S. Andrew Swann's Blog, page 16
October 14, 2011
Chapter Five – Part 3
"What other possibility?" Allison whispered at her notebook. The words came out with an unenlightening puff of fog.
She jotted down what else she remembered him saying before Mom hung up. Always been a chance. They already have one class in the area.
"Is that right?"
She stared at the words. She knew he'd said something about a class. It wasn't "one class."
She crossed out "one class" and wrote out "class one."
John: "They already have one class a class one in the area. If they find out she's a. . ."
"If they find out I'm a what? Then what?" Allison sighed. "Thanks, Mom."
She underlined "they" again, and finished the last two lines so they read:
John: "They already have one class a class one in the area. If they find out she's a. . ."
Mom: "Leave us alone. I don't believe any of this. They're stone insane. You're insane. Call and I drag you into court. Touch my daughter and I'll kill you."
Allison wondered about the third sentence. The phrase "stone insane" sounded more like her romance heroine, Melissa, than it did Mom. However, Allison was certain that her mother had said "stone insane" or words to that effect.
Allison sighed.
Would someone please tell me who "they" are?
She decided she'd killed enough time and packed up her backpack again. Whatever was going on in her family's life, she doubted it would be an adequate excuse for Mr. Counter. She still had to flesh out that bibliography.
She checked her watch and saw that it was past nine. Good, the library was open. She crossed the street and resumed her journey.
At the library, she spent the morning roaming the stacks. By noon she had amassed an impressive bibliography for her paper. She'd scanned books on revolution, American, French, and otherwise, and had found herself involved despite herself. One of the books had a distinctly Marxist flavor to it that she knew would absolutely infuriate Mr. Counter if she included it as a reference.
She sat behind a desk piled with books and told herself that she was finally done. All she had to do now was type up the bibliography and slip in a few of the supporting quotes that she had picked through while leafing through her horde.
Her sense of victory was muted.
She wished she'd never listened in on that phone call. It wasn't as if she didn't have enough on her mind already. She pulled the notebook out of her backpack and looked at the transcribed conversation again.
She wished she'd had the sense to write the thing down when it was fresh on her mind. She knew the conversation had eroded in her memory. The gaps in it might contain something important. Something that would explain everything.
You could ask her. Confront Mom directly. . .
Allison sniffed and realized her eyes were watering. She sucked in a shuddering breath and wiped her face with the back of her hand. A small damp spot now marred the notebook paper. She smeared it with her thumb. She felt pathetic.
Problems between me and Mom? How'd you know, Macy?
Allison needed a tissue badly now. She gathered her papers and headed for a bathroom.
On the way she walked right into David Greenbaum. He'd been carrying a stack of books nearly three feet high, and the collision caused them to fly everywhere. Allison raised her arms to ward off the falling literature, but the books hooked to the left at the last second to careen off a defenseless marble drinking fountain.
The impact left her head throbbing.
David stood there, gaping, for half a beat, before he realized who she was. "Allie! Oh, gee, I'm sorry—"
Allison shook her head. The throbbing subsided below the pain threshold. "My fault. I wasn't looking where I was going."
"They just got away from me." David stared at the pile of books at their feet. He looked as if he couldn't quite believe the mess they'd caused. Allison once found his befuddled looks cute. Now she just found it irritating.
What did he have to be confused about?
She bent and began handing books up to him, rebuilding the stack he'd been carrying. He flinched when she handed him the first one, and Allison couldn't figure out why.
It's last weekend, she thought, the scene between me and Chuck. Now David probably blames me for ruining his party.
Great, that thought made her feel even worse. About her. About David. About the whole awful world. She rushed through stacking the rest of David's books.
"Are you all right?" David asked as she began stacking books past his face.
"No damage." Allison balanced the last book in place, half-obscuring David's nose.
"That's not what I mean. You look like you've been crying."
She resisted an urge to wipe her face. Do you really care, David? Or are you just asking because you think you're supposed to? "I took a long swim and decided to peel some onions afterwards."
"Ah. Ok." David's voice sounded resigned.
Allison picked up her backpack and stepped around him toward the ladies' room. As she retreated down the hall she heard David say, belatedly as usual, "I'm really sorry about the party."
She didn't respond because she didn't know what to say.
Chapter 5 – Part 3
"What other possibility?" Allison whispered at her notebook. The words came out with an unenlightening puff of fog.
She jotted down what else she remembered him saying before Mom hung up. Always been a chance. They already have one class in the area.
"Is that right?"
She stared at the words. She knew he'd said something about a class. It wasn't "one class."
She crossed out "one class" and wrote out "class one."
John: "They already have one class a class one in the area. If they find out she's a. . ."
"If they find out I'm a what? Then what?" Allison sighed. "Thanks, Mom."
She underlined "they" again, and finished the last two lines so they read:
John: "They already have one class a class one in the area. If they find out she's a. . ."
Mom: "Leave us alone. I don't believe any of this. They're stone insane. You're insane. Call and I drag you into court. Touch my daughter and I'll kill you."
Allison wondered about the third sentence. The phrase "stone insane" sounded more like her romance heroine, Melissa, than it did Mom. However, Allison was certain that her mother had said "stone insane" or words to that effect.
Allison sighed.
Would someone please tell me who "they" are?
She decided she'd killed enough time and packed up her backpack again. Whatever was going on in her family's life, she doubted it would be an adequate excuse for Mr. Counter. She still had to flesh out that bibliography.
She checked her watch and saw that it was past nine. Good, the library was open. She crossed the street and resumed her journey.
At the library, she spent the morning roaming the stacks. By noon she had amassed an impressive bibliography for her paper. She'd scanned books on revolution, American, French, and otherwise, and had found herself involved despite herself. One of the books had a distinctly Marxist flavor to it that she knew would absolutely infuriate Mr. Counter if she included it as a reference.
She sat behind a desk piled with books and told herself that she was finally done. All she had to do now was type up the bibliography and slip in a few of the supporting quotes that she had picked through while leafing through her horde.
Her sense of victory was muted.
She wished she'd never listened in on that phone call. It wasn't as if she didn't have enough on her mind already. She pulled the notebook out of her backpack and looked at the transcribed conversation again.
She wished she'd had the sense to write the thing down when it was fresh on her mind. She knew the conversation had eroded in her memory. The gaps in it might contain something important. Something that would explain everything.
You could ask her. Confront Mom directly. . .
Allison sniffed and realized her eyes were watering. She sucked in a shuddering breath and wiped her face with the back of her hand. A small damp spot now marred the notebook paper. She smeared it with her thumb. She felt pathetic.
Problems between me and Mom? How'd you know, Macy?
Allison needed a tissue badly now. She gathered her papers and headed for a bathroom.
On the way she walked right into David Greenbaum. He'd been carrying a stack of books nearly three feet high, and the collision caused them to fly everywhere. Allison raised her arms to ward off the falling literature, but the books hooked to the left at the last second to careen off a defenseless marble drinking fountain.
The impact left her head throbbing.
David stood there, gaping, for half a beat, before he realized who she was. "Allie! Oh, gee, I'm sorry—"
Allison shook her head. The throbbing subsided below the pain threshold. "My fault. I wasn't looking where I was going."
"They just got away from me." David stared at the pile of books at their feet. He looked as if he couldn't quite believe the mess they'd caused. Allison once found his befuddled looks cute. Now she just found it irritating.
What did he have to be confused about?
She bent and began handing books up to him, rebuilding the stack he'd been carrying. He flinched when she handed him the first one, and Allison couldn't figure out why.
It's last weekend, she thought, the scene between me and Chuck. Now David probably blames me for ruining his party.
Great, that thought made her feel even worse. About her. About David. About the whole awful world. She rushed through stacking the rest of David's books.
"Are you all right?" David asked as she began stacking books past his face.
"No damage." Allison balanced the last book in place, half-obscuring David's nose.
"That's not what I mean. You look like you've been crying."
She resisted an urge to wipe her face. Do you really care, David? Or are you just asking because you think you're supposed to? "I took a long swim and decided to peel some onions afterwards."
"Ah. Ok." David's voice sounded resigned.
Allison picked up her backpack and stepped around him toward the ladies' room. As she retreated down the hall she heard David say, belatedly as usual, "I'm really sorry about the party."
She didn't respond because she didn't know what to say.
Chapter Five – Part 2
The temperature had dipped below freezing during the night. By morning it strained to get over forty. Uneven slate gray clouds shrouded the sky, and the diffuse light faded all the tree-colors into a uniform mud-brown that fit Allison's mood perfectly; cold, ugly and perfectly horrible.
Allison couldn't remember the last time she'd been awake this early on a Saturday. It had probably been back when she spent her mornings watching cartoons.
It wasn't that she'd woken early. She'd never managed to get back to sleep. By the time she glanced at the clock and it read six-thirty, she'd given up, showered, and got herself breakfast. All along, Allison felt on the verge of a migraine, but the headache had never materialized.
At least the fresh air helped push away that prospect.
Now she was kicking her way through the leaves in the gutter, past mostly silent houses. She was winding her way toward the library. It would open at nine, so she was doing her best to take a twisted route to eat up time. She'd left at seven-thirty, as soon as she got her hair dry. She wanted to slip out of the house before her mother woke up.
Allison still didn't know what she would say when she finally talked to Mom. Would she mention the overheard conversation at all? Would she simply ask about her father?
Would she tell her mother the fact that the headaches had not ended with the doctor's visit, and— in fact— had persisted nearly six weeks beyond and were only now fading?
"Tell her!" her father had said to Mom.
Tell me what? Allison thought. Tell me that my father was still alive? That was an obvious interpretation, but the way her father had spoken—
She amazed herself by how calmly she was taking that. Her father? She was thinking about him as if he'd only been gone for the weekend.
The way John had spoken made Allison doubt that he simply wanted to divulge the fact of his existence.
When Allison turned back on to a main street, she sat down in a bus-shelter across from a closed deli and opened up her backpack. A sheet of frost on the bench chilled a strip of flesh through the seat of her jeans. She ignored it.
She pulled out a spiral notebook; her Trigonometry homework, notably sparse. She flipped open a blank page, fished out a pencil, and tried to transcribe the conversation from memory:
Mom: "How dare you call me here."
She erased that. It irritated her that she was already confusing the two calls. She re-thought what she'd heard last night. What was the first thing she'd heard?
Allison replaced her first line with:
Mom: "Calling here again."
Allison decided she should have done this immediately after she had heard the phone call. It was very hard to get the words down from memory. Mom's fist line was close enough. She wrote:
Dad:
Allison erased that as soon as she wrote it. She didn't know that yet. Until she had some sort of confirmation it was probably saner to assume that Mom's late-night caller was some other person named John.
She kept telling herself it was a common name.
John: "I deserve the chance to talk to her."
She thought for a while and couldn't remember Mom's next words exactly. She wrote down:
Mom: "You have some nerve. Good-bye, John."
The good-bye, that she was sure of. Now, what did he say?
John: "Tell her. You owe her that."
That was close enough.
Mom: "Don't tell me how to treat my daughter."
Allison nodded to herself. It was an odd sensation she had. It felt like she was trying to discover the plot of an entire novel from a stray page she'd found.
She felt her eyes watering and thought, why are you keeping things from me, Mom? Her breath was fogging in front of her, and she felt frozen to the seat.
The next line was the strange one:
John: "If they look they'll find out about the doctor's appointments."
Allison stared at what she wrote. Slowly, with a trembling hand, she underlined "they." "They" would be interested in her doctor's appointments over the headaches. John, or someone— they— thought her headaches meant something.
"Maybe I misheard it," Allison mumbled. "I was half asleep."
She thought on Mom's next line. It was impossible to remember the tirade exactly. She decided just to write down the gist of what she'd heard:
Mom: (goes off on the fact my headaches weren't anything to worry about.)
As she thought about it, she added the line:
"They cleared up after the visit."
Allison was sure Mom had said that. But the headaches hadn't cleared up after the visit. Allison simply had stopped telling Mom about them. She had managed to hide the six weeks of intermittent agony, and Allison began to think she had some unconscious complicity from her mother. Mom didn't want to believe Allison was having these migraines. On the phone she'd been psycho about it. Mom had broken down telling this John that Allison's headaches were nothing.
Allison added the words, "nothing, nothing, nothing!" to that line.
Now that it was daylight and she was beginning to think clearly, Allison was scaring herself. When Allison had returned from the doctor, what Mom had shown her wasn't condescension, insensitivity, or disbelief. It had been screaming denial.
I've contracted a rare genetic disorder, and it's going to kill me because Mom can't deal with it.
Allison got a grip on herself. If it was a disease, those endless examinations would have shown something. Even if the doctor didn't understand what. If there was anything medically wrong, they would have ordered even more tests, not sent mother and daughter home with the all-clear and a speech about tension headaches.
Allison's hand shook as she wrote the next line:
John: "Did the doctor know the other possibility?"
Chapter 5 – Part 2
The temperature had dipped below freezing during the night. By morning it strained to get over forty. Uneven slate gray clouds shrouded the sky, and the diffuse light faded all the tree-colors into a uniform mud-brown that fit Allison's mood perfectly; cold, ugly and perfectly horrible.
Allison couldn't remember the last time she'd been awake this early on a Saturday. It had probably been back when she spent her mornings watching cartoons.
It wasn't that she'd woken early. She'd never managed to get back to sleep. By the time she glanced at the clock and it read six-thirty, she'd given up, showered, and got herself breakfast. All along, Allison felt on the verge of a migraine, but the headache had never materialized.
At least the fresh air helped push away that prospect.
Now she was kicking her way through the leaves in the gutter, past mostly silent houses. She was winding her way toward the library. It would open at nine, so she was doing her best to take a twisted route to eat up time. She'd left at seven-thirty, as soon as she got her hair dry. She wanted to slip out of the house before her mother woke up.
Allison still didn't know what she would say when she finally talked to Mom. Would she mention the overheard conversation at all? Would she simply ask about her father?
Would she tell her mother the fact that the headaches had not ended with the doctor's visit, and— in fact— had persisted nearly six weeks beyond and were only now fading?
"Tell her!" her father had said to Mom.
Tell me what? Allison thought. Tell me that my father was still alive? That was an obvious interpretation, but the way her father had spoken—
She amazed herself by how calmly she was taking that. Her father? She was thinking about him as if he'd only been gone for the weekend.
The way John had spoken made Allison doubt that he simply wanted to divulge the fact of his existence.
When Allison turned back on to a main street, she sat down in a bus-shelter across from a closed deli and opened up her backpack. A sheet of frost on the bench chilled a strip of flesh through the seat of her jeans. She ignored it.
She pulled out a spiral notebook; her Trigonometry homework, notably sparse. She flipped open a blank page, fished out a pencil, and tried to transcribe the conversation from memory:
Mom: "How dare you call me here."
She erased that. It irritated her that she was already confusing the two calls. She re-thought what she'd heard last night. What was the first thing she'd heard?
Allison replaced her first line with:
Mom: "Calling here again."
Allison decided she should have done this immediately after she had heard the phone call. It was very hard to get the words down from memory. Mom's fist line was close enough. She wrote:
Dad:
Allison erased that as soon as she wrote it. She didn't know that yet. Until she had some sort of confirmation it was probably saner to assume that Mom's late-night caller was some other person named John.
She kept telling herself it was a common name.
John: "I deserve the chance to talk to her."
She thought for a while and couldn't remember Mom's next words exactly. She wrote down:
Mom: "You have some nerve. Good-bye, John."
The good-bye, that she was sure of. Now, what did he say?
John: "Tell her. You owe her that."
That was close enough.
Mom: "Don't tell me how to treat my daughter."
Allison nodded to herself. It was an odd sensation she had. It felt like she was trying to discover the plot of an entire novel from a stray page she'd found.
She felt her eyes watering and thought, why are you keeping things from me, Mom? Her breath was fogging in front of her, and she felt frozen to the seat.
The next line was the strange one:
John: "If they look they'll find out about the doctor's appointments."
Allison stared at what she wrote. Slowly, with a trembling hand, she underlined "they." "They" would be interested in her doctor's appointments over the headaches. John, or someone— they— thought her headaches meant something.
"Maybe I misheard it," Allison mumbled. "I was half asleep."
She thought on Mom's next line. It was impossible to remember the tirade exactly. She decided just to write down the gist of what she'd heard:
Mom: (goes off on the fact my headaches weren't anything to worry about.)
As she thought about it, she added the line:
"They cleared up after the visit."
Allison was sure Mom had said that. But the headaches hadn't cleared up after the visit. Allison simply had stopped telling Mom about them. She had managed to hide the six weeks of intermittent agony, and Allison began to think she had some unconscious complicity from her mother. Mom didn't want to believe Allison was having these migraines. On the phone she'd been psycho about it. Mom had broken down telling this John that Allison's headaches were nothing.
Allison added the words, "nothing, nothing, nothing!" to that line.
Now that it was daylight and she was beginning to think clearly, Allison was scaring herself. When Allison had returned from the doctor, what Mom had shown her wasn't condescension, insensitivity, or disbelief. It had been screaming denial.
I've contracted a rare genetic disorder, and it's going to kill me because Mom can't deal with it.
Allison got a grip on herself. If it was a disease, those endless examinations would have shown something. Even if the doctor didn't understand what. If there was anything medically wrong, they would have ordered even more tests, not sent mother and daughter home with the all-clear and a speech about tension headaches.
Allison's hand shook as she wrote the next line:
John: "Did the doctor know the other possibility?"
October 9, 2011
Chapter Five – Part 1
Mr. Counter passed out papers to the class. When Allison tuned over her paper, it was the love scene from Restless Nights. Mr. Counter had covered the scene with illegible red corrections. Across the top he'd scrawled a great big "F" and the comment "do over."
The phone rang.
Allison turned, half-asleep, and startled a cat. Rhett jumped out of bed right across the front of her face, waking her fully.
The phone stopped ringing.
It's nearly three in the morning, she thought, simultaneously irritated at the caller and remembering the last call that'd roused her in the middle of the night.
From downstairs she faintly heard Mom yelling, "— dare you call here again!"
Something in Mom's voice frightened Allison. It was the same tone she'd heard in the previous call. But it tore at something else in her memory, something a long time ago that she couldn't quite place. She tried to force the scary thought to the front of her mind, but the more she tried, the more it evaporated like her nightmare class with Mr. Counter.
What's going on?
Hating herself for doing it, Allison gently lifted the handset on her extension so she could hear both ends of the conversation. She held it away from the sound of her breathing as she clicked the pone on. The receiver came alive with a heart-stopping beep, but no one seemed to notice.
She heard a strained, agonizingly familiar, male voice say, "I deserve the chance to talk to her, Carol." The sound came through a lot of interference, as if the man was speaking on a cheap cell phone.
"You have the nerve to say you deserve anything? After all this? Good-bye, John."
Allison had never heard her mother sound like this, and a tiny voice was screaming at her to hang up, that she didn't want to hear any more. . .
However, the male voice was beginning to register even though it had been such a long time since she had heard it. Even though every instinct she had told her to hang up, the voice, in connection with the name, froze her so that she couldn't even breathe.
John was a common name. It was the strongest objection she had to the crazy thoughts running through her head. There wasn't any way it could really be him. Mom would have told her.
The man spoke as if he actually heard Allison's thoughts. "Don't you under— Damn it, tell her! You owe me nothing, but you owe her."
"Don't tell me how to treat my daughter."
"If they're looking, they can find out about the doctor's appointments."
Allison could hear tears and near panic in Mom's voice. "Those were nothing, nothing! It was the stress of school. The doctor said that himself. It didn't mean anything. It cleared up right after the visit—"
"Did the doctor know the other possibility?"
There was silence on the line.
"Carol, there's always been the chance."
Allison's mother made a noise it sounded like a sob.
"They already have info on a class one in the area. If they find out she's a—"
"LEAVE US ALONE!" The yell made Allison drop the phone in shock. It bounced off the bed and landed on the floor. Even so, Allison could still hear her mother yelling. It came through the tinny speaker of the phone and it also came, muffled, through the floor of her room. "Those people are crazy. Stone's crazy. I don't believe in any of this, none of it. And I won't have my daughter believing it. You're insane, John. They're insane. I'll go to court this time, publicly, if you call me again. I don't care who gets pulled in. And if you come near my daughter I swear to God I'll kill you!"
She could hear the phone slam downstairs. She tried to get the receiver before her dad hung up, but by the time she'd gotten to the phone, there was only a dial-tone.
Allison switched it off and gently replaced the receiver. She felt dirty for listening in, but the feeling of confusion was worse. She had just heard an argument about her and she didn't understand any of it.
Worst was the awful thing that ate at Allison's heart as she tried to sleep.
Mom had told her that her father was dead.
October 6, 2011
Chapter Four – Part 4
Allison dove, stuffing her manuscript back into the shoebox. She slipped on a throw-rug and had to catch herself on the dresser opposite the foot of her bed. An avalanche of stuffed animals buried the News Hour as she bent and stuffed the box under the debris cluttering the bottom of her closet.
The closet was shut before she heard the door open downstairs. Allison slumped, her back holding the closet door closed, as if her manuscript might escape. She was still flushed and a little warm.
Realizing that, and how silly she must've looked, made her flush that much hotter.
A grinning Tasmanian Devil sat on top of the mound of animals Allison dislodged, winner of king-of-the-mountain. "Stop laughing at me," Allison told it.
Allison started to replace the dislodged multitudes as, below her, she heard her mom say, "Allie?"
"In my room, Mom."
She heard her mother start up the steps and willed herself calm. She was certain that her lascivious thoughts were visible on the surface of her skin.
Her mom peeked in the door, and upon seeing Allison, pushed the door the rest of the way open. "What happened?" she asked, waving a hand at the scattered animals.
Allison gaped for a moment, frozen at the question. Then she managed to regain her bearings. Pasting on a smile she waved the stuffed devil toward the dresser, "A revolt. Taz went over the wall and suddenly I had a mass escape on my hands."
Mom smiled. The contrast made Allison realize just how tired Mom looked. She took Taz from Allison and gave it a mock-serious look. "A troublemaker, eh? Perhaps she should be put in solitary." The humor sounded forced.
"You ok, Mom?"
"Oh?" She looked a little surprised at the question. "No, I'm fine, just a tough day at work, that's all. What're you doing home so early on a Friday? Not feeling under the weather again, are you?"
Allison hated the phrase "under the weather." As far as she was concerned, anyone who wasn't in a plane flying above cloud-cover was "under the weather."
"No, Mom." Allison tried to keep the sigh out of her voice. "I just wanted to get some homework out of the way before the weekend." She waved absently at the bed where her history essay was laid out like a reenactment of the battle of Gettysburg.
Mom stepped over to the bed, as if Allison's wave was an invitation.
Mom tried to involve herself with Allison's schoolwork. However, lately, Allison had come to the cynical realization that her mother really didn't pay all that much attention. The details seemed to slip her attention. Otherwise, Mom would've realized just how many days Allison had cut to sit in the bathroom and down Midol and Advil like M&M's.
Allison watched her mother leaf through pages of her history report, when she was struck by a horrid realization. The page Mom was currently reading was not part of her homework. It was a page from Restless Nights. It must have fallen out of the shoebox in her dive for the closet.
Mom arched an eyebrow and asked, "What's this? Not your homework?"
Oh God, oh God, oh God. Allison just couldn't get her mouth to work. What could she say? Some bandit broke in and planted blatant pornography in her bedroom?
Mom was smiling at her and Allison felt her face turn beet-red.
"Come on, tell me."
"Its— ah— something I wrote."
"That's obvious."
"A n-n-novel I worked on over the summer. The page— it— ah— got mixed in by accident."
"A whole novel?" Mom was looking at the page again. Allison wished she could see what her mother was reading. Oh please don't let it be Melissa's trembling breasts or Randolph's manhood, anything but that.
"Ab-b-bout a hundred pages."
Mom set the page down and looked at Allison. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was embarrassed."
"Well, don't be." Mom seemed to finally recognize Allison's discomfort. She bent down and kissed Allison's forehead.
"Wha?"
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be reading unfinished work, should I?"
"I— uh— well—"
"I won't stifle you. I don't want to see any more of it. Not until you finish it, of course."
Allison just nodded, lamely.
"Good. I'm going down to fix myself some dinner. Want anything?"
"No."
When her mother nodded and left, Allison rushed to the bed and grabbed the page.
It was page number seven.
Allison's sigh of relief was choked short by a small jab of pain lancing through her temples. Just then, the animals she'd replaced on the bureau collapsed on to the floor again, Taz in the lead.
The pain vanished as quickly as it had come.
October 4, 2011
Chapter Four – Part 3
Allison lay on her bed. Red-marked computer-draft essay surrounded her. An unfinished gothic paperback lay open, face-down next to her pillow. Across from the foot of the bed, a crotchety analog TV nattered on, half-buried in stuffed animals. It was tuned to PBS and Tom Lehrer was going on about the latest difficulty around Pakistan. Allison wasn't paying much attention to it.
Instead, she was looking at the shoebox she had fished out of the closet. It rested on her lap, and inside it nestled a small stack of gaudy paperbacks that her mother would never approve of. Their covers bore no titles, only blurry photos of naked models in Victorian settings. The women were well endowed, and lounged amidst red velvet and white lace. Some models wore white gloves, some black. A few wore spiked heels. On two of the covers men were present, backs to the camera, muscular and equally nude. The titles on the spine were all The Passion of.. something-or-other. Allison had read every one several times, and usually just the sight of the covers could bring a catch to her throat.
The books were a secret embarrassment. Mostly because Allison didn't want to admit that a rather tame sextet of ancient yellowing paperback erotica could get her legs rubbing together like that.
However, at the moment, she was concentrating on another embarrassment she kept in that shoebox. In her hands were the last of the hundred and two pages of Restless Nights, her novel.
It had been calling to her all afternoon, and she'd finally given in. She was a fast reader, and she had managed to read through the draft— cry at the really awful parts— and reach the end all in half an hour. And here, the last five pages, she had slowed her reading to a crawl.
Mr. Lehrer droned in the background.
She felt her face flush as she closed on the scene where Randolph and Melissa finally met, after their years of separation. Randolph had managed to escape the Nazi prison camp, but not the false rumors of his treason. Melissa had survived the deaths of her father and her brother to become the chaste caretaker of the family home.
Allison might hate parts of the story, parts that were wooden and clumsy now, but every page, every single word, had been an arrow pointing to this reunion. She had written these last five pages in a white heat. A heat that wasn't entirely literary.
In one way it was so wrong, the book was supposed to be a dance, weaving Melissa and Randolph together. Melissa was chaste and virginal. Randolph was gruff and still had to prove himself not to be the traitor he was believed to be. It was 1944, and pre-marital sex was a naughty thing. It was a romance, and you don't have the hero and heroine do things like that before their happily-ever-after.
However, the second that Allison had written them into the same room, they had slammed together like opposing poles of a magnet. Allison had written through nearly to the end of the scene, and it was so hot and explicit that it scared her.
Every time she reached the end, she found her pulse racing and wondered at herself. I wrote that?
She was still frozen to the page, picturing Randolph's hands exploring Melissa's body, when she heard her mother's car arrive in the driveway.
Chapter Four – Part 2
As Allison walked home, her morbid introspection began to diminish.
It was Friday, and she was free of Heights High for the rest of the weekend. That thought helped her get over her funk. It was a beautiful day, the sky blue, the sun shining, and the air so cool and clean that it crinkled at the edges. After a while she was kicking her way through mounds of raked leaves, humming a Lady Gaga tune and surprising herself with exactly how good she did feel the further she walked from school.
She still couldn't help thinking about her history project as she walked down the hill. Ten pages comparing the French and American Revolutions. Ten pages in a single weekend.
Once she thought past the oppressiveness of Counter's History class, she admitted she could do it. Half the job was making the paper literate, and no matter how many classes she'd missed, she had her classmates beat in that area. Over the summer she had managed to write ten chapters of a romance novel. It was horrible romance novel that embarrassed her deeply, but against those hundred pages or so, ten seemed no big obstacle, especially when half the grade was spelling and punctuation.
It was close to four when she got home. By now she was smiling and had almost convinced herself to dig the novel out of the closet and make an attempt to finish it. She had decided against it because there was no way she could do anything on top of Counter's paper this weekend, and— more important— she had stopped writing in the middle of a steamy sex scene that she had never finished.
She blushed slightly whenever she thought about it. Restless Nights would wait a little longer.
Instead, she planned out the paper. She could probably get by on common knowledge and common sense. Counter's class was bonehead history, and if she got the grammar and the dates right, he'd have to pass it.
She would have to fudge the bibliography a bit—
Rhett and Scarlett, two thirds of the feline population of the house, attacked Allison as soon as she let herself in. Scarlett butted her ankles and purred while Rhett jumped on a chair by the door, better to nose into Allison's backpack as she unshouldered it. When Allison put the pack down, Rhett's black form managed to disappear entirely into it, spilling books and notebook paper.
Allison didn't put down the history text that she'd clutched to her chest all the way home. The muse was upon her and, if she struck now, she might be able to crank out at least a rough draft of her paper before sunset. She might manage to have some of her weekend free.
After a side-trip to the kitchen to grab a box of Low Salt Wheat Thins, she went upstairs to the study.
The study was half hers, half Mom's. Allison had no idea what her mom used it for. There was a bookshelf and a filing cabinet on Mom's side of the room, all of it a little too neat. Allison's mom was an accountant, a profession that Allison found so boring that she rarely asked for any specifics. The bookshelf was filled with books as dry and impenetrable as Allison could imagine. Economics, business, accounting, taxes, Ugh.
Opposing Mom's neat half, was Allison's part of the room. There was a tiny desk from Allison's grade-school days, still bearing multicolored Crayola scars. Piled on top of it were cardboard boxes of dog‑eared paperbacks; westerns, romances, mysteries. Piled on top of them was a riot of lined paper and spiral-bound notebooks. Piled on top of that was Meowrie Antoinette— Allison had been six when she'd named her— the matriarch the felines. Old tufts of white cat-hair coated all of Allison's homework.
Allison gently petted Meowrie to let the cat know that she was there. Meowrie was older than Allison, nearly deaf, and blinded by milky cataracts. Meowrie made a half-purr, a sort of catlike sigh, licked Allison's thumb, and went back to sleep. Allison liberated her history notebook from the pile while trying to disturb the old cat as little as possible.
Her mom's souped-up HP sat alone on an austere table with only its peripherals for company. She cracked the notebook to the page where she had copied the assignment and set it down next to the keyboard. Allison flicked on the PC and began typing with one hand, digging in the Wheat Thins box with the other.
By seven-thirty Allison had managed to print out ten pages of airy but well-written essay that only needed a few footnotes and a bibliography to get past Mr. Counter's requirements. It was the kind of thing that Allison suspected drove Mr. Counter nuts— a technically perfect vacuum of an essay.
She shouldn't have been so pleased with herself, but she smiled anyway. The way Mr. Counter graded, the paper rated a C as is. With a little polish, anything less than an A would mark an obvious personal vendetta on Mr. Counter's part. It would count, in some twisted way, as a moral victory.
September 29, 2011
Chapter Four – Part 1
By the end of the week Allison had, for the most part, recovered from the party. All the whispering she'd overheard had been about Chuck's header into the beer cooler. No one seemed to be talking about her part in the episode.
Even so, her gaze kept scanning the school yard as she walked home with Macy. It was a paranoid reaction, but she couldn't help it.
And— in response to her paranoia— there he was, leaning against the wall of the South Gym. As she and Macy rounded the football field, Allison couldn't take her eyes off of him. Chuck's eyes held hers like a magnet.
"Stop looking," Macy said with a resigned tone. "You'll only encourage him."
Allison yanked her gaze away from the side of the gym and hugged the backpack in her arms closer to her chest.
"He still scares me," she said. She whispered the words as if Chuck could hear her from across the football field.
She knew that Chuck Wilson had been watching her— no, he'd been staring at her— since she'd walked outside. Had he been loitering there, all last period? She wondered. Just for me?
"Allie, look out!"
Allison turned toward Macy just in time to realize she'd strayed off the sidewalk. She pulled herself short just too late to avoid colliding with a tree. She didn't fall, but she dropped her backpack and her books went everywhere.
She staggered back and looked at her history textbook. It had spilled from her backpack and was spread open before her, flapping its pages in the wind.
Allison looked from the textbook to Macy's face. The concerned look in her best friend's eyes made Allison mutter, "I'm fine." She bent to retrieve her backpack and her history textbook. The book closed against the wind as she reached for it, but a twinge behind her temples kept her from noticing.
"No you're not, girl." Macy looked back, over her shoulder. Their view of the gym was now hidden by the bleachers flanking the football field. No Chuck in sight. "He still hasn't done nothing. Has he?"
She shook her head and tried to let go of the paranoia that clutched at her. "No, not since the party," Allison said, slipping most of her books back into her backpack and slinging the pack over her shoulder. Her history text she hugged to her chest.
"Then he's off of it, right?"
Allison nodded vigorously and started down the sidewalk, forcing herself to watch ahead of her feet. "I'm just being paranoid."
Macy matched her stride easily. "This is really freaking you. Maybe you should tell someone."
"No."
"You could talk to your mother."
"No!" Allison winced at the sound of her own voice. "I just have a morbid imagination, that's all. Can we change the subject?"
Macy made a dissatisfied grunt. "Okay." After a few moments she asked, "You have the paper for Mr. Counter yet?"
"Ugh!" Allison said. "Don't remind me."
"What? You trying to flunk history, girl? He don't like your attendance already—"
"I'll get it done."
"Ten pages by Monday? He'll dock you a letter just for your attitude."
Allison sighed. "So what?"
They crossed the intersection behind the high school and walked down Grant.
Euclid Heights High was mired in a suburban commercial district like a fly in amber. A few houses congregated in the gaps between the intersections, but the areas around the major streets were hives of commerce. Some— mostly fast food places— served the high-school students. Others— mostly the bars— served the college students that overran the eastern suburbs this close to John Caroll and Case Western Reserve University. The rest of the shops— like the BMW dealership and the Thai restaurant Allison and Macy were passing— served the middle-class population lived further east of the city.
For some reason it all depressed Allison.
As they passed the BMW lot, the sun gleamed so intensely off the accumulated windshields that Allison thought she should see circling buzzards in the reflection.
"Ahem," said Macy.
Allison turned around and saw Macy standing a few steps behind her, tapping her foot. Allison felt guilty again. "I'm sorry. What did you say?"
Macy turned her head up at the sky as if to say, "what am I going to do with you, girl?" Instead she asked, "Have you at least done the reading?"
"Ah. . ."
"Counter's going to spaz." Macy stepped up and hugged Allison's shoulder. "You've got guts if you even show up on Monday."
Allison shrugged. What was done was done. "I'll do what I can over the weekend."
"That's half the class. I'd forget about it and sneak an extra lunch period the rest of the semester."
As they walked down Grant, Allison shook her head. "It hasn't been my fault. I won't give up like that."
"Counter'll look at the attendance sheet and flunk you anyway."
"I don't care."
Macy shrugged. "I don't understand you."
They walked a block and a half in silence, passing a convenience store. Sometimes Allison didn't understand herself. What Macy said was tempting. With her godawful attendance, it would seem a lot simpler to give up and count the semester a loss.
She was running flat out, and she was still losing ground. What was the point of it? She knew, already, that she'd be lucky to pull a passing GPA this semester. For sure she'd be going to summer school. She'd be lucky to graduate on time the way things were going.
If she relaxed and stopped pushing, the picture would only be slightly worse.
But it would be giving in.
Fortunately, her headaches were diminishing. Since the party she hadn't had any bad ones. This had been her first week of perfect attendance this year.
The fact that her skull was ceasing its unexplained throbbing should have buoyed her through anything. But she found herself depressed, under siege from a load of neglected homework and eviscerated academic prospects.
Not to mention Chuck.
"Hey," Macy said. "Cheer up."
Allison looked her friend in the eye and asked, "Why?"
"I tell you they left me back sixth grade?"
"Huh?"
"End of the world girl! They pinned a note to my sweater, big red letters. Mama cried. Dad creamed me. Six kids and none of them, not even Russell, had been left back in grade school."
Macy spread her hands and looked down at Allison. "Today, does it matter? See my point?"
"Yeah, I suppose I do."
"Good." They'd reached the intersection where they usually parted ways. Macy squeezed Allison's shoulder and started down her own street. "Don't kill yourself," she called back.
"I don't plan to." Allison said.
September 27, 2011
Chapter Three – Part 2
"You wanna party?"
The guy said with such deadpan earnestness that Macy snickered. Allison sucked in a breath but couldn't stop herself. She started laughing. It started as a small giggle, but before she'd raised her hand to cover her mouth her entire body was shaking. The giggle fit was contagious and in a moment Macy was laughing as loud as she was. Allison tried to control herself, and she could feel her face flushing with embarrassment. But she couldn't stop, especially when the guy's expression showed that this wasn't anywhere near the reaction he was aiming for.
Macy steered her away, toward the entrance, and Allison caught sight of what had to be this guy's friends by the Taco Bell. They all wore abused jeans and black T-shirts advertising metal bands. They were also in the midst of their own laughing jag, which made Allison laugh even harder. . .
As they pushed through the glass doors to the food court Allison heard the guy's voice behind them. "What're you? A couple of lesbos?"
Macy shouted back, "One look at that face makes me seriously consider it!"
The door closed behind them and Allison stumbled out into the parking lot. She was actually gasping now, no longer laughing. She had begun hyperventilating, and she was in the lightheaded throes of an oncoming migraine. Macy still laughed, up until she caught up with Allison, who now stood gasping, doubled-over, her hands on her knees.
"Allie?"
"I'll be fine," Allison said between gasps. "I just have to catch my breath."
"Can you believe that guy?" Macy asked, rubbing Allison's shoulder.
Allison shook her head.
"His face could set of a metal detector."
Allison nodded.
"Are you sure you're all right?"
Allison pushed herself upright, the wind felt as if it was biting into her temples, but she told Macy she was fine. She turned to look back toward the mall entrance. "I kind of feel bad about laughing like that—"
"Sometimes I don't believe you." Macy shook her head in disgust, grabbed Allison's arm and started dragging her toward where the car was parked. "You can't feel sorry for that guy. He copped the clumsiest feel of the millennium and hit us with a line so moldy I don't know if he was offering a joint or tickets to a Grateful Dead concert."
Macy stopped next to her sister's car and studied at Allison.
Allison's head throbbed a little, enough to let her know that later on tonight she would be clutching her head and trying to smother herself with her pillow. Still she forced a smile to try and deflect her friend's concern.
"You look like hell, girl."
Allison's smile collapsed. "Thanks."
"Just worried about you."
Allison nodded and patted Macy's arm. "Thanks, really. But I don't know what you can do."
Macy grabbed her hand and said. "So what is up with you and David?"
"Nothing," Allison said.
After Macy let go, Allison continued. "Totally, completely and absolutely— Nothing. I don't know, but when I talk to him it's like, sometimes, I'm talking straight through him. As if nothing sinks through, takes hold. It's like he doesn't hear the same words I do." She shook her head. "Sometimes I think he's afraid of me."
"That's rough."
"I mean, I can't tell him what's going on in my life, because every time he thinks something's wrong he goes into paralysis mode." Allison looked back at the mall. "Can you picture him back there just now, with metal head?"
"I see what you mean."
"Let's get out of here." Allison walked carefully around the car and let herself in the passenger side. She rubbed her temples.
"So is that it?" Macy asked as she got in the car. "You and David? Is that what's got you in the dumpster?"
Allison shook her head. "He doesn't have anything to do with the way I feel."
Not for a long time now, she thought.
"Is it the party?" Macy asked.
Allison nodded slightly but said, "No."
"I thought that once you got a little distance from it you'd realize how silly Chuck looked."
"I don't want to talk about it right now."
"Come on, you don't think the guy will mess with you after—"
"Not. Now." Allison spoke through gritted teeth. Macy must have hear the seriousness in her voice, since they didn't say anything more until the car pulled in front of Allison's house.
As Allison got out, Macy asked, "Are you really going to be all right?"
Allison nodded.
"No problems, like between you and your mom?"
The question startled her, and Allison looked back at Macy. "What makes you— of course not."
Macy looked relieved. "I didn't think so. But that's the kind of problem that gets you. Hard to escape from."
"Well don't worry about that."
"If you ever do need to get away from that kind of problem, you got my help." Macy reached across the passenger seat and pulled shut the passenger door. "Got to get the car back before my sister thinks I ran away with it. See you tomorrow?"
"Sure."
Allison watched as Macy drove away.
Problems between her and Mom? That was ridiculous. . .
