by Ashley Love
"No, at other schools I've been to."
Mason and Charlie both study me with unreadable expressions, but before I can ask what they're looking at, there's a sudden clunking sound in the walls, like a car screeching to a halt and crashing into a pile of bricks. Then, the vent above the kitchen doorway spews a cloud of dust as it kicks on.
"Yes! I did it!" Kira exclaims from down the wall, and comes skipping into the kitchen covered in more dust. "You should get someone to come clean your air ducts though."
Sophia cheers from the living room, running in and throwing her arms around Kira's waist, startling the girl. "Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" she exclaims. "Do you realize how uncomfortable it is to sleep in a winter coat?"
Kira chuckles sheepishly. "You're welcome."
"Told you she knows everything," Charlie says, popping a Dorito into her mouth.
"You learn a lot about ocelots in there?" Mason asks Sophia, tossing a lollipop at her. She catches in with a clap.
"Well, they're nocturnal...and they're endangered by illegal hunting," Sophia says.
Kira smiles, brushing the dust off herself. "You should hear the sound they make when they're ready to mate. It's hilarious."
Mason laughs and Charlie shakes her head. "You know everything," she says.
Sophia looks up at Kira. "Do you really know everything?"
Kira rolls her dark eyes. "Not everything," she replies, walking over to the counter and grabbing a mini muffin out of one of the bowls.
"Dude, you speak like thirteen languages," Mason argues around his lollipop, his words slurred. "You know everything."
"Twelve," she retorts.
"You're not helping your case here," Charlie laughs.
Sophia unwraps the lollipop Mason tossed at her. "Do you know about Nathan Hartley?"
"The guy that founded Windsor Falls?" Charlie wonders.
I cock my head to the side. "I thought you said you weren't obsessed with him," I accuse Sophia teasingly.
"I'm not!" she claims. "People at school have just been talking about him."
Kira shrugs. "I know a few things about him."
"But it's Elsa Hartley the kids at your school are probably talking about," Mason chimes in.
"Who?" I ask.
"Nathan Hartley's wife," Charlie replies.
Oh. I had read about her when I'd researched the town before moving here, but the articles had never mentioned her name.
"What about her?" Sophia asks, popping the lollipop in her mouth and plunking down on the floor.
Mason grins. "Can I tell it?" He glances between Kira and Charlie.
Charlie rolls her eyes. "Just as long as you leave out the dramatics."
Mason grumbles a bit, but circles around the counter, plopping down in front of Sophia, keeping me in his line of vision since he's technically talking to me too. "Well," he begins, pausing for dramatic effect and earning a scoff from Kira. "The story goes that Nathan Hartley was a dirty, dirty boy and cheated on Elsa a bunch during their marriage after they'd been living in Windsor Falls for a while."
Sophia's eyes widen. "That's fucked up!" she exclaims.
"Language," I warn her. Sophia grins up at me
"Yeah, it totally is," Mason agrees. "But the best part is that Elsa caught him in the act one day with this hot chick from down the street."
"When did this happen?" I ask.
"Oh God, like a hundred years ago or something," Charlie says. "Men were dirtbags back then too."
Mason shoots her a glare. "You're just saying that 'cause you're a lesbian."
Kira kicks Mason where she sits. "Keep telling the story."
"Oh, right," he says, turning back to Sophia. "So, she catches Hartley in the act, right? And she's really torn up about it and all that, but Hartley apologizes and begs her to forgive him, and eventually, she does. She gives him a second chance to make it right."
Sophia's face falls a little. "Is that it? That's the story?"
"No, no, it gets better," he says, waving his hands. "So they're unhappily married for a while or whatever, and then Elsa gets pregnant. She's happy about it, because by this time she's in her late thirties and she thought she wasn't gonna have kids. But then Nathan cheats on her again."
Sophia groans in frustration. "Why?!" she exclaims. "Why do guys cheat?"
"Hey, girls cheat too you know," Mason pipes up. "My ex cheated on me with a college guy."
Charlie coos and rubs his back. "She was totally snotty anyway, to be fair. You deserve better."
"I'm becoming a lesbian," Sophia declares. "Charlie, will you teach me?"
I laugh a little. "You can't just learn to be gay, Sophia."
"I can if I try hard enough," she snorts.
"Hey! I'm telling a story here!" Mason announces, holding up his hands. We all fall quiet again, Charlie winking at Sophia and Sophia snickering.
"So anyway," he continues. "She's pregnant and Nathan's a douche, right? So Elsa is all sad and she goes out into the woods and strings herself up like a piñata. The end."
Sophia stares at him for a long moment, eyes wide.
"She hung herself?" I ask, leaning forward.
Mason nods. "Nathan Hartley found her like that, and buried her in a plot in the woods. Then he skipped town."
I purse my lips. I remember this part of the story. The articles had said that Nathan Hartley left Windsor Falls in a time of great sadness, but hadn't specified as to why.
"But he came back a few years later and built that park down the street," Kira chimes in.
"You mean Hartley's Bend?" Sophia asks. "We go there sometimes."
"Yeah," she says. "He built it in Elsa's name since she was pregnant when she killed herself. I guess maybe he built it for his unborn child."
Charlie scoffs. "He built it in his name, the selfish dick. If he'd built it for Elsa, he would've called it her maiden name or something."
"Nah, I think he named it Hartley's Bend because that's what his kid's last name would have been had Elsa given birth to it," Kira says. "But either way, Hartley's Bend is kind of a stupid name."
Mason looks back at Sophia. "So there you have it. Elsa Hartley," he grins.
Sophia bites her lip, studying Mason's face. "So that's a true story?"
"'Fraid so, kiddo," he says, and then he pushes himself to his feet, grabbing a handful of cheese puffs. "Come on, let's go watch that ocelot thing. You're gonna hear the Hartley story dozens of times once you've lived here for a while anyway."
"The ocelot show is over," Sophia tells him, trailing behind him to the living room. "And we're probably not gonna be in Windsor Falls that long."
I watch after them and then sigh, turning in my chair and popping a sour cherry ball in my mouth, chewing thoughtfully.
"Is that true?" Kira asks. "Are you guys leaving Windsor Falls soon?"
I glance up at her. "It depends on what our parents decide. We move around a lot."
"Where are they?" she asks.
I just huff a little breath. "Working. Always working."
We're all quiet for a minute, and from the living room I can hear the theme song for the Magic School Bus start playing, mixed with the sound of Mason's voice talking animatedly.
"Well, it probably doesn't mean much," Charlie says, tossing another Twizzler at me, "But I hope you stay for a while. I like you."
I smile as I catch the Twizzler. "It means a lot actually," I say, itching the small bandage Bonnie had stuck to my forehead earlier. "And I like you guys too."
The dream begins as it always does. It's dark and cold, and I'm sad again, so sad I can feel it in my chest like dry ice burning and aching, dissolving my heart, shattering my ribs. It hurts, a sadness this deep.
There's regret too, I realize. A deep, deep regret that makes me consider the possibility that maybe I don't deserve to live, even if my life is this sad, cold, lonely existence that I can feel weathering
away at my bones.
I'm walking this time, walking through the woods behind my house, but this is the past, and I'm a different person again. The same different person as before. The forest is dark, but somehow I can see, like a creature of the night, which makes no sense, because my body and eyes are older in my dream, and worn. But who am I to question what's true and impossible in a dream?
I don't know where I'm going as I walk through the woods of Windsor Falls, but I eventually arrive there anyway. And somehow, like everything else so far, I just know. Know that I have to look up, even though I don't want to.
But I do. Because this is a dream. And your head makes you do stupid things when you're dreaming. What's a little more regret?
I raise my eyes, and I see a pair of feet. They're small, a woman's feet, and they're dirty like she's been walking barefoot through the trees for some time. They're just...hanging there, swinging back and forth in a slight breeze through the woods. Whatever branch they're hanging from creaks and groans under their weight as they swing.
My dream self knows those feet, deep down, and I feel sad, but I also feel scared, because those feet are most assuredly attached to a whole person above me, and that thought is just creepy. It's too dark to see the rest of the person, but I see those feet. They're tinged blue, lifeless.
A dead woman's feet. Hanging in a tree.
I jolt awake, my hair matted to my face with a cold sweat. My room is too dark and I panic, reaching over and slapping on my light, looking up to make sure there aren't feet hanging above me. I see nothing but the ceiling, and I release my breath in a whoosh, collapsing back onto the bed.
I try to to slow my heartbeat, try to get back to sleep, but all I can focus on is trying to ignore the lingering sound of a tree branch groaning and creaking under the weight of hanging feet.
10
A little over a week later, towards the middle of October, I have my first meeting with the after school theater company. I'd managed to coerce Bonnie into signing off for me on the signup sheet as my parental guardian so I could get in. She'd assured me she doesn't mind watching Sophia for an extra couple of hours on days when I have theater practice after school.
The theater itself is huge. All I've seen so far before is the green room and costume storage closet, the day Charlie brought me back here to change out of my muddy clothes. But the actual auditorium easily seats almost a thousand, which is impressive for a small town high school.
The theater company meets on the stage, and as I look around, I notice that there are about thirty students in the club, including Charlie and Mason, who are sitting with me now. Somehow all the members just automatically sit in a circle on the stage, and the teacher arrives fashionably late.
"Awesome, awesome," she says by way of greeting. "I'm seeing some new faces in here!"
Charlie grabs my arm and throws it up in the air before I can stop her. I feel my face growing hot when the teacher looks over.
"What's your name, sunshine?" she asks me, a big wicked grin on her face, adorned in shiny lip gloss.
I pull my arm away from Charlie as she snickers to herself. "Ariel," I reply, elbowing Charlie in the ribs.
"Welcome, Ariel," the teacher says. "Anyone else new here?"
A few other students raise their hands and introduce themselves. A brunette girl who introduces herself as Olivia catches Charlie's eye, and she makes a little yummy sound under her breath, exchanging a look with Mason that says I'm all over that. I just smile a little and scan my eyes over the circle of students.
Charlie wasn't lying when she said there are lots of cute boys in theater. I can see three right now that are like models alone. But none of them have the same timeless, ancient beauty of Zane Peterson. And that's so fucked up that I'm even thinking that, because the bruises Zane gave me last week are still healing a sickly yellow color on my face. Yet I still think that he's the most gorgeous boy I've ever seen and pine after him like a pathetic, desperate idiot.
The teacher claps her hands together once, eyeing everyone happily. She has a certain sassiness about her, I can already tell. The woman is definitely not dressed like a teacher. She's wearing tight black jeans, a black bejeweled tank top, and biker boots with clunky bits of metal and leather tassels on them. Her hair is dark and curled, and her eyes are a piercing green that sparkle like firecrackers when she speaks. Some of the boys blush when she looks right at them.
"For those of you who don't know me, my name is Ms. Barnes, but call me Lynn. I hate sounding old," she chuckles.
Mason raises his hand, but doesn't wait for Lynn to call on him before he speaks. "Do you know what we're doing for the winter play?"
She smiles. "Actually, yes, if everyone gives it the go ahead," she replies. "Our janitor Marv wrote a play about how crappy high school is, which you guys have to vote on. And I still need to get Roman's permission, but I think he'll be fine with us doing it."
"What does Marv know about high school?" Mason scoffs.
Lynn chuckles. "Believe it or not, he was once in high school too. He gets it. I gave his play a read and it's actually not bad. He's a weird guy, but it's not bad writing."
Everyone nods a little, and Mason settles back with a grin. I can tell he's only really talking right now because he wants to flirt with Lynn. She's a pretty lady, and Mason is shameless.
"Plus, it's either Marv's play, or we do Les Misérables again," she adds. "We didn't get much funding this year so we can't afford new costumes or any complicated sets."
A girl across the room groans. "We've done Les Misérables twice already."
"Hence why I want to give Marv's play a shot," Lynn smiles. Then she claps her hands together again. "Alright, everyone up, let's do some exercises."
I glance at Charlie questioningly as we stand. "Exercises?"
"Lynn likes to do yoga and stuff before each rehearsal. Don't ask me why," she replies, her eyes glued to the Olivia girl across the circle.
I follow her line of vision. "You should go stand with her," I chuckle teasingly. Charlie snaps out of it for a second, looking at me, and then grinning sheepishly. I give her a small nudge. "Go on."
She glances around. "See any guys you think are cute?" she asks with a waggle of her eyebrows.
I smile. "A few."
Charlie studies me for a second, and I nudge her again, nodding my head towards Olivia. Smiling once more, Charlie heads across the circle and squeezes her way in beside her. I watch her introduce herself, flawlessly smooth, and Mason bumps into me.
"She's like the player of all players," he tells me with a laugh.
"Alright, follow my lead now," Lynn says, stretching her arms above her head. "Reach for the sky...breathe...and touch your toes...one more time, reach up..."
I follow along with the stretches, wincing a little as the bruised scrape on the back of my shoulder tightens with each pull. But I feel surprisingly better once I loosen my limbs, and I have to to stifle little laughs every time Mason imitates something Charlie does in her flirting efforts. She glances over here at one point, sees Mason making fun of her, and flips him the bird. Mason snickers and continues stretching, eyeing Lynn's ass as she bends down in her tight black jeans.
The theater practice lasts a couple hours, and Lynn takes us through improv exercises, as well as introductions. I'm paired up with a nice girl named Abby, to Mason's dismay (he had his eye on her rack), and find out that she's the daughter of Alfred Singer, my boss, with whom I've already shared four work days so far. The craft shop is nice. It's quiet, secluded, and musty like an old library, which is comforting. I sit there at the front desk for three or four hours and make origami and do homework and help customers and clean the store. It's an easy job, and Alfred is one of those quiet men whose silence is the furthest thing from uncomfortable. Sometimes I hear him chattering on the phone in Japanese in the back, and then the next minute he'll be arguing in a southern drawl with a man named Rufus who designs some of th
e clocks we sell in the shop.
Alfred Singer is strange, just like Bonnie is strange. But also like Bonnie, he's a comforting presence to be around, warm like whiskey and sharp like wood shavings.
Abby, I realize, is much like her father. While she has a bubbly personality that's unlike Alfred Singer, she also has this intuitive nature about her and the mouth of a sailor, and I can tell she could kick the ass of just about anyone she wanted. I envy that about her. I mean, I'm sure I could probably win my fair share of fights if I wanted to; I'm not a weak or small girl. But I don't fight. It feels wrong.
Lynn ends up leading us through a particular improv exercise where we all choose something to act out from a hat, kind of like charades, and whoever acts it out the best gets to take home Marv's play to review it first. Nobody ends up winning though, because halfway through the exercise, the entire group of students, Lynn included, are in a puddle on the floor, laughing with tears streaming down their faces at some of the ridiculous things we're being forced to act out. Even I'm doubled over, hugging my bruised ribs, my jaw aching from smiling so much, throat sore from laughing.
When the theater club finally calls it a day, Lynn hands out silly temporary tattoos to everyone and tells us that auditions for the winter play will be held in early November.
"Are you gonna try out?" Abby asks me, bumping into my shoulder companionably as we head out the door.
I shrug, not entirely sure I'll still even be living here by the time November rolls around.
"Maybe," I reply, glancing back, looking for Charlie and Mason. Mason is jogging to catch up to me, and when I look further, I see Charlie talking with that Olivia girl. Olivia is blushing but trying to hide it by keeping a neutral face. Mason reaches me and Abby and looks back at Charlie too.
"I swear, I don't know how that girl does it," he grumbles. "If I want a girl to notice me, I have to spill something on her."
"Perhaps that's why they don't talk to you," I point out with a wry smile.
Mason purses his lips. "Nah," he disagrees after a second of pondering. "Chicks dig it when guys spill stuff on them. It's romantic. I think it's my height that turns them off."