September Again (September Stories) (5 page)

“
I’m sorry, Zelda. I’m willing to discuss the meds with Dr. McSwan.”

“
No way. You’ll get to him and he’ll have me sectioned again.”

Liz
agonizes. The memory of the pain on her daughter’s face as the door closed between them and she left her in a secure mental unit.

“
And don’t try and tell me you did it for my own good again. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me and you inflicted it on me. And you wonder why I hate you?”

“
Do you?”

“
Yes.”

“
Do you really hate me?”

“
Yes.”

Liz struggles to stop herself from breaking down, sniffs.

“It’s a hard thing to hear your only daughter tell you she hates you, a hard thing indeed.”

“
Imagine how it is for me. I have to be your daughter.”

“
Oh, Zelda, you know how to hurt me, you do.”

“
Good.”

“
Go on. What are your other terms? As we are talking like mature adults.”

“
Ha ha, very funny coming from you.”

“
Go on.”

“
I want my phone back. And I want access to my bank account again.”

“
So you can run off again?”

“
There you go again, diss, diss, diss. And you wonder why I hate you. You amaze me.”

“
You can have your phone back.”

“
Thank you.”

“
And your bank account.”

Tears stream down Liz’s face as she surrenders her happiness at being a mother to please her daughter.

“This is hurting me more than it is hurting you, trust me.”

“
My only hope is that one day you may see me in a different light. I loved you so much when you were a baby. Do you not remember?”

“
Yeah, right, but then I grew up, right?”

“
Something like that.”

“
Such is life, Mum dear.”

“
Will you open the door now, please, Zelda? I just want to see that you are okay.”

“
You’ve nothing to worry about, Mum. I’m not sitting here, cutting myself, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t do that anymore. I don’t need it. I saw how Tyrone was and saw that he was even more pathetic than you are. So I cut cutting. And I cut Tyrone. You’ll be happy to hear that I won’t be seeing him again. I’ve even defriended him on Facebook. Not that anyone looks at Facebook anymore anyway. Only losers like Tyrone and old people like you.”

“
Ooooo-kay. I’m fine with all that. If it makes you happy.”

“
Don’t try and ingratiate yourself with me, Mum. You know I’m smarter than you.”

“
You’re certainly not shy about reminding me.”

“
Now where have I learnt that from, I wonder?”

Liz looks at the door with grudging admiration.

“There’s more.”

“
Go on.”

“
I want to go to America.”

“
What?”

“
You heard. I want to go to America.”

“
I thought you despised America and everything about it?”

“
You thought wrong. I only said those things to get at you when you were ganging up on me with the doctors. You are just so easy to wind up, Mum. I almost got bored doing it because you made it too easy.”

“
Okay, so I’m a naïve American. I’m not the first to have my nose rubbed in the dirt in this country – which, for your information, I am now more than proud to call my home because I love it here. So there.”

“
There you go again.”

“
What?”

“
Ingratiating yourself, trying to. You’re so transparent. I don’t think you even realize you’re doing it. It’s that bad. Seriously, you should take classes in how not to be so transparently zam-zoodled.”

“
Why do you want to go to the States? Tell me.”

“
I am half American, right?”

“
Yes, you are.”

“
A strong American woman like your bad self should be pleased I want to find out about my roots.”

“
I am. I’m just puzzled why. You’ve never wanted to go when I’ve offered in the past.”

“
I’m going stir crazy in Cornwall.”

“
I know you are, but you can go to university soon.”

“
I don’t want to, not in this country anyway.”

“
Then where?”

“
A long way from you.”

“
Cut it out, Zelda. I’ve got the picture. Just tell me straight why you want to go to the States.”

“
I’ve told you, I want to get out of this farmhouse. I’m bored out of my head here. No one ever visits. You shut yourself away after Dad died. I want to go to the States, that’s all.”

“
Okay, Zelda. We can look into that for you.”

“
Thank you.”

“
How long do you think you might want to go for?”

“
A year.”

“
A year!”

“
A year. It’ll be good for you. You can’t be happy, the way things are with me. Be good for you.”

“
You may have a point. And if it makes you happy.”

“
It will.”

“
Where do you imagine going in the States?”

“
Georgia and Tennessee.”

“
Zelda, why do you want to go to the places of my past if you hate me so much? I’m curious.”

The door opens and Zelda studies her mother.

“Perhaps I’ll tell you when I get back. Perhaps I won’t.”

T
he flight from Heathrow has been dull. She is bored, as usual. Across the aisle, an older man – he may be at least thirty years old – has been attempting conversation. He is attractive and they chat occasionally. She enjoys his southern drawl. He has been in London on business for two weeks and is looking forward to returning home to Alabama. He says he is an accountant and makes small talk for a few minutes. She smiles and nods.

Returning thief-like to her mother's private journal, she reads more about her personal
witch's chaotic life. Some mother! Yes, she “borrowed” Liz’s journal, but so what? She needed to know exactly how evil the super-witch was to protect herself from her vile influences. Her mother did have a time of things when she was younger. That much she had to admit. Her poor Uncle Charles.
Wonder what type of man he would’ve become?
She is curious to know more about her grandparents in Georgia as well. How did they cope with a child as shallow and self-absorbed as her mum?

This diary is to be given to her when she becomes
nineteen, so her mum had written in her diary entry on the day Zelda was born. That was the age Liz began keeping the diary. That is only one year away. She can read it, then return it to the cupboard before her mother even realizes the diary is missing.
She is such an idiot and a witch
, she thinks. Another of her mother's weird plans to control everything and everybody. And, what a little manipulative whore the Belle from Hell was. First with this poor man, Peter Hendrix. Wonder whatever became of him after she ruined his life?

What did she do to manipulate my
father?
This is what she believes: her mother somehow lured him into a sexual relationship, playing on his loneliness, following the death of his true love. If Zelda digs deeply enough, she believes she will find that her mother was pregnant at the time she and her father married.
She is a devious, conniving creature, and not to be trusted
. Peter Hendrix may even be Zelda’s father, for all she knows.

~

“Would you like a drink?” the southern guy asks. He is attractive, although not as young as anyone she has dated. He is prematurely grey. Very piercing blue eyes. Really, not too bad looking at all.

Why would he take an interest in me?
she thinks, and replies, “Yes, thank you. Yes, that would be very nice.” She inherited her mother’s charm with people, when she chooses to use it.
Very nice. Thank you very much. You are so nice. Ewww.

Not many people
know that she possesses a budding gift of charm. She is only beginning to realize it. After breaking up with Tyrone, she discovered that she is interesting to certain people. All you have to do is smile and be pleasant and people feel that they are your best friend. On lonely nights, such dark thoughts help her cope with her life. A small smile, a look in the eyes, and a kind word is all she needs. People love her for her intellect and insightful conversations. They don’t even know who she is. Not a one has ever known that she is the daughter of Jack O. Savage. Her mother might have been married to him, but she
is
him, the darker side of him and she is not going to let her mother forget it -
ever
. The thought fills her with a sense of limitless power

Being the daughter of The Poet has its privileges, one being the financial ability to travel first class.
Glancing about the cabin, she sees a family of four a few rows back.
Wonder what it would be like to be in a normal family?
The daughter appears to be close to Zelda’s age. This makes Zelda feel so grown up, maybe for the first time ever. Hurtling through space at 35,000 feet, she realizes she is enjoying her first ever solo transatlantic flight. When she arrives, she has every intention of learning everything about Atlanta, Georgia and Nashville, Tennessee and all points in between.
The cities of Atlanta and Piedmont Park. Nashville and Centennial Park. The Appalachian Mountains as they disappear into the foothills of north Georgia. The Tennessee River as it winds through Chattanooga.
There is so much she wants to see and experience on this adventure.
Even visiting the 40 Watt Club in Athens, Georgia, one of the hubs of the Athens rock and art renaissance in the alternative halcyon days of the 1980s, where her father and Indie performed, would be super cool.
The mountains, the rivers, the history, the music, the food – everything is appealing to her. It is as if she is being called home.
My destiny is here. The siren song of the Southeast is strong.

Th
e cabin is almost filled on the flight. Zelda can spot the well-heeled business men, the athletes with their muscular bodies and long legs, the musicians with their baseball caps and inability to sit still. There’s even a young couple brazenly snogging two rows behind her. Oh bloody hell.
Ewww.
The girl even looks like her mother
. There is no escaping thoughts of my mother, even here, seven miles over the Atlantic.
Zelda screws her eyes up and buries her face in her hands. Opening her own journal, she gets nothing. She hopes to write something about the flight. Maybe the color of the seats, the atmosphere, the energy in the cabin with the buzz of the travelers approaching new adventure, or the soon-to-be return to reality for some. She writes a line or two, then draws a line through it in disgust. She can’t write anymore.
What would my father think?
The words are there, but they are stuck in her head and can’t escape. Trapped. Maybe never to push pen to paper again. Hopefully, leaving the stress of The Nook would change everything once her southern experience began.

The attendan
t brings Zelda’s wine and a cocktail to the stranger across the aisle. The sun is beginning to set outside the airplane. They will land in Atlanta, Georgia in two hours, 10:00 p.m., Atlanta time. Zelda’s godmother, the esteemed Dr. Marlowe Henry, will be meeting her.
How had someone as intellectual as Marlowe abided a person as shallow as Mum?
crossed Zelda’s mind.

As t
he interior lights flicker on, she undoes the two top buttons on her white cotton blouse, fluffs up her dark hair, and turns her wine glass to her new friend.

“Here’s to
adventure,” she says, smiling shyly.