Someone I Wanted to Be

by Aurelia Wills

  He sat back in his chair and chewed on the end of his finger. “Uh . . . it’s not my best subject.”

  “You’ve got to be joking. You’ve got an A, for sure.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not certain I could get an A in AP, and my parents would shit bricks if I got anything less, and I don’t want to deal with the fallout. My mother’s always calling the counselor trying to get them to move me up, but I refuse.”

  “Wow. What’s your GPA? What do you want to study in college?”

  “I’m not going to college. My parents don’t know that yet.”

  “Shhh!” said the librarian.

  Carl Lancaster sat back in his chair in that cotton shirt and ran his hand through his hair. He looked at me so seriously and steadily, and his shirt was open at his neck. For a flash, he looked almost like a male model. Carl Lancaster.

  “You’ve got such good grades,” I whispered.

  “Screw college,” he mouthed. “Leah, you’ve got to figure things out for yourself.”

  “Carl?”

  “Yeah?” He leaned across the table, and I leaned toward him so no one would hear, even though everyone else was fifteen feet away. Our noses were about four inches apart, and I could feel his tangerine breath. It smelled like someplace far from Hilton.

  “Can we study together? I need to get a good grade in this class.”

  He sat back and regarded me again in that serious, smoky male-model way. He tapped his pen against the table. “What’s giving you trouble?”

  I went with Kristy after school.

  I got to ride shotgun in the afternoons because Corinne could never go with us. She had to babysit her little brothers every weekday until seven, when her parents got home. Kristy chewed with her mouth open and filled the car with the smell of grape gum. In the parking lot, she nearly backed up into some freshman girls. She lowered her window. “Sor-rrrreeeee. I really didn’t mean to do that. Ha-ha-ha.”

  Kristy and I were like sisters now, half the same girl. I could see her so clearly, like I was looking at her through a magnifying glass: the tiny red bumps on her thin arms, how her knuckles whitened when she gripped the gear shift, the jewel-like gleam of her squinty eyes. She glanced at me and stopped chomping her gum. “What the hell are you staring at?”

  Kristy stuffed more gum into her mouth, let the little white wrappers drift out the window, and threw a half-smoked cigarette after them. She chugged a Snapple, threw the bottle into the back, and changed the radio station in the middle of a song.

  She kept her phone between her skinny thighs. “God, I’m bored! Want to go to the mall? Or want to go downtown?”

  “No. Kristy, no one will be there. Want to go to Animal Kingdom?” We used to take the bus there when we were thirteen; it was dark and smelled like mice. We’d stand in front of the aquariums and watch the angelfish and the schools of bulgy-eyed goldfish. The parakeets squeaked and the aquariums bubbled peacefully.

  “Are you kidding? No. Gross. Boring.”

  “Let’s just go to Corinne’s.”

  “Fine,” she said. She did a U-turn, the tires skidding on the gravel.

  We passed Anita walking home alone. Kristy blasted her horn. I ducked. “Kristy, damn it . . .” That morning, I’d passed Anita, who was sitting on the floor in the hallway before first period. She was drawing in her sketchbook. I walked over and said, “How’s it going?” She slowly lifted her face and stared at me like I’d farted, then closed the sketchbook, hopped to her feet, and sauntered away.

  I sat up. A black car was coming toward us.

  I adjusted the side-view mirror and looked behind us. It wasn’t the Mustang. But one day it would be, because it was not just possible: it was going to happen. Kurt King and his black Mustang would suddenly pull up behind Kristy’s Civic, and he’d flash his lights, and Kristy would laugh maniacally and turn into a parking lot. It was just a matter of time.

  “Why are you so quiet? It’s weird,” said Kristy as she turned into Mountain View Estates. She pulled into Corinne’s driveway, turned off the engine, climbed out, and slammed her door. She trotted to the house without waiting for me. She’d started trotting on her toes like a pony — it was a way to stick out her boobs and her skinny little butt at the same time.

  As usual, the inside of Corinne’s house was a catastrophe. The counters, table, and chairs were piled with wrappers, dirty plates, half-eaten waffles, black banana peels, school papers, junk mail, bills, catalogs, coupons, and empty milk jugs. Plastic action figures in weird contortions lay scattered around the floor. A jumbo box of maxi pads sat in the middle of the kitchen table. Cases of juice boxes, fruit roll-ups, and Aldi pop were pushed up against the wall. The sink was piled to the faucet with plastic cups and ketchup-smeared plates. Corinne babysat while her mom and stepdad ran a housecleaning business.

  Corinne stood watching a cooking show on the kitchen TV while the microwave whirred. She held Jimmy on her hip. His yellow diaper bulged around his fat legs.

  “Hey,” Corinne said over her shoulder. The microwave dinged.

  She took out the plastic bottle, shook it hard, then squirted formula onto her wrist. Jimmy snatched the bottle and sucked it.

  “What’s new?” said Corinne wistfully, as if something amazing might have happened in the hour since school let out. She pulled open the back of Jimmy’s diaper and sniffed.

  “Nothing!” said Kristy. “I’m bored as hell. Jesus, that kid stinks. Can I light a cigarette to cut the smell?”

  “Let’s go on the patio.” Corinne grabbed a bag of candy and lugged Jimmy through the sliding glass door.

  Corinne’s patio was a slab of concrete on the edge of a yard worn to bare dirt. Pieces of broken plastic toys stuck like arrowheads out of the ground. A wimpy aspen tree, held up by wires, grew in the corner of the yard. At Mountain View, you could do anything you wanted behind your cedar fence, but the front yard had to be either thick green grass or a gravel garden. There were three shades of beige paint you could choose from.

  Corinne threw a pack of cigarettes and the lighter down next to the Folgers can that we used as an ashtray. “Derrick was being a total dickwad last night. Just screaming at everyone. God, I wish I was playing softball.”

  Even Kristy allowed a short, respectful silence at the mention of softball. Corinne’s inability to be on the team was one of the tragedies of our grade. Corinne was talented, a natural, an incredible pitcher without ever attending any of the expensive softball camps Kelsey Parker and her friends had gone to every summer since elementary school.

  My dream was so far away and almost impossible, but Corinne’s was right there in front of her, and the only reason she wasn’t living it was because of her stepdad and stupid little brothers. Corinne didn’t look tragic, though; she just looked tired.

  Kristy sat down on the concrete, scooted back against the green siding, and lit up. She closed her eyes. “I can’t believe your mom allows you to smoke.”

  “Can’t you say anything original?” I asked.

  “What?” Her eyes snapped open. She stared at me with her lip hiked up over her teeth. She got out her phone.

  “Sorry,” I said, “but you’ve said that exact sentence about a hundred times before.”

  I took a drag and gagged. I decided right then that I was going to quit smoking. Not that minute, but soon. Cigarettes made me stink, and my teeth were turning yellow. I couldn’t breathe, and my lungs hurt when I ran. I couldn’t afford it. Plus, it was ironic for a doctor to smoke, though lots of them did. I saw them in their blue scrubs shivering outside the hospital. But a doctor who’s fat and smokes is a little too much. Anita had told me that cigarettes were a conspiracy of rich white men to make a fortune while slowly killing off the underclass. I’d started smoking with Kristy when I was thirteen.

  Kristy tried to hawk up some spit. “Go to hell, Chubs. Whatever.” She shook her head like I was an idiot and stared cross-eyed at her phone’s screen.

  “Quit fighting, you two.�
�� Corinne held Jimmy between her knees and forlornly blew smoke away from his big head. “You wouldn’t believe the woman they had on Top Chef. I just caught the end of it. She was awesome.”

  Carl Lancaster floated up into my mind and looked at me. “Corinne, what do you think of Carl Lancaster?”

  “Total geek,” said Kristy.

  “Pretty awkward,” said Corinne. “But he’s an OK guy.”

  Jimmy sat in his wadded-up yellow diaper and flapped a plastic bag against the concrete. His pink stomach hung over the top of his diaper. He had black threads of toe jam between his little toes. A breeze blew through, and goose bumps popped up on his squashy legs. He curled his toes and smiled. He had eight teeth.

  Corinne picked a blue M&M out of the bag with the tips of her nails. She had shadows under her eyes and sad smudges around her mouth. “Last night, I made chicken Kiev, and Mom said it was better than the Olive Garden’s. But the boys wouldn’t eat it, so Derrick said I couldn’t make it again.”

  I said, “That sucks. Pass me the candy.”

  Corinne tossed me the bag. I dumped out a handful, then remembered I was transforming myself for Damien Rogers; I poured the candy back in. I wasn’t sure who I liked more, Kurt King or Damien Rogers. At this point, it was kind of a toss-up. I’d never really talked to Damien Rogers, but Kurt King was a little intense.

  “I’m going to get a drink of water.” I’d recently read that drinking a gallon of water a day was one of the top ten diet tricks.

  Kristy gritted her teeth as if she was about to vomit from the smell of Jimmy’s diaper. I got up and scooted through the glass door into the kitchen.

  I filled a giant plastic cup with water and walked into the living room. A mound of clean underwear and towels had been dumped onto the carpet. On the other side of the laundry, Corinne’s three other brothers huddled around the computer.

  “What are you guys playing?”

  Ryan rubbed his ear against his shoulder, but none of them answered. They were skinny boys with wild khaki-colored eyes and blotchy freckles on their cheeks and square noses. They leaned closer to the computer screen.

  My phone vibrated. It was a text from Kurt King. Meet me tonight 7-11 @ 10:45. The room tilted and I was standing in a different place, though I hadn’t moved.

  I closed the phone, drank the entire cup of water, and walked over to the boys. They were looking at a picture of a woman whose naked breasts lay in her lap like watermelons. It was a really sad picture. Her smile was tight and forced, like she thought the guy taking the picture was the ickiest man she’d ever met. Ryan giggled and rolled his forehead against the desktop.

  Alex clutched his throat. “I’m going to throw up.”

  “Gross, you guys. Turn it off !”

  Alex didn’t even turn his head. “Shut up, Leah. You’re not the boss of us.”

  I grabbed a handful of toffee nuts and headed back to the patio. “Your brothers are looking at porn.”

  “Damn them!” Corinne stubbed out her cigarette and got to her feet. “Here, take him.” She jammed Jimmy into my arms and charged into the house. Jimmy wrapped his legs around my waist and grabbed a handful of hair with his sticky hand.

  He stared at me with his tiny, clear eyes. There were creases in the fat around his wrists. Drool poured off his lip. I rubbed my cheek against his warm velvety head. He smelled like pee and candy. The screaming moved to the kitchen.

  Kristy was on her feet. “I’m stressing. Let’s get out of here. I can’t stand this place.”

  The three boys surrounded Corinne. They jammed their fists into their eyes and screamed, “Don’t tell!” The six-year-old, Kelvin, threw himself on the floor, hit his head against a chair leg, and shrieked. Corinne squeezed her eyes shut and stretched her face with her hands. She looked like an alien.

  Kristy shoved her phone in her bag, put on her sunglasses, and jiggled her keys. “I cannot be here one more minute. This is so depressing and stressful. I’m heading out.” Something crashed inside.

  “Kristy, wait! I’ve got to give Jimmy back.” At the sound of his name, Jimmy tightened his grip on my hair and wound some around the crease in his wrist. I leaned over to keep my hair from pulling and squeezed back in through the glass door.

  Corinne had Alex by the shoulders. “Calm down, Alex. Breathe, breathe . . .”

  “Corinne, sorry, here’s Jimmy. We’re gonna go. Kristy already went out the back gate.”

  I untangled Jimmy’s hand from my hair and handed him over. His fat legs bicycled through the air. Corinne took him without looking at me. She turned tiredly back to Alex.

  Sometimes the exhausted expression on Corinne’s face spooked me. She looked as stressed and harassed as a middle-aged woman, as though that woman was already there inside the fifteen-year-old girl, biding her time, just waiting to shed Corinne’s young skin and hair and clothes.

  Kristy’s car was waiting in the street with the engine running. “What took you so damn long?” Her little fingers tapped an impatient rhythm on the dashboard.

  “I was saying good-bye to Corinne, OK? I feel sorry for her. She’s always stuck there. It’s not her fault.”

  Kristy raked her fingers through her hair and checked her nostrils in the mirror. “I know it’s not her fault. I just couldn’t stand her life.” She drove down the street and ran through the stop sign. “I couldn’t stand to live her life for even one hour, unless, of course, it was Saturday night and Corinne was out with Jason Coulter. Then I could stand it.”

  Jason Coulter, a tall guy with glossy black hair and high cheekbones, was considered to be one of the best-looking senior boys. Kristy was baffled to a religious depth by his lack of interest in her. He’d taken Corinne out twice.

  “Have you seen Corinne talking to Kelsey Parker lately?” Kristy struggled to pull out a cigarette.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “I don’t get that friendship at all. I don’t think they’re actually very close. Oh, I’m so bored. . . . I’m dying, I’m so bored. Let’s just drive around.”

  I said, “OK, but not downtown.”

  She turned onto Tenth and headed toward downtown. My phone vibrated.

  “Who’s texting you?” Kristy said.

  “I don’t know. I don’t want to go downtown.”

  “Maybe it’s Anita Sotelo. We thought of a new name for her: Anita Slutella,” said Kristy. We drove across a bridge over a riverbed full of rocks and mud. We passed the freeway entrance and then drove through the outskirts of downtown past warehouses, run-down brick buildings, and auto-body shops surrounded by weeds.

  “Don’t call her that. It’s stupid.”

  “Anita Sucktella.”

  “Kristy, just shut up.” My phone vibrated again. I reached into my backpack and turned it off. “Let’s go. No one’s here.”

  In the afternoon light, the downtown’s brick buildings and sidewalks looked bleached out and faded. The street was full of potholes. Weeds grew out of the cracked sidewalks. A third of the store windows had SPACE FOR LEASE signs. A few Chevy trucks, SUVs, and little rusty Dodges were parked along the crumbling curbs, but there were no black Mustangs.

  There were a few old people wandering around, but otherwise nobody at the First Colorado Bank, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Charlie C.’s, the Gold Dust Saloon, ABC Plumbing, Jorge’s Casa, the New Life Church, the New Beginnings Church, the Bucking Bronco Bar, the Computer Outlet — $99 COMPUTERS — where Cindy bought my laptop, Kenny’s Paint and Wallpaper/Linoleum, or the Pregnancy Help Center. I had to get out of Hilton. Maybe I’d move to New Jersey.

  Alamo Park — with its peeling benches, scabrous little trees, and thorny grass where Hilton’s tweakers hung out on Saturday nights — was deserted except for a squirrel with a bald tail. Old men in seed caps sat holding paper cups of coffee in the sun in front of the Burger King. A vinyl sign loose on two corners flapped over the entrance to the new Jade Garden Restaurant. There was an empty storefront with dirty windows where th
e Starbucks was supposed to have been.

  The wind picked up. A tumbleweed bounced down the street until it caught in a bus shelter with a shattered glass wall. Little dirt and leaf tornados whirled on the sidewalks. Everything was lit up in the dull yellow light that shot from the sun, balanced like a ball on top of the mountain. The little downtown was the color of Chardonnay. “I can’t believe we left Florida to come here. I’m so depressed.”

  “Oh God, give me a break. I don’t need it,” said Kristy. She suddenly sat up straight. “Shit. I need to run home for a minute. I just need to check on my mom, then we’ll split.” She turned off the radio, fumbled around trying to plug in her iPod, and almost crashed into a truck that was turning left. At a stoplight, she called home and left a message. “Mommy, we’re almost there. Be there in a second.” She didn’t talk again the whole ride home.

  “There’s this gap,” said Kristy as she pulled into her driveway. “Daddy works Monday nights, and there’s a gap between the day nurse and the Monday-night nurse. Usually, the neighbor —” She drove the car into the garage door and cracked the wood. “Crap!”

  “Wait here.” Kristy climbed out and yanked her purse onto her shoulder. She headed to the house without stopping to look at the splintered door.

  I turned on the phone. First message: Meet me tonight 7-11 @ 10:45. Second message: R u coming? Then three more: Ashley come tonite, Ashley come tonite, Ashley come tonite.

  Kristy dumped her stuff on the ground and tried to unlock the door of her house. I texted back: OK CU @ 10:45, and climbed out of the car.

  Kristy was still trying to unlock the door. She stamped her foot and dropped the keys. Her front door had a fancy gold handle and a narrow frosted window. The doormat had a picture of a smiling scarecrow. I’d stood outside that door a thousand times. She shook the keys, jammed one in, and the lock turned. She kicked the door open.

  “Mom?” Kristy called. “Mommy!” She looked around the kitchen and the living room, then jogged down the hallway toward the bedrooms.