by Cindy Bokma
Right now Leo would be ending his business lunch then he'd slide into his fancy two-seater sports car and head over to the Intuition Films office. By my own calculations, when he called the police to declare us missing, California would be far behind.
I mentally went over my strategy for the hundredth time as the bus eased onto the freeway. Every tiny detail and item of concern swam in front of my eyes as I closed them to rest.
Chapter 2
Past
I sat in Rita Van Notti’s backyard in a plastic lawn chair, sipping soda from a cup. Fourteen years old and we were enjoying our summer break in the leafy backyard.
Magazines were spread out in the grass around us. The Go-Go’s blasted out of the boom box propped up on the plastic picnic table. Both of us loved the music from the 1980s. We were painting our nails and coloring our lips with cheap lip gloss. Carefully, I turned the pages of Seventeen magazine, asking Rita who she would rather date, Jason Priestley or Mario Lopez.
“Like, oh my gosh, have you seen Luke Perry lately? He’s so cute.” She sighed, waving her wet nails in the hot, humid summer air.
“Or that guy from Sixteen Candles?” I asked, sipping my Capri Sun from a skinny straw.
We both smiled. “Sixteen Candles” was our favorite old movie. I got my hair cut like Molly Ringwald’s, a short puffy cap around my head, which, unfortunately, made me look like a mushroom. We loved that movie and dreamed of having a cute guy whisk us off in his sports car, taking us away from the daily grind of high school.
Rita was my best friend. She had the Barbie Dreamhouse, which, embarrassingly, we both still played with at age fourteen. We listened to music together, watched sappy John Hughes movies together, went clothes shopping at the mall together, and smoked her mother’s forbidden Virginia Slims together.
Up until I got my unfortunate haircut, we even had the same hairstyle, exactly like Jennifer Aniston’s shaggy, layered cut. Rita and I shared clothes; she wore my jean jacket and I wore her oversized plaid blazer. We both had sweatshirts with cut off necklines. I always wore mine over-sized with black leggings and my high-tops with thick socks. I fastened a friendship pin from Rita on my sneaker even though those were not in style any more.
“Hey, hand me that Sun In,” I commanded, holding my hand out, palm up.
She sprayed it generously in her already blonde hair and handed me the bottle.
“Don’t use too much. You don’t want your hair to turn orange,” she warned, taking a sip of her juice pouch. She got up from her lawn chair, imprints of the plastic on the back of her legs, and turned up the music.
“I love this song,” she screamed. It was Bon Jovi. “Have you seen the video? It’s so awesome. I love their hair. And the torn jeans. Oh my gosh, I’m going to rip mine. You know the Guess ones?” She danced around to the music while I sat and watched her, laughing. Her bracelets bounced up and down her skinny arms.
Rita grabbed her sneakers and we went inside where it was chilly and dark, a sweet reprieve from the hot, humid air outside. Her house always smelled like a hotel room, stale and damp. It was closed up all the time, shades pulled down and doors locked. So different than my own house, which was bright and warm with open windows and curtains that blew with the summer breeze.
“Let’s look through my mom’s stuff,” she suggested. “She’ll never know.”
I was jealous because Rita’s mom and dad were divorced and her mother was at work all day. My mother was always home, asking me questions. Rita got to do whatever she wanted and received double the gifts on her birthday and holidays. Every time I saw her dad I figured he must have cheated on her mom, why else would they be divorced?
We strolled into Mrs. Van Notti’s tiny bedroom, all pink and lace with a frilly bedspread and posters of flowers on the wall. Rita pulled open a drawer to the heavy mahogany dresser; clearly, she had done this before.
“Check it out,” she said with a wicked grin. She opened a little pink plastic case and pulled out something rubbery and round, it looked to me like a ravioli. She squeezed it together and made it look like a puppet.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a diaphragm, duh.” She opened and closed it as if it were talking.
We had only seen pictures of one in our health class, so I was curious. She held it out to me, but I didn’t want to touch it and took a step backwards. I wrinkled my nose, thinking of where it had been.
“I know, I know. It just looks so weird.” Rita held it between her thumb and forefinger until we both giggled then she put it back in the case and tucked it back into the drawer.
We later found a jumbo box of tampons under the bathroom sink, a pink box of female laxatives, and a book with black and white photos of men’s private parts. We doubled over laughing as we paged through the book, and then I got paranoid and made her put it away.
“What if she checks for fingerprints?” I asked. “What if she knows we went through her stuff? I don’t want to get in trouble.”
Rita laughed. “You’re watching too many crime shows. Don’t worry, she’ll never know.”
We tried on Mrs. Van Notti’s feather earrings and fringed purses, sprayed ourselves with her spicy perfume and walked around in her high wedge sandals.
Finally, finished scavenging through her mother’s things, Rita asked me if she could crimp my hair.
“Ewww,” she said as I sat in front of her on the green shag carpet of the TV room. “Your hair is turning orange. You sprayed too much Sun-In.”
“Oh no, my mom’s going to kill me,” I moaned, heart suddenly pounding as I imagined my mother’s look of disappointment. It was bad enough that it was so darn short and poofy, but now it would be orange as well. Not good. My mom was always telling me to leave my hair alone but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to change everything about myself, starting with my hair.
I turned to face Rita, who held the crimper in her hand as if it were a sword.
Her own hair was in a ponytail, high on top of her head, held in place with a pink Scrunchy.
“It’ll be okay. I’ll crimp it and your mom will never notice; I swear.” Rita’s blue eyes looked like saucers as she surveyed the damage I did to my own hair. “She’ll love the style so much; she won’t even notice the color.”
I only wanted beautiful straight blonde hair like Rita’s. Why did I get stuck with plain old brown? Hers was like a sheet of ice—straight, smooth, and buttery. Mine was mud brown, frizzy, and out of control. I looked like I had a bush springing from my head and with the Sun-In and bad haircut, I figured a wig would be my best option.
We crimped my hair but to no avail. When I came home later that night, of course, the first thing my mom noticed was my hair.
“Oh Delia.” Her brows furrowed and her mouth sagged into a frown. “What on earth did you do?” She shook her head, placing her hands on her hips.
“I don’t know,” I said, refusing to meet her eyes.
“You’re a natural beauty. If you would stop playing with your hair you’d look so much better,” she sighed.
I mumbled an apology and walked upstairs slowly, taking unhurried, heavy steps. I paused by the den, looking in to see my brother, David, and his friend, Travis, playing Atari and eating Little Debbie snack cakes.
“You’re not supposed to be eating in here,” I warned, just like the annoying little sister I was.
They turned and looked at me. Both boys had their hair parted in the middle, feathered on the sides and longer in the back. I thought Travis was so cute and the only reason I paused by the door was to have him notice me, crimped orange hair or not. He was wearing a Gap shirt, collar turned up, and a pair of plaid shorts; mirrored Oakley sunglasses were perched on top of his sandy colored hair.
David was lying on his stomach wearing his lime green shorts. On his feet were Converse high-tops with the laces undone.
“Hey, dork. Nice hair.” He laughed, turning back to his game.
I shrugged and went into my room to
change out of my bathing suit and shorts, still sticky from the tanning oil.
Rita followed me home, looking for a good dinner since her mother wouldn’t be back until later that night. Her options were to heat up a can of Spaghetti-O’s or come home with me. She would probably stay until the evening and watch Home Improvement with us.
I thought it would be only too cool to watch MTV all day and eat whatever I wanted. Rita, for some reason, liked being at my house. I think she harbored a crush on David and she always wanted to be around my mom.
“Your mom is so neat. I wish mine was more like her.”
“Why?” I asked, wrinkling my nose.
My mom wasn’t cool, or a whole lot of fun. She liked to be home and cook and knit blankets and sit on the couch and talk to my dad who—was a whole other kind of boring. They were both reserved and plain. Our entire family was a mediocre kind of blah. We all had the same brown hair and brown eyes; we were all of average height and weight, except my mother, who was a little chubby around the hips.
My dad wore glasses and had straight brown hair and went to work each morning in a somber suit and tie, carrying his briefcase. He was an accountant in Canton, driving the ten miles to work every day in his old blue Plymouth with the broken antennae and cracked leather seats. He would peer over his black rimmed glasses each night and ask me about school, except not now because it was summer.
My mom, on the other hand, seemed to always be home, lurking around when I was on the phone, walking into the den when I was watching television. Like clockwork, she would sit down at one o’clock every afternoon to watch All My Children with a sandwich and a cup of weak tea.
Her hair was shoulder length, bushy, and thick. I inherited the frizz from her. She usually wore it pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of her neck. She wore thick ugly glasses like my dad, and I feared I would someday wear them, too. It was bad enough having braces; I didn’t want any other kind of apparatus on my face.
My mom smelled faintly like cinnamon, probably because she was always baking muffins or cookies. David and his friends came home hungry, so it was a good thing she liked to bake.
Unlike Mrs. Van Notti, who had cool dangly earrings, high heeled Candies shoes, and even a unicorn purse and Bongo jeans, my own mother wore long sweaters in pale colors and stretchy soft pants during the cold months and in the summer she wore loose baggy Bermuda shorts and button down shirts with a belt and moccasins. She wore no makeup, not even the flavored lip gloss I tried to offer her. She kept a tube of Chapstick in her pocket, and occasionally blotted her nose with powder.
Rita loved my mother while I preferred hers. What I wouldn’t give to have Mrs. Van Notti as my mom. It was perfect; she was gone all the time and showered Rita with gifts when she was home. Steak Umms, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and Hamburger Helper all the time for dinner, Doritos to snack on, and grape Kool-Aid and Capri Suns to drink all day. What could be better? During the summer, she cranked up the air conditioning so it was nice and cold in the house. In the winter, she turned on the heat and it was like walking into a toaster oven when we came home from school.
I changed out of my brown crocheted bathing suit, still damp with my sweat, and into bleached jean shorts and a loose tee shirt, and then tucked my feet into a pair of tube socks and headed downstairs to find Rita and my mother busy making dinner.
“Set the table; Travis and Rita are staying for dinner so set two extra places. Grab the cold stuff from the fridge, too.”
She handed me a stack of napkins, which prompted me to roll my eyes. Rita giggled as she cut hot dog buns in half. The scent of charcoal floated inside when my mom headed out to put the hot dogs on the grill. I opened the fridge and took out the bowl of red Jell-O salad along with pickles and relish. It was such a predictable meal; we ate it at least once a week.
Rita chatted on and on about how lucky I was, but I didn’t see it. While we ate, I glanced around the table and sighed. My father asked the same stale questions. My mother pursed her lips for the thousandth time as she looked at my hair. My brother goofed around while Travis and Rita were on their best behavior. I swear they were flirting, but since I wasn’t a part of it, I wasn’t interested. I stared out the kitchen window.
This was boring, I couldn’t wait until I was old enough to leave for some place exciting. There had to be more to life than being a teenager in suburban Ohio.
Chapter 3
Past
A little over two years later, I sat in third period chemistry class, re-rolling my jeans into French cuffs. I pulled the bottom of my pants leg down, folded the material over, fitting it around my ankle as tight as I could get it. I cuffed it once, and then again. I admired the look, sticking my leg out and studying my penny loafers and French rolled jeans. I picked imaginary fuzz off of my shirt, which was tied in a big knot on one side.
For the past ten minutes, Rita and I had been passing notes on little squares of hot pink paper. We were bored out of our minds, as Mrs. Limatola droned on about the periodic table of elements. We both were poking fun at Kelly Shafer’s neon nail polish and jeans tucked into her socks. Some people really had no sense of style. Rita and I had given up long ago on criticizing the boys with their tight jeans and high top sneakers or the uniform of the preppy guys shirts with the collars turned up and brown leather Docksider shoes.
I chuckled at something that Rita had written and I bent over to write her a reply when the classroom door swung open. Mrs. Buchanan, the school secretary, came in and whispered to Mrs. Limatola. They spoke in hushed voices, glancing over at me. I looked at Rita and shrugged.
The teacher called out to me. “Delia Keaton, can you please come up here? Bring your books.”
I hesitated and glanced at Rita, who raised her eyebrows. I grabbed my bag from behind my chair and walked up to the front of the classroom. All eyes were on me. I turned to look at Rita and made a face. Was I in trouble?
“Can you go with Mrs. Buchanan, dear?” Mrs. Limatola looked at me through her extra large, extra thick bifocals. She had strong coffee breath and I turned my head slightly.
“What did I do?” I asked, conscious of the hush that fell over the room. Delia Keaton getting in trouble just didn’t happen. I was so average, so mediocre that I don’t even think most people knew I existed. Aside from Rita, I really didn’t even have any friends.
“You didn’t do anything.” Mrs. Limatola paused and put her old wrinkled hand on my arm and offered me a tight lipped smile. Her hand was cool and dry.
“All right, let’s go see Mr. Nealy.” Mrs. Buchanan wore a large bouffant hair style which was spun up around her head like cotton candy. I might have laughed if the situation wasn't so serious. She held the door open for me and I walked through, following her down the hall.
Somehow, the lockers looked greener with the silver locks hanging from the handles, and the brown floor looked a little shinier when no one was in the hall. Mrs. Buchanan’s heels clip-clopped on the hard surface. I was very aware of the smell in the hallway: paper fresh off the copy machine and Elmer’s glue from the art room.
We approached the principal’s office and I was ushered in immediately.
“What's wrong?” I asked, getting nervous. Maybe they found out Rita and I had been smoking after school. Maybe someone saw us steal a pack of Juicy Fruit from the 7-11. My palms were sweaty and a pool of sweat formed under my arm pits.
Mr. Nealy was seated at his massive desk but got up as soon as I walked in his office.
“Sit down, Delia,” he instructed. I sat in the straight backed wooden chair, dropping my backpack on the floor next to me. I started biting my nails, a habit that would haunt me for the next two decades of my life.
“What did I do?” I asked again.
“Oh, no . . . this is nothing like that. I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”
He stopped talking. I looked up into his pale face. Mr. Nealy was a nerdy type that greased back his hair and wore a pocket protector in the front of his
short-sleeved dress shirt. He always wore the same gray pants with a sharp crease down the middle and gray shoes. His arms were bony and there was something about him that was vaguely rat-like with his pointy nose, thin lips, and beady eyes. Even my brother David agreed that he looked like a rodent.
Mr. Nealy cleared his throat. “We just received word that your parents were in a serious car crash this morning. They were sent immediately to the hospital. Your grandmother is on her way to collect you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
I thought back to the morning. I had my usual Pop Tart and Tang. My dad and mom drank their Sanka while David got ready for work. I recalled that my parents had to go to Sears to pick out a new washing machine . . . or was it a dryer . . . or oven? My dad was going to go into work after he brought my mother home from shopping. She was excited about the new appliance.
I told this to Mr. Nealy, as if somehow by reconstructing the morning I could fix everything. He listened quietly and nodded his greasy head as I talked. He was silent and the only noise was the clock on the wall, ticking like a bad omen. I fidgeted and shifted in the hard chair. A car crash, that didn’t equal anything bad, did it? Biting my nails, I stared at Mr. Nealy who avoided my eyes. This was all weird and uncomfortable.
Finally, my grandmother walked into the office, her face drawn. She looked older than usual and her eyes, usually bright, were red and glassy.
“Come on, Delia,” she said, grabbing my hand and skipping any greetings or hugs. My mind raced with questions. What was happening? Why was she acting so formal?
I opened my mouth to talk but quickly closed it as she jerked my arm toward her. My heart started to pound and my stomach dropped like I was on a roller coaster and kept plummeting. Something bad was happening.