Strangers in Vienna

by Angela L.

I could see that she was hiding something behind her smile. I didn’t know what it was, but just with that one smile, I suddenly felt anxious and excited at the same time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  (October 4, 1992, in Missouri)

  It had been about two months working on the tree house and surprisingly, we all managed to survive without hammering our fingers into a piece of wood or gluing any of our body parts together.

  We finished the tree house floor along with all four walls, but every time we stood on top of it, I felt like it was going to break at any moment.

  When I was in that tree house, I was in my own mind. Fragile, and with just a little more weight, it might all just snap into a million pieces.

  Every day for the rest of the month, it was basically just going to school, then home, then straight to the stream to work on the tree house. We did our homework here sometimes too if we didn’t finish it at home, but none of us cared about homework. Half of the teachers never even looked at it, and the other half just skimmed through the work without even carefully reading the context. I could have written an article about why broccoli would taste horrible with chocolate for my English essay that should have been on a reflection of Moby Dick and the teacher probably wouldn’t even have noticed.

  We had to redo two walls twice since we forgot to place a window in the middle of one of them.

  It was hilarious. Benji was in charge of the wall that was supposed to have a window in the middle, and right after he finished hammering the last nail in, he looked at his wall proudly and yelled out, “It’s complete!” but immediately after, he was all like, “Oh, wait, I forgot the window,” and had to start all over again. Epic fail.

  Food was always an issue when we were working. All of us had been sneaking dried fruits, nuts, and canned food. Anything that could last a few days up in the tree house without rotting. There were probably at least five empty plastic cans laying on the floor of our tree house. But most of our parents were beginning to think there was a rat in the house since all the food kept going missing.

  So, in the end, we relied on the cheap candy store down the block from our school. The four corners of the room reeked of sweetness, even the guy behind the register, who looked like a druggie, smelled like jolly ranchers mixed with a hint of chocolate. The candy store wasn’t exactly the kind of legit candy store where you would take your kids. It was tiny, the candy was okay, and who knows where they came from, but it was better than driving half an hour to the city mall and spending a load of money.

  “Hey, Demi, look.” Benji poked me. I turned around, and saw that he had managed to stick two licorices up his nose, wiggling them around. “Dude, I look like a walrus.” He chuckled.

  “Grow up.” I laughed and punched his stomach. He grunted then snorted the two licorices out his nose.

  I grabbed another plastic bag and scooped out a handful of jelly beans from one of the candy boxes.

  “Get some more,” Jacob said while scooping a second handful and dumping it in the bag.

  “How much money do you guys have?” Noelle asked. “I only got sixty-four cents.”

  “I have a dollar,” Benji said.

  “Ugh…thirty-seven cents,” Donna said, counting her coins one by one.

  I emptied out my pockets. “I got fifty cents.”

  “That should be good enough,” Noelle said and took our candy bags to the cash register. The guy working it looked like he hadn’t slept for days.

  After we paid, we biked back to the tree house to start finishing the roof. We’d been procrastinating these last couple of days with it. It seemed like it was the most challenging part of the tree house, considering that we all had to climb on top. Truth was, we’d all fallen from the tree at some point. I’d already fallen down twice while Donna had already fallen down six times, once on top of Jacob.

  I honestly wanted it to not have a roof. It was cooler that way with the stars and everything. I would lie down on the ground and look up at the stars, and I would feel like my entire world was within that tree house with a forever-painted night sky filled with stars.

  Simple. Calm. Peaceful. But then again, when night came, the freezing cold air would shower down upon us from the empty rooftop. Plus, I think we were all tired of random bugs falling down from the tree branches above us through the roofless gap.

  ****

  I was sitting on the kitchen table eating leftover chicken casserole that Raya had made the other night when I received the urgent call.

  “Hello, this is the police department. Is this Demi Hayes’s residence?” The man’s voice was awfully deep.

  “Yes, I’m Demi Hayes,” I said. Police department. Was I in trouble?

  This must be a prank.

  “Sorry to bother you, but I have a girl over here called Noelle. Claims that you’re her cousin?” the man said. Oh. Noelle.

  “Yes. She’s my cousin. What trouble did she get into this time?” I asked, kind of deepening my voice. I tried to sound formal. Noelle had been getting into a lot of trouble these past few months and each time she directed the police calls to my house.

  “Well, sorry to tell you, but Noelle has gotten in a situation and we can’t let her out unless you pick her up,” the man informed me.

  “I’ll be on my way, officer,” I said and hung up the phone.

  Like any other building, the police department was within walking distance from my place, taking me under twenty minutes to get there.

  When I arrived, Noelle was sitting on a metal bench with dirty handcuffs around her wrists. She was in her usual baggy clothes and her hair was sort of messed up. There was another guy sitting next to her, but he was chained onto the bars. His head was leaning against the wall and he looked drunk. I could smell the alcohol from where I was standing.

  “Hi, I’m here for Noelle.” I approached the police behind the counter. He looked like he loved his job. Plus, he had a mug that said, “Don’t mess with me. I’m a police officer.”

  “Demi Hayes?” The man took a look at me.

  “Yes. I’m Noelle’s cousin,” I said.

  The man looked at me hard, as if analyzing my every feature, then back to Noelle. I knew he was suspicious. I wouldn’t blame him. I had brown hair and blue eyes while Noelle had black hair with tan skin and looked half Latina.

  “Big family,” I quickly explained.

  “Sure. Right this way.” The man jingled a big ring of keys that was attached to his belt. He had to take several minutes to identify which key he needed to unlock Noelle’s handcuffs.

  “Appreciate it, officer,” I said. Noelle rubbed her wrists, looking relieved that her hands were free again.

  “No problem.”

  “Hey, man. Thanks again,” Noelle said to me.

  “Stay out of trouble, young lady,” the cop said as we got ready to leave.

  “Got it!” Noelle said before the door closed behind us. We both knew she was going to come back within the next two months.

  The night air swooshed in around us. Noelle inhaled a long breath and then exhaled, glad that she was out of the police station.

  “How long were you in there?” I asked her as we walked back to Noelle’s place.

  “An hour or so.”

  “Why didn’t you call me sooner?”

  “The guy who came before me hogged the phone and when it was my turn, that officer had to go before me to call his wife, which lasted about half an hour.”

  “At least it wasn’t two hours,” I said, trying to be optimistic. “So who called this time? Your mom?” I asked her.

  “My mom’s new guy,” she said.

  Kind of like my dad, Noelle’s mom dated a lot and married more times than we could count. I remember walking in on Noelle’s mom and her new husband once. We were seven. Noelle didn’t act that surprised.

  As for me, I could never look at her mother the same way after that. Her mother still wasn’t certain who Noelle’s father was. Noelle didn’t seem to want to know, e
ither. In fact, Noelle considered her “father” lucky that he managed to get away from her crazy mother.

  Every time her mother was too distracted with a guy, Noelle would desperately throw things at their windows just to get her mother’s attention.

  It started when she was six. I used to accompany her by throwing paper airplanes at her mom’s window. Then the paper airplanes turned to rocks. She still did it, but now she had the police called on her for it.

  “Can I stay at your place tonight?” Noelle asked me. We were walking so slowly that it seemed like a snail could have passed us.

  “Absolutely,” I said, squinting, trying to make out the path ahead of us. The streetlights were always dim. It seemed like our town was either too lazy to check the lights or just too cheap. Probably both.

  “Thanks.” Noelle smiled at me. I guess this was why I loved Noelle so much, and why we’d been friends since we were little, along with Jacob, of course. We were screwed-up teens, living with screwed-up families and, sure, we acted out sometimes; we would vent out our anger through complaints, but we made sure of one thing: we never cried over things or became suicidal. We always tried to be strong even if breathing was the only thing we could do.

  When we reached my house, I realized the kitchen lights were on.

  Raya must still be up.

  “Come on,” I said and opened the front door. I didn’t know if Raya would let her stay or not. Lately, she’d been annoyed when I brought people over because now that my dad was gone, she didn’t quite know how to deal with me.

  We could sneak in the backyard and climb in my window, but there was a huge spider web guarding the back gate, and I didn’t feel like going through that today.

  “You were out?” Raya watched me enter through the door, dragging Noelle along with me. “When did you go out?” My stepmother stared at Noelle, trying to place a name on her even though I’ve reminded her hundreds of times.

  I wanted to tell her I’d gone out many times without her noticing, and not because I was trying to sneak out, but because she hardly paid attention to anything.

  “Went to go pick up Noelle. She kind of doesn’t have a place to stay tonight so can she stay over?” I asked her politely.

  “You can’t just invite people here last minute without my permission,” Raya said and put down her mug. I suddenly felt so annoyed. There she was, trying to act all like a parent to me when she hardly tried to know me.

  I wanted to ask her why I needed her permission, but I didn’t feel like starting a fight with a hormonal pregnant lady. “Is that a yes or no?”

  “It’s a no.” Raya scowled. “Sorry, Noelle, but Demi needs to learn how to inform me first in situations like this.”

  “Whatever,” I said, and I left with Noelle, slamming the door shut. I knew Raya wanted an apology, but I wasn’t going to give it.

  “Where are you going?” Raya yelled from the kitchen. I heard her heavy footsteps walking to the front porch. “It’s almost bedtime. Come back here, Demi.” Noelle and I were already walking down the street.

  I’d never actually walked out on my dad’s wife before, but I guess this was me attempting to take my first stand. Alaric was right. I just had to put on my poker face and get through life, but I wasn’t going to go anywhere if I didn’t start doing something.

  If Raya had been someone who I respected, I would have gone back. Maybe this was my first step to finding my own voice and my first time fighting back.

  “Demi! Come back. If you don’t come back within two minutes then you’re sleeping out in the cold tonight!” Raya was screaming from the porch, her mug in one hand with the other hand waving around like a maniac.

  “First of all, that’s child abuse. Second of all, have a nice night, Raya!” I yelled back, dragging Noelle back into the night.

  We kept on walking until my house was no longer in sight.

  My heart took a leap and I knew I was going to regret this when I come home the next day but I did what I had to do.

  “Hey, where are we going?” Noelle whispered as she trailed behind me.

  “Back to our kingdom.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  (October 6, 1992, in Missouri)

  It was pretty awkward the next morning when I returned home. It was the day that Raya’s friend’s sister or something was getting married. I didn’t want to go, but the minute I returned home, Raya shoved a dress in my hands and told me to dress up for the wedding. I wasn’t going to fight back. I knew my limits. Plus, like I said before, Raya was a pregnant hormonal lady.

  We all sat in those rows of white plastic chairs, watching the priest say his part. It was weird; the two ladies sitting across from me were tearing up. I didn’t even think they were related to the people who were getting married.

  I knew I was still young and all, but I never got the point of weddings, how a priest had to declare that a couple is married. We could get a random hobo off the street and it wouldn’t make a difference. I’d never been a Christian, even though my dad was supposed to have been, but if two people were in love, why would they need permission from God? Why the priest? When two people are in love, marriage shouldn’t matter anymore because they should know that a ring on your finger wasn’t going to make it any different. But that was just my opinion.

  I especially didn’t get the vows. “Will you take blah, blah, blah as your wife?” Why would they ask such a thing? If they weren’t going to take the other person as his or her husband or wife, then why would they be marrying? It was such a stupid question, like when the waiters at restaurants say, “Would you like a table?” Of course they would like a table. They’re in the restaurant to eat.

  Some of the people from school were here, too. I never talked to any of them, just said hey in the hallways a couple of times. If Benji were here, he would have gone straight to the cake, even if he wasn’t allowed to. He would stick his nasty finger in the frosting and lick it with pride and dignity.

  When the two lovers were done saying their vows and they kissed and all that, I just wanted to go straight home, but Raya wanted to chat with some of her friends so I stuck around. She was my ride back.

  I heard the married couple was planning on buying a house in this town and having babies. I guess it would be nice and all, raising a family. Let’s just hope they don’t screw it up. Actually, I take that back. Of course they’re going to screw it up. All parents screw up.

  It was quite scary now that I thought about it. Marrying someone, having kids of your own.

  If I were them and had enough money and the right opportunity, I would be leaving this town behind without even thinking.

  I wondered what would have happened if Alaric and I still had contact with each other now. If things had been different, if he didn’t have organ failure or if I moved to Austria, what would have been our ending? A happily ever after?

  The thought dangled around in my head, leaving me hanging. Would we have worked out? Or would we stay as friends?

  I walked out of the courtyard to get away from all those people so I could hear my own thoughts, but when I walked to the hedge gardens, I couldn’t help but overhear a private conversation between Jacob and the soccer coach.

  “We can’t keep doing this,” said Jacob.

  What was Jacob doing with the soccer coach? Jacob had never played soccer before in his life.

  I crouched down behind a bush so they couldn’t see me. They were sitting close together on a wooden bench. The coach looked around the garden to see if anybody was there before he answered.

  “I know,” the coach said.

  “So, now what?” asked Jacob.

  I didn’t know what they were talking about at first until I pieced it all together.

  It all made sense now. Why Jacob was getting beat up the other day. Those two varsity soccer guys probably caught Jacob getting cozy with their coach. They couldn’t beat up their coach, so instead they decided to target Jacob.

  I decided to leave them
to their own private conversation. It was Jacob’s business after all, and I knew I had no right to listen in on them. I left discreetly and returned to the wedding.

  Chapter Twenty

  (October 13, 1992, in Missouri)

  Instead of writing to Alaric again, I picked up my pen and decided to write down lyrics. It was time to begin.

  I stood there with a blank piece of paper in my lap for half an hour, but I just didn’t know how to string together my thoughts.

  Alaric kept telling me that I had to gather my feelings, and memories, in order to write meaningful lyrics.

  So I did. Well, not at first.

  We were talking seventeen years of blocked feelings and memories. I closed my eyes and searched through every dusty corner of my mind. I focused hard on every memory that I chose to forget or ignore and within a minute, I found myself crying, frustrated, and confused all at the same time. It was as if all my feelings that I had bottled up for the past seventeen years had suddenly exploded like an uncontrollable volcano, and along with it came the waterfall of tears that streamed down my cheeks.

  I remembered my mom’s coffin being lowered into the ground and the pain that shot through my chest. I remembered all the times when I had to pick my dad up from a bar because he was too drunk to go home. I remembered feeling the loneliness at two a.m. almost every night for the past thirteen years of my life and wondering the meaning of my existence. I remembered my dad bringing random girlfriends in to the house, which I always pretended I didn’t care about, but in reality I just wanted him to put me first. I remembered all the times when I felt abandoned, isolated, and just plain tired.

  Instead of feeling inspired, instead of transferring my pain into my lyrics, I ripped the sheets of papers up and threw them against my wall. I wondered if this was what Alaric meant. Owning up to my sorrows, my despair, my horrible memories, because I felt like I was slowly being torn apart from the inside out.