Salvaging Grapes (Playlist)

by Michele Dunlap

  I hear her slow down behind me and I turn to see her stop and shake the water from her face. She walks back in the other direction shaking her face and twitching her ears. The lightning zips across the sky again, this time electrify the sobbing clouds. I see an open window the the basement of a building and wriggle down in. I lay on the cold marble floor shaking from the inside out, heaving. I catchy my breath and close my eyes.

  The room is dark, but my eyes see the bright, beautiful yellow from the sun. My brain stem is vibrating with lively energy and it's traveling up and down my spine. I feel like I am in euphoria. I feel that I am not who I am, but I am only consciousness. My limbs are vibrating energy from the inside out but I am still, just vibrating within. Kundalini. Finally.

  I never want it to end but I feel like I'm falling through the floor. I feel like I'm weightless. I don't want to open my eyes, but my stomach is doing flips like it would if I were on a roller coaster. I know I'm only lying on the ground and I shouldn't open my eyes because the feeling will stop. Reality will start.

  A sound breaks my concentration and my eyes open; the feeling tingles down and subsides.

  The Library

  The neck of Dot's guitar hits against the metal desk and the strings pang. She silences it quickly but the sound has already travelled and Frizz shuffles over to the wall. She slides along it and peeks in through the doorway. Frizz can see the tip of the Fender poking out. The light from the emergency exit is shining on the silver tuning tabs and draws her eyes right to it.

  "Whose there?" Frizz whispers.

  Dot sits perfectly still, waiting for her to go away.

  "I see you," Frizz whispers. "I see your guitar."

  Dot looks over at her bass guitar sticking out like a sore thumb. She pulls back on it and squishes herself further into the desk. Dot peeks over at the doorway and can see a long, blonde, lion's mane of hair poof out and around the edge of the doorway. Frizz sticks to the wall like algae. It's quiet for a moment, neither of the girls even breathe. Dot finally breaks the silence.

  "I just came in to get out of the rain," she lied. Her eyeballs scan the area but she keeps her ears perfectly still, waiting for a response.

  "Me too," said Frizz, "well, actually my car broke down."

  Dot straightens her back, holds a puzzling look, and bumps her head on the desk.

  "Ah, dang it," she grabs her head and crawls out of the crammed space, she walks over to the doorway rubbernecking as far as she can to see who is behind the wall.

  Her guitar is strapped tightly to her and she's swung it around so that it hangs from her back. Dot looks over Frizz, up and down, front to back.

  "I'm Frizz," she says.

  "Interesting," replies Dot.

  "What's interesting?" Frizz asks.

  Frizz has mud caked and splattered on her back and all over the back of her legs. Her pants have torn in areas from snagging on thorn bushes and tree branches. Her poof of yellow hair collected leaves and twigs along the way.

  "Are you running away?" Frizz points to Dot's backpack.

  Dot smiles, "Not really. I'll be eighteen in a few months. Are you?"

  "Nah," Frizz waves her arm in the air at that, "I'm on my way to California. My car broke down then I ended up running from..."

  "You're car?" Dot perks up.

  "Yeah, I was on my way to California when..."

  "California?" Dot says, "That's funny, I'm on my way to California, too."

  Frizz starts pulling leaves from her hair and brushing off her clothes. Dot points down the hall to the bathroom and they walk quietly, each observing the paintings on the wall as they pass. The bathroom door closes heavily behind them and their every sound echoes.

  "This place has great acoustics," Dot says. "This place has great acoustics!" She yells again.

  Frizz flips her head upside down and shakes out her hair under the hand dryer. It sounds like a jet plane.

  Dot takes off her book bag and places her guitar gently on top. She pees in the stall with the door open. She takes the extra roll of toilet paper on the back of the toilet and puts it in her back pack. Frizz watches.

  "I might need it," Dot says and she goes for the bar of soap next. She wraps the soap in a few of those brown, recycled towels. They remind her of the day she was born. Disposable baby blankets.

  The jet engines stop and Frizz goes to the sink next to wash her face and arms.

  "So you're going to California?" Frizz takes a few towels from the holder and dries her face.

  Dot sits on a wicker chair with an ugly, flower print pillow, places the bass across her lap and plucks at the strings.

  Dot smiles, "Yep. What are the fucking chances?" she tucks her bottom lip in a little, cocks her head to the side, and holds out her empty hands. "But you said your car broke down."

  "Oh yeah," Frizz says, "but it's a real easy fix."

  "Did you hear that?" asks Frizz.

  Dot holds herself perfectly still.

  It's like a whisper, a panting.

  They turn their heads to look out the window it looks like the sun has been dawning without them realizing.

  "What time do you think it is?" Frizz asks, her pounding heart amplifies and she can hear the blood pump in her eardrums.

  "It's a ghost." Dot says, having a little fun.

  Dot gathers her bag and guitar and they quietly close the heavy door behind them. With tip toes they head around the corner. They poke their heads around to see KC lying of the cold marble floor panting like a panther and crying and laughing at the same time.

  "Are you OK?" Frizz calls out from the doorway.

  KC pops up and wipes her eyes.

  "Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm fine."

  "You don't seem fine," Dot says, poking her head around from behind Frizz's big hair.

  KC gets up and looks back up at the window. "No, really. I'm fine. I should start heading back now. I was actually just out for a run and I slipped in here to get out of the rain." She secures her foot onto the desk below the window and hoists herself up.

  There is noise upstairs, keys jingling, heels clicking. The sun has finally fought through the clouds revealing true time through the window.

  "Guess we're going back the way we came," whispers Frizz and she hoists herself up and out of the window.

  "So where are you going back to?" Dot asks, pulling herself up and out through the window.

  "St. Margaret's."

  "Why did you run away?" Dot asks.

  "I didn't run away," KC lies. She quite literally did run away.

  "We could use a drummer," Frizz added.

  Dot looks at Frizz, puzzled.

  "I play guitar," Frizz says, "you play bass, obviously," she adds, "so all we need is a drummer."

  "I can't play the drums. Never mind, I have to go back. Sorry, good luck you guys" KC turns to walk away.

  "Wait," Frizz says, "we'll wait for you. It's too much of a coincidence that we met here tonight. I can go get my car and we will pick you up."

  "I don't think so," KC mumbles. "Besides, my parents are either going to outright kill me or strap me to a bed to do an exorcism," she says sarcastically.

  "So, you did run away?" Dot says.

  "No, I didn't run away because I'm going back to face what I did," KC says. "I have to."

  "What did you do?" Frizz asks.

  "Never mind. Sorry, that sounds awesome and I could really use a fucking vacation, to be honest, but I have to go back and face what I did." KC says. "Bye, guys. Good luck," KC waves a hand at them and jogs away.

  Salvaging Grapes

  California Tour

  Chapter One

  Cue Life

  "You, yourself, said it was meant to be. What do you do when things are meant to be? Just forget about them? Just because they don't work themselves out right in front of you doesn't mean it isn't meant to be!" Dot argues. "Sometimes you have to make them be if it's what you really want."

  Frizz makes the turn around a re
d brick pillar onto St. Margaret's campus, and her junkyard car is running a little loud and thunderous. Honestly, the thing drives like a Cadillac. It's as big as a rusty yellow boat, but the interior is still red, plush and new car smelling. She rolls the huge steering wheel with ease, over speed bumps and along white lines. She stops in a parking space but not before the brakes give a squeaking kiss to the tires. She turns the key and the engine gurgles and hisses for a few seconds, before quieting down it gives a few random ticks and clunks.

  Dot looks out the open window and sticks out her tongue like a happy puppy, "Lexus, Lincoln, BMW, Jaguar, holy shit!"

  She pushes the heavy door open, gets out of the car and slams it back shut with a big, clunking thud. Walking around to the front, she leans her butt against the hood. Crossing both her arms and ankles Dot watches from a distance as the school girls file, single line, into the church. She scans the area with sun squinted eyes and doesn't see anyone else in the parking lot, so she walks over to the car in the next space and leans her butt against that one. That one is an all black jaguar with black tinted windows and all black interior. Dot puts her hands behind her and wiggles the jaguar emblem in attempt to pry it from the hood. It takes some real effort, but the sucker will only come loose a tiny bit.

  She walks around to the driver's side of Frizz's car and reaches in her open window to press the pop trunk button. Frizz isn't saying anything, but she watches Dot, and she watches out for anyone who might come into view. Dot goes to the trunk and takes out a microphone stand, one that Frizz took from her garage. She takes the stand, made of solid iron, and whacks the hood ornament. The silver jaguar falls off, bounces, and tings on the concrete. Dot picks it up and puts the microphone stand back into the trunk.

  She rummages for more in the trunk, and after a few moments of digging, she finds a roll of black electrical tape. She closes the trunk and takes the hood ornament to the front of Frizz's car, where she tapes the thing right in the center.

  "So where do we go to find her?" Frizz shouts from her car window.

  "Well, now is a good a time as any to go find out. While everyone's at church, c'mon," Dot waves Frizz from the car.

  Ahead of them, a dorm. Built in 1862, the building says so. It also says things like study group reminder, and, bible camp volunteers, and, Jesus saves. The doors stand three times the size of Dot and Frizz and as they enter into a lobby they slink down like they are only inches tall.

  There they stand, the parents. The parents with their child looking down at the ground, their child crying and shaking, their child humiliated and terrorized.

  Dot and Frizz are about fifty feet away from the crowd of parents, nuns, and school principals. They cloud around KC like fighting cats and dogs in a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Dot makes a clicking sound with her mouth and luckily KC is the only one who notices. She sees the girls, Frizz smiles and waves her to come on and Dot stands there with her hands out expressing urgency. KC looks up at her parents.

  They are practically foaming at the mouth with fury and her father's face is red from raging rebuttals to the nuns, to her roommate's parents. KC shuffles to the side and slides away unnoticed. Dot and Frizz go out the door and get into the car. Frizz fires it up and throws it in reverse. She pulls around to the front of the steps that lead to the dorm.

  Moments later, KC barges out the doors and runs down the steps. Dot opens the car door and leans her seat up so KC can jump in the back.

  "Get back here, you little devil!" Sister Mary barges out the door after her. She shakes her fist and yells.

  "Sorry, Sister Mary!" KC shouts an apology out the open car window as Frizz pulls away. The three rumble out of the parking lot.

  Cue life.

  Special Thanks

  Thank you for purchasing this ebook on amazon.com! There are many more books to come, including more of the Salvaging Grapes series. This author welcomes any honest feedback. Please review this book by following this link:

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  http://www.amazon.com/Michele-Dunlap/e/B00ELKNWH8/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

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