by Minka Kent
Instead, I rise above it. I handle it with grace and class. The way a Wiedenfeld would. The way someone who knows their value and their worth would.
Bug isn’t worth my energy.
“Just tell me where my things are,” I say, one hand falling to my hip as I release a pressured breath. “I just want to take my things and go.”
“Basement,” Mom says, craning her neck to see the TV. After a second, she sits up, reaches for her pack of green Marlboros, and lights a new cig. “Storage room.”
I hate that when I leave here, I’m going to smell like them. Like secondhand smoke, dog piss, stale clothes, and a greasy kitchen that hasn’t been properly cleaned in at least eight years.
“Everything’s boxed up with your name on it,” Mom says. “Help yourself.”
Tromping downstairs to our unfinished basement, I’m smacked with another overpowering odor. Flicking on the light, I freeze when I see a landmine of old, dried-up dog shit.
Dog. Shit.
Piles upon piles.
Just … hanging out.
Who lives like this?
Our basement is long and narrow and the designated storage area is at the far end. Watching my step and holding my breath, I begin my arduous journey past the land of dog shit and the puddles of dog piss (which have reduced to stains on concrete), and wind up in the valley of stacked containers of random junk.
Most of the cardboard boxes have Bug’s name written on them along with the words “KEEP OUT!” because apparently he’s a twelve-year-old.
My lungs drown in filth and dankness, and I’m moving and restacking boxes like a fiend until I find mine, all of them shoved to the back. Crushed. Crumpled. And somehow wet.
The window above must have leaked the last time the snow melted and my things were the proud recipient of the water that seeped into the basement.
Exhaling and trying not to lose my shit—there’s enough of that down here already, I yank the lid off the first box. It’s nothing but paperback books. Boxcar Children. Fear Street. Babysitter’s Club. Nothing you couldn’t buy on Amazon for a penny.
Grabbing the next one, I find my jewelry case. When I was eleven, my great grandmother died, and my grandma let me have all of her old costume jewelry. I was convinced that one day it would be worth something, that there might be a rare precious stone or something worth an absurd amount of money. I dump the jewelry into my bag and move on.
The next box contains CDs, most of them from the early 2000s. No one listens to CDs anymore.
Junk. All of it.
The fourth and final box, which rested beneath all the other boxes, is in the worst shape. Sliding it across the floor, I hear the tinkle of broken glass.
God. Damn. It.
Lifting the lid, I find the yellow Depression-era plate my grandfather gave me, along with two matching glass birds that once belonged to his grandmother.
I’d been keeping them for sentimental reasons, though I’m not sure why. My grandpa was an alcoholic douchebag who beat my mother and her mother on the regular and died of cirrhosis of the liver after cancelling his life insurance policy out of spite.
I bet I could’ve milked several hundred out of those pieces. If not more.
But now I’ll never know.
I’ll never fucking know because of Bug and his stupid fucking “rig” in his stupid fucking “computer room.”
My breathing picks up. I’ve gone nose-blind to the shit and piss, thank God. Examining my surroundings, standing in the midst of the chaos, I decide to leave it all for them to deal with. I don’t want any of my things anymore. They can burn in a fire for all I care.
I’m moving forward.
I want nothing to do with this life. This house. These people.
Stepping over one of Bug’s many “KEEP OUT!” boxes, I accidentally kick off the lid. I have every intention of leaving it just like that, but morbid curiosity makes me turn around to see what could possibly be so important that he keeps it in a musty cardboard box in a dingy basement with a haphazard warning.
Lowering to my knees, I reach inside and retrieve a wooden box. Cracking the lid, I find bags upon bags of coins. Some of them in protective sleeves. Some of them rolled. Some of them in little cardboard displays. At the bottom of the box is a bag of gold coins.
For the record, I’ve never stolen anything in my life.
I don’t believe in thieving and lying and the kind of things that make it difficult to sleep at night.
But then I think about the glass birds and how he essentially stole from me by damaging my personal belongings. He owes me. He owes me money. This is money. Coins are money. And if these were so important to him, they wouldn’t be sitting here unattended to.
Anyone with half a brain cell would keep them locked up, hidden away.
I bet someone gave them to him a long time ago and he forgot all about them. Or he’s holding onto them until they’re worth more, which could be decades from now. Misty will be long gone from his life by then.
Shoving the bags of coins in my purse, I almost lose it when I find two more boxes of coins. And a gun. A Glock of some sort. Small.
Holy shit.
Nothing is locked. Everything is right there, begging me to take it, like some DIY karma intervention.
This is the universe’s way of saying, “Sorry about the glass birds. Enjoy these gold coins we put in your path.”
I take them all.
I feel like a giant piece of shit.
But I take them all and I put everything back the way it was before leaving.
I even take the gun—but only so I can toss it in the lake when I get back. Dipshit hotheads like Bug have no business owning guns.
Heading upstairs, I pass through the kitchen where my mom is grabbing food out of the fridge, onions, ground beef. She’s cooking dinner, but she doesn’t ask me to stay. Not that I would.
“Find what you were looking for?” she asks, back toward me.
“Nope,” I say.
She shrugs. She doesn’t care. She stopped caring a lifetime ago.
Mom shuffles toward the sink, her slight limp worse today than it was last time I saw her. When I was eight, she was in an accident. Hit by a drunk driver. She shouldn’t have been out on the roads at two AM anyway, but she was coming home from the bar and met another driver who was also coming home from another bar.
If I thought my father leaving us destroyed her spirit, the accident was the final nail in that coffin. Left with a giant scar across her left cheek, a broken nose that never fully healed, and a gimp in her walk, she turned toward men for reassurance that she was still pretty, like before.
And God, did she use to be pretty.
She turns toward me. “You look different, Meadow. What’d you do?”
I shrug. “Cut my hair.”
Her eyes squeeze. “Nah. It’s more than that. You did something else.”
“I cut my hair,” I say again, firmer. “Highlights too.”
She points a pair of kitchen shears at me. “That’s it. Highlights. Only hussies and high-maintenance bitches get highlights.”
Ever since her injuries, other women—or at least women who Mom considers prettier than she is—are all either hussies or high-maintenance bitches.
“It’s just something different,” I say, reaching for my hair and smoothing a palm along the side of my head. “Doesn’t hurt to change things up sometimes.”
“Your clothes,” she says. “They actually fit you for once. Do I know you?”
Turning to the pack of ground beef, she slices through the plastic with her scissors and huffs, laughing like she thinks it’s funny that I look the way I do.
I have to remind myself that she’s just jealous.
I’m no longer her homely-looking daughter, the one who could never outshine her. I’m blossoming into a beautiful young woman, one learning how to hold her head high, one getting hit on by cute college boys at bars, one with friends and a life.
It mak
es sense now, why she never taught me to do my hair. Never reminded me to wash my face or brush my teeth. Never taught me how to find a bra that fits. Never once took me shopping.
Misty Cupples didn’t want to be upstaged by her daughter.
“I’m going now,” I say, striding across the small kitchen.
“Meadow,” Mom calls after me.
But I ignore her, the way she’s ignored me my whole life.
Twelve
I’m rich!
Okay, not exactly.
Let’s just say I’m $31,261.35 richer than I was a week ago. A little less if you subtract the gently used Audi I bought to replace my rusted Honda. And the money I’m about to drop at the Berkshire Commons Shopping Galleria with Lauren.
“What do you think of this?” I hold a bottle of Maison Margiela perfume to Lauren’s nose. I need a signature scent. Hers changes constantly, rotating between rose and lavender and almond and vanilla. Tessa’s is gardenia, never wavering. Now I need one. I don’t even know what I like. I’ve never worn perfume. All I know is that everything smells amazing and some of it makes me sneeze.
The attendant working the perfume section hands me a little jar of coffee beans to “cleanse my nasal palate.”
Fancy.
“Love!” Lauren says. “You should get it!”
I flip the bottle over to look at the price tag.
$125 plus tax.
Jesus.
Though I dropped almost ten grand on the Audi earlier this week and have purchased a few other “incidentals”—a laptop, a new iPhone, a bunch of music Lauren recommended, groceries from Whole Foods—I still have a mini freak out every time I spend more than five or ten bucks on something.
Being poor all my life, you’d think I’d have the good sense to hoard some of this. And I plan to. I’ll put some of it away. But for now, I’m on top of the world, and I’m not quite ready to let that go.
“I’ll take this one,” I say, holding the bottle up to the associate. I tug on the hem of my top that rides up when I place the tester bottle back. It’s a gray t-shirt sewn from the softest cotton I’ve ever laid hands on and it cost me an outrageous $78 at Anthropologie a few days ago. The phrase “la vie est belle” is scrawled across the front—which was fitting and symbolic.
La vie est belle. Life is beautiful.
Yes. Yes, it is.
The associate—whose nametag reads Claudette—smiles and points me to a register where she begins to wrap my purchase in glittery peach tissue paper and place it in a pretty little bag with baby blue satin handles.
“Can we look at shoes next?” I ask.
“What kind of question is that?” Lauren nudges me. “Duh.”
I’m going to need at least five pairs. Sneakers for trekking across campus, but cute ones. Flats—black and camel. Business professional heels for future job interviews. And something sexy and frivolous for going out.
Linking her arm in mine, Lauren guides me to the shoe section of her favorite department store and hooks me up with her favorite salesman, Todd, who treats me like royalty, complimenting my hair, laughing at everything I say, ignoring all the other customers in favor of devoting his full attention to moi.
And that’s what this is about. It isn’t about the shoes or the money.
It’s the star treatment.
It’s the constant endorphin high.
The dopamine rush.
I am adored.
Maybe I’m selling out, maybe the old me from several weeks ago would have a conniption if she saw me now.
Or maybe not.
Perhaps she’d pat me on the back and say, “Well done, Meadow. You’re finally getting exactly what you deserve.”
Thirteen
47 Magpie Drive is lit from within Tuesday night. The house is buzzing with music—Tessa’s pick … Zero 7. Candles are burning, infusing the air with magic. On the stove, the tea kettle whistles and outside the wind howls.
Every few minutes, this flood of warmth washes over me. My heart flutters. I catch myself smiling for no reason.
This is home.
It may be temporary, but I belong here. I live here. I sleep here every night.
These are my friends.
I have friends.
Lauren Wiedenfeld and Tessa Barrett.
It’s only been a few weeks now—enveloping myself in this new way of life—but it’s crazy how easy it’s been. Some nights, I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering how I got this lucky. Wondering why fate decided to place me in Lauren’s path the way it did. And right before I finally drift off, I pinch myself. A reminder that this is real. That I didn’t dream this into existence.
Tessa flops onto Lauren’s bed, settling herself amongst the fluffy white pillows and thumbing through her phone.
“Who are you stalking?” Lauren asks. I think she’s kidding though.
“Eli.” Tessa exhales, slamming the phone face down. “I need someone else to stalk.”
Lauren’s seated at her desk chair finishing off an email when she swivels in my direction. “Anyone you want to stalk? Tessa is amazing. She can find out anything about anyone. Just give her a name and she’ll give you their entire life story in less than ten minutes. I’m serious.”
I smirk, glancing down at my recently-manicured hands. I had my first gel manicure this week. It was forty dollars plus a tip, but the girls both said they swear by these and the nail technician promised they’d last three weeks. Lauren picked the color—taupe.
“Actually,” I say. “This guy in my art history class asked me what I was doing this weekend.”
Lauren’s jaw falls. Tessa’s too.
“Wait, what? When were you going to say something? What’s his name? What did you tell him?” Tessa sits up.
They’re glued to me. This is major news and their eyes dazzle, like they’re happy for me, like they’re living vicariously through me.
“His name is Brent Miller,” I say. My chest flutters when I think about the way he looked at me today. Completely captivated. The feeling was mutual.
Tessa is already on her phone and Lauren scoots her chair closer.
“What’d you tell him? Did you say yes?” Lauren asks.
“Holy shit. He’s fucking hot.” Tessa flashes her screen in our direction. It’s his student ID photo, which she promptly found on the Tiger Paw Portal. “He’s a graphic design major. Wonder if Thayer knows him? And he’s a junior. From Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Living in the Keystone Campus Apartments. Here’s his number.”
I bite my lip. “He already gave me his number.”
Lauren jumps in her seat. “Call him! Call him right now.”
Their nervous energy is mingling with mine. I’m sure if I called him right now I’d be a bumbling, stuttering, stammering mess. I couldn’t possibly be smooth with these two staring at me with wide eyes and gaping mouths.
“Guys, you’re making way too big of a deal out of this,” I say, half chuckling. “I told him I’d think about it. He gave me his number. I don’t want to seem desperate.”
“Good point.” Tessa points at me before looking at Lauren. “She’s right. She should play hard to get. Make him work for her.”
Lauren releases a contemplative breath, sinking back into her rolling chair. “Yeah. Agree. Call him next week.”
I’ve never had a boyfriend, much less gone on a date, but I won’t tell them that.
“I’m so excited for you, Meadow,” Lauren adds. “Maybe we could double date or something?”
“We should,” I say, maybe a little too enthusiastically. But the idea of a double date and having some of that pressure taken off me sounds amazing. I’m still new at this stuff.
“Awesome. I’ll text Thayer.” Lauren grabs her phone and the room is silent.
“I’m starving,” Tessa says a minute later, climbing off the bed.
“It’s eight o’clock at night,” I say. “And it’s minus three degrees outside.”
“Me too. I forgot
to eat today.” Lauren laughs, standing and blowing out one of the candles on her desk. The room feels darker, like someone sucked all the life out of it.
And who just … forgets to eat?
“You want to get something with us?” Tessa asks, hands sliding into her back pockets as she looks me in the eyes. “I’m thinking sushi.”
Tessa knows I don’t like sushi.
Fourteen
The girls left fifteen minutes ago, and according to Lauren’s Insta account, she’s already tagged herself at Taki and posted a selfie of the two of them “cheers’ing” with their fourteen-dollar Japanese martinis.
I can’t help but feel slighted here.
Left out—intentionally.
And I get that Lauren can be oblivious 99% of the time, but Tessa isn’t. She’s astute. And she knew exactly what she was doing.
My skin is on fire and I’m pacing the house, my mind racing. Weeks ago this sort of thing wouldn’t have bothered me. Weeks ago I wouldn’t have even cared about being included. Weeks ago I’d have shrugged it off and locked myself in my room.
Granted, I could have gone. I could have ordered a Sunday roll and a seaweed salad and a godawful drink and cheers’d along with them, but my gut told me Tessa didn’t want me there.
Oh my god. She’s jealous.
She’s jealous of my friendship with Lauren. I’m a threat to her. That’s all this is.
Fucking girls and their fucking drama.
I thought better of Tessa, too.
Stomping to my bathroom, I tie my hair into a messy bun on top of my head—Lauren taught me—and wash the makeup off my face, patting it dry with a fluffy hand towel. When I glance up at myself, my skin is ruddy, my eyes squinty. I look like the old Meadow.
Lonely. Bitter.
The girl who had a bone to pick with life.
Dragging in five long, deep breaths, I straighten my posture and reach for my toothbrush, reminding myself it’s okay to spend an evening alone. That FOMO—fear of missing out—is a stupid term coined by millennials who are too insecure to admit they enjoy their own company from time to time.