Spectacle (A Young Adult Novel)

by Angie McCullagh

  Melissa stopped, looked up from her new toy and said, “What? You’re asking me a question? About myself and my feelings?”

  “I am.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. So, is it?”

  “Totally weird? I don’t know. In the beginning it was an adjustment for sure. But one I was willing to make because I love your dad. And, of course, I’ve come to love you and Kristen.”

  Emily felt she was expected to tell Melissa she loved her back, but the words caught in her throat like a gristled hunk of beef. Did she? Love Melissa? She’d always seen her as sort of an interloper. A makeshift replacement for a real mom. Love had never seemed to enter the equation. At least not for Emily.

  Melissa continued, “I mean, your dad and I have been married ten years now. I’ve gotten used to my role here, I think.”

  Emily nodded and ran her finger up and down an outside seam of her old jeans. “Did you ever want kids of your own?” she asked.

  At that, Melissa’s eyes flitted away and she resumed tapping at her pedometer. “Well, yeah,” she said. “Sometimes.”

  “How many would you have wanted?”

  “Two. A boy and a girl,” she said so quickly that it was obvious she often thought about children of her own.

  “But my dad doesn’t want more.”

  “I think … he’s too wounded … by what your mom did. He’ll never trust me enough to have a child with me.”

  Emily said, “But he married you!”

  “It’s not the same,” Melissa insisted. She headed toward the kitchen. “I need a snack. Do you want some yogurt sprinkled with flax seeds and wheat germ?” She waggled her eyebrows, knowing her offer was not at all tempting to Emily.

  “I’d rather have a cream puff.”

  “On your own time,” Melissa said, and was gone.

  The TV still blared. Emily half watched it. Half thought about what Melissa said. About what she’d given up to marry Emily’s grumpy, old dad. She wondered what Melissa saw in him, what mysterious quality he possessed that persuaded her to give up her dream of kids. Because there was no way having two stepdaughters—ungrateful little kids who grew into surly teenagers—could replace making your own babies.

  Emily thought about her mother again and how she’d had what Melissa wanted, but had thrown it all away.

  40. Gym Hell

  FARK’S KNEES RESTED on her elbows, butt pointing toward the ceiling. Her face red, she said, “This is a tripod, people.” Then, defying gravity, she straightened her legs until she was doing a full on headstand. She stayed that way for a minute or two, long enough for her shirt to slip down toward her chin, exposing half moons of her no-nonsense beige bra.

  When she flipped back upright, the blood drained from her face and she yelled, “Everyone take a spot along the wall.”

  The guys and girls were in PE together that day, though, Ryan, thankfully, didn’t take this particular class.

  Still, the entire perimeter of the gym was filled with juniors, and each person got about eight inches of space along the concrete block wall.

  Emily began to sweat. She couldn’t do this. She didn’t know how to move her long body that way.

  “Okay, everyone on their knees!” Fark said and chuckled. “Now, head down on the floor, do the tripod.”

  So everyone did. Everyone, that was, except Emily and a handful of obese kids like Brenna Toast and Andrew Colmilker, who didn’t even pretend to try, but just sat, picking at their fingernails. Fark usually ignored them, figuring they were too far-gone to be worth her trouble.

  But she noticed Emily struggling, like a daddy longlegs that’d been flipped on its back. Her limbs wouldn’t cooperate. Everyone, every upside down person in the room, could see Emily flailing.

  Trix was there somewhere, along the west wall. Doing what Fark said for once.

  Fark walked toward Emily, her sneakers soundless over the polished wood floor. “Your center of balance is too high,” she sniped.

  Standing, Emily glared at her. No shit, Sherlock, she wanted to say. Instead she focused on breathing. What did Fark expect Emily to do about her too-high center of balance?

  The gym was quiet, everyone on their heads.

  “You need to get your butt up in the air,” Fark commanded. “Try again.”

  But Emily knew she couldn’t, knew she wouldn’t bend herself into that vulnerable position with Fark looming over her, snapping instructions.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  “Then you may as well go get dressed,” Fark spit.

  “Fine.” Emily strode across the gym and down the rubber-lined stairs. She changed in the locker room and wandered the quiet hallways, finding her way to a side door and darting out into the cloudy afternoon. It was only one thirty and darkness already loomed.

  Walking south on 15th, Emily hopped a bus going downtown. It was good to be there, smashed against the window, warm, the burr of the engine calming her.

  She got off in Belltown and walked to Shutter Joe, early for her shift but doubting Thomas would mind.

  Putting on her apron and signing her time card, she set about the task of washing stainless steel pitchers and coffee cups. “The glamorous life of a Seattle barista,” Thomas said as he passed with a tub full of more dirty dishes.

  “It’s nothing compared to what I just came from,” she said, then elaborated on the awfulness of being one of the only kids unable to stand on her head.

  “Oh, because you’ll need that skill for future job interviews,” he said.

  She laughed, but her mood was dark. She wanted things that bothered her to not. Fark, Trix, who was fading from her life like an apparition, Ryan and his offness, and Marilyn Wozniak.

  None of it should matter so much.

  But all of it did.

  41. Inked

  FOR TRIX, LIVING with her dad wasn’t so different from living with her mom, except that, if possible, she had less accountability than she did before. Like Fiona, her dad didn’t ask about homework or give her a curfew or make sure she ate vegetables. He occasionally cooked them both potpies or held out a shaky hand to offer her a five-dollar bill. But that was as far as his fatherly instincts took him.

  At least there was no Rodney. No string of failed relationships to witness. And Trix could smoke at will. Her dad didn’t care and, in fact, sometimes smoked with her. She’d talked him into watching less TV and had even brought him some historical books from the library, a genre she remembered him liking once upon a time. On a couple instances, she caught him reading, a can of beer nestled between his thighs. And she felt like she was making the tiniest positive difference in his life.

  Trix had stopped seeing Marjorie as an impossibly cool, almost untouchable figure and started noticing her small insecurities, like how she kept her legs covered at all times, in baggy jeans or long black skirts, and the way she only smiled with her mouth closed, to hide her crooked teeth. Also there was her extreme avoidance of discussion about her family. After that first day at Golden Gardens when they’d compared moms, if you even mentioned the word “parent” she jammed her fingers in her ears and sang, “They don’t matter. They don’t matter.”

  Still, even with Marjorie’s self-doubt revealed, Trix wanted her approval.

  Trix and Marjorie were together at Trix’s dad’s one Sunday afternoon. Trix was tired from her shift at Frederick Hui, guzzling a Diet Coke, and washing her face with steaming hot water and soap. Marjorie flipped through her phone and suddenly said, “I need more ink! A skull right here.” She came into the bathroom and pointed at a spot behind her left ear. She already had a homemade tattoo of a hand grenade on her right wrist and something scrolly along her lower back.

  “Okay,” Trix shrugged.

  “Remember that Magpie guy? We met him down at Isaac’s?”

  “Not really.”

  “He’s a tattoo artist. He said he’d give me whatever I want. I just have to call before I come in.”

  “For free?”
/>
  “Yeah! Duh. I have zero cash.”

  Resentment flared in Trix. It was like it didn’t even occur to Marjorie to get a job, to earn some of her own money instead of mooching off guys she met at parties. She asked, “What’s he going to expect in return?”

  Marjorie rolled her eyes and left the bathroom.

  When Trix had cleaned up and felt somewhat human again, she and Marjorie scrounged around the fridge for food, came up with a jar of peanut butter, hot dog buns, and a squeeze bottle of jam. “Oh, Dad,” she muttered, shaking her head. She supposed she’d have to buy groceries for him, too.

  They made PBJs on buns, wolfed them down while standing in the kitchen, then left the sad, foodless duplex.

  Trix and Marjorie took the bus up to Shoreline, where Isaac’s tattoo artist friend worked. They looked through big binders of designs. One woman was in a corner chair getting something inked around her upper arm. Trix wondered how much it hurt.

  Isaac’s friend, Magpie, worked on someone else but said he’d have an opening in about half an hour.

  Trix felt very Emily-ish as she said, “Do you want to think about it for a while? Maybe come back another day?”

  “No!” Marjorie boomed. “I know what I want and where I want it.”

  “Okay. Good.”

  “What are you getting?” Marjorie asked.

  Trix hadn’t planned on any tattoos that day. Not that she was opposed to it. In fact, a tattoo was something she aspired to; she just hadn’t ever set the wheels in motion to actually get one. “Should I?” she said, suddenly excited. She’d pay cash for it, though.

  “Hell to the yeah!”

  She flipped through the binders with renewed interest. She wanted to get a tattoo that meant something. Maybe some writing. But what?

  In the end, she decided on an abstract, Picassoesque profile of a woman’s face. Her expression was strong and sad and purposeful. Trix thought it looked like a tattoo a fashion designer would have.

  As Marjorie discussed her skull with Magpie, Trix saw an unmistakable leer in his eyes and hoped he wasn’t expecting what she thought he might be expecting for his services. Trix asked, “How much is this going to cost?”

  Marjorie shot Trix the stink eye for reminding Magpie that money was generally exchanged for tattoos. “I just think we should have all the information,” Trix said accusingly, crossing her arms.

  Magpie scratched his patchy beard. He was skinny and unhealthy looking, like someone who ate PBJ on hot dog buns for every meal. If he even ate.

  “I take trade,” he said and began stenciling the outline of the skull on Marjorie’s neck.

  Trix looked at Marjorie, knowing panic was in her own eyes. Marjorie, though, shrugged and said, “That’s what I was hoping.”

  Okay, fine. Marjorie was her own person. If she wanted to give this guy a blowjob or whatever so she could get a free tattoo, who was Trix to judge her? And, after what she and Marjorie had done with those guys in the school bathroom a few weeks before, Trix knew she shouldn’t talk. But she realized, as she stood there in Shoreline Ink, that she did not want to prostitute herself for services. For attention was one thing, but what Marjorie was doing was another rung up the whorishness ladder.

  Maybe it was ridiculous of her to differentiate the two. But she did.

  She went to the bank of windows facing 175th. Loud music crashed through the place, and, between songs, the tinny buzz of needles echoed. She was having second thoughts about getting her own tattoo here. Did she really want Magpie touching her?

  After a while, Trix went back to Marjorie, who sat on a bench with her head ratcheted to the side. Magpie wore black rubber gloves, a huge serpent tattoo wrapping around his throat and up the side of his mostly hairless scalp.

  Marjorie cringed a little, but Trix couldn’t tell if it was because of the needle pulsating in and out of her, or because of the unnatural position of her head.

  Fifteen minutes later, it was done. A small black skull, surrounded by angry red skin, grimaced from Marjorie’s neck.

  “We’ll settle up later,” Magpie said. “You gonna be at Isaac’s tomorrow night?”

  “I can be.”

  “Awright, see you there, then.”

  He turned to Trix and said, “I have nothing but time. You want one?”

  “Nah.”

  “C’mon. You look like a chick who should have some tats.”

  Trix did have her heart set on the woman’s profile now.

  She shrugged.

  “Jesus! Just sit down on the bench and do it!” Marjorie commanded.

  Trix sighed. She detested being bullied into things. She really did want the tattoo, though. “Okay, but I’m paying cash.”

  “Suit yourself,” Magpie said.

  “That’s so stupid,” Marjorie said, gingerly touching her neck. “You could get it for free.”

  Trix laid down on the padded bench and gave Magpie her forearm. She said, “Nothing’s free.” If she’d learned one thing in her life, she’d learned that.

  42. Warning

  IT WAS ON Friday morning, when Emily, tired from the week, trudged to a pep assembly she had no desire to attend. Kennedy Furukawa sidled up to her, looking adorable as usual in a denim miniskirt, black leather boots and a fuzzy turquoise sweater. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey,” Emily replied. She was still suspicious of Kennedy, despite her niceness in the bathroom a few weeks before.

  “Watch your back,” Kennedy said.

  Emily nerdily turned around. “What do you mean?”

  “Straight ahead,” Kennedy said. “Here I’m going to hand you a paper so it looks like we’re exchanging class notes.” She passed Emily a lined sheet that said, Someone wants your boyfriend.

  Emily kept her face stony, but her heart plummeted to her toes. “Who?” she hissed.

  Kennedy cocked a brow and veered away like a sleek Lamborghini exiting a freeway.

  The gym was packed on both sides with kids. Hand painted banners hung along the walls that said, “Let’s go, Wolves!” “Wolves #1!” and “Show them how it’s done!” There was the peculiar drone and collective murmur of so many people contributing to separate conversations at once.

  Emily scanned the crowd for someone she knew. Trix wouldn’t be there. She’d never in a million years attend a pep rally. She was probably out smoking with Marjorie, or worse, with a guy somewhere.

  Ryan sat with some of his friends up toward the top, against the far wall. She could see him talking on his cell phone and, because of what Kennedy had just told her, wondered who was on the other end of the call.

  She took an open spot and fiddled with her own phone so she wouldn’t have to talk. She was still absorbing what Kennedy had told her. Emily wasn’t surprised someone wanted her boyfriend. Lots of someones surely wanted him. He was wonderful and cute and smart and funny. But the way Kennedy had told her to watch her back make it clear that an attempt on his heart was in the works.

  It didn’t mean the attempt would be successful, Emily reminded herself. Ryan had a brain of his own and he’d been the one to pursue her, after all.

  She wondered if he still liked her as much as he had in the beginning. If her habit of cracking her knuckles or growing several inches a month was bugging him.

  To put the issue out of her mind, she texted Kristen. U Here?

  By north hoop.

  Emily looked up and, faintly, saw her sister. She gave her a peace sign.

  The thundering began, a bunch of overly spirited kids stomping their feet, one-two-one, one-two-one, to bring out the basketball players.

  Soon they appeared, the team in white, gold, and green uniforms. Their sneakers squeaked across the highly polished court. They took turns shooting, reaping wild cheers when they made baskets and disappointed Ooohs when they missed.

  The marching band played, its brass and percussion echoing through the hot gym.

  Mr. Astley, the athletic director, introduced the players and their pos
itions, and got the crowd screaming until their faces were red. At which point Emily tuned out and thought about her mom and Winslow, imagined them at that very moment down in Arizona, sitting on their patio and watching lizards dart in and out of cactus. Cacti? Would they be drinking iced tea or lemonade or cocktails? Emily had no idea. Would her mother wear shorts or a long flowing skirt? Did she prefer her hair back off her neck, or down? Did she and Winslow get along, or would they be arguing about landscaping, about their broken sink faucet, about the cost of things, like Emily’s dad and Melissa often did?

  She wondered if she’d ever learn the answers, or if she’d spend the rest of her life speculating.

  43. Rave

  DESPITE HOW SKEEVY Magpie was, and that Marjorie reportedly disappeared with him into a bedroom at Isaac’s the day after Marjorie and Trix had gotten their tattoos, Trix loved the woman’s profile on her arm. She rubbed the special salve into it, and the sunburned feeling was subsiding.

  She began wearing short sleeves every day so she could show it off. And when her dad saw it, he grunted, “Huh. Cool,” and, drinking copious amounts of beer, carried on reading about Teddy Roosevelt on the Amazon River.

  The tattoo seemed to be a concrete measure of her badassedness, something that said, I’m tough and nothing I do affects me very much. If she stared at it long enough, she actually began to believe the words.

  One Saturday night in mid-December, Marjorie suggested they go to a rave in SODO. Trix jumped at the chance to put on a tank top and dance around with other sweaty bodies. Her tattoo would be out there for all to see. Besides, she hadn’t been to a rave yet and wanted to check one out.

  It was in a dark warehouse where everyone received two glow sticks as they entered. On a slightly elevated stage, a DJ wearing a black t-shirt that said Kryptonite in fluorescent letters spun frenetic electronica, kind of reminding Trix of Emily’s favorite music.

  A light show played on the ceiling above them. A bunch of people danced. Others stood around drinking Red Bulls and Mountain Dew.