From Where I Watch You

by Shannon Grogan

  “Oh hey, kid. What’s up?” He gives me a quick glance before looking back to the TV.

  “Um, I wondered if you’d uh, like something to drink?”

  “Oh sure, thanks.”

  I skip back up the steps and into the kitchen. When I pull the fridge door open I grab for a Coke but stop when I see beer—Bud Lights and a couple of Guinness. I grab a Guinness because that’s what my dad offers to company. The cap hisses when I pop it off and hurry back down the steps.

  “Here you go,” I hand the beer to him.

  He seems surprised and smiles as he says, “Thanks, Kara. Uh, you wanna sit down and watch with me?”

  I’m not expecting him to say this. “Um, sure. But I’ll be right back.” I walk backwards to the stairs, my eye on Nick. I walk fast up the stairs and then run up the main stairs to my room.

  11. Flatten and repeat.

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

  Over the next few days Mom acknowledges our fight by making it worse. “Kara McKinley, you’ll win no favor with God by sulking over things you can’t have. The Most High has a plan for you; you just don’t know it yet.”

  I ignore her, and Hayden, who asks me to sit with him, or asks about my baking every time I walk through the café, with that same apologetic and pitying look on his face. I’ve taken to rushing past, preoccupied with whatever since I’m not really sure how I feel about him now. Awkward tops the list.

  At lunch, I’ve been sitting alone. But I’m getting used to it. I can get used to anything. Today Noelle texted me for the first time since she ditched me in the cafeteria. I know we’re okay.

  Got cramps? Let’s find us some chocolate.

  She smiled and gave me the finger from across the cafeteria.

  I gave it right back.

  I try to focus my energy on my cookie designs. But my enthusiasm tastes bland without Mom’s approval, even though I’m still mad at her. And I’m mad that I care about what she thinks or feels. But I’m going. Sneaking off to San Francisco was something my sister would have done. Kellen wouldn’t have cared what our parents said, and she wouldn’t have felt guilty about it.

  The following Monday after school, Mom thinks I’m still pissed. She doesn’t have a clue. And she’s too busy to say anything. Hayden’s hunched over his laptop, not paying any attention to me. Behind the espresso machine, I fix myself a latte and peek again at Hayden. He smiles at me and I give him a pathetic smile because he is beautiful.

  Back in my corner of the kitchen I line up my jars of food color gel, along with bowls so I can make four shades of royal icing. I stand on the old chair to gather sprinkles in my apron; eight lovely jars of sparkly sugar in shades of blue, pink, purple, and green.

  I sift out confectioners’ sugar, meringue powder, and water into each bowl. After adding food color, it takes me a half hour to get the perfect tint in each bowl: Grass green, lime green, plum, and pink.

  It’s not until I’m filling the piping bags that I hear the familiar pinging of the sprayer. Charlie’s back. He’s working, shooting water against a crusty pan to the rhythm of whatever plays in his ear. I pick up the grass green icing bag to outline the leaves of the flowers. I’m easing my way into the Valentine theme. While I pipe leaves, I think about walking around the corner. But I’ve got a good piping flow going. After I finish each cookie, I use the plum icing to outline the petals, making a dam around the whole of each one. Carefully I pipe the pink icing to make a smaller dam inside each petal.

  When these are done I need time to let them dry and set before I flood them with the rest of the icing.

  “Hey.”

  At the sound of his voice, a blob of lime green escapes the piping bag and jumps over the line of dry plum icing. I hate when that happens. I turn with a frown, but it melts.

  “Crap. Look what you did.” I gesture to my ruined cookie.

  Charlie draws his lips together in a line and shakes his head. “Hey, I didn’t touch that.”

  “You made me goof it up.” I turn to wipe the blob off with a knife.

  “I didn’t do anything, Sprinkles,” he says, backing up against my little storage cabinet. He folds his arms and leans against the door, smiling at me. “What’cha working on?”

  “Cookies.”

  “Obviously. What are they for?”

  “Um, nothing, just to sell.”

  “So what are your plans later? Or are you going to be here painting cookies all night?”

  “Um, I have plans,” I lie, and I even nod so maybe he’ll believe it.

  “Hayden Westcott?”

  I flinch. His eyes ask more than his words do.

  “Don’t you think he’s kind of old for you?”

  I never knew Hayden’s last name. “What business is it of yours?” I regret my tone, and before I can tell him I don’t have plans, he’s backing away, his smile gone.

  “Okay then. Have a good night.” He disappears around the corner.

  I close my eyes and exhale. Probably he’ll see Hayden out with some girl on the Ave and know that I am a pathetic liar with no plans at all. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if Charlie is keeping tabs on me. Or more. Behind me I hear a creak and something crashes to the floor.

  When I turn, there’s nothing. I check around my counter and the shelves. Down the hall to the bathroom, there’s nothing. Hairs stand up on my arm anyway. I peek out into the dining room, now busier. Hayden’s gone. Mom’s smiling and twirling around to customers all over the room. When I get back to my corner, Kellen sits on the counter, kicking her dirty pink Uggs back and forth. Her eyes are glassy and she smiles, but it’s not the bitchy smile she always gave me when she was alive.

  She looks in Charlie’s direction and back at me, and I know Kellen’s smiling over my failures. Even in death she’s still smug.

  “Why don’t you go haunt Dad? You’d probably make his day,” I snap at her.

  I wonder if she can even hear me. What does she want? Why won’t she leave me alone?

  “If you’re planning on turning me into a Holy Roller like Mom, forget it. I don’t believe in you.”

  Nothing on her face changes, but she lifts her arms slightly, almost reaching them out to me.

  “No.” I say this even as emotion catches at the back of my throat, tasting the same as when it was all shocking and fresh. When that tiny part of me still loved my sister, no matter how she betrayed me. When I wanted her to sit up in her coffin and tell us she was okay.

  But one memory is all it takes. “You know what you did. Leave me alone.”

  Kellen’s gone.

  Secrets buried.

  In her place, a blue-gray envelope with droplets of purple and bloody red fibers sits on top of my counter.

  Five-Year-Old Carrot

  Kellen stares at me from her window. She’s nine and I’m five, and I’m sitting on the tree branch Dad cleared away for us so we could play tree fairies. Kellen and me discovered last month that we could see real good into her room from the tree. I listened to her when she didn’t know I heard her—she told her friend there’s a boy down the street that she likes and she told him to climb the tree and she can talk to him from her window but they have to whisper.

  Kellen looks mad at me. She’s grounded again, this time for the whole gum incident, even though I think it’s kinda my fault. My sister hides her stuff from me in her backpack so I won’t get them, and she thinks I don’t know, but I know. I’m smart and I watch and I know she keeps her whole gum collection in there.

  I put on some of her lip gloss that she bought with her allowance. And then I took some of her gum. She bought that too, with her own money. And she wouldn’t buy me any or share it so now I’m chewing it and I hope she won’t find out. The gum is sooo good, it’s my favorite kind—grape. I know I shouldn’t have but I c
hewed another piece too because gum always loses its flavor after lots of chewing. Kellen showed me how to do a bubble once, and so I tried but my teeth were tired and sore from chewing and I accidentally spit the whole gum wad into my hair.

  “Carrot, don’t move, I have to rub the peanut butter in so the gum can come out, okay?”

  I nod, but it’s hard to sit still. Everything smells like peanut butter and grape gum.

  “Stop it, Carrot! Hold still! Do you want Mom to see this? She’ll be really mad at you for this so you better hold still! I don’t want you to get a spankin’!”

  Kellen starts combing the hair with peanut butter in it and it hurts! It’s so hard to be still.

  “Hey, Carrot I think I’m getting it!”

  We both hear the beep-beep Mom’s car makes when she locks it.

  “Oh shit!”

  “Kellen! That’s a cuss word! I’m gonna tell and you’ll get the soap again!”

  “Oh be quiet, Carrot! Mom’s home! Okay, well, I gotta cut it.”

  “Kellen, no!” I grab my hair and my hand gets peanut butter on it. “I don’t want my hair cut!”

  But she grabs scissors from the drawer anyway. “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. No one will notice anything, okay? It’s really just a little bit of hair.”

  I nod.

  She cuts and doesn’t show me the hair but I see it when she flushes the whole purply, peanut butter, gummy hair mess down the toilet.

  “Don’t tell her, Carrot. She’ll be so mad if she knows about this. And stay out of my backpack and my room, okay?”

  But Mom found out. Now Kellen’s in her room grounded for cutting my hair.

  Now I watch her window from the tree, and she holds up a sign in the window and I’m just learning to read. It says “I.” I know that word for sure, and I also know “you.” It’s the one in the middle I’m having a hard time with: “hate.”

  12. Dissolve the sugar.

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

  With the lights inside the dining room on, I can see two kids setting the table for dinner. These are my favorite views because at night, when they leave the curtains open, I see everything.

  The mom works in the kitchen while the kids go back and forth, poking and chasing each other, just the way Kellen and I used to.

  The night is pitch-black except for the icy clouds that hang in front of my face when I breathe out. I hold the smoke in my mouth, trying as hard as I can not to cough. By the time I get the hang of it, my supply will be gone, I’m sure. My mind is still clear enough to realize the irony that I sit here in the dark, pretty much stalking this family in my old house, while I try to forget about my stalker. The latest note baffles me.

  You don’t deserve it like the last, but still . . .

  The mom points her paring knife at the kids, and looks like she’s yelling.

  A beat-up Civic barrels into the driveway and out pops a boy from my school, carrying pizza up to the front steps. I can smell it; warm and crusty, the tomato and spices and cheese and pepperoni. The pepperoni smells good, but I’d still pick it off and give it to Kellen like I used to.

  When the pizza is delivered and the guy walks back to his car, I slink down a little further into my hiding place because he stops and looks up and sniffs. He looks all around but doesn’t see me. Once he pulls out of the driveway, I settle back and watch the new family eat dinner.

  Leaning back against the tree, my butt sits on the fattest root. It’s numb from the cold. My sister and I spent a lot of time around this tree in our front yard.

  I’m taking another hit from my sister’s weed just as dead things crunch and move beside me.

  And feet come to a stop in front of me.

  June: Thirteen-Year-Old Carrot’s

  Summer Fun Before High School

  Once upstairs, I grab my makeup bag and head into the bathroom, where I try to put on mascara and lip gloss. Then I decide I should brush my teeth as I’m sure my breath stinks from eating pizza. So I wipe the lip gloss off, brush my teeth, and put gloss back on. Strawberry. When I drop the bag back in my room I decide to change, too.

  I slip into a clean sweatshirt because the basement gets cold. I have no clean shorts left so I run into Kellen’s room and take a pair of cotton ones from the top of her pile. They’re a little big but have a cinch at the waist so I’m good. While I’m at it I rub fresh deodorant under my pits. My hair has dried into waves so it doesn’t look too bad. I don’t brush it because I don’t want to be obvious about fixing myself up.

  I run downstairs, grab myself a Coke, and then back down to the basement. Nick still sits in the same spot, but I notice another beer in his hand and an empty bottle on the coffee table. I didn’t even hear him come upstairs.

  “Hey,” Nick says as I come back into the room. “What took you so long?” He wears a smile and my insides lurch a bit. He pats the cushion next to him. “Come and sit down, it’s a good movie. We can change it if you don’t like it.”

  I’m almost too warm, and the basement is cool. I sit down on the loveseat next to him, sipping my Coke and watching the movie, but my mind is far away from the story line. I want to call Gaby and tell her I’m alone in my house with a high school boy, watching TV with him. What would she tell me to do?

  Last month, Gaby French-kissed a sixteen-year-old boy and she’s still bragging about it. What would they think of me if I did the same thing? Nick is seventeen. I’d one-up Gaby. Maybe she’d stop teasing me about my virginity all the time.

  Most girls my age could lie about something like that, but not me. My friends know me too well. I’ve spent the past few years watching Kellen and the way she acts around every boy I’ve ever seen her with. Kellen has never been without a boyfriend.

  I turn toward Nick. His arm still rests on the back of the loveseat, behind me. I suck in a breath and bring my knees up so my feet are tucked almost under my thighs. I manage to do this without kicking Nick or toppling myself over. He looks at me for a second and smiles before his eyes go back to the movie.

  My heart flutters but I lean in toward him and place my hand on his knee. My other elbow goes up on the back of the sofa, my hand under my chin. I’ve seen Kellen do this a gazillion times with boys. “So, Nick, how’s your beer?”

  His eyes go straight to my hand. I’m suddenly afraid he’ll take it off him but when he looks back to me, he smiles. “It’s great, Kara.”

  I stare at his mouth and the top of the bottle. “Oh, good,” I say, keeping my hand on his knee and it feels like it’s on fire.

  “Have you ever tried it?” he asks.

  “Um, nope,” I lie, twirling a strand of hair in my other hand.

  “Do you want to?” he asks.

  “Um, okay,” I say. “That would be a first for me.”

  He offers the bottle. The smooth, cool glass feels nice on my lower lip and I don’t even have the urge to wipe off the rim like I do when other people offer me sips of whatever they’re drinking. I tilt the bottle back and let the liquid fill my mouth. I’m thankful it’s still cold because if it wasn’t I wouldn’t be able to swallow it.

  “Mmm,” I say, handing it back to him. “It’s good!” I lie. It tastes horrible. The bitterness hangs on to my tongue like a canker sore.

  He laughs and takes a swig. “Mmm,” he says after he swallows. “Tastes like strawberry.”

  “Huh?” It tastes nothing like strawberry.

  Nick sits back into the corner, turning toward me. He smiles and makes a sweeping motion across his mouth with his finger and thumb.

  Oh. Lip gloss. “Sorry.”

  “So Kara, that was a first for you. Any other firsts you’re wanting to check off your list?”

  He smiles when he says this, and I feel a pull in my stomach. Like when I’m taking a test and I’m only halfway done and the
teacher gives the three-minute warning.

  I turn to the TV, grabbing the Coke and taking a too-big sip. Thank God I don’t cough, but Coke dribbles down from the corner of my mouth. Before I can move, Nick’s wiping it off with his finger, and the corner of my lip burns under his touch. I don’t know what to say or where to look and I try to think of what Gaby would do, but I blank out and stare at the TV. Then Nick’s fingers are under my chin and he turns my face gently so I’m forced to look at him.

  13. Set the broken bits aside.

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

  My stomach unhinges and drops to my feet. The joint falls onto my thigh. I use one hand to pick up the joint and the other to pull my hoodie farther down on my head, as if I could hide now.

  The feet belong to Charlie. I’m looking into his disapproving face as he squats down, illuminated by the street lamp.

  “You should become a sniper or a Navy Seal or something, sneaking up on people like that. You scared the shit out of me.”

  It’s Charlie and he’s harmless, but I still have the urge to run.

  “Well,” he starts, his face level to mine as he snatches the joint from me. “You were a little busy, Sprinkles.”

  No words come out while I watch him squish the joint into the dead, frosty leaves and pine needles and dirt. Then he stands up and uses his shoe to bury it even deeper.

  I pinch my eyes shut, my feelings split between being pissed that I didn’t feel the full effects and shame that he caught me. When I open them I see the family eating pizza in my house. Too quickly I try to stand and end up stumbling forward, knocking my bag over. The angel I stole from my yard topples over and out, her head hitting the ground. My Playtex box of weed falls out, too.