Rewrite Redemption (3 page)

I met up with Lex at the locker bay. In direct contrast to my outfit—if you could call an oversized, black hoodie an outfit—she wore a sky-blue sweater, thigh-highs, and a very short skirt. She had a smile on her face. Her lipstick was smeared, and her blonde hair was messy. Obviously, she’d spent seventh period in the stacks…
not
reading books.

“Jason Jackson?” I asked, dialing my combination.

“Umm humm,” she answered, licking her lips. She thumbed a text and grinned when one pinged her back immediately.

“Lipstick’s smeared,” I said.

“I bet,” she said, looking in her locker mirror. “Amazing I have any left on at all.”

“Fun?”

“You have no idea,” she mumbled, fixing her lipstick.

That was true. I
didn’t
have any idea. How could I? I’d never made out with anyone in the stacks…or anywhere else, for that matter. However, I did have a good imagination. “Nice to be you,” I said, dumping books in my locker.

She grinned. “Ready?” She slammed her locker door.

“You have no idea,” I said, echoing her earlier response. I was always ready to leave school. The hallway noise was unbearable, and my brain felt like it was carbonated.

We maneuvered through the crowd, her paving the way. By the time we hit the front steps, she had music going. So I stuck my earbuds in, and we walked home listening to our own separate tunes. We had the warm fuzz of familiarity that came from years of living together. We could tell each other anything, but we didn’t always have to talk.

Every once in a while Lex did a few dance steps and sang a line or two if it was a song she really liked. It was her walk-home ritual. She says the music washes the school off her brain. She likes to leave school at school where school belongs. That way home can be home.

Home for us is a tree house. Seriously. I’m not talking some little shack with a rope ladder and a “no boys allowed” sign. It’s a sleek, two-room cabin with polished wood planks, worked metal, and stained glass windows, set high in the sky in a massive oak. We have hardwood floors, a locking door, and even a little porch. There’s electricity, heat, and a tiny, working kitchen. The bunkroom can sleep four. It’s tight, yeah, but we make it work.

We had a unique arrangement, the three of us and our respective parents. Not that there was an intentional plan or anything. It just kinda happened, mostly from each of us having a ginormous parental vacuum and filling that vacuum with each other.

I’ve known Lex since we were five and in the same Montessori school. On my very first day, Austin Whitney dropped a worm down my new red dress. I squealed and tried to shake it out, but it was slimy and stuck to my back. I was desperately shy and scared and started to cry. Austin just laughed and came at me with another worm.

Then this feisty little blonde girl, in what had to be designer clothes for kiddies, ran up, and shoved Austin aside. She grinned at me, reached down my dress, and got the worm. Then she smashed it in Austin’s face. Austin never bothered me again. She’s been my hero ever since.

 Lex rocks. She just does; there’s no better word for it. You’d think, with parents like hers, she’d be messed-up. But she’s just…
not
. While I hide, she’s totally out there, pretty much fearless. If I could be anyone, it would be her, hands down. There’s just something about her, and it’s not just her blonde hair, or her long legs, or all that other stuff that makes guys drool.

Okay, I’m not an idiot. Of course,
some
of it is that stuff.

But everyone likes Lex…well, except for the Bratz Doll and her sidekicks. But Lex could fit in with any of the cliques at school if she chose to. Even hanging with Ipod and me doesn’t taint her. But the thing about Lex…she doesn’t care what anyone thinks. We’re her family and she has our backs.

Her parents are both hotshot attorneys. When Lex was six, they realized Boulder was too small for the both of them. Her dad lives in New York now with his new family.

Her mom, Pat, is like one of those hyper, little Chihuahuas, which is what we call her. Her hair’s so blonde its almost white. Her body’s toned. Her clothes are expensive. Back in high school she would have been the mean girl, the slutty girl, the one who slept with everyone’s boyfriends. We would have avoided her like the plague. Lex always seems to be a surprise to her. Like “right, I forgot. I
do
have a Armani Jacket and a sixteen-year-old daughter. Hmmm, how can I use them to further my career?”

I think it was a huge relief to the Chihuahua when we “adopted” her “forgotten accessory.” Lex spent the night so much that after a while she just never went back home. No one ever even mentioned it. The Chihuahua’s known Sam since college when he was still single and a functioning member of society. So it’s not as if she left her kid with a complete stranger.

Still…

Sam’s good looking, I guess, for an old guy…tall, wiry, blond. He was buffed back in college when he ran track and knew the Chihuahua. I think Sam was scared of her back then. Still is. But Lex’s mom trusted my dad, conveniently ignored the shape he was in, and basically turned the raising of her daughter over to us.

Case closed.

Ipod’s name is really Ivan Parker. Sam started the nickname. Ipod had just rattled off some long explanation about something or other. Sam ruffled his hair and said, “Kid, you download faster than my Ipod.” We thought it was funny because it fit his initials, and we’ve called him that ever since.

Ipod’s mom was from Japan which explains his raven hair and slightly Asian features. But, like mine, his mom is long gone. The
story
is she was spineless, irrational, and lazy, and ran back to Japan rather than live up to her responsibilities as a wife and mother. All we know is she left as though Ipod didn’t exist. She never said goodbye…never even wrote a freakin letter.

His dad? We figured he came from hell. The exotic, olive green of Ipod’s eyes are from his father’s genes. The haunted look in Ipod’s eyes? Yeah, that came from his father…but not from his genes. Part of it came from his fists. The rest came from whatever those fists might have grabbed—belts, coat hangers, burning cigars—whatever was handy.

We hooked up with Ipod the Halloween we were eight. Lex was Britney Spears and I was Spider Man. I was obsessed with the idea of climbing up stuff with those Velcro finger pads. I’d been wearing my costume for a week. It was freezing, and we had coats on over our costumes which sort of ruined the effect. Still, it was Halloween, and we were excited.

We’d planned to hit the outdoor mall alone while it was still light and then come back before dark to meet the sitter, who would trail us through the neighborhood. My mom hadn’t “checked out” yet, but she was fading fast. Sam had taken her to a “spa” for a “rest” and was there visiting.

We headed for the shortcut down the alley. We’d gone a few blocks, when we found him in a ditch—literally—behind a garage. He was just lying there on the ground, curled up in a ball. We thought he was dead at first. But when Lex felt for a pulse—we did watch TV—he opened his eyes and gave her his best lost-puppy-dog look. So we took the lost puppy dog home.

We didn’t know him, because he went to Catholic school. He had no coat on and was clammy and shivering. Lex wrapped hers around him, and I pulled my Spider Man gloves over his shaking hands. He’d been beaten up pretty bad but not anywhere that showed. We found out later that his dad was meticulous that way. We wanted to call 911, but the look of pure terror in Ipod’s eyes shut that down immediately. He didn’t say much. You could tell he was used to sucking up his pain.

We got him home in the wagon, moving slowly, trying not to jiggle him. The tree house has a system of pulleys and a canvas sling we use to ferry up supplies and stuff. We gently laid Ipod on the sling, curled on his side. Then Lex and I, with a heck of a lot of effort, hefted him up and pulled him inside. Okay, it sounds dangerous in hindsight, but we were only eight. Fortunately, we got him to the top without dropping him.

We found out later that he had burns and bruises from his knees to his neck. We never saw the backs of his legs. But he about passed out when we tried to sit him up, and there was blood leaking through his jeans in stripes. Curled up on his side was the only position he could manage.

Lex just stood there stunned and breathing hard from the effort. Her Brittney Spears make-up was smudged, in streaks across her face, from wiping away the tears.

I sat on the floor leaning back against the tree trunk with Ipod’s head in my lap. I needed my tree to get a grip on what had happened. That big, old oak pulsed with energy that only I could feel. I couldn’t explain it. It had always been that way. Where buildings made me weak, my tree made me strong.

Even then I knew that.

I pulled energy from my tree into myself, until I felt calm. I’d done that a thousand times. Then I kind of pushed it into Ipod. I’d never done that with anyone else before; but it seemed right somehow. We needed to do
something
. The entire time we sat there, no one spoke. The only sound was me humming which was how I focused the energy. I sat there, humming the energy into him, feeling it flow through my body and out my fingertips.

Soon he seemed to relax a little. His jaw unclenched. His hands softened. He stopped shivering and began breathing evenly. His face regained color like a sponge soaking up a spill. Minute by minute, he improved as though we’d given him a shot of some wonder drug.

After about five minutes, he pulled up his tee shirt, and the bruises were already turning yellow. Scars from cigar burns faded right before our eyes. We just sat there, watching his chest in amazement. He looked at me as if I was a rock star. Lex laughed out loud and danced around the room. I just kept humming.

In another ten minutes, he was able to sit up. In twenty, he was completely healed. We were so jazzed from what happened that we rigged him a ghost costume from an old sheet and went trick-or-treating. It was the first time he’d ever gone. It was the best Halloween ever. We hid him for three days. No one reported him missing.

His monster of a dad runs some big hedge fund in Denver. Yeah, the kind that screws people out of their investments and makes billions for a handful of rich guys. We call him the Hammer, for obvious reasons. The day we found Ipod, the Hammer had a bad day at the office and came home early to work it out on his kid.

Ipod’s strategy in the early years was to stay out of sight as much as possible. He spent most of his time hiding in closets, reading library books. He got himself to school, ate who knows what, and wore clothes he scrounged from the homeless-shelter free box. He was nothing if not resourceful.

Still, at least once a month, he’d get caught in the kitchen or coming home from school and have to pay the price for breathing. He’d give us a call, gasping through clenched teeth, sometimes not even able to talk. We didn’t need words, we’d hear him moan and know it was a 911 emergency.

He’d crawl out his window and be waiting in the bushes when we’d arrive with the wagon. Then we’d haul him back and I’d repair the damage. He’d hide out in the tree house for a few days to recoup. Then he’d sneak back home and the cycle would begin again.

By the time we were nine, we finally realized there was no point in his going home at all. No one woke him up for school. No one checked to see if he was there at night. No one made him dinner. Maybe the Hammer thought he’d crawled off somewhere to die, and he was rid of him. I don’t know. Probably, he didn’t think about him at all.

So Ipod was the first of us to stay in the tree house full time—easy deal. His father didn’t care and my parents were too stressed to notice.

I followed soon after, when my mom checked out. The only place I could fall asleep was near the soothing energy of my tree. After the funeral, Sam asked the Chihuahua if Lex could stay a couple of weeks, so I wouldn’t be alone. The Chihuahua jumped on the chance to have an empty house and “overnight guests.” Lex cramped her style. She didn’t like people to think she was old enough to have a daughter Lex’s age. Plus, did I mention the “overnight guests?”

Sam was so trashed; he let us call the shots. Besides, he was used to us sleeping in the tree house. He thought of it as just another room down the hall. He was relieved I had someone to hold onto. Two weeks became two months and two months became two years. Basically, Lex just never went home. Shortly after the funeral, the three of us were living there full time as though it was totally normal. Of course, normal is a relative word. But for us, it was home.

As we walked into the back yard, Lex pulled out her earbuds and spoke for the first time since the locker bay, “I’m dying for a Popsicle.”

“Me too,” I said, climbing the tree house ladder.

I walked into the tree house thinking—as I did every day—that except for an occasional, uneventful trip to the past, my days were all the same.

That was the last time I had that thought.