Chapter Two
As if she was comitting a crime, Carol sat on her mother's couch, opened the book and started reading:
I decided to open that suitcase today. There, by the time I moved to Houston, I locked all my memories and never opened it again. Until now. Damn. I hate this memories, I hate knowing these things happened and won't ever come back.
This diary, for instance. Why the hell do I have it for, like, 8 years, and never touched it before? I don't know, maybe it's because I always thought it was idiot to talk to a notebook. Besides, when you're 9 and you live in a poor neighborhood, you don't have much to tell.
Well, I'm 17 now and still live in a poor neighborhood, even if it is in another town. I don't have interesting stuff to tell either (only sad, sad stuff...), but this time the feeling of loss was stronger than me and I had to go mess with my memories, my old stuff, the things I kept from my childhood.
I remember when I got this notebook. It was a gift, I was turning 9 and my godmother Cynthia Curtis gave it to me. She made the blue cover and painted the golden letters on it with a special ink – S.M.J. for Susan Mary Jones. She said that my name was so, so pretty, the prettiest...
Susie, you moron, it's not time for you to cry. Yeah, Cynthia must be near God and your father right now... Shit. So childish. Is there a God, really? What am I supposed to think, with both of my parents dead? Am I supposed to be glad by loosing my mom with 13 and my dad with 17, to live in a city where everybody is strange to me, being afraid that someone put me in a home for 9 months because I don't have a single relative alive??? Oh fuck. I want my mother. I want my father. My godfather, my godmother, my former home in Tulsa...
I've counted to 10 and stopped cryin. Let me explain again. It was this piercing feeling of loss that made me open that suitcase full of pictures, toys, clothes, letters. This diary was in it too. I always managed to stay far from this suitcase, hiding it as much as I could, fearing the memories and the pain they would probably bring. But now I'm alone. Yeah, like I said before, I'm all alone. I needed the suitcase for company.
Let's get back to my 9 years old then. Happy times. I remember my mother baking chocolate cakes (God I love chocolate, I would kill to have one right now); my dad fixing our old car which was always broke and coughing his lungs off (oh daddy daddy please stop smoking stop please daddy please); my godmother giving me my favorite teddy bear; my godfather taking me to see the horses and telling stories of the country; the boys of the neighborhood playing ball and annoying my dog...
My best friends were Sylvia, Evelyn and Lisa. We went to school together and, as a matter of fact, we kicked some ass. The socy girls were all afraid of us. I was the quieter of them, just got in a fight when it was absolutely necessary, that means, when the socs *really* got into my nerves. And though Lisa, Sylvia and Evelyn always got off a fight cryin over a bite or a pinch, I never cried.
Maybe that was the reason my father always kept telling me that I should be more feminine and, in the rare times he got me clothes, it were long skirts, shoes with laces on it and shirts. I hated using skirts, I had the feeling everybody could spot my underwear and the boys would make fun of me. I liked my jeans, my tees and my sneakers. As a matter of fact, I still do. Besides, shoes and shirts and skirts were too socy. People in our neighborhood hated the socs and vice versa. I didn't really care about socs or greasers, all I just couldn't stand were stupid frivolous people, whoever they were. I loved horseback riding and singin in the city's choir, so I joined the free ballet classes they promoted in the city theatre just to please my dad. I thought he would think it was "feminine". It may sound weird but after some classes I start to really enjoy it. Eventually I would move from Tulsa but it didn't make me stop my singing and ballet lessons.
But wait... me studying ballet didn't mean that I would give up on jeans and sneakers, that I would cut my long dark hair just because fashion was telling to, that I would stop fighting stupid girls. Today, when I think about these fights, I have the urge to burst myself into laughter. I wouldn't go into a fight for nothing. Sylvia or Evelyn, for instance, could fight just because some other kid sat in the place they claim to be theirs. It was reason enough for them to get their fingernails (too long and too red for someone counting 9 or 10 years old) ready. I wouldn't fight for nothing. I wouldn't provoke fights. But if someone called me 'Little Susie' making fun with my height or singing me that horrible "wake up Little Susie" crap, there was trouble.
I could have been expelled from school if it wasn't for my awesome grades. One day, somebody came up with this IQ test idea and then they discovered I was above the standards. It was enough for all of them to take from their heads the idea of inviting me to drop. I was important to maintain a positive image of the school, ya know. Funny thing is, I never thought about me as an intelligent person. In fact I was absolutely sure that there were people like a thousand times smarter than me, the only thing was, they wont show it off. Also, I knew there were lots of stupid people that could fake intelligence so well that everybody believed they were really smart.
My mother's name was Mary. God, I miss her bad. Even when I was little she wouldn't treat me as a dumb kid. She would spoke to me from woman to woman and, sometimes, from girl to girl. She has this bright white skin, she was suave, a little overweight, and had black straight hair like mine. Well, mine is a little lighter. Everybody says I'm mom's copy. Only it is a really long time that I don't see or speak to anyone that knew my mother, since I was 13, not counting dad, of course. Anyway, I grew up, got thinner, got jaded. Mother said that I was a lot like my dad when dealing with work and business matters. I can't stop, I have to be always doing something and dad was like that too. He worked hard on a car shop and always dreamed to have his own. Never made it. He was strict but proud of me, I know it now. I admired him lots. We have our difficulties but I was happy and felt loved and safe. Today, all I can feel is loneliness.
As if she was comitting a crime, Carol sat on her mother's couch, opened the book and started reading:
I decided to open that suitcase today. There, by the time I moved to Houston, I locked all my memories and never opened it again. Until now. Damn. I hate this memories, I hate knowing these things happened and won't ever come back.
This diary, for instance. Why the hell do I have it for, like, 8 years, and never touched it before? I don't know, maybe it's because I always thought it was idiot to talk to a notebook. Besides, when you're 9 and you live in a poor neighborhood, you don't have much to tell.
Well, I'm 17 now and still live in a poor neighborhood, even if it is in another town. I don't have interesting stuff to tell either (only sad, sad stuff...), but this time the feeling of loss was stronger than me and I had to go mess with my memories, my old stuff, the things I kept from my childhood.
I remember when I got this notebook. It was a gift, I was turning 9 and my godmother Cynthia Curtis gave it to me. She made the blue cover and painted the golden letters on it with a special ink – S.M.J. for Susan Mary Jones. She said that my name was so, so pretty, the prettiest...
Susie, you moron, it's not time for you to cry. Yeah, Cynthia must be near God and your father right now... Shit. So childish. Is there a God, really? What am I supposed to think, with both of my parents dead? Am I supposed to be glad by loosing my mom with 13 and my dad with 17, to live in a city where everybody is strange to me, being afraid that someone put me in a home for 9 months because I don't have a single relative alive??? Oh fuck. I want my mother. I want my father. My godfather, my godmother, my former home in Tulsa...
I've counted to 10 and stopped cryin. Let me explain again. It was this piercing feeling of loss that made me open that suitcase full of pictures, toys, clothes, letters. This diary was in it too. I always managed to stay far from this suitcase, hiding it as much as I could, fearing the memories and the pain they would probably bring. But now I'm alone. Yeah, like I said before, I'm all alone. I needed the suitcase for company.
Let's get back to my 9 years old then. Happy times. I remember my mother baking chocolate cakes (God I love chocolate, I would kill to have one right now); my dad fixing our old car which was always broke and coughing his lungs off (oh daddy daddy please stop smoking stop please daddy please); my godmother giving me my favorite teddy bear; my godfather taking me to see the horses and telling stories of the country; the boys of the neighborhood playing ball and annoying my dog...
My best friends were Sylvia, Evelyn and Lisa. We went to school together and, as a matter of fact, we kicked some ass. The socy girls were all afraid of us. I was the quieter of them, just got in a fight when it was absolutely necessary, that means, when the socs *really* got into my nerves. And though Lisa, Sylvia and Evelyn always got off a fight cryin over a bite or a pinch, I never cried.
Maybe that was the reason my father always kept telling me that I should be more feminine and, in the rare times he got me clothes, it were long skirts, shoes with laces on it and shirts. I hated using skirts, I had the feeling everybody could spot my underwear and the boys would make fun of me. I liked my jeans, my tees and my sneakers. As a matter of fact, I still do. Besides, shoes and shirts and skirts were too socy. People in our neighborhood hated the socs and vice versa. I didn't really care about socs or greasers, all I just couldn't stand were stupid frivolous people, whoever they were. I loved horseback riding and singin in the city's choir, so I joined the free ballet classes they promoted in the city theatre just to please my dad. I thought he would think it was "feminine". It may sound weird but after some classes I start to really enjoy it. Eventually I would move from Tulsa but it didn't make me stop my singing and ballet lessons.
But wait... me studying ballet didn't mean that I would give up on jeans and sneakers, that I would cut my long dark hair just because fashion was telling to, that I would stop fighting stupid girls. Today, when I think about these fights, I have the urge to burst myself into laughter. I wouldn't go into a fight for nothing. Sylvia or Evelyn, for instance, could fight just because some other kid sat in the place they claim to be theirs. It was reason enough for them to get their fingernails (too long and too red for someone counting 9 or 10 years old) ready. I wouldn't fight for nothing. I wouldn't provoke fights. But if someone called me 'Little Susie' making fun with my height or singing me that horrible "wake up Little Susie" crap, there was trouble.
I could have been expelled from school if it wasn't for my awesome grades. One day, somebody came up with this IQ test idea and then they discovered I was above the standards. It was enough for all of them to take from their heads the idea of inviting me to drop. I was important to maintain a positive image of the school, ya know. Funny thing is, I never thought about me as an intelligent person. In fact I was absolutely sure that there were people like a thousand times smarter than me, the only thing was, they wont show it off. Also, I knew there were lots of stupid people that could fake intelligence so well that everybody believed they were really smart.
My mother's name was Mary. God, I miss her bad. Even when I was little she wouldn't treat me as a dumb kid. She would spoke to me from woman to woman and, sometimes, from girl to girl. She has this bright white skin, she was suave, a little overweight, and had black straight hair like mine. Well, mine is a little lighter. Everybody says I'm mom's copy. Only it is a really long time that I don't see or speak to anyone that knew my mother, since I was 13, not counting dad, of course. Anyway, I grew up, got thinner, got jaded. Mother said that I was a lot like my dad when dealing with work and business matters. I can't stop, I have to be always doing something and dad was like that too. He worked hard on a car shop and always dreamed to have his own. Never made it. He was strict but proud of me, I know it now. I admired him lots. We have our difficulties but I was happy and felt loved and safe. Today, all I can feel is loneliness.
