Maternal Absence

by Jamie Ott

  “Want to come over to my house, then? We could do homework there?”

  “I’m really sorry but I can’t. Not today, my mother would say no.”

  “Oh, okay. Well bye, then.”

  Piper ran up the steps of the shabby hotel.

  Ignoring the clerk, she ran up the stairs, into her room, dropped her back pack and ran to the window. There she was, down below, waiting at the light. Briefly, she turned her head and looked up at the building.

  Piper jumped to the side of the wall, heart pounding and breathing hard.

  ~~~

  The next week at school, all eyes were on Piper wherever she went. People stared and whispered and pointed. She didn’t let it get her down. Anna had lots of friends but she wasn’t going to let anyone intimidate her anymore. Let them talk, she decided. Besides, she had more important things to worry about, like school work. She was having trouble keeping up with all the assignments. Never had she been given so much to do, and she seemed to have a learning gap, too. It scared her more than Anna and her friends. What if she got labeled an idiot, like Anna?

  At lunchtime, Piper walked into the cafeteria, tray in hand. Linda was sitting in a corner at the far end and waved her over. First, she hesitated, but then, something made her go over anyway. Though Linda could be cruel, it was nice having someone to talk to, that day on her way home.

  Sitting across from Linda was the pale faced girl from the bathroom. She smiled as Piper came and sat down.

  “This is Molly.”

  Both Linda and Molly loved to wear black, but Linda was trying to look sophisticated while Molly had an emo-scene thing going. They were both pale skinned with dark hair and pale blue eyes, although Molly’s hair was shiny black and Linda’s was very dark brown.

  Despite their fashion differences, they looked like they could have been sisters. They both liked to wear classic red lipstick and their body language was elegant.

  Watching them made her self-conscious. What if she acted like a street kid?

  But they were actually pretty nice, she soon realized.

  “Hey,” Molly smiled. “Sorry you got suspended because of me and Anna. She actually didn’t mean to hit you.”

  “Yeah, I figured that, but she just made me so mad. Ever since the first day of school, I’d wanted to get back at her.”

  “Well, everyone’s talking about. Everyone was rooting for you,” Linda said as she motioned to the room with her hand.

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because nobody likes her,” said Molly. “She’s just a rich, dumb blonde only good for taking beef and buying beer.”

  Confusion at Molly’s words must have shown on her face because Linda said, “It was joke.” Then she laughed.

  “Well,” said Piper, trying to be chipper, “you look like you’re both enjoying yourselves over here.”

  But Molly was distracted.

  “What are you looking at?”

  “That guy over there.”

  “Which one?”

  Piper turned around while moving her head up and down.

  “Ah!” Molly exclaimed, and threw her face forward onto the table. “You looked! Now he’s gonna know we’re talking about him.”

  She lifted her face from the table. Linda laughed, hysterically.

  The whole table was, now, looking at them.

  “Hi!” Linda said, waving at them.

  The boy in question also turned red. Quickly, he looked away and continued talking to his buddies.

  “So who is he? Are you guys going out or something?” asked Piper.

  “Sort of, I think. I saw him at this pizza place we went to, last Friday. He came up to talk to me. We hung out for a while, and then he walked me partway home. We kissed in the alley for at least forty five minutes and it was so hot. See look, he’s looking at me.”

  Piper and Linda looked just long enough to see the guy dart his eyes away while jerking his head in a motion that clearly said he was embarrassed. If he really did like Molly, Piper thought he had a funny way of showing it.

  But what did she know? Piper had never had a boyfriend. She’d had crushes before but being that she was always so ragged in appearance, there was never any hope for her to have a guy like her back. So she didn’t know exactly what to say in response to Molly’s obvious love of the guy who seemed to be snubbing her. She decided it was better to keep quiet for the moment.

  Throughout the rest of the lunch hour, they talked nonsense. Piper tried to smile and participate, but there were some things she was lost on. Linda smiled and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll bring you along next time. You’ll know people, here, in no time. Everyone will want to meet the girl who threw Anna into a toilet, haha.”

  When the bell rang, they walked to class, together.

  New Friends

  Chapter 11

  Walking home after school, Linda convinced Piper to stop for coffee with her and Molly. Along the way, they approached a cute little shop with an array of underwear in the window.

  “Let’s go in!” Molly said.

  The store was brightly lit with white walls that made Piper wish she wore sunglasses. Piper was blown away by the store. Never had she seen such sexy garments. Up on the wall was a cork board, and thongs in every color of the rainbow were nailed to it. Some were fine like gauze while others were shiny like silk.

  A woman behind the counter, reading a magazine rolled her eyes at them as they walked in.

  “Can I help you?” she asked nastily.

  “No, thanks,” said Molly.

  The woman eyed Piper and her friends as they looked around.

  On a table was a pile of lacy camisoles. Fascinated, Piper picked one up, and when she saw the price tag, her jaw dropped.

  Feeling a bit intimidated by the atmosphere, Piper hung back and observed Molly and Linda walking about the store, picking up all kinds of merchandise. Could they really afford all that?

  When they appeared to be done, Piper followed them up to the register. They dumped their arm loads onto the counter.

  “You want to buy all these?”

  “Well, yeah,” said Molly in a funny voice.

  “Don’t you want to try any of this stuff on?”

  Then Molly and Linda burst into fits of laughter.

  “No, we don’t want to buy anything. We wanted to see if you’d roll your eyes at us and be just as rude as when we walked in the door, if we played a mean trick on you. Well, bye!” Molly said in an overly cheerful voice and then made to leave the store; Linda followed.

  Piper, shocked, looked at the lady a moment, and then followed them out, too.

  Outside, they laughed hard and clutched their bellies. Piper watched. She wasn’t sure how to interpret their behavior, as she’d never witnessed anything like it before. Sure, the store clerk was rude, but she’d never behave as they did.

  Fifteen minutes later, they sat down in a coffee shop with mocha lattes; Piper with a plain hot cocoa. Despite Molly’s and Linda’s uncomfortable behavior, she enjoyed sitting there over drinks with two friendly faces. It was nice to be included.

  They chatted about a number of things, namely Molly’s older brother who’d gone off to college. His father threatened to disown him when he refused to go to Yale and study law, and so he snuck off to Cornell while he was away on business to study art history.

  The conversation made Piper even more uncomfortable. What did she have in common with these girls? She didn’t know if anyone in her family had gone to college. Then they suddenly turned the focus of their conversation to her.

  “Piper, tell us about your family. What does your mother do, and what brought you here?” asked Molly.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, you’re obviously not from the city,” Linda replied.

  She took a sip from her drink to stall and think of something to say.

  “My parents are divorced.”

  Thankfully, Molly took over from there.

 
“Oh okay, that’s why you looked so guilty, just now! Look, you don’t have to be embarrassed about divorce. We may be from reputable families but we have the same problems as everyone else. I live with my dad and his third wife.”

  “Yep,” said Linda, “and I live with my mom and her second husband.”

  “Does your mom work?” Molly asked her.

  Piper couldn’t think of a lie, so she decided to tell the truth.

  “No, she’s kind of lazy.”

  “Oh, tell me about!” yelled Linda. “Ugh! Your mom and my mom would get along great! My mother doesn’t do anything, be it in the house or outside of it. Shopping, working out and grooming; that’s her goal in life. She’s a house cat. No wonder she makes my step dad sick. She makes my dad sick, too! I never want to be like her. I’m gonna do something with my life.”

  Piper couldn’t help but smile. At that moment, she felt closer to them than she could have imagined.

  “What? Don’t look so shocked,” said Molly. “We got problems, too.”

  Piper never thought they didn’t have problems. Simply, it was nice to hear that others hated their parents almost as much as she hated her mother. Maybe it wasn’t quite the same thing, but at least she could be honest about her feelings, and for that, she was grateful.

  “Does your mom work out?” asked Linda. “My mom might want to hang out sometime. She asks all my friends’ mothers over.”

  Prepared this time to deflect questions, Piper spoke over her.

  “Molly what does your mother do?”

  An hour later, they split up because they needed to get home. As she walked in the front door of her shabby hotel room, she sighed. Hanging out with Molly and Linda was the best time she’d ever had, and she hoped it didn’t end. Never, had she had real friends before. Usually, people would hang out with her, but only when they thought no one was looking. When she was a kid, no one wanted to play with her. How nice it was to have real conversations and be accepted, even if it was a bad idea to get close to others at the moment. But as long as she was careful, she’d be fine, she told herself.

  Then she reached into her book bag. She pulled out a turkey deli sandwich and soda she’d picked up on the way home.

  She had fun with Linda and Molly, and that was great, but in the end, none of it would last if she couldn’t get a grip on school. So far, she’d gotten a failing grade on nearly every English paper she’d written, and math was just a mess. She was doing worse than failing; she might as well not even show up to class.

  Piper just didn’t understand it. She’d always done well at school back home. True, she got all C’s but she didn’t think that was all bad. A little extra effort and she should be getting A’s.

  But then as she sat back and chewed her sandwich, she realized that she never really even earned those C’s. Every day, and as most inner city kids know, school was not an active place of learning. Rather, every day, they’d go to school and the teachers would sit behind their desks and read their newspapers. No one was to talk. They’d write assignments on the board, and the kids were to do them. The teachers would read until it was time to go home. Every day, this was the extent of inner city school learning. So Piper may have gotten C’s but she realized that she hadn’t clue as to if she’d actually done well or not. For all she knew, it was just their way of getting her out of class.

  It was at that moment that Piper realized she was in more trouble than she thought. She was not fumbling over a learning gap, but she was paying for years of false learning.

  She needed a tutor, and she needed one fast!

  Socialite

  Chapter 12

  Piper found herself caught up in a world of dates. Being Linda’s and Molly’s friend meant social gatherings of every kind. Back home, her classmates would hang out after school. However, West Side kids liked to meet at Joe’s Diner for dinner and talk about school, colleges, work and world events. Often, Piper just listened to their banter because she didn’t like watching the news, and she didn’t have any hopes, at the moment, for college. She couldn’t possibly look to the future when she could barely swim through the present. Piper was severely behind in every class. Her academic advisor warned her that if she didn’t do better, she’d have to go to their remedial school on the other side of town.

  Just like at home, she faced humiliation. Every day, she prayed her teachers wouldn’t say anything about the quality of her work in front of the class. When they handed papers back to her, she hid them away as quickly as she could so that others couldn’t see her marks. None of it mattered, though, as everyone knew she was the worst student of the year.

  Fortunately, Linda, who was a straight A student, decided to help Piper any way she could. Together, they spent many hours going over every particular of her assignments. She was ever so grateful to her because her school assigned tutor, Mark, was terrible. Maybe he was one of the tops kids, but he couldn’t teach to save his life. He’d make her read every assignment and analyze every single detail. Minutes would pass in contemplation, rather than working and learning. Not that this was bad, but Piper didn’t have time to learn everything inside and out. She needed the nuts and bolts to pick up her grades right away. But Mark couldn’t work or speak fast, like she needed. He was a slow and methodical thinker, and so incredibly dull that all she could focus on, during their sessions, was trying to stay awake.

  Despite her troubles with academia, she was allowed to try out for choir and found that she could sing rather well. She was accepted into one of the more advanced vocal classes. Thank goodness, too, because it was the only class that kept her from registering with a zero point GPA. Piper even joined the drama department, which was an after hours’ class. Her academic advisor thought she should spend the time learning, but she was desperate and needed the extra points, now. Piper was going to fight for her place in school for as long as she could. Even if she never slept again, she was going stay with the West Side.

  More troubling than school was when Linda and Molly stopped by one Saturday. She’d gone out for breakfast and when she came back it was to find them sitting in her room. The housekeeper had let them in.

  She stopped in the doorway. Her face burned with embarrassment.

  “Where does your mom sleep?” asked Molly.

  “On the other side of town.”

  It was only thing that came to mind. She expected they’d be appalled, and act like they’d found out something dirty about her. Instead, they were fascinated and envious of her.

  “I wish my mom let me get my own place!” exclaimed Linda.

  As she surmised, having friends was a danger to her situation, but she didn’t dwell on it long. She didn’t have time, with school pressing her every moment. In the end, it wasn’t so bad, though. She was happy to learn that she could trust Linda and Molly with at least one secret.

  “You’re not the only one at the West Side to be living alone, you know. Lots of rich kids get their own places. Their parents are unaware or don’t care; they’re too busy,” said Linda.

  Despite the shabbiness of her room, the girls loved hanging out there. Often, they’d stop by with junk food and movies, and sometimes friends and they’d spend the night and talk. It was fun; the best time Piper had ever had in her life.

  One night, Piper and Linda were writing papers in her room when Linda got a call from Molly.

  “Oh my god!” she heard her exclaim. Linda pulled the phone away from her ear. “I met this guy at Cindy’s, and he’s really cute. We’re at his brother’s house, now: he’s even finer. His roommates just went to the store to get beer. You guys should come over.”

  Instantly, Piper recognized the tone in her voice; she’d heard it from her mother too often. She sat up from her paper and watch Linda.

  “Piper and I are doing research for our English papers,” Linda said sounding annoyed.

  Over the weeks, Piper had come to recognize a slight rift in their relationship; a tug of war, essentially. Both girls
were rebellious, but in their own way. Molly wanted to rebel by having outrageous fun while Linda wanted to rebel by rejecting mainstream society and remaining in arrogant, intellectual seclusion. This caused them to bicker so much that, sometimes, Piper had to get away from them.

  “Oh, come on!” shouted Molly. “Think about all the times I went with you to visit your nerdy ass, book nosed friends when I would have rather been doing anything else in the world! If you don’t come over here, then you’re not my friend!”

  “She’s drunk,” Piper whispered. “We should go over and make sure she’s alright.”

  Linda sighed and rolled her eyes.

  “Okay, we’re coming. Where are you, exactly?”

  An hour later, Piper and Linda were knocking on the door of a house somewhere in New Jersey. Linda fumed about Molly the entire way.

  “Unbelievable!” she said. “What the hell is she doing traveling all the way out here with some guys she doesn’t even know that well?”

  Then she cursed Molly under her breath.

  The door opened and standing there was a good looking blond boy whom Piper liked, immediately. He had a masculine jaw and his eyes were marble blue.

  “Are you here for Molly?”

  “Yeah,” said Linda.

  The boy stepped back and let them in.

  They walked into the living room, which was dark and dank-smelling. A haze of smoke hung in the air. Piper recognized the scent of it right away. Her mother liked to smoke, too.

  On the wall was a 72 inch television. A movie played but the boys, sitting on the couch, were hardly into it. Instead, they sat with faces like zombies; they were so still that Piper wondered if they might be dead.

  The speakers were turned up way too loud. From somewhere in the house, a loud gurgling noise came, followed by a loud exhale.

  Molly sat at the other end of the couch, staring at the television with dead pan eyes. Like the boys, she looked as though she was in a trance.

  She turned her head to look up at them. Her eyes were red. Linda, looking disgusted, signaled for her to get up.

  She tried to stand, but then fell back down.

  “I’ll help her,” said the blond guy.

  He went over and put her arm around his shoulder. Then he lifted her up and walked her out. Piper held the door open for them, and then followed them out.