Triangles

by Kimberly Ann Miller

  “But Autumn—”

  I narrowed my eyes. “You’re my guardian, Jessica. Not my mother. Leave me alone.” I grabbed my plate and cup and pushed my chair back. Lemonade dripped onto my thumb from squeezing my cup too hard. “I’m going to finish eating in my room. See ya.” I snatched the bag of chips off the table and stomped down the hall, struggling to hold everything without spilling it all over me.

  Footsteps followed me. I slammed the door to my cramped bedroom and locked it. A second later, she banged on it.

  “Open up!” She tugged on the doorknob. I watched the knob jiggle from the safety of my messy bed.

  “Go away!” I threw a handful of chips at the door, but they gave up halfway there and tumbled to the ground, landing next to the magazine I’d thrown at the door a few days ago. Jessica had a knack of pushing me to throw stuff. “Bye, Jessica. It’s time for you to go to work.” I quieted down and listened for her retreat.

  She smacked the door. “Fine. You’d better pack while I’m gone because we leave tomorrow.”

  “I’m not going!” I threw another handful of chips. They crunched and scattered as the pile on the floor multiplied. I was close enough to reach down and grab them from the comfort of my single bed, but that would detract from the statement I was trying to make, so I left them.

  “Oh, yes you are!” She jiggled the knob a few times. “God, Autumn, why do I bother?”

  I heard her footsteps fade as she walked down the short hallway and slammed the front door. The whole apartment shook.

  I sighed and focused on a photo of us from when I was five and she was ten. Mom had dressed Jessica as Little Bo Peep for Halloween. I had gotten to be the sheep. Jessica had held my hand all day, had carried my candy, and had proudly told all her friends I was her sister. And when she’d gotten the only bag of Skittles between us, she’d given it to me.

  I really missed those days.

  Sleepy gobbled down the hot dog pieces I offered. “There’s no sense in going back. Sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day isn’t going to help me save up enough money to get out of Jersey.” October twenty-first could not come soon enough. How many months left till I turned eighteen? Ugh.

  I hopped off the bed and checked my bank balance online against the five grand I needed to make my escape.

  Three grand short. Great. With the expenses of gas, car insurance, helping Jessica with the groceries, and a little bit of fun, I’d never be able to save enough on my pitiful salary.

  I needed a distraction.

  I snuck into Jessica’s room and grabbed her latest nursing magazine. The images fascinated me, especially pictures of strange rashes. I never told anyone because they would think I was weird. Even Nisha had no idea about my unique hobby. I felt like I was sneaking peeks at porn, but I could already identify a few rashes just by looking at them.

  I thought it was kinda cool.

  When I finished the mag, I dialed Nisha and asked her to come over and help me pack.

  She brought over chai lattes from Starbucks. I had a supply of yellow Gatorade ready in exchange for her assistance. We had the hot and cold covered.

  “You gonna hang out with Joey on the ship? He’s gonna trip all over himself when he sees your bod in a bikini.” She opened one of my drawers and held up a black string bikini I’d gotten last summer.

  “No way!” This trip was supposed to be about getting away from it all, not having it all come with me. “And how the hell did he end up booking the exact same cruise as me? It’s a little strange, don’t you think? I didn’t tell him I was going, so he must have been listening to me talk on my phone. My mom planned this, like, two years ago.” I opened another drawer and pulled out various pairs of shorts, making two piles on my bed—pack and put away. I pointed to the pile I’d bring with me. “That’s what I’m packing.”

  “Okay. Maybe Joey saw the brochure in your car?” She sipped her chai as she examined a yellow bathing suit I’d gotten the week before. “Jessica could have told him when she had her oil changed, too. Doesn’t she chat with him?”

  “Yeah, she does. She thinks he’s a great future boyfriend for me. She forgets what high school was like with that little puppy dude following you around.” With her fantastic looks, Jessica had every dude following her around. “But I was careful never to mention the cruise at work.”

  She laughed, but then looked at the floor and avoided my gaze. My eyes grew wide. “You didn’t tell him, did you? I’ll kill you. No, rephrase that. I’ll torture you until you die!”

  She shook her head. “No. I swear. But he might have heard me talking at work about wanting to go with you. You never said it was a secret, Raynie.”

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Great. Now I can have him following me around at work AND on vacation. Lucky me.” Maybe I’d jump overboard and disappear. Then Jessica could hang out with him all she wanted and I could be left alone.

  Like I wanted.

  “Admit it.” She poked me playfully. “You think he’s cute, even though he annoys you.” She held up the swimsuits. “Which one?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, okay, fine. He’s cute. So what? I already told you, though. I’m not hooking up with anyone who’s going to tie me down. I need to get out of here. And I’ll take both suits. Can you grab my cover-up out of that drawer, too?”

  She tossed the suits and cover-up in my “to pack” pile. “Ooh la la, Autumn likes Joey! ‘Autumn and Joey, sittin’ in a tree—’”

  I sighed and threw my pillow at her. She ducked just in time to avoid a face shot and laughed.

  “Nish, I’d consider going out with him if he wasn’t so clingy and needy. I mean, he’s the kind of guy who would freak out if I broke up with him. Who needs the drama? Not me.”

  She shrugged. “What, you don’t want to end up on some talk show about your suicidal boyfriend? It’s all the rage these days. You guys could chase each other around the stage and watch the bouncer’s muscles bulge.”

  “Ha ha. So not interested, thanks.”

  “Besides, Joey is the least of your worries. The Bermuda Triangle should top your list of things to worry about on this vacation.”

  I laughed. “Hardly. I’m not exactly worried about swirling down some massive toilet bowl in the middle of the ocean.”

  She pulled her fingers through her long black hair. “You joke, but planes and boats go missing, and people think aliens abduct them or they get sucked into a time warp or the military is doing experiments. I’ve even heard theories about alternate realities, black holes, giant gas bubbles…” She took a deep breath and sighed. “The Bermuda Triangle has been sucking people in for hundreds of years. You might be next.”

  I laughed. “What a load of crap.” A sudden thought lit up my face. “But maybe if I’m lucky, one of those aliens will take Joey. Ya think?”

  I shook my head and reached into my closet. When I pulled my sunhat down from the top shelf, a box toppled over and crashed onto my left foot.

  “Ow. Shit!” I yelled. I hopped on one foot and glared at the cause of my pain. It was my memory box.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” Not really. I stared at the box, decorated with cat wrapping paper, that held my most secret memories.

  “What’s that?” Nisha asked.

  I turned my back to her so she couldn’t see my face turning red and my eyes filling with tears. “My memory box. The one with my Mom and Dad stuff in it. I haven’t looked at it in months.”

  She rubbed my back. “Want a minute?”

  I nodded. “Thanks. Can you get out some socks and underwear for me? I’ll be right back.”

  I took the box into the bathroom with me and locked the door. I pulled the lid off and scanned the pile of cards, notes and letters, mostly from my dad. After he’d died when I was little, I’d blamed myself. Like a spoiled child, I’d refused to let anyone sing “Happy Birthday” to me until he arrived. As he sped toward home, he got killed in a terrible car wreck. Since then, I’
d collected and squirreled away every single thing I could find that he had written or signed. Old cards, notes left for Mom, anything. Rubbing my fingertip over the indents of his heavy-handed script, I closed my eyes and pictured him standing there with me as he scribbled. I could almost smell his aftershave.

  At the bottom of the pile sat the last birthday card Mom had given me. The crease was almost split from being opened and closed so often. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” I whispered to the cat wearing a birthday hat on the front of the card. “Please snap out of it, so I can tell you that.” I was so going to Hell. Killing one parent and almost doing another parent in couldn’t possibly look good for me on Judgment Day.

  “Raynie, half your socks don’t pair up,” Nisha yelled from my bedroom.

  I replaced everything in the box and went back to my bedroom to pack. I looked for everything on the list Jessica had left for me. “I wish Jessica would stop organizing everything. I can’t find the stuff I need!” I dumped out a drawer as I searched for my other bathing suit cover-up. “Get my suitcase out from under the bed, will you?” I asked as my arms got swallowed up in a pile of summer clothes. “I want to get this vacation over with.”

  “Oh, come on. You could use a little fun. All you do is work and hang out with your stupid cat.”

  I dumped the pile of clothes on her head. “Sleepy is not stupid! Call him stupid again, and I’ll pee in your Gatorade. And you won’t know the difference because of that nasty yellow color.” I tapped the side of the half-empty Gatorade bottle sitting on my nightstand. “You’d better take great care of him while I’m gone, because if one hair is out of place when I get back I’m coming after you!”

  She shook off the clothes and lifted a black lace thong. “Want to take this?” She winked at me. “You never know who you’ll meet.”

  We laughed, but a knock at the front door distracted me. I shot Nisha a glance and ripped the underwear from her hand. She followed behind me as I peeked out the front window.

  I sighed. “It’s freakin’ Joey. I’m not answering it.”

  He knocked again. “Autumn? I know you’re home. Your car’s in the parking lot. You forgot your paycheck.”

  Nisha put her hands on my shoulders and peeked at Joey from behind me. “That was sweet of him,” she whispered into my ear. “Open the door.”

  I pushed her off me and swung the door open. “Hey.”

  He smiled, but when his eyes diverted to my hand they went wide for a moment. He cleared his throat, then held up the envelope with my check. “Um, you, uh, left this at the garage. I just wanted to make sure you got it in case you needed it, and, uh, I was driving right by.”

  Oh, goody.

  I looked at Nisha. She grinned. I took the check and handed it to Nisha. “Thank you, Joey. But you didn’t have to go out of your way just for me.”

  He shifted his stance and ran a hand through his hair. “It’s not a problem. I’m heading over to a buddy’s house and you were on the way.”

  “Well, thanks. I have to go. See you at work.” I closed the door.

  I spun around to face Nisha. “What was with that stuttering?”

  She chuckled, then pointed to the thong I still held in my hand. “I bet he was imagining you in your underwear.”

  Three

  The next day, I dragged that black thong and everything else I’d packed through the port in Bayonne. Jessica led me through the mile-long security line like the travel pro she was.

  “This trip had better be worth that inspection.” I readjusted my dress after we practically went through cavity searches.

  “God, Autumn, can you shut up for one minute and enjoy this? Mom planned this trip almost two years ago. Try to have a little fun. It won’t kill you.”

  After we finished with security and walked toward the monstrous ship, I stopped dead in my tracks. I’d never seen anything like it. The huge white cruise ship resembled a floating city on the dark water. People moved and swayed and hung over sparkling wet railings. A vibe of excitement surrounded the ship, which almost hummed beneath their feet. Balconies with waving families reminded me of the movie Titanic. A rock climbing wall jutted up out of the ship and pointed to the clouds above. Seagulls flew overhead, squawking to be noticed and fed. Calypso music, laughter, and the smell of salty ocean water flooded the air.

  I closed my eyes and inhaled the humid air, then let the breath out slowly. Maybe I could try to have a little fun. My life had done nothing but suck for a long time now.

  “Hey there.”

  I jumped at the words whispered into my ear and opened my eyes. Standing in front of me was Marcus, the gorgeous guy from the bank. “Going my way?”

  Was anyone I knew NOT on this cruise? Weird. I smiled as I drank him in.

  Damn, he was hot. He smiled at me with straight teeth surrounded by full lips. Black wavy hair framed his face. Tan Bermuda shorts, a mint-green polo shirt, and flip-flops completed his vacation look. He was about an inch shorter than me, which usually turned me off.

  Not today.

  “I’m—”

  “Marcus,” I finished for him. “I know you from the bank. You also went out with my sister, Jessica Taylor, once.”

  His sexy light-gray eyes betrayed a moment of surprise, but he composed himself and nodded. “Yeah, I remember. That was a while ago.”

  Really, it was a month. But to a guy like him, that probably was a while ago when it came to dating. “She’s here with me on the ship. But don’t worry, she didn’t tell me anything too bad about you.” I smirked as I imagined what he was thinking she could have told me.

  He ran his hand through his thick hair. “I plead the fifth.”

  I chuckled and changed the subject. “I’ve seen you in the pizza place—”

  “Yes, you have. And I noticed you, too. You eat there sometimes with your friend and your boyfriend, right?”

  I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Uh, no. That would be my friend and my shadow.”

  His smile widened. He took a step toward me. “Oh! That’s cool.” He looked at his silver Tommy Hilfiger watch, then glanced around the docks. “Listen, I’m meeting my family shortly. We take this cruise every year for our family reunion. Same week, same ship. A bunch of relatives I don’t care about all in one place.” He winked at me. “Lucky me.”

  “Lucky you. I’m Autumn.” I extended my right hand out to him. He took it and shook it with a gentle grip.

  “Autumn? Cool name. Great to finally meet you.” The breeze picked up and carried the scent of Polo from his direction. “Since he isn’t your boyfriend, is someone else the lucky guy?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Maybe.”

  He grinned and pointed at the massive ship that bobbed in the water behind me. “Are you interested in hanging out with me on the ship?”

  I smirked. “Probably.”

  His eyes sparkled at my words. Behind him, Jessica struggled with her carry-on and a handful of brochures. Her digital camera slipped from her wrist and landed on her sneakered foot.

  Even though she struggled, she still looked beautiful. Her long, pale yellow hair blew around her face in the breeze, accenting her dark green eyes. Her white cami and barely-there shorts suited her perfect body. People said we looked like twins, but her blonde hair made all the difference. Watching her, I considered dyeing my brown hair to match hers.

  “I’d better go help my sister. She’s doing a poor job of juggling back there. I’ll see you on the ship, then?”

  He winked. “Count on it.” He waved as he headed toward a group of colorfully dressed people with silver hair. They rushed toward him and hugged him. As I watched, he glanced at me over a tiny gray-haired woman and smiled.

  I walked over to Jessica and grabbed some of the papers out of her hand, my eyes still on Marcus. “You know what, Jessica? This might not be so bad after all.” When he ran his hand through his hair again, I imagined how it would feel for him to run that hand through my hair and over my body. Goosebumps marc
hed down my arms like a tiny band of ants tickling my skin.

  Jessica followed my stare. “Who’s that?”

  “Marcus, the guy from the bank by Shore Auto. Remember, you went out with him last month?”

  She narrowed her eyes in his direction. “Oh, yes, I do remember him. The lying stud.”

  I laughed. “That’d be him. But he is kinda cute, don’t you think?”

  She nodded. “Of course. That’s why I went out with him, but he’s too young for me. If you don’t care about the likelihood that he’s a player, go have a little fun. But not too much, Autumn. God knows what he’s carrying around in those shorts!”

  Hmm. I wondered what he had in his shorts, but not the way Jessica was thinking. “Let’s get to our cabin and unpack.”

  “Okay, but Autumn, I want you to lather up with sunscreen. At least SPF 15. And did you bring a hat? I don’t want your scalp to burn. Skin cancer’s a serious reality—”

  I covered her mouth with my palm. “Jessica, be quiet. Breathe. Relax. This is vacation, remember? Can you be my sister instead of my mom for a few days? Please?”

  She sighed and grabbed my hand, pulling me into the cavernous main area. I had to hold on tight to keep her close amidst the substantial crowds. Throngs of vacationers, dressed in every bright color imaginable, filled most of the visible space. We snaked our way through to the information center for directions to our room. A gorgeous customer service representative with a plastered-on smile directed us to take an elevator to the ninth floor. When the elevator doors opened, I faced the longest corridor I’d ever seen. Matching cabin doors dotted the length of it. The checkered yellow and green carpet repeated its pattern throughout the hall.

  Our room was two doors from the end of the hall. As we walked toward our temporary home, I peeked in some of the rooms as other passengers opened their doors. The rooms were all clones of each other. The only difference was the inhabitants.