minutes and startling him that I was still standing there and hadn't slunk off somewhere to do the depraved things I usually do. I mostly left that for after hours though. Set a better mood then broad daylight.
"Look, you said you had a hole in your head," Zach continued, not as swayed from my interruption as most people would – people were getting too used to me – and readjusting his strap over his shoulder from where it had fallen from too many angered shrugs. "Okay, maybe when they pulled out whatever was in there, it like, rebooted or whatever."
"I'm not a hard drive," she proclaimed with enough exasperation to make me grin and the tiny smile to her own lips hinting that it was her reasoning behind it.
"No, you're "Little Miss Miracle Grow." Zach teased, including himself and the pinch of jealousy that he tried.
"Don't ever call me that again," she said, eyebrows darkened over her eyes and her voice rasped in how low she made it in a bid to sound serious.
"You gotta tell somebody about Brody," Zach continued, licking his dried lips and bringing us back from the light hearted moment and to the serious business at hand.
"No, I don't," Claire forced out from between her teeth, angry that he hadn't dropped it yet. "And even if wanted to, which I don't, I don't have a mark on me."
"You know what happened," Zach tried, now sounding earnest and the attempt lost on Claire who turned back to her locker to dig through it with an exasperated sigh. Which in my experience doesn't help with the location of lost things. "And he knows what happened."
"All he knows is that he was drunk, and I am not dead," Claire finished, slamming her locker shut on the last word and physically bringing an end to the conversation that words so far hadn't. Drunk and not dead? The end to any perfect date.
"Hey!" A voice called cheerily from around the corner and I pressed my back up against the lockers to push off and to see Jackie strutting over to where we stood and her eyes taking in Claire up and down to make sure that she was still made up of all the perfected pieces. And for this I made an effort of movement. "What happened to you last night?" Brody faltered beside her upon seeing Claire and something gathered in my stomach and held, pressing the sides of it together and making my fingers shake in the effort to keep it close and contained least I let go of the energy and end up killing everyone else but him.
"I was hoping you'd tell me," Claire half giggled, exaggerating the act and finding my fingers pressed into the metal and squeezing as if in her gut she knew what I was thinking and that she alone could help me maintain that control. "I had way too much to drink."
"I ... I gotta go to the bathroom," Brody quickly excused and quickly turned and bolted for the opposite direction, head bowed and footsteps uneasy while brushing past a girl – Lori something – in an orange shirt who stood and watched him go.
"Must have the bladder the size of a pea," Jackie surmised, snorting at the thought of yet another man not living up to her bladder sized regulations. "'Cause he just went."
"Fascinating," I said dryly, crossing my ankles together and leaning back against the lockers with a painful hit hard on my spine. Ouch, not my day.
"You should be careful Claire," Jackie continued, glaring at me for my interruption and facing Claire with a smirk that like always looked more at home on her features than any other facial expression did – and knowing the superficial concerns and lack of imagination she had there weren't many. "Drink too much and you might give a guy the wrong idea. Right, Jess?" The lockers suddenly seemed to disappear behind me as she turned to grace me with her smirk and I felt that pit you get in your stomach when you're falling and can't seem to stop.
"Jess?" Claire asked, her eyes to me and warm with concern, fingers tightening on mine and my arm growing numb as if all my weight was resting on the entwining of our fingers.
"I have to get class. I'm late," I forced my fingers from hers and brushed past Zach as I went, footsteps sinking through the cement like quicksand and black splotches on my vision like I still hadn't stopped falling and was waiting to pass out.
I tip toed through the front door, shutting it quietly behind me and for once the laws of sound obeying and allowing me to slip in unheard. I clicked the lock with a sharp hit and kicked off my shoes so that they scrambled over each other and came to rest right next to the shoe tray and close enough for me not to bother and move them. I switched on the hall light, the kitchen and living room dark and the fading light outside not helping as I stepped through and around the table and the plates still set from last night that neither of us had bothered to clean up. A fly crawled over my broccoli whatchamacallit and I brushed it away so it returned to the other side unhindered. I picked up the plate instead and balanced it against my chest along with my glass and walked into the kitchen, dishes stacked up by the sink and unwashed from the times mom came home and couldn't do it and I was at Claire's and wouldn't. I scrapped off my plate and dunk out the milk before returning to the table and gathering moms and the untouched platter in the middle that last night in the fridge would have lasted but now was better left to the flies. I pressed the plug into the bottom of the sink and turned on the water, turning it so it was hot and spraying the sides damply. The detergent was under the sink – what was left of it – and I squeezed what remained into the rushing water so blue bubbles sputtered out and popped uselessly in the air around my head. Some people get fairy magic, others get halo's I get instant popping Dawn detergent. I turned off the water and rested my wrists against the counter and letting the edge dig in and mark another indent from where my hands met my arms. More bubbles popped in the sink and I could see them out of the corner of my eye, the occasion one struggling before giving in as well and going the others. Fucking bubbles. The door opened sharply and I jerked upright as mom stepped through after it, hair frizzled and undone around her face and the collar of her uniform jagged and damp with sweat that too many washes with dollar store soap had done more damage than good. A half crushed bag of McDonalds was in her hand and she started when she saw me standing there, either expecting someone else or just not expecting me at all.
"Oh ... hi, honey," she kicked the door closed with her foot and it closed less gracefully then when I did it taking another kick before it closed completely. "How was school?"
"Awesome," I said, rolling my wrist again against the tile but this time in the thought to get rid of the itch that an indent but not a cut brought on. "Work?"
"Great," she said, forcing a smile and dropping the bag and her purse onto the chair and rubbing the back of her neck, the wedding band she never took off the only thing out of place of a woman utterly beaten by the world and one I expected to be thirty to forty years from now. "It was ..." she stopped, leaning forward on the table by her hands in an effort to keep balancing and kick off her shoes but stopping like an unexpected moment of frozen time and I waited, for a moment thinking that that was what it really was. "... terrible." She finished and restood, pushing the bag farther onto the table and giving in to sit down and unlace her shoes by herself. "The renovation is still going on and they insist that we keep working through it though I don't know how anyone can what with all the noise and chaos. And Mr. Nichols well ... he still can't seem to take not interested as a legitimate answer so he was hovering all day today trying to get a good glimpse of my ass and only finally swayed when I threatened to take a hammer to his head. One good thing about the renovation? Accidents happen." She laughed tiredly and finally pulled off her shoe and massaged the sides of her foot with a sigh that fell through her shoulders and down until her whole body seemed lighter for it. I watched her – the muscles of her arms, the wrinkles at her eyes, the curling strands of hair that feel over her forehead that she never cut no matter how many times she complained of them – and felt sad. The kind of sadness where it chips you away piece by piece and you're standing looking at it after and wondering how on earth it once fit together to make a person. This was the most I had ever heard her talk to me in years. Something wet dropped onto my hand and I bowed my head, hating myself for the tear and wiping away the path it made as if erasing it after it was gone made it so that it was never there in the first place.
"Sweetie?" I raised my head; hand still turned to my cheek and caught in the act. Her eyes went sad and she titled her head to her shoulder as she watched me for a moment as if seeing me for the first time in years and finally noticing that they had passed. She held open her arms and I walked around the counter and to her, falling to my knees at her side and burying my face in her lap. She smelled like ink and sawdust and I turned my head to rest my nose on her knee and she entwined her fingers through my hair and trying and failing to bring them into civilized curls. How many times had I wished like hair like hers before she stopped spending so much time on it and it fell flat where it hung on her shoulders? How many times had she told me I was beautiful for looking like me and nobody else? How many times had I been stupid and believed her?
"Your hair is growing out," she said like it was the simplest thing in the world and that all under any possible meaning I could over think and presume it to mean it really was.
"Well get used to it because I'm going to shave it and dye it purple," I answered stoically and her fingers stilled before she cupped my face and raised it to meet hers, eyes wide with horror and not quite understanding that it was a joke. "Kidding. Ha ha." Her eyes scanned me for a moment, checking for signs of bullshit – for once in my life absent – and she cracked a grin that was more relief then humor but had enough of it in there to make me smile too. I sniffed through it and she ran her hands across my cheeks before bringing me close and pressing her lips to my forehead and resting there, hands now covering my ears so that everything was muffled and all I could see was the dark colour of the shirt and the sound of her breathing out of sync with my own.
"I'm sorry I haven't been around much," she said, repeating what she said from last night but this time so I heard them and I listened. I hadn't been the only one to lose him. She did too. She just didn't get the luxury of being as selfish about it as I did.
"I'm sorry too," I murmured, running my fingers over her hands still held over my cheeks and ears. Sorry for screaming and locking myself in my room every time he was mentioned. Sorry for the calls from the principal and the occasional from the police that always went away on its own but still made my heart clench whenever the phone rang. Sorry for hating you for living where he died. Sorry for everything I had ever done and ultimately for everything I would ever do again. She sniffed painfully and again kissed my hair, holding her lips there and holding me to her like we had always been this way but only now the two of us took the chance to notice.
