Someone I Wanted to Be (11 page)

Kristy shoved her phone in her bag, put on her sunglasses, and jiggled her keys. “I cannot be here one more minute. This is so depressing and stressful. I’m heading out.” Something crashed inside.

“Kristy, wait! I’ve got to give Jimmy back.” At the sound of his name, Jimmy tightened his grip on my hair and wound some around the crease in his wrist. I leaned over to keep my hair from pulling and squeezed back in through the glass door.

Corinne had Alex by the shoulders. “Calm down, Alex. Breathe, breathe . . .”

“Corinne, sorry, here’s Jimmy. We’re gonna go. Kristy already went out the back gate.”

I untangled Jimmy’s hand from my hair and handed him over. His fat legs bicycled through the air. Corinne took him without looking at me. She turned tiredly back to Alex.

Sometimes the exhausted expression on Corinne’s face spooked me. She looked as stressed and harassed as a middle-aged woman, as though that woman was already there inside the fifteen-year-old girl, biding her time, just waiting to shed Corinne’s young skin and hair and clothes.

Kristy’s car was waiting in the street with the engine running. “What took you so damn long?” Her little fingers tapped an impatient rhythm on the dashboard.

“I was saying good-bye to Corinne, OK? I feel sorry for her. She’s always stuck there. It’s not her fault.”

Kristy raked her fingers through her hair and checked her nostrils in the mirror. “I know it’s not her fault. I just couldn’t stand her life.” She drove down the street and ran through the stop sign. “I couldn’t stand to live her life for even one hour, unless, of course, it was Saturday night and Corinne was out with Jason Coulter. Then I could stand it.”

Jason Coulter, a tall guy with glossy black hair and high cheekbones, was considered to be one of the best-looking senior boys. Kristy was baffled to a religious depth by his lack of interest in her. He’d taken Corinne out twice.

“Have you seen Corinne talking to Kelsey Parker lately?” Kristy struggled to pull out a cigarette.

“I’m not sure.”

“I don’t get that friendship at all. I don’t think they’re actually very close. Oh, I’m so bored. . . . I’m dying, I’m so bored. Let’s just drive around.”

I said, “OK, but not downtown.”

She turned onto Tenth and headed toward downtown. My phone vibrated.

“Who’s texting you?” Kristy said.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to go downtown.”

“Maybe it’s Anita Sotelo. We thought of a new name for her: Anita Slutella,” said Kristy. We drove across a bridge over a riverbed full of rocks and mud. We passed the freeway entrance and then drove through the outskirts of downtown past warehouses, run-down brick buildings, and auto-body shops surrounded by weeds.

“Don’t call her that. It’s stupid.”

“Anita Sucktella.”

“Kristy, just shut up.” My phone vibrated again. I reached into my backpack and turned it off. “Let’s go. No one’s here.”

In the afternoon light, the downtown’s brick buildings and sidewalks looked bleached out and faded. The street was full of potholes. Weeds grew out of the cracked sidewalks. A third of the store windows had
SPACE FOR LEASE
signs. A few Chevy trucks, SUVs, and little rusty Dodges were parked along the crumbling curbs, but there were no black Mustangs.

There were a few old people wandering around, but otherwise nobody at the First Colorado Bank, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, Charlie C.’s, the Gold Dust Saloon, ABC Plumbing, Jorge’s Casa, the New Life Church, the New Beginnings Church, the Bucking Bronco Bar, the Computer Outlet —
$99 COMPUTERS
— where Cindy bought my laptop, Kenny’s Paint and Wallpaper/Linoleum, or the Pregnancy Help Center. I had to get out of Hilton. Maybe I’d move to New Jersey.

Alamo Park — with its peeling benches, scabrous little trees, and thorny grass where Hilton’s tweakers hung out on Saturday nights — was deserted except for a squirrel with a bald tail. Old men in seed caps sat holding paper cups of coffee in the sun in front of the Burger King. A vinyl sign loose on two corners flapped over the entrance to the new Jade Garden Restaurant. There was an empty storefront with dirty windows where the Starbucks was supposed to have been.

The wind picked up. A tumbleweed bounced down the street until it caught in a bus shelter with a shattered glass wall. Little dirt and leaf tornados whirled on the sidewalks. Everything was lit up in the dull yellow light that shot from the sun, balanced like a ball on top of the mountain. The little downtown was the color of Chardonnay. “I can’t believe we left Florida to come here. I’m so depressed.”

“Oh God, give me a break. I don’t need it,” said Kristy. She suddenly sat up straight. “Shit. I need to run home for a minute. I just need to check on my mom, then we’ll split.” She turned off the radio, fumbled around trying to plug in her iPod, and almost crashed into a truck that was turning left. At a stoplight, she called home and left a message. “Mommy, we’re almost there. Be there in a second.” She didn’t talk again the whole ride home.

“There’s this gap,” said Kristy as she pulled into her driveway. “Daddy works Monday nights, and there’s a gap between the day nurse and the Monday-night nurse. Usually, the neighbor —” She drove the car into the garage door and cracked the wood. “Crap!”

“Wait here.” Kristy climbed out and yanked her purse onto her shoulder. She headed to the house without stopping to look at the splintered door.

I turned on the phone. First message:
Meet me tonight 7-11 @ 10:45
. Second message:
R u coming?
Then three more:
Ashley come tonite, Ashley come tonite, Ashley come tonite.

Kristy dumped her stuff on the ground and tried to unlock the door of her house. I texted back:
OK CU @ 10:45
, and climbed out of the car.

Kristy was still trying to unlock the door. She stamped her foot and dropped the keys. Her front door had a fancy gold handle and a narrow frosted window. The doormat had a picture of a smiling scarecrow. I’d stood outside that door a thousand times. She shook the keys, jammed one in, and the lock turned. She kicked the door open.

“Mom?” Kristy called. “Mommy!” She looked around the kitchen and the living room, then jogged down the hallway toward the bedrooms.

I hadn’t been in Kristy’s house since before she and Corinne had ditched me. The curtains were pulled open to let the afternoon sun shine on the rumpled tan carpet. The air was full of dust and a heavy sad smell. A stack of blue hospital pads, a box of Kleenex, and lotions and medicine bottles were arranged on the coffee table. I could hear Kristy and her mom talking.

“Leah . . . She’s fine . . . Mommy, she doesn’t need . . .”

Mrs. Baker teetered down the hallway toward us. It seemed impossible, but she looked worse.

Her gray skin was stretched like plastic wrap over her skull. A few hairs waved on top of her head. Her pink pajamas pouched all over with emptiness. She’d put on a crooked line of pink lipstick.

“Leah, where have you been, sweetheart? . . . We’ve missed you. . . . Kristy said you were rehearsing for the school play? . . . I never hear anything. I’ll make sure Brian attends.”

Kristy’s mom tipped toward the chair. Kristy took her arms and lowered her onto the recliner. She leaned forward, and Kristy stuffed pillows behind her back. Kristy laid the orange-and-brown pom-pom blanket across her mother’s lap, but her mom said, “No, Kristy. It’s too heavy.”

Kristy pulled off the blanket and threw it on the couch. She hovered over her mother and clawed at her own skinny arm. “Mommy, we’ve got to get you back to your room. The nurse will be here any minute.”

Kristy’s mom smiled brightly. “Kristy, I want to talk to Leah. Sit down, Leah.” She patted the edge of the coffee table. Her bones seemed as fragile as little twigs. Veins floated beneath her watery skin. I sat down.

Kristy rocked back on her heels and snapped her gum. “Mommy, Leah doesn’t . . .”

“Leah, how are you doing? Are you doing OK, honey? . . . Keeping up your grades? . . . I’m counting on you, Leah, to keep Kristy on the straight and narrow. . . . She doesn’t like to read. You get her to read, sweetheart. Tell her some good books. . . . How’s your mom doing? She works so hard. It’s so hard, Leah, for your mother. . . . She’s done such a good job. . . . I’m so lucky with Brian.”

She started and stopped as if she were pulling down words and sentences that drifted around inside her head. I nodded and smiled and whispered answers to her questions. Her pupils were huge and inky. I could see myself in the shiny black curves. Her eyes throbbed as if from too much feeling or medication.

Kristy scratched her neck and dragged her fingers through her curls. “OK, Mommy, back to bed.” She lifted her mom up by the armpits.

Kristy’s mom stood swaying in her tennis socks. She had a funny, crooked smile. “Leah, do you want to see something crazy?”

I stood up to get out of their way. “Sure, Mrs. Baker.”

Kristy’s mom’s hands trembled as she unzipped her pajamas and pulled them apart. From the bottom of her neck all the way down to the top of her baggy panties, she had a ropey scar as if she’d been sewn up with purple yarn. Her chest was as flat as an eight-year-old’s. She was skinny and gray like a little starved doll.

“Have you ever seen anything like that?” she said. She fumbled with the zipper.

“No, Mrs. Baker, never.” I was afraid she’d see my heart beating through my shirt.

I’d never be a surgeon. I couldn’t cut Mrs. Baker open.

With a pale, blank face, Kristy zipped up her mom’s pajamas. She still had her big purse with gold buckles jammed under her arm as if she was about to fly out the door.

“It’s just life. . . . I just want you girls to know, it’s just life . . . nothing to be afraid of,” said Mrs. Baker as Kristy led her toward the bedroom.

Ten minutes later, Kristy came back down the hallway with her big round sunglasses shoved crookedly into her hair. She stopped halfway down the hall and stared at the Disneyland picture for a long time.

“Let’s go,” she said without looking at me. “We’re going to wait in the driveway until the nurse comes.”

We sat in her car and listened to the radio. Kristy tipped back her head, lowered her sunglasses, and turned the music up. A tear dripped out from beneath her sunglasses, ran down her cheek, and hung from her jaw like a raindrop. It finally fell onto her shirt and left a dark spot.

She had her fists clenched on her knees. I put my hand over her hand. She grabbed my fingers and crushed them for five minutes, like she was dying and I was the only thing keeping her alive.

A car turned into the driveway. Kristy gunned the engine and backed out without even waving at the nurse. We drove out of Mountain View Estates and down to Tenth.

“I should go home,” I said after a minute. “I have a lot of homework to do.”

“You’ll go home soon enough,” she said. Her mascara had dried in little streaks under her eyes. Her nose was still red and dripping.

Kristy turned onto Las Vegas Avenue, a strip of gas stations, auto-glass stores, and gun shops. We passed Loco Liquors and the UnBank, where Cindy had gone at least twice, even though they took 25 percent of her paycheck, because she needed wine. The dialysis center — now, that was depressing. Diabetes destroys your kidneys, then you have to have your blood cleaned three times a week, and you could still go blind and lose your toes. The ancient motels with neon signs:
CIRCLE K MOTEL: FREE HBO
;
CHIEFTAIN MOTEL: VACANCY/ICE
;
4-U MOTEL/APARTMENTS
. A huge red banner stretched across the Howard Johnson:
FREE HIGH-SPEED INTERNET
.

Kristy’s hand was a little ball of white knuckles on the gearshift. I felt strange and stirred up after seeing Mrs. Baker. I was going to be a doctor, for sure — just not a surgeon.

“Kristy, do you ever think about what you want to be? For a career. When you’re older?”

“I have no flipping idea.”

Kristy pulled into the parking lot of Paradise Liquors and drove around behind the building. A skanky guy stood next to the Dumpster.

“Kristy, what are you doing?”

Kristy didn’t answer. She pulled up next to the guy, who lurched around as he jammed a little bundle into his pocket. The guy was wearing a dingy jacket and grimy jeans. He had surfer hair with long bleached bangs, but his face was creased and he had sores around his mouth. He was like a young man in an old man’s body.

Kristy waved a folded bill between two fingers like she’d done this a thousand times. “Dude, buy me a six-pack of hard lemonade and you can keep the change.”

He shifted his jaw back and forth, then snatched the twenty. “Go park across the street under those trees. They got cameras here.”

“If you don’t come back,” Kristy yelled after him, “you better watch out! My dad’s a cop.” Humming and looking around like she was at a shopping mall, Kristy pulled the car across the street and parked along the curb under the trees. The branches were covered with shiny pale leaves.

“Kristy, what are you doing? That guy’s going to steal your money. Anyway, what are we going to do? Get drunk and go home? I’m sorry, but I have homework to do.”