I thought it was a marvelous word.
I was five and told Daddy this wonderful new word.
He slapped me across the face and dragged me into his room where he slapped me some more. The next day he asked me to tell him the new word I’d learned. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be beat again. He insisted, said it would be okay. Hesitantly, I told him.
He grabbed me so hard by the shoulder it dislocated. It was the first time he’d dislocated my shoulder.
He yelled at me, said the devil had captured my soul and was using my mouth to speak. He left me on my bed, dislocated shoulder and all, to pray for my sins. My shoulder swelled and blackened.
Later that night Mama came to visit me for the first time. She shoved the shoulder back in place, but I never regained full motility.
When I heard people swear, I got a commingled sense of freedom and fear. The words felt like Mama sneaking into my room in the dead of night and slamming my shoulder back into place. They also felt like the nights when I would whisper, under the cloak of my blanket, the words that caused me so much pain. I wasn’t sure why I whispered them to myself. If Daddy were to find me, the pain I would endure would be great. Even so, something inside me thrilled at the sound spilling from my lips.
“What happened to your face, Grace?” Eli repeated. He reached out to my face, but hesitated. I must have flinched.
“I fell down,” I whispered, looking down. I was embarrassed that I was ugly and so unlike the other people he played with.
A cloud passed overhead, giving the brief illusion of dusk. Distantly I heard the sound of a plane passing, the circular buzzing of its engine growing then fading into the distance. Every sound was magnified to me, so much more than when I just sat by my window and listened.
Eli gave me a look, but didn’t press the issue. “Have you ever read To Kill A Mockingbird?”
“Yes!” I perked up, finally excited to have something in common.
“So you remember Boo Radley an’ his tree?”
I nodded.
“What I’m getting at is,” Eli continued. “Since ya don’t have a phone or email, when we want to meet we can put something in this tree.” Eli walked away, gesturing for me to follow him. I followed cautiously since we were entering someone’s yard.
I looked around nervously. “Can we be here?”
“This is the Nelsons’ yard,” Eli said, as if that explained everything. I followed him past the house and into the backyard. It all seemed so strange to me. I would never have thought it was okay to just walk into that place, but Eli led with such confidence that I didn’t question it.
The backyard was well kept, unlike mine. Where we had overgrown wheat bushes and grass, this yard had a nice green lawn, a small fountain, and even a birdhouse. It was like walking through a magical forest.
“Here’s the tree.” Eli stopped in front of a large sugar maple tree. “And here is the hole. I was thinking we could stick notes and letters in here and that’s how we can communicate.” I nodded, smiling big. It was brilliant.
“Eli Jackson! What are you doing to my tree?”
I froze at the unfamiliar adult voice. Caught. We were caught and we were going to be punished.
“Young Eli has been spending time with me since he was just a little boy,” Mrs. Nelson explained. With her short white hair done up curly and her round rosy cheeks, Mrs. Nelson reminded me of one of the characters in the fairytales Mama used to read me. I never imagined the people in books could be real, but here was Mrs. Nelson, smiling and completely real.
“Mrs. Nelson has the best jellybeans,” Eli added.
I nodded, even though I had no idea what jellybeans were. To be honest, I was still a little shaken from before. Mrs. Nelson turned out to be sweet, sweeter than any adult I’d ever known, but I still felt like an interloper in her house. She’d only been joking when she’d yelled at me and Eli in her yard, but my heart was racing. I couldn’t help but think any minute now I was going to get a switch to my behind.
“Would you like some jellybeans, dear?” Mrs. Nelson smiled at me; come to think of it, she hadn’t stopped smiling since we’d come inside. I didn’t know how to answer her question. I didn’t know what jellybeans were, but they sounded strange. The entire place was strange.
Eli answered for me. “We both would, Mrs. Nelson.”
“Where is Mr. Nelson?” I asked Eli as Mrs. Nelson left the room, presumably to go get jellybeans. It was just Eli and me alone in her living room.
“He died a couple years ago.”
“She lives alone?” I asked, shock lacing my voice like lightning in a storm.
He eyed me curiously at the tone in my voice, but shrugged. “Yep.” Touching a bobble on the wall, he continued. “She has enough money, I think.”
I turned away from Eli, still stunned by the knowledge that Mrs. Nelson was living alone. Daddy had always told me that women couldn’t live alone, that they needed a man. Mrs. Nelson was living alone and doing quite fine, it appeared. Everything about her home proclaimed “content.”
Her house was different than mine. Mine was filled with dark wooden furniture and the shades were almost always drawn so that sunlight didn’t streak in. Daddy said it was so the sun didn’t stain the furniture. Mrs. Nelson’s house, on the other hand, was bright and sunny and covered with stuffed animals.
I’d only had one stuffed animal growing up, which Daddy had eventually thrown away when I was bad. She had stuffed animals all over the place. They covered her piano, her chairs, and were even on the floor. I was so intrigued by them that I didn’t notice a key, distinguishing feature in one stuffed animal: it was alive.
“Oh!” I fell back, startled as a dog jumped out from among the animals.
“I see you’ve met Charlie,” Mrs. Nelson said, walking back into the room.
Charlie padded up to me, tongue out, and placed his head on my lap. I place my hand gingerly on his head, unsure of what to do. The only dogs I knew were the hellhounds Daddy talked about. Those were rabid beasts. Charlie licked my hand, very unbeastlike.
Mrs. Nelson handed us a bag of brightly colored beans before saying, “He’s gentler than a lamb.” I took the bag and nodded at her, still uncertain of the furry head in my lap.
“So, darling,” Mrs. Nelson said, turning to me. “I thought I knew all the children on this block.”
Still watching Charlie, I replied, “I live down the street. The house on the corner.”
The old lady nodded sagely. “You’re the Walls’ daughter then.”
I nodded, watching as Charlie lifted his head, tongue out.
“Do you attend school with Eli?”
“No,” Eli answered before I could. “She was just outside on the street.”
I swallowed, feeling that I was going to give away some secret that even I didn’t know. “I… My parents homeschool me.”
“And you’re happy?” Mrs. Nelson asked, her eyes getting small beneath the lids.
I couldn’t look away from Charlie. His tongue was long and pink and his eyes switched from mine to the bag and back to mine. Mrs. Nelson had asked me a question, and Daddy had always taught me that when an adult asked a question, you had to respond.
I didn’t know the answer, though. No one had ever asked me that question before.
“He wants your jellybeans,” Eli interrupted.
“Can he have them?” I asked, still not sure what jellybeans were or what normal, not-raised-in-hell dogs ate. The dogs I knew were raised on the flesh of sinners. This dog, Charlie, looked so kind and sweet. He could have all my jellybeans.
“Oh bless you child, no, Charlie can’t have the jellybeans.”
Sometime later we left. I never did answer Mrs. Nelson’s question. As Eli and I walked along the sidewalk, I still contemplated what Mrs. Nelson had asked. Am I happy?
Eli poked me in the arm, pulling me out of my thoughts. “You didn’t eat the jellybeans.”
I looked at the colorful beans
in the clear plastic bag. “I’m saving them for later,” I lied.
Truthfully, I just didn’t want to look like an idiot when I ate them for the first time. What if it was obvious that I’d never had a jellybean? Eli could already tell there was something off about me; I didn’t want to make him think I was weird. I didn’t want him to stop talking to me. That day had been the best day of my life.
Eli nodded, believing my lie. “Will I see you again, Grace?”
I rolled the colorful beans in my hand and then looked up at Eli’s questioning face. I knew Daddy was going to beat me. I knew I shouldn’t have left. I knew I shouldn’t have talked with Eli, and I knew the jellybeans in my hands were contraband. But…I wanted to see him again so badly. It was all I wanted in the world.
“Yes.”
We had until the end of the month to fork over two hundred dollars each. Apparently that was a really good deal there, but to me it seemed like an impossible task. Two hundred dollars? You may as well have asked me to make a million dollars.
Bottom line: Vera and I needed jobs.
I’d never had a job before. Daddy had said the only place a woman worked was in the kitchen and in the bedroom. That meant that growing up, I never got much work experience. Eli taught me about resumes, so I knew enough to know that I didn’t have one. School experience? I didn’t think my homeschooling was going to look very good.
Still, I had to do something.
I remembered back in town the corner store had put up a “Help Wanted” sign in the window when their bagger boy had stopped showing up. That was right around the time Zero came to town. Come to think of it, there were a lot of “Help Wanted” signs in the windows when Zero came to town.
As I walked the streets of Santa Barbara, I didn’t see any “Help Wanted” signs. All the stores were an odd marriage of uninviting and begging me to enter, like they wanted my business but were too cool to as for it.
I turned down another street, wondering what my plan was. In the near distance I could see a shopping center. Though the architecture was old-timey, it looked like it had a few new stores and restaurants. It appeared my plan had materialized before me.
I entered a store and the air conditioning blasted me almost as hard as the loud poppy music. All the workers were either busy with customers or folding things. I didn’t want to bother them, but I knew I needed to get an application; it was the reason I’d crossed the street, entered the shopping center, and chosen the store.
The line for the register was pretty long, at least ten people, but I figured if I waited in it I could at least talk to the cashier. So I waited. I picked a place and stood in line, even though I didn’t have anything to buy. The longer I waited the sillier I felt, until I finally reached the cashier. She opened her mouth to ask for my items, but when she saw I didn’t have anything, she waited for me to explain.
“Do you have an application?” I asked.
“A what?” The cashier tilted her head to the side, smiling.
“For a job here,” I explained, feeling dumber by the moment. “Do you have an application?”
A look of understanding spread across her face and she smiled. “Oh, okay. No, sorry. You can apply online though. That’s how I got the job.” I thanked her meekly and left, feeling like everyone was looking at me as I slunk out of the store. I simply didn’t understand how things worked.
I sat on a bench shaded by palm trees. A cool breeze blew my hair and it tickled my face. I sighed, sinking into the stone against my back. It was hard to feel bad for very long there.
Across the street, nestled between two rundown looking shops was a small building with a big retro sign that said “Java”. Feeling like an outsider, I was about ready to give up after that one experience, but hey, I’d met Vera at a coffee shop; maybe the one across the street would hold similar luck.
The manager eyed me shrewdly. She had short, spiky, platinum blonde hair and one side was shaved completely. Her ears had big holes I could see through. I thought they were called gauges, but I couldn’t remember for certain. It wasn’t like Daddy covered those in homeschooling and we hadn’t gotten many girls looking like her back in my town.
“Do you have any experience?” she asked.
“No ma’am,” I answered truthfully.
She tapped the small table we were sitting at. “Why do you want to work here?”
I need a job or I’ll be homeless again, I thought. If I kept looking, I might land a job at a place like the one I’d just left: a nice, big retail giant with loud music and cold air.
I shrugged, replying honestly. “I need a job, but I don’t want it to just be any job; does that make sense?”
Big earrings and blonde hair eyed me again before a small smile escaped her lips. “When can you start?”
“How did it go?”
I’d barely entered the overly air-conditioned apartment when Vera was on me like white on rice. I liked Vera. She was upbeat, brazen, and unlike anyone I’d known. Still, at that moment, I just wanted to sink into the couch and let my mind go. It felt like since leaving Georgia my mind was always back there, that since leaving I was stuck there more than ever, trapped in memories. I needed a few moments to decompress.
I shrugged off my messenger bag, placed my keys on the table by the door, and sat on the couch.
“It went well,” I said. The patio doors were open and I could smell the ocean. Despite having been there for nearly a week, I still couldn’t believe it. I was in California. I was near the beach. I had escaped, gotten out. The beach was only a walk away. I could actually walk there. I could walk to the edge of the world and see its end.
I shook my head again.
I’d heard of kids going to parties with Navy boys out on the Georgia coast. I knew that California wasn’t the only beach with the only ocean in the US. I didn’t need to trek across the US to see the edge of the world—though in a way, I had. In Georgia I was trapped in the middle of nowhere, held in place as if my feet were stuck in tar.
Vera sat next to me, a drink in her hand that smelled faintly of alcohol.
“Well.” She nudged me with her shoulder, careful not to spill her drink. “Don’t leave me hangin’. Did you get the job?”
I nodded, feeling more tired than I should have at two p.m. My eyelids felt stuck by glue and my shoulders weighed by stones. “I got the job. I start next week, making twelve dollars an hour with dental.”
“Hot damn!” Vera practically screamed. “We need to celebrate. I made sweet tea mint juleps. I’ll go pour you one.”
I raised a hand to stop her but she was already in the kitchen. I was not in the mood to drink. I could count on my hand the number of times I’d had alcohol, which still seemed like a lot considering Daddy had said it was the devil’s juice. That wasn’t the reason I didn’t want it now, though.
As Vera walked in with my drink, I waved her off. She shrugged, placing the drink on the coffee table.
“What’s up, Grace? You look like someone kicked your pup.”
I sighed. “I’m worried.”
“About…” Vera laughed. “It’s like pulling teeth with you.”
I laughed despite my worries. I couldn’t help it; Vera was contagious. Settling down, I explained, “I moved to Santa Barbara to meet my brother, not to become a barista.”
Vera nodded, taking a big sip of mint julep. “We’ve never really talked about how we came here. You know we were just thrust together in this situation. I’m glad, because you’re cooler than the ice in my drink”—Vera gestured to her nearly empty drink—“still, two young, hot southern chicks in California? There’s a story there.”
“What’s your story?” I asked.
“Well an ex done me wrong, of course.” Vera laughed.
Since I’d met her, Vera had always been in some form of laughter. Whether she was giggling, smiling, or full on gut-busting, there was laughter in her. It was like life was one big joke to her. The fact that she was homeless and all of h
er possessions had been stolen didn’t even deter her from joking.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked. I didn’t know how to approach the subject. Heck, I didn’t even know how to approach people, much less people with serious issues. Did I hug her? Did I touch her? Did I pretend she hadn’t just confided something so intimate in me?
Vera smiled and rested a hand on my knee. “That’s all in the past. I don’t know about you, darling, but I’m living in the present.” That seemed like a good idea. Living in the present… I wondered how you did that, ignored the past and its awful memories and just be.
My gaze drifted back to the open patio doors. I could see the ocean’s blue waters so easily. We were right there; the ocean was just in front of us. I was so lucky to be able to look up and see the vast, sprawling expanse. It was such an intense blue, reminding me of the blue skies back home in the summer…
Would I ever be free of my memories when everything acted as a reminder?
“So what about this brother?” Vera’s voice brought me back to the living room.
“He wants nothing to do with me,” I muttered, eyes still set on the intense Carolina blue.
“Seems to me that it’s time to let that horse go.”
I turned my head back to Vera. “What?”
She flipped a hand, as if waving away an imaginary bug. “He wants nothing to do with you, have nothing to do with him.”
I hadn’t considered that a possibility. “The entire reason I came to California was Vic.”
Vera shrugged, sipping her drink. “So?”
“So?” I quipped. “So I might not’ve come out here at all.”
“And I say again, so?” Vera set her now empty drink on the coffee table. “Does it matter why you’re here? You’re here. The sky is sometimes blue, the ocean is always blue, and you’ve got nothin’ tying you down. Stop worrying. You’re too young for that.”
Let Me Go (Owned Book 2) Page 3
