Nope.
“Yes ma’am,” Chrissi stares at her frigid parent. Her mom is actually poised in quite the comical way. She wonders if anything could move her and imagines taking her mother by the torso and moving her to her own bedroom then carrying on the rest of the week without her, the whole conversation left to be forgotten once she finally thaws. Maybe she will remain frozen that long. No, Chrissi needs her, she realizes. She doesn’t want to go through this alone. “Mom?”
“Yes, I’m…I’m just…trying to understand and not explode.”
“OK.”
Silence.
“So…pot roast?” she prods.
“Oh Chrissi!” her mom grabs the plates she set out and serves her anyway. “Let’s talk while we eat. You are not off the hook.”
They sit at the table in silence for what seems like an hour, until Chrissi can no longer stand it.
“Mom, I’m…I’m sorry,” she says, not knowing what else to say or what else will help her
current situation of certain life-long grounding.
“Well, Chrissi Lee, sorry just doesn’t really solve the issue does it?” Her mom takes a healthy bite of roast and continues with her stress-filled rant, “I mean, the front yard! Not only did you deliberately go against the rules but you also did it in the most dangerous and threatening place possible. Our front yard!” Ame feels her chest heave as her breath quickens with anxiety. She shoves another large bit of roast in her mouth and stares at her plate. “Has anyone seen you?”
“No! Absolutely not!” Chrissi says automatically.
“How can you be so sure?” Ame asks, finally meeting her daughter’s eye.
“I know I’m out of sight. I know I’m out of sight,” Chrissi can’t keep eye contact and lowers her head to her own plate for the first time, using her fork to sort her carrots from the potatoes and celery.
“How long?”
“A few years…”
Ame gasps. “Oh Chrissi.”
Silence again befalls the dinner table. Waves of fear and dread toss in Chrissi’s stomach and she continues sorting the tender produce on her plate.
After several minutes Ame finally speaks again, “Show me.”
“What?”
“Show me what you can do, bring it here.”
“The tree?”
“No Chrissi, bring a twig with some leaves on it or something,” Ame shoos Chrissi outside with her hand while the other one holds her now pounding head.
“Oh, right, sure,” Chrissi jumps up from the table, glad for a reason to leave for a minute. Perhaps some fresh air will calm the storm waging in her nervous gut.
The evening isn’t quite crisp but it is cool enough to be enjoyable. The street lights glow along the street and windows in houses are lit as families sit down to dinners, probably much less tense than her own. Chrissi swiftly climbs her tree, a little higher than necessary, and finds a small twig with three leaves. Before climbing down she leans back on a large branch and takes in one, two, three deep breaths. As it happens occasionally she finds her gaze on the Pikes’ house across the street just as Kesil’s mom is getting out of her car. Back home after cooling off maybe. But Chrissi also notices another car in the driveway, Kesil’s dad’s car moved to the street. A sleek, silver Lamborghini sits in its place instead, closest to the front door.
Chrissi shrugs it off, slightly embarrassed of her newfound meddlesome habit. With twig in hand she climbs down the tree and slowly walks inside to the dinner table.
Her mom’s plate is now empty and Ame commences drinking her entire glass of iced tea.
“Ok,” she says putting her glass back on the table.
“Ok,” Chrissi repeats.
“Well, go on then, show me,” Ame orders, not so certain she is ready to be shown.
Chrissi places the small bit of greenery on the table and removes her right glove. Ame has a quick intake of breath that Chrissi chooses to ignore as she lightly touches one leaf and quickly pulls her hand back, covering it with her glove again.
Ame leans closer, halfway across the table almost, to see the gold overtake the green leaf, then the blackened decay curl the edges and…stop.
She reaches for the twig, nearly knocking over Chrissi’s tea, and holds it close to her face, examining.
“You really did it,” she says touching the two green leaves, unaffected by Chrissi’s touch.
“I told—” Chrissi stops herself before finishing the life-ending phrase as she receives a death stare from her mom.
“Ok,” Ame says, catching the breath she had not realized she was holding. “Ok, so you can do it. Though I’m not remotely wild about how you came about this knowledge, we do have it now. So…” Ame rolls her eyes, incredulous about the decision she is about to make, “So keep practicing and learning—”
Chrissi gasps with glee.
“—maybe there is something more to this you can learn,” her mom continues. “BUT,” she juts her pointer finger out towards Chrissi with all the parental authority she can muster, “in the BACKYARD.”
“Yes ma’am!” Chrissi says grinning, taking a bite of carefully segregated carrot.
“And you’re grounded. For…until…until I say otherwise.”
“What?” Chrissi drops her fork to her plate. “How long is that?”
“I don’t know yet,” Ame takes her dishes to the sink and heads upstairs to paint or wallow.
“But…like…a week?”
Ame pauses halfway up the stairs. Without turning to look at her daughter she says, “Chrissi, you lied to me. You kept a very important secret about your…secret! You put yourself in danger. So yes. You’re grounded indefinitely, until I am satisfied that the punishment has fit the crime. Now finish your dinner and go to your room.” With that Ame climbs the stairs towards her painting room.
CHAPTER THREE
The warm summer drizzle that began in the middle of the night continues to saturate the concrete curb on which Chrissi waits. She is torn from her thoughts when the dingy yellow bus, number 1613, pulls up in front of her.
The hopeful daydreaming of one day forsaking her cumbersome gloves dissipates into nervousness. Now she must face Phil and after last night’s confrontation with her mom, Chrissi is very unsure if luck is on her side.
The doors squeak open, jerking in the process. Chrissi takes the steep steps up, carefully so as not to slip, until she is eye level with the bus driver. She gives the chubby man a slight smile and receives a joyful greeting, just like every morning.
“Good morning Ms. Camden! Looking bright, as always!” he winks, his blue eyes in bright contrast to his ruddy complexion and bushy, red-brown eyebrows with flecks of grey. She and Phil have always joked that he is their own personal, year-round Scottish Santa Claus with reddish brown, curly hair and a short mustache.
“Good morning sir,” she says sheepishly, the anxiety of her conversation to come with Phil rising up in her chest, heavy and inevitable.
Fuzzy classic rock music blares from the driver’s small radio hanging off his gigantic rearview mirror. Her steps fall in line to the beat automatically as she taps each seat she passes, trying to distract herself from the inevitable awkwardness about to take place.
Chrissi finds herself at her regular seat; she doesn’t remember walking half way down the narrow aisle. It seems to have taken ages! She looks down at Phil who is staring out the window at some crows pecking for worms in the soft, damp morning earth.
The cold shoulder. Better than blatant anger, she supposes. She plops down next to him, purposefully bumping his arm and making as much noise and movement as possible. If he wants to ignore her, she is not going to make it easy. He knows how much passive-aggression annoys her.
They sit in silence for two more stops and Phil cannot take it anymore. He was not sure how exactly he would respond to Chrissi until this very moment. He knows she is bordering on seething, can practically see the smoke billowing from her ears. This is not how he wants her to tell him. No, he wants
her to confide in him because she trusts him and desires to let him into her whole life, to stop keeping him from this one part. He doesn’t want her to tell him out of guilt or in frustration. What does that mean about their friendship if he forces it out of her?
“So,” he says a little too loudly, “Ready for the Geometry test? Second period!” Before his brain can tell his hand to stop his thumb shoots up in utter awkward cheesiness.
Chrissi jumps at the sudden break in silence. She looks at him with confusion. She has had that look for him quite a few times in the last 24 hours, she realizes. After a few too many seconds of staring, it dawns on her that he had asked her a question and is still awaiting an answer.
“Wha—um, yeah. Of course,” she stumbles over her words. She’s always ready for tests. She’s the top of their class, behind only Phil because he has a photographic memory. He is trying too hard. “How are you?” she asks cautiously.
“Me? I’m fine! This weather though, ugh, dreary,” he says moving his hands under each leg so as to keep from repeating his previous embarrassment.
“…the weather, really Phil?” He squirms at the exposure of his thinly veiled attempts to forgive and forget, but she isn’t ready to let it go. She is not sure she wants Phil to know everything yet but she definitely does not want to take last night’s incident and shove it in a pile of taboo conversations that will only gain more and more weight as time progresses. She cannot take any more weight in her chest or on her shoulders. “We have to talk about yesterday.”
“What about yesterday?” Phil gently challenges as he turns to face her. He is not sure what Chrissi wants, to find out how much he does know or to convince him he doesn’t really know anything. He does know that he is willing to take this conversation as far as Chrissi is.
She looks around the bus taking count of four freshmen, scattered in their own individual seats in the front half of the bus and seemingly dozing with their headphones on full volume.
“About what you called…my ‘secret’. I need to—” the bus doors squeak open and three giggling girls make their way up the slick steps and down the aisle. A short but slender girl leads the other two. Today her dark brown hair falls in natural waves just passed her shoulders and is parted perfectly down the center in one neat, wavy line. As she reaches Phil’s and Chrissi’s seat on the left, her brown eyes seek Chrissi’s.
Chrissi mentally reprimands herself for making eye contact and tries to hide the faux paux by quickly looking away, out the foggy window. She focuses all her attention on the tiny droplets forming short lines across the glass as the wind blows.
“Chrissi Lee, oh that top is just…so…you!” she draws out each syllable of Chrissi’s given name, in the southern twang in which it originated. Chrissi cannot help but notice Phil chuckle slightly, obviously taking delight in the use of her full name as she had just been chiding him. It only fuels her frustration.
“Lesia, why don’t you and your two makeup minions just move along?” Chrissi spits each word out, dripping with a decade’s worth of disdain. Phil squirms in his seat, uncomfortable. He is not entirely passive, in fact he has stood up to Lesia, and her posse, multiple times over the years for Chrissi. That did not change the fact that being around others as they argued made him uncomfortable.
During their freshmen year he tried out for the debate team, because it would look good on his resume, of course. However, in the second meeting when the whole team participated in an impromptu “friendly” argument, Phil’s legs shook and his vocal chords froze. His arms felt like lead and his heart was pounding faster than a hummingbird’s. When it was his turn to make a point, all that managed to escape his mouth was, “Uh,” and very high-pitched at that, almost a squeal. A very hostile Lesia, who happened to be on his team, took over and a full-fledged, heated, quick debate ensued. As words flew across the room and debaters moved with lightening speed from one point to another, Phil found it harder to breathe and he began sweating profusely. He darted out of the room and never looked back.
Today, almost one whole year later, he just sits quietly as Lesia’s nose turns up at the two of them, a slight snarl making its way across her lips. Phil hopes she will just walk away, that Chrissi will stand down.
Nope.
Prim, proper and ritzy right down to her earrings, gold posts—simple yet expensive and strategic—Lesia tucks a bit of hair behind her ear showing them off, readying herself for a pounce. Her silent gloating with the costly little orbs resonates deeper within Chrissi, singes worse, than this adversary will ever know. “You Chrissi Lee Camden are the most vile, annoying creature to ever attend our school. And you could definitely use a scrub or facial mask for those blemishes! Unsightly!” she points at Chrissi’s face and turns to the rewarding guffaws of her friends, Jennifer and Ashley.
Chrissi raises from her seat, now eye-level with Lesia.
“Ahem,” the driver gets up from his seat and stands with hands resting on the first two seats on either side. His shoulders, hunched over a little, look more muscular than chubby. “Ladies, are we going to start the morning off with a problem?”
“No sir,” Chrissi says through gritted teeth, still glaring at Lesia. Fake smiles make their way to Jennifer and Ashley’s uncomfortable faces as they turn toward the driver in reassurance.
“Good.” Everyone stares at his pliant red face. “Well, take your seats then!” he chortles sitting back down and putting the bus in gear as Lesia and her friends sit down. All three of them try to cram into one seat—Lesia next to the window somehow with the most room, the other two girls hanging out into the aisle, book bags and lunchboxes crowding their laps. The bus jerks forwards and the girls groan in pain as they are flung into the seat in front of them and then to the side, barely able to stay on the bench seat.
Phil and Chrissi laugh quietly, reveling in a moment in which Lesia is not graceful. They are few and far between. Her gymnastic skills lend her impeccable balance and self awareness that belong to no other teenager on earth—just Chrissi’s luck that her archenemy would be close to perfection. She looks at Phil, hoping their encounter with the school shrew ended their tension and regained their camaraderie.
Phil nods, “We can talk later,” he says in a whisper. They spend the remainder of the bus ride in comfortable, familiar silence.
***
The bell rings to let out sixth period.
Just one more class, Chrissi encourages herself as she rushes to her locker. It has been a very easy-going, uneventful day considering the brush with Lesia on the bus this morning. Pushing through the crowded hallway is like swimming against a current, but she finally makes it to her blue-grey locker with a few minutes to spare.
The lockers are the most muted and simple color in the whole school building. Of course, with school colors like bright orange and lime green, there is not much you can really do. Chrissi pities their principal, Deena Pike, her neighbor and Kesil’s mother. Between all the problems Chrissi has witnessed Mrs. Pike having with her husband and then coming to a high school to deal with troublesome teens and meddling teachers, wretched color schemes are the last burden the poor woman should have to bear.
“Putting yourself in the custodian’s shoes again?” Phil asks as he swings his locker open to her right, snatches a textbook, and closes it all in one seamless motion. Chrissi realizes she is staring at Mr. Larry as he replaces a trash bag in a large, olive-green can.
“No,” she says simply, and a little defensively, as she scrolls through her combination, 22-0-22. She flings her locker open, cutting Phil out of her peripheral, “Mrs. Pike.”
“Ahh, yes. Who wouldn’t want to understand the mind and trials of a rude, cruel, and relentlessly strict principal?”
“She’s not that bad.”
Phil moves around the locker door to her left side.
“Not that bad,” his dim-green eyes widen, “Not that bad Chrissi? She lives to torture us! Last year on the last week of school she gave me detention for dri
nking out of the water fountain ‘incorrectly’,” he motions air quotes around the adjective.
“Well, it’s pretty gross when you actually touch the spout with your lips Phil.”
“I didn’t!”
“It was months ago. She was probably just having a bad day.”
“Yeah, when doesn’t she? Anyway, we’ve got Chem. See you in class?”
“Sure.”
Phil hates to be any amount of late anywhere. Chrissi, on the other hand, likes to take her time and miss the whole swimming upstream ordeal that is a high school hallway. She takes a minute or two to organize inside her locker. As she’s alphabetizing her textbooks, the decrepit and flaking cover of her geometry textbook falls off completely, landing at her feet. Shocked, she stares at it. Anxiety kicks in and she quickly glances down each direction of the hallway, making sure Mrs. Pike was not around and back down to the cover. Will she have to pay for a 70-year-old geometry book? A hand grabs the cover from the floor and Chrissi looks up into the dark eyes of Kesil Pike. He holds the book cover out to her.
“Whose idea was it to put Nemo on a geometry book? How does that make sense?” he quips.
“What?” Chrissi takes it from him, slightly dazed. It is not that she swoons over the junior class hunk like every other girl in school, even seniors. He is attractive but, more so to her, he is intimidating. His quiet nature confuses Chrissi and she cannot tell if he is genuine or chauvinistic like the rest of the macho pigs in his group of friends. Some may call him mysterious.
“I had that book last year and all I could do in class was stare at the cover, trying to figure out what the heck a clown fish had to do with geometry. Maybe I missed something,” Kesil chuckles and begins rifling through his locker, one over to Chrissi’s left.
“Oh, right. Maybe they wanted a calming cover for a book they knew would produce frustration and anger in poor unsuspecting readers.”
“Clown fish calm you?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Well no…I mean…aquariums and fish in aquariums are supposed to reduce stress…it’s been studied.”
The Reconciling [Part 1] Page 3