#my mom went to pick pears at a neighbor's house

[zoey-angel]

"Why's everyone fighting over that tiny piece of land, anyway?"

Setting aside the religious aspects, cultural significace, core beliefs, antisemitism and landback as a concept, here is a list of fruit currently in my house (in Israel), showing just what you can find here in august:

(keep in mind my family is middle-upper class, I'm an unemployed student with elderly parents on a pension)

15 mangos.

2 pineapples.

6 apples, 3 red 3 green.

No watermelon since they didn't look that good last time we went shopping.

1 fig.

10 peaches, bought them in a batch. I like them better than nectarines but both are great.

4 plums.

2 boxes of cherry tomatoes.

9 sabress or as you call them "prickly pears".

1kg sable grapes (the black kind, after trying different types we concluded they're sweeter).

2 boxes of blueberries.

1 box of raspberries.

1 box of dates.

Half a lemon.

2 and a half avocados.

No lychee, we finished the box yesterday... I prefer longan anyway and there's a tree growing nearby I can pick those from.

No cherries, passionfruit, loquat or apricots because they went out of season this month...

No bananas because they're high carb apparently.

No kiwis or pears because neither of us like those, no carambolas or papayas since only mom likes them...

That's it for fruit. But you know what? Every single thing I mentioned here is local produce. And those are only fruit! Here in this tiny place farmers grow wheat, corn and sorghum, raise livestock- we buy eggs from our neighbor, who manages a chicken coop. Not to mention, the wide variety of veggies, local nuts like almonds and pecans. Heck, Israelites have been tending to olive orchards on this land for over 7000 years!

There's a reason why this land has been regarded as the land of milk and honey, it's lovely. Then again, before 1948, much of the land now used for farming was instead a malaria ridden wetland. Early zionists planted trees and dug tunnels to the ocean to dry out the large swamps, effectively terraforming the land into what it is today. In the south, they insisted to enrich the dry dessert lands of the negev, built a water piping system and planted crops where before it, it didn't seem likely for anything to grow. This land is precious and working it is rewording. It's our home and we get to devote ourselves to it, grow so many delicious fruits and eat them too.

Next month we'll have guavas, melons and persimmons, I'm already excited!

[waitineedaname]

oooooo maybe a davekat meetcute? idk ne specific meetcutes but the more embarassing the better

shoutout to @bandersnatchbandwidth for helping come up with this concept AND the wonderful cat names. I loved writing this lol

—

“Princess Diana!”

What the fuck.

“Princess Diana of Southern Texas, my sweet angel baby, come here.”

Why. Why couldn’t Karkat have normal neighbors.

He peered out his kitchen window, bewildered and groggy. It was way too early to have to listen to the virtual strangers in his nearby vicinity lose their minds. His window looked directly into his nextdoor neighbors backyard. Dave… something. They’d barely interacted since he’d moved in, nothing beyond nods of greeting if they run into each other outside or the occasional “hey the mailman gave me your mail by mistake” “oh hey sick dude, thanks.” But of course, thanks to Karkat’s spectacular luck, he was having to witness Dave wander around in his yard in a bathrobe and boxers and not much else. 

“C’mere, beautiful, lemme get you back inside where it’s safe.” Dave continued to coo. What the hell was he talking about? Karkat watched his half naked neighbor crouch down at something, and then watched a ball of white fluff bolt to the opposite corner of the yard. He practically felt Dave’s groan in his own chest.

“Princess Diana, I’m begging you.” Dave approached the bush where his cat was now hiding with caution. “Come on, you’re not meant to be outside. Come back inside where it’s safe. I just got you groomed and now you’re dirty, this is just uncalled for.” He squatted in front of the shrub and Karkat had to try not to laugh as how absurd he looked. The cat was so small, but she clearly had an attitude. “Let me take you inside and I’ll open up a can of wet food and we’ll get our brushing on and you can do that thing where you massage my legs all cute and basically shred me to bits. You’re not meant to be usin’ those claws for hunting out here, you only know clawing up my knee, so come on, c’mere darling. You like the sound of wet food, ri- oh for fucks sake, don’t go further away.”

Okay, this was getting kind of ridiculous. Karkat wasn’t sure what drew him onto his porch other than the fact that he just couldn’t watch this anymore.

“Hey.” Karkat called out. Dave jumped like he’d forgotten other people could see him outside acting like a lunatic. “Do you need help?”

“Oh, hey man.” The cooing voice had turned off and was replaced with false casualness. “Sorry if I woke you or something, it’s just my cat decided to make a fuckin’ run for it. I’ll get her, though, don’t worry about it.”

“Let me see what I can do.” Karkat said before he could think it through. He was already walking over to the fence, though, so it wasn’t like he could back out now. He somehow managed to climb over it without completely falling on his ass, and then he and the cat were behind the same bush. Princess Diana of Southern Texas stared at him like ‘how the fuck did you get here?’ but she didn’t give any more complaint than a single betrayed yowl when he scooped her up in his arms.

“Holy shit.” Dave whispered in awe. “Bro, she doesn’t even let me hold her, the fuck.”

“I have plenty of experience in picking up ornery cats, trust me.” Karkat scratched her under the chin, and she suddenly looked a lot less ornery as her golden eyes drooped shut in satisfaction. “Are you gonna get the door or what?”

“Oh, fuck, yeah.” Dave jogged ahead of him to the door and Karkat gently tossed the cat inside. Dave shut the door before she could make a run for it again. “Seriously, I owe you so much, dude. Where the fuck did you learn to wrangle cats like that?”

“Like I said, I have a lot of experience. If you counted the number of people she tolerates on your hands, the result would be one solitary middle finger.” Karkat demonstrated and was pleased when it startled a single solitary laugh out of his neighbor.

“Can I meet him?” Dave asked, and Karkat blinked at him. Dave immediately looked embarrassed. “Uh, after I get dressed, that is. Or not, sorry, I dunno why I asked.”

Karkat did the mental math and decided fuck it, his morning was already abnormal. “I can’t give any promises he’ll like you, but sure, I guess.”

“Cool. Be right back, dude.” Dave disappeared inside, leaving Karkat to stand on his back porch, questioning his life decisions.

Karkat eventually decided it was probably for the best if he got dressed too since he was still wearing the sweatpants and thin t-shirt he’d slept in. He’d only just managed to pull on a clean pair of jeans when Dave knocked at his door.

“Do you like pears?” Dave blurted out before Karkat could even greet him.

“The fuck.” Karkat stared at him blankly. “Uh, yeah, I guess I like pears?”

“Do you want some?” Dave held up a bag of pear, and Karkat continued to look bewildered. “It’s just- My friend Jade grows pears, and she offered me some and I was like ‘sure, why the hell not’ because I thought she’d give me, like, four maybe, but she gave me eighty-two pears, and I just. I have no fucking use for eighty-two pears. So I thought maybe you’d like some as, like, thanks for making sure my cat’s attempt to tap into her wild roots didn’t extend past our cute little suburban fence.”

“I don’t- You don’t have to pay me for saving your cat’s life! I was just being a good samaritan for once in my goddamn life! Maybe this will be the one thing to tip the karmic scales and get the universe to stop fucking me over, but you don’t-”

“Karkat.” Dave cut him off. Karkat was surprised he remembered his name. “I have eighty-two pears. This is more for my benefit than yours.”

Karkat heaved a great sigh and took the bag of pears. “Fine. You wanted to see TB - she’s on the couch.”

“TB?” Dave asked, peering over at the couch while Karkat led him inside.

“Trash Bag. My cat.”

“Doesn’t TB also stand for tuberculosis?”

“What’s your point.”

Dave huffed a laugh. “Where is she?” 

“Right here.” Karkat dropped the pears on the kitchen counter, then went to the couch to scoop up the gray lump of fur. Said gray lump of fur yowled like a diseased possum getting tossed around in a garbage truck. Dave gasped in barely restrained delight.

“Dude, I thought she was a throw pillow.”

“Sometimes she acts like one.” Karkat huffed, petting Trash Bag’s head. She’d started purring as soon as she realized it was him holding her, and drool was already starting to collect in the folds of her squashed face. 

“Can I pet her?”

“You can try.” Karkat held her out a little, and Dave extended a hand for her to sniff. Trash Bag turned amber eyes on him, immediately identified him as Not-Karkat, and fluffed up even more than she was naturally, a congested growl forming in her throat. 

“Yikes.” Dave pulled his hand away.

“Yeah, she’s like that.” Karkat pulled her back to his chest and she went back to her gloopy purring. 

“She sure likes you though.”

“There’s probably some sick irony that the cat that doesn’t like anyone likes the most unlikable person.” Karkat rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t resist cooing a little when TB licked his finger.

“I don’t think you’re unlikable.” Dave said. Karkat looked up and found him wearing a similar expression to when he asked if he could meet his cat: the look of someone whose mouth has a tendency to say things before his brain catches up.

“No fucking offense, but you don’t really know me.”

“I mean. Yeah, no, I don’t, but. I dunno, you seem like a cool dude?” Dave scratched at the curls at the back of his head. “I know I haven’t really been that neighborly, but I’m having some friends together this weekend, and uh. Well, we’re calling it a ‘barbecue’-” He said with gratuitous quotation marks, “But it’s more like a potluck where Jade dumps all her excess fruits and vegetables on my table and Jake declares he definitely knows how to grill better than we do - which he does, but that’s not saying much - and June brings a metric fuckton of weird snacks she impulse bought at an Asian grocery store. You can come? If you want? You don’t have to, but it could be fun, um. If you want. And if my friends get too overwhelming, you can always duck inside and hang out with my cats.”

Karkat considered the offer, surprised. Trash Bag grunted at him and he resumed scratching under her chin. “Yeah, fuck it, why not. I don’t have anything better to do.”

“Hell yeah. Just come over at like five on Saturday.” Dave bounced on his heels a little bit, fidgety. “Nice to meet you, Trash Bag.” She wheezed, and Dave huffed a short laugh. “See you later, man. Thanks for the help.”

“Don’t mention it. Keep Princess Diana inside more, alright?”

“I’ll do my best.” Dave gave him a half wave, then jogged down the front stairs and meandered to his house. 

Well. Karkat supposed he could have worse neighbors.

[pawjamas]

Snuggled up in a trans colored quilt my grandma has made in my grandparents house. Went thrifting at the thrift store she works at yesterday and she bought me a sewing machine and the shirt that I got that was exactly what I was looking for as well as a book my mom recommended me and some ribbon I got. My mom got some books and a sweatshirt and some magazines. Going to take some plants from their garden back home with us, and my grandfather picked a pineapple from his garden for us to take home with us. I love coming here and being able to just pick fresh fruit to eat like my grandfather’s pineapples or star fruit from the neighbors house, etc.

-Silver

i’d give anything to see that quilt omg.. it sounds so lovely. my apologies for a late response to this ask, i’m happy to hear you have gotten so many wonderful things while thrifting! it’s so nice to find what you are looking for while going to thrift stores, i always have a few particular things i’m always on the lookout for. my neighbors when i lived in my mom’s house all had different fruit trees ! i’d get baby bananas from the neighbor next door, my mom has a pear tree in our front yard, another neighbor has lemons i believe? and when i was little and would play around the neighborhood i’d always pick mandarin oranges that grew in the trees near the road of another neighbor’s house. it’s definitely a very pleasant thing to be able to eat and pick fruit straight from the source ^^

[alias-b]

sins of my youth. 001

Billy Hargrove x OC! Evie Fenny~ Also posted to my AO3

Summary: It was common knowledge that Billy Hargrove hated Hawkins. Hated Cherry Lane. Even loathed the strange girl next door. Evie Fenny wasn’t too fond of the chaotic Cali transfer either. An awful high school tradition sparks a chain of events that changes everything, ultimately bringing two frayed souls together. 

A/N: Hey!!! I'm definitely not giving up on LFTM, I've had this story whirling around my brain and it's been pulling at me for a while. Hoping I can slow down, care for myself, and juggle both fics at my own pace. Thank you guys for reading and for being so supportive. I hope everyone who enjoyed WTL also enjoys this fic, it's a totally different direction. I'm excited to share it! I'll tag warning in each chp like I always too. TW: Light bullying, hints at an inappropriate relationship between a teacher/student, and teenage jerks.

Chapter 1: Fast Times

   A blaring bell trilled. Lunch time. So close and yet so far. Scrambling high schoolers like zoo animals clamored into the cafeteria. Knocking shoulders and bouncing around. No one really cared about knowledge today, the last day of school before winter break began. 

   1984. Coming to a close.

   “Evie!” A hand rose to wave. One pink scrunchie around the elegant wrist. Heather Holloway. Cute as a button smiling there. Hands pulled headphones down to acknowledge her. Evangeline Fenny. Best friends since the sandbox and now seniors. “This stupid day is dragging.”

   “It’s killing me.” Evie whined to herself, settling her beat up lunchbox on the table. Red and blue pattern, scribbled all over with song lyrics in black marker. “Mrs. Stockard fell asleep at her desk, I wanted to die.”

   “She snores so loudly.” Heather sparkled when she laughed, sweeping her hair back into a high ponytail with her scrunchie. Evie held a mirror up for her to see out of habit. “Thanks.” It was particularly louder than usual. Teens pregaming the parties to come over the two week vacation.

   “Going skiing with the folks this year?”

   “No, they’re going up to the cabin and I’m staying home after Christmas.” Heather unpacked her lunch, carefully organizing it. Evie pulled a regular PB and J out, amused.

   “Sushi?”

   “My mom’s going through a phase.” Heather poured herself a bit of soy sauce and plucked up chopsticks.

   “Your rich is showing, Heath.” Evie giggled when a foot kicked at her under the table.

   “Trade you a piece for half the pear.”

   “Deal.” They switched. Evie tucked some unruly dark curls aside, sitting back.

   “So...there is a party tonight. Loch Nora. Bunch of schools.”

   “Which ones?” Evie’s brow rose.

   “Ridgemont will probably crash, but who cares. It’s winter break, we’ll go and have some fun then crash at my place. Eat chips, make fun of them, and pass out like we always do.” Heather bounced a little. “C’mon, Evie. I’ll pick you up and we can walk from my house.”

   “I’ll think about it.” That meant yes to Heather. She grinned, reaching across to pat her friend’s arm playfully.

   “It’ll be fun.”

   Evie just whined and crunched on her pear, brows scrunching. Parties weren’t the same since the incident. But, she picked the popular, social butterfly for her closest friend. 

   The two couldn’t have been any more different.

   Heather Holloway. Rich girl from Loch Nora befriending Evangeline Fenny, a Cherry Lane girl, in preschool. They switched beaded hair ties and the rest was history. Bonded over music and fashion. Heather was classically stunning as if she jumped off a magazine. 

   Students used to make snide comments. That Heather kept Evie around because she made her look prettier. Sweet Heather shut that down. Loudly. Whenever the subject came up. Evie Fenny was a bigger girl. Plush. Fat. It wasn’t a dirty word. She was a strange and pretty teen who carried herself too high to be bothered with comments.

   Water off a duck’s back was the saying.

   Used to be she hid herself under big sweaters, tunics, and flared jeans. But, that was before the incident. Afterward, she came to school with a new haircut. Louder makeup. Even louder, fitted clothing. Flaunted the hourglass and caught eyes on her hips swaying. Sat next to Heather at lunch as if nothing had changed. Red glossed lips only smiled and the student body took to her. Those who stayed angry burned alone.

   Thick skin, no pun intended.

   “If that asshole Tannen shows up, I’m dipping.” Evie decided with one breath. 

   “I’d say that I’ll protect you, but you made your point last year.” 

   Ah, the incident.

   “I’m never going to live that down.”

   “It was legendary.” Heather beamed, crushing her fist into her opposite palm. “Bam. Prick went down. My friend is Wonder Woman. Super Bitch.”

   Evie broke to laugh, eyes rolling.

   “Truthfully, I don’t recall it all.”

   That was a lie, she remembered every second of it. Sometimes her knuckles warmed at the thought.

   “I just...didn’t think you had moves like that. Your mom is basically Dolly Parton. You don’t even like violence. You squirm during horror flicks. You love your cat, your guitar, and all plant life...and you beat the hell out of Ridgemont’s golden boy asshole quarterback.”

   It did earn Evie some Hawkins’ fame. Ridgemont was their main rival. The Bulldogs. Football players found a soft spot for the teen.

   “Don’t tell my mom she’s Dolly Parton, that’ll go straight to her head.” Evie joked, popping her water bottle open to drink. Heather’s big eyes lifted behind her.

   A flood of cologne wafted before two fingers tugged a curl. Little harder than they should have. Water choked to spill onto Evie’s chest.

   “Whoops, you got all wet, Fenny.” A tongue clicked. Billy Hargrove slid around the table. All his glory. Heather plucked up a napkin to offer it.

   “Watch it, Hargrove.” She huffed down at herself. The yellow tee tucked into her jeans was soaked through.

   “Girls can’t help it around me, I guess.” He had one hand in his pockets and another cradling his silver lighter. Flicking it open and closed. Eyes narrowed. “Polka dots, huh. I had you figured for florals.”

   “You’re an asshole.” She covered her damp shirt and bra with her striped cardigan. Thick fall colors warmed her skin. Noted the fact that he'd thought about it.

   “Whatever you say, Ivy.” 

   Billy knew her name. They were neighbors. Unfortunately. Right down to sharing the same space between their bedroom windows. She’d had dinner at their house. Susan Hargrove was new and eager to make some friends and Ms. Fenny was eager to be friends with everyone. Perfect match.

   Evie glared up at him. Fucking Adonis.

   “Heather, you going tonight?” He ignored his neighbor and leaned over with one palm on the table, back to Evie as he sat down to flash that darling smile.

   “Maybe.” Heather gestured with her chopsticks.

   “I can work with maybe.” He acted like the girl behind him wasn’t there. Frankly, Evie was used to being invisible. It was better than being bullied. Most days. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

   “Maybe you apologize to my friend and say her name right.” Heather winked at him.

   “Who?” Billy stood and turned, mocked some surprise. “Oh. Evangeline. So quiet, I forgot you, chica.”

   She wasn’t sure if that was a jab at her mixed heritage or him just being a smartass. Billy rolled her name off his tongue like it was a joke. Like it wasn’t a real word. Blue eyes alight at her stony expression. Sly and alert. 

   The California transfer vibrated after leaving the basketball team before the season ended. Word was that he was persuaded to leave after some fight with Steve Harrington. Billy was a strange one too.

   Often, he seemed lax when he was alone like the world didn’t matter. Other days, he was rocking and quick on his feet. Hungry and itching for something. Anything. It was a scary look on such a pretty boy. You could never gauge where his mind was. Where it would go next.

   “Evangeline.” He sounded out again even slower. “Your mom lose a bet?”

   “It’s a poem.” She replied flatly, sitting back to cock her head at him. Billy snapped his fingers to point.

   “Sounds like the name of some chick whose man died in her arms.”

   She huffed at him, leaning in.

   “...That would be what the poem is about.”

   “Fucking depressing.” Billy tapped his chin. “I got it. I’m going to call you, Angel. I won’t forget that.”

   “You are not calling me-”

   “Trying to compromise with you, Fenny. You cast the first stone.” Billy flicked his eyes to Heather. “Bring your friend with you to the party, Heather. Some guys like angel cake.” He winked and slunk off to his band of merry assholes. This school worshiped him. Kissed the ground he walked on since he started in fall.

   “What a fucking slimeball.” Evie grumbled to herself, stuffing trash aside to ball it up. Thought about tossing it at Billy's big head. Heather gave this conflicted look as if to say, but he’s cute, right?

   “Ignore him.”

   “Bad enough his family moved in next to me.” They packed up their lunches. “God, I want a smoke so bad.”

   She didn’t keep the habit up just to save her singing voice. Her mom picked up cigarettes only after the divorce last year. Smoked out her window and hid it, but Evie knew. No judgment there. Better than other habits moms pick up after divorces.

   “I’ll pick you up at seven tonight?” Heather walked out with her after the bell rang.

   “Yeah, I’ll see you in fifth.” Evie turned to go to her locker and stuffed the lunchbox away. Grabbed a book to hurry to class. History. Three more periods left. Students fidgeted around her.

   “Hey, Evie.” Steve Harrington batted his eyes at her. Friendly enough these days after he left the popular cliche and broke up with Nancy Wheeler. Sometimes having your heart stopped on made you nicer. Not always. “You, ah, do the paper?”

   “All six pages.” Evie set it on her desk. “You?”

   “I made an attempt.” It was strange because Steve never gave her the time of day before this year. Maybe the guy was lonely. He tapped his pencil and the chatter quieted when their teacher walked in. Late as always.

   “Class, pass your papers to the front.”

   “Hopefully they don’t come back with red wine stains.” Robin mumbled behind her, one leg crossed up so she could draw on the rubber side of her sneakers. Evie caught a snort, taking the papers to pass them along. “I like the jacket.”

   “Thanks. New haircut?”

   “My own dad didn’t notice.” Robin beamed.

   “Psst, Evie.” A note flicked on her desk. Tammy Thompson. Pretty girl, kind of shy. “To Steve.”

   Evie considered herself a professional middle man for lovesick note passing. Discreetly, she gave it to Steve, head cocking. He furrowed his brow upon seeing it, but wrote back.

   Whatever the reply, it made Tammy’s shoulders fall.

   AP Biology was next. Teacher treated it like his kingdom and didn’t pose much of a challenge because he was disorganized as hell. Evie was relieved to share the class with Heather. 

   Billy, Tommy, and Carol also had it too. Hargrove bitched for a week about how the other science classes had no openings. Strange because he wasn’t an idiot. Still got his work in and maintained a B average. Probably due to his dad. Neil Hargrove seemed like a real hardass. And all of Cherry Lane had heard him and Billy arguing at some point.

   Evie might have also witnessed some more physical spats through the windows.

   She figured it was why Billy hated her. She knew something about him. Something he hid because it made him feel smaller. He caught her eyes once and barked nastily before taking off in his Camaro. A gust of smoke.

   She never brought it up. 

   Dads could be real assholes.

   “Watch the movie. Fill out the worksheet.” Their teacher was as ready for this day to be over as the students were. Lights went down. Yawns followed. Evie propped her elbow up on the high lab table she shared with Heather, doodling new lyrics between answering questions.

   A crumpled paper hit her hair. Stuck into brown curls. Heather turned back to glare at Tommy shrugging with a sleazy grin.

   He was no artist. Evie smoothed it for a wide, big lipped and breasted caricature of herself. She drew on it and scribbled a note back. Smiling sweeter when she flicked it at his chest. Carol and Billy leaned in on either side to see Tommy’s expression sour because Evie gave him nothing.

   “You got my hair all wrong.” She’d written. Fixing it for him.

   Billy snorted and turned back to defacing his textbook.

   “Bitch.” Tommy muttered to himself, tossing it away. Evie finished her sheet, dug for her compact to reapply a lip color. Caught Billy behind her. Intent on whatever vulgar drawing his mind was concocting. Blue eyes flicked like he’d been aware of her this entire time.

   The mirror snapped shut.

** ** **

   Study hall. Last period of the day. Most kids who had it were skipping out early during the hour. Slipping away one by one through the library. Evie was one of those kids. 

   “Leaving so soon, Miss Fenny?” The smooth as silk voice lowered, startled her enough to drop her notebooks and folders. 

   “Fr...Mr. Bowers.” Evie dropped before her English teacher standing so close to her. Second period. Been in Hawkins three years teaching the junior and senior classes. Fredrick Bowers. Dream of a man to all the teen girls. “Sorry.” She bit her bottom lip, eyes lifting to see him and his shadow blocking the light from touching her. 

   “No, I’m sorry, Evie. I figured you’d heard me coming.” Sky blue eyes centered on Evie there before he came to one knee. Helped her gather lose papers strewn about.    

   Mr. Bowers had a name and face all the teen girls drew little hearts around in pink gel pen.

   Evie thought she saw those same cartoon hearts bubbling up behind his back. Popping like gum. Styled toffee blond locks, trimmed mustache, and groomed side burns. A simple patterned shirt tucked into fitted slacks with the sleeves rolled up. Never a tie. Something groovy about him that stuck from the seventies. Mid thirties and hell of a smile.

   Evie tucked hair aside, displayed her blush in full view obscenely when he flashed those sparkly whites at her. Eyes crinkling.

   “I’ll warn you next time.” 

   Her heart plucked like a song when their fingers brushed. Dashing and broad. A Jane Austen character come to life. Enough to make any young girl melt. And how quickly she did.

   “Next time.” Evie gave this scoff. Pulling her notes close as they both came to their feet with hard intent eyes.

   "I wanted to give you something. A book to read over the break." He pulled it from his leather messenger bag and peered around.

   "An assignment?" Evie sparkled at him so he was lighter.

   "No, it's just because I believe you're so clever and mature. I think you'll read it with an open mind and we can talk about it like we talked about all the others. It's complicated material. I, ah, really shouldn't be giving you this book." He offered it. "But, there were quite a few I wasn't allowed to give you. After that chat we had over The Crucible. I'm just so fascinated by what you think."

   "Lolita. I know what happens in this one." Evie peered at the battered title. Rough paper between her fingers, it was clearly an old copy. She peered at his chest instead of his eyes. "We-"

   "Don't you miss talking? You know. Last year. Someone who knows what you're going through. I want all my students to be comfortable around me."

   "I am comfortable, we..." Evie glanced as someone passed far down the hallway.

   Bowers helped her after her dad left. A shoulder. A confidant. A crush that... She felt her heart close in on itself.

   "I thought you said we couldn't anymore."

   "I miss you." He whispered that. Lush and blunt. She barely heard it. Eyes snapped up.

   Someone missed her. Someone wanted to listen. Someone who saw her depth.

   His wife left him before he came to Hawkins. Evie learned a great deal about her too.

   "I won't tell, I never do." She hid it away into her bag, matched his tone. "We can...talk. Not here."

   "Good." He swallowed. "I just think you blossom under guidance and support. I always knew you were one of those girls."

   Evie blushed again. Eyes on her shoes. 

   “I wanted to say I was impressed with your paper as well. As always.” Fredrick gave her arm a pat and left his hand there. Fingers pressed into the knit fabric of her cardigan. His lip twitched. 

   “Good. That’s…I’m glad.” Evie’s eyes flickered over stormy blue ones, swaying. Lashes gave a dreamy bat. “I was thinking, ah, about you when I wrote it.”

   “Really, you should speak up in class more.” Fredrick gave her one subtle squeeze and dropped his hand. “All those funny poems you shared last year.”

   “My songs.” Evie corrected softer and he only smiled to nod.

   “Right.” An idle step backwards before he leaned over her. A great deal taller. The shadow crept over her eyes this time. “You have a Merry Christmas, dear. And speak up again in class, Evie. You know I love to hear from you.”

   A sensation like a fizzling sparkler glowed in her belly. Out her spine. Spread over skin.

   “I know.” She giggled at him, peering around. “Merry Christmas, Mr. B. We'll talk.”

   “Small town, I’m sure I’ll see you out and about.” A wink and he was gliding off. Shoulders back and chest perched high.

   “You might.” Evie swooned against her locker. Watched him go. Gasped a breath into her lungs. Swept all the clouds aside to fill her backpack with work. He made her feel so special, like no one ever could. 

   “Anyone...” She sang to herself, “who knows what love is...” Fingers plucked up a final book. Evie hummed and thought of small cartoon blue birds spinning around her head as she went into the restroom. Washed her hands and lingered to see her reflection.

   Evie was in a strange place. In and out of her skin. Torn between love and hate for her body.

   Usually, it just took a brave face. Her dad always used to tilt her chin and tell her to put on her bravest face before leaving home.

   She hoped the one she chose was convincing. 

   Her mom would always spin her favorite Bible or Dolly Parton quotes. Which helped on occasion even if she wasn’t sure which source the words came from half the time.

   A sigh. This was her flesh. She’d live in it as best she could. Dreamed herself into something better.

   Footsteps hurried down the hallway until the door shoved open. Humming cut.

   “Hargrove!” She gasped, dropping her messenger bag. “Billy, you can’t be in here!”

   “God damn it, Fenny. You again?” Billy skidded to hush her. Pressed them back into the wall. The heat of his body engulfed her frame, standing a good few inches taller. “Do me a fucking solid. Hide this for me.”

   Billy had no sense of boundaries because he was stuffing a baggie into her front jean pocket. 

   “What are you doing?” She seethed at him, smacking his arms off her to put some distance. “Get off me!”

   “Don’t say a word. Got it?” Billy lifted a finger with an intent look. Smelled of leather and his heavy cologne. Hairspray too. It all overshadowed the cigarette scent. He smoothed his tee out and turned to see the door. Scrambling like a spider, Billy jumped up on the toilet, threw his messenger bag outside, and pulled himself up. Wiggled his way out.

   Evie heard a thud and groan.

   “What the fuck?” She whispered, more so to herself as he disappeared. Hands pulled what was clearly concealed weed bundled up several times and bagged from her pocket. “Shit.” More footsteps before the door burst as she shoved it away.

   “You see that Hard-grove kid?” A thick accent asked. Security guy. Useless.

   “Uh!” Evie pulled her bag up. “Who?...This is the ladies room! Can’t a girl have a moment here?” 

   “Sorry!” He cringed away before she jumped into mushy period talk. It always worked. 

   Evie rolled her eyes and marched out to find Billy. Casual as can be, he tossed his bag into the trunk of his car and stilled to light a cigarette. Grumbling, steps hurried up the hill.

   “Asshole!” She tossed the weed at his chest, made him catch it awkwardly and stuff it into the trunk with a hiss.

   “Keep a lid on it, will you?” He slammed it shut. No one was around to see them.

   “Don’t do that shit again.” She pushed into him to go, Billy’s big hand wrapped around her wrist. Tugged her square into his chest. An unkind grin swept.

   “I had you figured, didn’t I? You didn’t say anything.” Billy blew smoke into the air, plucked the cigarette out to flick it with his free hand.

   “Let go.” Evie huffed. “I would have been in deep shit too for that.” She wiggled and pushed at his chest. 

   Billy flicked his bright eyes over hers. So brown they looked black in winter. He never noticed that she had a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks like he did. Pale for a girl with darker features. Indiana falls and winters must have taken the color right out of her. Looked like a lot of the mixed gals he knew back home. 

   Big curls. Soft and curvy. 

   Angry at him over something he did.

   There's no place like home, he figured.

   “You’re so weak.” Billy laughed at her. Took another drag. “They told me you freaked out on a guy last year.”

   “You want to be next?” She twisted away from him and turned. It wasn’t a real threat. He’s seen her tend to plants like they were humans. Feed neighborhood cats and nurse her own. Old black cat with not long left. Little fucker was always creeping him out from her bedroom window. Constantly staring with huge green eyes like it knew something Billy didn’t.

   “Babysit your own weed.”

   “You walking home?” Billy was relentless, voice lifting.

   Evie huffed and turned.

   “What, are you going to say I probably need the exercise? My bike chain broke.”

   “Christ, I was gonna offer a ride. Figured I owed you for saving my damn weed and my break. Not like it's out of the way.” Billy turned to open the passenger door. “Quit being a drag and get in. I don’t bite hard...unless asked.”

   “You’re such a creep.” She eyed him there. Wondered how he stayed warm in a tee, jeans, and leather jacket. “Not waiting for Max?” He gave this annoyed look.

   “She’s going out with her stupid friends, not my problem today.” Billy got in, gesturing. “At least close the door if you’re not coming. I went through the effort to open it for you.”

   “What a gentleman.” Sarcasm.

   Evie came back toward his car and debated it. Smelled like it might rain with the sky turning grey. And she really didn’t want to walk in these shoes. Rationalizing it, she slipped inside and shut the door. Settled her bag in her lap. Even buckled up. Billy revved the engine and skidded to speed out without a second glance.

   “You going to the party with Heather?”

   Evie peered at him watching the road with this hard look on his face. Ghosted a smile. Bingo.

   “You’re being nice to me to get to Heather, huh. You know you’re not the first guy to pull this. Could have just asked me about her.”

   Crystalline eyes flared up at her face.

   “What? Dorky chicks like you turn me on, too.” He replied rougher, not bothering to watch the road.

   “Wow. Spread it on thick, Hargrove.” She turned from him.

   “I always do.” He hit a hard corner. Christ, he drives fast. “I got a shot?”

   “She thinks you’re cute.” Evie shrugged. Far too used to this. Eyes slid to his profile. Wild curls still golden on grey days. The boy glowed. It was absolutely insufferable. Leaves whirled by, brown and dead. A smile crossed her face. “Listen. Since you’re saving me a walk. I’ll help you.”

   “Help me? I don’t need your help, I just wondered if she was gonna show.” He scoffed, turning on Cherry Lane.

   “You want to know what Heather likes. It’ll help you.” She crossed her arms, nearly flying forward when he screeched to a stop in front of his house. Billy shot her a look, filled with pride. “You got a pen and paper, bud?”

   He snatched her bag, tore a page from her notebook and dug into his glove box for a pen.

   Ass. She hugged it back to her chest.

   "Talk."

   “Okay.” A breath. “The thing about Heather is she’s a romantic. Jane Austin girl. Pride and Prejudice. If you can quote that just once like Mr. Darcy, she’s yours... Well? Are you writing?”

   Billy did a double take and huffed, grumbling. He actually marked it down.

   “Mr. Who?”

   “Your life amazes me.” She chuckled. “Darcy.”

   “Got it. Darcy. I’ll ask Susan about that shit, she’s a reader.” He muttered, tongue sweeping out before he scribbled. 

   “And she loves museums. First date ideas. Milkshakes. Cheese fries with jalapenos. Cheeseburger gal. Chinese from that corner joint. Always spicy. Easy picks.”

   “A girl after my own burning heart.” Billy felt her peer at him again. Lips lifting with this expression he couldn’t read. Blinked her big eyes and went on.

   “Definitely loves to snuggle in with something scary even though they freak her out. Must be a curiosity thing.”

   “Any excuse to get close to someone, I like it. This is gold, Angel, go on.”

   “You know, I think that’s all I got for you.” Evie turned to get out, sighing. That was just a little evil. “Billy.”

   “What?” He shut his door and turned from her.

   “Thanks for the ride.” She moved to go toward her house. “Knock ‘em dead.”

   Billy didn’t reply. Just watched her go into her house before he dug for another smoke.

   “Mom?” Evie called. “I’m home.”

   “I’m in my room, sweetheart!”

   Ramona Fenny was a spirited woman, went by Mona to the neighborhood. A girl of the 60s. Built like Dolly Parton with a pumped hairstyle to match in sleek dark brown, almost black. She worshiped the woman. Looked like she could have modeled atop a cake. 

   A church going girl who used prayer to get her through the divorce. Never pushed it on others, not even Evie. Too busy pushing other things. Like the free days she lost having her daughter young. She liked what worked in life and this worked for her. Liked the pretty side to things. 

   Mona was a sunny side up sort of mother.

   Best friends with Claudia Henderson as they both went through divorces which was not in God’s plan. Evie liked Dustin, she babysat him on occasion and he was a good kid. Bullied like her. 

   Mona owned the favored hair salon in town. Worked long hours with a team of women and ran a tight ship. Did hair for all the social elites so she knew everyone and all the hot gossip. And did she love that detail the most. Evie helped out with reception during vacation time. Liked the extra cash.

   “I was going to go to Heather’s later, there’s a party.”

   “Oh, have fun, baby.” She pushed her kid to go out. To live. To be smart. Never asked her to call. Not out of trust for Evie, she couldn’t be bothered. Never imagined her daughter would be up to mischief.

   If only she knew.

   Sometimes, Mona keyed in when it suited her. Understood when Evie’s likes and dislikes changed. When she asked to not go to church anymore because it didn’t help her after her dad walked out. Ramona was understanding as long as you didn’t bring up things like depression and anger. There always had to be a way out. Turn the other cheek.

   Evie knew her mother always thought the best.

   “Great.” Evie crossed to steal the hair brush, helped her mother out with the teasing. Dyed rich and dark locks that used to be a mousy brown. Dark eyes like her daughter. Evie didn’t look like her father with his brighter features. Her lush hair and russet eyes. Thick brows. “You going out? All dressed up...”

   “Just into town, couple of errands.”

   That was something that changed a week after her dad moved out. Mona’s style revamp. She was a woman of the sixties and seventies and that came back full force. Styled and pumped up like she was walking out of a Nancy Sinatra music video. Men around town noticed it and the woman certainly speculated. 

   But, her daughter had a style change too after the incident so it must have run in the family.

   “Better?” Evie eyed the glittery rings sitting in a ceramic dish. They looked like gumballs there.

   “Touch of hairspray and I’ll be right as rain.” Pink manicured nails came up with the can. “Take cover, baby.”

   “Got it.” Evie disappeared in a waft of spray. Stole an ice cube from the freezer to crunch it out of this habit she picked up when dad was gone. Cool and melty between her fingers before she swallowed it down. Felt the bulge tense all down her throat. Another followed. Teeth straining to crack it like glass. The chunks went down a little less smooth as she looked for real food and shut the fridge instead.

   Evie went into the bedroom to see her old cat on the pillow. His head lifted. Skinny and balding. Blind in one eye.

   “How’re we doing, my handsome boy?” Evie dropped her bag and crossed to pet him. Purrs erupted, whiskers twitching. “Bourbon, my darling.”

   A scratch of a meow rasped.

   “Yes, I love you too. I’d kiss you if my lips weren’t done up.” She smacked her lips and stood. “Outfit.” Clothing pushed around. Her room was a small, intimate space. Few pictures and purple curtains. Desks covered in song lyrics, trinkets, and needle felting projects.

   Evie held up garments to the cat, but he was no help. Just purred there like a motor boat. Settled on a black top with some sparkle and a magenta wash denim jacket. Jewelry was a must, she preferred earrings that were huge acrylic hearts. Bourbon had gotten into the window to watch the window across the way. 

   Billy wandering shirtless and damp. Muscles red and bulging like he’d done a quick work out

   “Yeah, not today, my sweet.” Evie plucked the cat from the window and reached to close the blinds. Billy caught her. Winked and licked his lips slower. She made a face at him. Utterly loathing and not impressed at his peacock way of navigation. “Ew." 

   The blinds snapped down, leaving Billy to laugh there. Evie carried her purring cat out, chiding. 

   "Don’t make his head any bigger than it already is.”

~~~~

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[hurricanerin]

Not Just One of Your Many Toys 1: Don’t Tell Me What to Do

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale/OFC

Rating: Explicit

Warnings: MAJOR SPOILERS, loss of virginity, power imbalance, general dickishness

Summary: Ransom and Olivia have been thorns in each other’s sides for fifteen years.  They’ve tolerated one another, coaxed each other through major milestones, and trampled on one another’s hearts.  After years spent healing from one of Ransom’s toxic outburst, Olivia finds herself subpoenaed by the Drysdale family as a character witness for his criminal trial.  Their son is out of control, and the one person with the best chance of getting through to him wants absolutely nothing to do with the man.   

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Boston, 2005

 There has never been a moment in my life that I haven’t known exactly who Ransom Drysdale is.  We met in the fall of 2005, right after my dad was promoted with General Electric and my family had moved to Boston from Puerto Rico for his new job. I was 13 and Ransom was 19, and I could’ve told you within 5 minutes of enduring his company that he was a playboy and a Grade A narcissist.  

My parents and his mom, the legendary Linda Drysdale, had closed on our new house the week before.  When my papá had mentioned to our realtor that he had 6 engineer brothers and sisters in PR also looking to move to the Boston area, Linda immediately swooped in and took over the sale.  We had moved into the new house for two days when who showed up on our doorstep with a giant Harry and David gift basket on his mother’s behalf? Ransom.  I’ve never seen my mom so taken with a man so quickly.  It was absolutely nauseating.  

My mom and I had been sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast with my little brother when Ransom waltzed in, ruining our meal.  While he charmed my mom, I shooed Gian from the table, stuffed him into his coat and boots and shoved his toast into his hand.  

“You’re gonna miss your bus, vete,” I said with an affectionate push.

He waved me off, but I could see his smile as he scrambled out the door towards his friends.  When I turned around, Mamá was on the phone, distractedly scribbling on a notepad at the center island.  Ransom had seated himself at our table and was examining the gift basket. After retrieving a pear, he rearranged the treats so it looked as if nothing were missing.  Catching my eye, he shot me a grin, took a bite of the fruit and flaunted it in front of me.

“Want some?”

My mom’s groan of frustration cut off my retort as she hung up.  Without missing a beat, Ransom hid the pear behind his leg.

Clipping her beeper to the waist of her skirt, she motioned at my backpack.  “Ol, you need to get your school stuff and hop in the car, I have to go to the hospital early.  I need to drive you; school is on the way.  A patient needs to go into surgery now.”

I scowled and put my hands on my hips. “I’m taking the bus with my friends. You said at this school I could!”

Already gathering her coat and keys, she shook her head.  “I’m sorry, mija.  Not today.  Come on, we need to go.  I can’t leave you alone at home for that long.”

My nose started to sting.  I didn’t want to sit at school alone for an hour and have to explain to my new friends why I wasn’t on the bus like everyone else.

Carefully watching the interaction, Ransom cleared his throat.  “Mrs. Santos, I would be happy to stay with her until her bus comes.  I’m home on break from Yale for the week and would love nothing more than to get to know your daughter,” he offered, radiating charisma.

“Oh Ransom, I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“Honestly, our house is only a few streets away, so we’re practically neighbors.  It would be no problem.”

She hesitated, glancing from Ransom to her watch. Back home, we didn’t have babysitters. Family played that role.  I couldn’t imagine leaving her 13 year-old home alone with a strange man was high on her list of things to do in the US.

Ransom read the situation well.  “Mrs. Santos, my girlfriend is just at my parents’.  Why don’t I give her a call and the three of us can clean up the kitchen until…,” he motioned at me.

“Olivia,” I snipped.

He didn’t flinch.  “Until Olivia’s bus comes,” he finished with a smile.

“I suppose… that would be alright,” Mamá agreed.  “Your family is so kind!”  Sighing in relief, she snagged me for a kiss goodbye and scurried towards the door.  “Behave, Ol! I’ll see you at dinner,” she shouted over her shoulder.

I listened to the garage door close and turned to find him thumbing through the Harry and David catalogue while dabbing pear juice from his lips with a napkin.  I glared at him for a minute.

“You and your mom are just being nice to my parents because I have a lot of aunts and uncles moving here,” I accused.

He looked up, laughing in surprise.  Nodding his head to the side, he shrugged a shoulder, “You’re not wrong.  Did they tell you that?”

“No, but I can tell.”

A soft ping sounded and he patted his pockets, pulling out a phone from his jacket.  He continued nibbling at the pear until all that was left was the core, then absently dumped it on my abandoned breakfast plate.  I walked closer and peered at the screen in his hands while he typed furiously.

“Do you have any games on your phone?” I asked.

“This isn’t a phone, it’s a Blackberry.”

“Do you have any games on your Blackberry?  Like Snake?  My mom’s phone has Snake.”

“No, it doesn’t have Snake,” he snapped as he pulled a headset from his jacket pocket and plugged it into the headphone jack. Almost immediately it rang and he slipped the earpiece on, pushing me.

“Jackson?”  He sighed at me in irritation and turned away.  “Yeah, come up this weekend.  They’re two Norwegian bitches, semi-professional skiers or something. Super hot.  They’re in the US to train but stopping to vacation in New England or whatever.”  He ran his finger along the wicker of the gift basket while he listened to his friend respond.  With an exasperated sigh, he shook his head.  “No, no, we don’t need to take them sailing for them to put out.”

I stared at him, my jaw dropping.  I knew it was rude to both stare and eavesdrop, but I had never met anyone who was so blatantly awful.

“They’ll fuck us because I’m crazy rich, bro, don’t worry,” Ransom chuckled.  He leaned back against the table and rolled his eyes as his friend prattled on, until his gaze landed on me.  His eyes widened.

“Shit,” he muttered.  “Jax, I’m not alone.  I gotta go.”

He yanked the earpiece off and tossed it on the table, leaning towards me with his elbows on his knees.  

I scowled.  “You don’t really have a girlfriend who’s coming over.”

“Olivia,” he said with a practiced smile that actually reached his beaming eyes.  Ignoring my statement, he took me in for a moment, cataloguing my appearance as his gaze came to rest on my neck.

“That’s such a pretty necklace you’re wearing, did you pick it out yourself?”

My insides tingled a little.  I didn’t like-him-like-him or anything, but he did look like a prince and he had complemented the starfish necklace my parents had given me for my birthday last summer.  It was my favorite.

“It was a present from my mom and dad, from when I turned 13 last year.”

“Christ,” he muttered under his breath.  Something about me being a kid.  I didn’t know what that meant, because he made an angry face. But that quickly went away and then his prince face was back.

“That was my friend Jackson on the phone,” he motioned at his Blackberry with his thumb, “We go to college together.  We joke around a lot,” he chuckled, rubbing my shoulder. “You do that with your friends, too, right?  Tell jokes, mess around?”

Confused and skeptical, I nodded.

“And you don’t always tell those jokes to your parents, because they don’t understand them.  You keep them between you and your friends.”

I raised my brow, trying to look formidable.  “You don’t want me to tell my mom what you were talking about.”

The friendliness in his expression melted away, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards instead.  “Exactly.”

 To this day, I wish I could say I stuck up for myself; that I told my mom how much of a jerk he was.  How he was a deceptive, womanizing liar who didn’t deserve an ounce of our time.  But, I didn’t.  Instead, I stooped to Ransom’s level.

My family had money; my mom was a physician and my dad a senior engineer for GE.  We lived very comfortably.  We had spent several months in the US in an apartment before finding the house, during which they had been earning American salaries and making more than ever.  But, both of my parents came from humble means, sent a lot of money back home to their own parents and grandparents, and did not appreciate the materialism I faced every day at the private school they sent me to.

And Ransom had… a lot of money.  He had made that clear over the phone.  I’m not proud to admit that I requested the Tiffany heart tag bracelet I had seen other girls wearing at school in exchange for my silence.  I’m even less proud that, after scoffing at my proposal, Ransom walked me right past the Tiffany & Co. on Newbury Street and in to Cartier and had me pick out a bracelet there instead.  He said he hadn’t bought Tiffany for a girl since he was my age and that he wasn’t lowering himself.  I still have the bracelet buried in my jewelry box, though I never put it on.  Considering its origins, it feels dirty to wear, but I can’t bear to part with it.

 Boston, 2007

 In 2007, we found out my dad had a mistress.  He had paid for her to move over from PR and had been supporting her in Boston for two years.  That would’ve flown in PR, but in the US, my mom’s friends wouldn’t stand for it. (Especially the female divorce lawyer next door.)  That was more or less the end of my dad’s presence in my life.  There’s a chance he might walk me down the aisle one day, but that’s only if Mamá insists on a super Catholic wedding.  

My dad leaving didn’t affect me like it did my mom and Gian. I had my friends and tennis, but Gian was younger and quieter; he and my dad spent a lot of time with little robot projects and those LEGO sets and I could tell he missed him.  Mamá was lonely at home, too; she and my dad had been together since high school.  She had spent a lot of time taking care of him, despite her working 60 hour weeks.

A few of my dad’s sisters hung around as moral support, but Papá eventually pressured them until they stopped coming to see us.  However, there was an additional isolated party within our vicinity who also needed a group of humans to latch onto; someone with the capacity to fill the role of both quasi-paternal figure (figure, not role model), and platonic spouse.

I’d seen Ransom with Mrs. Drysdale; at best, she spoiled her son.  At worst, she placated him with money, demeaned and dismissed him.  Even I didn’t appreciate how she treated him and most days I didn’t like him.  After graduating last in his class from Yale, Ransom took the year off to get away from her. Not a normal “take the year off” where you travel to learn about yourself, or work, or anything like that. Instead, Ransom bought property in the Maldives and imported $500,000 worth of Dom Perignon—the Rose Gold kind—, and flew in ballerinas from Moscow while telling his mom he was joining the Peace Corps for a girl.  When there was fraud on his black AmEx and he had to phone home for help, there was hell to pay when the call came from not Mongolia.  Linda cut him off and kicked him out.

For six months, but still.  This was Ransom.

My mother, bless her heart, would have absorbed all children needing a home if she could.  And, though he was 21, Ransom definitely qualified as such a child.  I honestly think Ransom needed the mothering, too. Growing up with a nanny paid to give you care is not a replication of a mother’s love, which he never had in the first place.

Ransom always showered Mamá with attention, asking how she was with utter sincerity while maintaining direct eye contact, thanking her for the work she did as a cardiac surgeon, and other general sycophantic niceties.  I was terrified that would change for the worst after he moved in, despite their generous age gap.  A freshly divorced woman could’ve been new prey for him.  It wasn’t that she didn’t know who and what he was—she was under no illusions.  But she had a soft spot for the broken bad boy with mommy issues and indulged him.

I watched him like a hawk when he was around her, but he never made a move.  He certainly let her wait on him; she cooked him food from scratch and listened to him talk while she cleaned up the kitchen, but he was never salacious.  I still give him props for that.  It would have been an entertaining game for him, one he would’ve easily won.  

It helped that he was gone half the time.  He still had his car, keys to the Hamptons house and access to his friends’ jets and properties.   I’m pretty sure Richard was also slipping him $50k a month because Ransom rebuilt his wardrobe pretty quickly.

I will admit I was slightly… antagonistic towards him during the beginning of his time with us.  I may have picked a few fights.  He wanted to watch Sin City because of Jessica Alba; I wanted to watch the Corpse Bride.  He left questionable-looking hair trimmings in the shower drain and you can bet I was pounding on his door.  He gave me that look when I thought I had dressed nicely, and I may or may not have launched myself at him.  But, near the middle of his stay, we learned to co-exist, and even had some decent conversations.  I chilled out when I saw how he was with Gian.  

I’m not sure Mamá ever officially asked Ransom to step up while he was living with us, I think the only conditions she had was that he tip the cleaning people an extra $150 for how bad his room was, not have his douchey friends over past 10pm, and no sleepovers with the opposite sex.  But, it was obvious to everyone under our roof that Gian looked to Ransom for companionship.  And, to my utter surprise, Ransom kind of delivered.  He took Gian to the U.S. Open and up to Lake Champlain to golf a few times, and they’d hang out at the house when Ransom was home.  

Then, one day I heard him call Gian his charity project to his friends as they sat out on the porch.  The second he came inside I punched him in the arm over that.  The weirdest part about Ransom and his awful behavior is that he only kinds of means it.  I mean, the idea was there, he had had the thought that Gian was less fortunate than him and needed his help.  But I also know he genuinely loved my little brother and was making spending time with him out to be a bigger deal than it really was.

Six months to the day, Ransom had a moving company at our doorstep at 8am sharp.  He only had a few hanging wardrobes worth of clothes to move into his new apartment; all of the furniture was being delivered by the dealer, but the man couldn’t lower himself to drive his own U-Haul.  By that time, I had developed an appreciation for Ransom.  It was kind of nice to have someone older to talk to, even though he had no conception of what real life was like.  He was okay.  I didn’t miss sharing a dwelling space with him, but I did kind of miss him.

 Boston, Fall 2009

 That fall, I was 18 and a senior at the Winsor School and Ransom was 25 and bullshitting his way through his Master’s of Science in Business Analytics at Princeton.  I preferred not to ask questions regarding his attendance or grades.  I figured the less I knew, the less I could be implicated in some scandal involving the university and bribery.

High school wasn’t a great time in my life. The kids at Winsor were spoiled and came from generations of overachievers.  You could say there were a lot of Ransoms, I suppose; self-serving, arrogant, brutal, conceited, rich kids.  I’m not saying I didn’t share some of those traits, I knew I was fortunate, but I liked to think I was a decent person.  As a result, I was relatively lonely.  I had the varsity tennis team, and that fit my basic  need for socialization.  But not once did I ever entertain the thought of a boyfriend.

As the years progressed, I waited for the mutual attraction for my peers to arrive.  It never did. At that age, even if boys had adopted the air of sophistication they had seen modeled at home and had the ability to charm, they severely lacked in a different department, like intelligence or maturity.  I shut down every advance without a second thought and didn’t look back.

Until, that is, my Senior year.  As leaving home was becoming a reality, I decided I didn’t want to go to college a virgin.  I just didn’t.  Things happen in college, things you don’t always have control over, and I liked control.  I liked control very much.  And I wanted to have control over when and how I gave it up.  And I wasn’t giving it up to some 18 year old I had dated for a three months who couldn’t kiss and also didn’t have the experience to help me enjoy the process.

But I knew someone who did.

I smirked as a key sounded in the lock, Ransom had never given his back from a few years ago.

“Ol?” his voice echoed up the stairs.

“In the kitchen!”

The old stairs creaked as he ascended, heading straight for the refrigerator without even looking at me.

“Hey,” he nodded in greeting.

“Hey.”  For the first time in my life, I was nervous talking to him.  I’d texted him, asking if he could stop by, which wasn’t out of character.  He usually popped in at least once a month to return a book, pick up a sweater he forgot that my mom had washed or have dinner with us.  He lingered, even after moving out.  The flight from Princeton to Boston was only an hour, and it meant a lot to Gian, to all of us, really, that Ransom still visited.

While Ransom dug through the fridge, pulling out some leftover chorizo, I set about throwing together some protein smoothies for us.  He had left a container of ridiculously expensive something something collagen protein at our house the last time he was there and it was expiring soon, so I split the remainder between us.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw him fuss with the microwave.

I raised a brow.  “You know how to use kitchen appliances?”

He took an exaggerated bite of a sausage slice. “Selectively,” he winked.

I bit my cheek to keep from laughing.  Ransom’s “selective” helplessness didn’t need encouragement.

I think what we worked in was companionable silence, but I’m not positive.  I was pretty geared up, so it was hard to tell.  Settling at the table, I laid plates out for both of us, chewing my lip.

“I have a favor to ask.”

“I can’t get you into Yale early decision, but I can get you in,” he said as he reached for his smoothie.

I rolled my eyes.  “I’ve already gotten into Brown on my own, which was my first choice, thank you. What I need is… different.”

“What is it?  I’ve got cash with me.”

“Ransom!  Listen to me. Just let me ask my question.”

“Okay!” he chuckled, his eyes gleaming as he swirled his glass.

“Okay,” I repeated, my heart pounding in my chest. I made myself look him in the eye. All of a sudden I wanted to cry? What if he said no?  What if he laughed?  What if he never talked to me again?

“Ol, you’re getting pale.  You look like you’re about to ask me to skin a cat.”

“Shut up,” I grumbled, seconds away from losing my nerve. I inhaled deeply, folding my hands on the table in front of me and sitting up straight.

“Ransom,” I began.

“Olivia,” he countered, his face comically serious.

“I want you to take my virginity.  Now that I’m 18—.”

“Hah—You what?  No you don’t, Olivia, you don’t—.”

“I do.”

“Ehhhh,” he made a pained face and shook his head.  “I mean, what do you mean by virginy? What have you done before?”

“Nothing.”

“But you’ve given head though, right?”

I tried to mask my embarrassment with a look of disdain.

When Ransom gaped in surprise, I kicked him under the table.

“A handjob?”

“I said nothing,” I bit out.

The corner of his mouth pulled upward and he tilted his head, his eyes narrowing.  “What about like… getting off with each other?”

I shook my head.  

“Sexting?”

“There’s no one I want to sext.”

He sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“But like…”

“I’ve never touched or been touched, Ransom.  I’ve never seen a man naked, okay?”

He sighed.  “I don’t do virgins.  It’s a personal policy.  Especially someone like you who has absolutely no experience.”

That stung, but I kept trying.  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

“No—.”

“Are you dating anyone?”

“Ol, I don’t date—.”

“Ransom, this is exactly the type of arrangement you want!” I hissed.

“This should be something you do with a boyfriend, someone your age who you care about and who cares about you.”

I groaned and stormed into the living room, plopping into an easy chair.  

“I don’t want a boyfriend.  I’m going to Brown in the fall, so dating someone now would be pointless. And in Providence, between Chi Omega, studying, volunteering, and AMSA, I just won’t have time for a relationship.”

Ransom couldn’t suppress a laugh as he tailed after me.  “You’re as heartless as I am.”

“I’m not heartless,” I argued.  “I’m practical.”

He gave me a patronizing smile.  “You’ve never done this before, you don’t know how you’ll feel afterwards.  It’s sex. Girls get attached.  I just can’t do that, babe.”

"You can!  Ransom, you can.  I won’t get attached.  I’ll leave you alone after.  I won’t text you for a month.  Please? I—,” my cheeks flamed as I looked down at my hands.  Bickering and bantering with Ransom was easy.  Acting like I disliked him was easy.  But being vulnerable with him?  That was terrifying.  “I want it to be you,” I whispered.  “I don’t trust anyone else.”

With a sigh, he perched on the arm of my chair.

“I’m going back to Princeton on Sunday.  Even if we did it tonight, we wouldn’t have 48 hours together.”

“I don’t care!” I slapped the seat of the chair. “What if—what if I get roofied and lose it to some guy and don’t even remember it?  Or—or someone, you know… one in every four women faces sexual assault in college…”

That perpetual, devious gleam in Ransom’s eyes disappeared.  Something brutal and vicious replaced it.

  “I’d kill him.  I’d kill anyone who touched you like that.”

My chest tightened.  I’d never seen him that serious before, not even when he argued with his mom.  It was a little terrifying.  But, I had carried pepper spray on me for years since moving to the city and I already knew my parents were sending me to college with a SipChip, not that I’d be going to parties anyway.  I tried another angle.

  “I know I’m not the girls you normally sleep with—blonde, white, with yachts and horses and trust funds—

Darkness cast over his face.

“Olivia,” he interrupted.  Brow creasing, Ransom lifted his hand near my face, then hesitated. With a growl, he cupped my jaw. “You’re beautiful,” he murmured, brushing the knuckle of the opposite hand against my cheek.  “And trust funds are so mundane.”

I rose from the chair and leaned against his leg. “Then why don’t you want me?”  It took everything in me to keep my voice from breaking.

Ransom shifted uneasily, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Ol, I’ve known you since you were a kid.  I can’t—I just don’t see you that way.”

“You still see me as a child?”

“I guess, yeah.”

Butterflies flapped madly in my belly, but I held my breath and stepped forward between his legs until our chests were pressed together, trapping my hand between us at his groin.  Praying that I applied what I had read correctly, I timidly felt for his cock. He grunted when I wrapped my hand around the outline of its shape and followed it with a shy stroke.

“I am not a child,” I husked in my best seductress voice.

“You said you’d never touched or been touched,” he accused through clenched teeth.

Both proud and embarrassed, I ducked my head. “I don’t like entering a situation unprepared.  I read a lot and watched some videos.”  Realizing the implications of my statement, I turned beet red.  “For research, I mean!”

That earned me a genuine smile.  Sliding one hand around my waist he pulled me closer, then used the other to firmly guide my palm over his half erect cock, rubbing it back and forth.  I blushed as I felt him harden under my fingers.

“What else did you research?”

"Stuff,” I mumbled.

Rubbing his thumb along my hipbone, his gaze fell to his lap, watching my hand work over his erection.  Then his eyes deviated to my front, trailing up my belly to my chest, which was, admittedly, heaving, and slowly made their way to my face. Looking someone in the eye had never made me clench down there before.  It was unexpected, but not unappreciated.

I could see Ransom thinking, his eyes flicking back and forth between mine as he reasoned with himself.

“You need to think this over, you need to really consider what you’re asking me and decide that’s what you want,” he murmured, his voice rough.

My pussy throbbed at the sound, and it took extra concentration not to let my eyes close.

“When have I ever made a rash decision about something this important?  I started thinking about this a year ago.”

He exhaled a laugh, shaking his head.  “Of course you did.”

When his hips gave an involuntary thrust against my palm, he gently pulled my wrist away.

“That’s enough for now.”

Tears pricked at the corner of my eyes.  “Did I do it wrong?  Is that a no?”

He massaged his closed eyelids with his index finger and thumb, exhaling shakily.  “It should be a no.  A good man would say no.”  

Drawing me against him once more, I whimpered as he ground his cock against my belly.  “But I’ve never been a good man, have I, Olivia?”

He didn’t give me an opportunity to respond. The kiss was firm, but delicate. No tongues or biting or slipping or sliding, just lips pressed together, gently massaging.  When he sucked at my lower lip I surprised both of us with a soft moan, causing him to bury his hand in my hair and tilt my head for better access.

I completely lost track of everything, because the next moment of consciousness I had was gasping for air as he pulled away. My fingers were tangled in his hair, my hand clutching his sweater like it was a lifeline, and his thigh was situated between both of mine, applying pressure to my clit that was making me see stars.  Now my mouth was wet, but I didn’t care.

Once I could see straight, I dove for his mouth again, but he stopped me with an unyielding grip on my chin.

“Change,” he rumbled.  “We’ll go to dinner at Menton, I’ll pull some strings and get us a table.  Then back to my apartment.”

I squinted, still reeling from the kiss. “We’re not going to Menton first, that makes it sound like a date.  This isn’t a date, we have one mission to accompli—.”

He gaze grew cold.  “If we do this, we’re doing it my way.  You’re going to listen to me.  I’m in charge.”

My eyes flicked back and forth between his as my entire face and neck glowed pink.  

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Say ‘Yes, sir,’” he corrected me.

“Yes, sir,” I repeated softly.

The pleased smile that spread across his lips gave me a warm feeling in my belly.

“Tonight, I’m going to destroy your pussy,” he whispered against my ear, sucking at my lobe, “I’m going to make you come like a whore.”  Moving to my other side, he spoke softly again, his warm breath against my cheek making me shiver.  “Your future husband will resent me for the rest of your lives, because I’m going to ruin you for any other man.”  Nuzzling my nose with the tip of his, he kissed the corner of my mouth.  “And you’re going to love it.”

I couldn’t help myself.  I was throbbing, there was pressure building in my belly and the man had barely laid a hand on me.  With a high pitched whimper, I sought his mouth again, but he wrapped his huge hand around my throat and shook his head as he held me back.

“Go.  Pick out something nice to wear.  Something you feel pretty in.”

Mouth dry, I nodded.  He caught my arm as I went to leave.

“And Olivia?  Not a scrap of clothing underneath.”

[minnowdew]

Come Back Soon

*** a short story i wrote for a horror contest, but it became something more! thank you to my proofreader and altogether best friend @tiny-planty-grower for helping this to become what it is! ***

I was never the type of person to go on frequent walks. Sure, I know they're healthy and all that, but it always felt more alluring to sit inside with a sketchpad or a hardcover book in my lap. I'd read through most of the interesting books in my parent’s library pretty quickly, though. That's when the walks started.

Outside my childhood home was the familiar smell of barbecue, intermingled with freshly cut grass. My neighbor's pear tree was beginning to shed its petals down to the asphalt below. I put my earbuds in, turned on an episode of a podcast, and began walking to the north of my home, leaving Kennedy Street behind me.

I never really explored areas to the north of my house, funnily enough. My walks to school in 3rd grade were in a different direction, and I didn’t like the outdoors as a kid. To the north of my house was the rich neighborhood, with their McMansions and perfect green lawns lined with elegant gardens that appeared nearly artificial. One house, a brown brick McMansion with a massive sloping roof, even had a small pond in the front, with white koi endlessly swimming in perfect little circles.

It was easy to get lost in the North; the streets often curved unnaturally and ended up twisting back on themselves like yarn. The sun turned the houses around me vibrant shades of orange as it neared six o’clock. Soon though, I saw the koi house again, about an hour into my walk. I stopped to stare at the house; the roof was different, with a chimney pointing upwards into the sky. Windows dotted the house in places that they hadn’t been before.

I saw the koi house repeat five more times after that, each on a different, silent street. The house always shifted slightly in design. One had a red door instead of a black door, another with a few potted plants on the massive porch. One even had a chandelier that could be seen hanging in the foyer. Besides the pond, one thing never changed; with the lights off and the massive garage door closed, the houses all seemed empty inside.

Until I saw Them.

They were standing on the porch of the seventh koi house, looking out to the street. They were about 7 feet tall, wearing dark clothes. One moment They had large eyes and pale skin, with freckles; the next moment, They had dark skin, with brown eyes and a scar over Their left eyebrow. The only thing that never really changed was Their dark clothes. It didn't take long for our eyes to meet. 

They said hello while wearing pale skin, light blue eyes, and heavy makeup. I stammered out a greeting back.

“Lovely weather,” They said, pushing a lock of curly black hair out of their face. I agreed. 

“Don't stay out too late,” They told me while sporting a greying beard, “It's supposed to get colder tonight.” I smiled a little and thanked Them for the advice. They nodded and smiled back, their black eyes still locked with mine until I turned away.

I walked past that koi house, keeping my eyes on the ground. They were right; I hadn’t noticed the breeze that had been picking up, and I saw my breath clouding in front of me. It was only about a minute before I saw the eighth koi house.

“Hello,” Another one of Them said while wearing a pair of grey eyes and a small bandaid on Their cheek. I stopped, puzzled. I greeted the other Them hesitantly. 

“Lovely weather,” They said while fidgeting with large gold hoop earrings. I paused, turning around. The seventh koi house was still in sight behind me. The Them from the seventh house was still standing there, wearing red lipstick and a large nose, staring at me with a blank expression. I turned to the eighth koi house and its respective Them, and I commented on the cold breeze. They laughed, Their voice sounding harsh, like the squeaking of a wheel.

“Don't stay out too late,” They told me, pushing up their round spectacles, “It's supposed to get colder tonight.” I thanked Them and went to continue, but paused. I looked to Them once more and asked how to get back to Kennedy Street. Their brow furrowed in thought for a moment, causing Their mustache to move in an odd way. 

“You're leaving so soon?” They asked, dressed in a houndstooth hijab. I nodded, and They sighed, Their face contorting into a look of disappointment. 

 “Fine,” They said while Their overgrown blue bangs tickled Their eyelashes. They told me to take the next left. I thanked Them, but They were looking down at a small notebook that had appeared as suddenly as the braces on Their teeth. They were furiously writing something. As I started to walk away, I heard the ripping sound of paper.

I took the next left and I was on Kennedy Street, birds once again chirping in the trees in front of my childhood home. I went to check the time, but there was something new in my sweater’s front pocket. I took it out. It was a thin piece of lined paper with a torn edge. On it in cursive handwriting were the words "Come back soon" with a small drawing of a heart. I shoved it back into my pocket and stepped inside my parent's house.

I passed my mom when I came through the back door, and she asked about my walk.  I gave a noncommittal hum and slipped off to my room before she could ask anything else. I sat down on my bed and stared at the wooden floor.

‘Come back soon,’ the note said.

I took the crumpled note out of my pocket and traced the new erratic letters with my finger. The handwriting suddenly looked like a child's, now written in purple marker, and had some backward E’s. I placed it on my bedside table and laid down on my bed

‘Come back soon,’ the note yelled.

I stared at the ceiling. I didn’t know if I would be able to get back to Them, let alone if I’d be able to get back home again. Maybe it was best to leave Them alone. 

‘Come back soon’, the note wailed. 

I ignored the note. Maybe They felt lonely. I didn’t see anyone up north much, and Their North seems to be disconnected from my north. Plus, They were able to bring me home before, safe and sound.

‘Come back soon,’ the note begged.

I felt around on my bedside table until I held the note again. Now, the words looked similar to a kindergarten teacher's circular script.

‘Come back soon,’ the note whispered.

It could be an adventure. I sat up and crossed the room, taking out a pen from my desk. The paper came from the North and it's changing just like They did. Maybe it can be used to talk to them. I pressed a pen to the thin note.

‘Fine,' I wrote, 'Tomorrow?'

'How about at one?'

[reconciliationproject]

A CHILD’S INNER SCREAM        

August 11, 2018        

         “So, what’s my position now,” he asked, leaning half forward and half toward me.  We were sitting in two soft rocking chairs, facing the same direction, with a round oak table between.

“What do you mean what’s your position now?”, I asked, though I knew what he was asking.

His wife of forty-four years, my mother of almost thirty-eight years had been buried earlier this day.  The day-bed, where she had lain for most of the last year, was across from my chair.  The mattress was still stained and painful memories still attached.

It had been her wish to die, to stop trying.  A breast lost to cancer two years before and weight down to eighty pounds had left skin and bones to surround her declining spirit.  Dad told me she had made him promise no more hospitals.  He took care of her the last year, helped by women from a visiting nurses service.

The morning he found her lifeless and unresponsive, on the day-bed, he did some strange things.  The manager of the visiting nurses office told me he came by there, talking crazy, saying something about Pat, my mother, then left hurriedly.  Several other people told me they had seen him that morning, acting and talking strangely.

When the visiting nurse came to the house, she found Mom dead and called for an ambulance.  One of the paramedics called me and I talked with him briefly, then handed the phone to my wife, before I broke into tears.

I later talked with my dad, asked him how he was doing and told him I was on my way.  There were friends at the house and I felt better knowing he had company.

When I drove up to the house, the whole place seemed emptier than ever before.  An old white frame house, with pillars on the front porch, that my grandfather had built around 1920.  The house was surrounded by huge oak trees, magnolias, pear, peach and plums.  Dogwoods were set among the larger oaks and the remnants of a winter garden lay behind the trees, next to a small vineyard.

Normally I loved the sight but today it seemed lonely and sad.  It seemed as though all the living things knew the lady of the house, who loved them all, would not walk again among them. Nor would she walk and smile among us.  Reluctantly I parked the car.

Dad rose when I came in and we embraced, awkwardly, at first.  This was the first time I could ever remember hugging him.  The visiting nurse was standing up, at the end of the room, in the doorway between the den and kitchen, both long rectangular rooms.  Dad had a somewhat confused, vacant look and I helped him back into his chair.  He was no longer the six foot two and one half inches of his prime.  He now seemed closer to my 5′ 10 1/2″ inches and he looked like all of his seventy-six years.

I introduced myself to the nurse, who was not really a nurse but someone the visiting nurses sent to the house to clean, cook lunch and take care of home-bound patients’ hygienic needs.  She told me her name and recounted the story of finding my Mom dead and calling the ambulance.  Later, before she left, she told me there were some potatoes and onions in the pantry that were about to go bad and some meat and left-overs that needed to be cleared out of the refrigerator.  The way she spoke, I knew she was asking for them.  It was easy to tell she was poor and I told her to go ahead and take the things she was talking about.  Over the course of that day, and the next, she asked for more and more things–a real scavenger.  Her services ended.

Dad and I sat down and he told me which funeral company he had directed Mom’s body be sent.  I contacted the owner and discussed needs, dates, services, etc.  I was having a tough time with the subject so I told him I would be down later.

I asked Dad for names of people to act as pallbearers.  He could not think of any so I asked about people I had heard he and Mom speak about.  I did not know many people there, in the small town where he grew up and where they had moved after he retired.  I asked who the man was that took their cattle to auction, etc.  Finally I had some names and I started making phone calls, wishing at that moment that I had siblings who could help with what had to be done.  But I was an only child and it was up to me.  I called other people for names and came up needing two.

I went to the funeral home and sat down with the owner.  We discussed prices, quality of caskets, clothes, markers and services.  I would do fine, for a while, then have to control my suddenly appearing tears and emotions.  I finally left to go back home and see what clothes Mom had there, appropriate for her last public occasion.

Dad was still sitting in his rocker, where I had left him, the room growing dark as the sun set behind the trees.  I told him about the arrangements I had made, so far, and started looking for mom’s clothes.  Dad was quiet and I asked him to try to come up with more names for pallbearers.  He couldn’t. He didn’t.  I was getting frustrated with him and could not find any appropriate clothes.  Part of me wanted to sit there like him but the other part knew things had to be done.  God, I was sad and Dad was no help!  I left to select a gown from the funeral home’s selection of appropriate apparel.

Dad’s lack of help was stressful.  I wanted to yell, scream and cry, to try and relieve the hurt, sadness and sudden unwanted responsibilities that had been placed  upon me.  I picked out the gown and casket then stopped by to meet the young minister.  I told him about Mom’s life and gave him a poem I had written for her, as a birthday present.  I held together and completed the arrangements.

We made it through the funeral and burial.  When the minister read my poem, it almost did me in.  Back at the house, there were friends, food and conversation.  Dad told a friend of mine that I was trying to get all of his money and control of his affairs.  The friend told me and old feelings returned.

Dad and I had had a love/hate relationship for most of my remembered life.  He and Mom had spent many weekends partying and drinking, when I was young.  All of their emotions bubbled to a drunken surface, many times, and erupted into violence.

I remember sitting in my bed, about seven years old, looking down a long hall, into the living room, and hearing the loud talk, screams and shouts.  I saw hitting, both her and him.  He was much larger than her but she fought back–it was in her nature.  Dad had been a heavyweight fighter during college.  She played tennis in college and grew up as a cowgirl in Eastern New Mexico, doing a man’s job on various ranches.

Sometimes, during the violence I was subjected to, there were yells for help.  sometimes I could see him pushing her across the small area of the living room I could see, while sitting in the middle of my bed.  I would sit there watching, wanting to scream but too afraid and holding that sound inside.  Eventually, when I was in the third grade, my stomach erupted, from all the terror I shoved down there.  I would wake up screaming in pain, holding my stomach.  The only place I could eventually fall asleep was lying crossways in Mom’s padded rocking chair.

Mom took me to local doctors, then, on referral, to a large Galveston hospital.  The doctors never found anything wrong and came up with a diagnosis of ‘migraine stomach’.  That diagnosis was otherwise termed, ‘we don’t know’.  Years later I diagnosed the cause myself.  Whenever I was around violence, of any kind, my stomach tied up in knots and I was able to relate the feelings together with the drunken violence I had witnessed and been subject to.

The drinking and fighting episodes continued to flare up every so often.  Some were witnessed by my friends and really embarrassed me.  As I grew older, about fifth grade, I started to run into the living room, or whatever room the sparks were coming from, to try and separate them.

I remember one such episode in the kitchen.  I ran between them screaming, “Stop it!”, tears covering my face and nerves wracked by fear and sadness.  My Dad looked at me and said, “What are we doing to our son?  What have we done?”, his words slurred, sloppy and wet.  He then made us all hold hands, in a circle, and drop to our knees while he said a drunken prayer and asked for God’s forgiveness, as tears rolled down all of our faces.  There were no lasting effects, though.  The drinking and violence continued.

During these years, the love/hate relationship developed between Dad and I.  Everything would be all right, until the drinking.  Sometimes things would turn out ok and sometimes not.  I got to the point where I hated to see them drink at all and I would turn off to them, acting hateful, staying distant and holding my twisting, painful stomach.

There were times when I would try and break up fights and , unable to do so, would run to neighbors’ houses.  The neighbors would never do anything to help, never wanting to interfere, afraid for themselves.  They would talk to me then I would have to walk back down the dark sidewalk to the house. I would return to our house, listen at each window and at the front door, to see if the violence was still going on and eventually would go back inside, only because I had no other choices.  I would tell Mom and Dad that I had told the neighbors, hoping that would, somehow, have some kind of positive effect.  It didn’t.  Sometimes there would be flashing lights from police cars, because of the yelling going on inside my house.  Police cars were never called to anyone else’s house on our block.

Eventually, after a severe period, Mom and Dad separated and Mom filed for divorce.  I was in Junior High and I put a loaded shotgun in my closet.  Dad suddenly moved back in one day and no one had told me that was going to happen.  I didn’t know they had reconciled.  I found him in my room one day holding the shotgun.  He looked at me and said, “I found this in your closet.  It’s loaded.  What was it doing there?”

I felt strange, uneasy.  It was so easy to hate this man when he was drinking, drunk, yelling at, pushing, cursing or hitting Mom or me.  Yet, when he was normal, I did not feel the same feelings toward him.  I was young and confused about love and hate.  I knew that I felt both and I only wanted the love feeling to stay.  But the hate was so powerful.  Besides, I had plenty of memories that supplied the answer to his question.

“I wasn’t going to let you hurt Mom anymore,” I said, looking him in he eyes then dropping my eyes toward my shuffling feet.  It was so hard to imagine shooting him, when he was not drunk, scary and dangerous but the memories provided the conviction.

My words and feelings struck him and he said, “Well, I’ll put it back in the storeroom”, as he walked out of my room with the gun, not looking at me.  His words were spoken softly and I got the feeling, somehow, that I had hurt him.

My parents did not drink and get drunk every day.  Their violence nearly always erupted on weekends, after parties and on holidays.  Sometimes there would be weeks, or even months, between episodes.  Sometimes there were only days.

My natural sympathy was for my Mom, smaller and weaker than him.  Sometimes she would sleep with me after their fighting.  The alcohol breath became familiar to me and I hated the smell.  Her cough was the only normal sound she made.  Everything else sounded drunken.  I went to sleep holding her hand.  How I loved the peace, the quiet, after the fighting.  Still, I held what had passed, what I had experienced, inside.

I was too young to understand that there were two sides to every argument.  Pent up anger and frustration were unknown to me then, at least intellectually.  As I grew older, and apart, I began to understand some of these things but was never able to relax around my parents when they drank.

My dad only really hit me once, on a Christmas night when I tried to break up one of their fights.  Dad had pushed Mom back on the bed in their room and was wrestling and slapping her.  I jumped on him and he slapped me, sending me backward landing against the door frame.  He and Mom were as stunned as I was.  I moved first and bolted out the front door, to the next door neighbor’s house.  Different city, different neighbors, same results.  Fifth grade.

I always dreaded Christmas alone with Mom and Dad.  As long as family was around, things would be all right.  But Christmas always involved drinking and drinking always brought up bitterness and resentment toward Dad.  Thank goodness we were not alone but a few Christmases.

The question, “So, what’s my position now,” came from a seventy-five year old man, guarded and suspicious, who had lost his wife who had been his strength for forty years.  “Your position is the  same as always, Dad.  I’m not here to take your money, or land, or your house.  You are still in control of that,” I tried to reassure him.  I felt myself becoming, more and more, the parent.

He leaned back, somewhat reassured, but not totally.  He had given me money many times in the past.  Some of it I spent foolishly.  I had not completed college in four straight years, had bounced around several jobs and done a few things he did not consider to be great life achievements, or advancements.

He had always been successful and always did his best, at whatever he did.  A first rate athlete, rough, tough and self-assured.  He had been handsome, big in stature and worked for one company for over thirty years.  He had also been in a single profession his whole adult life.  He always succeeded and could not understand the lace of success, or consistency in my life.

Our views were different in many ways but we had grown somewhat closer over the years.  There had, however, always been a barrier.  I wanted to hug him several times over the  years but could not, until Mom died.  Many times I wanted to tell him I loved him but could not speak the words.  Neither could he.

Dad eventually went into a nursing home a few months after Mom’s death.  His mind was fading.  When Mom left, his anchor, his strength and wisdom deserted him.  In the nursing home, he lived in the past.  Sometimes he knew me and my family and sometimes he did not.  He always knew that he knew me, he just was not always sure exactly who I was.  Sometimes he introduced me to his nurses as his brother, father, or his cousin.

There were times he would ask about Mom, or tell me I needed to see her, but he could not find her right then.  He forgot she had passed and his dream world reality was the only way he could continue to exist without her, I guess.

Mom and Dad had a sum of money in the bank and received payments on land they had sold.  Financially, Dad was all right.  I paid his bills, invested part of his money and used some of it to further a dream I had had for a long time.  I wanted to be a writer.  The money financed my first book and gave me a year to spend writing and thinking.  When the book was published, by me, I took a copy with me to visit Dad.  It so happened that it was one of his more lucid moments.

We talked about the weather, about whether or not anyone had been to see him and how the food was.  I told him what his two grandchildren were up to and how my wife was doing.  I told him I had written a book.  He looked at me without changing expressions and I wondered whether or not the words were penetrating all of the layers leading to understanding and comprehending.

My local newspaper had done a front page story about me and there was a photo of me holding my book.  I showed him the paper and the book.  He was interested in the newspaper article and he tried to reach for it so he could see it better.

Strokes had left him bent and crippled, with little arm or hand movement.  I got his glasses, put them on him and held the paper so he could read the article.  His concentration was good, for a while, but I could see it waiver.  I do not think he finished the article, but he stared at the picture.  I showed him the book and opened it to the dedication, one of which was to him and Mom.  I was not sure how much of this was getting inside of him.  I talked about the book, thanked him for making it possible for me to have done what I did, the way I did.

Shortly thereafter, it was time to go.  I got up, thanked him again and leaned over to kiss his forehead.  I started walking toward the end of his bed.  He said, “Gary”, and I turned and looked at him.  He had not called me by my name in months.  He said, “I love you”, and his big, long face broke up in tears and love.

I was stunned and my emotions were caving in.  Barriers that had been erected and strengthened for years, for decades, started crumbling.  I looked at him and said, “I love you, too”, through tears and a tight throat.  I walked back around to the side of his bed and leaned over and hugged the thin, frail body, my cheek on his.  He looked up at me and continued, “And I am so proud of you.”

It was almost more that I could stand.  For months I did not know whether or not he knew me, when I visited.  He could rarely remember my name.  But he knew!  Today he knew and he loved me and was proud of me.  I had wanted to hear and know those things for years.

Since he had become so dependent, I had grown so used to touching him, rubbing his shoulders and fixing his hair.  During his decline, I had diapered him, showered him, dressed him and cleaned him after his messes.  The child turned parent.  I had grown used to touching him but the emotional barriers were still there, even in his helplessness.  I stayed a little longer, filling myself with the moment.  He loved me, he was proud of me and I loved him.  All the words spoken face to face.

Through the years, I had grown to understand that my parents’ drinking, fighting, cursing, screams and violence had not been directed toward me, though I was the one who suffered the most.  Intellectually I understood.  But the tears, terror, screams and fears, held inside by the helplessness of a terrified young boy, sitting in his bed, looking down a long hall, watching his parents fight and scream, were beyond intellectual understanding.  The memories and experiences were fortified and buttressed by repetition and anger, hate, fear and sadness were shoved inside.  They were guarded and protected by masks of anger, humor and cockiness, protecting the tender feelings inside.  They were difficult feelings to release.

My dad started those walls crumbling and I am still working through them.  That may have been his last lucid act.  The last time I saw him, he introduced me to a nurse as his cousin Peanuts, whoever that is.

But I remember the good times, too, and there were many.  Maybe all of this is why Mom went first, so Dad and I could get together before he joined her.  There were things I wish I could have said to Mom before she died, but that will not be the same with Dad. We talked. He loves me and is proud of me.  And I love him.

Copyright 2018 by Gary Bass

[chrishansler]

24604

This is my last night in this house. It is empty. It is quiet. And it has the same peace, the same sense of “home” it always has. We’ve lived in this house for 24 ½ years. Nine months after moving our young family back here from California, nine months into a new church plant, we bought this brand new home in “Orchard Park” at 24604 57th Ave. E. in Graham. Lisa and I were 30. Bobby was 5, Johnathan was 3 and Annie was 2. It was exciting. The paint was fresh, the front lawn was new and the yard was big! We had no plants, no trees, no back or side yards, no fence – just a nice patch of grass in the front of the house and a vision for what could be.

The yard was full of rocks like all of Graham soil, so we paid our kids 1 cent per rock if they picked them out of the back yard and piled them in the back. 😊 We didn’t have any money so I build a dirt sifter and I raked and sifted rocks out. Raking and sifting, raking and sifting. I was occasionally able to buy a truck load of sandy loam soil to spread in the back yard, and our friend and new church board member, Duane Nelson worked for Emerald Turf farms. So sometimes at the end of the work day he would take a pallet of sod that they were throwing out and bring it to me. So I would plant some seed, lay some sod and do what we had to do to create a back yard we would love. For a long time it wasn’t pretty. It was like a patchwork quilt of every shade of green and brown throughout the back yard. And we still didn’t have any trees. But that would soon change.

Mom and Dad were selling their house on Golden Given so I took their young Northern Spy apple tree. They had some wild evergreen starts growing in their back woods, so I took some 3’ Douglas fir, a couple of Cedar tree sprouts and a little pine tree. Working for Northwest Building services I had the opportunity to take a couple of beautiful Sunset Red maple trees out of a strip mall that was renovating and getting rid of them. It took a flatbed and six guys to move those trees. One went in the front yard, and one in the back corner on top of an area that had been raised by all the rocks we raked and moved. I took one of Debi’s rhododendrons that Mom Hansler had planted when she lived in that house. Eventually our yard began to take shape with vine maples from mom & dad’s new property, as well as a dark red ornamental hazelnut tree and a beautiful mountain ash that mom gave me. We built our cedar fence and we planted pear, apple, peach, cherry, and Asian pear trees.

I built a play house with an attached swing set for the kids. The neighbor boy Torsten peed in that play house. That will forever be his legacy in our minds. I put a little pond in the raised area in the back with little goldfish and koi. We had a little garden on the side of the house. It was the perfect yard for wiffle ball. We would have neighborhood home-run derbies with awards. We played volleyball, badminton and I hit plastic golf balls back there. One time Annie had a party and we played kickball with her friends but one of her big high school friends ran me over at home plate. We had so many great times around the fire out there, looking at the stars, roasting marshmallows, watching movies projected on the back of the house, and even having a live backyard barbecue concert by Rod Nash one time back there!

We had church gatherings in our home. In the early days of our church we had a “small group” at our house with 17 adults and 24 kids. It was nuts, but it was so beautiful and fun. We’d have friends over and play games into the late hours of the night. Our kids played hard – sometimes too hard, sliding down the stairs in sleeping bags and leaving dents in the front door that I can still see as a glance over there – happy little memory dents.

We had the perfect yard for dogs – large and fully fenced. But it wasn’t enough for Dottie, our first Springer Spaniel. She was fast, she could jump high, and she was naughty. She would jump the 4’ fence like it was nothing and she wasn’t always nice to the neighbors so I had to build her a dog house to try to contain her. It didn’t. She got out and had a one-night stand with a stray neighbor dog, horrifying all of the neighborhood children who witnessed it. Dottie went to live with a nice elderly couple who would let her live inside their house. So we got Jill. Jill was a good dog, but mom and dad needed a dog so Jill became dad’s dog. Jack was the first black lab I ever owned. He was also the first big dog I ever let live inside the house. Jack was a big, lumbering, always-panting friend to everyone. He was truly the “best dog of all the dogs.” He loved the back yard. And now, no dog has ever loved our yard like JJ loves our yard – chasing squirrels, driving out crows and catching frisbees. It is his domain.

But it wasn’t only dogs at this home. We had Misty – the beautiful, albeit sometimes cranky, cat. Skitty – a stray neighborhood cat that we sort of adopted. Furball was a great little gray cat. But he liked to be inside and outside. He always got excited when we came home, until that fateful day when I didn’t seem him as I pulled in the garage with all of the kids in the suburban. It was terrible to lose him. We buried him near Misty in the back yard. That loss resulted in getting two half-brothers, Shadow and Fuzzball – loving, independent cats. Fuzzball is sitting next to me on one side and JJ on the other on this last night in the house.  We have also had fish in the pond, and those fish attracted raccoons, a big grey heron and a bald eagle! And I have loved watching the countless chickadees, finches, pine-siskins, sparrows and swallows. John always had swallow babies in the birdhouse mounted next to his bedroom window.

And on Christmas our house stole the neighborhood show. The streaming lights down from the star, the driveway lights, the post lights, the light-post Christmas tree, the snowman, the outdoor music and the nativity from Pastor Gene. Sometimes God would even give us a little snow to make it really pop.

The kids grew up here. The house was literally their classroom for many years. They each had their own space and they made it their own. John with his video games, K’nex and candy; Bob with his music, maps and reading; and Annie with her entrepreneurial spirit – with ever changing wall colors, clothing designs and even selling candy out of her room to the boys for a profit one time. So much laughter rang through these walls.

When we bought the house Lisa and I thought it was significant that we were right in the center – perhaps to make a little difference in the neighbor’s lives around us. Lisa quickly made a best friend in Pam Davis, and our kids played together. We remember Blain & Cindy, Luke and the twins; Gary & Kim across the street, Jim & Sharon and Kelly & Iris. Kelly still lives here too, and I said goodbye to him today. I married Steve & Brenda in their home. We tried to show love to Jeff & crazy Wendy behind us – even paying for and building a fence for them with some church friends. I used to walk the neighborhood and pray with Len Phillips. Adam & Nikke, Chloe, Lila, Amelia and now Josiah  have been such great neighbors – taking care of our animals when we’re gone; sharing sugar, eggs, flour; letting each other in countless times when we locked ourselves out, and always shouting “hi” from wherever they were. We’re really going to miss them. Maybe we made a little difference here. I hope so.

I’ve prayed every day in this house. I’ve prayed for Lisa and each of our kids. I’ve drafted vision here for new adventures that have become reality. I’ve wept over heartache, disappointment and loss. I’ve sat by the pond and just listened so many times. I’ll miss walking my dog to Centennial, talking to God, listening to scripture as I go.

This year has been really, really tough. When dad died I came home and walked through these trees that grew in his yard originally, and they reminded me of his deep roots, his love for outdoors and beauty, and his quiet strength. Mom needs help – she needs to be with family. And this week, as we were preparing for our move, Bonnie died of cancer. Then, within the hour of Bonnie’s passing, Lisa received biopsy results confirming breast cancer. We haven’t really been able to savor these last days here because we are trying to survive some pretty devastating news. But we will miss it here. It has always been a place I couldn’t wait to get to. I’m so grateful for that.

Tomorrow we will begin new dreams in a new place. There will be new trees to plant, new fruit to harvest, new friends and new places to walk, run and ride our bikes to. Maybe this will be a place where our kids-in-law come and grandkids. That place will ring with love and laughter to. We will share life with mom there for a while. I will walk with Lisa as she beats cancer in a new neighborhood. She says that in that community it “always feels like a vacation.” That is my hope – that it will be a refuge for us, for our kids and family and for our friends.

Now I’m 55, Lisa is 54, Bobby is 29, John is 28 and Annie is 26. The house I sit in tonight is older, the carpets are worn, but the yard is mature and beautiful – full of life and growth. I hope the new owner loves it and enjoys it as much as I have. I hope they mow straight lines in the lawn and put up Christmas lights. I hope they sense the peace here. Thank you God for our home.

[kfdirector]

Student Awareness of Nonstandard Danger Society

    “Alright, people, that wraps up the preliminaries.  Now that everyone knows how to use the school library, we’ll start actual U.S. history on Thursday with the Fall of Constantinople.  Class..."  Niewitzski watched the second hand sweep forward on the wall clock. “...dismissed.” He concluded, drowned out by the school bell and twenty-odd students standing up and grabbing bookbags.

    Auditions were discontinued that day to give Bustamonte time to clean up for Back to School Night - and Niewitzski time to figure out how to walk with crutches without crushing his suit for the same purpose.  He did not, however, come up with any good solution by the time the deadline rolled around, and so he was at rather less than his best when he arrived to pick Miss Early up from her house.

    It was...aggressively ordinary.  Tan brickwork, beige siding, dark roof - a small ranch house in an eclectic neighborhood.  Jacob could almost hear a voiceover on the evening news: “Neighbors described the owner as ‘quiet’.”  He shook his head as Sara got into her car.

    “Yeah, it ain’t the best neighborhood,” she said as she buckled her seatbelt.  “But I really need to own my own place, and in this economy, ya know?”

    Jacob thought about that, and had no response.  The economy was...fine, as far as he could tell, although unemployment in the job sector he would have rather been in than teaching was too high to have an admission to law school be in the cards.  The neighborhood was...also fine, really, he didn’t know what she was comparing to.  And why would someone ‘really need to own’?  He realized that his look of skepticism and questioning was going on for too long, and he couldn’t think of just the right question to ask, so he just barked out a laugh -

    “Eh, who am I to judge?  I live in a hole in the ground!”

    She laughed with him for a moment, then stopped - a glint of alarm in her dark eyes.  “What, literally?”

    “No.”  For the moment, he lived in a double-wide.  The hole in the ground, slowly being developed into a combination bunker, earth-sheltered home, and hobbit hole, was not yet ready for human habitation.

    “Good.  It’s hard to tell with the guy who wrecks boats and planes just going on dates.  So, steak!”

    Jacob mentally calculated how a woman living alone, at their age, driving a gasoline car, in a owned house, in this neighborhood, on their salary, could possibly make ends meet.  Factoring in her claimed diet, it was almost achievable with a side job or two. She hadn’t mentioned any side employment yet, though Jacob hadn’t mentioned his, either.

    He blinked.  He was being asked a question about steak.  He tried to remember what she had just said, and respond appropriately.  “Actually, I can’t remember.”

    Sara frowned at him.  “Y’all can’t remember what your favorite kind of steak is?”

    He blinked again.  He hadn’t remembered the question properly.  And yet, he could continue with this. “I actually have this selective amnesia when it comes to steak varieties?  I know it’s either filet mignon, sirloin, porterhouse, or a New York strip.  But I can never remember which one it is.  Every time I go out for steak, I’m guessing.  And I never remember to take notes, so I can’t even work it out by process of elimination.”

    “Well, not to worry!  I’ve got strong opinions on steak, I can help you out.”

    They were strong opinions, but not strong enough.  With them seated in the dim lights of the steakhouse, the waitress’s foot tapping with impatience, she panicked - and ordered two.

    “A moment of silence, please, for my wallet,” Jacob muttered.

    “Sorry!  But hey, between your order and mine, that’s three out of the four.  We’ll definitely finish this quest of yours tonight, once and for all.”

    “The knowledge isn’t worth that much to me!  And you’d better not leave half of them on your plate, for this kind of money.  Hey!  Don’t go filling up on bread!”

    “Relax, dad.”  She smiled, but did not relinquish the buttered roll.  Jacob growled at her, she giggled back.  “So, anything interesting happen lately?”  She motioned to his injured leg.

    “What, this?”  He thought about answering.  And then he thought, as he had started to think before - this was a woman who had appeared in his life at about the same moment everything else went pear-shaped.  “Mmm, I’ll tell you if you tell me why you were on the roof.”

    “Nah, I don’t care that much.”

    Jacob sighed.  At a certain point, no conceivable answer could justify the delay; whatever he heard was sure to disappoint him.  But that moment was not yet here. “Alright, then, Miss Early, complete change of topic: what do you think about aliens?”

    “I thought you said change of - ” She coughed.  “I don’t think anything about them.  At all.”  She grabbed another bread roll.  Jacob watched her eyes avoid his.

    He weighed whether a biology teacher of her age could have no opinions whatsoever on the topic.  “Oh, you don’t read much science fiction?”

    “Nope, nada.”

    “Never read guys like Bobby Asimov, Isaac Heinlein - ”

    “Isaac Asimov, Robert Hein - aw dang.”  She froze, mid-chew.  He smiled.  She finished chewing, swallowed, and sighed.  “Alright already, busted, I’m a geek.  What do y’all care what I care about aliens?”

    “Just thought it’d be an interesting topic.”  He also needed to test some thoughts he’d had, to distinguish demons from aliens from...whatever Craig’s third theory had been.  “You must have some thoughts.”

    “Well, of course I do.  I mean, I did study biology.  One of my papers was on hypothetical extraterrestrial life.”

    “Cool.  So, they’d have to obey all the same laws as us, right?”

    “You’re the one thinking of law school, you tell me, hon.”  She grinned, he rolled his eyes, she continued.  “Yeah, yeah.  Conservation of mass and energy, entropy, development through natural selection, chemistry follows the same rules even if it ain’t carbon-based - that’s gonna be the same wherever.  You could see some weirder stuff inside a sun or a neutron star or in a system made of antimatter, except y’all’d never see it because we couldn’t interact with it.”

    “So, if there were an alien here, it would have to play by our rules.”

    “Sure!  Just...distinguish carefully what’s a rule and what’s just a strong local tradition in these parts.”

    Jacob rubbed his beard.  “Could something teleport?”

    “Biologically?”  He nodded. “Can’t see how.  No basis for that. Uh, well, wormholes, might be mathematically possible but I can’t think of that being done with biology.”

    “Hmm.”  He thought more.  “And could something just...disintegrate, without a trace?”

    “Quickly?”

    “Yeah.”

    “Writing a book?”

    “Writing my workman’s comp claim.”

    She snorted.  “Changing from a solid to a gas, which I’m guessing you mean by ‘without a trace’, involves a lot of energy.  Quick, even more so.  Even dry ice doesn’t turn to gas all that fast.”

    The platters of steak arrived, curtailing the discussion.  Jacob considered the disappearing monster as the three steaks slid into place - he should have had a burn or a freeze or something if it had disintegrated, and it probably couldn’t teleport under its power, by his best guess.  Then what?

 * * *

    They pulled into the school parking lot, packed with much nicer cars than usual.  “Hon, did you keep that receipt?”

    Jacob checked his pockets.  “...no?”

    “You’re kidding me.  Now I can’t remember what all we just ate.  And I had two of them!”

    “I told you.  Selective amnesia.  Anything I should know before we go meet some parents?”

    “Donors are weird.  The archdiocese is one thing but I hate dealing with the elitists who drop the big checks at these.  That’s why I decided I was allergic to fish.”

    “Oh!” Jacob said, brightly.  “Is that all?”

    “I also kinda want to see how often I can get you to buy me dinner.  I’ve got a little bet going with myself.”  She punched the side of his arm lightly.  “And maybe I’ve been telling my mom that we’re dating so she shuts up about some things.  But don’t worry! We’re not actually dating.  I’ve got enough on my plate without your bad luck.”

    He made a stern gesture towards his face.  “Don’t even joke about plates right now, young lady.”

[sudsybear]

Place setting

Bookends

Simon & Garfunkel Time it was, and what a time it was, it was

A time of innocence, a time of confidences

Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph

Preserve your memories; they're all that's left you

 The Beginning

 We were born in the mid-sixties. Unlike the youth of the country that were rioting on the news, protesting the war in Vietnam, and watching Nixon resign on national television, our parents were corporate drones making ends meet, putting food on the table, and saving money for their children’s college educations. Instead of participating in the flower-power movement, hippies, and free love, “Turn on, tune in, and drop out,” our parents paid mortgages and were room-mothers, scoutmasters, and sport coaches. Through the seventies when Nixon resigned and as a nation we endured the crude oil crisis, they helped us with homework and shuttled us to and from soccer practices and music lessons.

 We grew up in a suburb north of the conservative city of Cincinnati, Ohio. A wealthy bedroom community, Wyoming was settled in the early 1800s. It is a dignified suburb, steeped not in significant national or state history, but it owns a strong sense of importance and value to the larger community to which it belongs. Beginning as an area for the landed gentry, over the century since it was founded, the land was developed in stages. Grand homes built in the valley with butlers’ pantries and servants’ quarters have long since been interspersed with newer smaller homes. The building booms of the decades of the twentieth century brought a variety of architectural styles – 1920s Tudors, 1950s bungalows and three bedroom ranches, 1960s split-levels and two-story colonials. Finally in the 1970s, vacant land was precious and challenging to find, and contemporary custom-built homes were finessed onto odd lots.

 As the land was cleared, roads built, and homes went up, the city planted trees along the right-of-way, and conscientious homeowners planted more in their yards; ornamentals, along with deciduous staples like oak, beech and maples. The elms all died off in the Dutch elm disease epidemic, but they were replaced with hardier species. Plenty of conifers are sprinkled around for their evergreenness, and fruit trees too, not for the fruit they bear, but for the flowers and fragrance in springtime – flowering pears and crabapples. Declared a “Tree City USA” in the mid-90s the trees are a point of community pride, almost sacred. A homeowner thinks long and hard before cutting one down. The community grieves when an ancient timber falls over in a storm. The high school biology department annually assigns students to collect and identify fifty unique tree leaves. And along with the trees in all their varieties, in the spring and summer, the city maintains flower boxes around the street signs. Where in other communities stop signs and sidewalks suffice, in Wyoming the city department of public works has a budget for petunias and pansies and geraniums to prettify otherwise bland street corners.

 Wyoming is a tight-knit community. New homeowners buy not just a house, but a legacy. Someone moves into a house, and the new homeowners quickly learn to describe their residence, not as a street address, but, “Oh yes, we bought the Smith’s house on such-and-such a street.”

 There were basically three camps in town when I was growing up; those who grew up in Wyoming, whose family was part of the community fabric and who would never consider living anywhere else. There were well-compensated doctors, lawyers, and corporate executives; professionals enjoying the prestige and the schools. And finally, those who wanted something better for their children and worked hard to stay financially afloat stretching budgets to afford the high cost of living. This last group may have been deeply in debt, held two or more jobs, lived frugally, or some combination of the three. Today, despite the fact that my husband is a professional engineer and earns a good wage, there is no way my own family could afford to live there without substantial financial assistance.

 The school system has an excellent reputation. Expectations are high, quality services are provided, and creative alternatives are offered. The school system is small, intimate almost, and stable. In the years I attended, graduating classes varied in size from as low as 120 to as high as 180, large enough to provide ample opportunities, but small enough to know all your classmates. Students graduate from high school with the same kids they were with in kindergarten. Teachers teach for a lifetime. Oh sure, there’s some turnover, corporate relocations, financial hardships, personal obligations, but overall change is slow.

Parents work with the schools, the school board and city council coordinate efforts and communicate with the citizenry. As far as I know, no school tax levy has ever been defeated. May Fete, an annual spring carnival, is sponsored and run by the Parents Association as a fundraiser to supplement the school budget. A Boosters club supports the sports programs, and a Music Association supports the music departments. Since we graduated, an Alumni Association was formed, and an independent School Foundation established to provide even more money for the schools. 98% of all graduates go on to college. Whether they graduate college is another question entirely, but the option of not going on to some sort of secondary education is rarely exercised. If you don’t go to college, you join the armed services. Wyoming graduates are expected to become useful members of society and leaders of the future.

 In the 1980s our parents were indulgent. They gave their children every opportunity to learn and succeed. They put us on the front of the technology curve with home computers, Atari, cable when it was new. Not every kid got a car for his or her sixteenth birthday…but it wasn’t unheard of. Designer clothes, cosmetic surgery, winter trips to Disney World, Aspen, Hilton Head, or Sanibel Island were common - as were summer homes in Michigan. Unused season tickets to the Symphony Orchestra, the Pops, or the Playhouse were giveaways, “Here, we can’t use these, you take them.” Money flows in our community.

 My father ran for city council in the late 1970s. Elected on his first bid for office he was a bit of a renegade candidate – he rode a motorcycle. In a community of sedans and station wagons, Camaros, BMWs and Jaguars, a small street bike (Yamaha RD350 – two stroke) was enough edginess to get him remembered and elected. He served for more than twenty years, with re-elections every two years. I was in Middle School when he was first elected. By the time I was a teenager, I was accustomed to police officers stopping by the house to deliver the “Friday Memo,” a sort of state-of-the-city packet for all the councilmembers. I accompanied Dad to the city building for any one of a number of errands – to deliver or pick up paperwork, to talk to the city manager, head of the public works, or a police officer. Dad was involved and worked hard to respond to neighbors’ inquiries and concerns.

 Mother volunteered with the city ambulance squad. Initially trained as an EMT, later she took paramedic training. She first joined when I was in elementary school, and “ran squad” until after I left for college. Although she attended monthly evening meetings and occasional training sessions, she was mostly on call from the house. Actually, she could go anywhere she wanted so long as she didn’t leave the city limits. But when her pager blared, she dropped everything and drove to the police station to pick up the ambulance and respond to the call. If I was with her in the car, she either dropped me off somewhere safe to walk to a friend’s house or home, or I rode with her to the police station. It rarely happened that way. Usually, we were at home, and she yelled, “I’m leaving!” and left. Or, I arrived home from school to an empty house with a note explaining where she was, and what to do about dinner. We got very good at the message system, and I got an early lesson in self-reliance.

 My older brother Tom volunteered with the fire department as a teen. He was part of the “Salvage Squad” - a junior squad of teens who helped out at the firehouse. They responded to calls just like the adult volunteer firefighters, but for the most part took care of equipment and clean up.

 Tom’s bedroom was a clutter of wires and electronics. He rigged up a CB radio, hooked up an intercom system between the kitchen and his bedroom. He built models of various sorts, and plugged the local police frequency into his radio scanner to monitor the activity going on in the community. His room was off limits – six years younger, all the wires fascinated me. I don’t remember invading his space, but I probably did. That’s what younger sisters do to annoy their older brothers. Mostly I remember that wires and electronics were a part of home.

 Tom was enthusiastic, and between his radios and scanners following the fire and police channels and Mom’s pager and scanner following the fire and police channels, the house was noisy. It also happened that the fire chief lived next door; and his wife was a city employee. Had there ever been a real disaster, Mom might have responded as part of the Life Squad, Tom with the fire department, and Dad as a city official. It never happened, but demonstrates how deeply I was steeped in the community. Police officers knew me both as Councilman’s and Squadwoman’s daughter. I knew more about the leadership of the city, and how small cities were run, than any twelve year old should know.

 Over the months, years, after Tom left for the west coast (Willamette Valley in Oregon) Mom and Dad removed the various wiring schemes. By the time I was in high school, all those wires and equipment were a fond but distant memory.

 *          *          *

 In 1981 we attended my eldest brother’s May graduation from Wake Forest University in North Carolina. At the other end of summer, in August, Mom and Dad and I drove back from visiting my brother Tom in Western Oregon. We stopped long enough to celebrate my 14th birthday at a family restaurant in Casper, Wyoming. My gift that year was tickets to see a bona fide small town rodeo. Three more days on the road, and we would be home. I was just about to enter high school.

 My brothers were both long gone. Tom left for Oregon two years previous. After a spell of enthusiasm for becoming a firefighter, he later decided he wanted something beyond community college and enrolled at Willamette University. Now firmly ensconced in the culture of Oregon, he was a visitor in my life. My eldest brother Jack had been gone even longer, since 1977. He left home for Wake Forest University when I started fifth grade. I spent my middle school years riding in the back of various cars to shuttle him or his things back and forth to North Carolina. I counted eleven crossings of Paint Creek along the West Virginia turnpike in the late 70s. The year Jack spent abroad, Mom and Dad left Tom and I home for a week while they visited him in Venice. By 1981, Jack was graduated and working in West Berlin in Germany to be near his girlfriend. For me, it was cosmopolitan and exotic to have brothers on opposite sides of the world. I talked to either one of them on the telephone when we called. I wrote letters every once in a while. Prior to e-mail, they were virtual siblings, each only as much a part of my life as I wanted them to be.

 Even though they were gone from my immediate existence, they each cast long shadows. In his own time in high school Jack was active in the drama club. The walls of drama club meeting room were plastered with his images, and indelible memories stuck with his teachers. Tom was equipment manager for the winning football team and other sports. He left memories of his own with teachers.

 But I wasn’t alone in walking in siblings’ shadows. My graduating class was a bit unusual - we were a lot of “youngests.” Our parents had already been through the system at least once, more often twice or more - they were seasoned school participants. They knew the teachers, the administrators, how the system worked. Many teachers taught our older siblings, so we heard, “Oh, another Perrino. And hey, there’s another Savage. Another Ammerman, another Klebanow. How are your folks? How’s Jim or Amy or <name of another older sibling>?” and on and on. There was a comfort in that familiarity…and a danger.

 With familiarity came comfort and with that came friendship, which meant teachers forgave poor behavior, overlooked outbursts, and discipline relaxed. With stories and legends handed down from older siblings, ideas and how-tos were easily copied, and only sometimes stopped. Our parents were tired of parenting, comfortable with their experience with our older siblings, no longer as attentive; busy with aging parents, caught in the middle of two needy generations. With this unique set of circumstances, we teens pushed the envelope, and got away with more than we might have otherwise; later curfews, blind eyes toward the underage drinking.

 Two unique youth organizations complement the usual assortment of activities provided by the local school district. I’ve been gone so many years, I don’t know if they still exist or not. Corral is one. At the time, it was the community’s answer to “What do you do with the teen population to keep them off the streets and off of drugs?” The parent/student group put on dances a couple of times a month. We hired local bands to play, hired DJ’s, showed bad or classic movies like King Kong, Godzilla, Rear Window or The Birds. The movie nights were more successful before the advent of cable television, VCRs, DVDs, and the corner Hollywood or Blockbuster video store. We grew up during the great “Beta vs. VHS” debate. Not every family chose correctly, and there weren’t a whole lot of titles to choose from back then, mostly families recorded what was on cable, and watched at a more convenient time. In the fall, Corral events started after the football game ended, then as the season changed, after the basketball games. Every spring a talent/variety show featured student performances – kids sang, danced, wrote and performed their own comedy sketches, and played instruments.

 Another institution was the “Sub Deb Club.” A high school girls’ sorority, Sub Deb was a self-selecting clique. Was it “cool”? Yes and no. It was similar to a college sorority with more humiliation and much less alcohol. Only loosely supervised by parents of the members, you were invited to join as freshmen, attending “pre-rush” parties. My close and forever friends Valli, Julie and Erin were all enthusiastic, so I went along with it…for a while. Julie’s older sister was active in the organization, and Julie knew some of the older girls. The first few parties were fun – we played silly games to get to know each other and talked about boys and who was popular. After the initial parties, you decided whether or not to rush.

 In order to rush, you needed to hook up with a big sister, a junior or senior member of the club, who was your mentor. The age gap between my brothers and me was large enough that I didn’t know any current students when I entered high school. Not directly anyway. I knew older or younger siblings, or students who were the children of my parent’s friends. Despite participating in Girl Scouts for years, I lacked confidence to ask any of my former troup-mates to be my big sister for Sub Deb. So I was assigned to Beth and Shelley. Friendly, and heavy-set, in the image-conscious anorexic ‘80s they weren’t particularly popular. They participated in flag corps with another friend of mine. Well meaning and sweet, we hit it off, and I enjoyed their company. They welcomed me into their crowd, and I enjoyed the interaction.

 Once rush started, you wore a goofy costume involving a beanie and a tail any time or place outside of school grounds. You were forbidden to wash your hair during rush period (about six weeks) and were required to carry around an unrefrigerated raw egg. Finally, you were required to do whatever a current member asked of you, no matter how outrageous. That’s where I met my downfall.

 On the first day of rush, as soon as I set foot off the high school parking lot property onto the public sidewalk (absolutely no rush activities were allowed on school property) I was ambushed by a particularly vicious upperclassman. “Hey Scum!”

 “What?”

 “Is that how you address a current member of the club?”

 “Sorry, Miss so and so. What can I do for you ma’am?”

 “I want you to kiss Steve Guggenheim.”

 “Oh, no.” I panicked and wanted to cry right then and there. No. How humiliating. He’s my neighbor! He’s a senior! I baby-sat his younger siblings, and I’ve had a crush on him for a year. “No, I’m not going to kiss him.”

 “I’ll have to bring this up to the blackball board. You do know the penalties for disobeying an older member?”

 “Yes Ma’am.” I’ll never live this down, I can’t do this. I’m scared. No amount of personal humiliation is worth a social club. That’s it. I won’t do it anymore.

 I quit that day. I called my big sisters, explained what happened and quit. I would not subject myself to such humiliation.

 To end rush period, on a Saturday morning, pledges stood on street corners in their rush costumes, hair unwashed for so many weeks, a rotten egg kept (and carried with you – except at school) for the duration of rush, and the older members stopped at your corner, ceremonially broke your now rotten egg, and taunted you verbally and poured food products all over you.

 All the endured humiliation was rewarded with the opportunity to attend two additional formal dances per year throughout high school. Homecoming and Prom events were open to all students, but every fall and spring Sub Deb formals were held for members only. Two events per year provided additional opportunities to dress up, rent a limo, go out to eat, and have a special night with your friends or boyfriend. Other social opportunities were offered for members…rush parties in the fall, and usually one event in the summer – a picnic or pool party or some such. The group also performed service projects throughout the year; raking leaves for the elderly, volunteering at the local school for the deaf, collecting for the local food pantry.

 But I quit. My forever friends (Julie, Valli, and Erin) stuck it out, but I couldn’t hack it. My best friends were busy with a social club that I didn’t share, but I did make friends with some very open and supportive upperclassmen. My big sisters understood, and we genuinely liked each other, and they enfolded me into their social world. I waved to them from the bleachers when they performed at football games, and walked to Corral events with them. They were fun company in the lunchroom, and friendly faces in the hallways at school.

 In the winter, they invited me to do a Corral Show act with them. Another girl and I were two of only a handful of freshman in the show that winter - 1982. Ross was stage manager that year, and friendly with the girls in our rag-tag group, mostly juniors, Cynthia and myself, and a foreign exchange student. We performed a skit we called, “If I were not in high school.” Dressed in outlandish costumes we sang simple lyrics while pantomiming for our parents and friends. The audience loved it, and voted us their favorite act, a coveted prize in the friendly competition. We beat out such talent as a nationally recognized young cellist, an enthusiastic acoustic guitar player, several dance groups, and a couple other comedy skits. Not a bad start for a freshman with little experience. And Ross and I began to cross paths more and more frequently.

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