Dizzy

by Jolene Perry

  And then, I don’t know why, but it makes me think of Mom. “Remember that one time when my mom brought us to the park for like five hours? She let us play as long as we wanted. Bought us ice cream. Wasn’t all hovering like all the other moms were. We got to do whatever we wanted. She was always cool like that.”

  Paul squints at me as though he’s trying to figure me out. How can he not remember this?

  “Is that all you remember about that day?” he asks.

  Now it’s me who can’t figure him out. “Well, yeah. That’s what happened.”

  He stalls a minute before replying. “Yeah… yeah, I remember that day, but—”

  “Holy shit. Thank God you guys are here.” Derrick steps into the room. “I just got a phone call, and we’ve got a job to do.”

  ***

  Derrick’s all stressed out on the way to the invitation place, and I’m not sure why. Or maybe he said why, but I didn’t hear it because I can’t stop thinking about my conversation with Paul, trying to remember that day at the park and wondering if there is something missing I don’t remember.

  How could there be? It’s not like Paul could know my mom better than I do. I know she was awesome. She was an incredible mom until she was just gone.

  “We’re here to pick up the invitations for the Gibson wedding,” Derrick tells the girl behind the counter when we get inside the shop. She’s young—probably in her twenties and she’s eying us all up and down, but I can’t make myself get into it.

  “Wonderful… Which of you is the lucky groom?” She starts to walk to a table, and we follow her.

  Paul and I quickly point to Derrick as he sits in one of the chairs. “That’s me.”

  “My name is Aubra. I was expecting your fiancé. I must say, this is the first time I’ve seen the groom pick out the invitations on his own.”

  This catches my attention. Derrick has that deer in the headlights look, so I speak for him. “What do you mean, pick them out? Aren’t we picking them up?”

  “No. Lora made the appointment today to have them made up. We’re putting a rush on it since the wedding isn’t too far out. I understand you had some trouble with a venue?”

  I fall in the chair next to Derrick. Paul takes the one on the other side, and we sit there probably looking like the biggest idiots in the world. But then I realize it’s just a piece of paper. How hard can it be?

  A cup rattles on the desk when Aubra drops a huge book onto it. “Do you know what you’re looking for? We have linen finish, matte finish… Oh! Or silk laminate. There’s recycled and unbleached or bleached. This handmade soft paper is really popular, but my favorite is this new wood grain texture. It’s beautiful and masculine, depending on the theme of the wedding…”

  Blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah blah. Is all I hear. No wonder Derrick is freaking. Who knew there were so many different kinds of paper?

  “Derrick. Call your girl. She’s going to kick our asses if we get this wrong.” Lora’s scary about this wedding. I can’t believe she would send us to do this.

  Derrick’s dialing the phone. He’s on it a few seconds before he hangs up and calls again. He calls three times before he leaves a message, telling her to call because we have no idea what we’re doing.

  “Dylan, try Ziah,” he tells me.

  Stupid as it sounds, my heart kicks up. I definitely can’t say no to my brother, or he’ll know something’s up. So I call Ziah. Straight to voicemail.

  “She’s not answering.”

  “What was Lora thinking?” My brother’s eyes are all wide. “Seriously. This is invitations. It’s a big deal.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to give him hell, but I can tell how important this is to him. He wants to get it right and do it for Lora. Gotta respect him for that.

  “I’m guessing she’s thinking she trusts you. That you can do this, and that she’ll be happy with whatever you choose.”

  Really, I’m thinking we are so fucked here and wondering if Lora took a ride on the crazy train by giving us this responsibility.

  “You know Lora. Let’s just try and think about what she likes. There’s that walkthrough thing with the chandelier or whatever. I think it has branches or twigs or something on it.” I have no idea what I’m saying. “So that’s sort of rustic, right?” I look at Aubra. “Is that a theme?”

  She’s got a half-smile on her face. “Sounds like it.”

  “And the wedding is at Vista house!” Derrick adds. “Which is sort of like a castle with all the bricks and stuff.” He starts fingering through the paper. “What about this?” he asks Aubra. I have no idea what kind of paper it is, but it looks like it fits.

  “I think that will be nice. Have you thought about font?”

  Font? Holy shit, weddings are a lot of work. I don’t get why all this stuff matters. “Cursive?”

  “There’s like ten billion different fonts to choose from, Dylan. Even I know that,” Paul laughs.

  I ignore him. We seriously do go through about ten billion different lettering until Derrick finally decides on one. The invitations will be pretty cool. From one side of the paper branches come out across it. They’re raised a little and remind me of some of the stuff I’ve seen Lora looking at.

  Luckily he does know what they’re supposed to say, and an hour later, we’re heading out of the place. Now that the catastrophe is over, and I realize my brother’s not going to have a nervous breakdown over a piece of paper, I can give him shit about it.

  “I thought you were going to either piss your pants or pass out,” I tease him.

  “What was Lora thinking?” Paul says in a mock-girl voice.

  “Screw you guys.” He pushes us both, but Paul and I are still cracking up.

  “Aww, were you scared you’d get in trouble? Poor Derrick.” I trip as he grabs me and puts me in a headlock. It doesn’t stop my laughing.

  After he feels like he’s kicked our asses enough, and we’re all leaning against a wall to catch our breath, he says, “You guys give me shit, but I love her. I want things to be perfect for her. She deserves that, and the cool thing is she’s the same way about me. Tease me if you want, but I’m lucky as hell. I have a girl who would do anything for me, and I would do the same for her.”

  None of us are laughing anymore. It’s so crazy to hear my brother now—to see he’s like… grown up? Gotten over all the shit that happened. Everything. Is that because of him or Lora? I don’t know, but for the first time, I’m a little jealous of him. Me and Dad, neither of us are where Derrick is.

  “Did you tell her?” My voice is quiet. It doesn’t even bother me that Paul is here. Right now, I just need to know. “Did you tell her about Mom?”

  Derrick puts his hand on my shoulder and squeezes. “I did. The second I knew she meant more to me than just fun, I told her. She deserved to know where I came from. Why I still freeze up once in a while or have a hard time sharing things with her or being as close as we should be.”

  This makes my head snap up. “You’re not over it?” Then how is he doing this?

  “Most of the time, but I don’t know if you ever really get over the stuff that happens to you, D. It’s a part of you, but I know Lora isn’t Mom. I know it’s not fair to hold what Mom did against her.”

  But how? That’s what I don’t get. How he does it or how he can have that faith in her. I don’t think Dad ever thought Mom would bail.

  And then I think about Ziah, too. She has no idea why I pulled the plug the other day. She’s just had her boyfriend cheat on her… what if she thinks I’m like that too? That I’m rejecting her the way her douche of an ex did.

  Regardless of our relationship, I care about her. Does that mean she deserves to know too?

  “Dylan, I really need to talk to you about Mom. There’s something you need to know.”

  I look up to see Paul’s walked away. He’s standing by the cars.

  “I don’t want to talk about her.”

  “We need to.”


  Right now, I can’t stop thinking about Ziah even though I don’t get why. “Like you said, it’s in the past.”

  He squeezes my shoulder again. “Not if you don’t leave it there. Plus… I need to tell you—”

  “Later, okay?” I step away from him. “I gotta go. I need to talk to Ziah.”

  “Hey!” He yells when I get to Mary. “You came through for me today. Way to man-up.”

  I nod at him in reply, and Paul walks over to Derrick, who without my having to say it, will bring him home.

  ***

  I’m nervous as hell when I knock on her door. I clutch a bag in my right hand, still not able to believe I stopped at the store on my way here. It’s as good an excuse as any, though. I’ve seriously driven by her house like fifty times waiting for her to get home from whatever she did with Lora and then for Lora to leave again.

  I’m about to knock again, when the door pulls open. Ziah’s standing there with her hair loose around her head in a tank top and flannel pajama bottoms.

  “Dylan, hey. What’s up?”

  Holding the bag out to her, I say, “I got you something. Can I come in?”

  She pulls the door open for me and closes it when I step inside. It looks like her hands shake a little when she opens the bag. “A white T-shirt?”

  I shrug. “Yeah, I figured I owed you one since I ruined yours the night of the party.”

  Her eyes crinkle when she looks at me. “Wow. Thanks.”

  “It’s a real good one. The fabric is nice and thick.” Nice and thick? What is wrong with me?

  Needing something to do, I walk in and lean against the couch. She comes over and stands in front of me. “What’s going on, Dylan? Why are you here?”

  One look at her, and all I can think is I want this girl. I want her so bad it scares the crap out of me. I’m not used to wanting something like this—giving someone that kind of power over me. That’s the scariest part of this.

  Before I can wuss out, I start to talk. “I wouldn’t be good at the whole boyfriend thing, Ziah. My dad’s yard got sprayed with vomit I was so upset about the wedding. Can you imagine how much I’d screw up if it was about me?”

  Even to me, it sounds like a lame excuse.

  She shakes her head at me. “No offense, Dylan, but that’s a lame excuse. And I don’t remember asking you to be my boyfriend.”

  My eyes find her brown carpet, knowing I’m going to have to tell her something that my best friend only knows because he’s close with my family. Something that makes my insides feel like they’re rotting out just to talk about.

  “My mom’s gone. I mean, of course my mom’s gone. You know my mom isn’t around, but she left us. Left me, Derrick, and my Dad.”

  I suck in a breath, suddenly wishing I was back in Dad’s yard so I could puke again. My gut feels like it’s being ground apart. Slowly, Ziah walks over and leans next to me. It shocks me because the only time we’ve been this close is when I mauled her in the tunnels.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know…”

  “Yeah, it’s not usually something I offer up freely.”

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Her voice is soft, barley above a whisper.

  “I want to.”

  She raises her eyebrows at me.

  “Okay, I don’t want to, but I need to. You deserve to know why I pulled away and stuff.”

  My ear suddenly itches. Or maybe it doesn’t, but I need to scratch it just to do something. This is harder than I thought.

  “Even when I was a kid, I knew how lucky I was. I mean, I had the huge house, a cool dad, and the kind of mom who would bring me and my best friend to the park for five hours. She was always doing stuff with us, for us. It was perfect.”

  Is that all you remember about that day? Isn’t that what Paul had asked me? A little flash of Mom driving home with red eyes pops into my head. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen her cry, but that’s normal, right?

  Another picture, seeing her argue with someone in the park. One of the other kid’s dads. What happened?

  “Sounds nice.” Ziah’s voice pulls me back to the moment.

  It was nice. I think she actually caught me sneaking up to watch a movie with her that night. She’d had a pallet on the floor in the living room and let me sleep there with her.

  “It’s only Paul’s mom around his house, and she pretty much works as much as my dad does now. He was always at my house because we had everything. My parents always treated him like another kid, too.”

  I’m rambling. How lame is that? I’m not usually a rambler. I feel like such a pussy, but when she squeezes my hand, some of the tension in my chest lightens.

  “She spoiled me, ya know. That’s why I’m used to getting my way. I could get away with anything.”

  Not toward the end, though. She’d been so mad. So mad and then nothing. Am I just making this up? Our life was good. Perfect.

  “So yeah, one day I had the perfect life, the next, Mom was gone. Dad was all screwed up. Derrick wouldn’t come out of his room. I had no clue. No fucking clue what was going on. Dad tried to pull it together for me, but he couldn’t. I’ve never felt as alone… as abandoned as I did then. I had no one.”

  Tears, tears start to sting my eyes. I wipe them before they can fall. “I get it. I was too young, Dad was too messed up, but I was scared.”

  I close my eyes, hoping to make it go away with the darkness, hoping we’ll magically be in that tunnel again making out instead of me crying like a baby. I try to back away. She won’t let me get away with it, though. Not Ziah. She’s in front of me, standing between my legs. I can’t help but open my eyes to see her.

  “Derrick actually came around first. He manned up like he always does and took care of me. Told me Mom was gone and we didn’t need her. That we’d be better off without her. Without any girls. We were so young and dumb making that lame pact, but we stuck to it because we didn’t want to be ruined like Dad was.

  “Soon, Dad came around, too. He tried. We’re still lucky, ya know? He loves us. His Gibson boys.”

  Ziah’s quiet for a minute and then finally speaks. “I didn’t know. Lora never told me… God, I’m so sorry, Dylan. That had to have been so hard. Do you know where she is?”

  How is it I’m not more wrecked than I am? How is it that being by her kind of makes it okay?

  “Hell no, and good riddance. I don’t ever want to see her again.” We don’t need her. How many times has Derrick said that to me? We’re all fine without her.

  Ziah steps close to me. I feel her everywhere, inside and out, and there’s a part of me that wants to soak in it. But I can’t.

  “That’s why I was so pissed at Derrick about the wedding. I know it sounds stupid, but we promised. He went back on that. I guess, I kind of get it, but,” I shrug. “I don’t want to lose him, too.”

  She runs her hand through my hair, and it feels so good. “Dylan, you’re not going to lose him. He’s your brother.”

  But my mom was my mom, and she ran away from us. As much as I hate it, I stand up. Ziah backs away from me. The words sound all wrong in my head, like they don’t fit or something, but I make myself say them anyway. I have to.

  “So yeah, that’s why I don’t do the relationship thing. I don’t ever want to be like my dad was. And I know you’re the relationship kind of girl. I don’t want screw up our friendship.”

  “So you’re just going to be alone forever?”

  I don’t answer her question. That’s when I know I have to go. “Listen, I gotta run. I just wanted you to know. It’s not you. It’s me. And that’s really not a line, I swear.”

  I should turn and walk away, but I don’t. Her eyes are all big and watery. She’s biting her lip, and I know she doesn’t want me to go. I can’t believe I’m going to admit this, but I have to.

  “I like you, but…” I hold out my hand. “Friends?” I ask. “We can still hang out. Designated wedding planners and all. I have fun with you, Ha
nes.”

  I try for light and know I’m not pulling it off. I see her chest rise and fall as she takes a deep breath. Gently she shakes her head, steps forward and holds out her hand.

  “Friends.”

  Eighteen

  ~ Ziah ~

  I’m wondering as I watch Dylan drive away how pathetic I am for wishing he’d have given me a hug. I want to scream, it’s so infuriating, but at the same time, I get it. He’s such a bad idea for me that I should be glad, but I also feel enough around him to know that it still sucks.

  ***

  “So.” Lora bursts into my room. “The girls are coming in this weekend for some girl time and final dress fittings.”

  “Okay. When does this start?”

  “Now!” Karissa and Mardie burst in behind her.

  “And,” Mardie jumps onto my bed, sending her short, black hair flying. It’s a little crazy since I’ve only met her once, but she’s like a ball of Asian crazy-fury. “I got you a fake ID so you can come out with us tonight.”

  I stare at Lora with wide eyes.

  Lora shrugs. “It’s Saturday afternoon. I want NO talking about homework or anything but fun.”

  “Come on, Ziah.” Karissa gives me a big smile. Her hair’s red now, and I actually can’t remember what color it was last time I saw her.

  I stand up off my bed, and set my American government text down.

  “Now we need to dress you.” Karissa stands in front of my closet frowning.

  “Um… If we’re just going to try on dresses, how does it matter what I wear?” I ask.

  The two friends both freeze and stare at me. Lora laughs.

  “Don’t worry, Ziah. You’ll get used to them. Best to just nod and smile.” Lora’s grinning and relaxed. Probably just glad not to be the only object of their attention.

  Mardie turns to Karissa. “I think Ziah needs that blue halter top of yours.”

  “Oh!” Karissa’s eyes widen. “Yes, and find some skinny jeans.”

  I stand in my room in a daze, and by the time they’re all done primping, there’s no spot of carpet visible on my floor, and I don’t feel like myself. But I do think I might pass for twenty-one. I’m under this makeup somewhere, I’m just not sure where.