Maternal Absence

by Jamie Ott

  The hotel was much shabbier than the one she was, currently, in. The lobby smelled like pine cleaner and the desk clerk was dressed in plain clothes.

  She walked up and placed the section of the paper on the counter.

  “How long you plan on staying?” asked the man.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Rent is due every month on the 5th. You get a three day grace after that, but if you’re not paid, and you’re still here, you’ll be removed. Sign here and here.”

  He set a couple different documents down; then took her security deposit and led her to a room.

  “You got any stuff?”

  “Yeah, just not with me. It’s in the other hotel.”

  The halls were dank and smelled of cleaners, too. He opened the door to her room. It was much older than hers. It was only the third floor, so she could hear the traffic constantly going by. To the right was a bed with an old comforter. On the left was a small table with two chairs, and a television on a dresser. There was a large closet and a microwave and coffee machine atop a refrigerator right across from the bathroom.

  “Housekeepers come through once per week. You can put your valuables in that safe there. Be careful, if you forget the combination, there’s $150 fee to open the safe. If you need anything, call downstairs.”

  That very day, she checked out of the hotel and into her new room. Although she loved her upscale room and view, and could have stayed much longer, she was tired of being uprooted and moving around. She wanted to get settled as soon as possible.

  The only down part to her new place was the noise. She could hear people talking in the halls and down below. Still, it was a relief to have someplace to call home. She knew she could live there, comfortably, and without questions for a long while. That night was a cold and bitter one. Fall was settling in, but she slept better than she had in weeks because her biggest worry was over for now.

  Just Hangin’

  Chapter 10

  Over the following weeks, Piper hardly thought of her mother. Instead, she indulged in all that she’d never had before. Although keeping in mind that she needed to be careful with her money, she managed to buy a new wardrobe, and when she wasn’t hanging out at the movie theaters or playing around on her new netbook at the café, she was hanging out at a cool makeup shop in Times Square. There were times when she was lonely, but she kept busy by doing all the things tourists did when they came to visit. When she wasn’t shopping or acting like a tourist, she’d go to the park and read for hours.

  Today was to be the first day of class for Piper. Although obsessed with spoiling herself, she’d made time to carefully go about getting her old high school records, and enrolling at the West Side Learning Institute. After all, she couldn’t spend the rest of her days shopping. Besides, she was determined to try to lead a normal life, no matter what. The most normal thing she could do is finish school, but this time, she promised herself things would be different.

  Back home, she’d been miserable because of her crazy mother, hateful peers at school and her shabby appearance. Now, she had the ability to be a whole new person, not just because she, now, had money, but because being on her own gave her new confidence. As she thought about everything she’d been through, in her entire life, it occurred to her that fate might have intervened; that on some karmic level, she was getting her chance to correct all the wrongs in her life. There was no way that she’d let the chance go to waste by sitting around until she was eighteen, and fretting over what happened to her irresponsible and abusive mother.

  That morning, however, butterflies filled her stomach. She lay in bed hardly able to breathe for fear of what school in the city would be like. So far, just in the streets, people were short and abrupt, borderline rude. If the kids were like that at school, would she have the strength to stand up to them? Back home, the answer was no, but now, she had to change. Somehow, having to stand up for herself frightened her. What if she made a fool of herself? Or found that she wasn’t strong, and her enemies, like before, easily squashed her?

  Oh well, she couldn’t think about it anymore. She had an hour until her first class and hadn’t even eaten breakfast.

  She got out of bed and took a quick shower. As she rushed down a bowl of cereal, she slipped into her dark blue jeans and a pink cardigan. Standing in front of the mirror, she ran her hairbrush through real quick.

  She stood, still, looking at herself in the mirror. How she’d changed in just a matter of weeks. When she first arrived, she was starved, gaunt and looked every bit the homeless person she was. Now, she looked healthy, her skin was bright, and for a moment, she thought she looked pretty.

  She exhaled, grabbed her new backpack and ran down the steps onto the sidewalk.

  She pulled a map out of the front of her backpack and walked along the street, trying to figure out where the school was, as she’d registered over the phone.

  When she bumped into someone, knocking the map out of her hands; it floated on the air, down the street.

  “What the hell?” asked the girl. “Watch where you’re going, idiot!”

  The girl walked off, her long blonde hair bouncing on the air.

  Muttering, “Sorry,” Piper looked down the street, watching her map fly away. How was she going to get to school, now?

  Then she decided to try and find it on her own. She remembered which street it was on, and its number was four-thousand or something. So she kept on until she realized that she and the blonde girl were likely headed in the same direction.

  Careful to keep a few paces behind, Piper noticed more kids were on the same block as they were. Some walked together while others walked separately.

  As she walked, she couldn’t help but notice the caliber of students they were. It was like they all could have been fashion models, what with the way they were all dressed like walking advertisements.

  Their attitudes were also different. Unlike the brooding, tough gangster thing she was used to seeing, these kids were loud, boisterous and smiling and laughing; although, at the same time, some of them were still menacing, but just in a different way. She didn’t know how to interpret it, except that their menacing wasn’t menacing-thug but rather menacing-fun.

  In that moment, it became clear to Piper that she was not only going to some school on the West Side, but that it might be a school for middle-to-upper class kids. As she thought about this, her stomach became unsettled again. She’d never been around kids from good families. Would they be nicer or meaner?

  At the corner light, they were joined by even more kids, making her feel claustrophobic, for a moment. The girl whom she ran into was right in front of her. Piper was self-conscious because two boys stood very closely behind her. If she could have, she’d have walked away, but she was closed in by bodies on her left and right as well. She just wasn’t used to having so little space to herself. Sure, there were times when she found herself walking through rush hour back home, but it was nothing like this.

  She almost stumbled, trying to keep ahead of the two boys when she accidentally stepped on the back shoe of the blonde girl.

  “Ow,” she screamed and tripped across the street. Then she turned around and pushed Piper who stumbled to the ground. The boys simply walked around her with smirks on their faces.

  The girl kept walking while the rest of the kids just went around her. Cars beeped at her to hurry up and get out of the street.

  She stayed far back behind the crowd. She was so embarrassed; it was not how she wanted her first day to start.

  Up ahead, a tall grey building appeared. In front of it, teenagers milled about. Cars rode up and let kids out onto the sidewalk. They said goodbyes, slammed their doors, and then the cars sped off, only to be replaced by others.

  Red faced and still humiliated, Piper walked up the steps into the long hall. Before her were hundreds of lockers. Kids were standing about talking. To the right was the principal’s office, and to the left were the nurses. She w
ent right.

  A few minutes later with a new schedule in hand, she walked up several sets of stairs and found her assigned locker. Even though she planned to download all of her books that year, she still set a combination lock on it, and then went to find her class on the same floor but around the corner.

  The school was much nicer than back home. The walls were fresh white, and the lockers weren’t marked up, rusted or beat in. It didn’t smell like urine and bleach in the halls, cigarette smoke didn’t emanate from the bathrooms, and people weren’t screaming and yelling at each other, but rather laughing and talking. Girls put on makeup and brushed their hair, and showed off their outfits to each other. Boys watched the girls, talked and laughed.

  She found her class. The teacher wasn’t in, yet, so she sat in a seat midway into the room. A group of boys over in the corner watched her, their eyes going up and down, making her nervous.

  Right as she sat, the same voice she’d heard earlier that day yelled, “That’s my seat, idiot!”

  The blonde girl’s face was fuchsia.

  “Sorry,” Piper muttered.

  She stood up and found a seat even further to the back of the room.

  Although she’d managed to make a fool of herself that morning, she left class feeling slightly relieved. She worried about what it would be like attending a school with kids from good families, but it wasn’t all that bad. In fact, she found that, unlike back home, the teachers and the kids were much calmer, more polite and respectful. The teacher made requests, and the kids obeyed, only rarely causing problems. Then the teacher asked for the prior week’s homework, and every single student turned it in without a fuss.

  In her old school, it wasn’t uncommon that within the first thirty minutes, the teacher would have assigned half a dozen detentions as well as kicked at least one kid out of class. And, homework? Forget about it.

  Even the blonde girl, whose name was Anna, wasn’t as threatening as she thought. Yeah, she pushed her down in the street, but she was just as normal as the other kids. When class was over, and Piper walked past her down the hall, the girl pretended like she didn’t even exist. Back home, a girl like her would have tried to put her in the hospital already.

  On her way home, after school, there seemed to be fewer kids than in the morning. She was glad because she didn’t want to have to follow Anna home. But there was one girl she’d seen in the cafeteria at lunch time. She had her hair tied up in a tight bun and wore thick black glasses.

  Piper walked behind her for a while. She was extremely annoyed because the girl kept looking back at her, and then staring her up and down. She wanted to ask her what her problem was, but instead, she hung back, taking smaller steps so that the girl got far ahead of her.

  When she got to her corner, the girl turned left. This frustrated her because she was going the same direction as her hotel. The last thing she wanted was for someone, like her, to know where she lived. It might look strange, especially considering the kind of school she went to.

  When the girl turned her head back once more, Piper flipped her the bird. Briefly, her eyes widened, she turned forward and kept on.

  Her motel was approaching. While her head was forward, she took the moment to run as quickly as she could through the glass doors.

  “Slow down!” said the man behind the desk.

  Piper walked up the stairs. In her room, she threw down her bag and went to the window to see if the girl had gone.

  She pulled back the curtain and there she was at the light. She turned her head back and looked up at the hotel.

  A buzzing feeling erupted on the back of her neck. Did the girl see her run inside? She had to be very careful. Next time, she wouldn’t return to the hotel, if she were being followed. She’d keep walking until she lost her stalker. The most important thing was for her to protect her secrets.

  Over the next few days at school, Piper would continue to run into the mean girl, Anna. Anna was always in the company of her closest friend, Terry. They were in the same year as Piper, and extremely well liked. Anna was always dressed the best. Terry wasn’t so much but she was a devoted underling. All the boys admired Anna. They watched her as she walked by, and they talked, feverishly, about her when she’d gone.

  Although she was the most admired in the year, it seemed that there were different kinds of popularity. Some kids were popular for how they looked while others were popular for how smart they were, and how much recognition they got for it. This was another difference between school and back home. Back home, people weren’t ever respected for doing well, and they never would have been admired if they dressed like Anna. Yes, she was nice with her cashmere argyle sweaters and Seven jeans, but in Pittsburgh, she would’ve never been accepted.

  Anna didn’t say anything more to Piper, until one day after lunch. In the bathroom, she found her arguing with a pale faced girl she’d seen in the cafeteria at lunch times. She sat with the same girl she’d flipped off the other day.

  She had no idea what they were arguing about as their screams were deafening the way they vibrated off the bathroom walls. Normally, she would have turned around and came back later but Piper really needed to go. She tried to walk around the two when suddenly a hand flew out and smacked her right in the back of her head. Nails scratched across her ear and cheek.

  Piper was stunned. It occurred to her that she meant to hit the pale faced girl, but she expected an apology all the same.

  “What the hell was that for?”

  She dabbed the side of her cheek, which was bleeding.

  “Why don’t you mind your business and get the hell out of here!” Anna screamed.

  Piper didn’t know what got into her at that moment. All she knew was that she’d put up with a lot from way tougher girls than Anna. She wasn’t going to let her intimidate her because she was, in a way, beneath her.

  She grabbed Anna by the neck of her red sweater and swung her around and into the sink. Then she extended her fist into her face.

  The pale faced girl ran out.

  Anna swung her open hand at her, in an attempt to smack her. Piper caught her by the wrist, and smacked her on the cheek instead.

  Her face was flushed red and livid. She stood, stunned for a moment, and then violently pushed her to the ground. Then she made for the door, but Piper wasn’t going to let her get the last attack. She stood up and grabbed her by the collar again, and swung her into a bathroom stall. The neck of her sweater ripped and the sound of her splashing into the toilet echoed off the walls. Some water even sprinkled Piper in the face.

  Suddenly, there was a lot of laughter. She hadn’t realized it, but the word that there was a fight spread fast. Now, there were a dozen students in the bathroom, watching, and some boys, too.

  Anna tried to run past Piper and head for the door, but the pale faced girl had returned. She stuck out her foot, and Anna fell to the floor.

  The crowd roared again.

  Then Anna’s friend, Terry, entered the bathroom. Right behind her was a teacher who told them all to go to class or face punishment. Then she forced her and Anna to the principal’s office.

  Needless to say, Piper and Anna were both suspended for the rest of the week. Piper didn’t really care because she felt the girl got what was coming to her. No, it didn’t look good for her, especially being only her second week at school, but she was glad that she stood up for herself. And as she walked home that day, feeling good, she promised herself that she’d live up to the reputation of the fierce tigress that came out of her that day in the restroom. There would always be someone stronger than she, but let those worthy of bullying her put her down. Never, would she allow someone like Anna to get one over on her.

  Not ever again.

  She was so engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t hear the girl coming up, behind her.

  “Hey, that was pretty funny how you got Anna in the toilet bowl.”

  The girl whom she flipped off was walking beside her. D
ressed in her usual black, and looking like a mysterious librarian, she smiled wide.

  “My friends were laughing about it all through class.”

  “Oh, you know, it’s really not funny, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, laughing at another’s misery.”

  She looked at her a moment, and then said, “You take things really seriously, don’t you? You look like a serious type.”

  They walked a bit in silence. Then she said, “It’s not that we want to laugh at people’s misery, it’s just that girl is a mean girl. Sometimes, you can try and try to talk but people don’t hear you. Sometimes, you have to fight. Well, today, that’s what you did, right? I know that girl was harassing you on your first day. We all heard the stuff she was saying about you.”

  “Really,” she said sounding surprised. “I didn’t know she was talking about me.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We hardly listened. Everyone knows what a no brain that chick is. Yeah, she’s got a rich dad and all, but she’s not that cool. She even almost flunked out of statistics.”

  Piper laughed to herself.

  “Yeah, I think it’s funny, too. If she doesn’t marry well, she’ll be on welfare for sure.”

  Despite learning what kind of kids she went to school with, it was still appalling to hear the girl speak that way of Anna. Back home, a kid would be made fun of for passing statistics, not failing it. No one cared if people were smart and in fact, it seemed like it was cooler not to be smart.

  “My name is Linda.”

  “Piper.”

  “You live in that hotel, huh? It’s not a very nice one. How come you don’t have a house? You’re not poor, are you?”

  Piper didn’t know what to say. Her face got hot and her eyebrows furrowed, involuntarily.

  “What? Am I being rude?” she said mockingly.

  “Go away.”

  Piper walked ahead of her.

  “What?” she said, running to catch up. “I’m just kidding. I don’t care where you live. Hey, invite me up and we can do homework together. I don’t want to go home. I hate my mother. She drives me crazy.”

  She looked at the girl. Eagerness was in her eyes.

  “I can’t. I have to do chores and homework. Plus, I’m not allowed to have guests.”