by L. D. Davis
“Another phantom,” Kyle said, nodding knowingly.
“Not this one. This one is pretty solid.”
He gave me a surprised glance. “You remember him? Without the help of your cousin or Em?”
My cousin Tack was just “your cousin” to Kyle, but Emmy was “Em.”
So many years later he could still say her name with an intimate familiarity that sometimes made me feel a little uncomfortable, and there wasn’t much in the world that made me uncomfortable.
“I do remember him. Like anything else, there are some dark patches in my memory, but I remember him pretty clearly.”
Many people were still milling about, drinking sludgy coffee and nibbling on stale cookies that someone had brought in. Crazy Judy and Drunk Larry spoke earnestly in a corner, and I prayed that the two were both sterile and wouldn’t procreate while Judy healed him with her pussy…cat.
“That’s good, isn’t it?” Kyle prodded. “You want to remember.”
Slightly bending back the pedals of my paper flower, I spoke softly. “I don’t want to remember this time.”
He matched my soft tone. “What is it? Who was he to you?”
My hand closed into a tight fist, crushing the delicate flower to my palm. I took a deep breath.
“He was a lot of things. The older brother of a good friend Tack and I used to get high with. He was someone I used to…love…” I said the word hesitantly. It felt strange coming out of my mouth. “He was also my unsought savior. My friend and I both overdosed at the same time and he chose to save me instead of her.”
I dropped the crushed flower to the floor and kicked it away. I lifted my head and looked at Kyle.
“He helped the wrong girl. He let the wrong girl live.”
Chapter Three
We went to a diner after the meeting. It wasn’t uncommon for us to walk the two blocks to the little hole in a wall after a meeting if one of us—mostly me—wanted to talk, or if we were just hungry. When Kyle stepped outside to take a work-related phone call, I began to lose focus on the world in front of me. The conversation inside the diner, the clinking of silverware against dishes, and the smells of food cooking became nothing more than a low buzzing at the back of my mind as I slipped into the past…
I was only two when my mother put me in dance classes. I was three when I began piano lessons, and I was four when I competed in my first beauty pageant. My dark, spiraled hair, my peach-colored skin dotted with light brown freckles, and my big gray eyes got me in without any trouble, but I was also a very well-spoken child, unafraid and charismatic. I excelled at dance, conquered the black and white ivory keys of the piano, and was victorious at most of my pageants.
My young life was a hustle and bustle of activity, going from one practice to another, shopping for the next dress, and trying out the newest hairstyle. Also, I was expected to keep an A average as a homeschooled child. My leisure time was almost non-existent, and I rarely got to do the same things kids my age did. I didn’t learn how to ride a bike because of the risk of injury. That reason was also why I couldn’t play Freeze Tag, jump rope, roller skate, or participate in any sports.
By the time I was eleven years old, I had begun to burn out. I also began to hate my mother, because she wouldn’t let me quit, nor would she just give me a break.
“I’m tired,” I complained to her. “I just want to do what other kids are doing.”
“You are not like other kids,” she said with a sigh. It wasn’t the first time we had the conversation. “You are special.”
“I don’t want to be special.”
“Mayson, most young girls wish that they were in your shoes.”
“They can have my shoes!” I shouted.
I removed my ballet shoes as my mother patiently watched with her arms crossed over her chest. I threw them one by one across the small dance studio that had been transformed from a two car garage many years before.
“Are you quite finished?” Mom asked, one dark eyebrow raised on her russet-colored face.
“No!”
I yanked the pink ribbon from my hair, and then the hair tie and pins that held my bun in place. My curls sprang free, making me look like a child-sized Medusa, especially since my eyes were no doubt as stony as the mythical creature’s eyes.
“I don’t want to dance anymore,” I said, stomping my foot. “I don’t want to play the piano anymore, and I don’t want to be in any more competitions!”
Mom cocked her head to one side as she looked at me thoughtfully.
She was pretty, prettier than most moms I knew. She was a beautiful medium shade of brown with big, slightly slanted dark brown eyes and hair to die for. It was natural, thick, wavy, and fantastic. Her body was curvy but fit. She worked out daily to keep her trim waist, flat stomach, and long legs toned. No amount of working out, however, could get rid of her genetically inherited boobs and butt.
“You’re right, Mayson,” she finally said, and I started to relax at her words, thinking that maybe I could finally start being like other kids. “You are tired. You may go to your room and take a one-hour nap.”
I blinked slowly as my mouth hung slightly open. “A nap?” I asked dumbly.
“Yes, a nap. You will feel refreshed and ready to begin again after a brief rest. Now, pick up your ribbon and your shoes and go. I will wake you after an hour.”
Outraged, I stomped both my feet and crossed my arms. “I am not a baby! I don’t need a nap!”
Her eyebrow went up again as she wordlessly said, “Oh, you’re not a baby, are you?”
“Why won’t you let me quit?” I asked in a whiny voice.
“Only losers quit, Mayson,” she said easily. “If you quit now, you will never be able to succeed at anything else for the rest of your life.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “Everyone has to quit sometimes, Mother. No one can do something forever.”
“Someday you will thank me for all this. You will appreciate the discipline and order in your life. Now, Mayson, enough of this. Go lay down. Pick up your shoes and your ribbon as you go.”
Rebelliously, I ignored the shoes and the ribbon and her as I left the studio. I stormed into my bedroom and slammed the door so hard that a couple trophies fell off a shelf. I let out an ear shattering scream of frustration and swiped another trophy to the floor.
I sat down on my bed with my arms crossed tightly and glowered at the wall without actually seeing it.
My mom wasn’t going to listen to me. She’d never listen to me. Even at the age of eleven, I knew what was happening. She was trying to live the life she had wanted as a child through me. She had grown up poor, ugly, and fat apparently. She eventually lost the fat and turned into a swan, but by then, all the things she had dreamed of were out of her reach because she was too old and too poor. She had told me thousands of times that she had to work very hard to get through college, that she was often too broke to eat more than one or two meals a day. That had all changed when she met my father. Adam Mayson Grayne took away all of my mother’s struggles, loved her, and gave her a daughter.
I understood that my mom had a rough life and that I needed to be appreciative of the life I had. My dad was born into money and made very good money himself doing his part in the Grayne family business. I didn’t have to go through the same challenges that my mom went through, but she was adamant about me doing all the things she had wanted to do as a child and could not.
“I always wanted to be a princess,” she’d told me when I was eight. “Now I want you to be a princess. Being an actual princess isn’t possible, but this is as close as we can get.”
Somehow, I doubted that princesses had to do all the crap that I had to do.
“I don’t want to be a stupid princess,” I growled to myself as I got off the bed.
I changed out of my leotard and put on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Most of my casual clothes weren’t really casual at all. My mom was insistent that I wore dresses like a lady. I was s
o tired of dresses and cute shoes. I smiled broadly when I slipped my feet into a pair of flip-flops that my dad had bought for me. Mom hadn’t liked that.
I wasn’t going to take a nap. I almost always did what my parents told me to do, but I was so angry. I wanted to be defiant. I wanted to be bad.
Very quietly, I pulled open my bedroom door. I became instantly annoyed when I saw that my mother had placed my shoes in front of the door with my ribbon and hair tie stuffed inside one shoe, but then I felt satisfied knowing that my hair was wild and free and totally uncontained.
As an afterthought, I went into my sock drawer and pulled a small wad of cash out of a ball of socks and stuffed it into my pocket. Not having any time for leisure had one advantage: I didn’t spend any of the cash gifts I received for holidays and birthdays. I had way more money than an eleven-year-old should have.
I went back to the door and listened for several moments until I heard the faint sound of water running in the kitchen. My mom was probably in there preparing a ridiculously healthy lunch for me. That was another thing I was tired of, healthy food. I wanted chocolate and cookies and cake and candies. I wanted to stuff my mouth with potato chips and cheeseburgers and French fries and suck down a thick chocolate shake, but my mom only allowed me a small candy bar once a month and no more. My dad worked away from home most of the time, but sometimes when he came back, he’d bring me treats that I was allowed to eat. It wasn’t often enough, though.
I slipped out of my room and carefully closed the door. I silently moved down the front stairs, pausing every few steps to listen for my mom. She was still in the kitchen, and as long as she stayed in there, I would be able to get out of the front door unseen. I wasn’t sure about being unheard, though. Sometimes, the door squeaked when it was opened, but as luck would have it, the telephone rang.
“Grayne residence,” Mom answered formally.
I took my opportunity quickly and hurried down the last few steps and quickly out the door. Fortunately, it didn’t squeak.
I really had no idea where I was going. I didn’t really have friends outside of dance class and the pageants, and those girls were more like enemies than friends. My cousins Emmy and Tabitha were older than me, but they were the closest things to friends that I had. They didn’t exactly live within walking distance. They both lived in towns that were miles away from me.
Walking aimlessly through my neighborhood, I found myself at the local school. I had never gone to a regular school. I had always been homeschooled by a private tutor. I never had a backpack or a lunchbox. I never got the opportunity to eat cafeteria food or to feel chalk between my fingers. I never got to sit at a classroom desk or go on a field trip. Worst of all, I never experienced recess.
My fingers hooked onto the tall chain-link fence as I watched kids running across a blacktop. Some kids swung on swings and others played ball. There were a couple clusters of girls standing close together, chatting and giggling. A group of boys approached the girls and seconds later there were shrieks and shouts as the girls suddenly started chasing the boys.
I watched all the activity with deep envy and loneliness. Although I did play with my cousins at some family events, those times were few. My mother kept a close watch on me, always ready to jump in and stop me from doing something silly, like running or skipping. I otherwise had no playtime and no one to play with, even if I wanted to. Besides, I was almost twelve, and I would soon be too old to play like that.
A whistle was blown and the kids raced to line up to go inside. I didn’t know if more kids would come out or not, but I didn’t want to see anymore. It made me feel sad.
I walked on for a while longer until my growling stomach began to object to any further activity. I surely wasn’t going to go back home to eat rabbit food. I walked to a convenience store that was about a quarter mile from my house. There was a girl I recognized from my neighborhood standing on the side of the building smoking a cigarette. She was way older than me, at least fourteen or fifteen. I knew she should have been in school, but she was probably thinking the same thing as she watched me walk by.
When I came back out ten minutes later with a bag full of junk food, the girl was still there. She was dark skinned, the color of dark chocolate, thin, and several inches taller than me, as most people were since I was on the short side.
She smiled at me and I felt myself smiling back even as I took a huge bite of a chocolate bar.
“You have chocolate on your face,” she said, not bothering to hide her smile. “Come here, I think I have napkins in my satchel.”
I was a little wary and a little awed. I was wary because even though I knew her face, I didn’t know her. I was awed because she was a teenager, and not a new teenager, either. She had been a teen for at least a year, and she was talking to me.
The girl dug around in the brown bag slung across her body. It was covered in pins—some for bands, some looked like cartoon characters, and a few of them were just phrases.
“Ah-ha,” she said as she pulled a couple slightly crumpled napkins from her bag. “Don’t worry, they’re not used.”
I took the napkins from her and followed her directions so I knew where to wipe.
“Thank you,” I said to her and leaned back against the wall.
“Anytime, kid. Why aren’t you in school?”
“I’m homeschooled.”
Her dark eyes widened. “Really? People still do that?”
“Apparently.”
“Well, damn,” she said, shaking her head as she dug into her bag again. She pulled a cigarette out of a crumpled pack and held it between two fingers as she continued to look for something to light it with. “Don’t you want to go to regular school?”
“Yeah, but my mom won’t let me. She said it’s a distraction.”
I cracked open a can of soda and took several large sips. I was so excited to taste the sugary liquid, it almost dribbled out of my mouth in my haste.
“Distraction from what?”
Holding the cigarette between her lips, she lit it and inhaled deeply. When she blew the smoke out, she turned her head to the side so that it wouldn’t go directly in my face. She watched me with curiosity, waiting for my response.
“I dance,” I said, shrugging a shoulder. “I play the piano, and I compete in pageants.”
She looked mildly confused. “So? Lots of kids do shit and go to school.”
Reciting my mother’s words almost verbatim, I said, “If my feet fail me at dance, I will have my fingers for piano. If my fingers fail me, I will still have beauty and brains.”
The girl stared at me as if I were a species she had never seen before. She sucked in a few puffs of her cigarette but forgot to turn her head when she exhaled. I coughed and waved away the smoke, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“So, what? Your mom wants you to be a professional dancer, and if that doesn’t work she wants you to be a…what’s it called…a concert pianist? And if that doesn’t work she wants you to be, like, Miss America or some shit?”
Opening a bag of chips, I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Do you like doing all that shit?”
I shrugged. “Not really. Not anymore. I don’t get to do fun stuff, but my mom won’t let me quit. So, I got mad and walked out of the house when she wasn’t paying attention.”
She smiled mischievously. “So you’re playing hooky today.”
“Yeah, totally.” I smiled back, even though I didn’t exactly know what playing hooky was.
“Do you think your mom is going to come looking for you, though?” she asked, looking around as if she expected my mom to appear at any moment.
“Probably,” I said, my shoulders sagging a bit.
We were quiet for a minute as she smoked with a thoughtful look on her face. I ate more chips and sucked down the rest of my soda.
“You can always hang out with me for a little while if you’re not ready to go home,” she offered. “We can cut through the woods to avoid the str
eet in case your mom is driving around.”
My eyes widened. “You want to hang out with me?”
“Yeah, sure.” She grinned. “Why not? I always wanted a little sister. What’s your name, kid?”
“Mayson.”
“Mayson what?” she asked as she began to lead me away from the store.
“Mayson Grayne.”
“Hello, Mayson.” She smiled down at me. “I’m Sharice.”
I followed the strange girl into the woods.
I sipped my coffee as my eyes refocused on the present and as Kyle slid back into the seat across from me. After asking our waitress for a fresh cup of coffee, he gave me his full attention.
“Now, tell me about Sharice.”
So, I did. I told him everything that had happened on the day that lead me to the older girl.
He listened intently, without interruption.
“I only hung out with her for a couple hours before she made me go home,” I said, stirring cream into a topped-off cup of coffee. “She thought my mom would call the police if I stayed away much longer. We sat in her room listening to music and eating the junk food I bought at the store. She talked about school and her favorite bands and television shows, and I told her all about dance and playing the piano, and the competitions. I finally, finally had a friend. A real friend that wasn’t my friend by default because she was related to me.”
I absently took another sip of coffee. My eyes started to glaze over again as I refocused on the past.
“My mom was remarkably calm when I walked through the door that day,” I quietly recollected. “I thought she would have gone crazy trying to figure out where I was, but she hadn’t. She was in the kitchen, cooking dinner like it was any other night. When she saw me, she just looked at me with this blank expression on her face and told me to go wash up for dinner. She was so…normal throughout dinner and afterward when we were cleaning up, that I didn’t think I was going to be punished for running off.”
I managed to scowl and smile humorlessly simultaneously.
“My mother made me dance that night.” I met Kyle’s eyes. “She made me dance until my toes bled. That was her passive-aggressive way of punishing me.” I raised a shoulder. “It worked, for a little while anyway. I was just more careful about sneaking out to see Sharice after that. It was easier to do when my dad was home because my mom wasn’t as strict with my schedule. Anyway,” I continued with a sigh. “Hanging out with Sharice, I picked up all kinds of bad habits, and, of course, it was with her that I got high the first time.”
