Xmen Marvel
Xmen > me
Therefore Xmen does not me (No copyright infringement intended.)
See what I can do with my Math degree!
Lisa drove down the hill much faster than she had as a child on her bicycle. She almost ran the stop sign. She hardly noticed the red metal octagon behind the flourishing tree branches. She thought to herself that the city probably put the sign up after the bad traffic accident last spring. When she called her on Mother's Day, her aunt had told her about the two children dying in the wreck.
Lisa shook her head. Her red curls bounced and slapped her across the cheeks. No, she didn't remember the sign being there last summer when she came home for Aunt Caroline's funeral.
She shrugged and looked around at the houses on the corner of Dallas and Main streets. Not much had changed in a year. Not anything in the neighborhood, anyway. But everything in her life had changed. And for that she was glad.
A car honked behind her. She jumped, startled, and then pushed on the accelerator while letting out the clutch. She wasn't used to driving a stick shift, and the engine died. She stomped on the clutch and turned the key in the ignition. The driver behind her honked again.
"Kiss off!" she mouthed, and she spun her tires and bolted around the corner. She yanked the steering wheel and stopped by the curb. The car, an early 80's Mustang, passed her as the driver, a teenaged boy, flipped her off. She rolled her eyes and turned off the engine.
She hopped down from the tall Toyota pickup cab. She also wasn't used to being so far off the ground. Her old truck, a 1971 Ford, wasn't a 4X4 like this one, and the Ford wasn't nearly this high. Everything about this new truck was different. But different was what she had needed. She was sick of her life the way it was.
Her father had left when Lisa was a baby. Her mom put her in daycare and went back to school. Lisa felt like she never got to see her mom. But she didn't blame her one bit. She held no grudge. Why would anyone want to be a waitress all her life? And her mom had worked at her Uncle Charlie's café since she was fourteen. Seven years was too long to wait tables.
That's where her mom had met her dad. He picked her up at the café. Mom said she had guys hitting on her all the time while she worked there, and she never paid any of them any mind until Lisa's dad came along. Sometimes Lisa wondered why her mom paid him any mind. It seemed to her that he didn't end up being any better than the rest of them. He ran off with some waitress from the Western Sizzlin'. He seemed to have a thing for waitresses.
One day Lisa decided that her dislike for her father was what had molded her opinion of men. She didn't know why the idea hadn't hit her sooner. She had yet to meet a man that treated a woman right in her way of thinking. She surely didn't want to get messed up in some relationship with someone like her father, like all the men she knew.
That was why she never dated. She didn't expect ever to marry. But those expectations changed one summer. Her life changed one summer. And this day she had come back to the place where the changes began.
She breathed in deeply. Strange as it may seem, the smell of auto exhaust mingled with cut grass pleased her. It was the same scent she smelled last summer, the first thing she remembered about coming here.
She sat down on the curb. She could feel its warmth through her jeans. She leaned back and sunk her fingers into the grass. It too still held the heat of the summer afternoon. She smiled and lifted her face upward.
The sun was setting. She could barely see its bright orange rim over one of the nearby houses. She heard children shouting down the street. She tilted her head and concentrated. They were playing basketball, arguing over the rules. Just like it was last time, she thought.
A cricket crawled on top of her wrist. She reached over with her other hand and flicked it off. A year ago she would have smashed it, but not now. She had changed.
She gazed at the sky as it slowly darkened. The evening star appeared, and then others. A street lamp flickered on as her memories surrounded her.
She sat in the very same location, on the curb of the corner of Dallas and Main. But she was a year younger— a year dumber, she thought.
She sat there taking in all the sights, sounds, and smells she wanted to remember about her aunt's neighborhood. She knew she probably would never return. Aunt Caroline was gone now, dead. There was no need for Lisa to ever come back here, though in a way it was her home.
She stood to her feet and climbed into her Ford pick-up truck. She really needed a new one, but she didn't want to put out the money. She hadn't kept a steady job since college. None of them seemed to agree with her the way she thought a job should. So she found something new every six months or so.
Aunt Caroline always told her she'd find her niche some day. But she had no idea what her niche even was, let alone where to look for it. Caroline always said Lisa would find her a man, too. Lord, she hoped not! She didn't want one of those.
She heard the rhythm of footsteps approaching. She looked up to see old Mr. Callahan. He was a strange little man. And his looks reflected that. His head was too big, Lisa thought, much to big for his body. "Can I help you with something?" he asked.
"No, Mister Callahan," she responded. "I was just leaving."
"Who's that?" he shattered. "How'd you know my name?"
"It's Lisa," she said, forcing the sound of her words to get louder as it reached his one good ear. "Lisa Bates."
"Who?"
"Caroline's niece. Lisa."
"You shouldn't be here," he grunted. She just stared back at him. "They know," he added.
"Know what?" She supposed she would have to play one of his little games in order to find out what he was talking about.
"I told them."
"Told who what?" she prodded.
He placed a hand on the mirror of her truck. "I told the neighborhood about your aunt. They know what she was."
"And what exactly was she?"
He looked annoyed. "I knew she was a witch. I saw her handy work. I saw what she did to those two girls who climbed the fence and picked her apples without asking."
Now Lisa was beginning to get annoyed. "And what exactly did she do?"
"Caused that bad wreck last spring and killed 'em both. I know she made that truck run into their car. I know she did it!" He ended his shout with another grunt.
Lisa started her truck. "She did no such thing, Mister Callahan."
"She did so!" His eye twitched as he pointed his finger toward his house. "I sat in my yard and watched her. She stood at her big window. She raised her hand as if she was making it all happen."
"She did not make it happen," Lisa said matter-of-factly. She could not tell him that Caroline was trying to stop it from happening. "Good night, Mister Callahan." She slowly drove toward the freeway.