Cheap Thrills, Mostly
I sound so calm because this is a retelling, a revision. Because I don't want to go back and read about how loud I was screaming or why my cheeks are stained mascara black. I've written that scene ten different ways but that was the best version; or, it's the one I tell the police, at least. Except for what he said at the end. Cherry told me to keep my mouth shut about that and I do, it isn't so hard.
I wasn't lying about the job, though. There is an opening.
I wrote a version where the man behind the counter stands up in slow motion and we all laugh at the end. There's no threat but instead the man in the mask says: "this is all an act." Or maybe he'd said dream. It doesn't matter, really, they mean the same thing anyways: it didn't really happen.
They wouldn't have believed that version though. So I tell them the one where I'm useless and my ears are ringing too loud to hear anything. They don't expect much of me. I'm just a little girl.
Ranger showed up first. It was dark when he got there, the streetlight shot out and the bakery lights switched off like the killer thought he could hide us there until morning. Maybe he'd thought that Cherry and I had died of shock and didn't want anyone to find and report our three corpses until morning.
Ranger's body was wound tight, I could feel it in the way he lifted me into the seat of my chair that he must of put back upright and pressed his hands into the sides of my arms real tight in a faraway almost-hug. I got the sense of being put back together again once more.
I wish I would stop falling apart.
He must ask me if I'm all right and I must respond in someway, in some dream word or real word. It doesn't matter. Either way Ranger always knows the truth. But I can't hear it, or in my memory I can't hear it, because there are red and blue lights and they make everything look quiet.
I remember sitting in the front seat of my Dad's old cop car. He doesn't drive one of those anymore but when he did I was small and would trace my tiny fingers over the word POLICE. That word is safety. Anyways, I would sit in the front seat even though I was too small to, and the seatbelt would come up too high so that it was across my neck instead of my chest. My feet could never touch the floor either but when you're so small your feet are never really ever touching the floor. I'd tell him, "Sirens, Daddy! Sirens." And he'd laugh. And the sirens would come on. And he would know he isn't allowed but he would also know he's a rule breaker and he that he loves his little girl.
That story is a retelling also, but it's true this time. I promise.
My father comes with those sirens again and you can see the red and blue lights crease in the scar that slices through his brow. It occurs to me in that moment that I've never known how he got that scar.
He speaks to Ranger quickly and soft in that way that grown ups do when they don't want you to hear. After that I'm given a blanket, except it's not cold. I take it anyways. My father and Ranger don't leave my side all night and it occurs to me that this is probably the most time either of them has spent around one another at once. They don't talk after that first conversation though so maybe that's why it's okay.
The first woman to question me doesn't look up a whole lot so I'm not sure what her face looks like except for at a tilt and all full of shadows from the flashing of the emergency lights. She asks me what my name is and to tell me what happened tonight. I tell her I don't know what she means. A lot happened tonight. And then a second person comes over, a paramedic, and ushers me away. He looks upset at the woman for some reason but she didn't bother me.
The second woman to question me is my mother. No one ushers me away from her though I thought that would have been nice of them. I don't think she approves of the length of my skirt because she seems upset for some reason. Her and Dad talk for a moment, they must be planning on sending me to a privet school where I won't be wearing such short skirts.
I tell them I'm sorry for wearing such a short skirt. "I wont do it again," I say.
My mother starts crying.