The Kayla Chronicles

by Sherri Winston

  And just so you know, in my mind, I’d always told myself that if a boy ever gave me the once-over like that, I’d give him a piece of my mind. Well, at that moment, in real life, me giving him a sassy tongue lashing was soooo not about to happen.

  When he finished looking me up and down, he brought his gaze even with mine. The whole looking-me-in-the-eye thing was even more unnerving than the way he’d tickled my skin with his stare.

  He gave me this sort of half head bob, a gesture thing guys do when they’re too cool to actually say “hello.”

  “W-What’s up?” I sputtered.

  He shrugged in reply to my lame question. He said, “What’s up with you?”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m Victor Milian. You Kayla?”

  Because I’d lost the power to speak, I contemplated sign language. I just nodded dumbly.

  “The plants? Your dad sent me.”

  He had moved away from his slouched stance at the gate. When he stopped in front of me, a backpack full of gardening tools slung over his shoulder, I spun around, got all fidgety like I was making up another kind of dance, then tromped off to another part of the yard. I could feel his eyes following me.

  The smell of wet dirt and fruit ripening in the trees mixed with the scent of chlorine from the pool, all combining to make me a little drunk.

  He was Hispanic, but dark, maybe Dominican or Panamanian. His hair was shiny and black. His eyes were a deep, dark chocolate brown—large, yet with a sleepy, dreamy look.

  Gorgeous.

  “Um, yeah, Kayla. I’m . . . I’m . . . Kayla. See, I don’t do this. . . . I mean. No. Not all the time. I’m practicing. . . . I’m an intellectual.”

  Omigod! Did I really just say that? Out loud?

  I prayed that the gator reportedly lurking in our area would come loping out of the bushes and swallow me like the loser-kabob I was.

  He bent down in front of me and, as his head disappeared from my line of sight, I shut my eyes and tried to magically “vanish” my wide hips.

  “Um, Kayla . . .”

  He had this voice. It was husky, gravelly, with just a trace of a Spanish accent.

  Is that drool I feel on my lips?

  When I looked down, he was looking up at me. He smiled and repeated my name. Then I got noodle-kneed and folded until I was on my knees, same as him, eye level again.

  “Yes . . . ,” I said. My hands were trembling. I held my fingers together and leaned forward all puppy-pathetic.

  Maybe he was going to ask me to marry him.

  “You’ve got a lotta hair, Kayla,” he said. He was staring. Suddenly, my head felt huge. HUGE!

  Then I thought, The nerve of him. So I said, “Hmph!” And I gave it big attitude to match the big, poofy hair.

  He didn’t look fazed. “Lotta hair,” he said again. “I like it. It’s . . . different.”

  “I just don’t think every girl has to be some super-thin, cookie-cutter Barbie Doll to feel good about herself. Puhhhf! I’m not supposed to be like everybody else!” It all came out so fast that when I realized I wasn’t just thinking it but actually saying it, I covered my mouth with both hands.

  “Um, Kayla, right? You’re in the flowerbed. Your dad wants me to do some work out here. In the garden.”

  I looked down.

  I was in the rich, black dirt of my father’s garden. He was attaching a nozzle to the water spigot.

  His eyes were on me.

  “Yes . . . well. . . ,” I said. My feet came to life. And we’re moving, moving, moving.

  I didn’t dare look back. Um, well, I had to. I couldn’t help it. One peek. He was still watching.

  And he was still GORGEOUS.

  And my pace quickened.

  In the heels.

  Bright pink heels with the black leather piping.

  And I almost made it to the hard rubberized flooring of the pool deck.

  Almost made it out of the grass.

  Almost . . .

  The slim heel of the pump sank into the grass.

  Slow motion—first I tilted, then felt the suction of my bare, sweaty foot being pulled free of the snug shoe. I was like one of those women in old Westerns, shot in the back while escaping an outlaw. Now falling to a slow, agonizing death.

  But faster’n you could say, “Yee-haw!” I sprang up. I’d planted my other foot and leveraged myself to keep from falling all the way down.

  Tilting, I stood like that for a full second. But I didn’t look back. I couldn’t.

  Hours later, when I rambled on, just a girl and her blog, I couldn’t believe my mind had leapt to the whole “marriage” thing. Ugh!

  Romantic love is an arcane ideal proliferated by a consumer-driven society in an effort to keep women tethered to the antiquated rules of a patriarchal society.

  Marriage and the whole “romantic love” thing—it’s a farce.

  Right?

  (Sigh! Did I mention that Victor Milian, gardener of the gods, had the best, most wonderful arms with the tightest, most perfectly shaped muscles in the history of god-like gardeners? Not that I’m the kind of girl to be impressed with that sort of thing. I’m just saying. . . .)

  TWO TO TANGO?

  Rosalie finds comfort in familiar song and dance; Kayla craves rhythm of a new beat!

  It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.

  —Lena Horne

  “. . . Bleeeep! Bleeeep! Bleeeep!”

  The smoke detectors!

  It was either early in the morning or the middle of the night. I scrambled out of bed, smelling smoke coming from the hallway.

  I was sooooo tired. Too tired to be afraid of burning to death. Probably because I was already facing trial by fire.

  All night long I’d been having crazy dreams of me at tryouts. Wearing Mom’s hot pink shoes. Doing my routine. And seeing Rosalie dressed like a female Viking Warrior sitting on a big white horse and holding a flaming sword, while Victor Milian, gardener to the gods, is feeding her steed.

  What do you think a dream like that means?

  Seconds later Father swept me along, pulling me under his arm. Part of me wanted to protest. I’m not an invalid. I’m not too stupid to find the way out just because I happen to be a girl.

  I wanted to say it.

  But I didn’t.

  He was dragging Amira under his other arm with Mom running behind us. “Gotta double-time it, ladies,” said Father. He was speaking in military again.

  In no time we were out the back door. The not-quite-cool night air felt good on my face. I coughed a few times. Amira, still sleeping, was laid on a chaise.

  Demolition Diva appeared, rambling, “Oh, my goodness’ sakes. I never would have thought hanging my unmentionables on the stove could cause such a ruckus.” Grandma Belle folded and unfolded her hands.

  Father, the military hero, unafraid of a little fire, had rushed inside. Sooty faced and practically growling, he yelled, “It’s out!”

  I had to cover my mouth with my hands to keep from laughing. I am not a frivolous girl, you know. I don’t just go around giggling all willy-nilly.

  But truth be told, the whole scene was ridiculous. Here was Demolition Diva, wringing her hands, white nightgown flapping in the breeze. And here comes Father, a fire extinguisher in one hand and what remained of a fried girdle in the other.

  “Mama,” he said, his voice rough like stones in a barrel. “We have a dryer.”

  She pulled her housecoat tighter. “Now don’t go taking that tone with me, William. I am still your mother,” she said.

  “Ma!” his voice ground harder and he raised the charred girdle that she’d no doubt once again left hanging for too long in front of the oven door. Probably fell asleep. She’d done it before. Never set the kitchen on fire, though. Just the stove.

  “Those newfangled doohickeys are murder on my delicates,” she snapped.

  Translation:

  Putting her girdle in the dryer would result in
the garment squeezing her enormous butt even tighter.

  She snatched the fried undergarment from the tip of Father’s finger. I looked at Mom, who also had her hand covering her mouth. She used her free hand to grab my free hand and our fingers laced.

  Amira woke up on the lounge chair, snorted, then lay back down. The Diva flounced, and the thick giggle in the back of my throat shot out in spurts. My father gave me a rare murderous look, and I didn’t spurt again.

  Even so, seeing him so mad made it funnier.

  Mom squeezed my fingers again. Father stormed off and my mother and I stood in the backyard practically falling on each other trying to keep from laughing.

  Weird.

  Not the Diva setting fire to her underwear. Sadly, for us, that was normal. Weird was holding my mother’s hand. Her fingers were cool and strong. The madder Father got, the harder Mom squeezed my fingers. I didn’t want to let go.

  Butterf lies the size of pterodactyls did back flips in my belly. Demolition Diva, however, looked as expertly styled as ever: Freshly trimmed silver bangs swooped to one side. Her pearls were oh so pearly, and she was her usual composed self. Despite keeping the household up half the night thanks to her char-grilled undergarments, Grandma Belle looked immaculate. She sat across from me at the diner. Breakfast at home was out, of course.

  “If only my legs had been a wee bit longer,” she had been saying, delicately spreading grape jelly on her English muffin, “I might have been a real dancer!”

  She looked at me. “You are very courageous, my dear. Going out there in front of all those beautiful girls with their fine figures. I’ve seen those young ladies. In my day, the boys would say girls with figures like that were ‘stacked like brick houses.’ They meant that every ‘brick’ was where God intended.” Toast crumbs mysteriously evaporated in midair, not daring to sprinkle and collect on perfectly painted lips.

  Mom said, “Kayla will do wonderfully today! I am so proud of you, baby.”

  I wanted to tell my mother to please stop talking and to please make my grandmother stop talking, too.

  “I would have been ashamed out of my mind to go out there and prance around with these hips,” the Diva was saying. She clutched at the strand of pearls around her neck and said, “Well, at least your legs are longer than mine, dear. And you’re brave. Very, very brave.”

  LESTER’S DINER — South Florida says goodbye to Kayla Dean. Kayla, fourteen, was found dead beneath booth no. seven at Lester’s Diner in Fort Lauderdale, the victim of lethal shame.

  At Kayla’s memorial, Maybelle Laura Dean remarked, “People may remember Rosa Parks as the face of the civil rights movement. People may remember Jane Adams as the voice of our nation’s social services programs. But I want you to remember Mikayla Alicia Dean, my granddaughter, as the Hips of Bravery.”

  “Exhale, chica. Your abuela is from another era. We cannot let her into your head on such an important day!” Rosalie said as the city bus whisked us away to my doom.

  The bus was rattling along when Rosalie hoisted this gimongous book out of her backpack and onto her lap.

  Not a book, really.

  A magazine. My magazine?

  “Is that what I think . . .”

  Rosalie and I have certain themes that we’ve been attached to since, like, forever. They are, in no particular order:

  * Marriage often keeps a woman from her true potential.

  * Society imposes its ideals on women to suit men.

  * Literature is our only salvation!

  And our “themes” were pretty obvious when she pulled apart the old, worn, crackling pages of my childhood attempt to launch my own feminist magazine.

  Goddess.

  Now it was all old and the Elmer’s Glue had bubbled on the paper.

  Inside was a piece of notebook paper glued to the scrapbook with my in-depth analysis of marriage. Rosalie’s mom had rented an old movie that now, of course, has been remade. The Stepford Wives.

  Anyway, Dr. X let us watch the movie with her. It was about this weird town where all the women except these two friends were like “the perfect” women. They were pretty and dressed up to cook dinner and deferred to their husbands.

  Then at the end of the movie, you find out they were robots.

  Robots programmed by men.

  Dr. X told us the movie was demonstrating how society wants to program all women to think and behave like the Stepford wives. I think that was right around the time I came up with bubblebot as a word. So I wrote this article for my magazine about the dangers of marriage. I can’t help but laugh. I was eleven. What did I know about marriage?

  Rosalie’s voice cut into my thoughts. “I just wanted you to see this today, Kayla, because I wanted you to remember. I’ve been there with you. I’m on your side. I want what you want, you know?”

  She stared at me. See, sometimes Rosalie could be like that. Sincere and vulnerable. She looked at me as though my agreeing with her was the most important thing in the world.

  I nodded. “Of course I know.”

  The bus shook. I felt light-headed.

  “The Lady Lions are not our friends, Kayla. You are in a position to ask questions, study the process, and write a story that will flip the script on how they look at the popular people. All you have to do is write the truth. Tell how those hypocrites kicked you to the curb because of your breast size and not based on your skills.”

  She paused, sat up straight. In a soft voice she added, “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings yesterday, Kayla. I didn’t. I just want to prepare you for what will happen today. Do you belong with a group like that? Could you really be friends with girls like that? You’re not trying out because you’re some wannabe. You’re trying out because . . .” Her voice was usually so strong and sure.

  But every once in a while, like at that moment, she could sound almost fragile, like she was fighting back her tears.

  “You’re trying out because you care about good women. We don’t have to settle for Stepford High, right? We’re better than that.”

  A sick uncertainty bubbled in my stomach. I was scared. If I tried to talk I might hurl.

  She did have a point. I’d never look like those girls.

  But every time I looked at Rosalie and that old made-up magazine, the stomach bubbles churned like volcanic lava. Rosalie was clinging to that old book like it was her lifeline, her Truth.

  When I looked at it . . . I felt embarrassed. Embarrassed like any teenager would if they were forced to look at pictures or yearbooks from middle school. It was so ancient and sad. So two hours ago. Didn’t she get that?

  Looking at that big book made me feel a million miles away from her. That thing between us was growing. And maybe I was to blame.

  She was still the girl we’d promised each other we’d always be.

  But me?

  . . . pterodactyls, in-coming . . .

  In a moment of true desperation, I said, “Have you ever looked at any boy and felt like . . . like . . .”

  Right away, she cut me off. “Not Roger Lee Brown again, chica? I don’t know what you saw when you accidentally stumbled into the boys’ bathroom, but I assure you it’s not worth changing your values over. Let’s leave crushes for girls who don’t know any better.”

  At that moment I wanted to scream. Pound my fists on the windows.

  But I am one of those girls with crushes! A girl who wants to fit in! Why can’t you see that?

  We stood, tugged the cord, and held on as the bus came to a stop. We got off, and Rosalie whispered, “It’s going to happen, Kayla. You’ll see. Today will change everything. Today is our day!”

  PRESIDENT ADDRESSES NATION

  “Our nation is proud to honor Kayla Dean, a weapon of mass deconstruction—deconstructing the myth that itty-bitties are doomed to failure!”

  Okay, maybe the president didn’t announce my amazing news from the White House lawn. Still, what happened today . . .

  Astromiraculation.

/>   Really, there’s just no other word. Being chosen for the dance team is an act so miraculous that it exceeds the boundaries of Earth and space. Astromiraculation.

  Of course, the road to astromiraculation was filled with oozing clumps of frustration and jagged cliffs of embarrassment.

  When I first got to the tryouts, I thought I’d end up in a subterranean grotto of shame and retribution normally reserved for fashion slaves, child abductors, and boy-crazy teen queen wannabes.

  Finalists signed in at the performing arts building. We were allowed thirty minutes to stretch and practice. We were being judged in three categories—group dance choreography, individual performance, and gymnastics/freestyle.

  Tryouts: 10:04 AM

  To ensure the tightest security possible and decrease the chance that some dance-move-stealing mole might infiltrate another girl’s tryout, tape her moves with infrared lenses, and hijack a patented double-thrust twirl, we were assigned numbers and then sent to different areas of the two-story building, led by a dance-team guardian.

  Paint fumes filled the front entrance, and workers with ladders and other equipment pushed past the girls, up the stairs, and beyond the double fire doors. A Lady Lion with a megaphone, a clipboard, and—I kid you not—a pair of binoculars stood on the top step and scanned faces as we approached. Could Kevlar-vested SWAT teams be on nearby rooftops scanning for terrorists, or worse—the popularity impaired?

  Rosalie and all other friends-of-friends were directed to an area beyond the roped-off front entrance.

  “This is a total load of crap! These girls are on a complete power trip,” roared Rosalie, stomping her foot and otherwise behaving all power-trippy herself. “I can’t wait ’til we take them down.”

  I signed in and was led away, like they suspected I’d spent the night telegraphing sensitive troop movements to a cave in some war-torn country. My “tryout chaperone” and I rounded a corner, and I felt the slithery weirdness of nerves and terror squiggle in my stomach. My knees had begun to shake.