From Where I Watch You

by Shannon Grogan

  I want to say “duh” but again, I’m trying hard to be nice so I sip cocoa and get whipped cream on the end of my nose.

  Charlie laughs. “I asked the barista to put extra on it.”

  I stare at his reflection and the sweatshirt he wears.

  “Why are you wearing a Kennedy shirt?” I ask.

  “I go to school there, Kara.” His voice is dry, puzzled.

  I don’t know why it shocks me, but it does. He dropped out of sight freshman year, and now he’s back, only in private school. “But why? Why there?”

  “Just needed a change.” He turns away and swirls the coffee around in his mug. “When I came back.”

  All of a sudden I want to know everything about him because there are secrets behind his eyes. I want to know him.

  “Where were you?”

  He studies his cup for a moment. “California, Sprinkles. Wanted to learn how to surf. Isn’t that why anyone moves to California? Surfing or becoming famous? Or baking, in your case.”

  “You’re lying.”

  One corner of his mouth curls up into a smile and he shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. “So, are you going to San Francisco by yourself?”

  “I don’t need anyone else.”

  “Hmm, a girl, traveling alone.”

  I exhale slowly. The “alone” in his sentence makes me think of the notes, and I wonder if whoever wrote them is watching us right now. I also think of Mom, the former defense lawyer, and the arguments I’m going to need so she’ll let me go. “I’m a big girl, thanks, and I’ve pretty much grown up in a city. I can handle it.”

  “So what are you going to do with your big winnings?”

  “Um, I’m going to La Patisserie. Pastry School.”

  Charlie sets his mug down and leans back, smiling at me in a way that warms me like the cocoa does. Maybe I could tell him about the notes. For some reason, telling someone I don’t know very well seems like it might be easier than telling Mom or Noelle.

  “Okay. Sounds kind of French and snobby. That doesn’t really sound like you at all, Sprinkles.”

  Why is he laughing? He thinks it’s all a joke and I’m not sure why my dreams are so funny to other people. Words simmer inside of me, so I’m careful before I speak again. “If I want to have any credibility as a baker I have to go to a good school. I’m going to open my own bakery someday, maybe go to Paris and learn with the best. Anything to get me out of here.”

  “It isn’t so much better once you do get out of here, you know? Your problems still follow you.”

  My dad told me once that when the coffee beans come from the farmers, ready for roasting, the sacks have trash and cigarette butts inside because they are spread out on the street to dry before their journey to America. My insides twist and my eyes sting as I watch Charlie, with his permanent smile and half-full attitude toward life. Anger stirs inside me. “What do you know about problems, Charlie? Try having your whole life dumped upside down because your sister wasn’t there when you needed her and screwed up so badly she got herself killed. Try having your mom go from catatonic to crazy and drive away your prick of a dad. You don’t know anything about problems.”

  I take a huge swallow of cocoa so I can’t talk anymore.

  He looks down at his cup again. I look around to see people at the next table staring. I want to yell at them and I try to think of what Noelle, or Kellen, would say in my shoes. But I come up with nothing. Part of me wants to thank Charlie for the cocoa, but I can’t get the words out so I jump up and push my way out into the night.

  Once outside I almost run into Jason. It figures. He’s just another loser out on the Ave. But I keep my head down so he doesn’t see me. I don’t want to say a word to him, even an insult, because he’s not worth my breath right now. I lean against a wall, deciding if I should go back in because I’ve been such a bitch and Charlie’s been nothing but kind to me. But really, what does he know about problems? I mean, his parents always had money, and if they can afford Kennedy then he definitely still has it. If I had his money I’d move far from here and find a way to get into La Patisserie. And even if I didn’t get in, I’d go to France and live cheap and clean bidets in exchange for pastry lessons and baguettes. I would forget about notes and my crazy mother, who only needs Jesus and her Jesus-loving customers. I’d get fat on café au lait and chocolate and French cheese, but I wouldn’t care. I’d be happy, and I’d find a French guy who likes curvy American girls.

  I’d forget about the guy who is watching me.

  I take the envelope out of my pocket.

  what scares you?

  My breath forms an icy cloud as I exhale. Home is only a block away and I can see the light Mom always leaves on behind the counter. Above, in the apartment, it’s dark so she must be asleep.

  Passing the Moon Bar, muffled drunken laughter pours out into the air. A shiver ripples through me because I’m so cold. I look around. Jason is gone; everyone is gone. I can’t remember a time I’ve been out on the Ave and it’s been so deserted.

  A trolleybus rumbles by, sending sparks shooting off the power line, lighting the night. Shadows creep behind me and I think I hear footsteps, but I’m not sure. I walk faster, wanting to get home but not wanting to look like a paranoid idiot. I breathe icy puffs in front of my face. Maybe the pot is making my pulse go crazy.

  Every shadow, every noise is the one who wrote the notes waiting to get me. When I get to the café my hand trembles so badly, the key pokes and scratches and I can’t get it into the lock.

  The chalkboard outside the café lifts and bangs against the wall with the wind:

  meg’s soul soup café: our miraculous pea soup will answer your prayers and make all your dreams come true!

  Mom tricked me into painting clouds and stars and other heavenly things on her chalkboard. She fooled me into believing she’d post daily specials on it. She never told me she’d fill it with crazy.

  I use both my hands to steady the key. Finally I get the door unlocked, and then I’m inside and my breathing slows a bit and so does my heartbeat. I feel stupid to have been so scared, and then my foot slides across something on the floor.

  I can’t see the color, but I know the shapes of bloody droplets and the careful writing of my name. Two in one day.

  June: Thirteen-Year-Old Carrot’s

  Summer Fun Before High School

  We walk to the pizza parlor because it’s only a few blocks away. Kellen gets away from Tad. She slows down to grab my hand, which is weird for her. But she’s being nice to me so no complaints. Tad and Nick walk in front of us.

  The summer sun still burns, but a breeze blows up from Puget Sound every few minutes, giving a bit more relief. Everything’s going fine, we order pizza and eat outside, watching people walk by and enjoying the summer evening. Nick is pulling a slice from the second pizza when trouble starts.

  “Tad, you’re such a fucking pig,” Kellen says a little too loud.

  I look up from picking olives off my pizza to see what’s up. People stare at my sister. My face turns red even though I should be used to her embarrassing me. Nick hunches over his plate, suddenly very interested in chewing. Tad’s staring down the sidewalk. I see a girl walking with super high heel sandals and a sundress that barely covers her ass.

  “What?” Tad asks, still looking down the street.

  “I’m right here, you know.”

  “So.” Tad glares at her. “I can look.”

  “No. You can’t!”

  “Whatever, we’re not married. I can look all I want.” He turns to Nick. “Can’t I, Nick?”

  Before Nick speaks, Kellen turns and looks between the two of them. “You guys are both pervs.”

  Nick drops his pizza, palms up. “What did I do? Don’t bring me into it.”

  Kellen folds her arms down and scowls at him. “W
ell, gee, kinda hard not to when you are always around!” She turns back to Tad. “Did you ever stop to think that maybe I have feelings? Can you go one fucking minute without checking out some other girl’s ass?”

  Tad leans back and takes another huge bite of pizza. Kellen huffs and scowls at me, which makes me slink into my chair a little farther.

  “You’d probably hook up with my own sister if you had the chance,” Kellen declares.

  I almost choke on my pizza.

  “Hey, Kel,” Nick chimes in. “Leave Kara out of this. What’s the matter with you? She’s only twelve!”

  “Thirteen,” I correct.

  “Yeah, thirteen. Just a baby,” Nick adds.

  “Too bad.” Tad leans into Nick and lowers his voice, but I can still hear him. “Shit, she’s Kellen’s clone, only smaller and without the big mouth.”

  He chuckles and I want to run away.

  Kellen chucks a slice of pizza and it skims Tad’s shoulder, leaving a smear of sauce. When I look at how red my sister’s face is I really want to run away.

  “You’re a fucking asshole, Tad. But hey, wait around a year or two and you can have her!”

  9. Add sugar.

  ..........................................................

  Smells like betrayal. i like how you think you can just wander the streets at night.

  My name is Kara McKinley, and I’m being stalked.

  During homeroom this morning we had to go around the room and introduce ourselves to Cassie, the new girl from Oregon. We had to tell Cassie one sentence to sum ourselves up. This is what I wanted to say but I didn’t.

  On my way to lunch I passed Ms. Phillipe, the school psych, or counselor, or whatever title the school gives her depending on their budget for the year. Today was the second time I ever wanted to talk to her. Not about Kellen—I never wanted to talk about Kellen.

  The first time was in October. Noelle and Mason dragged me to a football game, and after the first quarter they disappeared, during which time Ms. Phillipe planted her skinny ass right next to me in the bleachers. I wanted to tell her to go sit with the old people. But then it was okay, because she didn’t seem like her regular school self.

  Her hair was up in a ponytail; she wore jeans and a hoodie and ate nachos like she was actually one of us. And I’d had a fight with Mom earlier, plus a note—the second one. It wasn’t a pattern yet, but somehow I sensed it would be. I wanted to tell Ms. Phillipe. But I didn’t. Plus it was too loud anyway.

  Today I really wanted to tell her.

  But when she smiled that smile, that pathetic I’m-here-whenever-you’re-ready-Kara smile, her words came back to me from last year, when she was her regular school self.

  I used to meet with her as an excuse to get out of PE. She talked about my grades and my attitude toward school and how it could all be blamed on my not dealing with grief. She told me that people who don’t work through their grief inflict tremendous harm on themselves—whether they planned to or not. So she’d probably decide I’m writing myself the notes as a way of dealing with the grief I don’t feel.

  Not to mention, Ms. Phillipe has a reputation for breaking the rules of confidentiality. She’d tell the principal and he’d probably call Mom.

  No way. I can handle it on my own.

  When I was little, I used to stand in the doorway to my room and estimate the spot on the floor I needed to jump from to get on my bed without the imaginary monster grabbing my ankles and pulling me into his giant maw under the bed. Now there is a real monster, and he waits for me around every dark corner.

  How’s that, Ms. Phillipe?

  For the rest of the day I try to focus on the contest and cookie designs. I’m supposed to come up with a Valentine’s cookie but all I can think of is a variation on my Halloween skull cookies: Black icing, with bloody, slimy red eye sockets, and broken, bloody teeth.

  When it’s time for my shift at Crockett’s I actually look forward to it.

  There’s a new checkout girl.

  She smiles, with her too pink lipstick and her wine-colored hair tightened into a French twist. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

  “Kara.”

  “Well nice to meet you, Kara! I’m Justine—named after my dad, except with an e.”

  I decide immediately that I like her. When I’m too slow bagging groceries, she leans over to help without making me feel like a shitty failure. “Here, hon, let me help you.”

  Justine talks a lot, and I love that she ignores the customers to talk to me.

  A half-hour into my shift, the boss appears, scowling. “Kara, I don’t pay you to talk and gossip. Get on with it,” he says, pointing at the pile of groceries on the belt.

  Jason stands with him, his shadow, smirking at me.

  What did I do? I can’t even manage to open my mouth in time to defend myself.

  Justine smiles sweetly and flicks her hand at him. “Oh shoot, Mr. Stewart, it was my fault. I was asking Kara if she knew the code for bananas. She’s innocent.”

  Before the two of them slither away, Dickhead sniffs and Jason looks at Justine’s boobs.

  I turn to her, frowning.

  “Jason’s just a little boy,” she says with a wink, as if reading my mind.

  Justine and I both get off at the same time so I sit with her while she waits for the Metro.

  “How long have you been here?” I ask. I nibble on a Snickers and she takes a drag from her cigarette. I think about Kellen’s weed and how maybe Justine could teach me to inhale correctly. She’s just a few years older, but in terms of worldliness, she’s got decades on me.

  “Oh,” she starts, before exhaling a toxic cloud. “I suppose I been here about three months now, followed my ex up here when he landed himself a job with the electric company, working on power poles and stuff.” She pauses, studying and frowning at her perfect fingernails. “He was gonna take care of me, we were gonna get married, start a family, all the things I wanted. Then the fucker cheated on me with some ugly-ass waitress at the Moon Bar, so I hope he goes ahead and singes his nuts on them wires.”

  I giggle because it’s funny, even though her face is dead serious.

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her.

  “Aww, it’s okay. I’m over him.” She blinks a few times, so I guess this isn’t true. Plus she stops talking. In the few hours I’ve known Justine, I’ve discovered that talking for her is like breathing.

  “So . . .” I start. “Why didn’t you go back to Texas?”

  Justine takes another drag and exhales. “I like it up here. I love that I can see the mountains and the ocean—right here.” She gestures with her cigarette and smoldering ash falls to the sidewalk. “And I don’t need my mom givin’ me shit and telling me ‘I told you so.’ How about you? I’ll bet you lived here all your life, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  Justine nods, dropping the cigarette and smashing it with the scuffed toe of her high heel.

  “You don’t talk a lot, do you, Kara?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize for being the way God made you.”

  The mention of God triggers my automatic eye roll.

  The bus rumbles up to the curb. Justine hops up from the bench. I want her to stay. I want to tell her about the notes and my stalker and my dead sister. But instead I watch her fan away the exhaust fumes and cough, before she grabs my hand and squeezes it.

  “You’re a sweetheart, Kara. Thanks for making my first day special.”

    

  An hour after I say good-bye to Justine, there’s a loud bang at the door that separates our apartment from the café. It’s Noelle. She pulls me into a booth. Her face is red and she smells like she smoked a whole carton. Luckily the café isn’t crowded. Still, she takes out a cigarette and her lighter. “I think Mason’s cheating on me,
Kar.”

  “Don’t light that in here, my mom will kill you,” I whisper. “So what happened?”

  Noelle flicks the lighter on and off, staring at the flame. “We were just sitting there in his car and I pissed him off because I always change the song on his iPod. I guess this time it was too much for the prick. All of a sudden he says ‘I think we need to see other people too, I mean we can still hang out but I want to explore my options.’ Explore my options? So I said fine, asshole, now I can go after Mr. Hoyt.”

  “Nice, Noelle.”

  She stares over my shoulder and points her lit lighter. “Mind your own business, bone lover, this is a private convo!”

  I don’t even need to turn to see she’s talking to Hayden. But when I do, I smile and mouth, Forget it.

  I feel Noelle’s lighter poking my shoulder. “Whose side are you on here?”

  I turn back around. “Noelle,” I whisper, “he has nothing to do with it.”

  She frowns at me and sits back. “Can you stop lusting over him for two seconds to listen?”

  “Fine. What happened next?”

  “He just went off, saying he was only joking and he knew I had a thing for Mr. Hoyt. Mason and his friends all got stoned last weekend and one of his idiot friends brought up this crap about Mr. Hoyt. I guess Mason was sober enough to remember and trick me with all this shit about breaking up. He’s such a dick.”

  “And what guy wouldn’t love the idea of his girlfriend hoping to bang a teacher?”

  “Yeah but I don’t see him that way, Kar. Shit he’s only a couple of years older than me. And he’s not even my teacher anymore so it doesn’t count. God, I need to let loose. Come on, Kar.”

  “It’s a school night,” I say. “How about tomorrow night? Maybe a sleepover?” She narrows her eyes at me. I’ve made a mistake. Before she can protest, I add, “It can be fun you know. Watching movies, pigging out on cookie dough and pizza—”

  “Getting drunk.”

  “Okay, getting drunk, too.” I was going to mention my little weed stash to seal it, but that’s totally unnecessary now.