Becoming Death

by Melissa Brown

  “Thanks, Mom. You’re the best. You have no idea how much this means to me.”

  “I would summarize its worth approximately five hundred dollars, give or take.”

  I gave the air a well-timed punch and collapsed back onto the sofa as my mother walked upstairs to her bedroom. The expected soft landing was replaced with a jolt to my tailbone. I jumped up, swearing under my breath, and rubbed my backside. Annoyed, I tugged at the cushions, ripping them from the base.

  My eyes widened as I saw the bottom of the sofa had been hollowed out and replaced with a large wooden trunk. The trunk looked ancient, with a heavy iron padlock mounted on the front. A name was carved jaggedly into the lid— my name: M. Clark. For a moment, I forgot I was in my mother’s home. I was overcome with an insatiable desire to open the trunk. Why was my name on it? Where had it come from? I pulled at the lock on the front, trying unsuccessfully to remove it. I had to open it. I had to know what was inside.

  “Madison, what are you doing?”

  I looked behind me to see my mother standing in the doorway frowning.

  “Mom, what is this? Why does it have my name on it?”

  My mother crossed the room in three steps, grabbed my forearm and began pulling me away from the trunk. “That old thing? It’s nothing important.”

  “Mom, it has my name on it.”

  “Stop being so dramatic, Madison. Honestly, it’s nothing to do with you.” She stuffed a piece of paper into my hand. “Here’s your money. I think you should go.”

  I ignored the check and I turned back to the mystery trunk. “Mom, seriously, what did you do to your couch? Why are you hiding a trunk with my name on it here?”

  My mother wrapped her arm around my shoulders and shooed me towards the front door. “It’s my trunk and it’s none of your business. Can’t I have a few secrets?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and planted my feet on the floor. “No, of course not. You’re my mother.”

  She gave me a firm but gentle shove through the front door and onto the wooden porch. “Well, if you must know. I have someone coming over. He’ll be here any minute. I don’t want you to disturb us.”

  “You have a boyfriend?”

  My mother couldn’t have a boyfriend. I didn’t even have a boyfriend. She was old— she didn’t date.

  “Yes, I most certainly do. He’ll be here any second, so you have to leave,” she insisted before pulling the door to close it.

  I wedged my foot between the door and the frame. “Really? I thought you were still hung up on Dad. Can I meet this new guy?”

  My mother’s lip shook. “It’s been ten years. I have needs.”

  “Eww, Mom, I didn’t need that image.”

  “No, I need companionship and romance. Don’t you see, this is why you can’t possibly stay. I’ll see you on Sunday.” She pushed me back and slammed the door in my face.

  Chapter 2

  Job hunting was my version of hell. When I was still in high school, I thought becoming an adult would flip some magical switch that would mean instant freedom to do everything I wanted and buy anything I wanted. The reality of it is you’ve got to work to live and live to work. I wasn’t cut out for fake smiles and trying to make being a fry cook sound glamorous. I had been lucky to find Linda; she didn’t put up with bull, and the first lie you told was also your last. We clicked instantly, but unfortunately managers like her in Juniper Bay were in short supply.

  By the end of Friday, part of me expected a phone call from the Guinness office; six rejections in one day had to be some kind of record. I had tried, I really had, but everything seemed to be against me. I had practiced my interview answers most of the night with Aaron only to draw a complete blank on every question. My lack of sleep had gotten to me. I couldn’t think straight anymore.

  I had made an effort, wearing my only suit and a new pair of sensible heels that had looked respectable and comfortable in the store. They were a lie; these were not shoes but mini torture devices set on rubbing all the skin off my ankle. I had at least three blisters on my right foot, and my left was so sore it had gone numb hours ago. My mop of red hair had been tied back in a suffocating bun, but somehow it turned into a knot of hair soaked against my head. I pushed back an escaping wet strand of hair from my forehead as I cursed the unseasonably warm weather. A black suit had been the wrong choice for today. Instead of looking professional I was sweaty and smelt ripe.

  I just wanted this to be over. I held my last resume in my damp fingers. This had to be the one. My daily newspaper horoscope had assured me there would be a change in my life. I channeled every motivational speaker I had seen on TV and gave myself a quick pep talk. I would get this job. Nothing could stop me. I was the perfect candidate. I lifted my sagging shoulders and forced a smile across my lips. I could do this.

  I wobbled under the neon sombrero as I opened the door to El Taco restaurant. The smell of stale burritos and the sound of Mariachi music engulfed me. The walls were painted a bright orange, and everywhere I looked piñatas, pictures of donkeys and ponchos covered the wall. The lingering smell of french fries and dried milkshake had been burned into my nasal passages but this was somehow worse. I held back a gag as a plump Hispanic woman wearing a mini-sombrero in her hair waved me inside. I walked across the room to the yellow counter and was met with a welcome smile.

  “¡Hola! ¿Eres Madison Clark?”

  I tilted my head, playfully replying, “Hola.”

  “Por favor sigame, mi nombre es la Señorita Garcia,” the woman said, motioning for me to follow her.

  I fumbled with my resume and took a step back. “Sorry I don’t—” I started to explain, but the woman walked away towards the back of the restaurant. Rolling my eyes, I followed her down the ugly green hallway to a door that read “Jefa.”

  Señorita Garcia’s desk was decorated with cheap looking plush toys she had clearly won from a claw machine. “Sentarse,” she said, motioning at the chair.

  I sat down in the chair opposite her and placed my resume in front of her. She pushed it to the side without a second glance.

  “I think—” I tried to explain again but was interrupted.

  “¿Cual es su experiencia previa de trabajo?”

  This couldn’t be happening. I rubbed my forehead. Why wouldn’t she just listen to me for a second? The ad didn’t say anything about being fluent in anything.

  I closed my eyes, tried to remember any of the Spanish Aaron had attempted to teach me over the years and replied, “Sí?”

  Señorita Garcia raised her eyebrow. “¿Sí? ¿Dónde estaba su último trabajo?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “Muchas gracias.”

  The woman narrowed her eyes at me. “¿Usted no habla Español,verdad?”

  “S’il vous plait.”

  “¡Salir de mi oficina ahora, niña tonta!” Señorita Garcia shouted as she pointed towards the door.

  I didn’t need to understand Spanish to know what she had said. Her “loco” tone was understandable in every language. I grimaced as I stood up from the chair. “Excuse me, but you never said in the advertisement that this job required you to be fluent in Spanish. Maybe you should ask next time?”

  The woman picked up an advertisement with a sentence in Spanish scrolled across the bottom. “Yes, I did. Usted es un fraude y una mentirosa.”

  Blushing, I turned away from the woman and retreated to the door.

  Shoving my sweaty palms into my pockets, I sprinted out of the restaurant to my Beetle. I slammed the door and rested my head on the fuzzy pink steering wheel cover. That was it, seven rejections. I considered a lawsuit against the Evening News for the false hope of their horoscope. I jammed my key into the ignition and heard my car’s engine stutter.

  “Seriously? Not now!” I shouted at the car. After trying the key again, I was met with the same effect. I kicked the pedals. “I hate you, you stupid piece of junk.”

  I crumbled onto the steering wheel and seethed in my seat. Was
I being punked or something? Perhaps I was a contestant on a sick game show. Shaking my head, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my contacts until I came to Aaron. My chest rose and fell as I listened to his phone ring until his voicemail asked for my message. I hung up and scrolled to my mother’s details. I paused for a moment before continuing onto my sister’s name.

  “Clarissa… Clark,” my sister’s voice came out strained as she fumbled with the receiver.

  “Hey Clarissa, it’s me. My car is dead, can you please come get me?”

  I could almost hear my older sister roll her eyes through the receiver. “Madison, I’m at work. If your car won’t start call AAA. That’s their job.”

  “I can’t. I canceled them last month. Can you please just come get me? Today has been really bad, the blisters on my feet are bleeding and I’m stuck in the bad end of town. Please don’t make me walk home,” I blubbered into the receiver.

  I waited in silence before my sister answered with one word. “Fine.”

  “I’m at El Taco on Park Road. I’ll be in my car.”

  “I’ll be there in a half hour,” my sister said and hung up.

  Thirty minutes later, my sister’s silver luxury car pulled up next to mine and she honked the horn. I bolted up in my seat and, with a defeated sigh, yanked open my door. I crossed over to her car, setting into the passenger seat.

  I waved at her. “Hey.”

  Clarissa looked frazzled. Her face was flushed and her curly hair was knotted into a loose bun with a pencil. Her pearl necklace was on backwards and half the buttons on her blouse weren’t lined up properly.

  “Everything okay?”

  She shooed me away with a open palm before I noticed she was wearing a pair of ear buds that ran from her phone. “Of course, Nick, I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise we will finish our meeting. See you soon,” she said, twisting the wires.

  “Thanks for coming to get me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t answered.”

  Without an acknowledgment of my thank you, my sister drove out of the parking lot and back onto the road. She tapped her well-manicured nails against the steering wheel and lowered her eyes at me. I turned towards the window, trying to look fascinated by the strip mall lining the road.

  “I can’t believe you made me come all the way out here to get you,” Clarissa said.

  I leaned back in my seat and kicked off my shoes. “Nice to see you too, sis. I see you’re as chipper as always.”

  “Madison, I can’t always be your personal chauffeur. I was in the middle of an important meeting. A delay like this could put me behind a day,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose.

  I pushed back some stray hair with my hand. “Next time, I’ll just walk home.”

  “Don’t be that way. I just need you to understand where I’m coming from. I was in the middle of something important. You made me disappoint a client.”

  I held the side of my face. “Sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you just call Aaron or Mom?”

  “I couldn’t. Aaron didn’t answer, and I’ve already asked Mom for enough this week.”

  She looked over at me. “What did you ask Mom for?”

  I coughed. “Money.”

  “I’m guessing the job search didn’t go well. I wish I could help, but there are no job openings in my company.”

  I slumped forwards against my seat belt. “This might possibly be the worst day of my life… Well, second worst.”

  Clarissa patted my thigh. She knew I meant the day of the accident. I smiled at my big sister. Sometimes she was alright.

  The thought of my father reminded me of my mother’s strange behavior. “Have you noticed Mom has been acting all weird lately? I found this trunk hidden inside her couch. She’d hollowed it out or something. I think she might need to see a doctor.”

  “She what? A trunk?” Clarissa asked, pausing longer than was needed at the stop sign to adjust her pearl necklace.

  “It looked really old, and the weirdest thing was it had my name on it.”

  “It said Madison on it?”

  “It said M. Clark. I tried to have a closer look at it but Mom kicked me out. She’s hiding something.”

  “You’re not the only M. Clark,” Clarissa corrected me. “Maybe it was Marty Clark, not Madison.”

  “You think it’s something to do with Dad?” I asked.

  “Why wouldn’t it be? It’s in their house. It’s his initial.”

  A shiver went down my spine as I remembered the way the name was jaggedly cut across the wood, like it was in pain. “I’m not sure. Don’t you think it’s a bit strange? I’m going to have to ask her about it again.”

  Clarissa shook her head. “Just leave it. If it’s Dad’s you’ll only just upset her. You know how she gets. Don’t worry, I’ll speak to her and sort it all out.”

  “Fine,” I lied. “Did Mom tell you about her new boyfriend?”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Yeah, when I found the trunk she made an excuse that I had to leave because her boyfriend was coming over.”

  “Oh, you mean Gary.”

  “Gary?”

  “Gary Rerry, that guy Mom went out with a few weeks ago,” Clarissa explained.

  “That can’t seriously be his name, it sounds like a bad Scooby Doo impression”

  Clarissa shot me an annoyed look.

  “What? Mom never even told me she was dating someone, let alone someone with a ridiculous name.”

  “Can’t you be an adult for even a few seconds?” Clarissa sighed. “Whether she told you about it or not, another date sounds like they’re getting serious. She’ll probably let you meet him eventually. You shouldn’t make fun of him. He’s a nice guy but so shy.”

  Of course, Clarissa had met him. Why was I surprised?

  “Any chance of a pit stop?” I asked, playing with the switch for my window.

  Clarissa tutted but asked, “Why? What do you want? I’m in a hurry to get back to the office.”

  “The new issue of Skye Hawke is out today and Stan the comic man has put a copy aside for me.”

  “I thought you didn’t have any money and were relying on Mom to finance you?”

  “It’s only a couple dollars, plus it would make me feel so much better after what I’ve been there today,” I told her. “Come on, Clarissa,” I whined, shaking her sleeve. “I’ll be in and out in five minutes, I promise.”

  She sighed. “Aren’t you too old for comics?”

  “Never. I need to do research for my stories.”

  “I suppose. We can’t disappoint your fan literature readers,” she said, looking towards the ceiling.

  “Fan fiction readers. I have to get it posted quickly, before someone else takes all the good plot threads,” I said.

  “If you showed this much enthusiasm for finding a job instead of that junk, you’d employed by now,” Clarissa told me.

  I shot her a frown. “Don’t judge it until you’ve read it. Skye and Ethan are one of the greatest romantic pairings in history. In the last issue, Ethan walked in on Skye wearing only a towel. They are so going to get together in this issue,” I said, bouncing in my seat.

  My sister’s eyes widened. “We’ll stop, but only on the condition I don’t have to hear anymore about the greatest couple in history. Save it for the Internet,” Clarissa said, heading in the direction of the comic store.

  Chapter 3

  I wobbled into my apartment to find my roommate engaged in some sort of epic video game showdown between a troll and a wizard. I collapsed on the sofa next to him and lay my head on his shoulder.

  “You have no idea what I have been through today.”

  Aaron flicked away a strand of curly hair from his eyes. “Hold on, I’ll join your pity party in a second. I’ve been playing this guy on and off for three days and I’m about to settle this, once and for all.” He jammed the buttons of his game controller, muttering curse words under his breath.
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  “It’s okay, I have Ethan and Skye to comfort me,” I said, pulling out my new comic to examine it.

  “Well you’re missing the fight of the century.”

  I winced as Aaron’s avatar, the wizard, took a painful looking punch to the abdomen. “Are you sure you want to fight this guy? Your wizard doesn’t seem to be doing so good.”

  Aaron shrugged. “He’s just some twelve-year-old in Russia. Nothing to be worried about. Believe me, I’ve got this.”

  I checked the scores and Aaron’s health bar. “Your death count says otherwise. It looks like he’s handing you your ass.”

  “Lies! Scandal!” he said, nudging me with his elbow.

  The TV screen exploded with light and I couldn’t resist smiling as the Russian kid took advantage of Aaron’s momentary distraction to finish him off with a magic grenade.

  “Hey!” he shouted, tossing his controller on the floor. He turned towards me. “Mads, I didn’t know you were working with the Russians.”

  I set my comic down on the side table and held my hands up. “Don’t blame me, I didn’t throw the grenade.” The troll on the screen rubbed in his win by doing a victory dance on the wizard’s remains.

  “In Soviet Russia, there are spies everywhere,” Aaron said, reaching to tickle my side.

  I pushed him away, holding up one finger. “Knock it off. I am too tired and sweaty to deal with your immature behavior, Aaron Rodriguez.”

  “Point taken. Spill.”

  I picked up the remote, ending Aaron’s torture. “Well, my day was full of suck. Every one of my interviews went badly. I’ve been shouted at today, ignored and been called a fraud in Spanish. At least that’s what I think she called me. It could have been a porcupine for all I know.”

  “Maybe it was. Your hair does stick up sometimes.”

  I ran my hand through my hair, smoothing it down. “If she had just made it clearer I needed to speak Spanish, I wouldn’t have bothered.”

  He reached an arm around me. “You mean you didn’t pick up enough to get by from listening to JLo and me over the years?”