Memoirs of a Girl Wolf

by Lawrence, Xandra

  By early afternoon Kristen announced that we should go to the store to pick up what I would need in preparation for the party. We shook out our towels before rolling them up and tucking them in a beige canvas bag. I slipped a terry cloth royal purple dress over my head which immediately stuck to my damp skin. My brothers ran ahead to Kristen’s parked car while we trudged behind, wincing as we stepped over broken shells and stones embedded in the hot sand.

  As soon as Kristen unlocked the doors of the Volkswagen, my brothers jumped in to the cramped backseat and locked us out by holding their hands over the lock so that Kristen was unable to use the keys in her hand. They laughed hysterically, but once Kristen handed me her phone and I said in a warning voice that I was going to call Mom, they sobered up and unlocked the doors. As pay back, they whined and kicked the back of our seats the entire drive to Kroger.

  But there was little I could do to control them. They knew they had power over me because I had to bribe them in order to ensure that they would stay away from the party. I promised to buy them a ton of junk food if they remained in the attic all night. The deal wasn’t awful. Last spring, Mom renovated the entire attic so that now it was a cozy den complete with pool table and 72 inch television mounted on the far wall next to a series of tall bookshelves. An L shaped grey couch was placed in the center of the room and was so comfortable my brothers usually fell asleep stretched out on the cushions while playing their video games.

  Regardless, I held up my end of the deal, so we spent close to thirty minutes in the candy aisle while Josh and Eric argued over what kind of candy they wanted.

  And then I saw him. He was at the end of aisle in an ash grey t-shirt and ripped jeans. His head was bent as he studied a shelf of candy while rubbing his hand over his jaw. I particularly took notice of his feathered golden hair and how it curled behind his ears.

  Kristen stood next to me with her arms crossed, staring at my brothers with a frown. I pinched her and nodded my head in the guy’s direction. She pushed back her sunglasses and squinted a little then looked at me and mouthed silently, “He’s cute.”

  “Who is he?” I asked.

  Kristen shrugged her shoulders and said, quietly, “Tourist.”

  He must have heard us because he looked up from the bag of Starburst he held and glanced at us. I arched my back, but looked quickly away as Kristen waved and smiled. He returned her smile and then walked away, around the corner, disappearing into the store.

  Kristen shrugged and said, “We’ll probably never see him again.”

  This was true. During the summer season, the town was always crowded with people visiting the lake. There were some regulars who owned lake houses and would visit so often it was as if they were part of Petoskey, but many were just passing through for a fun family weekend.

  I checked the time on my cell phone. The party was going to start in three hours and Kristen and I still had to get ready. Grabbing whatever bags of candy I could reach, I threw them in the cart as I ordered my brothers to follow behind me and stay close.

  Kaitlynn Rover, a junior, checked us out. She chewed on a minty type of gum and blew blue bubbles. She perked up when she recognized me.

  “Hey, Mickey,” she said as she started scanning the food. “Wow, is this all for your party tonight?”

  I was a little taken aback. How did she know about my party? I thought Sydney said it would just be a few of us. Kaitlynn didn’t even hang out with the dance or cheerleading team. In fact, she had never said two words to me before in my life.

  “Yup,” Kristen said.

  Kaitlynn blew a bubble and awkwardly avoided eye contact as she mumbled, “Sounds like it’s gonna be fun.”

  I paused a moment. “Do you want to come?” I finally asked.

  “Oh, yeah. I’ll come by after my shift.”

  “Great,” I said, under my breath.

  Kaitlynn filled the last plastic bag with the remaining food, and handed it to me as a bubble popped and gum stuck all over her lips. She waved good bye as she picked at the blue gum while my brothers pushed me aside and jumped on the back of the cart.

  As soon as were outside in the parking lot, I turned to Kristen and said, “How many people are coming?”

  “Get over it,” she replied and chased my brothers to the car.

  “For someone having a party, it doesn’t sound like you’re excited,” a voice behind me said.

  My breathing slowed. Startled, I turned to see the guy in the ash grey t-shirt standing behind me holding a couple sacks of food.

  I smiled nervously. He was wearing sunglasses, but he was smiling at me waiting for my reply. “Yeah, the woes of popularity, I guess,” I said, but immediately regretted it. Feeling stupid, I ran with the cart all the way to the car wishing I could vanish from his sight.

  Before Kristen turned in the long, gravel lane leading to my house, we noticed a U-Haul truck parked further down the road.

  “Maybe somebody’s moving in to that old house across the pond,” I said.

  The family that had lived there moved out abruptly around the same time Viktor, my dad, left. I was too young to remember anyone living in that house which appeared to be much smaller than our cabin. The house across the pond was a deteriorating two-story home with boarded up windows. Kristen and I firmly believed it was haunted and somehow this belief got around town because when I would tell people where I lived they would nod and ask, “Oh, next to the haunted house?”

  I once asked Mom about it. Surely, she had known the family that had lived there. When I asked her she became silent like she didn’t want to talk about it, but I continued to ask because I hated that Mom kept so much of my first three years hidden from me. Finally Mom told me, “Just some family. The woman died in a hunting accident and that’s when the rest of the family moved. That’s all. It makes me sad to talk about it so stop asking questions.”

  After twelve years of neglect, the house did not look pretty. The sunken roof was covered in debris like fallen tree limbs, and lacked shingles. Dirty glass in wide windows was broken in, and the once white paint was completely chipped off. That was all that was visible from standing on my back deck looking across the pond. The house was one I had never actually been to up close. I grew up looking at the back of the house safely in the confines of my own home, but even across the pond the house sent shivers down my spine.

  “They’re probably lost,” I said pointing to the U Haul truck ahead of us before Kristen turned right down my lane.

  “Should we help them?” Kristen asked, looking back over her shoulder.

  I shook my head. They’d find their way and the clock was ticking. We didn’t have a lot of time to get things in order before people started arriving.

  I didn’t know what to expect for a party. In the past, I had held sleep overs at my house for no more than five girls and as I grew older and cliques started forming, excluding me and Kristen, the sleep overs transformed into Kristen and I taking turns at sleeping at each other’s houses every Friday night.

  At our sleep overs we ate cookie dough, watched movies, and gossiped, but now that Kristen and I had jumped from the bottom into the popular clique our sleep overs were no longer so innocent. At Sydney’s sleep over last week, she passed around a bottle of peppermint schnapps which I declined, but Kristen didn’t. She eagerly took two big gulps and licked her lips complimenting the taste.

  And at Sydney’s sleepover we did talk about boys, but the conversation quickly turned into who had slept with whom. Kristen and I were both silent during this conversation. Neither one of us had ever had a boyfriend, so we both still had yet to experience a first kiss.

  For my first high school party, then, my thoughts, similar to how I felt about Max, swung between excitement and terror. Would it be innocent and we would all sit in the basement on the tan suede couch watching a movie and eating popcorn, or would it be less innocent with Sydney showing up with more peppermint schnapps?

  Because Mom’s bathroom had t
he best lighting, Kristen and I got ready for the party standing next to each other in front of the wide mirror above the white cabinets. I twisted my hair into a high pony tail which Kristen objected to with a noticeable frown. She covered bright, red pimples, clustered around her nose with foundation as she talked to my reflection in the mirror.

  “You have to wear it down and straightened,” she informed me.

  I sighed as I pulled the elastic band from my hair freeing the long red tresses which fell down my back and over my shoulders. Kristen plugged in her Chi hair straightener and turned the tool on high. As we waited for the straightener to heat up, she turned to me.

  “Now what are you wearing?” she asked.

  “This,” I said looking down at my outfit, a white tank top and dark boot cut jeans.

  She frowned again and shook her head. Grabbing my wrist, she led me back into the bedroom and sat me on the bed. Then she walked over to her duffle bag and rummaged through it pulling out tank tops and throwing them at me until my lap was covered in colorful clothing.

  “One of those might work,” she said, standing.

  Despite the range of bright colors I had to select from, I was attracted to the black lacey tank top which I pulled loose from the pile on my lap. I did like the top and quickly pulled it over my head. Kristen nodded in approval and guided me toward the full length mirror in the corner of the room near the closet. I studied my reflection. Kristen was right. This outfit looked much more sophisticated. I ran my fingers through my hair and smiled, but my confident smile slid off my face as I remembered why I wanted to look nice and my stomach tightened. I ran back over to the bed and sat down clutching my side.

  “What’s wrong?” Kristen asked, sitting next to me.

  “I’m nervous,” I replied, wearily.

  “Don’t be nervous. Be excited. Think of it as your coming out party. Yeah, like an induction into the popular crowd,” she said.

  I nodded, trying to breathe deeply and formulate a plan.

  “Promise me you’ll stay with me all night so I don’t have to be alone with Max,” I said.

  “Sure,” she said. “No problem.” Kristen rose from the bed and walked over to the closed French doors. She pressed her hands against the glass of the door. “What’s that light over there?” she asked.

  I turned my head in her direction. I could see the soft glow of a white light shining across the pond. The light was coming from the abandoned house.

  We jumped, shrieking when we heard a voice behind us. Kristen and I grabbed for one another and turned our heads to see my little brothers standing in the doorway looking at us with amused smiles.

  “What do you want?” I asked, annoyed.

  “We’re hungry.”

  I took my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans and dialed the number to Pizza Hut to place a delivery order for them which pleased Josh and Eric enough to retreat back to the attic. When I told the person over the phone my address he said, “Will that be enough for the party?”

  “What?” I asked surprised.

  “This is Mickey, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said, slowly.

  “It’s Dave Steward. We go to school together. I go out with Sydney sometimes.”

  “Oh, right,” I said.

  “I don’t think one pizza is gonna be enough for your party,” he said.

  I held my hand over the speaker and hissed at Kristen, “Do I have to feed everyone pizza?”

  Kristen pulled a ruffled pink top over her head as she replied, “That’s a great idea.”

  I sighed. “How many pizzas do you think I need, Dave?”

  “We have a deal if you buys ten large pizzas you get the eleventh free.”

  I agreed to the deal and Dave agreed to deliver them free of charge within the hour as soon as his shift ended and he could bring them on his way over for the party. I ended the call, shaking my head.

  Glancing at the alarm clock on the bedside table, I saw that it was dangerously close to the start of the party and I still had to do my make up so I hurried over to Kristen who stood in the bathroom doorway snapping her straightener at me. We were so rushed we forgot completely about the abandoned house for the moment and didn’t even notice when the soft light behind us extinguished. All that could be seen out of the French doors was dark night.

  3

  By seven the house was almost full of what I guessed to be half my high school. Kristen put on music and dimmed the lights in the living room while Dave finally showed up twice the amount of pizza I had ordered and served hungry guests lined up in the kitchen. My brothers were tucked away in the attic with their pizza, candy, and video games. Everything seemed to be going okay so far.

  I stood at the top of the stairs surveying the crowd below me. I couldn’t believe all these people were at my house. I noticed Sydney pass around a glass bottle and I wasn’t happy about this because I had asked her earlier to not bring any alcohol. She wore her hair in a messy bun on top of her head and her eyes were outlined in thick black eyeliner. She was talking to someone who must have asked about me because suddenly she started moving her head around and glancing everywhere until she spotted me staring at her from the top of the stairs. She broke into a huge smile and started right for me walking swiftly through the crowd, laughing as she stepped on people’s feet, and then bouncing up the stairs toward me.

  “What are you doing up here?” Sydney asked with a quizzical look.

  “I was checking on my brothers,” I lied. I actually just needed a moment away from the obnoxious crowd.

  Someone turned up the music and suddenly Katy Perry’s voice swallowed our conversation and boomed throughout the house.

  Sydney bent her head toward me. “What?” she asked.

  I shrugged, but evidently she thought she missed out an important piece of gossip or something because she grabbed my wrist and pulled me down the hall and into the nearest room which happened to be mine.

  Closing the door behind her, helped suffocate some of the noise. She flipped on the lights and was struck speechless as she soaked in my room.

  No one from school, besides Kristen, had really ever been in my room. On the walls were thumbtacked posters of my favorite Marvel Superhero’s and Disney movie Beauty and the Beast. A map of Middle Earth hung above my bed. Next to the map was a shelf of Mickey Mouse figurines and stuffed animals.

  “Oh my God,” Sydney said. She slapped a hand over her mouth as her eyes danced around my room. She walked over to the shelf next to my bed and picked up a glass figurine of Mickey Mouse in tap shoes. She examined it then looked up at me wanting an explanation.

  “My mom sort of makes me collect them because of my name,” I said and noticing she didn’t approve I added, “It’s stupid.”

  Sydney carelessly tossed the figurine onto my bed. “We can’t let Max see your room like this. He’ll think you’re a total dweeb.”

  I stared at the Mickey Mouse figurine in the middle of my bed as my fingers itched to pick it up ,and inspect it, and put it back safely in its place on the shelf without her knowing. What I told her was a lie. My mom didn’t make me collect anything. The Mickey Mouse collection was something my dad started after I was born and I held onto it even after he left us and even though I didn’t remember him.

  “Here hold this,” Sydney handed me an open bottle of peppermint schnapps.

  I frowned down at the bottle and was planning on say something to her as she turned her phone over after receiving a text message, but before I had chance to talk to her she started jumping up and down. She grabbed my wrist again.

  “He’s here! He’s here!” she squealed.

  Crap.

  I was kind of hoping Max wasn’t going to show up. I felt sick to my stomach, but I followed Sydney out of room. She made sure the shut door tight after us.

  I noticed him as I walked slowly down the steep stairs. Thankfully, I had a good hold of the banister to help me because my legs were growing weaker. He stood talking in
a crowd of three guys with his hands in his pockets. Occasionally, he would run his fingers through his light brown hair which laid so softly in waves that I wanted to reach up and touch it.

  As long as his back was to me, I could keep breathing and walking his way, but then as if he heard how loud and fast my heart was beating, he turned and locked eyes with me, but only for a second. His lips stretched into a grin and his eyes darted over my outfit.

  Sydney pulled me to a stop right next to him. I crossed my arms, feeling awkward but worst of all I started to sweat under my arms and above my lip. There were too many people crowded in the room and the heat was becoming insufferable.

  Surprisingly, he looked nervous also. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me. Instead, he stared at his feet and swung his arms back and forth. Max Fender the star hockey player with cinnamon brown wavy hair and blue violet eyes. I couldn’t believe it. He rubbed the back of his head and murmured something that no one could understand as he stepped away then toward me. Sydney stood in front of us smiling and nodding waiting for one of us to say something to the other.

  “Is the house made of wood?” he asked.

  Sydney deflated just a little at his question while his friends snickered.

  “It’s a log cabin,” I said.

  He blushed.

  I made Max Fender blush. Seeing how nervous he was, made me a little less nervous. My confidence grew. Standing straighter, I flipped my hair over my shoulder and smiled up at him.

  “It’s kind of hot in here,” he said.

  Hoping the comment wasn’t in some way referring to me because I was insecure about how much I was sweating at the moment, I nodded in agreement. Another song vibrated from the stereo speakers and everyone cheered and started dancing which generated more suffocating heat.

  Sydney waved herself with her hand and said, “Let’s go outside.”

  We all agreed, so I started leading the five us through the living room toward the back deck when Kristen jumped from the crowd and clung on to my arm, but was quickly pulled back by Sydney who hissed something in her ear.