by S. B. Niccum
I’ve never been too concerned about Agatha’s safety, but I couldn’t stop myself. The whole scene seemed strangely familiar to me, as if I had seen the whole thing before in a movie, and my feet seemed to be moving without my conscious permission. Still, I was too late. As Agatha walked by Amanda, the latter stuck her arm out and Agatha got knocked to the ground, hitting the floor hard.
Several students let out a groan at the sound of Agatha’s head hitting the floor. Agatha was down and not moving. I didn’t know what to say or do; yet my legs rushed me to the scene. Amanda had her back turned to me; I tapped her on the shoulder, she turned around and when she saw me, she cocked her head to one side and zeroed in on me as her next victim.
On the floor, Agatha was now regaining consciousness and when she saw Amanda, she sprung to her feet with the agility of a cheetah, and leapt on to Amanda’s back, knocking her off balance. Some teachers came to break up the fight and I backed away, glad that I didn’t have to take one for Agatha, of all people.
When I got back to my lunch spot, Brandy was beside herself. She couldn’t understand why I had to get involved; I could’ve been hurt! Not to mention, all for Agatha? This was one of those few times where my two worlds collided—my odd home-life, filled with unexplainable phenomena—and my normal school life. I couldn’t explain exactly why I did it, why I felt like I was destined to be there, to live through that event … or re-live it. I simply couldn’t explain it, because I couldn’t understand it myself. So I just shrugged, and no doubt Brandy thinks me odd for it.
Chapter 3
A friendship between Agatha and Amanda ensued from that fight—a strange and parasitical friendship. I’m still not too clear on the details, but from that day on, Amanda has come to Charlotte’s often, and grunts a greeting at me, like a trained dog. And since summer started, she comes by a lot more often.
I hate summers! All summertime means to me is house arrest, or rather, room arrest. The TV is always monopolized by Charlotte during the day or by Joe when he gets home from one of his two jobs. Poor Joe, I actually really like him. He is a sweet simple man who works as a security guard and a janitor for a big office building downtown. He’s like a big teddy bear, loyal and kind, and bends over backwards to provide for Charlotte, but she doesn’t appreciate him. All she ever does is complain about how ugly their house is and how she has to put up with all these brats because of him. Joe ignores her insults and shoots apologetic glances in my direction. He has a way of seeing the good in others, though he often struggles for good adjectives when it comes to Agatha.
My summers usually consist of chores, reading, and trips to the air-conditioned library. This summer will be no different, I expect.
“I found a job for you!” Charlotte announced as she barged into my room. She was grinning from ear to ear. “The Anderson’s both work and have four children. I was talking to Gwen Anderson at the Salon, and she was telling me how expensive day care is, so I told her you would watch the kids! You’ll get paid of course.”
My jaw almost dislocated, it fell open so wide. Those kids are hellions!
“Now, I know I should have asked you first, but I know how bored you get. Besides, they live just down the street from that fancy Sports Club with the water slides; she said that you would have to take the kids there once a day because they have swimming lessons there. You’ll have access to the pool and I know how you love to swim!” she added with a perky tone.
“Come on Tess; don’t look at me like that,” she scolded. “It’s about time you earned some money. Why, when I was your age, I bought all my own clothes!”
Oh … so that’s the real issue here! If Charlotte was anything, she was frugal. It wasn’t my boredom that she was worried about; it was the expense of my school clothes! I didn’t bother asking her if she had found a job for Agatha as well, I knew the answer to that. Agatha would laugh in her face if Charlotte told her to get a job.
“O.K. Charlotte, I’ll take the job. Does this mean I pay for all my school clothes this fall?” I said, without the slightest hint of an attitude. But she narrowed her eyes and shot me a venomous look.
“You ungrateful little—. See if I help you out anymore!” She stormed out, and slammed the door so hard a picture fell and broke.
I laughed somewhat cynically, and then went back to taking mental refuge in my current read Persuasion, by Jane Austen.
I was no Mary Poppins, and the Anderson kids were no angels, but we did get used to each other and, toward the end of the summer, we did become friends. Going to the gym every day was what saved me. They offered free childcare for two hours every day, and I took full advantage of it. So, while the older kids had their swimming lessons, and the gym’s day care staff was watching the younger kids, I worked out, swam, and read.
“Great Expectations? I don’t think I’ve read that one, is it any good?”
My heart got lodged in my throat when I heard that voice. I didn’t lower the book right away because I was sure my face was bright red. I gulped in some air and tried to steady my breathing before I casually let the book drop.
“You would love it!” I said trying to sound confident. Alex was standing in my sun, but he emanated his own light, so I still had to shield my eyes.
“Maybe I’ll read that next,” he said, with a casual smile.
The glare was so blinding, I had to squint as he sat down at the end of my lawn chair. My heart was beating wildly, it was always this way when he got near me, or when I saw him from a distance, or when I thought about him, or—it was always this way where Alex was concerned. And now … here he was, sitting on my lawn chair, wearing a smile, a tan and a Rip Curl swim suit!
“How’s your summer been so far?” he asked as he casually moved one arm over my legs and leaned into it.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to verbalize my summer, but it came out disjointed. “I—I’ve been working.” I stammered.
“Oh yeah, where at?”
“Charlotte got me a job as a nanny for a family she knows.”
“Oh …” he looked around for evidence.
“The two oldest are over there,” I signaled to two children having a lesson. “The other two are in the play area, and I am on a lunch break.” I smiled.
“Good! You deserve one, I’m sure.” He blinked and I noticed how bleached his eyelashes had gotten with the sun.
“So what have you been doing?” I asked in what I hoped would be a casual confident voice.
“Oh…” he looked sheepishly down at his feet. “Nothing much…”
I raised my eyebrows and he smiled, dimples forming as he did so.
“I’ve been sailing with my grandfather,” he admitted, and now I knew why he was embarrassed. It wasn’t the fact that he was spending time with his grandpa that embarrassed him; it was the sailing part. He didn’t want to sound like a snob. Somehow, he knew my life sucked and was sensitive about it.
How did I know this? I don’t know, but I was sure of it. In fact most times people don’t have to explain themselves to me; I understand them—unless they purposely try to hide something, and even then I know that they are hiding something.
“That sounds so fun!” I remarked cheerfully, making sure he knew I was happy for him. “Someday I’d like to go to the ocean.”
“You’ve never been to the ocean?”
“No.”
His eyes grew big and amazed; he couldn’t fathom someone not seeing the ocean before. “Haven’t Charlotte and Joe ever gone to Galveston or something?”
How did he know about Charlotte and Joe? “They have I’m sure, but as a foster child, I can’t leave the county.” I said matter-of-fact.
His mouth fell open. “Are you serious? The county?”
I nodded and felt worse for him than I did for me. “It’s okay. In two years I’ll be eighteen and I’ll leave the county for sure.” I explained. Then I saw Genie’s gym-fit figure looming behind him. She was surrounded by their friends; wearing a skim
py bikini and sporting a shiny belly ring. They told Alex that they couldn’t play volleyball without him and to hurry up. He turned back to me and as he straightened up he let his hand rest on my foot. He made the tiniest stroking movement on the bridge of my foot, toward my ankle, before he lifted his hand and got up to leave. Instinctively my heart skipped a beat and my stomach filled with butterflies.
“Hope to see you again soon!” he said before he left. I waved at him, fully ignoring Genie’s murderous glare.
That night I had another one of those dreams. Alex was standing on the deck of a sailboat about twenty-five feet long. The boat was in good shape, but it looked older, like it had been well used for a few decades. He was fumbling with some ropes but when he saw me, he brightened up and motioned for me to join him.
I floated toward him, propelled by my own desire to be near him.
“Welcome to The Odysseus! And welcome to the Gulf of Mexico!” he said, extending his arms wide.
I took a moment to look all around me and saw the ocean for the first time. The place was strange to me; I had never been here before and had no recollection of ever seeing pictures of this particular spot, so I was shocked by how many details my mind was giving me. Could it be that I had been here with my parents, and I just didn't remember? Dreams were after all, figments of our subconscious mind.
“So this is where you spend your summers?”
“This is where my summers begin. There—” he pointed to open ocean, “is where I spend my summers.”
“Where do you go?”
“Mexico, the Caribbean islands, Jamaica and when I graduate, we’re going all the way to Brazil!”
“Are you serious? Isn’t that a little scary? I mean … what if you get stranded? What if you run out of food or water? What if a storm came? What—” He interrupted me by standing in front of me and pulling a long strand of hair away from my shoulders. This simple movement on his part rendered me completely awestruck and mute.
“It’s no scarier than driving down the freeway during rush hour, and no worse than being stranded in Amarillo without food or water in the middle of a dust storm!” he smiled wryly. I narrowed my eyes in reply and he insisted on disarming me by moving his hands down my neck to my shoulders.
“If only this were real,” I sighed.
A look of frustration that mirrored mine crossed his face before he dropped his gaze, and without saying anything else, started the motor. “Where do you want to go?”
“Hmm … are you allowed to cross the Atlantic?”
“In real life? No. But in dreams … we can go anywhere in our dreams, right?”
“Right,” I smiled and sat down next to him as he steered the boat out of the marina. “What else would you do? If you could do anything you wanted to.”
“Fly. I would want to fly. Not just to get places, I would rather sail for that. But I would fly just for the experience of flying.”
“I flew to your boat just now.”
“Yeah … you did!” His eyes narrowed and he pursed up lips as if he were concocting some plan. “Let’s do it! Let’s fly!” He grabbed my hand and pulled me straight up. We flew over the ocean, hand-in-hand, sometimes high up and through the clouds and then down, and almost flush with the surface of the water. At one point, I told him that I always wanted to go deep sea diving, so we submerged ourselves below. But right as we were about to reach the bottom, a strange ringing sound startled us. We looked at each other, perplexed—then, just like that he vanished. My eyes opened once more to the cruel reality of my bedroom, and another day of babysitting.
That fall Charlotte made good on the promise to let me buy my own clothes. Part of me was glad, because I thought I would be able to afford to go to an actual store and not the nearest thrift store. But I soon realized that if I wanted to save for a mode of transportation that would liberate me from the bus, my meager earnings would not be enough to buy me new clothes to last the entire school year.
This was not all together a bad thing for me, because while I tried to do my best with second hand clothes, I discovered something new—my own style. I’m not quite sure how it all happened, but as I was making my rounds at the thrift store, I started seeing things that I could alter to make better outfits out of.
“Charlotte?”
“What!” She snarled, thinking that I was going to ask her to buy me something.
“Do you have a sewing machine?”
She looked at me blinking for a while; I wasn’t sure if her fake eyelashes were loose or if she was trying to process my question.
“I do,” she said curtly.
“May I borrow it?”
“What for? You don’t know how to use it,” she said, turning back to the racks.
“It has instructions, doesn’t it?”
“You’ll get yourself hurt, and then you’ll come crying to me.”
“If I get hurt I promise not to come crying to you,” I said, without an attitude, but she didn’t buy it.
“You’ll break it,” she insisted.
“If I break it, I’ll get it fixed.”
“What do you want with it anyway?”
“I want to make alterations.”
She inspected the basket full of clothes I had with one raised eyebrow, and then grunted “Fine.”
Charlotte was a curious creature; she was almost six feet tall and very fleshy. I say fleshy because, though overweight, she still had a shapely figure. This she displayed in the most un-bashful way. She wore tights in winter with short skirts that barely covered her bottom. In the summer she disposed of the tights and went bare skinned which was even more unsettling. Her shirts were always V-neck and showed vast amounts of cleavage.
She usually wore her hair slicked back in a ponytail, and attached a different hairpiece end to it every day. Sometimes it was a long, shiny, blond tail, while some other days it was a smooth chignon twist. Lately she had purchased some of those messy looking knots, with strands of straight hair poking out in every direction. Occasionally, she would wear her natural hair down, and though thin and scanty, she would style those few hairs with obsession. She always wore too much eye makeup and perfume, and her fake square nails tips were as ever changing as her fake hair.
While my own physical appearance remained pretty much the same, straight, long, dark—almost black hair—with no variation to it other than the occasional difference in how I parted it; Agatha went through an all-out metamorphosis. It started slowly at first, but it has escalated to the point that she has become a different creature. To start with, she spent the summer indoors, getting paler and gaunter looking than usual. Then, she and Amanda made some interesting new friends, with whom she only associated after dark. One day she came home with her lower lip pierced and her nose pierced. Charlotte and Joe almost had a heart attack, but there was nothing they could say or do. A week later, she came home with a blunt, uneven haircut and jet-black hair. Then she made a large investment in makeup. This would have been a joyous moment for Charlotte, except for the color—all of it was black with the exclusion of a blood red liner that she sometimes used to underline her eyes.
Presently, she was walking the rows of the thrift store, knocking down hangers that held anything pink or yellow, and taking only the black or gray items. Charlotte didn’t like confrontations with Agatha, so she said nothing and paid for the clothes.
I worked tirelessly on my experimental wardrobe; I made some mistakes, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed. I realized that I had a knack for this type of thing, and couldn’t wait to show off my new creations.
When school started, I displayed my best outfits first, and Brandy was very impressed. Soon, I gained a solid reputation for being fashionable and every now and then, I found a girl copying some accessory of my invention. This pleased me greatly, and only fueled my passion for my newfound pastime.
Meanwhile, the year passed as normal as it could. I got out of bed every day, simply because I knew I would see Alex at school. I swam
every day, I studied every evening and spent my weekends at the sewing machine disassembling old clothes and re-assembling them into cool new stuff. I also signed up for a sewing class at school and was learning to read patterns for dresses, skirts and pants.
The only distressing thing in my life was Wes. He was hell-bent on taking me out, and I could not, in good conscience do it. I discussed this with Brandy and she couldn’t understand why I didn’t like him. Wes was a cute guy, with curly dark brown hair that was stylishly long, past his ears. He had brown, puppy dog eyes and an easy smile. But my heart just wasn’t in it; my heart was fully vested in a fantasy. I felt silly of course, I didn’t have a chance in a million with Alex, but I stubbornly held out hope. To add insult to injury, one day, while I was making an exchange of books at my locker, I managed to make things worse—if they ever were better between Alex and I.
Genie and a few of her friends were surrounding Alex, who was at his locker. They were making fun of him, saying how predictable he was and how he always ordered the same thing at lunch. Then they rattled off the things that he would order at the different restaurants they frequented. At this restaurant, he would always order this, and at that restaurant, he would always order that.
I let a glance slip toward him, and he gave me a fleeting look in reply. In that brief look I could sense the dread and annoyance he felt right then and oddly, I was happy about this.
“I’ve known Alex since we were kids, and he is an open book. He couldn’t surprise me if he tried.” Genie winked cockily at Alex, then directed a smug look in my direction.
“There are things you don’t know about me, Genie, trust me,” he murmured soberly.
“Oh yeah, like what? Let me guess … you want to sail around the world?”