Lupa (Second Edition)

by Kimberly Odum Wells

“It’s your turn now,” Max says turning to face me, ready for my life story.

  We’re sitting on the rusted out lawn furniture in my front yard. It doesn’t get dark until around eight, but clouds cover the day in shades of grey. The breeze has picked up. A warning that big things are yet to come but it’s too nice to worry about that now. The temperature has dropped ten degrees which feels like thirty when you live in a place that makes showering a part-time job in the summer.

  “Not really much to know,” I tell him, a little uncomfortable with all the attention on me.

  “Tell me what there is to know.”

  I’m trying to figure out if he’s really interested but since it really is short I decide to just spill it.

  “Well, my dad knocked my mom up their senior year in high school and left before I was born. I’ve lived in this house my whole life. This was my grandmother’s house until she passed away two weeks ago and now it’s my mom’s.”

  That’s it. Short and sweet.

  “What was your grandmother like,” he asks. He looks at the kids. They’ve decided to try to squeeze in a game of baseball. They have a real bat but the ball is a neon green tennis ball.

  “She was fun. She liked to dance and sing. She was my movie buddy. I’m going to miss that. She liked musicals.” He didn’t say anything and I appreciated it. “She would buy me beer and she smoked a little weed on occasion.”

  Max laughs at that. I’m sure picturing his grandmother drinking and smoking weed.

  “Cool.”

  “Yeah she was.”

  I’m not sad when I say it. I miss her. I miss the feel of her skin when she rubbed my cheek. I miss talking about her life growing up and then the one she’d built with my grandfather. I miss the sly smiles she’d sometimes give me when I’d asked a question she thought too personal or grown up for her to answer. The smile was a good smile and always left me wondering what secret lay behind it. I was sad in her absence but not in her death, if that makes any sense. My grandmother had lived a long time, seen a lot and lived a full and happy life. Life hadn’t been stolen or taken from her; she’d gone into deaths arms like greeting a new friend. With dignity. No long illness, no decrease in her mental faculties, just went to sleep and woke up on the other side. That place of beauty and plenty promised. I’m not overly religious but I know that’s where she is.

  “What’s your mom like?” Max asks, turning his body a little to face me. It seems his tetanus shot is up to date. That or he doesn’t mind lockjaw.

  “She works a lot. I worry that she’s lonely but she seems happy enough I guess.”

  This is way personal information I’m giving out here and I’m trying to think of a way to change the subject. “You have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No, lucky enough to be an only kid. You?”

  “Same here. Hey I’m going to run in and get my cigarettes. I’ll be right back.”

  I unlock the front door and run to the table, swiping the half pack of cigs off the table. I’ll have to stop tomorrow on the way home from school to buy another pack. Max is up and playing baseball with the kids in the circle when I get back. I make myself comfortable on the curb and light a cigarette. Max waves at me when he notices me but keeps playing with the kids.

  “That sure is nice of him to play,” Mrs. Denton calls out.

  “It sure is.”

  “How’s your momma doing baby. Lord knows, I miss Leigh.”

  “She’s doing fine, Mrs. Denton. We miss her too.” I turn to face Mrs. Denton in our conversation and I hear Max run up behind me.

  “Hey let’s go to the store before the storm gets here. If you won’t go to the movies maybe we can catch something on TV and we need snacks.”

  I stand up brushing the seat of my pants. After grabbing some money and locking up we walk to the corner store. I buy two packs of cigarettes, I smoke a lot when I’m watching a movie and Max buys twenty dollars worth of junk. Potato chips, two liter sodas, candy, microwave popcorn, one of those sandwiches that has now been sitting no fewer than six hours.

  “You want to go to my house or yours?”

  It’s only ever been me and my mom. I’ve never dated and so the subject of me being unaccompanied in the house with a boy has not come up. As much as I like Mrs. Anderson I don’t know if I can sit in her house for a couple of hours. “Let’s do my house.”

  “Cool, I’ll tell my grandmother. Do you have any movies or do you want me to grab one?”

  “Grab one.”

  Truth be told, I have no movies. We don’t even have cable. I like going to the theater to watch movies and when I’m at home I usually read. When we reach Max’s front yard he runs into the house to grab our movie and tell his grandmother where he’ll be. I stand on the curb.

  We pop the popcorn and sit down on the couch. He’s picked an old eighties movie about break-dancing and he’s my type of movie watcher. No talking. The movie is very dated but surprisingly entertaining. When it goes off I walk Max to the front door.

  “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow?”

  “What time to you leave for school. I missed you this morning?”

  The statement shocks me. “I woke up late today, but I usually leave about seven-thirty.”

  “See you in the morning.” And to my relief he doesn’t try to kiss me or stand there waiting on an invitation to kiss me. He walks right out, turning once when he gets to the curb to wave a final goodbye.

  Its six thirty. I’m up thirty minutes early. I change clothes at least five times before deciding on what to wear. I braid my hair in the more sophisticated one braid instead of my normal two and even apply some lip gloss. Funny, just yesterday I hadn’t given a thought about what others thought of my appearance; today, I’m a nervous wreck and can’t stop thinking about it. I pretend that the others mentioned isn’t code for Max.

  I laid awake most of the night thinking about my evening with him. He’s cute and I like him. Imagine my shock and surprise at that little revelation. I think he likes me too. I’ve decided to put my best foot forward but not to try too hard. If it turns out he only wants to be friends then it won’t be so awkward that he has to avoid me.

  My mom doesn’t usually get up to see me off to school. Working two jobs is tiring but then again I’m not usually up an hour before I leave the house and I guess the sounds of my constant trips to the bathroom and the opening and closing of drawers has gotten her out of bed this morning.

  “Why are you up so early?” She asks while going for the coffee maker.

  “No reason,” I say. I’ll have to be quieter tomorrow or pick out my clothes tonight.

  “How’d your date go?”

  My mom is watching my reaction. It’s almost depressing how bad she wants me to have a boyfriend. It adds to the list of things that I think disappoint her about me. She was, and still could be, the ultimate girly-girl. I am not, but I’m not a tomboy either. I just don’t give my appearance that much forethought. If my hair is combed, my clothes quasi clean and I don’t smell, I’m good to go. My mother met my father when she was thirteen and here I am a year away from the age my mother had me and I haven’t had my first boyfriend. We are so different I’ve considered I was switched at birth but I look too much like her.

  “It was not a date and we had fun. We watched a movie and then he left.”

  “So you were here?”

  “Yeah, I didn’t know if I could stand being in Mrs. Anderson house for two hours.” I play it cool. No big deal, nothing happened.

  “I know,” she laughs as she sits down.

  She lights a cigarette and then gives me a once over. She didn’t comment on my hair or my glossy lips. I love her a little bit more for it. The knock on the door stop our giggles and my mom gets up to answer the door. Max is standing there with an umbrella. It’s raining. How’d I missed that?

  “Good morning Ms. Freeland.” He smiles his most winning smile at my mom. For the first time it makes my heart
flutter a little. “I’m Max, Adele Anderson’s grandson.”

  “Come on in Max.” My mom opens the screen door. Max lets down his umbrella and leaves it outside before coming in.

  “My grandmother says hi.” He’s still smiling. It makes me nervous. I wait for my mom to do something embarrassing. I stuff my books into my backpack and rush to the front room before any damage can be done.

  “I’ll have to go up there to thank her for the pound cake this afternoon before I go to work. So you and Josette are walking to school together?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Max looks at me while he answers the question. It makes my stomach do weird things. The look in his eye is a little like my grandmother’s secret smile. It makes me nervous and a little excited at the same time. It makes me wonder what secrets Max has in mind for me and him.

  “You two want a ride? It’s raining pretty bad out,” my mom says, as I stand there looking at her in disbelief. She hadn’t offered to drive me to school a second ago.

  “No thank you Ms. Freeland. I don’t think we’ll melt. Besides, I like how it smells on rainy summer days.”

  “I guess I’ll see you around then.” My mom turns to me, “See you after school. Have a good day.”

  “You too,” I say grabbing an umbrella.

  It’s raining but not storming. The rain, while heavy, has no wind to whip it under our umbrellas. It is pretty dark though. If my mom hadn’t have been off from her AM job, and Max hadn’t been here, I probably would have stayed home from school today and sat on the couch reading a book. It’s the perfect day for it.

  “I like how summer rain smells too.” I say.

  We wave at his grandmother when we pass Max’s house. She’s standing in the doorway. I hope some of the fresh air is finding its way in the house.

  “I hope she keeps the door open all day. I love my grandma but I don’t want to smell like her.” Max says through closed teeth because he’s still smiling at Mrs. Anderson. I almost choke I laugh so suddenly and so hard. I’m still laughing when we get to the end of the street and make the turn heading to the main road.

  “I had fun last night,” Max says after giving me a minute.

  “Me too,” I say, now that the laughing fit is under control. I still have fits of giggles and Max smiles, so I know I’ve not hurt his feelings.

  “So I guess you don’t have a boyfriend?”

  I almost trip and the left over giggles disappear.

  “You guessed right,” I say gripping the handle of my umbrella a little tighter.

  “Why not?”

  Now this is an innocent enough question but one I am not prepared to answer. I’m not popular because basically, I’m invisible to the other kids. I’m not sociable and being an only child raised partly by old people makes my taste lean towards a more mature group when I think of people I want to surround myself with. To be honest I don’t think of myself as being on the same level. I’m more advanced. I don’t have the time for the pettiness of teenagers and I answer the question truthfully. “The boys at school are too young for me.”

  “So you date guys already out of high school?” Max asks.

  “I don’t date,” I say in a voice not my own. It’s low, almost a whisper.

  “Ever?” Max asks. I look at him to confirm that the sound of surprise in his voice is accurate.

  “No, I’ve never dated anyone.” I wait for Max to ask why not but he doesn’t.

  “You want to play Scrabble after school?”

  While I was glad to be off the subject of my nonexistent dating life, the abrupt change in subject makes me laugh. “What?”

  “You don’t know what Scrabble is?” he asks grinning at me.

  “Of course I know what Scrabble is. I just haven’t played a board game since Spot was a pup.”

  “I like how you talk,” he says.

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I like that about the South. You have cool slang and idioms.”

  The rain is getting worst and we can see lightening in the distant. A clap of thunder so loud it shakes the fillings in my teeth startles me and I jump a little. We pick up the pace. It’s going to get ugly soon. We reach school and we’re each wet just a little around the edges. The wind has finally come back.

  I’m shaking the excess water from my umbrella before going into the building. There are a few students standing outside under the columned front entrance of the school. I keep expecting Max to leave but... nope, he’s still standing next to me. He’s making me nervous. I turn to him once my umbrella is stowed in my backpack.

  “See you later.”

  “See you later,” he says.

  For a moment it looks like he was going to say something else. But maybe that was my imagination.