Imaginary Enemy

by Julie Gonzalez

  “My brothers are so stupid.” Harmony said. She sighed, throwing herself on the bed next to Carmella. “You won’t believe what they did this time.”

  “You really won’t,” added Carmella.

  I waited patiently, aware that they didn’t need any urging.

  “They were gambling with their friends.” Harmony waited for me to react. I didn’t.

  “We saw them.” Carmella raised her eyebrow, coming close to achieving a Mrs. Perkins.

  “With money,” added Harmony. I wondered if either of those two girls could tell a story without the other.

  “Real money,” Carmella whispered, as if the FBI was monitoring the conversation. “We aren’t going to tell Peggy and Elliot, though.”

  “I’m sure Sharp and Chord are relieved to know that,” I drawled sleepily.

  “But what should we do? We saw a TV movie where a man gambled away his brother’s fortune and got murdered because of it,” Carmella went on, acting like the future of the galaxy depended upon her and Harmony.

  “Watch less TV. A sure remedy for the overactive imagination. Now go away. I seriously doubt Sharp and Chord are headed for disaster over a backyard card game.”

  “What do you know?” asked Carmella. “You’re the most unobservant person in the neighborhood. I bet you don’t even know about Tag.”

  “Tag?”

  “Jason Blackshire’s dog.”

  Stupidly, I took the bait. “What about his dog?”

  Harmony frowned. “He died. Jason’s really upset…. I think he even cried. His eyes looked red.”

  “Mr. Blackshire says it was old age, but we suspect poison.”

  “Poison?” I asked.

  “Antifreeze,” admitted Carmella. “There was a container of it in Mrs. Thomson’s garage. She never did like that dog.”

  “Geez, your snoop-a-meters are working overtime today, aren’t they?” I asked.

  “We simply notice things, that’s all,” Harmony said.

  “Go away,” I moaned, covering my ears with my hands. I just couldn’t take any more.

  I raged at what Cassidy did to Luke. And in some crazy way, I felt responsible. I shouldn’t have let her weasel her neo-hippie self into our lives. Maybe if I’d stuck with my original opinion of her, Luke would’ve seen through her and avoided all that heartbreak.

  I decided to take action. I rummaged through my closet and found the cardboard carton of sewing stuff Aunt Jane had given me. I pieced fabric scraps together and embroidered. I sewed on buttons and beads. I cut yarn into strips. Then I used black acrylic paint to add the finishing touch. “Perfect,” I said, admiring my work. “Who knew sewing could be this much fun?”

  “Here,” I said, tossing something onto Luke’s bed.

  He picked it up and examined it. “What the hell is this?” he asked.

  “What does it look like?”

  “Um…Barbie’s evil twin?”

  “Funny, Luke. It’s a voodoo doll.”

  “A what?”

  I sighed with exaggerated exasperation. “A voodoo doll. Geez, don’t you know anything?”

  “I guess not. What do I need with a voodoo doll?”

  “Get back at Cassidy. Ruin her life.”

  “Ruin her life?”

  “Remember that hairbrush she left in the bathroom? I pulled the loose hairs from it and stuffed them inside the doll. That’s how the magic knows who to curse.” I threw my tomato-shaped pin cushion to him. “Stick it to her.”

  He caught it and laughed.

  “Do it, Luke. It’s easy. You’ve got the pins.”

  Luke looked puzzled. He held the doll before his face. “It does look kind of like her,” he said. It didn’t really. It was shaped like a gingerbread man and, courtesy of Aunt Jane’s embroidery pamphlet, sewn with blanket and feather stitching and embellished with randomly placed beads. Two big red buttons were the eyes. The wild hair was made of strands of colorful frayed yarn. A black heart was painted on the left side of the chest.

  “What do I do with it?” he asked cautiously.

  “Make her suffer profusely.”

  “Why?”

  “She’s making you suffer,” I answered pragmatically.

  “Yeah. But Jane, I don’t want to hurt her.”

  What a sap he was! “Oh, come on, Luke. Make her pay.” I snatched a straight pin and stabbed it into the hole in one of the button eyes. A tremor of satisfaction coursed through me. “Some pain is just what you needed, isn’t it, little lady?” Then I flashed Luke a big smile.

  “You’re insane,” he said, laughing. He took a pin a poked it into the other eye.

  “Put more feeling into it,” I said, as if I was an acting coach. “And tell her what a loser she is.”

  “I’m never going to forgive myself if Cassidy has a seeing-eye dog next time I run into her,” said Luke.

  “We should be so lucky…. Just jab her again,” I encouraged.

  “Yeah, okay.” He stuck a pin right through her black heart. “Guess you can’t feel pain there, ’cause you’re heartless, aren’t you Cassidy?”

  “Ow! That hurts. Stop it. Please stop,” I squeaked, pretending to be Cassidy.

  “What? You want more?” Luke asked the doll, and he drove a needle through her neck.

  “Oh, the pain! Have mercy! Please,” I cried.

  “Beg, harlot, beg,” said Luke, and he poked her again.

  By the time Voodoo Cassidy had been appropriately pierced and punctured, Luke was laughing more than he had in days. So I guess my homemade voodoo worked, at least a little.

  Self-motivation

  “Have you heard the news?” Zander stood in front of me, smiling smugly.

  “What?”

  “I don’t have to go to school next year.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s true. Ask Mom and Dad.”

  “Squab, they aren’t going to let you quit school after fifth grade. No way. They want us to go to college, remember?”

  “Go ask. You’ll see.”

  So I brought up the subject at the dinner table, intending to burst Zander’s dream bubble in front of everyone. Imagine my outraged shock when Dad said, “That’s true. Zander won’t be attending Kingston next year, so you don’t have to worry about him embarrassing you on the bus.”

  “You can’t let him quit school. It’s against the law!” I protested.

  “We’re radicals, Jane!” said Dad dryly.

  “Then let me quit, too.”

  “We’re not that radical.”

  Mom, ever the voice of reason, spoke. “Zander’ll be homeschooled. Elliot’s going to teach him along with Sharp and Jazz. Chord will be at Jefferson High next year.”

  “You’re mean he’s not going to be homeschooled anymore?”

  “Not for high school. Elliot says he’s not geared to get the kids through chemistry, physics, and foreign language classes.”

  “And Chord wants to meet some new girls,” added Carmella.

  We all looked at her.

  “That’s what he told Sharp. Harmony and I heard him say it.”

  “Eavesdropping again,” groaned Zander. Then he turned to me. “I’ll think about you while I’m living the good life.”

  “It’s not fair, Mom,” I protested. “Is Zander going to sit around the deMichaels’ all day watching TV and playing games?”

  “There’s more to it than that. Peggy and Elliot say it’s been great for their kids.”

  “So Zander will be playing musical chairs in Elliot’s backyard while I’m stuck in English and math class every day? No fair.”

  “They do lots of cool stuff,” said Zander. “Like today. They went to the state forest and made plaster casts of animal footprints.”

  “Oh brother.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Now, Jane, Elliot’s very competent. Zander will flourish in Elliot’s learning environment.”

  “Then let me go to Elliot, too.”

  “Jane, you hated music lessons, a
nd Elliot centers much of his curriculum on music. Besides, you’re not self-motivated like Zander. We believe you need more structure.”

  “Not that again. I’m structured to death.”

  Once more, I saw the wisdom of the “life isn’t fair” philosophy Mom had shared with me when I was a mere infant.

  “So, Dad,” I ventured. “What made you decide to run the marina and not go to work anymore?” It was early one Saturday and we were walking the piers to check on the boats moored in their slips.

  He sat on the edge of the dock and adjusted his ball cap. “Jane, I do work. Or play, maybe. But I earn a living. I’m just lucky enough to love what I do. It wasn’t like that at the insurance company.”

  “You hated it there?”

  He removed his sunglasses. “Took me years to identify it, but yes, I did. I took that job before Luke was born, telling myself it was temporary until I found something else. And there I was, four kids and two wives later, still climbing the ladder, but the view got uglier and uglier. Faxes and conference calls and printouts. Clients and quotas and claims. But absolutely joyless. For me, that is. I’m sure some people there love what they do. But I was drowning without knowing it.”

  “So you quit because you wanted to work here?”

  “Not really. I quit because I had to. For my survival. And once that was done, this opportunity came up. The timing was right. I’m happy here. Guess it was in my heart all along and I didn’t know it.”

  “And now you do?”

  “And now I do.” He removed his hat and wiped away the sweat on his brow. “It was like this:…I’d lost my dreams, and by losing my dreams, I’d lost something else, too…some place in my soul. Life got soft and comfortable after my last couple of promotions, and it was easy to grow complacent. And that’s what I did. Then one day I was training a young kid fresh out of college and I suddenly felt sick. Weak and exhausted. So I went looking for my dreams. It wasn’t easy. I had to rummage around a bit. Strip away the outer layers to get to the core. But in the end, I found them. I found my dreams. And I think that makes me the luckiest man alive. Plenty of people never look for their dreams once they’ve lost them. Others never even realize their dreams have gone missing.” He hugged me, kissing my cheek before letting go. “I’m a lucky man, that’s for sure.”

  So later, I sat on the bank casting my line into the bayou, thinking about dreams. Where did they come from? Did they float around in the air like sound waves, waiting for someone to reach out and grab them?

  Emma really knew her dreams. She talked about getting into a good college and then medical school. Fantasized about her future as a career woman successfully juggling family and work, or curing cancer or AIDS. Even spoke of retiring to one of the islands in the Caribbean.

  My dreams were vague and blurry, like reflections on the water’s surface. There were things I wanted to experience—seeing the world, falling in love, enjoying life, maybe finding fame and fortune. But those things were fluid and elusive, and I certainly never charted a plan to make them come true.

  Goals

  “We should set some goals for the upcoming school year,” suggested Emma as she tore two sheets of paper from a notebook.

  “Goals? Why?”

  “It’ll give us something to shoot for.”

  “I’ll just refine my talents as a slacker.” I yawned.

  “No. You need to get over that and think of real goals.” Emma uncapped her pen. “Hmmm…”

  “I’ve got one.” I grinned. “I’m going to get my first official kiss.”

  Emma laughed. “That’s not what I meant, Jane. I was talking about stuff like ‘make straight As’ or ‘run for class president.’”

  “Oh. Boring stuff. I like my goal way better.”

  “But Jane, goals should be personal achievements.”

  “A kiss is definitely personal.”

  “But hardly an achievement.”

  “It’s a matter of perspective,” I explained.

  Emma sighed and printed “JANE” in all caps at the top of one sheet of paper. Beneath, in smaller letters, she wrote “Eighth Grade Goals.” Her script was tidy and precise. On the other sheet of paper she wrote “EMMA, Eighth Grade Goals.” Then “Make straight As.”

  “Don’t put that on my list. It’ll never happen,” I said.

  “It could.”

  “Believe me, it won’t.” I grabbed the page labeled “JANE” and wrote “No Ds or Fs.” My penmanship was barely legible. “This might happen. Might. It’s at least within the realm of possibility.”

  “Really reaching for the stars, huh, Jane?” asked Emma.

  “Just being realistic.” “First kiss,” I penned beneath “No Ds or Fs.”

  Emma snatched the pen. “Soccer team captain,” she wrote on the EMMA page.

  “Paint my yucky purple bedroom,” I added to my list.

  Emma sighed. “Jane, set some serious goals. Something that’s a challenge.”

  “These are challenges. A kiss, passing grades, new paint.”

  “Kisses and paint are superficial.”

  “Then you don’t know much about kisses,” I retorted.

  “Like you’re an expert.” She rolled her eyes and wrote “Learn to count in French, Russian, Mandarin, and Spanish” on her sheet.

  “Boring. You really need to get a life,” I said.

  “I happen to like my life,” she responded as she added “Raise money for Ronald McDonald House.”

  “How are you going to do that?”

  “Collect soda can tabs. We can leave a jar in each classroom for kids to put tabs in. And advertise on the announcements. Make posters. You’ll help, won’t you?”

  “I guess,” I said and wrote “$ for McD’s” at the bottom of my list.

  She slid my page toward her. “Turn in every assignment,” she printed in bold letters. “Now sign it.” She handed me the paper.

  “What?”

  “Sign it.”

  “Like a contract?”

  “Yeah. Like a contract. You’ll never get into college if you don’t act more responsibly.”

  For some insane reason, I scribbled my signature at the bottom of the page.

  “I’m going to hold you to it,” Emma said. “At least the homework and grades and money for Ronald McDonald House.”

  “Oh brother…sign yours, Miss Save the World.”

  Emma proudly wrote her name in cursive letters beneath her clearly stated goals. Her first, middle, and last names. And I knew she took her commitments seriously, because that was how she was. I inhaled and reread my goals. And I made a secret promise to myself that I’d follow through and prove to Emma that I wasn’t a total loser.

  I watched Carmella and Harmony playing in the backyard. They had layers of silky scarves draped over their bodies and flowers braided into their hair. They sang as they danced in a ring around the trunk of a towering pine tree. Then our dog, Banjo, bounded across the yard, and I laughed to see that he, too, was adorned with a wreath of flowers encircling his neck.

  I envied the nine-year-olds the unselfconscious abandon of their games. They seemed so happy and innocent. I wondered whether, if Chord and Sharp had been girls, we’d have played the kinds of games Harmony and Carmella did.

  “Hi, Carmella,” I called as I walked outside to the deck.

  She and Harmony shrieked and ran into the bushes. “It’s a human!” they cried.

  I sat on the steps. “What are you playing?”

  “We’re sea nymphs,” explained Carmella, peeking out from behind an azalea. “A fisherman caught us in his net and took us to his hut. He believes we have the magic to grant him wealth and eternal life. We escaped, but we need to find our way back to the ocean. And we’re terrified of human beings.”

  “Want to play?” asked Harmony.

  “Yeah, play with us,” said Carmella.

  “No thanks…. Well…sure!”

  “We’ll get you dressed,” said Harmony. By the time Harm
ony and Carmella had wrapped me in silks and woven flowers into my hair, Peggy was calling them in to get ready for their dance class. I sat on the steps, still in costume, with Banjo sleeping at my feet.

  “Interesting outfit.” I turned to see Chord standing at the fence. “Hey, guys, come here. You won’t believe your eyes.” Zander, Jazz, and Sharp appeared next to Chord.

  I felt awfully silly but put on a good face. I stood up, bowed, and said, “I’m a sea nymph trapped on land and searching for the ocean. This is my sea horse.” I gestured toward the sleeping dog.

  “You’re weird, Jane,” said Chord.

  “Actually, she’s not. She’s as normal as they come, which is what makes this weird!” said Zander, shaking his head. Why did I feel he’d insulted me by calling me normal? Wasn’t normal good?

  I scratched Banjo’s neck to hide my embarrassment.

  In second period on the first day of eighth grade, Emma slipped into the seat next to mine. “How’s it going?”

  “Okay. Chase was in my science class. He looks as good as ever. But we have assigned seats and I’m in the front row. He’s in the back. He didn’t even speak to me.”

  “And you’re surprised? Jane, he’s a snob.” Emma opened her notebook and wrote the date neatly at the top of the page. Then she looked at me. “Don’t forget about your goals. Did you write down all your assignments? I’m accepting no excuses.”

  I yanked my homework pad out of my backpack and slid it across my desk. “It’s the second class of the first day. I have no assignments.”

  Glamour

  Someone grabbed my arm as I scanned the school hallway looking for Emma. “Jane?”

  I turned to see a tall girl whose hair was dyed so auburn it was nearly purple. I looked at her quizzically, saying nothing.

  “Don’t you remember me? Second grade?” she asked.

  “Um…I barely remember second grade,” I answered.

  “I’m Jenny Danielson. Sat next to you. I’ll never forget the time you taped a ‘Kick me!’ sign to Mrs. Perkins’s back. She was furious. And you actually laughed. I though she was going to hit you.”