From Where I Watch You

by Shannon Grogan

  “Do you remember when we saw each other at Red Lobster the night of the freshman dance?” He props himself back on his elbow and looks down at me. “You were with Brian what’s-his-face?”

  I nod, and Charlie shakes his head and smiles. “I faked food poisoning on the way to the dance. I totally ditched—uh, I forget her name—my date, so I wouldn’t have to see you with Brian.”

  “You should’ve told me.”

  Charlie never gave me any clue that he was interested back then, except for being nice at school. I remember Katy Morgan bragging in the locker room about him. I could’ve gouged her eyes out.

  “I think it was girls-ask-guys only.”

  “Katy told the whole locker room that you’d asked her.”

  Charlie shakes his head. “Nope. Anyway, I’d never been jealous before, like that. You were so pretty in that shiny pink dress. I couldn’t take my eyes off you.”

  That dress. I took it from Kellen’s closet but couldn’t fill it out like she did. Too long and loose on me. I didn’t really care anyway, because I didn’t want to go in the first place. And Mom didn’t even look at me when I came downstairs wearing it.

  I stared at Charlie the whole evening. “I couldn’t even eat my dinner.”

  “I know, I watched you the whole time,” he says, smiling.

  This embarrasses me even though it happened two years ago, and I pull the blankets up right under my eyes.

  Charlie laughs and brushes hair from my forehead. “I dumped Katy off at the dance with Grady, and still had a half hour left on the limo. So I had the driver pick up my buddy Cal, and his brother’s stash of PBR, and he dropped us off in Ballard.”

  Charlie continues. “Cal and I got drunk down at the Locks. Not sure how many I had before I started calling you. I hung up the phone every time your mom answered.”

  But I wasn’t home yet. That night while Noelle and her boyfriend made out in the backseat, Brian shoved his hand under my dress. Noelle had him in a headlock after he called me a bitch for puking on him. I stare up at Charlie. “What would you have done if I answered?”

  He grins and lies back down, hands behind his head. “Cal kept asking me that, too.” His eyes are on me now. “I probably would’ve said something lame and you would’ve hung up.”

  Charlie sits up and turns toward me. “You were so different, Kara. I realize now, when I think back, that you pulled away from everyone when school started that year. I remember how you were before she died. It’s like you were closed off and didn’t want anyone around. I wanted so badly to talk to you, but I was a chicken shit. I was afraid you’d turn me down.”

  My words are a whisper and I can only look at his chest. “There was only you, Charlie. And then you left.”

  “I’m sorry.” He leans down to kiss my forehead.

  When he lies back I want badly to touch his bare skin. He keeps his hands clasped behind his head on the pillow, watching me. Under my skin my heart drums my pulse down into every corner of me.

  I touch him, tentatively. His chest is warm and both soft and hard at the same time. My hand travels over the muscles there and up toward his shoulder, tracing the lines of his bicep. I run my palm over his shoulder and up his neck to his ear and into his hair. I do this a few times, staring at his body. Suddenly I feel stupid. But when I look at Charlie’s face, I can tell by the way he holds my gaze that it’s not stupid at all.

  Charlie is safe. Charlie would never hurt me, so I keep my hands on him.

  He reaches for me, but then he stops.

  I think he understands.

  I kiss him.

  Sometime before dawn, I fall asleep on his chest and it’s the happiest night of my life.

  June: Thirteen-Year-Old Carrot’s Kara’s Summer Fun Before High School

  “Kara, your attitude lately sucks,” Mom said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you. You’re not talking to us, and now your friend Jen tells me she’s come over every day for the past two weeks and you won’t answer the door? Or the phone when she calls? Whatever it is with you, I hope this time away will help.” Mom hands me my last bag before getting back into the car to go home.

  Now I’m curled up on my cot in the corner of the cabin, facing the wall. Mom thinks summer camp will cure me of “my sudden onset of bitchiness, hormones, end of middle school, or whatever it is.” But it’s not just me. Everyone in the house seems different. It’s summer and why does my Mom have more work than ever? And why does Dad? And why does no one talk about the fact that Kellen is leaving for college at the end of summer? Everything at home is changing, but everyone is fixated on me and my “sudden” problems. I don’t think Kellen told Mom what happened with Nick.

  So I’m here and that’s one less thing my parents have to deal with. Now they can completely bury themselves in their work so they can forget about their favorite girl leaving.

  I hate it here. I want to go home, yet I don’t want to go home either.

  Every one of my cabin-mates came here matched up with a friend from home.

  “What’s with you, anyway?”

  “We have to bunk with her? She’s got like permanent cramps or something.”

  “Yeah, look at her.”

  “Hey you guys, she doesn’t talk. Maybe she’s one of those mute people?”

  “Does anyone know sign language?”

  Laughter.

  “Sorry, it’s the only sign language I know.”

  “But she’s so pale. Maybe she’s a vampire.”

  “Uh-oh, better roll up in your sleeping bags tonight, she might bite ya.”

  Shrieks and laughter.

  “Hey, vampire deaf girl, why don’t you do us a favor and go sleep in another cabin?”

  “Yeah. I’m not gonna be able to sleep with her in here.”

  “You guys, if she went tanning she’d be pretty, you know. She just needs a little sun.”

  “Maybe, but vampires can’t tan or be in the sun. She’ll fry herself.”

  “Good, then we won’t have to bunk with her.”

  Giggles.

  Outside, a bell rings, signaling dinner. I wait until I hear their feet move and the screen door squeal and slam before I get up. But when I do, a few are still there and one of them is in my face.

  “Vampires don’t eat food. I bet you wanna suck my neck, don’tcha?”

  I recognize her voice as the one who hurled most of the insults at me. She smiles, her braces shine and her face is so close to mine I can’t help it.

  I punch her in the mouth and it hurts so badly because her braces scrape across my knuckles.

  She looks at me in shock, holding her hand over her mouth as she does, her eyes rimmed with tears.

  “You bitch!” She blinks hard. “Oh, its so on!!”

  And she pushes me.

  I don’t know how much time passed but I woke up in another cabin with a doctor or nurse or someone staring at me, along with one of the camp counselors.

  “How are you feeling? You hit your head pretty hard on the edge of the cot.” The nurse/doctor says.

  The counselor steps in front and cuts her off. “We’d normally ship your little butt home for starting a fight, but we can’t get a hold of your parents. So I think I’ll make your stay with us just a little on the crappy side and then maybe you’ll learn.”

  I try to open my mouth to say it wasn’t my fault, but I’m groggy and can’t speak.

  When I get better, I have KP duty for the rest of camp. Three hours a day.

  It sucks: physical labor in the kitchen with the cook. His name is Big Mitch and he’s been working here forever. He’s tall and skinny and looks underfed, probably because he doesn’t eat any of the camp food and I don’t blame him, even though he cooks it. Big Mitch doesn’t say a lot—mostly he frowns and mumbles and points to tell me to sweep or mop o
r wipe down tables or rinse out trays, or take out the garbage.

  The work is tiring and sweaty and hot. The kitchen feels like a furnace in the summer heat, and I’m so tired by the time I crawl into my cot at night that I only hear the Legally Blondes making fun of how I smell for just the minute before I fall asleep.

  On my fifth day of KP punishment, Big Mitch actually lets me off early. He seems like he’s in a good mood. I only think that because he’s not frowning as usual. I’m about to walk out the door to my diving lesson when I see him frosting a cake.

  It sits in the middle of the giant wooden island in the center of the kitchen, which I just cleaned. As I watch, Big Mitch doesn’t just frost the cake, he has different bags of colorful frosting and they have these pointy things on the end of them and I’m completely mesmerized, watching the frosting come out all ribbons and loops and twists.

  He doesn’t know I’m watching. With a few quick twirls of his hand he’s made the most perfect rose out of pink icing.

  I walk over to stand right behind him because I’m fascinated.

  “Hey, I said you could go.” He doesn’t take his eyes off his work.

  I swallow. “Um, that’s pretty. What are you doing?”

  Quickly he glances over his shoulder before looking back to the new rose he makes. “It’s my girlfriend’s birthday tomorrow.”

  “You’re really good at that.” I can’t think of Big Mitch with a girlfriend or a life outside of this place.

  He swivels around and I’m sure he’s going to drag me by the neck and toss me out. But instead he looks at me and sighs. “Would you like to try piping?”

  I grab a bag and squeeze it like toothpaste and icing blobs out and my face goes red. “Oops.”

  “Okay. Let’s try on something you can’t wreck, like a piece of bread.”

  So we spend the next two hours together before he has to start dinner, with him finishing his girlfriend’s cake and me going through a loaf of stale bread practicing my piping. I pipe all kinds of lines and even little hearts and flowers. They all look like crap, but I’m having so much fun that I don’t care.

  “Listen,” Big Mitch says, “I’m only letting you do this stuff because you’re the first kid who’s had KP that actually does a good job, doesn’t bitch, and doesn’t ask when they can leave. Since you’re already here, may as well stay because we gotta get dinner going.”

  I swap the piping bags for a potato peeler, and I’m feeling better for the first time since I got here. After dinner clean-up, Big Mitch tells me to stick around again tomorrow and we’ll make a pie. And when I quietly ask if we can make a cake to decorate, he says the day after we’ll bake sugar cookies and that way I’ll have lots to practice on for when I screw up.

  And just like that, I love camp.

  Every day when I’m supposed to be at diving or archery or horseback riding, I sneak off to the kitchen and bake with Big Mitch.

  He shows me how to make donuts and cookies and cakes, and more pies and bread and cinnamon rolls. I learn everything. And I love all of it, and Big Mitch doesn’t talk much but it’s okay because I’m not really into people or talking these days either.

  I’ve never been so happy learning something, and it’s the first time I’ve ever learned anything that Mom and Dad didn’t pick for me.

  When it’s time for me to leave camp, I hug Big Mitch, because if I say good-bye with words then I know I’ll cry, and as it is my eyes water anyway when I leave the kitchen.

  But I’m a little excited to go home and tell Mom and Dad I’ve finally found something I’m good at.

  22. Flatten each one.

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

  Call me. Ur the best baker I know <3

  Charlie’s gone, flying over Oregon by now.

  Meanwhile I try not to float away on memories of last night.

  We all stand, waiting silently and barely breathing, while the judges thank all of us for our hard work and commend us on our creativity.

  My hands won’t keep still and neither will anyone else’s waiting in the room with me. I have to imagine everyone else is like me, listening to our pounding hearts as the judges blather on about how we’re the future of the industry. In a roundabout way they even praise us for choosing a creative outlet such as this rather then getting wasted or high or pregnant.

  The judges announce the ten honorable mentions, which get nothing but a certificate your mom can stick on the refrigerator and a voucher for free Snowflake Sugar. I keep my smile on because I don’t expect my name to be called for an honorable mention, and I’m not surprised when it isn’t. Maybe it’s Charlie, I don’t know, but I feel an odd sense of confidence.

  I’m one step closer to my future now. I wish Charlie could’ve stayed; I wish I had someone to be happy with. I keep one ear on the head judge while I let the rest of me figure out how I should react when I win. Just casual and thankful? Or over the top excited? No, I could never pull that off.

  They announce third place.

  It’s a boy, one of the poor five who had to stay in the dorm. He squeals because he’s won the mixer I’ve wanted my whole life. I am happy, even though I am also jealous. I clap for him like everyone else does.

  The applause dies down while the judges prepare to announce second and first place. With every moment that passes, my grin wanes along with my confidence. The head judge’s microphone screeches feedback. The audience laughs because nothing could be funnier. Any second now I’m going to need the bathroom so I can puke and I’m thankful I didn’t eat this morning. My whole body burns like a furnace, and I punish my lips by sucking them in and biting them.

  I never thought this would be so hard, the waiting. I close my eyes so I can calm my insides down. My bakery daydreams play behind my eyelids, brighter and clearer than before. I imagine my shop always smelling of butter and yeast and cinnamon and sugar. Flour sacks sit on shelves, waiting to be turned into love, and I smile when I hear people complain to Charlie how they’re all getting fat on my pastries. I picture Charlie changing the light bulbs that are too high to reach, and I swat his hand when he steals doughnuts because he thinks I didn’t see him. Always in my dreams he runs out and makes deliveries for me, and he never leaves without kissing me good-bye.

  Static crackles over the microphone as the head judge bellows out the name of the second place winner.

  “Kara McKinley!”

  I can’t muster even half a smile when the judges shake my hand and give me the second place prize in an envelope. And I still can’t register any emotion when the gray-haired judge with the giant earrings tells me, “Congratulations, Kara!”

  My ears ring, making her words thin out and die.

  I don’t hear the winner’s name, but the auditorium erupts and spins around me, a deafening, shrieking mass of colors and applause.

  I am second place.

  Second is nothing.

  Second place means no scholarship to La Patisserie.

  Second place chains me to the life I hate, stuck with my crazy mother.

  I watch the first place winner: Wedding-Cake-Cookies. She hugs twenty people on her way up to accept her prize and when she offers her arms to the judges, I’m sick.

  I wait for them to say something else—that they missed something. How can they pick her? How can everyone in the room be so happy for someone who didn’t even follow the rules? For someone who decorated little fancy cakes when they should’ve been cookies? For someone who doesn’t even want it like I do? I wait for the judges to announce “Oops, we meant to call you, Kara, we made a mistake. You win.”

  I’ve worked toward this forever, letting my hopes soar only to see them now, punctured, destroyed, and dead at my feet.

  La Patisserie is so expensive, so difficult to get into. They only take on a handful of new students every year, and most
of them are over twenty years old.

  Mom refuses to let me go.

  This was my only chance.

  I’m breathless, twisted and pulled from the inside out when I see my dream clutched in Wedding-Cake-Cookie’s hands. She stole it and now she parades it around for the entire auditorium to applaud her. Behind my eyelids, I burn red and hot. I can’t swallow the rock in my throat.

  I hate her. Everyone in this building cheers for the wrong person. I want her gone, knocked off the podium into the crowd of screaming hands where they can rip her into pieces and she can die like I am dying now.

  July: Thirteen-Year-Old Carrot’s Kara’s Summer Fun Hell Before High School

  I’ve been home from camp an hour and I’m sitting in the kitchen, watching Mom. She’s been weird since I got home, fussing around the kitchen, wearing an apron.

  My excitement over telling her and Dad about what I learned from Big Mitch has dwindled for two reasons: first, how do I explain why I had KP duty, and second, Mom hasn’t asked me one single thing about camp, except if I have a better attitude now.

  I’m grabbing a Coke out of the fridge when she says, “We have a guest for dinner, Kara, so why don’t you go shower and change out of your camp clothes.”

  She rushes out the back door where Dad is at the grill.

  I shower, dry my hair and change into a sundress before I go downstairs. We don’t usually have sit-down dinners together, especially with guests.

  I step out of the sliding door—and freeze.

  Kellen sits at the table.

  And so does Nick.

  “Kara, you know Nick, right?” Dad asks, offering me a corncob as I sit down. “He’s been joining us for dinner almost every night this week, and we’re sure glad your sister finally came to her senses about Tad.”

  Mom comes to the table, kissing Dad’s cheek. It’s weird for her to do that, but that’s not really what I’m focused on right now.