Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus

by Dusti Bowling

  Lando laughed. “Check the sizing. They’re men’s.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, I know.”

  Lando punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Why are you so cool, Aven?”

  And then I was the one struggling to breathe. “I’m not,” I mumbled, which seemed to disappoint Lando. Then I was mad at myself for acting stupid as Lando turned his attention to Justin.

  “Where’s Janessa?” I whispered to Zion.

  “She and Lando broke up.”

  “Why?”

  Zion gave me a look like he couldn’t understand why I was interested. I wasn’t entirely sure myself why I was so interested. “I don’t care,” he said. “Good riddance.”

  We took about a hundred more pictures of all of us before we piled back into the van. Zion, Trilby, and I sat quietly in the back row until I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question. “Where’s Janessa? I thought she was coming with us.”

  Zion mouthed at me, “I told you.”

  Lando shrugged. “I don’t care. Ma never liked her anyway, so it’s all good.”

  “I did so like Janessa,” Mrs. Hill insisted.

  “You did not,” Lando said. “You said she was shallow.”

  “Oh, well, yes, she was,” Mrs. Hill said. “She was definitely that.”

  Mrs. Hill dropped us off near the gym around seven o’clock and told us she’d be back by eleven. I couldn’t believe we had to be at this dance for four hours.

  “If you wanted to come back at eight, that would be okay, too, Mom,” Zion said. I nodded in agreement.

  Trilby laughed. “No way! I want to dance!”

  “You guys are going to have so much fun,” Mrs. Hill assured us.

  The five of us walked into the gym together, and it wasn’t long before Justin and Lando found their friends and went off.

  Zion, Trilby, and I sat in chairs over in a corner as far away from where everyone was dancing as possible. We sat there awkwardly until the ‘Y.M.C.A.’ came on. “I told you,” I said to Zion.

  He put up his hands. “Hey, I didn’t make them play it.”

  “You didn’t have to. It’s automatic. Like an automatic school dance requirement.”

  “I want to do it,” Trilby whined. “Come on, Zion. Why’d we come here if we aren’t going to dance?”

  Zion’s eyes darted around. “People will see us.”

  Trilby jumped up from her chair. “Who cares?” Then she grabbed Zion and pulled him onto the dance floor.

  “I can’t leave Aven,” Zion said.

  Trilby stopped and looked at me like she was asking for my permission.

  “Yes, you can,” I said. “Please go dance.”

  And then they left me. Sitting in a chair in the corner. All alone. I spotted Joshua’s group not far away. I got up and walked through the dancing crowds to another part of the gym and sat down on a bleacher.

  Thankfully the ‘Y.M.C.A.’ ended and another slower song came on. I sat there in my cheap purple dress and all my stupid makeup and purple hair chalk and my favorite shoes surrounded by dancing, laughing high schoolers. I wanted to cry.

  I wished Connor were here. I wondered what he was doing right then. Was he hanging out with Amanda? The thought made me want to cry even more.

  Lando seemed to appear from nowhere and sat down beside me. “What are you doing sitting here all by yourself?”

  “Zion and Trilby are dancing.” I bit the inside of my cheek and willed my eyes to stay dry.

  We sat there for a while, Lando tapping his Star Wars Vans on the bleachers to the beat of the song. “You look pretty, you know,” he said.

  I turned to him, not sure I’d heard him right with the loud music. “Huh?”

  He smiled and said louder, “You look pretty.” He picked up a strand of my hair then dropped it. “I like the purple.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Why would he say that to me? What was he doing?

  “Do you want to dance with me?” he asked me then. I stared at him, but he smiled. Then he laughed. “Can you hear anything I’m saying to you?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you won’t answer me.”

  “No, I mean why are you asking me to dance?”

  Lando scrunched up his eyebrows. “Why does a person usually ask another person to dance?”

  “Why?”

  “So they can dance!”

  Just then Joshua walked by us and blew me a kiss. And Lando saw it. “What was that all about?” he asked me.

  I shook my head.

  Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.

  Was high school going to be four long years of me trying not to cry?

  “Why did he do that?”

  I kept shaking my head, my throat too constricted to speak. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. I jumped up and ran through the crowded gym until I got to the door. I banged my hip against the handlebar so hard it would probably bruise later and burst through into the warm night air.

  I ran along the sidewalk until I reached the empty football field. I ran up the concrete steps, stumbling on one, scraping my knee and twisting my ankle. “Ouch,” I groaned, sitting down on a bleacher. I rolled my ankle around and pain shot through it. “No,” I said quietly to myself as a tear ran down my cheek. That last thing I needed was to hurt my foot.

  I sat there on the bleacher overlooking the empty field. There were no sounds except for a few crickets chirping. I realized I was sitting in nearly the same exact spot where Janessa had sat the day before—when she’d looked at me like I was something she’d found between her toes. Janessa with her perfect hair (mine looked like I traveled exclusively via roller coaster); her perfect makeup (unlike my uneven everything); her perfect clothes (non-name brand clearance rack for me); and her perfectly manicured nails.

  I heard approaching footsteps and then a soft voice below me say my name. I stayed quiet, not wanting Lando to know I was sitting here crying by myself like some weirdo in the middle of the empty bleachers. I considered diving to the ground and lying flat until he left.

  “Aven, I can see you up there,” he said.

  I attempted to wipe my wet cheeks on my shoulders as he walked up the steps to where I sat. I hoped my makeup wasn’t running down my face. Then again, it would be hard to tell in the dark.

  Lando sat down next to me. “Why’d you run off like that? Was it Joshua?”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t feel well.”

  “Like how you didn’t feel well at the mall?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean why don’t you say what’s going on instead of hiding?”

  “I’m not hiding,” I said, thinking about how I’d just considered diving under the bleachers. To hide. “I get claustrophobic in places with a lot of people.”

  “Why did Joshua blow a kiss at you?”

  “Why did Janessa break up with you?”

  “Nope. Answer my question first.”

  “Because he’s a jerk. Now answer my question.”

  “She didn’t. I broke up with her.”

  I stared at him. “Why?”

  “Because she’s a jerk.”

  “What did she do?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing specific. Sometimes she would just say something about someone that would rub me the wrong way.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like . . . mean stuff.”

  “About Zion?”

  “Sometimes.” I knew he was looking at me, though I could barely make out his eyes in the dark. He shook his head. “But we don’t need to go into it.”

  I stared down at my hurt foot. “We don’t have to. I can guess what kinds of things she said.”

  “Like I said, she’s a jerk.”

  I turned my ankle around and grimaced. “A pretty jerk.”

  “Nah,” Lando said. “She wasn’t so pretty to me after a while, you know? Like the ugliness inside starts to spread to the outside.”

  I thought about how I’d thought Joshua was so c
ute when I’d first seen him. Now the look of him made me feel sick. “Yeah, I know.” I put my foot down and tried to press a little weight on it. I grunted in pain.

  “You do something to your foot?”

  I nodded as I tried to turn my ankle again. “I twisted it when I walked up the steps.” More like sprinted up the steps. No, more like teleported up the steps.

  “Here, let me see.” Before I could stop him, he picked up my foot and set it on his lap. He removed my shoe, and I prayed fervently my foot didn’t stink.

  Lando squeezed around my tender ankle, but it felt like he was squeezing my heart instead. I tried to take slow steady breaths as he wrapped his hands around my ankle and put pressure on it. My chest felt like a hummingbird was flying around in it. “How’s that feel?”

  “It hurts, but I think it will be okay.”

  He frowned. “You scraped your knee, too.” He reached up like he might touch my knee, but I threw my leg down before he could. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

  I grabbed my shoe from him with my toes and tossed it on the ground in front of me. I slipped my foot in and shot up from the bleachers. “I gotta go,” I said and started limping down the steps.

  Lando stood. “Where are you going?”

  “I gotta go home,” I called back.

  “But we’re your ride!”

  “I gotta go find Zion.” I didn’t look back at Lando as I got to the sidewalk and ran away as fast as my throbbing ankle would allow.

  24

  I’m such a hypocrite.

  Can’t take my own advice.

  I deserve what’s coming

  And it won’t be nice.

  — Screaming Ferret

  JOSEPHINE AND I SAT IN THE CAFETERIA eating turkey and gravy and mashed potatoes over white bread. Josephine was right—the food at Golden Sunset was mediocre at best.

  “So if you like someone . . . theoretically, of course—”

  “Like someone?” Josephine interrupted me.

  “Yeah, I mean like them, like them.”

  “Who do you like?”

  I rolled my eyes and stabbed a piece of turkey with the fork I held in my toes. “No one. I told you. It’s theoretical.”

  “Is it that boy you told me about?”

  “Oh my gosh. You’re so not listening to me.” I shoved the dry turkey into my mouth and gulped it. “What part of theoretical do you not understand? And I told you—that boy’s a jerk. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know why I try to talk to you about stuff.”

  “Well, I don’t know why either if you’re going to be all snippy about it.”

  We sat there quietly for a while, the sounds of silverware clanking against dishes all around us. Every now and then some old guy would make a loud hacking cough like he’d nearly choked to death on the dry turkey. Josephine kept glancing at me then quickly looking away all casually like she didn’t care that I was there.

  “So,” I said. “Let’s just say that you like someone who’s cute and popular and everyone likes him and he could never like you back. How would you shut it off?”

  Josephine stared at me. “Shut it off?”

  “Yeah, you know. Shut the feelings off. Shut them down. Like shut them down. Way, way down. Push them down into the deepest pit on earth.”

  “Really?” she said. “You’re still going to be making fun of my book like that?”

  “Did you ever finish it? Did the dude turn into a pirate fossil after all?” Josephine ignored me and sipped her water. “No, I’m serious, though. I mean, how do you do it?”

  “Do what exactly?”

  “Shut your feelings off, you know, for boys?”

  Josephine scowled. “Why would you think I’d know how to do that?”

  “Because you never have a boyfriend or anything. You said you never had time for that nonsense.”

  Josephine huffed and stuffed a bite of turkey in her mouth. “I’ve liked boys before.”

  “No, I don’t believe it. You’ve never liked anyone.”

  “Well, I didn’t conjure your mama out of thin air, you know!”

  My curiosity was definitely piqued with that statement. “So who was he?”

  “Who?”

  “My old grandpa!”

  Josephine chuckled. “Nobody.”

  “Was he a handsome cowboy you met down in Texas? Did he wear spurs and have manly stubble? Did he smell like leather and cow pies?”

  Josephine was laughing now. “No, he did not smell like cow pies at all.”

  “Then who was he?”

  “He was a soldier,” she said. “And he was killed in Vietnam.”

  My smile fell. “Oh,” I whispered.

  Josephine waved a hand in the air. “It was a long time ago.”

  I stared at her as she drummed her fingers on the peach linen tablecloth. “So did you like him?” I asked.

  She smiled down at the table. “Yes, I did.” She sniffed. “Very much.”

  “And you haven’t liked anyone since?”

  She shrugged. “Alone with a baby . . . Like I said, I never again had time for that nonsense.”

  We sat there quietly until I saw Milford sit down at a table near ours. He waved at us. “You have plenty of time on your hands now,” I said to Josephine.

  She looked over at Milford and snorted. “What? For him? No, thank you.”

  “Why not? He’s kind of cute in a wrinkled, old man way.”

  Milford’s smile grew by about 200 percent when he noticed Josephine looking at him. “He might be if he ever ran a comb through that frazzled hair,” she said.

  “Maybe you could help him. You know, clean him up a bit. Throw out those ridiculous Bert and Ernie slippers.”

  “His grandkids gave them to him,” she mumbled, taking another a sip of water.

  “Huh?”

  She slammed her water down on the table and some sloshed out onto the peach tablecloth. “I said his grandkids gave those to him for a present. That’s why he wears them. I shouldn’t know this, but I do because he yaps in my ear every chance he gets.”

  “Aw. That’s so sweet. He’s a loving grandfather. Do his grandkids come and visit him in here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you met them?”

  She let out a loud breath. “Yes, he did introduce me. Of course. He’s got so many, though. Can’t hardly keep track of all of them.”

  I grinned at her. “They love their grandpa, don’t they?”

  “It appears they do.”

  “Why don’t you give him a chance?”

  “Like I said, I don’t need to have to take care of no man.” She shook her head. “No sir. Don’t need to be runnin’ a comb through that frazzled hair.”

  “He doesn’t need you to take care of him. He gets plenty of good care in here.” I stared at her. “You just can’t believe that someone might actually like you for you.”

  Her eyes met mine. “Ditto, little girl.”

  25

  Make a choice.

  Find my voice.

  Not sure I can.

  I need a new plan.

  — Kids from Alcatraz

  THE MOST AMAZING THING happened. And that thing is called the weather dropped below ninety degrees. I wasn’t sure if it would last, but it was wonderful. And I was also grateful that the drop in temperature coincided with another riding lesson. There was something especially uncomfortable about sitting on a big hot horse in one hundred degree weather—kind of like how getting branded must be uncomfortable for cows.

  “The horse show is next month already,” Bill said. “You ready to try the jump?”

  “No.”

  “Aven, do you even want to do this show?” He took off his cowboy hat and ran a hand through his gray hair. Then he put his hat back on. “Because you know you don’t have to.”

  I stared down at Bill. Did I want to do the show? When I’d first had the idea to start horseback riding, I’d felt so confident, so sure I could tackle anything. An
d at the beginning of the school year, nothing could have stopped me from doing that jump. Now the fear I felt about it overwhelmed me.

  High school was stealing everything away from me—my courage, my confidence, and my determination. And I’d only barely started. Four more years of this would kill me. I finally shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Bill hung his head for a moment. “Tell you what. We’ll hold off on the jump. How about we work on trotting for today?”

  I cringed. I didn’t want to do that either. Trotting made me bounce all over the place and I felt like I was going to bounce right off Chili. Plus, it hurt my butt and I was always sore the next day. Not to mention that my ankle was still tender, making it difficult to use my feet to pull on the reins.

  Bill gave up, and we walked around a little and practiced some simple voice commands. Instead of feeling happy, though, that Bill had eased up on pushing me, I felt worse. Because I knew he was giving up on me.

  After my lesson, I checked on Spaghetti. I expected him to be a bit more energetic with the drop in temperature, but he was as lethargic as ever. “What is going on with you?” I said to him as I nuzzled his soft fur. I offered him a piece of broccoli, which was a special treat for him. Last spring, he’d have eaten it right up. But now he wouldn’t even glance at it. I held the broccoli with my toes and tapped it gently on his mouth, but he didn’t acknowledge it. I gave up and decided to go home.

  When I walked into the apartment, both of my parents were sitting at the kitchen table. They stopped talking when they saw me.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “How was your riding lesson?” Dad said.

  “It was good,” I lied. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I would never be ready for the horse show.

  “That’s great,” Mom said, squeezing her hands together.

  I looked from Mom to Dad. It was odd for them to both be in the apartment this early in the day. “What’s going on?”

  “We got something for you,” Mom said.

  I tilted my head a little. “Okay. Why do you seem so nervous?”

  Mom picked up a box from the table. “It’s this.”

  I walked to her and read the box in her hands. “Find My Family,” I said. “What is it?”

  “It’s a DNA testing kit,” Dad said.