The Idyllic Chaos of My So-Called Life Read online

  I had to remind myself everyone's eyes were focused on me. I mean, I was talking, and very awkwardly at that. I could hear myself starting to ramble on about how I liked drama, yada, yada, yada. On the inside I was screaming SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!

  I didn’t know what was wrong with me; I usually never got so stirred up about a boy. A million questions shot through my brain as I spoke. What was wrong with me? Was I just bored? Did I need some source of entertainment to sustain me through another school? Who invented liquid soap and why?

  I mean it’s not like I had any chance anyway. Here I was, seventeen years old, and had never even been asked out on a date. Sure, every now and then some silly boy who I would never consider attractive would want to hook up, but I usually just ignored the prospect and convinced myself it was out of disinterest. Maybe that was why I was so fixated on this boy—he was clearly out of my league. There was no danger of any relationship ever developing. Admiring him safely from a distance was probably just perfect for me—no danger of getting hurt.

  Chapter Five

  It was the beginning of April, and the spring thaw had begrudgingly started. I’d spent much of my Saturday morning like most Saturdays, doing a lot of nothing. In the morning I watched TV, and then spent what I thought was a few hours in my room listening to music, and cruising the Internet. Unfortunately, only an hour had passed.

  It was another gray day, and I wondered what I could do to chip away at the hours. Maybe I could give Evan a call, and we could go down to the marina. I liked walking among all the boats in the marina, and I imagined what people did for a living to earn that kind of money.

  I picked up the phone and dialed Evan’s number—no answer. Damn! She was the only teenager I knew beside myself who didn’t have a cell phone yet. She didn’t even have an answering machine. Her house was stuck in the eighties, technologically speaking.

  I decided to go outside and clean up the backyard. There were a plethora of sticks, cigarette butts, and weeds that had accumulated over the winter. I wondered where the cigarettes came from—I’d never seen Audrey smoke before. I’d seen her sneak out a few times during the day, and on the weekends to go outside, but hadn’t given it much thought. I guessed that she was probably getting some much-needed fresh air outside of our minuscule house.

  Excitement came over me when I thought about her sneaking a cigarette like a kid. Wow, Audrey was keeping a secret. I thought from now on I’d interrupt her when she excused herself to catch her in the act. Maybe I could bum one off her...yeah right, I thought incredulously.

  I’d started smoking cigarettes when I was around thirteen. I’d found a pack in one of the kitchen drawers at either the third or fourth foster home, I couldn’t really remember.

  Smoking had made me feel strong. It also hurt my lungs for the first two weeks, but after that I felt powerful, not to mention it made me feel totally badass.

  I was fifteen when my badass attitude faltered; cigarettes weren’t badass enough anymore. It was at that time that my older foster brother, Pete, introduced me to the hazy mellow world of pot. He and I smoked every day for about a year. I’d felt powerfully mellow. It felt so good to be so bad.

  It was about a year later that I’d experienced an epiphany. Epiphanies come in many forms, the burning bush, the voice of a higher power, and then there are those that come in the form of a case of Bud, a cherry-red bong, and two chicken soft tacos.

  One night Pete and I broke out his cherry-red bong and a case of Budweiser. I wasn’t much of a drinker, but the beer complemented the Amnesia Haze we’d packed into the bowl. After what seemed to be endless hits and beers, we’d gotten hungry, and made our way down the street. Thank God Taco Bell had been within walking distance. We ordered everything on the menu, giggling our way through the entire transaction.

  When we came back home, I remembered taking two chicken soft tacos and placing them on my bed, but I must have fallen asleep before I’d gotten the chance to eat them. Unfortunately, they were still in the bed, under the covers, and down by my feet.

  I remembered waking up sometime in the middle of the night, and felt the tacos down by my feet, and in a fit of the munchies thought, Yeah...food. I crawled down toward the foot of my bed, scooped the chicken, lettuce, and tomato back into the flour shell, and I ate it. Toe tacos never tasted so good.

  I woke up the next morning with Pico de Gallo covering my face and smashed in between my toes. That was the turning point for me. I wasn’t going to be smoking anymore Happy Haze or anything else like it. It was back to cigarettes for me.

  I hadn’t had even one smoke since Audrey came to get me. I felt cleaner, but I still craved the sweet smell of tobacco. I figured I’d made it smoke free for about a week, I might as well see how long I could make it now.

  I’d collected one entire plastic grocery bag full of cigarettes, sticks, and weeds when I saw a large van pull up to the neighbors’ house. I hadn’t really spoken to many neighbors during the cold months. Most people didn’t socialize too much during the wintry months. Audrey informed me that once warmer weather came and the tourists started to pile into town that everything would come alive. The snow seemed to put boundaries on people, and when it melted the boundaries melted as well.

  The white van idled in the driveway for a few minutes. I saw an older woman sprint out the back door of the house. She looked to be about forty-five and was in excellent shape. I guess you could say she was pretty even with the definitive parentheses that marked the sides of her face. She must have laughed a lot, I thought.

  As I watched her bound down the driveway, I caught a glimpse of the van. A large mechanical arm was inching its way down toward the ground— attached to the other end was a bright silver chair. I then noticed that the van had marked on the side in large purple words Charlevoix Center.

  In the chair sat a girl whose age was difficult to determine. She wasn’t a young child, but maybe not an adult either. I deciphered that she might have been somewhere between thirteen and twenty years old. Her body was twisted up and she smiled and squealed with delight as the woman approached her. She began to flail her arms and head wildly, as to signify recognition of the smiling woman approaching her. I overheard the woman say to the flailing girl, “Hi there sweetie, how was your day today?” The young girl responded with another high-pitched squeal as she slammed her back forcefully into the chair.

  “How was she today?” the woman gently asked the tall black lady driving the van.

  “Oh she did good today. She had a swimming lesson today.”

  “Honey, you swam today!” she exclaimed as she unhitched the wheel chair from the long silvery arm and wheeled her away from the van.

  “How did you like the water, did you get to use the kickboard? I bet you swam like a little fish. Yes, you are my little rainbow fish.” The woman gently spoke to the energized young girl with such delight that it made me envious of the girl in the wheelchair.

  I instantly felt an odd mixture of jealousy and pity wash over me for the woman, and what I assumed was her child. I made a silent wish that I’d had a mother like that, but I knew instantly that I could never be a mother like that—no role models. I thought that I would never have the patience to care for someone who was so totally incapable of normal human interaction. Hell, I’m barely capable of communicating with normal people, I thought emphatically. I must not be that good of a person, I considered as I watched the woman escort the flailing girl up a ramp and into the house. I’d never noticed the side ramp up to the door before. It must have been obscured by the thick covering of snow that had accumulated during the winter months.

  I made my way to the far end of our yard where Audrey had a severely neglected wild flower garden. I recognized one of the varieties from the alley on my way to school on that first day.

  I skillfully pulled all the weeds and the dead flowers, which were wilted and plastered to the cold hard ground. I was just trying to pass the time in what was another long cold spring day.<
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  I had never in my life experienced a winter-like rebirth. It made me wish for the hot steamy and sticky weather of Kentucky. The kind of heat that made my clothes damp against my skin, and my hair simultaneously wilt and frizz down my back. I was starting to miss the feeling of sweat and heat along my skin.

  I worked feverishly, checking my watch every few minutes, hoping the time was passing by quickly—it wasn’t. As I gathered up the dirt, weeds and dead flowers in another plastic bag, I saw the same woman I’d seen earlier wheel her daughter outside. She forcefully pushed the wheelchair through the sticks and brush into the back yard. They were so close, and I began to worry that I would have to speak.

  Meeting new people had always made me nervous. I had a talent for saying the first thing that came to my mind, and often kept talking when there was a lull in the conversation. Needless to say, I sounded like an imbecile most of the time.

  Questions flew through my mind. Should I make eye contact with the happily flailing squealing girl? Should I pretend that the teenager thrashing almost hysterically around in her chair was normal? Should I ask what was wrong with her? I immediately began to tell myself don’t say anything stupid! Just keep your mouth shut!

  As the woman carefully wheeled the chair into the middle of the yard, she set up a tray with two drinks, one of which was in a yellow sippy cup, and the other in a bright orange plastic tumbler. I guessed the sippy cup was for the girl.

  She smiled over at me, and as she waved said, “Hello, are you Audrey’s niece?”

  I struggled to get to my feet and replied, “Yeah, I’m Astrid,” avoiding eye contact so I wouldn’t seem like I was staring at the girl in the wheelchair howling in the corner.

  “Astrid, what a pretty name.”

  “Thanks,” I voiced in a muffled tone.

  “I’m Lucy.” She walked over to me and pushed her hand forward palm out towards mine. “And this is my daughter Lilah,” she said, taking her free hand and gesturing over to the wheelchair.

  Lilah forcefully pushed out such a loud shriek that it caught me off guard. My head rattled the words around, Don’t say anything stupid.

  I looked over toward Lilah wreaking havoc in her chair and said, “Um...Hi...” She thrust herself back and forth with such force that I thought she was going to knock herself over. I looked over at Lucy who didn’t seem at all concerned with this development.

  “She says hi,” Lucy said with a half-grin.

  I was never good at pretending things weren’t awkward when they so evidently were. I waved my hand over towards her once more hoping to placate her full body spasms. No such luck. I quickly removed my hand from Lucy’s and gathered up my plastic bag filled with dirt in order to make a quick getaway.

  “Are you going to plant some wild flowers this year? Lilah loves wild flowers, don’t you honey,” she said with a soothing tone that calmed Lilah down immediately and put a stop to the contortions.

  I assumed that Lilah was instantly soothed whenever she heard her mother’s voice. I thought she was quite lucky in a way. My mother had never been the comforting type.

  “No, I’m just looking for something to do today,” I replied as I stepped backward, inching my way toward the house. I was hoping to extract myself from this extremely uncomfortable situation in a diplomatic way.

  “Well, it was nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah, you too,” I said as I continued inching my way back toward the house until I could feel my hand grip the doorknob.

  “Bye.” I quickly bounded inside and shut the door behind me. I could hear her muffled goodbye as the door slammed shut.

  Yes, I had made it through without saying anything colossally idiotic. I was proud of myself indeed. I knew from now on in order to avoid such unpleasantries, I would have to watch carefully and not be outside when they were out in the yard. It just took too much energy to make it through that conversation. I wasn’t going to go through that again if it could be avoided.

  I picked up the phone and gave Evan another call. I hoped she was home; I didn’t think I could make it here for the rest of the day. Evan had a way of making me laugh even when I didn’t feel like it. The hours usually went by fairly quickly when we were walking through town or down at the Marina. I figured I could scope out some part-time jobs for the summer while we were in town. Audrey made sure to remind me on a semi-regular basis that I needed to come up with some money to pay for the car.

  The phone rang about four times when someone on the other end picked up and said, “Hello.”

  “Hey there chica,” I said in my best faux Spanish accent.

  “Hey, what’s up,” she replied groggily.

  “Do you want to go into town, I need to look for a job, please,” I begged.

  “I have to finish up some homework—”

  “Homework is for losers,” I interrupted.

  “I have to finish,” she retorted, slightly annoyed. “We can’t all get A's on the tests without studying you know.” She alluded to my most recent grade on a calculus test.

  “Okay, when can you go?” I pressed.

  “Well, maybe around four o’clock.”

  “Uhhh, fine, I’ll pick you up at four.” I sounded completely annoyed, but it was understandable that some people wanted to do well in school. I mean, after all, Evan did have a future. Her mother was an attorney, and her father was a C.P.A. She had much more pressure on her to get things right than I ever did...or would ever have for that matter.

  I hung up the phone and made a mental list of all the things I could do until four o’clock. It’s two o’clock right now. Hmm, clean out the car—sounded good, organize my CDs, circle part-time jobs in the paper. I decided I’d made a list long enough to keep me going until four.

  I found that when I had too much time to myself my mind would start to wander, and I would think about things I’d rather not revisit.

  As I sat there with the paper laid out in front of me, my mind floated back to the day when my mother left me in the grocery store so that she could meet a friend. She had promised that she’d only be gone for a couple of minutes. She told me I could put whatever I wanted in the grocery cart. At the time I was elated, and had a grocery cart filled with Ho Hos and ice cream. Five minutes had passed, then twenty...then one hour had passed as I wandered up and down the aisles trying to look inconspicuous.

  After about two hours had passed, one of the clerks noticed me still rambling through the frozen foods section. She called the police, and that was the first time I’d realized that my mother was not like other mothers. Even as a child who didn’t know any better, I knew that this was unequivocally wrong.

  After that point, social workers became a staple in my life. I supposed that by not having a mother that loved me, or anyone else for that matter, that, well...I didn’t matter.

  I hadn’t done anything too self-destructive yet, but in my mind it was only a matter of time before I hooked up with my very own Chuck or Larry. How could I ever be anything else other than what I was raised to be? The thoughts infected my mind like a virus.

  I pushed out the remnants of those painful memories by returning to the paper. There wasn’t much there in the way of part-time work. But I decided to go into town anyway just to get out of the house.

  I wanted to visit the library in the center of town. I didn’t understand how those large chain bookstores could be so popular when I could essentially get the same thing for free, and really keep them as long as I wanted. I mean I don’t think a dime a day for an overdue fee is going to break me; plus I’d like to see them try to collect it. It’s not like there is a library Gestapo looking up violators so that they can get their fifty cents. It’s just not cost effective.

  Finally. It was close to four. I stopped at the back door and craned my neck out the door to see if it was raining. The clouds looked ominous. They were a dusky purplish gray and seemed to hang lower in the sky than usual. I looked back and fumbled for an umbrella. Better to be safe than sorry,
I thought.

  I started the precarious-sounding VW, and slid the gear shift into reverse. I had to remind myself to push the gear shift down extremely hard in order to locate the reverse position. Once before I’d mistakenly put it in first gear, and nearly slammed through the back of the garage—whoops.

  There were a few hiccups to this otherwise reliable mode of transportation. For one thing, I’d quickly found that the brake lights in the back did not work at night when I turned on my headlights, and tried to use my blinkers. There was a veritable light show in the back of my car when I tried to brake and make a right hand turn at night. I had skillfully found a way to downshift and make turns without using my brakes until the very last moment, thus averting the simultaneous blinking that occurred from every light source in the tail end of the car. I wondered how long I could go without getting it fixed. I didn’t want any extra expenses.

  I pulled into Evan’s driveway. She lived down a narrow country road lined with rows of corn. Her house was larger than mine, and looked like a frosted Victorian cake. The trim of the house delicately waved and looped around the edges of the old home. It also had a kind of turret that extended upward along the left side of the house. Evan’s room was at the top of the turret. How nice it must have been to have such a large room all to herself, somewhere to escape and spend time without feeling claustrophobic or having the foul air from the bathroom creep in and strangle any remains of fresh air completely out of the space.

  Evan yelled from atop her turret like Rapunzel, but without the hair. “I’ll be right down.”

  I kept my engine running, and in what was seconds after she yelled out of her window she bounded down the steps like a gazelle. As she came down the steps she caught her foot on the very last step and started to fall forward. She swung her arms around to get her balance, but all it really did was propel her forward even faster. She stumbled nearly all the way to the car with her palms outstretched where she caught herself on the front bumper.