“What?”
“Well, are you going to come over and give it a whack, or not?”
“Why on earth would I want to do that?” What the hell, this old broad wanted me to do her chores for her? Not happening.
She started walking towards me, squinting her eyes as she gives me a slow once-over. She didn’t say a word, and I found myself taking an involuntary step back, uncomfortable under the assessment that I was obviously getting. She gave me a quick nod.
“You’re upset about something. You’ve been pacing by my house for the last hour, and some of the times you’ve been in an animated conversation with yourself.” I cringed at that one. It wasn’t the first time someone had caught me having a conversation with myself. I mean, a full conversation. Questions and answers. People have always said it’s not crazy to talk to yourself, it’s only crazy if you answer yourself. Well, apparently I was hella crazy.
“So, if you are upset, and want to get some aggression out, come take a whack at the rug. It’s how I deal with the memory of my dearly deceased husband, may the good Lord bless his rotten soul.”
I knew what my face must have looked like. I mean, I started following her and then almost tripped when she said that.
“Oh, don’t just stand there catching flies, get to work.” With that she handed me the wooden handled rug beater and I took a couple weak swings at it.
“Really? That’s the best you’ve got? Put some power in those swings, girlie.” She grabbed the wooden handle and laid a whooping on that rug. She even added sound effects as she landed each hit. Dust flew everywhere, in the air, in my eyes, my nose, my mouth. I was coughing up my lungs and she stood there laughing at me. Great, even a thousand year old woman made fun of me. I turned to leave. I put up with this at school, there was no way in hell I was sticking around to be this chick’s amusement for the afternoon.
“Wait, wait, I’m sorry I laughed. You just reminded me of myself when I got my first cigarette at age ten. I was coughing up all sorts of fun stuff. I didn’t mean anything by it.” I stopped. I didn’t know if I wanted to go back or not. I stood there for a few seconds, weighing out my options. I could either go back to walking around the neighborhood, begging time to go by faster so that I don’t have to let my parents down; or I could stand here beating a rug with an eccentric old lady.
I sighed. I reached for the rug beater, returned to the rug and laid into it. Every hurt, every lonely day, every lunchtime spent alone, every snickering comment laced with “Icky Vicki” was getting beaten out of that rug. I felt silly, especially when I realized that I had tears running down my cheeks. I was suddenly exhausted from the exertion and my hand lowered slowly to my side.
I turned away from the rug, afraid that she was going to make fun of me some more for crying. Or laugh at how hard I beat the rug, or how ridiculous I looked doing it. But she was gone. During my big emotional rug beating experience, she bailed. Great. I had the ability to drive away even
the psycho elderly. I laid the rug beater on the ground and started to walk towards the gate.
I heard a noise and turned towards the house to see her struggling with the door and two glasses of water. What? She wasn’t weirded out by me? She held one of the glasses out to me.
“Thanks.” I mumble, probably not sounding too convincing, but I was confused by this person. She seemed rough and a little scary, but she was being really nice to me.
“Why are you being nice to me? You don’t know me.” I realized that I had just said that out loud. I hated when there was no filter between my brain and my mouth.
She let out a sharp bark of laughter at the look of embarrassment on my face.
“What’s your name?”
“Why do you want to know?” I was always a little suspicious. You learned that in a life when you moved around a lot. Don’t trust anyone.
“Well, you’re telling me that I don’t know you, and therefore I apparently shouldn’t be ‘nice’ to you. So if you tell me your name, I’ll know you, and I’ll have your permission to be kind.” Her eyes sparkled as she says this to me.
Her reasoning made sense to me.
“Vicki. My name is Vicki.”
She tilted her head as she looked at me. Again, that weird assessment thing. I felt uncomfortable but at the same time impressed. I had to learn how to do this. It seemed like a pretty cool skill, kind of like a mental x-ray of the person. One quick scan and you figured out all their inner thoughts and their demons. That could be really helpful in high school.
“What’s your real name, child?”
I cocked an eyebrow and looked at her. This had to be the weirdest day that I’d ever had. She’d asked for my name. I told her my name. This should have been the point in the conversation where she told me her name; not questioned me further on mine.
“I don’t understand.”
“What is your real name? The one your parents gave you at birth. When you said your name was ‘Vicki’, you didn’t sound like you were too happy about it. So, what is your name?”
I wondered if this woman was a witch. Like, a Hansel and Gretel witch. Or maybe a mental hospital escapee. That was much more interesting, I thought. I smiled, my parents would just love to find out that my first friend in this place was a million year old mental patient who may or may not have been a witch that liked to eat small children.
“My name is Victoria Alexandra Edwards.” Yeah. That was my name. I always thought it sounded like my mom was trying to turn me into a royal with a name that sounded like it should have a Roman numeral after it. You know, Victoria Alexandra Edwards III or something like that.
As I looked at my neighbor, whose name I still didn’t know, I realized she was giving me the same odd look everyone else gave when they heard my full name. I got it, seriously, I did. I didn’t match my name one bit. It was a very flowery, fluffy name, and I was not someone who could ever be accused of being remotely flowery or fluffy.
My mom was an only girl with five older brothers. Somehow, with all that testosterone surrounding her, she had managed to come out very girly. She had always prayed for a little girl, so that she could have someone to be girly with. I was an only child. From what I’ve been told, my mom sobbed with joy when the ultrasound showed nothing was hanging out between my legs. Starting that very same day she started buying every pink, purple and frilly baby thing she could get her hands on. My dad was just wanting a healthy baby, so he didn’t really care one way or another whether I was a boy or a girl. I could only begin to imagine what his reaction was as the little room that they had designated as a nursery started to overflow with frilly and frothy concoctions.
I’d read somewhere that sometimes those ultrasounds can be wrong. I liked to amuse myself sometimes with imagining my mom’s reaction if I’d been born a boy, even after she’d been told I was a girl. I have a strong feeling mom would have ordered hormone therapy and a sex change right then and there.
Unfortunately for mom, she got a girl who’s not very girly. I really don’t care to wear pink or purple at all. Ever. I have a feeling she gave me an aversion to it by the fact that it was all I wore until I had the ability to choose my own clothing. And by ability, I mean, when I was allowed to. It’s not like I wished I was a boy or anything, it’s just that I wasn’t very feminine. Someone once told me I should have been born a boy. Who knows, maybe I had been originally a boy in the womb but mom prayed my ‘willie’ off.
I wasn’t cute, I wasn’t shapely or anything. I had a hell of a growth spurt last summer and now I towered over everyone in my class except for a handful of the boys. I had always tended to be closer to the chunky side of the scale, and really didn’t care to involve myself in sports. I wasn’t someone who purposefully put herself in a group of peers. It usually didn’t end well for me.
“That’s quite a name. What made you choose to go by the name ‘Vicki’?”
“Who said I got to choose? No one gets to choose what they are called.” I was thinking of
that horrid nickname. “Icky Vicki”. I heard it a lot. Braces and acne have not helped my popularity contest.
“You have more choices in your life than you will ever understand.”
What the hell did she mean by that? I was sixteen years old. I had no choices in my life. I didn’t get to choose where I live. I didn’t get to choose how long we stayed
“Maybe once I’m older I will get to choose stuff, but for now, I have to go with what is chosen for me. When I was little, they called me Vicki. So, I’m Vicki.”
“Who would you like to be?”
Seriously, my head was starting to hurt with this woman’s crazy questions.
“Don’t you mean ‘what would I like to be’? Like when I grow up?”
More laughter from my new…friend?
“I wouldn’t be so stupid as to ask you what you wanted to be when you grow up. I think it’s stupid that children are told to make a decision on what they want to do for the remaining sixty or more years of their lives, when they haven’t even figured out how to live their lives. I want to know who you want to be.”
I shook my head, wide-eyed at this woman.
“I have no idea.”
“Well, that’s a start.” She picked up our empty glasses and stood up, slowly to return to her house. It looked like she was saying good bye.
“Wait. I don’t know your name.”
She smiled slowly, and for some weird reason I felt like I’d passed some psycho test of hers.
“You can call me Nonna.”
Chapter 2
Nonna?
What the hell type of name was Nonna? She was giving me shit about going by the name ‘Vicki’ and she called herself ‘Nonna’?
Crazy old lady.
I looked at my watch again and smiled. I had managed to soak up over an hour and a half with ‘Nonna’. Well, at least it wasn’t a total waste.
As I headed back to my house I heard a sound behind me. Turning, I realized that the old bat had opened up a window and was leaning out waving at me.
“See you tomorrow, Alex.”
I waved weakly at her. Alex? What the hell? I shook my head and continued on my way home, with the sound of her laughter ringing in the air. So she decided to change my name and inform me that I was going to be returning there tomorrow. Fat chance, lady. I’d had my fill of crazy for the month. She had some serious balls to think she could pick my name for me. I mean, really, Alex? As if I didn’t have enough problems with people thinking I was too ‘tough’ and ‘hard’ to be carrying a girly name like Vicki.
I walked into my house, welcomed by the incredible aroma of my mom making dinner. I stood there, just enjoying the feeling of being in a home for a few seconds before I closed the door and faced the onslaught of questions. I asked the universe the same question I asked almost weekly. Why couldn’t we be a normal family?
As soon as she heard the front door close, my mom popped out of the kitchen and she smiled at me expectantly.
Here it comes, I though.
“Hey sweetie, how was your day?” Mom walked over and gave me a huge hug.
“Good.”
“You’re home a lot later than normal, is everything okay?” Ugh.
“Yeah, mom. I told you, I was hanging out with friends.”
“I know you told me that, Vicki, but usually that means you are walking around the neighborhood a few streets away, trying to get time to pass before you come home and can safely run upstairs without any questions.” Mom gave me a sad smile. I guess I wasn’t a great actress after all. So much for my Hollywood aspirations. Yeah, right.
“Wha…what do you mean? I was with friends.”
“This is not a very big town, and it’s an even smaller neighborhood. People talk. And when a young girl is walking around alone, talking to herself, it tends to create a buzz.”
“Oh.” Busted.
“So, who were you with.” Finally, a question I could answer truthfully.
“I was with Nonna.”
Mom shot me a look that could be interpreted as either ‘are you crazy’ or ‘do you think I’m freakin’ stupid’?
“What?” I hated that look.
“Vic, you were with Nonna?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said.”
“Your grandmother lives in Texas. There was no way you were with Nonna. And why the heck have you started speaking Italian? Are you learning that in school? I thought you were taking French.”
It was my turn to look at her in confusion.
“Nonna means ‘grandmother in Italian.” Mom was talking to me as if I was a little slow. That just pissed me off.
“Well, I asked her name, that’s what she said her name was. It’s not my fault that she has a messed up name.” My arms were crossed and my body vibrated with growing annoyance. Mom knew I couldn’t stand being talked to like I was stupid.
“One of your friends from school is named Nonna?” I cringed.
“Um, well, she’s doesn’t exactly go to my school.”
“Does she go to East Providence or something?”
“She doesn’t exactly go to high school, mom. Well, I mean, she probably did once…”
Mom squinted her eyes at me. Uh-oh.
“How old is this new ‘friend’ of yours, Victoria.” Eek, full first name. Full first name usually means I’m headed towards being in trouble.
“I really don’t know, you always told me it was rude to ask someone’s age.”
“Only if they are much older.” I sort of bit my lip and smile at her sheepishly.
Mom’s eyes bugged out a bit and her jaw slackened. She blinked a few time, and looked like she was trying to get her mouth to work.
“Victoria Alexandra Edwards! How old is this friend of yours?” Oh man, full name time. And her volume increased every third word.
“I imagine she’s probably at least seventy, but it’s kinda hard to tell. I mean, she could be in her sixties but had a really rough life, or in her eighties and lived well. I just don’t know. When I asked her name, she said it was Nonna. I just thought it was a really wacked name. I guess it makes a little more sense now.”
Mom didn’t have much more to say, I guess, because she got very quiet. She looked like she was still sort of processing that I had found someone to hang out with and it just so happened she was a lot of decades older than me.
“Vic, I’m not so sure I’m comfortable with you spending time with someone so much older than you. How are you ever going to make friends your own age if you don’t hang out with them? You keep telling us you don’t fit in wherever it is we live, but hanging out with someone older than your grandmother is not going to help.”
My eyes started filling up. I was so freaking tired of this conversation. So freaking tired of hearing about how I needed to fit in. How I needed to have friends my age. How I spent too much time alone and didn’t try hard enough.
“Well, you know what else doesn’t help me fit in, Mom? Moving every three years and having to say goodbye to whatever friends I managed to make doesn’t help me fit in. I’ll always be a freak. I’ll always be weird. So why even bother. It’s not going to happen.” The tears were threatening to spill so I whirled away from her, grabbed my book back and headed up the stairs before she could see me cry.
When I got to the top of the stairs I risked a look down and saw her standing there with her arms crossed and her head and shoulders slumped forward. Great. I was a disappointment once again.
I got to my room and flopped down on the bed. I knew that a normal teen would have slammed the door, but in my family, that would mean sure death to my non-existent social life. My dad was a morning radio show host, so he was asleep right now. He took naps in the afternoon, and always woke up in time to have dinner with mom and me. I love my dad to death, but that job of his was the reason we never stayed in the same place twice. He used a different last name on the air, which was good, because it delayed the amount of time it took people to figure out my dad was that B
ryan Shawn. Eventually people would figure it out, he mentioned me by first name all the time; so it would start to click with my classmates. After that, my ‘weirdness’ factor seemed to grow exponentially among my peers. You’d think that being the child of a local celebrity would make my life easier, right? Wrong. So very wrong.
Once it was figured out who my dad was, I was pointed at, whispered about more than usual, and overall avoided. Unless they wanted something. I remember one time there was a concert coming around and his radio station was giving away tickets. Suddenly, I went from sitting alone reading a book at lunch to having about forty people trying to cram around the table I was sitting at, prepared to be my new best friend.
I remembered that one time a year ago I got asked out on a date. My first date. Matt was one of the cutest guys in the school, and I’d had a crush on him for just about as long as I’d been at that school. I couldn’t believe it when he asked me out. I thought finally, finally my luck was turning. Mom and I spent so much time finding the perfect outfit. I even went to get my hair trimmed for the date and a little makeup lesson. Mom was in seventh heaven seeing me act like a normal girl. I couldn’t lie, I was enjoying it too.
He was sixteen and had a license, so he came to the house to pick me up. He went all fan-girl when he met my dad. He proceeded to spend the next thirty minutes telling my dad every part of his show that he loved. I was standing there, ready to go, looking better than I ever had, and he didn’t even acknowledge that I was there. Finally, my dad managed to encourage Matt to leave with me. This is where the date should have improved, right? In my head he was going to hold my hand, compliment how nice my hair looked. We would hold hands as we walked into the restaurant. At the end of the night, he would give me my first kiss. That was how it was supposed to go.
Instead he walked over to his side of the car as I stood in shock. Wasn’t he supposed to open my door for me? He leaned over and opened it from his side, pushed the door open so hard it almost hit me in the knees.
“C’mon, get in.”
I shook that off a bit, and climbed into the car, careful not to mess up my outfit at all. I could believe that he hadn’t bothered to clean out his car. So I was sitting amongst sports equipment, soda bottles and a few fast food bags, trying not to gag at the smell of his cleats in the back seat. I would have thought he’d have cleaned the car for our date. He should have done that. Or at the very least, put everything in the trunk so that I had the impression that he tried.
Distinction: The Distraction Trilogy #3 Page 30