She turns to face her computer again, annoyed that she still has homework left from Friday and so much assigned only two weeks into the school year. She usually finishes it before her two days of bliss away from school but this weekend the summer buzz had been distracting.
“Knock, knock!” Ame, Chrissi’s mom, pops up in the doorway, next to her desk, her short reddish bob bouncing around her jaw line.
“Why don’t you actually knock instead of saying ‘knock’?”
“I didn’t want to startle you… are you in a mood again? I can come back later if it means avoiding a lash of that sweet teen angst.”
“Mom! No, I’m fine. What do you need?” Chrissi asks tersely; face flushing and forcing a smile of surrender. Her mom enjoys being completely open and frank, especially about hormones and developments.
“Well, I was thinking about going into the city for a visit to the mall tomorrow. How are you doing on gloves? Do you want to come with and see what they have out for the new fall season?” Chrissi stares at her mom in disbelief.
“Mom, you think buying me a million gloves is going to make me feel better? Make me feel normal?”
“No sweetie, that’s not—”
“Oh, I get it. It makes you feel better, doesn’t it?” After the frustration from her thoughts prior to this conversation, the words slide out of Chrissi’s mouth like seven lead bombs. Lethal? No, but detrimental just the same and Chrissi instantly regrets it. “Mom, I didn’t mean that! I’m so sorry!”
Her mom starts to speak then pauses for a second choosing her words strategically, her bright green eyes focus on Chrissi purposefully, “I accept your apology Chrissi, but you cannot take back those words. I’m just trying to help you feel comfortable being you. I know you don’t like wearing the gloves, but seeing as you have to, I just wish you would embrace it. Make it your ‘thing’, you know?” Ame puts air quotes around “thing” as she poses, popping her slim hip to the side, doing her best to mimic a…teenager? Sometimes her mom tries way too hard.
“And I wish you would embrace the potential of controlling the stupid curse! I can do it mom! I know I can.”
Ame nibbles on her bottom lip, pondering. They’ve been in this place before, this terrifying unknown. Ame isn’t fond of leaps of faith. In her experience they always end in a face plant.
“What makes you think you can control it?”
“I…well…a feeling I have?” Chrissi is a horrible liar and her mom immediately senses this one.
“Chrissi Lee Camden! How do you know?” Ame says lividly, forsaking the tenderness of first names only. Her lips pull into two tight lines of disappointment, and a hint of fear, Chrissi notices, flashes in her eyes. Chrissi sighs in defeat.
“I’vebeenpracticing” Chrissi mumbles quickly. Right, like that will work, smooth Chrissi, she chides herself.
“What?” the word is firm, loud, and feels like a punch to Chrissi’s gut. Tears begin to well up in Chrissi’s eyes, she hates disappointing anyone, especially the one person always in her corner. Maybe it’s an abandoned orphan side effect. Maybe the heavy label of “goody-two-shoes” she has been given at school is justified. Chrissi opens her mouth to speak. She feels her dry, nervous lips separate and come together again, trying to form words. A word. Anything. Then a door slams downstairs.
“Hel-lo Camden household!”
Ame rolls her eyes and sighs, knowing the battle is lost, or at the very least postponed. Chrissi pushes back from the desk so fast the chair turns and crashes into her twin-size bed, flinging her forward and giving her momentum as she speeds out of the rapidly shrinking and tense bedroom. Silently, she hopes her mom doesn’t hold the awkward escape against her later. Though, she is very, very glad to see, “Phil! Precisely the right moment as always!” Chrissi exclaims as she grabs his arm and turns him around to go back down the ten steps he already climbed.
“Whoa! Where are we going? And usually you say my timing is ‘impeccably awful’!” Phil says in a mocking, high-pitched tone.
“I don’t talk like that.”
“Where are we going?” he demands, ignoring her denial.
“Out back. I’ll explain later,” Chrissi says through gritted teeth, still pulling Phil to follow her. Phil glances up at Ame, standing at the top of the stairs, arms crossed, lips thin, and a look that could kill artfully donning her face.
“OK! Coming!” Phil says as he makes it out the back door before Chrissi.
“So, what was that about?” Phil prods 15 minutes later as he chews a piece of grass. Lying in the backyard, staring at the sky has always been their favorite pastime. Night or day. Clear or cloudy. This is where their deepest conversations always take place. Chrissi often imagines telling her confidant, Phil, all about her curse. And it is always best here, laying head-to-head or resting back on her arms, staring straight up at the most interesting creation. Now Chrissi makes out an elephant in a cloud as the wind leisurely wisps it away.
“You know, same old, same old. How has your weekend been?” Chicken, she inwardly reprimands. Someday, maybe, she will tell him.
“Chrissi,” Phil says seriously, sitting up and turning to face her. “I heard part of the argument. It sounded intense.” Phil directs his muted green eyes to look attentively into Chrissi’s. She tries not to meet them, knowing if the mystery in her bronze eyes meets the concern in his she won’t be able to keep her secret. Instead she focuses on his freckles, dotting his nose and cheeks. She feels moisture beginning to accumulate on her soft, pale palms. Lies. They swim around her, and a soft, low humming fills her head. The lies suffocate day in and day out. As the mental debate to disclose her secret begins, she recalls the look of immense disappointment on her mother’s face just five minutes earlier. But even the meaning of those frightening terse lips do not hold back the sudden daredevil feeling she senses creeping up her spine. She wants to jump, leap into a faithful pool of trust in her dearest friend.
“Well, Phil, Phil Jacobson…” his full name slips out as filler she is so nervous. Anxiety consumes her thoughts and overwhelms her, she can’t think clearly. Words float around, but she can’t choose the order, nothing makes sense. “Mom, she, she doesn’t trust me with something, with well this thing, trust…she doesn’t…” Chrissi pauses. Phil raises his left eyebrow slowly and stares at her quizzically.
“Why are you so nervous?”
“I’m not nervous!” Chrissi says defensively, feeling her whole life slipping through her fingers. Questions fill her mind, Maybe he won’t take it well. What if he already knows? Why did I do this? I can’t back out now. Can I?
Chicken.
“Chrissi, you’re talking like Yoda, you’re squeezing your hands and although I can’t see them I know that means your palms are sweating and your palms only sweat when you’re nervous. So I ask again, what’s going on?” Phil’s voice shakes as he makes the declaration. Aggression and strength have never come easily to him, but he is worried. Something is different. He felt a shift in Chrissi’s demeanor as soon as they lay on the grass and silence hit long enough for her thoughts to carry her away. He sits up and glances around, surprised they haven’t made permanent imprints in their spots after so many years of star gazing and cloud configuring. He looks at Chrissi, still laying down, staring at the bright-blue sky. Her eyes are shifting as if her brain is in overdrive. “Chrissi?”
Questions continue running a marathon in her psyche with thoughts of the imminent and dire future ahead. After ruining everything her mom has set up for them Chrissi will become a science experiment or excommunicated by Earth and shipped off to Mars. The humming in her head hits its crescendo. Alas, she is stuck now, she began to tell Phil everything, raising the suspicions he already had and she can’t back out of it now. She is always horrible under pressure.
“RESPONSIBILITY!” Chrissi shouts proudly, bolting up into the same sitting position as Phil. It was the first thing that came to her mind that she thought she could make some sense of, maybe—tell h
im without really telling him.
“…what?” Phil’s eyes widen and his dirty-blonde hair is disheveled from jumping at her sudden outburst. He looks like a cat that narrowly escaped being thrown into water, and nearly feels like it too. Chrissi realizes she is smiling insanely and the heels of her hands are digging deep into the grass. She tries to recover.
“My mom. She doesn’t trust me enough to…to give me more responsibility,” she says covertly while simultaneously trying to relax her maniacal posture.
“Oh. Right. OK,” Phil says timidly, drawing out the ‘O’. Chrissi knows she has dug a hole for herself, but scrambles to climb back out of it before losing her gumption.
“I want to be able to…make orange juice…yeah, orange juice, the best fresh-squeezed orange juice this town has seen!” she beams at Phil and continues frantically, “But you see, my mom is so used to making orange juice one way that she won’t let me make it any other way. It’s just got to be Florida oranges! You know?”
“Well, I don’t—”
“I mean, what’s wrong with Georgia’s oranges? Or California’s? Or Texas’ oranges? This is injustice really!” Chrissi realizes she is standing. When did she get to her feet? Suddenly her arm projects, a rebellious fist of freedom frozen in midair.
“OK,” Phil says, his worry about her only growing, “you’re obviously not that upset about oranges, and if you are, we’ve got bigger problems! Anyway, the way I see it, whatever ‘it’ is, your mom has a lot more experience than you do. Maybe she can foresee something that we can’t.”
Of course he sees right through that monstrosity of an analogy! Chrissi feels the right corner of her mouth curve up slightly at the ‘we’ in Phil’s monologue. Always a team. She is overwhelmed with a desire to tell him the orange is actually a deathly curse, and that her mother has no more experience with the curse than she does herself, less even! It’s her curse after all! Her mom doesn’t know the blissful sensation that flows through her fingers when touching a leaf that immediately yields to heavy regret after seeing the green turn black. Yep. That sounds ridiculous. Regardless, she feels the explanation rise in her chest and slowly begins to creep up her vocal chords.
“Phil, I—”
“I know Chrissi, you’ve had the chance to vent, although covertly, and I get you don’t want to tell me, or can’t. But deep down you know everything your mom does is for you. Every decision she makes is for you. Why would this be any different?”
She meets his green eyes, taking note of the extra freckles that appeared on his cheeks over the summer. “You’re right,” she responds, letting her secret fall back to her stomach. Eventually she would heap it back onto her shoulders. “Want to go have dinner?” she chokes out in an effort of peacekeeping.
The sky has turned a deep purple with red and orange streaking through it. As everything starts to look fuzzy in the twilight hour, Chrissi looks up at the moon, fighting for space with the sun, desiring nothing more than to put this dreadfully awkward and painful conversation behind them.
“Nah, actually my aunt and uncle are in town. They should be at the house already; you know how I love to hear them tell the old stories about the king!” Phil stands up next to Chrissi and looks up with her as the moon wins the race.
“Oh Phil, aren’t you tired of those children’s stories yet?” she says playfully, shaking her head in disbelief, glad that he seems lighthearted once again.
“I don’t think they’re just stories anymore, Chrissi,” Phil retorts, suddenly serious. He swallows hard, nervousness threatening to creep to the surface, but continues in spite of it, “I think…I think King Roi…” he pauses after stating the legendary name carefully, raw-ee, almost fearful to continue, “I think he’s still alive, still ruling as a king somewhere even. Maybe he is on the moon; maybe he sits with the stars or lives in the Milky Way. Or maybe, Chrissi, he is in the wind and rain. Maybe he is in love and in every kind deed we experience. Maybe he is behind everything good and decent in this world. I think we’re missing something. Something big. Something important.” A murmur hums in his head, probably adrenaline due to his excitable declaration.
Chrissi stares, flabbergasted, at Phil, stunned at his poetic confession. But he continues to stare at the sky as if he is seeing something Chrissi cannot. Something very far away.
“Phil, I don’t know what to say. I had no idea you felt like this. We always thought some of the stories could be true but that they were just stories of a great, great man from long ago. Like…long ago. He couldn’t still be alive.”
“I guess we all have our secrets, huh?” For the first time he looks at Chrissi, not just eye-to-eye but into her, to her very core.
He knows.
For the first time in their 16-year friendship, Chrissi fears Phil knows her deepest secret—a secret that is not just her own. Her mom’s secret. Her Granny’s secret. Her aunt’s secret. While her Granny and aunt don’t know of her curse, if it was exposed the affects would be far reaching for her family and friend. For the briefest second, before she can banish the image from her mind, Chrissi sees herself strapped to a chair with wires and needles. Her family huddled in a corner crying, screaming—hopeless.
Phil knows she is hiding something, he sees the utter terror in her eyes. He wonders if he came on too strongly and regrets his comment—his aggressive prodding—immediately. But he cannot take the words back. He will allow Chrissi to take whatever step she wishes, sweep it under the rug like it never happened or finally tell him what her family has kept locked away for so long.
“Goodnight Chrissi,” he finally says tenderly, trying to regain his gentle and loving nature. Chrissi watches him walk to the fence’s gate that leads to the driveway. She is so shocked, her brain cannot compute to send any words out. Even if it could, her lips feel frozen.
Phil’s hand remains on the gate and he does not turn to face her when he makes a strange affirmation, “You’re my best friend Chrissi,” he says in a hushed tone, barely audible. He pauses for just one second and then he is gone. Chrissi lets out a breath, just now realizing she had been holding it. Still stunned and very confused, Chrissi walks back towards the house. She blindly opens the back door and enters the kitchen. She stands in the middle of the little room, feeling the heat of the oven to her right and staring ahead at the light blue cabinets and stainless steel sink.
“Chrissi! Oh!” Ame almost walks into her daughter. “What are you doing? I thought you were still outside with Phil.”
“N-no,” Chrissi manages to stammer.
“Is Phil joining us for dinner?” she asks as she pulls dishes out of the cabinets.
“No. Mom…I think he knows.”
Ame turns to the oven as Chrissi speaks and checks the pot roast. A wave of heat carries the wafting sent of tender, roasting vegetables through the kitchen, giving Chrissi a slight sense of comfort.
“Hm? Knows what sweetie?” she says absently lifting the heavy roaster out of the oven.
“Mom! He knows!” Chrissi accidentally yells, all previous comfort dissipating. Ame freezes. She slowly turns and looks at Chrissi.
“But how on earth could he know anything? Did you tell him something?” The question is not an accusation and can be meant for herself just as much as Chrissi.
“Not on purpose and nothing to my own recollection. Mom, we have been friends our whole lives. After 16 years, did we really believe no one, especially those closest to us, would ever figure it out? He’s smart. Honestly, I’m surprised it took him this long, unless he has known and just not said anything.”
“Yes, he is very wise. Far beyond his age I’ve always thought,” Ame says softly, almost as if she is talking to herself. She leans against the now closed oven, pot roast sitting on the stove top. For years she fought the worry of her daughter’s close friendship to the back of her mind. Not because he is a boy. From her observations Chrissi hasn’t had any interest in romance and so far Phil still seems listless when it comes to flirtation. No,
but because of this very predicament. Their secret. “How much do you think he knows?”
“I’m not sure he knows much more than that I am hiding something. But now that it is out there, he may begin asking questions,” Chrissi feels the weight of evading Phil and many possibly uncomfortable situations in the future. “We didn’t plan for this mom. We assumed we could hide it forever. I know you don’t believe me, but I can control it. In the long run, this is the safest route,” she says confidently.
“Chrissi, it isn’t that I don’t believe you, or don’t believe in you. The fact is, neither of us truly knows if you are capable—”
“I do,” Chrissi lowers her head to avoid whatever painful, disappointed look her mom is wearing.
“How?” Ame asks carefully, her chest heaves as she breathes heavily, she feels beads of sweat forming on her forehead. She’s nervous, and speaks the word as carefully as if she is defusing a bomb, hoping to pick the right wire and not even possessing that much control. “How?” she asks again, sternly.
“My tree,” Chrissi says simply. But she knows it won’t be that easy. She breathes in deeply, preparing herself. Now or never, actually now, she put herself in a position that gives her no other choice. She was excelling at allowing herself to be cornered these days. Maybe that is what she really wants, freedom albeit wading through immense discomfort first. “In my tree in the front yard I have been practicing, for years. I can touch just one leaf and it dies but the rest of the tree remains alive. Obviously.”
Silence.
Finally, after an eternity it seems, Chrissi looks up at her mom. Ame’s eyes are wide, her mouth agape and arms outstretched, palms up, fingers spread. Surrender. Incredulous surrender. A posture that can go either way. Is her mom going to give up the fight now that she knows Chrissi can control the curse?
“THE FRONTYARD?”
The Reconciling [Part 1] Page 2