Blank

by Trina St. Jean

  The background is the monkey poster on the wall behind the bed—the very wall behind me now. I am surprised to see, when I enlarge the thumbnail of the first photo, how different the Girl looks. She’s got on dark eyeliner and what could be fake eyelashes, and pink metallic lipstick. A scarf, a deep cherry red, is draped around her neck. From photo to photo, her expression changes from pouting to defiance to an attempt at being seductive. There are dozens of photos like that, and for some she has moved the scarf so that it covers her mouth like a veil or draped it dramatically around her head.

  I have no way of knowing what the photos were for, if she was trying to be artsy or was simply having fun or had an audience in mind—that boy she liked, Harrison?—when she took them. Whatever their purpose, something about them bothers me. Maybe it’s the eagerness in her eyes, the sense of desperation. They’re so contrived they’re almost pathetic. I click on them one by one and hit Delete. I’m sorry, Girl, I think, but one day you’ll thank me.

  Vive la Liberté

  Father’s out in the field. Mother’s got errands to do and wants me to come. I’d rather have a lobotomy.

  I see it in her face: she’s scared to leave me alone. I haven’t been on my own for more than a few minutes here and there when she’s dropping Stephen off somewhere or picking him up. But I must have done an impressive job of acting normal at the party, because she sighs and scribbles a number on a scrap of paper.

  “I won’t be long,” she says. “Call if you need me.” But when she is about to close the door, she looks back at me and I see the worry in her eyes. “You sure you don’t want to come? We can get slushies.”

  I have to laugh. “No, thanks. I’ll be fine here.”

  She nods and shuts the door behind her. I wait to hear her car drive away down the road.

  Peace. I am alone. My heart flutters with excitement as I stand in the middle of the living room, looking around. What to do first? Eat chocolate chips for breakfast maybe? Play obnoxiously loud music and jump around on the furniture? Fill the bathtub with Jell-O? Too childish. If that’s all I can come up with, I definitely am a lost cause.

  Decision: I will start with breakfast. I find a tube of rainbow sprinkles, the kind kids love on cupcakes. I take out an extra-large salad bowl and empty the entire contents of the tube onto some Fruit Loops. Then I grab whatever else in the pantry catches my eye—butterscotch chips, flakes of coconut, chocolate sundae sauce, mini marshmallows—and pour it into the bowl. I add milk, grab a serving spoon and head outside to the tire swing I spotted in the backyard.

  Munching on my concoction, I look around at the house and the trees and the clouds floating above. Jessica loved the farm and felt at home here. She was obviously naïve, had no idea that it would all go so wrong so quickly. I picture the scene on the Very Bad Day, the Girl lying injured in the pen. But how did she get there? I squeeze my eyes shut and imagine the Girl, going about a typical afternoon on the ranch.

  There she is in her farm clothes, whistling as she walks toward the bison pen, oblivious to the danger lurking ahead. The scene plays out like a movie in my mind, with the Girl in the starring role.

  FADE IN:

  EXT. PRAIRIE FARMYARD—DAWN

  Teenage GIRL, wearing faded jeans, rubber boots and a plaid coat, closes the back door of house. A golden retriever jumps excitedly beside her as she makes her way down a path through tall weeds into a pasture and up to a green tractor RUMBLING and spewing exhaust.

  GIRL

  (cheerfully)

  Hey, Pops.

  FATHER

  (atop tractor)

  Hello, darling daughter. Can you take care of the watering?

  GIRL

  Consider it done.

  Girl HUMS as she strolls down a trail winding through birch trees. She approaches a high fence with a metal gate. Girl turns on a spigot, and water SPUTTERS out of a black hose that snakes through the fence and into a trough. SNORTING sounds are heard, and from the trees inside the fence emerge several bison. They make their way toward the trough.

  GIRL

  That’s right, big fellas. Come wet your whistle.

  The beasts push against each other, GRUNTING and drinking from the water with their long pink tongues. The girl watches, grinning. Suddenly, water stops coming out of the hose. She frowns, kicks at the hose. Still no water. She walks over to the spigot and plays with it, but it doesn’t work. Peering through the fence railing, she sees that a large rock is sitting on the hose.

  GIRL

  Shit.

  Girl glances at the bison, sighs and then squeezes between the fencepost and the gate. She reaches for the rock, her body halfway into the pen. She can’t quite reach it and leans in a little farther.

  CLOSE UP

  The largest bison, a male, comes out from behind the others. He paws at the ground. As the girl turns and sees him, he begins to move toward her.

  GIRL

  (frantically)

  Shit!

  Girl jerks back, but the bottom of her coat has snagged on the fence. The beast is there, his enormous head low and aimed directly at her. Girl SCREAMS.

  FADE TO BLACK.

  Sound of ambulance SIRENS.

  My eyes pop open, and I flop backward in the swing.

  End of scene. But not end of story.

  The sky is a soft blue, and a black bird circles above me. An idea hits. Of course. There is something I should do when no one is around to baby me. I pull my legs out of the tire and put my bowl down in the grass.

  It’s time to pay Ramses a little visit.

  The walk is only a few minutes, back behind Father’s shop and past the garden. I move on automatic pilot, marching across the yard before I can change my mind. There’s a small dugout surrounded by willows and then a string of barbed-wire fence along a pasture. No one has told me where the bison are exactly, but I’ve seen Father walk in this direction, and I trust my body to lead me there.

  I wonder if the bison will recognize me, if Ramses has some kind of memory of the terrible thing he did to me, someone who bottle-fed him when he was a baby. I know from photos that he is massive and awe-inspiring now, and I hope he’s in a good mood.

  I hear the bison before I see them. The sound starts as a grunting so low I can’t tell if it’s only in my imagination, but the two long, screeching bellows that follow leave no doubt in my mind. I’m getting warmer. My eyes scan the spaces between trees for movement, so I don’t see the mudhole until my left foot has sunk right into it. I look down, about to back up, as my right foot lands in a puddle. My jeans are wet to the knee by the time I cross the mud, and I break into a run toward a clearing in the trees. I jump over a fallen willow, my heart hammering in my chest. The sun glistens off the barbed-wire fence ahead of me.

  I step into the clearing. To my right, the wire fence line connects to a thick wooden post taller than I am. Branching off the post is an enclosure, a pen about the size of our front lawn, its railing made with thick metal tubing. There’s a wide gate at the end, tied with metal chains. The ground inside the pen is rutted and sprinkled with yellow clumps of hay, but there are no animals inside.

  But then there is a flash of brown between the fence rails and suddenly one is in plain view: a bison. His dark brown fur hangs in clumps around his enormous head, which is cocked to the side as he glares at me suspiciously. I haven’t seen the others, but I know it somehow inside: This is him. Ramses. My friend, my enemy.

  “It’s all right,” I say, my voice shaky. “I come in peace.” I slow to a walk and am only a few feet from the fence when I see, behind my observer, a dozen or more of the animals. Some look at me, and the rest graze on the pale grass. I take deep breaths as I approach. Now what?

  “Long time no—”

  Ramses lets out a loud snort and paws at the earth, shaking his giant head from side to side. And then, in the blink of an eye, he turns to face the herd. The beasts begin to move, slowly at first, and then the ground rumbles as they gallop off into t
he pasture, clumps of dirt flying in the air around them. I watch their shrinking shapes, panic clutching at me. That’s it? I came to face my nemesis, to have some kind of Big Moment, and the beasts are running away?

  “Come back here!” I scream. “You owe me this, at least!”

  I could run out into the pasture, chase after them and make them pay attention. Crazily, I’m not even scared. Here I am, a broken person because of them, and they’re the ones hightailing it out of here.

  A snort of laughter escapes my lips, and my shoulders begin to shake. The laugh grows harder, coming from a place somewhere deep inside, until I’m doubled over. I fall to my knees in the muddy earth. Tears, actual tears, stream down my cheeks, and when I reach up to wipe them, my chest cracks with a sob.

  How pathetic. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I am drained and crashing from all the sugar, and all I can think to do is what I do best: go back to my room and bury myself under the covers, wasting away another morning.

  Hellhole

  I wake up to the smell of waffles. When I step into the kitchen, Father’s standing at the stove, wearing a frilly apron, and Stephen is digging into a mountain of whipped cream on his plate. Mother sits with her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee, eyes puffy. Father sings a song about mamas not letting their sons grow up to be cowboys, shooting smiles and winking at her, but he’s not getting more than a hesitant smile in return. I’ve been holding it together pretty well the last few days, but maybe not enough to stop Mother from worrying late at night.

  “I know,” Father says suddenly. “Let’s go to Mud Bog!”

  Stephen leaps out of his chair and does a crazy kind of hip-hop chicken dance. Mother shakes her head, but Father insists that we all need to get ready, because he is kidnapping us.

  After a basic hygiene routine upstairs, I slide into the back-seat of the truck beside Stephen.

  “It’s the perfect weather for it too,” Stephen says. “Totally perfect.” When I ask him what the Mud Thingy is anyway, he merely grins. “You’ll see.”

  Father barrels down the gravel roads until we pass the town’s school, a gray concrete block with small windows, and reach a large field with rows and rows of parked cars. A red pickup is parked at the entrance, a couple of teenagers sitting on the tailgate, feet dangling. A tall guy with a shaved head jumps down and saunters up to our window. “Hello, Mr. Grenier. It’s twenty for the carload.” He leans his head closer to peer into the truck and nods when he spots me. “Hey, Jessica. Good to see you.”

  “You too,” I choke out, but he could be the son of Satan for all I know. I’ve been so caught up in the mystery of the Mud Bog that I haven’t had time to plan a strategy for faking my way through a day out in public.

  Father parks the car and Stephen practically leaps out. “Come on,” he says, pulling my arm. “What are you waiting for?”

  “For a wizard to appear and magically transport me to a parallel universe?” I mumble. But his tugging pries me from the back-seat. Mother and Father wait for us, holding hands. A roaring sound comes from a tall set of metal bleachers, and the crowd erupts in cheers.

  “The Monster Truck,” Stephen squeals. “I’ve died and gone to heaven.” We follow Mother and Father across the field to the grandstand. It’s packed with a sea of spectators, and the air smells like gasoline. Some kids around Stephen’s age shuffle over, and we squeeze into the bottom row. Stephen’s face lights up at the scene before us: a huge truck, wheels taller than our car, gunning it through a pit of mud. It pops up onto its back tires, sludge spraying in every direction, and slides across the pit, then back again. The crowd—including Little Man—goes wild. It’s way too loud but still impressive, in a hokey kind of way, so I clap a little.

  “And now,” a voice booms from a speaker, “some local daredevils will attempt to cross the pit. First, introducing the Angel of Death.”

  I lean forward to see if I can catch a glimpse of the Angel, but someone tugs on my collar from behind. I glance over my shoulder and am met with a familiar face: dark-purple bangs over eyes circled in heavy black eyeliner, black lipstick and silver hoops in the nose. It takes me a few seconds to place her, outside the hospital and its pale walls, but when I do I can’t help smiling.

  “Tarin,” I say, but I’m barely audible over the hoots of excitement.

  She bends forward and says loudly in my ear, “Isn’t this lame-ass?”

  Stephen elbows me. “Check it out!”

  The Angel’s jacked-up rusty pickup shoots out from the side of the pit, and he flies through the mud. But less than halfway across, the truck suddenly flips onto its side, and a hush falls over the crowd. The tires spin in the air, and then the door pops open and a head sporting goggles and a helmet appears. Everyone is standing and screaming as the Angel, a big guy with a scraggly beard, climbs out and leaps into the mud.

  “He seems to be all right, everyone,” says the announcer, and the crowd goes crazy.

  Tarin’s voice comes in my ear again. “Only he’s still a moron.”

  And it continues like this. Drivers take turns ripping through the sludge in whatever vehicle they’ve patched together with duct tape. One older guy even attempts the bog on an old ride-on lawn mower, which has the crowd howling with laughter. Tarin shares her scathing commentary with me from behind. On the other side of Stephen, Mother’s face is relaxed and happy. She isn’t cheering or laughing, but she looks, for once, like she is not thinking. Just being.

  Tarin squeezes in beside me, crosses her arms and surveys the pit.

  “What a hellhole,” she says.

  “Hey,” Stephen says, “I recognize you. From the hospital, right?”

  Tarin nods. “Yeah, that’s me. The brilliant surgeon who saved your young and promising sister’s life.”

  Stephen stands up and stretches. “Ha-ha.” He turns to Mother. “Can I have some money for an ice cream?” Mother pulls a bill out of her purse and hands it to Stephen. He bounds off, and Mother looks past me at Tarin.

  “Hello,” she says. “You’re Mrs. Meyer’s granddaughter, right? How’s your gran doing?”

  Tarin surprises me by putting on a making-politechitchat smile. “She’s home now, but we’re sticking around a little longer to make sure she’s all right on her own. I think Mom’s enjoying the excuse to escape the drudgery of city life for some country living.” She winks, and Mother laughs. “Could I steal your daughter for a few minutes? I’m itching to get some ice cream too.”

  I can see the internal struggle on Mother’s face. Tarin might be our neighbor’s granddaughter, but she looks like a vampire. Finally, Mother nods and hands me some money. Tarin and I make our way to the wooden booths and get two fudge bars on sticks, then stroll alongside the pit’s chain-link fence. We rip off the paper wrappings and lick the creamy treats.

  “Divine,” she says. And I’m hit with a twang of guilt. I gave her the cold shoulder at the hospital when she came to say goodbye.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  She stops mid-lick and looks at me with surprise. “For what, dude?”

  “For being a jerk in the hospital.”

  “Oh, that.” She finishes her lick. “I was a little steamed, I have to admit. But then Gran told me later what had happened to you, about your coma and brain injury and all that. Holy crap. How could I be mad at you anymore?”

  We’ve come to the corner of the field, so we turn and continue along the other side. She’s the first person I can think of, other than the doctors, who has come right out and said what happened to me, not calling it “the accident” or my “difficulties.”

  “Well, my apologies all the same. A dent in my frontal lobe is getting to be an old excuse.”

  She laughs.

  “What grade are you in?” I ask. I try to envision her at school, hanging out with Megan and the Posse, but I can’t fit the two images together.

  “I should be in grade eleven. But since Mom and I have been moving around a bit, I’ve been taking
online courses. Saves me all the hassle of actually sitting in a classroom listening to all that brainwashing. My boyfriend graduated last year, and he says being out in the world is where the real education is. Stuff you can’t get from books.”

  “Cool,” I say.

  “How’s that head of yours anyway?” she asks. “You seem kind of normal.”

  “Kind of?” I punch her shoulder in fake outrage.

  She laughs. “Well, I only know you as damaged goods, you know. I don’t have anything to compare you to.”

  I roll my eyes. “Join the club.”

  She stops, clutching my elbow, and leans in so close I see sparkly silver flecks in her mascara. “What do you mean?”

  I wonder if I’ve gone too far, if I should let it go and keep it casual. But Tarin doesn’t seem like the kind of person who will squirm at the truth.

  “I can’t remember my life before the accident,” I say.

  Her eyes open wide, and she lets out a long, deep breath. “For real? So you don’t remember anything, like what’s-her-name on that soap we watched in the hospital? Felicity or whatever?” She studies me closely, but I don’t feel like it’s unkind. Only curious.

  “Felonia,” I say. “Actually, I do remember some things. Bits and pieces, mostly from years ago. But, well…” She’s waiting, a trickle of melted fudge bar traveling down her wrist. It dawns on me then that I’m starting from scratch with her. She, unlike everyone else I know, doesn’t care one bit whether I go back to being who I used to be. “I don’t really feel like I’m the same person. I don’t even know who that girl was exactly.”