Girls Don't Fly

by Chandler, Kristen

“Who cares? I thought you were developing your self-preservation instincts.”

  “I guess it just depends on what I want to preserve about myself.”

  Pete shakes his head. “I can’t figure out if you think you’re better than everyone else or worse.”

  “This isn’t about me. It’s about being part of a family.”

  He jumps off the table. “Like hell it is,” he says. “You’re chickening out. It isn’t even about the trip. You just can’t stand the thought that you might be happy. It would throw off the whole save-the-world thing you’ve got going.”

  I wouldn’t expect Pete to understand. He cracks jokes and drives a car without windows and doesn’t worry about anybody. That’s fine with me. “So I guess I’ll see you around then.”

  Pete turns away. He’s watching Bobbie and the boaters. From the looks of it, the guys are giving her some grief. My last shift is over and we both have to go. He turns back to me.

  “You’ll see me at six o’clock sharp next Saturday, thank you very much.”

  “For what?”

  “I believe we have a date. For your birthday. Is seven better?”

  “You still want to go to the dance, even though I’m quitting?”

  He says, “You think you have the corner on the martyr market?”

  “I’m not a martyr.”

  “Yes, you are,” says Pete. “And you’re about to be an eighteen-year-old, pretty martyr, which is the very worst kind. Look what happened to Joan of Arc. Not good.”

  “At least she died famous.”

  “Famous for being dead is still dead.”

  “That’s not what she was famous for.” I do a fast-forward, imagining Pete showing up at my senior dinner dance with a beard and his harbor master clothes. I put my hands together in a Joan position. “See you at seven.”

  36

  Rehabber:

  A person who is supposed to know what to do with messed-up birds.

  I’ve threatened the kids with broccoli for dinner if they’re late for me to pick them up at the curb from school. Actually, Carson likes broccoli. But there’s no more lollygagging. We are all on a schedule now. Four days down, twenty-six to go.

  When I get home, I immediately go hang out with Mel and tell her about my day while she lies there on her side like a pinned animal. I brought her some books from the library about pregnancy. But she can’t really read because it’s hard to hold a book in that position. So I’ve read some to her and then read a lot more to myself. Turns out preeclampsia is kind of interesting.

  One day I paint her toenails green. One day we search her laptop for pictures of fat celebrities and she actually laughs for about ten seconds.

  A lot of the time we just sit in the same room. I know she’s mad I’m not applying for the scholarship, but we don’t talk about it. Usually by the time Mom leaves, Melyssa goes back to merciful sleep and I start dinner.

  Today when I come in she’s watching a soap. Her hair is matted to her head in a lovely roadkill updo. Her skin is ashy and swollen. The room smells like cheese puffs and apple juice. She ignores me. I override my urge to power wash the room and instead sit down next to Melyssa and her idiot box. A makeup-caked bimbo is about to get her clothes torn off by a guy who could be her father. I watch the woman throw herself at the rich old creep. What is it with women and older men? Such a cliché.

  “Those shows will kill your brain cells,” I say.

  “So will being a mom,” she says.

  “Exactly. You might want to hold on to a few IQ points.”

  She puts another wad of cheese puffs in her mouth.

  I stand up and start cleaning. I can tolerate the stench of junk food but not her self-pity.

  Mom has made up another bed in the room so she can sleep next to Melyssa during the time I’m at school. Which I think is hilarious, because Mom sleeps so hard after she’s been working all night that Mel would have to fall on her to wake her up. Beside Mom’s folded blankets there are home improvement magazines. And a basket of unpaired socks. I can’t get away from those lonely socks.

  “Sorry, I’m a grouch,” says Melyssa. “Crappy day.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing.” She wriggles her feet up onto her pillow at the base of the bed.

  “You talk to Zeke lately?”

  “Zeke who?” she says. “He’s probably out writing some deeply pathetic poetry about how dark his life is. Either that or out getting drunk.”

  “Since when is Zeke a drunk? Isn’t he in school?”

  “I don’t know where he is.” Melyssa gets up on her elbows with a heavy sigh and turns off the TV. “I called his phone yesterday and the number was disconnected. So I called the house and the shrew who runs the place said he’d moved out. No forwarding address. Too bad, that was a great house.”

  “You have no idea where he is?”

  “I did suggest he go to hell. I guess he could be there.”

  “I’m serious. He’s your baby’s dad. What if something ...”

  “He’s not a dad. He’s a self-absorbed sperm donor. Like this is going to ruin his shot at writing the great American novel or something. I hope I never see him again.”

  I look at Melyssa’s puffy face. Her shadowed eyes flutter around the room, taking inventory. I don’t know what she sees, but I’m guessing it’s four walls and nothing she wants.

  “And you are a worse liar than I am,” I say.

  “I’m not lying. He’s gone.”

  “That doesn’t mean you don’t care.”

  “Fabulous. What good does caring do?” says Melyssa.

  I stack Mom’s magazines. One of them is open to an article called “The Sunshine Nursery.” Everything in the nursery is brilliant yellow with bows made of sparkling material. It’s a room you could go blind in.

  “No good at all,” I say. “But maybe that’s all you’ve got.”

  I hang up Melyssa’s clothes and she turns the TV back on.

  I keep thinking about what Ms. Miller said about people getting tired and not giving up on myself even when everyone else does. And how Pete made fun of me for being a martyr. I stare into the basket of lonely socks. I have to ask myself, am I not applying so I can help Melyssa, or so I can avoid losing?

  The next night at bedtime I get the boys around. I have a hole the size of a bowling ball in my guts about dropping out of the competition. The application was all I had been thinking about—well, almost all I’d been thinking about—for so many weeks I didn’t even realize how much it had been keeping me from seeing all the other stuff in my life. I need to get away.

  “Where were we when last we left our pirates?”

  “They just brought the girl back on the ship after tossing her for being a witch,” says Carson.

  “Right you are, mate. The island of Isabela lay before them, her vast volcanoes, five fire-belching mountains, rising into the sky. The island was inhabited by hosts of mythic creatures like giant tortoises with saddle backs and fist-sized birds the color of a flame, red crabs with bright blue eyes, and tiny dragons that swim. Around the island’s rim, lurking in watery caves, lived one of the strangest creatures of all: the flightless cormorant.”

  “Like in your books,” says Carson.

  “Yes, but magic. And, like all things magical, dangerous. The first thing they learned on the island was that this was going to be an expensive trip.”

  “Who told them that?” says Carson.

  “The penguins.”

  “Penguins live at the South Pole, not the equator,” says Brett.

  “Not these penguins. These bullets of buoyancy are perfectly adapted to their home at the equator. They use the cold water that flows from the South Pole to cool their tail feathers. And they are smart too. They know a ship of suckers when they see one.”

  “They talk?” says Carson.

  “All penguins talk. If you speak penguin.”

  “What did they say?” says Danny.

  “The fat
head honcho penguin said, ‘Honk honk gasp ... It’s going to cost you one thousand doubloons to park that ship of dreams on our shore.’ ”

  “Is that a lot?” says Carson.

  “Well, not if you’re the King of England. But alas these were poor pirates. No savings. No retirement. Not even enough rum to get them through another week. They didn’t have any way to pay. The Deadendiers knew they had to land to get the jewel to save their town, so they volunteered to work off their debt. And the penguins took them up on their offer.

  “The fat penguin said, ‘When you have pulled a thousand fish from the sea, we will let you come ashore.’

  “To the surprise of the crew, the pirate king agreed.

  “ ‘What are you thinking, Cap’n?’ said the first mate. ‘We’ll be trolling the rest of our lives ta catch that many fish.’

  “The pirate king nodded yes, but the wink in his eye said no. At nightfall the pirate king came to the Deadendiers and told them to draw straws. The prince cheated and won. The pirate king told him he had won the honor of swimming to shore and stealing the jewel while the rest of the crew anchored there and pretended to fish. If the prince got past the larcenous penguins, he would have to find his way to the cave of the cormorants, and get past the horrible heron, and then he must tell the cormorants a riddle that they couldn’t solve. Only then would the mysterious birds release one of their precious gems to chase away the evil brain-killing trolls on Deadendia.

  “The prince said, ‘You want me to jump in the water at night?’

  “‘Yes,’ said the pirate king.

  “ ‘Have you seen what salt water does to silk? My clothes will be ruined,’ said the prince.

  “Before the maid could hear the pirate king’s profane response, she slipped into the water. She had only been swimming a few minutes when she saw large white shapes coming toward her. A white-tip reef shark, a manta ray, and a sea turtle, all swimming by the light of the silvery moon. The maid motioned to the creatures, but they swam on.”

  “She motioned to the shark?” says Carson. “Is she crazy?”

  “Not at all. They’re harmless in these waters. But one creature didn’t ignore the swimmer. A bored sea lion bull body slammed the poor girl. The maid batted the animal away, but it was no use. She was soon to drown when suddenly a pod of dolphins arrived, chirping and chatting after a night at the Oceanside Café. They swam past the sea lion, providing temporary shelter. One dolphin even bumped up to the maid and offered her a fin to shore. In no time at all the girl found herself on the beach. As the sun rose over the volcanoes, she huddled wet, cold, alone, and in search of the jewel she could not even describe. It was the best morning of her life.”

  I stand to go, and the boys moan. I step into the hallway and nearly land on my very uncomfortable sister, crunched against the wall.

  I pull her up and we walk to the kitchen.

  “How’s your head?” I say.

  “You aren’t going to start studying me like one of your sad little cormorants, are you?”

  “No. But baby science is kind of cool. It’s like creation in a bottle.”

  “Yeah, it’s real cool,” she says, “if you don’t mind being a bottle that can’t pee, walk, or wear anything but a circus tent.”

  “But you make the tent thing really work.”

  Melyssa laughs. “I hope the scullery maid gets the jewel. Eventually.”

  “She will. She’s a scullery maid. She’s used to crap happening.”

  37

  Outclimbing Escape Strategy:

  When a smaller prey plays the angles.

  I sit in my classes and look out the window at the various views of the parking lot. Someone went to a lot of trouble to give us views of the parking lot. Maybe it was to help our young minds feel refreshed with sunshine. That’s what I’d like to think. But most of the people I see sitting around me are seniors, and they don’t look too refreshed. They look like they’re on the downhill slide to nothing.

  This is all the school they’re planning, and in a few weeks we’ll be officially free of learning anything at all, except a trade that’s supposed to keep us from starving to death. School’s out forever, followed by a drum solo.

  During lunch I go to the library. At least I can read about being somewhere else.

  Much to my surprise, Erik strolls in a few minutes later and plunks down next to me, like we’re still big buddies. I keep my face in my book.

  “I heard you dropped out.”

  I look up but don’t say anything.

  “I would have won anyway, you know.”

  “If you thought that, you wouldn’t be here,” I whisper, then I put my head back in my book.

  “You know you really never wanted to go. You couldn’t leave this town if your life depended on it. You were doing it to get back together with me.”

  I put my book down. I look Erik in the face. “Really? Please try to get over yourself. I know what you did with the complaint. You’re such a weasel, you couldn’t just deal with me beating you, so you tried to cheat. Like you cheat on everything. That’s what you do when you can’t win, Erik. You cheat.”

  He whispers, “Gee, Myra, I love this new side of you.”

  “I don’t care if you love it or not.” I’m not whispering.

  “I don’t know why you have to act like this.”

  “Like what?” I feel kids looking at me.

  Erik tips his head forward and speaks with a distinct hiss. “I sent that complaint because you have an inappropriate relationship with Pete. I know he’s been helping you. It’s nauseating.” His nose pinches together when he says this. He couldn’t look any more self-righteous if he had a pulpit in front of him.

  I pick up my book and stuff it in my backpack. “Strap your barf bag on then, Saint Erik. Things are going to get a little bumpy.”

  38

  Plumage:

  Fancy feathers.

  When I get home from school, Melyssa is snoring like a bloodhound.

  I sit down and replay the whole Erik thing in my head. I flip through the magazine I bought her a few days ago. It’s a local outdoor magazine about places you can camp in the state with little kids. It seemed like a good idea when I bought it, something to get her thinking about the cool parts of being a mom, but now that I’m looking through it, all I can see are the pages plastered with smiling, perfect families. I wonder where Zeke is. If I knew, I’d call him and tell him to get his butt over here. She misses him, even though she says she doesn’t.

  And if he doesn’t hurry up and get some courage, he’s going to miss out on the birth of his kid. I don’t know that I like Zeke, but I think he should be around for at least that.

  I look at a few more pages and start reading an article about some mountain you can go to in the Uintas. With the article is a picture of a family sitting on a rock, and the mother is pointing things out to the kids like it’s a classroom. The caption says, “Respect Your Mother (Earth).”

  The two kids look like they’re having the time of their lives. The same old clichés every vacation ad has. But when I look at the cheesy mom standing there, it makes a deep, twisting hole in my heart. Regardless of what I’ve experienced in my own life, I want to be that person. Even if that person doesn’t exist. And I can’t be her if I’m some bitter mope who walks around doing things just because she should.

  I go get the boys out of their room. “Brett, I need you to keep an eye on Melyssa.”

  “An eye on her?”

  “Call me if she asks for me. Andrew, you are in charge of making dinner. We can have macaroni and cheese with a salad. Can you handle that?”

  “A salad?”

  “You’ve seen them?”

  “Yeah, but what do I put in it?”

  “Use your imagination.”

  I sketch for a minute in the basement, raid a few closets, and then I sit down at the sewing machine in Mom’s room. I put on my headphones and crank it. Sometimes you have a fairy godmother, and some
times you have to be your own.

  When Dad gets home, I tell him I need some help tonight. I have some important work to do.

  “Like what?”

  “I’m fixing up a dress for the Senior Dinner Dance.”

  “You’re going? Who are you going with?”

  “Pete. And I would like to look decent.”

  “Pete? Your boss Pete?” he says. “Isn’t he a little old for this kind of thing?”

  “He’s not my boss. And he’s going as a friend.”

  “Is Erik taking that other girl?”

  “I don’t know. How do you know about her?”

  “Carson told me she’s a wench.”

  I’ve always suspected that kid was a genius. “Carson’s right.”

  “You go ahead and work, honey. I’m sure we can handle Melyssa and dinner.”

  “Thanks.”

  I pull two layers of gauze I’ve been saving over one side of a yellow sundress that I bought last summer, then I embroider a sunflower onto it to hold everything together. It takes a long time, because I have to do it one little stitch at a time. I get off center and have to take a bunch of stitches out, which takes a whole lot longer than putting them in. Then I cut some petals from the leftover gauze and roll the seams and tuck them into the embroidery. Eventually it takes shape. It starts to pucker and stand up. Almost like it’s blooming.

  Just before midnight I walk past my dad, who has gone to sleep on the couch so I could work on the machine in his room. I look up at the clock on the wall. As it strikes, I realize I’m eighteen.

  I sleep until seven. I have to get Carson and Danny ready for soccer, and then take Melyssa to her obstetrician, but I’m so tired my eyebrows hurt. Maybe it’s my age. I feel my arms and face. No giant wrinkles yet. But I’m ready to go to bed when I wake up. I’m an adult.

  I go upstairs for a bowl of adult wheat flakes. I’m wearing an adult bathrobe. Okay, the robe says PINKY on the back, but close enough. The house is deathly quiet. The sun is coming through the curtains, making bright yellow squares on the linoleum. I wonder if my parents will remember it’s my birthday. Not that I care. There are more important things to do today than worry about a messy, expensive party. Just my dad helping out last night so I could work was great.