A Shot at Normal

by Marisa Reichardt

  “Lots of things don’t have a federal precedent. And then someone fights hard enough to make them happen.”

  “Unfortunately, those someones aren’t usually sixteen-year-old girls.” His words make my blood boil. I’m so sick of being dismissed. He leans back in his chair. Cradles his hands behind his head. “Look, you came to me for a professional opinion, and I’m giving you one. I know it sounds impossible right now, but you should just wait until you turn eighteen.”

  “I don’t believe in impossible.” I smile. “I can’t.”

  “Well, then, I wish you the best.”

  I leave his office and jump on the city bus, knowing it will take me to the courthouse. Maybe I can find an attorney there who will help me. One coming out of a courtroom or milling around the front steps on a break. I can walk up to them and tell them my story.

  TWENTY-TWO

  My trip to the courthouse was a total bust. It seems attorneys at a courthouse don’t want to be approached by strangers asking for legal advice. I should’ve known better, but I was so eager to find help that I didn’t adequately think through my plan.

  Thankfully, I can concentrate on something else today, because it’s a couple weeks before Halloween, and everyone is completely recovered, so my parents have decided to take the whole family to the local pumpkin patch. Like everything in this town, the Playa Bonita Halloween Patch is over the top, with a hayride, fresh-pressed apple cider, tons of pumpkins, and a petting zoo.

  “So cruel,” my mom says, shaking her head at the goats and alpacas bleating behind the temporary mesh fence.

  Maybe it is cruel. But I still feel bad for Sequoia when he tugs on the hem of my mom’s sweatshirt, begging her to take him to pet the animals. I try to distract him with the one-hundred-pound pumpkin on display instead. I even help him climb on top so my dad can take a photo. And then my dad directs my mom, Poppy, and me to stand next to Sequoia. My mom takes a whiff of the crisp October air and hugs a smaller pumpkin like she’s posing for a cheesy fall catalog for gift baskets instead of a picture for my dad.

  After taking a few photos, my dad says, “You know what’d be even more awesome? All of us in the picture.” He turns around, holds out his camera. Asks, “Can you, please?” when a woman passing by looks up from her phone. She glances back at her phone again, recoils from us, and shakes her head no. Her reluctance sends a chill through me. The same chill I felt when Mary and the elderly woman and the young moms at the farmers market huddled together to whisper about my mom and me. Still, my mom, my sister, my brother, and I stand by awkwardly, holding up the line of people also wanting to climb on top of the giant pumpkin to take a photo while my dad keeps trying to find a photographer.

  “Let’s just forget it,” I say to my mom.

  “It’s fine,” she says even though her forehead creases with worry.

  But a dad with a kid finally says yes. We all pose with fake smiles while my dad talks him through operating the complicated camera he insists on using because it takes much better photos than any camera phone. And then the woman who told us no before walks up and pulls the kid away. When the man I assume is her husband turns to face her, the lens of my dad’s camera brushes her elbow and she flinches.

  “What are you doing?” she says through her clenched teeth like a ventriloquist, but I can still understand her. “That’s them. The ones from the picture online.”

  Her husband looks confused. “What picture? Online where?”

  “I just checked to make sure.” She holds up her phone, and I see a sharp photo of my mom and me standing behind our table of herbs and essential oils at the farmers market. “I knew I recognized them from the Facebook group.”

  A woman passing by squints at the photo, looks at us, pulls her daughter closer to her side, and hurries away. I notice others nearby with their heads pushed toward each other. Whispering. I catch the word measles. I spot the side-eye.

  Does everyone know who we are?

  This woman doesn’t want her husband to touch my dad’s camera because she thinks it’s covered in germs.

  She thinks we’re covered in germs.

  Untouchable. Contagious.

  “Mom,” I say, “we should go.”

  “We should,” she says. “Russ, get your camera back.”

  “No!” Sequoia shouts. “I’m not going.” He slides off the giant pumpkin and darts into the nearby patch.

  “We just got here,” Poppy says, crossing her arms. “I haven’t even picked out my pumpkin yet.” My sister doesn’t love Halloween, but she does love carving pumpkins. It’s art. She’s been working on designs in her sketchbook all week, including on the car ride over here.

  “We need to go,” I say. “Look around.”

  People passing by are staring and whispering, their words spreading like a disease.

  Is the person who painted the scarlet A on our door here? Is it that woman wearing the fancy rain boots, even though all we got was some drizzle two hours ago? Is it that man with the cup of apple cider? Or that couple with the double baby stroller?

  We slowly back away from the giant pumpkin and step toward the patch to retrieve Sequoia so we can go.

  “Hey!” a mom in workout gear shouts as she pushes her kids behind her. “We know who you are. You killed that innocent baby. You’re murderers.”

  I rack my brain trying to figure out how so many people know who we are.

  Who told? Who is spreading our story? My mom and dad and Poppy wouldn’t tell. Who would?

  My dad looks flabbergasted. My mom looks like she might pass out from shock.

  “Mom?” Poppy says, her voice shaking.

  Sequoia hears the shouting and ditches the pumpkin patch to run to my side for protection. Because a crowd has gathered and they’re closing in.

  Mob mentality.

  People push forward. Wanting to see. Like we’re at the scene of an accident.

  But my family is the accident.

  I take a step back, fear pulsing. My instinct is to protect Poppy and Sequoia. I pivot my body to shield them. It’s my mom’s instinct to protect all three of us, so she angles her body in front of me.

  “We don’t want you here!” The mom in workout gear has gotten close enough that I can see her spittle hit the air when she shouts. “This town didn’t sign up to be victims of your negligence.” One of her friends tries to pull her back, calm her down, but she shakes her off. She points her finger at my parents, her face red with rage. “You have blood on your hands. You know that, don’t you?”

  Sequoia looks at my mom’s hands, confused.

  My dad’s mouth is a slash. He balls his fists at his sides. I’m genuinely afraid he might punch someone. A woman. A mom.

  “Don’t you dare,” he says, standing tall, chest puffed, arms out, in front of all four of us. “Don’t you dare take another step closer to my family.”

  My mom spreads her own arms, hands shaking.

  “Oh, sure, protect your kids but no one else’s!” shouts a voice in the back.

  “Hey now,” someone else shouts. “Let’s be reasonable.”

  “Oh, are you an anti-vaxxer, too?” comes the response.

  Some people have pulled out their phones. They’re filming everything. Others type, frantically texting the chaos to those who aren’t witnessing it in person because they have errands or soccer games.

  “Russ,” my mom murmurs, “let’s get out of here.”

  Sequoia stomps his foot. “I want a pumpkin.”

  “I’ll make sure you get a pumpkin later,” I tell him. “I promise.”

  Tears are forming in his eyes. I look to my mom for help, but she has tears in her eyes, too. Are they from guilt? Humiliation? Is it middle school all over again?

  My dad stands taller. “Back up,” he says to the crowd. When he lunges forward, they push away from him, not because he’s scary and forceful, but because they’re afraid he might get them sick. He puts an arm around Poppy and leads us, single file, to Bessi
e.

  “Thank you,” the mom in workout gear says, clapping her hands dramatically. “Thank you for leaving. Tell you what, why don’t you leave this town altogether? You’re not wanted here.”

  “Oh my god,” Poppy mutters in full-on exasperation. “Go to yoga and calm down.”

  Her words fill me with a weird mix of pride and horror.

  On the way home, Sequoia sits in the back seat, twisting his hands together. It’s like I can see his brain cycling through what happened. Eventually he says, “Who did we kill?”

  “What?” my dad says, his knuckles turning white as he grips the steering wheel.

  “It’s not like that,” Poppy says.

  “What’s it like, then?” Sequoia says, looking at me.

  “Not now,” my dad says, struggling to stay calm as he looks at us through the rearview mirror.

  “Was it with a gun?” Sequoia asks.

  “We don’t have a gun,” my mom says.

  “But how do you murder someone without a gun?”

  Poppy and I lock eyes. We both know there are so many other ways to kill a person. Neither of us will be the one to tell our brother.

  “Not now,” my dad repeats.

  “But that lady said we murdered someone.”

  My dad twists in his seat to face us when we stop at a traffic light. “We don’t have a gun. We would never have a gun. Nobody was murdered. End of discussion.”

  The signal changes and we lurch forward.

  Sequoia lets out an exasperated sigh and crosses his arms in front of his chest. I want to help him understand, but how do you explain to a second grader what happened to Baby Kat?

  I lean against the window. My eyes dart to Poppy’s sketchbook, still open on the cushion between us, her jack-o’-lantern designs on display. A cat. A pirate. A witch. None of them will be carved today.

  And Katherine St. Pierre will never carve a pumpkin. She’ll never wear a costume or go trick-or-treating or watch a scary movie. She’ll never grow up and go to college. Or have children of her own.

  And that’s our fault.

  Whether it happened with a gun or not.

  TWENTY-THREE

  On Halloween afternoon, I still don’t have the pumpkin I promised Sequoia. I’ve made attempts to return to the pumpkin patch, but I always chicken out as soon as the entrance is in sight, remembering the way everyone closed in on us. Shouting and snapping photos. I don’t want to go back alone. Even though I haven’t seen Nico since running into him at Starbucks at the beginning of October, I definitely haven’t stopped thinking about him. So I decide to head to the library, because I remember him saying he works on Halloween. Maybe he’ll go to the pumpkin patch with me when his shift is over. When I walk in on him in the computer lab, he’s too engrossed in the book he’s reading to see me. I sneak up behind him, lean over, and whisper, “Boo” into his ear.

  He jumps in his seat. Fumbles his book to the floor.

  I can’t help but laugh. “You okay?”

  “You just pulled off a classic jump scare.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A movie thing. Jared loves them.”

  “Still not following.”

  He waves his hand in the air. “It’s when the visual suddenly changes on-screen, something pops up out of nowhere and scares you so bad it makes you jump.”

  “Hmm. I guess I should’ve been able to figure that out.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He looks up at me. Smiles. “Hello, by the way.”

  “Hello.”

  “You remembered where to find me.”

  “I did.”

  I move closer. Let my hand linger along the edge of the back of his chair as I stand behind him. His hair looks even floppier from this angle. My fingers ache to run through it. To feel the silky strands fall between my knuckles.

  “Do you want to go to the pumpkin patch with me when you’re done?” I say.

  “The pumpkin patch?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

  “Why?”

  “Juniper,” Nico says, running his thumb across the edge of his laptop sitting on the desk in front of him. “You should probably see something. I just don’t like having to be the one to show it to you.”

  “Now you’re scaring me.”

  “Well, it is Halloween.” He grudgingly flips the laptop open and clicks his way to Facebook.

  And there it is.

  A video frozen. The triangle play button in the center of my mom’s face.

  Poppy, Sequoia, and the one-hundred-pound pumpkin.

  My dad off to the side.

  And me, shell-shocked.

  Then and now.

  I press play.

  The room is filled with the horrid words of the woman in workout gear all over again. Negligence. Blood on your hands.

  Murderers.

  Nico winces. “It’s really bad. I’m so sorry.”

  My legs can’t hold me. I sink into the chair next to Nico. “Where did you find this?”

  He looks at the computer. He can’t look at me. “Everywhere. But it started on the Concerned Citizens of Playa Bonita page on Facebook.”

  I lean in closer, notice the page has 4.2K followers. That’s a lot. Almost one-third of this town.

  “Is that all there is?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Show me.”

  He scrolls through the page, and there are several photos of my mom and me at our booth at the farmers market. All of them from different angles. Some close, some zoomed in. A caption loud and clear. These people gave Katherine St. Pierre the measles. Keep your precious babies away from them. I had no idea that many pictures were being snapped. I only remember the one the mom with the stroller took after Mary gathered a group of them to huddle together and whisper. To point and judge.

  There’s also a photo of our house with the scarlet A on the door before my mom scrubbed it off. Stay away, the caption says.

  Another photo of my mom and Sequoia in the front yard. Evil, says that caption.

  One more of my mom and dad climbing out of Bessie in the parking lot at the auto mechanic. This is them, right?

  My whole body shakes. “So that’s how everyone knows who we are. They’re basically stalking us. And they’ve been talking about us on this page for weeks.”

  This is what my mom meant when she told the CDC representative that she didn’t believe we’d actually be kept anonymous. It’s only a matter of time before they know who we are, she’d said.

  “I think they’re under the impression they’re doing something good by warning everyone about your family,” Nico says. “But it’s not okay. It’s totally invasive.”

  My knee knocks his knee. Our shoulders touch. I stay there because I need the solid and steady feel of him next to me to keep me from shaking. The video has over three hundred comments. Nico clicks onto the next empty box and starts typing:

  You can’t put the blame on someone who didn’t even know she was sick. And shaming them won’t lead to genuine dialogue. These people aren’t murderers. All they wanted to do was go to the pumpkin patch. I’m ashamed of my hometown right now. This is a bad look, Playa Bon—

  I stop him from typing by placing my hand on top of his.

  “Thank you,” I say. “But you don’t have to get involved. It’s not okay to drag you into this.”

  “Don’t care.” He finishes typing, presses enter, and the comment posts. Someone responds immediately:

  Screw you pussy.

  “Dumb shit forgot the comma,” Nico says.

  I shut the laptop cover. “I don’t want to see any more.”

  His gaze on me softens. “They’re wrong, Juniper. You know that, right?”

  “No. I kind of agree with them. A baby died because of me.”

  He shakes his head. “You need to stop saying that.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Okay, technically, yes. She got the measl
es from you. But it wasn’t like you set out to do it.” A muscle in his jaw twitches. “And don’t be mad at me for saying this, but if anyone’s really responsible, it’s your parents.”

  “You’re not entirely wrong. It’s their fault and mine.”

  He raises his eyebrows. “So have you told them that?”

  “I’ve told them a lot of things.” I shrug. “Like that I want to be vaccinated and go to regular school. And when they disagree, I tell them they’re elitist and ridiculous.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’d be grounded for life if I said something like that to either of my parents.”

  I sit up straight and talk in a deep voice, imitating my dad. “Yes, well, being outspoken is part of the Jade Family way.” I laugh sarcastically. “We shouldn’t be afraid to say what we think simply because we’re kids. We’re not censored. We’re encouraged to argue our point of view.” I sigh. “That’s the theory, at least. But my parents are hypocrites, because they refuse to hear me.”

  “So what are you gonna do?”

  “I’m going to fight them on it.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. So far everyone has told me it’s impossible.”

  “Is it?”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  I stand up because I can’t sit still any longer. My eyes dart to the exit.

  Nico scoots his chair back. “Wait. Maybe I can leave early. The computer lab doesn’t exactly get swamped on Halloween. Do you want to get out of here?”

  “I really do. Can you take me someplace far away?” I stare dreamily at the ceiling. “Can we go to the moon?”

  He bumps my shoulder with his. “How about a movie? A bunch of the film club members are meeting up at Playa Cinema because they’re screening all the Halloween films today.”

  “As much as I’d love to disappear inside a movie theater, I promised my brother I’d get him a pumpkin. And I know Poppy would like one, too.” I motion to the computer screen. “But you’re right. The pumpkin patch isn’t a good idea.”

  “Um, have you seen our display? The library has more pumpkins than we can handle. I can get you some.”

  “Are you sure?”