The Change

by Cass Kim

  “Alright.” Aunt Miranda nodded slowly, seeming to consider her answer. “Well, not to put too fine a point on this but: you are a teenager.” She gestured with her mug, “Now, I’m not saying that’s an excuse to be mean to people. I’m guessing you owe your Mom a long talk and a very sincere apology. But,” she slouched a little to reach eye level with Holly, “It’s not easy being a teenager.”

  Holly sniffed back mucus, wiping anxiously at her cheeks. “What would you know about it? You’re, like, the nicest human anyone’s ever met.”

  One thin, light eyebrow lifted in response, “I take it your Mom never told you about the time I cut her hair off while she slept?”

  The thought of cheerful, fun, Aunty Mir chopping away at her feisty and tough older sister’s hair startled Holly out of her tears. She would never have put money on Aunty Mir in any kind of fight against her mom. Especially not a devious, mean spirited fight.

  “What happened? Why’d you do it?”

  “She deserved it. And she deserved not being able to put her hair up in that updo she wanted to for prom that year too.” Miranda’s smile was smug, guiltless. “You see, she’d told the whole cafeteria that day at lunch that I’d started my period. I was mortified. And she’d dropped a handful of tampons right on my lunch tray. In front of Jessica Milne.”

  “Who’s Jessica Milne?” Holly was pretty sure she’d die of embarrassment if that happened to her. It was dumb, every girl has a period, it’s not like some secret. But all of them acted like it was such a gross thing.

  “She,” Aunt Mir tucked a stray hair back up into her bun, “was the first girl I ever told your Mom I had a crush on.”

  “What? You told Mom in high school? I thought you never came out ‘til like, way later.”

  “Your Mom could be pretty mean, too, Kid. But she was always my sister first. She knew, but she never said anything to our parents, or to anyone else at the school.”

  Holly nodded. Yeah, tough but loyal sounded a lot like her mom. “So, what happened? Did that Jessica girl get all weird? Did you guys ever date after that?”

  “Nah. She didn’t get too weird until I told her how I felt. Let’s just say I was barking up the wrong tree.”

  “What about Mom?” Holly’s voice was low, intense. “How’d you get her to forgive you?” She didn’t want to leave for college with things like they were.

  “That, kid, is a story for tonight when we’re all hopped up on sugar and have seen one too many bad horror films.” Her aunt tipped the cup up and polished off her coffee. “Right now, we’re going to take your mind off this mood by teaching you how to make killer frittatas.”

  Chapter 3

  Holly woke just as the downstairs door closed with a thunk. She stretched, loathe to leave the warmth of the covers on Aunty Mir’s guest bed. She knew those tiled floors would freeze her feet. Her stomach hurt from laughing so much. Yawning hard enough to crack her jaw, Holly sighed and threw back the covers. She had three texts from Joanie, which she ignored. Not today. Today she was going to just be Holly. Not Holly-Joanie’s-sidekick. And not Holly-who-partied-all-the-time. It was nice to wake up on a weekend and be hangover-free. Just a tiny sugar rush headache from so many gummy worms. She started to flip through her social media accounts, scrolling aimlessly through selfies and party photos before stopping. Deliberately, she set her phone down.

  “Not today,” she whispered to herself with a small smile. Feeling weightless for the first time in a long time, Holly danced down the hallway and into the bathroom.

  Once she’d completed her morning routine, she found a pair of woolly socks Aunty Mir had left her at the top of the stairs, with a note stuck to them. Sitting on the top stair, she plucked the note off and shoved her feet into the plush socks. The note was written in a hurried scrawl:

  Hey Kid,

  Sorry I have to work all day today. Put these socks on! A good pair of socks are like a hug for the feet. I get the feeling you’ve been a little standoffish for hugs lately. Now that you’re mine for the week, we’re going to get you fixed right up. I know my sweet little Holl-bug is still in there. I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday, and I have an idea. Pancake batter in the fridge – do NOT cook it on high heat.

  Holly rolled her eyes. She’d done that one time. One time! The resulting burnt crust on the outside and raw batter on the inside had been inedible.

  Come to the restaurant for a late lunch and I’ll make you something special. I need a taste tester for a few dishes, so come hungry! The address is on the fridge. XOXOXO

  Yawning widely and stretching briefly again, Holly tucked the note into the front pocket of her hoodie and made her way into the kitchen. Aunt Miranda’s restaurant must be doing really well for her to hire a housekeeper. Plus, she had that enormous TV in the living room now with the surround sound setup. It had made the horror movies so much better than when they’d watched them from laptops when Holly was twelve and they had a standing horror movie date every Friday. Only then they’d watched them during the daylight hours. It was weird how some days it felt like so long ago. Last night, those easier childhood days had seemed like just yesterday.

  Holly grabbed the remote and flipped the TV on for some background noise while she cooked the pancakes. Her aunt must have been watching the news before work and Holly left it there. She was too hungry to bother channel surfing. Plopping the pan on the stove, she lit the burner beneath it, pulling the bowl of pancake mix from the fridge. The smell of coffee drifted over from the French press sitting on the kitchen bar, still warm to the touch.

  “Aunty Mir, you are the freaking best,” Holly murmured to herself as she splashed milk into a mug and slowly drizzled the coffee into it, letting it mix itself as she poured. Maybe she’d see if she could just get a job at the restaurant and work there for a year or two while she figured out what she wanted to do with her life. Then she’d have Aunt Miranda on her side against her parent’s arguments for the importance of college.

  Once her pancakes were done and buttered, she carried the plate and fork over to the couch. There she settled in, balancing the plate on crossed legs. Crap. She’d left the remote over on the kitchen counter. With a shrug, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to watch a little news anyhow. She was too perfectly positioned to mess it up just for the remote.

  It was one of those international news stations. The anchor reporting was a woman with a blunt chin length bob and burgundy lipstick. The coverage was something about the stock market. Alright, that was pretty boring. Holly dug into the pancakes, savoring the hint of nutmeg. Delicious as always. Just as she was finishing up, the station flipped to one of those live coverage shots, with a male anchor standing in the streets of Paris, the Eiffel Tower in the background. The streets were covered in debris. Yellow caution tape was strung around holding onlookers back. Another terrorist attack? Holly felt sure she would have seen something about that on social media, with people sending thoughts and prayers from far away.

  She was getting up to grab the remote when the station flashed to a few other cities in rapid succession. One of them was New York. The banner at the bottom of the screen changed from the blue scrolling words to a solid red with a large white letter sentence reading, “New Drug Hits Streets Across the World.” Huh. Holly watched a moment as the screen changed to a list of cities where authorities had put down or detained the wild drug users for the safety of others. The death toll was over three hundred worldwide. There were at least fifteen cities on the list, half of which Holly wasn’t even sure which country they were in. A couple she recognized from the United States and Canada. Chicago wasn’t one, though.

  With a shrug, Holly walked over and put her dishes in the sink, grabbing the remote and flipping channels for a while. She watched reality TV for a few hours, flipping between some show about rich housewives and her favorite MTV show where reality stars did physical challenges to try to win money. Once she got bored, she spent some time carefully flat ironing and then curlin
g her hair. As lunch time rolled around, she ambled back upstairs to shower and do her makeup before heading out to the restaurant.

  After she’d dried off she checked her phone. Four more messages from Joanie. Still no. One photo message from her mom with her parents posed in front of a giant cruise ship. Holly knew once they’d pulled out to sea they’d be unreachable for a few days. Her dad refused to pay the exorbitant wifi fees on principle. Thinking of her conversation last night, she typed a quick reply.

  Love you guys. Have fun.

  The instant she set her phone down, it vibrated. Sliding her thumb across she read the message from her aunt.

  Hey kid. Lunch rush is dying down, so head over whenever you’re ready!

  Perfect timing. Holly rushed through her makeup, forgoing the contouring and foundation she usually wore. Just a little shadow and mascara to make her eyes pop, and some tinted lip balm since she hated the feeling of dry lips. She shook her hair out of the bun she’d put it in for the shower as she trotted down the stairs. The take home menu for the restaurant was stuck to the fridge. She yanked it down, admiring the crisp elegant script that read “Mir’s Eatery” and whistled as she read the prices. You’d be hard pressed to find a meal that cost more than fifteen dollars at even the nicest place back home. That must be the cost of living in a city. Well, that’d be okay. Bigger bill, bigger tips, right? That wouldn’t be bad, if she did wait tables there.

  Flipping the menu over, she typed the address into her phone. She could walk a mile there, or walk a quarter mile to the subway, take the subway, then walk a half mile from the station on the other side of the restaurant. She might as well just walk the whole way. It’d probably take less time anyhow.

  She slapped the menu back on the fridge and pulled her hat down low. Then, because it wasn’t winter anymore, and her hair looked good, she pulled it back off. She wrapped the plaid scarf she’d gotten for Christmas around in a loose loop, draping it carefully against the navy blue sweater she wore. It was the middle of the day and sunny, so she skipped her coat. Coats just did not have the same stylish effect. She stuffed her feet into grey calf high boots, and headed out the door, turning the spare key and dropping that, along with her hat, into her shoulder bag.

  She stared at the phone screen for a moment, to get her bearings. It was so annoying how it said to go “West” instead of left or right. How was she supposed to know which way was West? She wasn’t a compass. She knew from experience that if she walked the wrong way she’d soon see that, and she could always backtrack.

  Which is exactly what she did. She walked briskly along, ducking her chin into the scarf and reaching up to adjust it to cover her ears. The wind was howling between buildings, the chill of it making her ears ache. Hunching against the cold, Holly tried to distract herself by looking around. A lot of people were roaming the streets, bustling and hustling. A couple of guys were on one of the corners with guitar cases open, playing acoustic music and singing a folksy song. She tugged her sweater down to try to keep the wind from sneaking into the gap between it and her jeans as she passed them.

  Balling her free hand to shield her fingers from the biting wind a few steps later, she returned to people watching. A little blond was being dragged along with her mother’s brisk pace. Holly grinned at the girl as she passed, admiring the unicorn hat tied firmly in place over her curls. The girl smiled back, staring over her shoulder at Holly while her mom kept her moving with a firm grasp on her hand. There was a hot dog stand with seven or eight people in line, huffing into their cupped fingers to warm them up between scrolling on their phones. The salty, warm smell of the food clung to the air around the stand.

  It was exciting, but also overstimulating to have so many people around all the time. Didn’t people ever want to just stay in and escape the crowds? Probably some were doing just that. With a population of over three million, the city was never quiet. She switched the phone between her hands, to give her other fingers a chance to hide from the frosty spring wind.

  She stared up at the skyscrapers and peeked into the windows of the small cute business storefronts as she wandered past, eyes half on her phone. A milling crowd of people staring into an electronics store, watching CNN of all things, caused her to stumble toward the busy street. Holly dodged back from the whizzing cars, casting a dirty look behind her. Ugh. It was just the stupid news.

  After a few minutes of walking she wished she’d just worn her stupid coat. Shivering, Holly debated going back to get it, but she was almost halfway there already. Vowing to be more practical next time, Holly snuggled her face deeper into her scarf. At least she had her hat and a pair of thin little dollar store gloves tucked in her shoulder bag. With a sigh, she clicked the lock screen on her phone and tucked it in the front pocket of the bag. Time to give up on her nice hair and get that hat over her throbbing ears. Holly stood still, digging around for a few minutes, scooting gum and lip balms around, shoving magazines to the side. Her cloth wallet seemed to find its way into her searching hand every time she thought she’d gripped her hat. Some guy on a bike whizzed past her, making her yelp and skitter sideways. She hadn’t realized how close she was to the street.

  Grumbling, she set her bag on a clean spot on the sidewalk to get a better look. It was much easier to lean down and dig around when her eyes could actually see inside. Snagging her hat, she shoved it over her auburn hair and snatched up her gloves. Holly straightened up, unfolding the gloves with the bag between her feet. That wind really bit right into exposed skin. Half numb, her fingers were clumsy, and it was a struggle to pull the thin cotton gloves on. The task was made harder when a kid in an oversized coat jostled into her, knocking her a few steps sideways. She opened her mouth to berate him for being so rude when he started running away. With her purse. That had her wallet. And her cellphone.

  “Are you freaking kidding me?” she shouted, dropping her gloves and taking off after him. Her soft soled boots skidded across the concrete as she sprinted, heart racing. She dodged around families and almost trampled a small dog out for a walk, her eyes glued to the back of his army green jacket. He dodged up and down the sidewalk, flying through crosswalks without even pausing. She was not going to lose him. He took another turn, now less than half a block ahead of her. Holly whipped around the corner after him, heedless of the thinning crowds, completely unaware of how many blocks she’d followed him. Her legs were eating up the pavement, closing the distance.

  Whenever she’d get almost close enough to snag the back of his coat, he’d dodge and make another turn. If Holly hadn’t been running track for years, she’d have been left in his dust minutes ago. He was fast. Her side was starting to stitch, each breath sparking a ball of fire under her right ribcage.

  With a grunt she sucked in air, digging deep to push through the pain and put on one last burst of speed. Holly swung around the next corner after him, dashing blindly into a dark alley. Hidden in the shadows, the kid slipped through a hole in a rusty fence at the back. She ground to a halt, unwilling to cross the fence that was plastered with warning signs.

  “You asshole!” She yelled at his back through the fence, hands on her knees, bent over and heaving in air.

  Chapter 4

  “Hey, are you okay?” The voice snapped Holly into a standing position. She was acutely aware that she was stuck midway down a shadowed alleyway, with the only exit blocked by this strange man talking to her.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m good.” Her heart rate kicked up a notch again as she started toward the mouth of the alley, preparing to shove past this guy and yell for help if she had to. Of course her pepper spray was somewhere in her shoulder bag, now lost to her forever.

  The guy held out his hands in an “after you” gesture and stepped aside.

  She eyed him warily. Was this part of some plot to get young women? What was that called again? Trafficking? First, they stole the woman’s purse, then led her here to this less populated area. With no way to be tracked by a phone, they could just
snatch her and go. Or maybe pretend to be nice and get her somewhere inside, even less noticeable.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!” The words burst out of Holly as she skittered out of the alley and back down the street that way she’d come. She was pretty sure it was the way she’d come.

  He coughed hard as he watched her. Based on the half smile tugging up one corner of his mouth Holly guessed he was laughing at her. Great. Now she could be lost, penniless, phoneless and made fun of. Could this day get any worse?

  “Look,” he started, his voice a rich tenor, “I wasn’t actually going to ask you to go somewhere with me.” His dark eyes scrunched up for a moment, the heavy brows furrowing deeply “But, I mean, I could see where you’d be used to that kind of crap from strangers.”

  Still backing away, Holly called, “I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m going to walk away now and you’ll just be talking to yourself. Just shoo on back to your little thief friend.”

  The corner of his mouth dropped, “My little thief friend? What are you… oh.” He dug around in his pocket for a minute and Holly dug her feet into her boots, ready to take off at a run again. “Do you need to call somebody? Did that dude steal your phone or your purse?” He held up a cellphone.

  She hesitated, unsure if she should trust him and get close enough to use his phone, or if this was some elaborate ploy. His concern seemed genuine. Then again, if he was any good at kidnapping people, acting would be a great skill. She bit her lower lip. She should just try to get back to the townhome. Surely Aunty Mir would run back to check on her when she didn’t show up for lunch. She might not have her key anymore, but she could wait on the doorstep, sheltered from the wind.

  She swallowed thickly, shivering hard against an icy gust that cooled the sweat on her lower back. “I’m good, thanks.” Tucking her arms into her chest, she turned and started briskly away.