Pick-me-up

by Cecilia La France

  Chapter 7: Fatherly Advice

  Katelyn didn’t dare stick around looking for a ride home. Instead, she beat a path off school grounds as fast as she could. School was two miles away, and since Katelyn had been kicked off the bus too many times, she had to find rides. Walking home was humiliating. Only the younger kids walked. But today, walking was just the thing to help Katelyn sort out her thoughts.

  The rhythm of her steps and breathing calmed her anger. Now, anxiety competed for attention. He deserved it, Katelyn thought. Gorman shouldn’t have touched me.

  A moment of panic hit her as she felt her pocket and only found her phone’s battery. She felt naked without her phone. Worst of all, she lost her phone before she pushed send on her text. Tim never even had his reply. She hoped he didn’t think she was ignoring him.

  When she reached her street, a cul-de-sac just past one of the town’s four mobile home parks, she was calm until she looked at her house. Katelyn could tell who was home based on the cars parked in her driveway and in the street. Today, the line up would prove an interesting drama inside the house. Besides her mom’s car, Jacob’s dad’s car was there and he never came alone. He had to bring a friend along when he visited his son. He was too scared to visit by himself.

  But the biggest flag was the heavy duty Dodge Ram truck out front, which meant her Dad was home.

  As Katelyn neared the house, she saw Kayla climbing the broken down four-wheeler parked by the side of the shed. Her dad had tried to fix it one afternoon this spring, but the job didn’t get finished. Its brake cable and gear shifting parts still lay dismantled, some deeply imbedded in the drying mud below.

  Chevy, her dad’s Pitbull, barked and jumped against the backyard chain link fence as Katelyn approached. Kayla turned at the sudden noise.

  “Kayla, what are you doing out here?” Katelyn asked, finishing her sweep of the yard to confirm she was unsupervised.

  “Kate’n!” she yelled and lost her footing on the four-wheeler’s step. Kayla slipped and ended up sliding down its side. Her little body plopped on the footrest of the sport vehicle. Her face momentarily registered shock and then crumpled into the beginnings of a cry.

  Katelyn reached down and picked the girl up. She placed her on the seat, but Kayla tried to hold on to Katelyn. “No, you’re okay. You just scared yourself. That’s all,” she said comfortingly. “Look, now you can be a big girl.” She guided Kayla's hands to the handles. Her attempt at diverting Kayla’s attention momentarily found success.

  Katelyn made mock motor noises, but, as with most activities, Kayla quickly lost interest.

  “I missed you,” Kayla yelled and grabbed Katelyn around the neck in a tight embrace.

  “Sorry, K.K., I had to go to school.”

  Kayla pulled back. “I want to go to school!” Katelyn looked at the excitement in her niece’s face. She remembered wanting to be grown up, to read, to add, to get the answers right when the teacher called on her. Isn’t that what it was about? School was where we supposedly achieve something greater, right? When Katelyn was young, she too believed that unlimited possibilities would come with school.

  Katelyn grunted in a laugh to herself. All school was bringing her was insults.

  “Be careful what you wish for,” Katelyn said in a harsher tone than she intended. She squeezed Kayla to her again and added, “Don’t worry, you’ll get your chance soon enough.”

  The screen door’s metallic click behind her was followed by her dad’s gruff voice. “There you are.” Was he referring to Kayla or Katelyn? she wondered. Katelyn turned around to survey her dad, to see what state he was in and what was in store for her.

  “Hey,” Katelyn offered her dad as a greeting, her voice and face free of emotion. From his uncustomary silence, Katelyn clearly understood that there were words he wanted to say. He looked down at her from the top of the three steps leading into the house’s side door. He made no move to come down to her level. The height was false authority, though.

  Katelyn received the height genes, or failed to receive height genes, rather, from her father. He stood five feet, four inches tall. She had only an inch to go before she’d see him eye level. She hoped she’d at least get to his height. But, despite the other physical developments of her freshman year, she hadn’t gained much in altitude. Katelyn had gained weight—and not just in the addition of C cup breasts. Her hips had pushed out and cushioned themselves with a couple layers of solid mass. Her dad didn’t have much of a backside, so her ample buns were gifts from her mom’s side.

  Sometimes Katelyn stood in front of the mirror and would will her body to stretch itself out. In fact, after a trip to the House of Mirrors at Adventureland, a theme park near Des Moines, Katelyn often recreated the slimming effect by warping her own mirror. She’d fit the cap of her toothpaste between the door and her door mirror to make the glass bulge out near her waist’s reflection. She’d stare at the anatomically pleasing body in the mirror and wish for a genie. I’ll take four inches in height, a million dollars, oh, and a normal family, please. She had it all planned out.

  Her dad positioned his bare feet at the edge of the step, his hands firmly lodged into his jeans pockets. His face was rough with beard growth, maybe three or four days’ worth. His face looked tired, too, his eyes red-rimmed.

  “Kayla, go in to see Grandma,” he commanded.

  Katelyn put Kayla down on the ground, but she was already reverting to a whine. “I wanna stay with Kate’n.”

  “Go in and get a snack, Kayla,” Katelyn encouraged her. “There’s Oreos by the toaster.”

  Kayla perked up a bit and scrambled up the steps. She left a new smudge of grease on the inside of the screen door’s glass window, her little hand pushing off and disappearing into the kitchen beyond. Katelyn noticed the other dirt and grime, mentally filing the mess for a later chore proposal. She needed to earn more money for this weekend. Jenny’s booze fee ate up more than her allowance, and she wanted to have gas money to offer Emily. Maybe then Emily would take her instead of Maci to Rollins Dam or whatever party she was going to crash.

  First things first, she thought, and turned her attention to her dad.

  “Gorman called,” her dad started with a stern, but steady voice. Katelyn could tell from two words that he hadn’t decided his own tactic yet. He was playing the role of upset father, the disciplinarian, but the part of him that always wanted her to like him was competing with the role. Katelyn knew her dad couldn’t stay mad at her, at least not for long.

  She decided to let him bring it up and she’d play the victim. Katelyn leaned back on the four-wheeler’s seat and let her shoulders slump in a sigh.

  He broke. “Want to give me your version?”

  She didn’t look up at him as she went into her own defense. “Everyone is so unfair!” She started out with the special targeting from the English teacher and ended with a slightly exaggerated version of Gorman grabbing her arm.

  By this time Katelyn had turned her face to her dad and let the hurt really show. The anger was working her way back and she felt her face start to flush. She remembered too clearly how the teacher so easily classified her into a history of failure. She finished explaining and grew quiet, but her mind went on with private thoughts. When do I get a chance to be more than what my family is in this town? If not here, where can I have my chance? Certainly not at that school, not where my sisters have already dropped out.

  She looked at her dad. He was partially to blame. School had its own separate history in her family. But, even the family name was impossible to escape. Often when people heard her last name, they instantly followed with “Brian’s kid?” Katelyn and Brianna were Brian Well’s children. Katelyn’s older sisters, Jodi and Jenny, were from her mother’s previous marriage and had a different last name, Hoffman. At least they escaped the association by name judgments. When people heard Kate
lyn’s last name, they most likely were recalling her dad’s latest listing in the crime reports, the local paper’s most popular feature.

  Suddenly Katelyn wished she wasn’t home. Every day at school she would watch the clock, waiting for her freedom so she could go home, but lately there wasn’t much “home” at her house.

  Her dad squatted and then sat in a perch on the front steps; he was at her level now, her buddy. “That man had no right to touch you, Kate,” he said as if he were presiding over a trial. “I’ll be giving him a call in the morning.”

  Katelyn didn’t reply. The pity act was no longer needed. She felt truly pathetic.

  “Your mom’s awful upset, though.”

  Katelyn flinched a little.

  “She says you’ve been acting up, too.” He didn’t stop. Instead, he started listing secondhand accounts of her grades, her mother’s suspicions, and ended up with an awkward speech about how much trouble boys are. “Let me tell you, Kate, they’ve only got one thing on their mind and it ain’t your feelings.”

  Katelyn had had enough. She now knew her little sister was a source in this inquisition.

  “Are you done?” she bit at him, looking up to deliver a glare. How dare he pretend to know so much or care so much about her or her behavior? “Should we talk about you, Dad? Should we list what you’ve been up to, or who you’ve been up to?”

  Her dad stood up suddenly and took a huffed breath before he pointed at her. “You,” he started, “you shouldn’t listen to all the lies coming out of you mom’s mouth.” He paced on the concrete step while he seemed to compose himself. “Jesus,” he swore.

  A small twinge of fear stirred in Katelyn, but just as freely as she told Gorman off, she dismissed the childish reaction. Her dad couldn’t hurt her. She steeled herself against him.

  “Listen,” he stopped pacing and leaned forward extending one hand toward her while the other went to his hip. “You have to start doing better at school, Kate. You have to.” He shook his hand in the air in front of him as he searched for the correct words. “You have to act better. You may not think so, but you’re going to need school in the future. Look at your sisters.” He stopped, knowing not to go that route. “You have to grow that brain of yours.” He picked up confidence in this new strategy. His voice took on a coaching quality.

  “Forget about those teachers and their opinions. It’s not about them. It’s about you. You want to end up living off welfare? You want to be stuck working dead end jobs? Look at me. I didn’t like school. Hell, I barely made it. But, I tell you what, I took what I needed from it. I own my own business, Katelyn. I hire people to work for me. I make more money than teachers.”

  Katelyn started to bite her nails. She was too mad to listen to her dad’s message, but she let him continue until he brought the topic back to her. She wondered if he would be delivering the punishment, whatever her mom had decided. Or, was she in for another speech when she walked inside?

  “You’re not going to like or get along with everything or everyone in your life, Katelyn. You’re just going to have to get through it. It may seem hard, but that’s what makes you stronger.” He measured the logic of his own words for a moment, satisfied with his thesis.

  Katelyn was tiring of the sermon. She knew what he needed. “Alright, dad,” she muttered. “You’re right.”

  “That’s my girl,” he said as the blonde, short frame of her mom stepped behind the window frame of the screen door. Katelyn’s insides sank as she read the stern expression on her mom’s face. Her dad turned around to register the new presence and he seemed to shrink inside himself, too. He turned from the door and stepped off the steps, heading to his truck for a cigarette.

  The door pushed open just enough for her mom to deliver one line. “Get in here.” Somehow, Katelyn guessed, the no-yelling contract would be broken tonight.