The Wrong Side Of The Tracks (Leighton)

by Amanda Austin

  Alex winced at her morbid words, "Grandma..."

  Her Grandma flashed her sad smile, "You know what I mean sweetie. I'm no spring chicken, and I've spent the last fifteen years mourning your Aunt Sandra. This memorial is going be like a final send-off, and then I'm going to enjoy the last few years of my life."

  "Well then let's make it amazing. What were you thinking? Like a dinner? Benefit? Ceremony? You could raise money, like have an auction and donate the funds raised to an organization in honor of Aunt Sandra"

  "That would be sweet. But I have no idea what organization would be appropriate."

  "What about MADD?"

  "I don't know what that is."

  "It stands for Mothers against Drunk Driving; they have dances at our school all the time."

  "But Sandra wasn't drunk. If we donate money to them in her name everyone will think she was drunk."

  Alex studied her Grandma's face. It was hard to tell if she was being sincere, or just in denial. No mother wants to admit their child died because they were driving drunk. Her Grandma seemed insulted though.

  "Uhh sorry, I just assumed. Never mind..." Alex let her voice trail off.

  Her Grandma patted her hand reassuringly, "It's okay, and we should talk about it. That's why I haven't been able to let it go for the past fifteen years; nobody would talk about it with me."

  Alex knew she shouldn't pry, but at the same time she was intrigued. Without thinking she blurted out, "Then why'd she crash?"

  "The Dr. said there wasn't any alcohol in her bloodstream. I wish I knew what happened. I sat at her grave for hours, waiting for something, a sign or a clue. I have no idea what happened the night she left us. I didn't even know she could drive, we never taught her and she hadn't taken drivers' education yet. I don't even know how she got the car out of the garage without us hearing her."

  Alex listened intently. This was the most information she had ever been told about Sandra's death. All her and Donavon knew was their father had a little sister who died in a car accident when he was in high-school, and Alex was named after her. Occasionally their dad would mention something about when he and Sandra were little, but no one ever spoke about the years leading up to the accident. Alex could tell from the photos that she wasn't a typical Leighton Prep girl, and from comments she had picked up from her parents she was a little on the wild side.

  "When the police knocked on the door that night and gave us the news I didn't believe them. I told them that was impossible my daughter couldn't drive. He just hushed me and told me there were a lot of things I didn't know about my daughter, and that she was a teenager so her whole life revolved around secrets. I would give anything to know what happened to my little girl that night. But, I guess it's time to let it go and accept the fact that I'm not going to know."

  A lump had formed in Alex's throat. Her heart hurt for her Grandma. How could everyone in her family dismiss her feelings about Sandra's accident and act like it never happened? All she wanted was somebody to talk about it with her, to acknowledge it happened.

  Alex tried to lighten the mood, "I didn't know Aunt Sandra but I've heard she loved a good party. Let's go all out Gram. We can invite all her friends and family, hire a caterer, and a band, and people could give speeches about her."

  Her Grandma's face lit up, the least sad smile Alex had ever seen from her in a long time. "She would love that Alex! We can have one of those things on the big screens with her pictures too."

  Alex chuckled, "You mean a slideshow?"

  "Yes! Why don't you run upstairs and get the box of her old photographs and we can pick some out for the slideshow thingy?"

  Alex had only been upstairs of her Grandmother's house a few times when she was younger. Once, to sleep in the guest bedroom when her parents went out of town, and then a few times she snuck up there just to be nosey since she was told she wasn't allowed upstairs. She turned the cold, hard knob and pushed Sandra's bedroom door ajar. She tiptoed in and surveyed the stack of boxes. She didn't know why she was sneaking around; her Grandma gave her permission to go into her bedroom. It was just so quiet she didn't want to disturb the stillness. Her Aunt's room was small and quaint, all that was in it was a full size bed, dresser, and two nightstands, and each item was covered in about an inch of dust. After Sandra's death her Grandma went in and boxed up all her possessions, stacked the boxes in one corner, and never touched them again. Alex picked up a small deteriorating box with 'pictures' scrawled across the top, the bottom was caving in and a small piece of folded yellowed paper fell out the bottom.

  "Did you find it?" her Grandma called up the stairs.

  "Uh, yeah. I'll be right down!" Alex pocketed the piece of paper and she clutched the small dusty box and headed down the stairs, pulling the bedroom door shut behind her.

  Donovan walked into the kitchen where they were sitting at the table fanning out Sandra's photographs. He shuffled to the refrigerator and grabbed a Coke, then stopped at the table. He picked up one of the Polaroids and snickered, "Aunt Sandra was a hippy." Alex shot daggers at him with her eyes, their Grandma's denial kicked in and she pretended not to hear him busying herself with more photos. Donavon shrugged and tossed the photo back on the table and retreated to the den.

  Alessandra Raker stared back at them with her clear husky blue eyes framed with wavy black hair; she could have been Alex's twin. Alex had never seen candid photos of her Aunt, just stuffy washed out of pictures of her Aunt in her Leighton Prep blazer, or posing with the tennis team. There was one picture of her hanging in her parent's hallway next to her father, but they were little kids, her father wearing a suit and tie and her Aunt in a satin red dress in front of a Rockefeller size Christmas tree.

  Alex picked up the Polaroid Donavon had tossed carelessly back on the table. Her stomach did a flip-flop as she stared at it; it was like looking at a still-frame from yesterday. She was truly experiencing deja-vu. Alessandra stared back at her, smiling brightly, her long dark-hair seeping out of an old dingy trucking hat. She was hugging a tan girl with long locks of tight curly brown hair, holding her two fingers up in a peace sign flashing her silver and jade rings. The picture was taken in the dark, but she could make out some trees in the distance, a bonfire with a few figures standing around it, and water. They were at Lost Creek; her Aunt Sandra was at Lost Creek. Maybe they had more in common than Alex had thought.

  It was taken by one of those old cameras that spit the photo out right after it was taken. She remembered seeing someone on television shaking a picture waiting for it to develop. On the bottom white portion of the photo it said, "Family First," in bubbly teen-age girl handwriting. She had no idea who the girl was, and she definitely wasn't a member of their family.

  "That photo was taken right before her accident," her Grandmother murmured gesturing at the picture in Alex's hand. Alex looked at her curiously.

  "The summer before of her accident she started wearing that nasty hat. Her father hated it, wouldn't let her leave the house if she had it on. But she loved that hat, I have no idea where it came from but she wouldn't part with it."

  The hat was sitting on her head crooked, obviously two sizes too big for her petite head. It was white with a red brim; even in the poor quality of the photo you could see the stains and streaks on the front. Alex squinted to make out the logo, 'Leighton Motor Garage.' She recognized the logo, there was an old abandoned junkyard on the outside of town with a sign out-front surrounded by rusty old cars missing their doors and hoods. The sign was creepy and reminded her of motel signs on scary movies that said 'No Vacancy,' when they drove past last week it was missing half the letters so it said 'LEIGHTN OTOR GAGE."

  "Taking a trip down memory lane?" Alex jumped, startled by her father's voice, she slid the photo of her Aunt at Lost Creek under another picture.

  "Davis!" her Grandma jumped up, as quickly as a woman in her sixties could and rushed over to hug her father.

  "Are you staying for dinner? I can make that ham and cheese c
asserole you like."

  "Sorry Mom, we got to run. Go get your brother Alex."

  "Really? Well maybe next time, we really all have sit down together and have a Sunday dinner soon," she heard her Grandmother saying sadly as she walked back into the kitchen with Donavon. She felt guilty leaving her Grandma but she was physically and mentally exhausted, so much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. She was grateful her Dad came to get them, now she could blame him for leaving her home alone and lonely, even though she was glad to go home to her warm comfy bed.

  Donavon nearly knocked her over to beat her to the front seat. She didn't even put up a fight, she flopped into the backseat and laid back and shut her eyes. Her Dad made eye-contact with her as he pulled out of his child-hood driveway, "You all right back there?"

  "Yeah. I'm just beat from yesterday."

  "Just tired?"

  "Well that," she hesitated for a moment pretending to concentrate on the fuzz on her black leggings. "And I don't know I feel a little off after spending the day looking at photos of Aunt Sandra." Her Dad stared at the car driving ahead of them, and she was beginning to wonder if he even heard her.

  They took the sharp turn over Lost Creek Bridge, and a car came flying around the corner with their high-beams on causing their Dad to jerk the wheel and honk his horn, Alex slid sideways in her seat. Davis wasn't even flustered. He kept driving calmly as if he nearly died while taking that corner every day.

  "Did you ever go swimming in Lost Creek?" Donavon asked as he looked out the window. Alex could see the pile of ashy wood from their fire the night before and her heart rate sped up a little. She thought of the photo of Alessandra standing in front of a bonfire at Lost Creek with her ugly hat on.

  Their Dad laughed, "No, definitely not."

  "Oh right, because of how unsanitary and dangerous the water is," Donavon said obviously mocking their Mom.

  "No, because kids from my school would have gotten jumped by the public school kids if we crashed their parties at Lost Creek. The rivalry between the schools isn't as bad as it used to be. There used to be brawls during LVL, and cars and houses were vandalized. When I was a kid the buy-out was still fresh in everyone's minds, and people were still very angry."

  The 'buy-out' he was referring to was when a group of wealthy parents got together and formed an organization funded by all their charitable tax write-offs, and that organization bought Leighton Prep from the town of Leighton. The organization turned Leighton School into Leighton Prep, leaving about seventy-five percent of the students whose families couldn't afford tuition without a school to attend. The town was then forced to raise all the working families’ taxes by an incredible amount to build a new public high-school. It was no secret that Donavon and Alex's late grandfather was one of the founding fathers of the Leighton Prep buy-out. The buy-out was right after Davis and Alessandra were born, and he couldn't stand the idea of his precious babies going to a public school.

  "Cool!"

  "No Donavon, it wasn't cool. It was dangerous and scary to be a kid back then, especially a prep-school kid. We may have had money and resources, but the public-school kids had numbers. It don't matter how rich or privileged you are, you don't stand a chance against eleven kids, and that's what the ratio of public school kids to prep school kids was back then."

  Alex blocked out the rest of her father's political speech. What was her Aunt doing at Lost Creek then? Her Dad was lying; she had just seen a photo of Sandra at the exact spot by the creek that they just drove past. At some point the prep school kids were obviously welcome at the creek, or else her Aunt wouldn't have been there partying at a bonfire.

  WHAT’S IN A NAME?

  Alex threw her notebook into her locker and grabbed her purse. She had promised Kenzie she'd meet up with her after school and walk with her to Lost Creek, because she had lost her IPod at the bonfire. She could hear Camryn making her way down the hallway towards her; she walked through the hall like her father walked through the supermarket during election season. Camryn said hello to every person she passed, hugging a few, and telling the rest how much she "adored their top." Alex tried to make a clean getaway but Miss Congeniality had caught up to her as she struggled to get her locker door shut.

  "Alex! What happened to you at the game?"

  "I left."

  Camryn leaned closer to her and talked quietly as if people were actually trying to hear what she was saying, "I'm sorry I was being a super bitch. I just was a little jealous I really like Nate. You shouldn't have went home though, I feel bad you missed LVL."

  Alex couldn't tell if she was being sincere or not. Even if she was honestly sorry, she wasn't ready to let her off the hook yet. "I didn't go home; I went to a bonfire with some sophomores. And, you were a bitch for no reason. I'm seeing someone, Nate's not even on my radar."

  "That's great! I mean not great I was a bitch, but great because I thought you still liked him. Who's the mystery boy? Someone I know?"

  "No, and his name is Karter." Alex was even impressed by how real her imaginary relationship sounded

  Camryn was examining her make-up in her compact mirror, barely paying attention to her anymore. "Ohh, cute. Well I'm ready to get outta here, let's go to the diner."

  Alex mimicked Camryn's fake campaign voice, "Sorry, can't today. I have plans, maybe tomorrow. Bye! Love you!" She hoisted her bag over her shoulder and marched towards the door. She didn't have to turn around to know that Cam was standing there dumbfounded, and shooting daggers at the back of her head with her icy eyes.

  She walked briskly through the parking lot, undetected once again, and made her way down the path to the tracks. She could see Kenzie standing at the base of the tracks waiting for her. She had texted her a little since she slipped out of her house, but they hadn't had an actual conversation. Was she going to be mad that she slept in Karter's room with him? She hadn't mentioned it in her texts; maybe she already knew and didn't care. Or what if she had no idea, should Alex tell her or just act like it didn't happen?

  "Hey chica!" Kenzie waved her free hand, and her bangles rattled up her arm as Alex made her way across the tracks. She wore a snug Rolling Stones tee with baggy faded jeans with holes in the knees. The tips of her moccasins were dusty from walking along the tracks.

  They made their way into the woods, crunching through the leaves while Kenzie babbled away.

  "I was so mad when I woke up and you were gone! I was lying in bed like we’re going to get up and have sausage, and pancakes, and eggs, and bacon, and toast. Yeah I had the hangover munchies. Then I came out of my room and you were gone!"

  "Sorry, I left early. Like six something"

  "I figured Karter probably kicked you out. Don't let him get to you, he's always faded."

  "He drinks a lot?" Alex asked trying to sound nonchalant, as if she didn’t care.

  Kenzie snorted, "Yeah a lot of lean."

  Alex stared at her with a blank expression on her face.

  "He drinks codeine mixed with sprite," Kenzie explained.

  "Like cough medicine?"

  "Yeah. It messes him up pretty bad. He turns into such a weirdo when he drinks it. He might seem scary or crazy but he'd never hurt a fly."

  "That's strange," said Alex still hung up on the thought of using cough medicine for recreational purposes.

  "Not really, I know a lot of people that get faded off codeine. I've tried it, but I hated the feeling. To each their own though, you know? I think your choice of poison is genetic. Karter and I have different dads; my dad is a legit hippy. Like Grateful Dead, tie dye shirts, headbands, long hair, and the whole nine yards. I take after him, strictly herbal; I just smoke a lot of bud. Karter takes after my mom, she's addicted to pills, like Xanax, they prefer prescription medicines. You obviously like to drink, so probably one of your parents is a boozer."

  "You don't know my parents, they've never drank more than wine with dinner. I probably get it from my Aunt."

  Kenzie flashed her mischievou
s smile, "You don't know your parents either. One of them is living a double life. Trust me, my theory is never wrong."

  Her IPod was lying right in plain sight on top of the makeshift beer pong table where she had left it during the bonfire. Alex scanned the tree line on the other side of the creek trying to determine where her Aunt had been standing when the picture she found was taken. It was a great feeling to finally get to know what Sandra had really been like, but at the same time the more answers she got, the more questions she had.

  Kenzie stopped her train of thought, "You coming back to my house? I'll make us some food."

  "No, I wish. I got to get home. My Mom has been blowing up my phone since I got out of school. Maybe we can do something later this week."

  "Okay, text me." Alex watched her make her way back through the woods. Before she could even start walking her phone began buzzing again. What could be so important her Mom had to call her every fifteen minutes?

  "Hello?"

  "Where are you?" Alex panicked, where had she told her Mom she was going to be? Her double-life was getting extremely difficult to live; she needed to start taking notes. "I'm on my way home right now. I just stopped at the diner with some people."

  "Hurry up, we need to talk," she said in a serious tone.

  Alex's mind raced as she made her way through the woods and down Sherman. She had done so many things she wasn't supposed to in the last week, it could be anything. Her Mom could have found out about her going to The Boxes, or the bonfire, or drinking, or lying about going to Cam's, or sleeping with Karter. She started walking slower, enjoying her last seconds of freedom as she got to their street. She felt like a criminal walking down the long hallway to the electric chair, like in the movies, these were probably her last breaths. She made her way up the front steps and reached out to turn the door-knob but her Mom swung the door open before she was able to grasp the knob. She didn't recognize the look on her face; she was angry, confused, and sad all at once.