by Foxglove Lee
“Yeah, I know.” I didn’t tell them I’d been talking to Tiffany almost until the sun went down.
After Tiffany had gone back in the Jones’s cottage, I still hadn’t wanted to come back, so walked down to the water to skip rocks. When I got close to the beach, I spotted a fire roaring in the pit. I knew who it was. There was no mistaking the raucous howl of teenaged boys. At least I could be sure that Tiffany wasn’t with them. I got a little closer to see if there were any girls among their ranks, but it was just dark enough that I couldn’t tell.
“Hey, kid! Kid, look over here a sec.”
I froze as one of the older guys shone a flashlight in my face. When my muscles finally let me move, I shielded my eyes against the blazing light. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could certainly hear their dog-like sneers, smell their vomitus beer breath. My feet were like iron, or I’d have run a mile.
The flashlight snapped off and all I could see were bright spots and fire.
“You’re free to go,” the guy with the flashlight said. “Just wanted to see if you were as fugly at night as you are during the day.”
“Get bent!” I hollered, pushing my voice down so it would sound as low and threatening as theirs. It didn’t work, of course. It never worked, but that didn’t stop me trying.
Everybody laughed, and all I could think—literally the one and only thought in my head—was how glad I was that Tiffany hadn’t been there to hear it. Guys like that weren’t worth the time it took to kick them in the balls, but there was always a part of me that raged when they made fun of me. Every time, every single time, they took a little piece of my sanity. They stole something that was mine, and I’d never get it back.
A bright, fiery flash soared through the air, and I realized one of the idiots had thrown a lit cigarette at me. My throat made a weird noise, like if a whimper mated with a groan. Actually, it sounded a bit like Curly from the Three Stooges. They must have heard because they laughed even harder as my feet carried me away.
Even then, I didn’t come straight home. I probably should have, but I didn’t. The shoreline was as familiar to me as my mother’s face, and in that moment I needed something safe and soothing.
Beyond the beach, there was a stretch of rocky shoreline. It had been left to its own devices so long that small trees started growing there, almost in the water. After that, it was the docks and the marina, which was closed at that hour, and then the government pier Mikey and me fished from, because Aunt Libby and Uncle Flip didn’t have a boat. After that, the gravel road rumbled along the shoreline so close to the water that you felt like you were on a raft whenever you drove that way. There wasn’t much out there, except a few giant cottages—the kind millionaires commissioned as summer homes. The kind that could be on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
I walked all the way to the Richie Rich cottages before turning around. Part of me wanted to sneak up to the windows and look inside, see what the fancy people were eating for dinner, but when I got there all the lights were off at the first one. The second one, too. They were both completely dark.
My stomach churned, not only because I was starving, but because it made me so angry that there were huge, gorgeous houses out here and nobody lived in them. My aunt and uncle and brother and I were staying in a cabin where you could only flush the toilet once a day, and those giant cottages probably had thirteen bathrooms and an indoor pool. It didn’t seem fair.
I very rarely imagined what it would be like if I were rich, because every time I did my stomach tied itself in knots. If I were rich, I think I’d hate myself.
“Becca?” Uncle Flip looked at me with such concern my heart pretty much ripped in half. “Your aunt asked you a question. Where have you been all evening?”
I could have just said, “I was out walking around.” I could have apologized for running off, for missing dinner. Hell, I could even have apologized for messing up my room. But I didn’t.
“I’m so sick of everyone interfering in my life!” I cried. “In two years I’ll be eighteen, and then I’ll never have to tell anyone where I’ve been. I can stay out all night if I want and you can’t do a thing!”
Aunt Libby smacked her hand on the Formica table top. “Well, you’re not eighteen yet, young lady. If you ask me, you’re scarcely acting like a girl of eight.”
“Libby,” Uncle Flip whispered, but she wasn’t paying attention to him.
“You’re not too old to be grounded, Rebecca Jane Warren!”
I don’t know what got into me, but I screamed, “You bet your ass I am!”
Aunt Libby’s eyes shot wide open. She picked up a teaspoon from the table and pointed it like a weapon. “You just lost your chance at dinner. I had a plate in the oven for you, but if that’s the kind of language you care to use, you can just forget about it.”
My stomach rumbled, and I screamed, “Fine!” just to cover up the noise. Ducking into my room, I slammed the door, but it squealed and then croaked and remained open a good half-inch. No matter what I did, I could never have any privacy in this cottage. Never.
I fell onto my mattress and gazed up at the ceiling. The cottage wiring was all very makeshift, so we had lamps in every room instead of overhead lighting. My lamp was tall and looked like it had been painted gold at one point, but had faded to bronze since. It usually had a lampshade on its head, but now the bulb burned bare and the light blazed against my eyeballs.
Sitting up on my naked mattress, I looked around the room. Even if Mikey had been super-mad at me, there’s no way he would have caused such a disaster. He wasn’t the type to get back at me behind my back, and, anyway, I was pretty sure we were even for the mud-slinging.
Who could have done this?
In the next room, I heard the radio click into my aunt’s country and western station. She was probably working on her crochet, and that made me wonder where my needlepoint had gone to. If I knew Uncle Flip, he was reading a book. He liked mysteries and intrigue, or anything with mobsters, secret agents, that sort of thing. The picture I had in my head made me want to go out there and be with them, to sit quietly and craft the hours away like when I was younger, before I started picking fights I was bound to lose.
“So tell them you’re sorry,” Yvette said.
When I looked up at her, she was smiling, but there was a weird look in her eyes. She seemed different in a way I couldn’t quite pinpoint.
“Sorry for what? I didn’t do anything.”
“Just tell them you did.”
“But I didn’t!”
“They’ll give you dinner if you apologize.”
My stomach devoured itself. Mushroom chicken wasn’t the most exciting dish in the world, but I was hungry enough to settle for just the potatoes at that point.
“No they won’t,” I said. “My aunt’s really mad.”
“She’s not the only one,” Yvette muttered. Her voice had gone rough as gravel, and it made my skin prick.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Her voice was light and airy again when she said, “Nothing.”
“Yeah, I know what nothing means,” I told Yvette. “It means you’ll pretend to be fine for five minutes, then explode at me the second I turn my back.”
Yvette chuckled. “You know me too well.”
“You’re pretty predictable.”
“And you’re not?” she shot back.
I wasn’t sure exactly how or why we’d ended up in an argument, but after the day I’d just had, I couldn’t take any more. “I’m not going to fight with you, Yvette.”
“I’m not going to fight with you either.”
“Good.”
“Great.”
I dropped down on my bed, expecting to land on a pillow. A bolt like lightning shot down my neck as my head struck my mattress, which predated spring coils and rested not on top of a box spring, but on top of a long wooden box. There were drawers in the box for storage, but I never used them because the whole unit reminded me of a cof
fin.
After a terse moment, Yvette asked, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“I hate that word—fine.” Yvette clicked her teeth. “You only use it when you’re mad.”
“No,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest. “I also say it when I’m fine.”
We were quiet again. As I stared at the panel ceiling, my mind swelled with thoughts of Tiffany. I wanted to close my eyes and fantasize about her teeny-weeny blue bikini, but I pushed all that aside. If Yvette really could read my mind, she’d be angry as hell.
So, instead, I focused on my encounter by the beach. I used to be able to tell Yvette anything. Now I could only tell her certain things, and I felt like I was drowning, suffocating, and even if I pulled myself up to the surface and got a big gulp of air, I could never be sure that she wouldn’t grab my head and dunk me right back under. I was always in danger.
“Some guys at the beach said I was ugly.”
“I wouldn’t say ugly.” Yvette chuckled in that uniquely cruel way of hers. “You just need a little mascara, some lipstick, blush, that’s all. Well, and also a good foundation and extra concealer to cover up that acne. I mean, my God, Rebecca, do you bathe in grease? Then some powder, and you’re done.”
“Thanks,” I groaned.
“Oh, I forgot about eye shadow. And liner. You know, just the basics.”
I sat up and looked in the antique mirror above my low dresser. It was rusted and blotchy, which didn’t help any to block out the red pimple patches on my chin and my forehead. I hadn’t had a haircut since March. My bangs had grown out so much I had to use a hairband to push them out of my eyes, but they stuck up everywhere and I looked like a messy little kid.
“I don’t like wearing makeup. It feels weird.”
“Suit yourself,” Yvette clucked. “Your choice, if you want to look like a child for the rest of your life.”
“It isn’t a matter of looking like a kid or an adult, it’s a matter of feeling comfortable in my skin.” I took off my headband, since it was pinching behind my ears anyway, and my grown-out bangs tumbled over my face. Maybe I looked better that way—like a shaggy dog.
Yvette laughed, and this time she sounded amused instead of mean. “I dare you to wear your hair like that all day tomorrow.”
“Woolly Bully!” I flicked my hair all around. “Watch it, now, watch it, watch it, watch it!”
A glittering stream of giggles soared from Yvette’s mouth, and I felt so pleased that I’d healed the rift between us.
“That was my favourite song when I was a kid,” I said.
“Woolly Bully? Why?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It reminded me of this one guy in my dad’s band. Doug. He had a long beard and dressed like a biker. I don’t know if he actually was a biker, but he looked that way.”
My muscles went limp, and I lay down flat on my bed. Doug had died a couple years ago, of what my mother called “a hard life.” The same life my father led.
“Yvette,” I asked. “Do you think my dad’s dead?”
“No,” she scoffed without so much as a pause. “You really think your mom would hide that from you?”
I rolled onto my side, folding both hands in the warm crook of my neck. “They’re hiding something from me. Aunt Libby and Uncle Flip know what it is, but they won’t tell me.”
“They will,” she said. “Give them time.”
When I gazed up at Yvette, my heart filled with tenderness. For a moment, I couldn’t remember why I was always getting so frustrated with her. And then I glanced around my room. If I didn’t create this mess, and Mikey didn’t do it, who did? Obviously not my aunt and uncle.
I stared at Yvette, challenging her to answer the big question: who destroyed my room?
There wasn’t much of a breeze coming through the window, but suddenly Yvette’s hair started rustling. Her little orange ringlets waved at the sides of her head, like they were floating, and the sight gave me an all-over chill. Something inside of me was saying I should confront Yvette, just ask her flat-out if she’d messed up my room, but I couldn’t do it. I knew if I asked, she’d say yes, and then I’d have to ponder how a doll could possibly move physical objects.
I kept telling myself Yvette wasn’t real, that her words came from me, just like an imaginary friend. She wasn’t real. Yvette was not real…
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, her head turned. It shifted to the side, and then down, until her chin very nearly touched her shoulder. This time, when she spoke, it wasn’t just words in my head. I heard every syllable for real, heard a voice that was outside of myself. Her sweet puckered lips moved slowly and surely to form the words, “Who’s to say what’s real?”
I forgot all about Aunt Libby’s anger and Uncle Flip’s confusion. I was so scared I couldn’t even scream. All I wanted was my family.
Scrambling off my bed, I burst through my door and raced to aunt’s wide lap.
Chapter 9
“What’s gotten into you, girl?” Aunt Libby shifted her crochet out of the way. “Oh look, you’ve gone and tangled up my yarn.”
“Sorry,” I said, clutching Aunt Libby’s neck.
Uncle Flip set his book down on the table as he sauntered toward my room. “Very nice job, Becca. Now that’s what I like to see.”
I pulled my face from the lilac comfort of my aunt’s neck, but I couldn’t see what Uncle Flip was talking about. He was standing outside my bedroom with the door propped open. He looked gratified and impressed, but I couldn’t fathom why. When I slipped from my aunt’s lap, she heaved herself up from the couch and followed me to the doorway.
“What do you say, Libby? Does this deserve a late dinner, or what?”
Aunt Libby and I poked our heads into my room at exactly the same time, but her elation had nothing on my shock.
“Nice job, Rebecca Jane.” Aunt Libby patted me on the back so hard she almost sent me flying into the bedroom. “Your uncle’s right—that does deserve a plate of chicken.”
My room was beyond clean. The bed was made, hospital corners and everything, the pictures were righted on the walls, my clothes returned to my drawers, the curtains reinstated, and everything in its place. As before, the only that hadn’t budged was Yvette.
A chill travelled the length of my spine—I couldn’t say up or down. It seemed to be everywhere at once. My whole body went cold, despite the warmth in the un-air-conditioned cottage. I pulled the door shut and stood by the oven.
“The chicken’s bound to be dry,” Aunt Libby said, and I could see on her face a mixture of concern and reticence. “What made you change your mind?”
“She’s a good kid,” my uncle said. “But, Becca, I need to know what made you destroy that room in the first place. Are you mad at your aunt and me?”
“I’m sorry,” I moaned. I couldn’t pry myself away from the oven. The chill was inside me, so deep I wondered if I would ever shake it. “It won’t happen again, okay?”
“Well, I really want to get to the bottom of this,” Uncle Flip went on.
A little growl grizzled up in my throat. There was no way in hell I was going to tell them what really happened. They’d think I was nuts!
“I was just mad,” I said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me.”
“You’re a teenager,” my aunt said, twisting my hair in her hand. “Being angry for no reason is par for the course.”
It bugged me that my family thought I was just another hormonal sixteen-year-old, but it was easier to let them believe that than to convince them my room had been messed up by a porcelain doll.
My aunt brought my dinner out of the oven at eleven o’clock on the dot. I was just grabbing a trivet for her to set the plate on when the news came on the radio.
“Clarence!” my aunt shouted. “Switch the station!”
Her urgency made me jump, and my heart skittered into my throat. Aunt Libby only called Uncle Flip by his real name when she was really upset.
Normally I would have teased my aunt and uncle for acting so weird, but I’d already been in hot water. I just said, “It’s okay. You can leave it on your station.”
“No, no.” Aunt Libby set my dinner on the trivet and then kissed the top of my head. “We’ve ragged on you enough for one day. You deserve to listen to your kind of music while you eat dinner.”
“Yeah.” Uncle Flip chuckled the way people do when they’re hiding something. “I know how much you hate your aunt’s country and western.”
He surfed the airwaves until he landed on a station playing the Eurythmics, and I perked up at their synthetic sound. Even though my aunt and uncle had always derided my musical tastes, they were both smiling now. It was pretty weird, but I was too hungry to ask.
As I shovelled potatoes into my mouth, it occurred to me that Mikey hadn’t come out of his room to see what the commotion was all about. I did ask about that.
“Oh, he’s sleeping in the tepee tonight,” Uncle Flip said. “We can all do a camp-out one night, if you want.”
He and my aunt were both sitting on the couch, watching me eat. It weirded me out, but I didn’t say anything. Maybe this whole day had been a dream. Reality wasn’t usually so alarming.
After my aunt and uncle said their goodnights, they left me alone to wash my dishes. I could hear them talking about me very clearly, since their door didn’t close any better than mine did. I tried not to listen, but of course I did. How can you not listen when people are talking about you?
I left my plate, fork, knife, and cup to dry on a tea towel beside the sink, and I crept closer to their room.
“I’m really worried about that girl,” my aunt said.
“She’s been through a lot, Lib. And think how much she helps out at home. Don’t come down so hard on her. The kid deserves a break. It’s not like things are going to get any easier once Robert…”
Robert. My father. Once Robert what? Keep talking, damn it!
