by Schow, Ryan
Such thoughts never even occurred to me. “You’re speaking figuratively, I imagine,” I respond, working to shake off the implications. I don’t think I can take knowing this right now.
“The death threats started two years ago.”
“Wait a minute. This is for real? Someone’s threatened to kill you?”
“Not me, us.”
A cold shiver wraps my spine. “Holy Toledo,” I whisper, feeling a new and separate sickness.
“Now that you look different, now that we look different, I’m hoping our lives will change, that we can finally transcend the insanity. I mean, think about it”—he says, his smile reappearing—“we’re totally different people now. With our new looks, we can be anyone. Anyone!”
3
My brain feels like it’s dragging its feet through mud, and now I’m supposed to sit here and what? Smile and daydream with my father? I don’t think so. “Is that why you sent me away? Because of the death threats? Or was it primarily for the makeover? Because I’ve been wondering this for a long time now.”
He stands up, sloughs off his designer jacket and drapes it over the back of a nearby chair. He grabs a beer from the refrigerator, pops the top and drinks straight from the bottle. When he’s done, he lets out the most outrageous burp, and I’m like, WTF?
Startled by his frat boy behavior, I stare at him in disbelief. “Wow.”
“What?” he says, totally clueless.
“I’m officially living in the Twilight Zone.”
“Tell me about it,” he quips, taking a slower, less foamy sip.
Shaking off my disbelief, I switch subjects because apparently I’ve been out of the loop about everything. “Why did Margaret cheat? I mean, what did she say her reasons were?”
“She said she was drugged out of her mind all the time because our lives seemed to always be in danger. First the paparazzi, then the death threats, them someone broke into the house. It was last year. She says the stress of living this dangerous, naked life played a big part in her shutting down.”
This just keeps getting worse. After a minute I say, “Someone…broke into our home?”
Nodding, he drains the rest of the beer, then tosses the bottle in the recycling bin and expels a low rumbling, motorboat burp. “He, or she—whomever it was—they went through yours and your mother’s things. They ransacked my office.”
Forget the ticking in my brain. Forget the little soldiers. There’s a hard frost and its fingers are icy sharp. “I honestly don’t know what to say right now.”
“All this was going on and we felt like we were years away from the breakthrough we needed. I was manic depressive when I met Dr. Wolfgang Gerhard. What started as this ‘scientific improbability’ suddenly became a viable possibility. Our missing link was of no small measure. But with funding and Dr. Gerhard’s decades of breakthroughs, we managed to fill in the blanks together. As unsavory as the man can be, he’s a certifiable genius.”
“Smart or not, he’s some sort of Nazi-like creepazoid.”
“First off, being German doesn’t make him a Nazi. And second, that creepazoid changed the course of our lives. You and I, we would not be this way if not for him and his expertise.”
My head hangs sheepishly as the weight of fatigue takes hold. “I know.”
“I hardened myself to the world around me. I didn’t want the same for you, baby.”
Looking into my father’s eyes, I can’t help marveling at how he was able to keep this from me. How he was able to cope. Margaret lost herself in drugs, but my father, he must’ve been so depressed through all this. Is it strange that I admire the heck out of him right now?
“As a parent, you try to shield your kids from the horrors of the world. You try to spare them any harm, to assure them the world around them is safe, even when they curse you for everything you do, or for your methods. Your mother, back when she was self-medicating, she was neither safe nor sane. So most of what I did for you I did in secret. To protect you. To insure your safety. And to maybe one day make you happy, or at least proud of me.”
“I cannot imagine what you’ve been through. How deeply everything affected you.”
“When I saw the bodies in the stasis canisters, I didn’t see human beings, I saw a different life for you and me. For your mother. I saw a concrete way out. Now, for the first time in the better part of my adult life, I feel hopeful. Joyful! I look at myself and I love my face and body because it’s not mine. It is, but it isn’t.”
“I know,” I say, still thinking of the clones. “I get it.”
I wanted to say I could never look at those bodies and feel nothing, and what was wrong with my father that he could think only of himself, but I’m too tired. Unconsciously, some time in the last few minutes, I realize I’ve been massaging the muscles in my left arm. Gosh damn, my body hurts!
“It’s time now, Savannah. You and me, we can finally disappear.”
“As exciting as that sounds, what does it even mean?”
“For starters, we’re leaving this place, and then I’m going to start dating.”
“Moving? Dating?” An unexpected lightness floods my heart and suddenly I’m smiling at my father and it takes no effort at all. For a moment, I find myself imagining the possibilities, feeling something called optimism. “Who are you and what have you done with my dad?”
He slips his hands in his jeans pockets and shrugs his shoulders. “The new me thinks the old me was a spineless meatbag. A brilliant, social clunk. The new me is full of testosterone and vigor and he absolutely detests the old me. Rightfully so.”
I don’t remember seeing him smile before now, maybe not even once.
“So when do we move?”
“The packers will be working all night and into the morning.”
“Holy crap, tonight?!”
He raises his hands in a calming gesture, trying to stall my immediate panic. “I know, I know, it’s too soon, but this house ties us to our old lives, and we need to re-write our lives quickly.”
My mind is racing at the thought of leaving. Are we leaving town? Leaving the country? What about Netty and my friends from Astor?
“We can do this, sweetheart. It’ll be hard, but we can totally do this.”
“You’re completely mental!” I say with a lunatic’s laugh.
“If everything goes as planned, we’ll be moving tomorrow night. Less exposure with a night move. I shouldn’t have to say this, you should already know, but we’re going to be on the DL for a bit, at least until I figure things out.”
“Don’t you mean, we’ll be on the down low until we figure things out?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not a little girl anymore,” I tell him.
He says, “Not a girl, not yet a woman. I can dig it.”
“OMG, dad! Are listening to Brittney Spears?” The ever-widening grin lighting up his face makes me love him even more. “I like her pre-meltdown music, so what?”
Watching him is like watching a stranger I want to be best friends with. I always adored him, and now I’m certain I’m going to love version 2.0 even more. “From one body snatcher to another,” I say, “this is freaking weird.”
Even as the doorbell rings, we’re laughing together, enjoying what is probably the best father/daughter moment ever.
4
Throughout the night, while the packers are hard at work emptying out cupboards, drawers and closets, and boxing up everything, I’m struggling for sleep in my father’s study on his noisy leather couch, the only piece of furniture left in the room. I try not to think about the low level twitching going on in the muscles on the left side of my face and body. I try not to worry. With my thumb, I massage the inflamed tissue beneath my eye. This helps some. However, when I think about massaging my breast tissue where a lot of the twitching is taking place, I decide otherwise. The last thing I need is some ten dollar an hour guy walking in on me rubbing my boob and getting the wrong idea.
While I’m
laying in the office with a thin blanket too short to cover my bare feet or even provide much warmth at all, the workers are doing their thing quietly and respectfully. Is it weird that I can’t stop thinking of them going through all my stuff as a sign of the times? Strangers rifling through your things, through your life, it’s practically the American way.
I do have one measure of relief, and that is that my most important dresser drawer is with me, sitting in the corner of the office: my bra and panty drawer. If I get any sleep at all, it will be because my new, more luxurious undies aren’t being manhandled by guys with sweaty armpits.
5
Our new house is not that far from our old one, which is convenient, but I’m like, “Dad, why are we, quote unquote, disappearing ten miles from home? Shouldn’t we be in like, the Riviera or something? Or New York?”
“Staying in Palo Alto is the last thing people looking for us would suspect.”
“People are looking for us?”
“I don’t know, maybe. So do you like it or not?”
The house is gorgeous. Not nearly as grand as our last one, but inside, the attention to detail is impeccable. From the hand-scraped hardwood floors to the smooth-imperfect wall texture to the kitchen with twenty foot ceilings and five-piece crown moldings and all the top-of-the-line appliances, very little expense was spared. It’s even got a pool and a pool house. I try not to imagine what could take place in the pool house, but then again, as I become more of a woman and less of a little girl, perhaps the pool house is where I’ll lose my virginity.
It isn’t a crazy thought.
Still, there is that part of me that aches for a house in the Riviera. I could have learned a new language, cruised the beaches topless trolling for tanned guys with slicked back hair and six pack abs, and I could have lead them on long enough to destroy their arrogant little hearts. It would have been great. I would have been fabulous.
“Of course I like it,” I tell him. But it’s more than that. “I love it!” He seems delighted with my response. I’m happy that he’s happy, but right now, I’m like a motherfreaking zombie on block feet. “I need some sleep, dad. Serious.”
An hour later, the movers are putting my bed together. The way they are ogling me—so nervous I think they might pee their work pants every time I speak to them—it’s me realizing my good looks are like a superpower. Who ever thought I would have the power to render men into quivering boys? It’s unsettling, to be honest. But it also feels awesome. Almost as good as sleeping in my own bed. Which right now is all I want.
Thankfully I haven’t had any relapses of the prior days’ sickness. I’ve been terrified of that. Who knows what I would have done if I blew up the bathroom and all those guys had to smell it? Or if they heard the awful retching noises of me puking and thought I was horking up my meals just to stay slim?
My eyes are having a hard time staying open and my brain hurts. I’m so tired. A full fledged member of the walking dead. After a few minutes, I locate the box with my linens, then unpack the sheets and blankets and make my bed. I lock the door, close the blinds and crawl under the covers wearing bra, panties, and a tank top. In spite of the rising sun and the sleepy-eyed daze I’m in, I fall asleep fast…
….only to be awakened to my cell phone vibrating all over the place. The ID says it’s Netty.
“What the shit?” Netty says the minute I pick up.
“What do you mean?” I ask, groggy, feeling abused, perhaps even tormented by circumstance. What time is it anyway?
“I’m at your house, but it’s empty. You sold your house and didn’t tell me!”
“I didn’t know until I got home, then I was moving on, like, no sleep at all. It’s unbelievable, Netty, all the crap I’ve been through. And I haven’t slept in like two days.”
“Your voice still sounds different. Are you still sexy sick?”
“I’ve been pounding the vitamins and not eating crappy food for months.” As if this explains everything.
“What’s your new address?” she says. “I’m coming over.”
“I’m not going to be here,” I say, starting the lie. Already I’m feeling agitated being awake. The backside of my skin is hot like it’s burnt and my eyeballs have that super-compressed feel. I have Panda eyes for sure. “I’m taking a few things over to Margaret’s new place.”
“She isn’t living with you?”
“She’s has her own house. My dad says it’s a remodeled ranch style home near Zuckerberg’s old place. It’s supposed to be nice. Not anything like our old house. But then again, it’s just her and—get this—her new boy toy.”
“Her what?”
“Yup. Some butthole of a writer stole her little black heart.”
“Isn’t she supposed to not be in a relationship for like, a year or something? Isn’t that a rehab rule?”
“How the fu—, I mean, how the heck am I supposed to know? Besides, rehab aside, wasn’t she supposed to be faithful to my father ‘till death did them part?”
“Those are definitely the Christian rules.”
“The point is, she cheated with this guy from the country club, and now she’s going to be making cookies with him in a house my dad is probably paying for. It’s unconscionable.”
“Making cookies?” Netty asks.
“Yeah. Recreation not procreation. All the meat and fluids. You know, sex.”
There is some silence, then Netty says, “So, I got a job.”
“Margaret’s off the drugs and I think maybe it might be just as bad as before, but with a different flavor, you know?”
“Hello! I said I have a job now!”
“I heard you the first time. Where?”
“The book store.”
“Which one?” I ask, still seeing Margaret with some faceless writer and trying not to get sick thinking about it. Or maybe I’m happy. I don’t know. Should I be happy? No. Margaret is such a drama queen! Ever the destroyer of all things good.
“What book store?” Netty says, flabbergasted. “Is that what you just asked me?”
“Yes, that’s what I just asked you.”
“The only one that matters, dumb-dumb.” The way she says dumb-dumb with her accent totally cracks me up.
“Really?”
I know exactly the bookstore; it’s the corporate one with millions of books.
“The place is a haven for book nerds like me. You see what I’ve had to do for friends since you left?”
“Are you working today?”
“In a couple of hours. Until ten tonight.”
“Maybe I’ll swing by later. I’m off to the monster’s place.”
We say good-bye and hang up. Netty shouldn’t hear my voice too much, not until I explain to her about, well…the new me. Version 2.0. I hate lying, though. The truth is, I don’t really have to go to Margaret’s. If I can help it, I’ll go to Guantanamo Bay first.
The Facebook Sniper & Netty
1
Rolling over, I try going back to sleep, but now that I’m awake, my body isn’t cooperating. I finally crawl out of bed, slip on some sweat pants and head outside thinking the fresh air will make me less spastic. I take like five steps out the front door and right there, in plain view, is the last person I ever want to see. My new neighbor.
“Unfreakingbelievable,” I mutter not so quietly.
Jacob Brantley. The Facebook sniper who practically destroyed me last year before I escaped to Astor Academy. Seeing him is instant biliousness. We’re talking full scale hatred. My memories of him are blistering, like a flame left too long against the skin. The way Chris Brown beat the holy living crap out of Rihanna, that’s how hard the memories hit me.
On the first day of ninth grade, I saw how Jacob was growing from a boy into a man, and how over the summer he had become so much older and better looking than when I last saw him months before. For longer than I care to remember, I dreamt of him being my first kiss. If anyone would qualify as my first real crush, it would be that nar
cissistic douchebag.
I was so bush league back then. Me with my scarred face, the lopsidedness and awkwardness of my body, the ninth grade me who could no longer look at my Jenny Craig candidate body without cursing every disgusting pound of flab. There was no way someone as yummy as Jacob Brantley would see me and ever kiss what I knew was an ugly little mouth stuffed with short, square teeth.
My own self-loathing was already too much, but during the first part of my ninth grade year Jacob’s abuse took it to untold levels. What he did, how cruel he became, how he humiliated me in front of everyone, he made me hate myself even more. For a time, that hatred spilled over onto my father. Brains over beauty he once told me? Ha! What a curse that had been. But later, when I could better sort out my thoughts, I realized I didn’t hate my father as much as I hated his unfortunate genes. And I hated Margaret for being so damned beautiful and condescending. But most of all, I hated myself as much as I hated Jacob.
In a way, he was my first everything: my first crush, my first devastation, the first boy to ever make me cry. I mean really make me cry. He took away any hope that still resided in my puny little malnourished heart and he stamped it out with his plus-size cruelty.
Now here he is, walking outside with one of his buddies to his car, a silver 3-Series BMW. If I hurry back inside…crap! My insides plunge. He sees me and waves. His friend waves, too. In my head, all I can see are the names he called me on Facebook last year. How he was making fun of me and my father’s retched looks for everyone in my school to see. The minute I really start thinking of that beautiful creep, I’m struck with visions so violent they embarrass my subconscious. They won’t stop. I have half a mind to flip him off, or throw rocks at him, but instead, I huff out loud and go back inside.
So much for a nice walk through the neighborhood.