Luciana

by Maggie Wells

  Luciana

  Nine Months: Book #6

  Written by Maggie Wells

  Copyright © 2016 by Abdo Consulting Group, Inc.

  Published by EPIC Press™

  PO Box 398166

  Minneapolis, MN 55439

  All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  International copyrights reserved in all countries.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without

  written permission from the publisher. EPIC Press™ is trademark

  and logo of Abdo Consulting Group, Inc.

  Cover design by Candice Keimig

  Images for cover art obtained from iStockPhoto.com

  Edited by Lisa Owens

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Wells, Maggie.

  Luciana / Maggie Wells.

  p. cm. — (Nine months ; #6)

  Summary: Luci wants to be a celebrity and she’ll do anything to make that so. But when she finds out that she is pregnant she has to face her father and the dark family secret that he’s been hiding. Ultimately, Luciana wants a clean break from her past—so she decides to abort the baby. Will she ever be at peace with her decision or can she overcome the regret and loss she feels and get on with her life?

  ISBN 978-1-68076-195-5 (hardcover)

  1. Teenagers—Sexual behavior—Fiction. 2. Teenage pregnancy—Fiction.

  3. Sex—Fiction. 4. Abortion—Fiction. 5. Young adult fiction. I. Title.

  [Fic]—dc23

  2015949415

  This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

  In memory of my mom

  ONE

  “HI, IT’S ME, LUCI,” I SAID INTO THE CAMERA. “WELCOME to my fucked up life.” I had been posting videos on Facebook and YouTube since I got my first iPhone at age ten. Of course my parents had no idea what I was doing. They barely knew how to use the Internet, for God’s sake.

  “Let me ask you a question,” I said into the camera. “Does your dad call you names? Because mine does. Moon-monster is what he calls me.” I stepped back from the tripod so that my audience could get a full-body shot. “I look normal, right? Now, anyway. But unfortunately I was freakishly tall in elementary school. You know—always told to stand in the back row for classroom photos, holiday concerts and the like.” I sat back down in front of the camera. “Moon-monster—can you imagine? Do you know what that does to a girl’s self-image? He even sings it to me. Ever heard the song ‘Moon River’? I’ll sing it for you: ‘moon monster, taller than a mile . . . ’”

  I turned the camera off and saved the file to my hard drive. “Let’s tag this one ‘Poor Body Image,’” I said out loud. I posted it to YouTube along with an instrumental soundtrack of “Moon River.”

  That video got seven hundred views.

  But I showed my dad—I got my revenge. Because when I turned fourteen this year, off came the braces and in came the boobs. I grew my hair out and bleached it blonde and all of a sudden boys began to notice me. Even high school boys started to notice me. Popular girls who I had assumed did not even know my name suddenly invited me to join them at their lunch table. I was one of them—I was a popular!

  Okay. I knew the boys called me Luci-balloons behind my back and I could feel their eyes staring at my chest. But you know what? I didn’t care. At least I wasn’t invisible anymore. I was getting invited to parties for the first time in my life. High school parties!

  “Hi, it’s me again,” I said into the camera.

  My life was pretty pathetic. While other girls were playing soccer or field hockey after school, I sat alone in my bedroom and made YouTube videos hoping to build a following. And I was willing to do pretty much anything to achieve that. Because here is the thing—the thing I would rather die than say on camera or even write in my diary—is that I wanted to be rich and famous. I hated being middle class, ordinary. I wanted to be a star, wear fancy clothes and jewelry every day. I wanted to be Kim Kardashian.

  “So I was at this party last night,” I said into the camera. “And after a few shots, I was dancing on the table and someone shouts out for me to show my tits. Now girls, let’s face facts. To have the attention of boys is the most powerful feeling on earth. When a boy wants a girl, he is relentless. I can feel the tug of his orbit from yards away, his stare burning my skin like a heat lamp. And it triggers something in my brain—serotonin, I think they call it. It’s like a drug. I would do anything to get the attention of a boy. So sure, I show them my tits. And then some boy tells me how beautiful I am and offers to drive me home from the party. And asks me to touch his penis.” I paused for dramatic effect.

  “The penis is an insane body part. It has the air of hopefulness, coupled with something that almost borders on pleading: ‘Please stroke me! I am nice!’

  “Penises to me are a lot like puppies. Detached from the boy that it belongs to, it is soft and appreciative and responsive. It’s easy to get its attention and even easier to train it—to get what you want from it. So sure, I have sex. I have lots of sex with anybody on the basketball team or the baseball team or the tennis team or the swim team. But not the football team. Those guys are brutes and can’t be trusted not to drug your drink and gang-rape you. Believe me—it has happened to more than one girl at my school.”

  I played back that section of the video several times to amuse myself. Penises are like puppies. I giggled. That will be the title of the video! I turned the camera back on.

  “As a fourteen-year old, I have pretty much unlimited opportunities to have sex. And what I really love about sex—it’s getting the whole attention of another person all to myself. For the only time since I was five and lay on the floor pretending to be dead and Mom hovered over my body, pretending to cry, I could have somebody else’s attention all to myself. I think this is the real reason people have sex—to get to a place where there is nothing else but you and this other person who wants you. I never want it to end.”

  My first time was in the way back of Keith Campbell’s father’s station wagon. Keith was a popular senior. His little sister was mentally retarded—what’s the politically correct term for that? Challenged? Whatever! I guess out of guilt, his parents gave Keith a very long leash and his was the go-to place for Friday night post-game parties. I looked directly into the camera.

  “Keith—he was my first—he paid me a lot of attention and made me feel like I was the most beautiful girl in school. He told me I was special. That he couldn’t believe he was with me. When he held me, I felt like a present all wrapped up with a shiny bow that he didn’t want to share with anyone else. He said it was his first time, too. But his kisses got harder and harder. And his hands were everywhere at once. And then he was inside of me, thrusting and moaning. It hurt and I just held my breath waiting for him to finish.

  “The second time we did it was at a party in someone’s bedroom where all the coats were piled high on the bed. I listened to the party noises going on outside the door, people laughing and shouting. The bathroom door swinging open and slamming shut. Keith didn’t even kiss me goodbye when he was done. I wiped my eyes and sat on the edge of the bed trying to remember the words he had said. How he had filled me up, filled the aching hole inside of me, made me feel whole and alive. But how when he pushed himself inside of me, suddenly I was empty again. I usually felt like crying after it was over. He would finish and sometimes, I would have tears rolling down my cheeks and he would hold me. But that didn’t make me feel any better.

  “Then there was the time we did it in the bushes in the yard outside the house where the party was going on. I don’t really remember much about that time. I heard about it in school the following Monday.

  “You would think I would e
ventually wise up to his lies. A boy will say anything to get what he wants from a girl: ‘You’re so hot. I have to have you. If you loved me, you would.’

  “Each time I thought, this is it; Keith really loves me. His hands felt so good, wanting me, needing me. His words made me feel beautiful, irresistible—even powerful. If I gave him what he wanted he would stay with me forever. I felt enormously useful. Keith needed to come and I made that happen. I had a simple purpose.

  “But of course, everything changed once we had started having sex. All of a sudden the hours we had spent talking and making out were gone. The time he spent with me seemed rushed and frantic. He no longer took me anywhere except to some deserted place to be alone. Sometimes we would stay in the car outside the party. Sometimes we would get a blanket and spread it on the grass. And then we would have sex, and it would be over in a few minutes. It was always hurried and almost rough. Having sex had taken me to a completely different world.”

  I turned the camera off. I thought back on how it had ended. Keith came over on my birthday and handed me a little flowering cactus in a pot. A cactus!

  “Happy Birthday,” he said.

  I felt terrible. I hadn’t gotten him anything for his birthday.

  “Here’s the thing, Luci,” he said. “I really like you and all, but I’m not in love. I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

  I know what you’re thinking. Oh my God, she must have been crushed. But actually I didn’t feel anything at all.

  “Okay,” I said.

  I think that hurt his feelings.

  That video got seven thousand views.

  TWO

  “HI, IT’S ME AGAIN,” I SAID INTO THE CAMERA. “SO my parents are getting a divorce. I know what you’re thinking: join the club, am I right?”

  “So my mom is always angry—in a violent kind of way. Like the time she threw a glass of milk at me and then had to take me to the emergency room to get stitches. In my face! Just because I said I didn’t like sweet potatoes, or maybe it was mushrooms, I can’t remember. Maybe she gave me a concussion—I can barely remember the incident at all. I always wondered how she explained my facial wounds to the ER doctor.”

  My mom was a roadside IED just waiting to be tripped over. I was so afraid of setting her off on some irrational tirade. Once she had poured her first cocktail of the evening, I had to tiptoe around the house to avoid any kind of interaction with her.

  “I think my mom hates being a mother—or being a wife—or maybe both. She had a couple of nervous breakdowns when I was little. That is what my dad called them. I suspect they were actually suicide attempts. Before she checked herself into the hospital each time, I remember coming home from school and how everything was silent and dark in the house. I thought no one was home but then I remembered that my mom’s car was in the driveway. So I looked around the house and I finally found her upstairs in bed. She had the covers pulled up to her chin and she was just lying there, staring. She looked at me and it seemed to take her a few minutes to recognize me. She said she wasn’t feeling well. I thought maybe if I left her alone she’d feel better later.

  “There was this one time when she collapsed in the front hall, sobbing hysterically, just before the ambulance arrived. Dad glared at me cowering on the stairs. ‘Look what you’ve done to your mother!’ he yelled at me. I don’t know what he meant by that. Except that I guess that my very existence served to make my mom want to off herself?

  “When she left us, she was usually gone for a week and every time when she came back, she was a different person. Her eyes looked funny and dazed all the time. I wondered if they had locked up my real mom and sent someone else to our home.”

  I paused the camera and stared off into the distance. Wow, my parents are getting a divorce. What is going to happen to me? I turned the camera back on.

  “When my dad comes home from work every day, he goes straight to bed and takes a nap. I have to wake him up for dinner. And then he barely talks at dinner. In fact, I don’t remember my parents ever really fighting. But tension inhabits our house like an unwelcome guest that nobody wants to offend by telling him the party is over and it’s time to go home.”

  I paused the camera again and grabbed my journal to jot that down—like an unwelcome guest—I should be a writer! I turned the camera back on.

  “Mom is a screamer but Dad refuses to ever raise his voice. And Mom really hates that about him. His passive response just makes her angrier. I think she actually hit him with a frying pan one time. At least that’s what he said. Maybe he was joking, I don’t know. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and hear them talking in low, sharp tones. Then my stomach starts to hurt so I bury my head in my pillow to drown them out and try hard to fall back to sleep.

  “This morning,” I said to the camera, “Dad came down to breakfast with a big bruise on his nose. He said mom had bit him. So he’s moving out and taking me with him. To Cedar Rapids, Iowa, can you fucking believe it?”

  I turned off the camera. I filed that video under “Domestic Violence.”

  That video got nine hundred views.

  I was off-line for a week while my dad and I packed up and moved. Cedar Rapids turned out to be my worst nightmare; the place was so sleepy that freight trains ran right through the middle of downtown and cars lined up on either side of the barriers for fifteen minutes or so, several times a day. Dad claimed he loved the small town life, but then again, he had grown up on a farm in Wisconsin. What does he know?

  We were living in what had once been a church rectory but had since been converted into apartments. Our apartment was on the first floor, which used to be the chapel. The living room had a weird raised platform in the middle where the altar once stood. Dad thought it gave the place, quote, character. I thought it was quote, stupid, as it made it impossible to arrange the furniture in any normal formation. And there was the issue of navigation in the dark when I had to get up to pee at night. My knees were scraped and scabbed from tripping over that damn platform.

  The best thing about the place was the hammock in the back yard. Dad had strung this cool old hammock up between two trees. The hammock was my refuge—the place where I would go and think my thoughts.

  “Hi, it’s me,” I said into the camera. “Welcome to my hammock.” I zoomed the camera out to show me lounging in my hammock. “Here we are in Cedar-fucking-Rapids.” The cicadas made loud chirping noises in the background.

  “Luciana!” Dad yelled from the kitchen window. “Get up out of that damn hammock and come help me make dinner.”

  “And that’s my dad,” I said. “He doesn’t like me lying around all day while he is at work. And I don’t, really. Not every day. Sometimes I ride my bike down to the high school and shoot video of myself practicing my serve on the deserted tennis courts. Two cans of neon green balls, six serves, then walk around the net to gather them up and serve again. Those were pretty boring videos. I didn’t bother to post them on YouTube.”

  “Once in a while other people show up to play on an adjacent court and one time this guy calls out to me: ‘You’re always here—don’t you have anyone to play with?’ So I look at him. He was kind of cute and I suddenly felt embarrassed. Discovered by a cute guy while hitting tennis balls all by myself on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in June? So I don’t answer him. I didn’t think that kind of question deserved an answer—right? What’s wrong with practicing your serve? I could be a famous tennis teen sequestered in Cedar Rapids to perfect my technique away from the throngs with their video cameras. I wish I had said that to him—but I didn’t think of it until later. It came to me while I was lying in the hammock. I read somewhere that Serena Williams’s dad made her practice her serve for six hours every day.

  “Anyway, I better go see what my dad wants.” I turned off the camera.

  “I got you a job,” Dad said into the camera.

  “What kind of a job?”

  “Would you turn that off!” he said.


  I turned off my phone and put it in my pocket.

  “My boss, Mr. Rupczynski, needs a sitter for his kids this summer. His daughter is visiting from Indiana and his new wife has two sons, seven and eight. Roxanne is your age, fourteen.”

  Roxanne Rupczynski! I thought. What an unfortunate name. “Why can’t Roxanne babysit?”

  “She’s a bit immature,” Dad said. “On the spectrum, as they say.”

  “Autistic?” I asked. “Is she going to punch me?” You never know about these autistic kids; there was a boy in my sixth grade class who got suspended three times for hitting teachers.

  “She’s not going to punch you,” Dad said. “But the boys won’t obey her. I lied and said you were fifteen.”

  “You did?” Dad lied about my age? I looked at him with renewed admiration.

  THREE

  ROXANNE WAS SKINNY AND GANGLY WITH BUCKTEETH AND a harsh Midwestern twang that made her sound like an ignorant hick. I swore I would never go to Indiana if that’s the way they talked there. Her stepbrothers, Mike and Artie, on the other hand, were compact and cute. It was sad. How would you feel if your dad’s new step-kids were that much cuter than you?

  Roxanne’s dad never said anything to me about Roxanne being autistic. It seemed like it was a family secret or something—like it was something he was hoping his new wife wouldn’t notice. But she knew, obviously! Because while the boys weren’t allowed to watch TV or play video games, Roxanne was the only one who was allowed to use her computer.

  What do you do to entertain kids in the summer in Iowa? This was my challenge. In order to alleviate boredom and keep myself entertained, I created a new YouTube channel called LuciSitsinABox and began a daily vlog of my baby-sitting experience at the Rupczynski’s house.

  Mike and Artie were perfect subjects. The boys were funny and full of energy so every morning we rode bikes to the park to play catch and hit tennis balls. I would follow them around all day with my iPhone camera set on video mode and ask silly questions for which they offered even sillier answers.