Spectacle (A Young Adult Novel) (23 page)

Marjorie started singing “Baby daddy, baby daddy,” as she walked away from Trix, down the hall.

Trix felt sick in the very pit of her stomach but also astonished, because the ants had finally stilled.

57. Lift Off

T
HE THING
E
MILY
loved best about flying was the jet zooming down the runway at two hundred miles an hour, trees and buildings whooshing by, then the nose lifting and wheels leaving the ground. The speed. The rush. It was better than any drink she’d ever tried. Almost as good as finding out a boy you liked liked you back.

But Emily wouldn’t think about that.

She pressed her forehead against the cold window, wishing she could listen to her iPod, but knowing electronic devices weren’t allowed yet. Below, the world had pulled away and now everything looked like the small cars and tracks and town sets she and Kristen had played with when they were little.

Bridges crisscrossed Seattle: the Ballard, the Aurora, the Fremont, the I-5, and then the floating bridges leading to the Eastside. The Puget Sound was gray and choppy and shrinking below her like a spreading stain in reverse. Then, through mottled clouds she could see mountains. One in particular: Mt. Rainier, still amazing to her even though she’d lived near it all her life. It rose thousands of feet higher than the rest of the Cascade Range and hulked, like a giant among children.

Finally, the pilot came on the sound system and announced it was okay to use electronics again. Emily fired up some MGMT, opened a book she had to read for Johnson’s class, and tried to lose herself.

58. Christmas Eve

T
RIX’S DAD HAD
left town for Christmas. He’d gone to stay with a friend on an Indian reservation in Eastern Washington. And Trix wasn’t invited. As little as she cared about the holiday, she couldn’t just hang out alone at her dad’s depressing duplex, so she took the bus back to the trailer on Aurora and let herself in. She thought maybe she and her mom could do their usual pancake house brunch in the morning, then catch a matinee. She hoped Rodney was busy doing something else.

She found Fiona sitting on the couch, a thin, clear tube running from a small tank on the floor into her mother’s nostrils. “Oxygen,” she said. “I’ve been getting tired so fast lately. It’s the tank for me now.”

On TV, a talk show blared.

Trix turned it down and said, “What? Forever?”

Rotating her palms up, her mom said, “Unless they find a cure.”

Trix didn’t think Fiona looked distressed enough for having just been hooked to a leash for life.

“Jesus, Ma.” Trix took off her coat and set a flat, wrapped box—holding a shirt she’d designed and sewed in the home ec room at school—on the coffee table.

Her mother just nodded, eyes still on the TV screen. “It’ll happen to you, too. If you keep smoking.”

Trix couldn’t even think about that right then. Old age seemed so incredibly far away, and her current life too stressful to stop smoking. Later, she thought. When I turn 18.

“I have other news,” Fiona said, a small smile creeping across her face.

Trix was still distracted by the oxygen tank at her mother’s feet. “What’s that?”

“I’m marrying Rodney.”

It was then that Trix noticed the skinny silver band on her mother’s ring finger. “Merry Christmas to me!” Fiona said and laughed her old smoker’s laugh.

“Please tell me this is a joke,” Trix said. “You’ve known him for what? Two months.”

Fiona waved away her daughter’s concern. “Oh, when you’re as old as me, it all happens quicker.”

Trix stood and strode agitatedly toward the kitchen, looking for coffee. Even a half-full pot of cold coffee she could heat in the microwave. But there was none. She wanted a cigarette. That was out of the question, of course. She found a can of Diet Rite in the fridge and popped it open. It seemed entirely possible that she could hyperventilate. If her mom married Rodney, Trix knew she could never live here again. Not that she had a burning desire to, but she had no idea how long her dad would be willing to put up with her.

I’ve gotta get into the Art Institute
, she thought. She could pay for housing with financial aid. That would mean another nine months before she could live on her own.

“Mom,” she said. “Please tell me you’re going to have a long engagement.”

“We’re thinking spring.”

Christ!

“It’ll just be small. At the courthouse. Pizza and beer after.”

Trix didn’t like this one bit. She paced. She wondered if he was coming over that night. “What about breakfast tomorrow? Are we doing the pancake thing?”

Fiona looked at Trix, then knocked the oxygen tank with her knuckles. “I’m not ready to go out with this thing on, yet, Trixie.”

“A movie? I was thinking maybe the new Judd Apatow flick. A theater will be dark … ”

Her mother rapped the tank again.

Fine, then. Fiona was going to have fun being a bride hooked to that behemoth.

Trix went into her room and slammed the door. It was just as she’d left it. Bed unmade, dresser drawers half open, closet mostly cleared out. She sat on the mattress edge and drank her soda.

This felt nothing like Christmas Eve. Nothing at all. Her mom had at least made an effort when Trix was younger, with an artificial tree and stockings, but now it might as well be March 23rd. There was nothing in this trailer that would give away the date as December 24th.

“Don’t worry,” Fiona yelled from the other room. “You won’t have to call him Daddy!” Her smoky cackle erupted again.

Counting her money might cheer her up, so Trix reached under her bed for the shoebox.

Something was wrong. The box was there, but as she pulled it out, it felt lighter than it should. In fact, it felt empty.

Frantic, she yanked off the top and stared at the four cardboard walls that surrounded nothing but air. Where was her sewing machine fund?

Barreling back out in the living area, Trix said, “Ma, I was saving money in this box. Where’d it go?”

Fiona’s eyes barely flicked away from the TV.

“What do you mean saving money?”

“You know, putting it away for the future, for something I wanted to buy!” Trix yelled.

“How would I know?”

“Because you’re always here and I haven’t been much. Where’s my money?”

Suddenly, Fiona looked at her daughter, but instead of empathetic disappointment on behalf of Trix, there was a moony gaze of admiration. “So that’s where it came from.”

“What Ma? That’s where what came from?”

“Rod said he came across some money to buy my ring.” Fiona held her hand out and ogled the cheap silver band.

Trix was on the verge of screaming and crying. “That was my money.”

“Well, how was he supposed to know?”

“It was under my bed!”

“Maybe so, but I deserve nice things, too.”

“I worked my butt off for that cash.”

She couldn’t believe this. Not only was her mom marrying Rodney the creep, but he’d stolen what was hers and now she was going to have to start saving all over again.

“You’re young,” Fiona said, turning her attention back to her show. “You’ll earn more.”

Trix threw the shoebox on the floor and charged out of the house, tears coursing down her face. She was sure her mascara was all over the place, but she didn’t care. She stood on the fake-grass “patio” and shakily lit a cigarette.

“Don’t you smoke that around here!” her mom called through the door.

Trix started to walk. She didn’t know where she was going. She didn’t care. Just somewhere else. Anywhere else.

As she strode down Aurora, her crappy cell phone trilled. It was Marjorie asking if she wanted to go to a bonfire at Golden Gardens.

She wavered for a moment, then texted back, “Ok.” At least it was a destination.

59. Landed

S
OUTHEAST
A
RIZONA WAS
hot. And dry. So hot and dry that Emily had to apply lip balm five times on the 90-mile trip along I-10 and Highway 80 from Tucson to Bisbee. This particular shuttle, her second shuttle of the day, was a rusted white van with ripped upholstery. The interior smelled like a decomposing rodent.

She was travel weary, but also excited and nervous and nauseated.

By now her dad knew all about her trip. Was he storming around the house calling Melissa names? Or hiding in his office, giving her the silent treatment?

Emily was too scared to check her phone. It had been off all day. She worried that if she looked at it and saw she had voice mail, she’d listen. And if she listened, she’d hear her father ranting like a lunatic. And if she heard him ranting, her backbone would crumble to dust and she’d stay holed up in the youth hostel all three days.

So she kept her cell phone safely tucked in her backpack and stared through the grimy, tinted windows at stretches of spiny cacti, and coppery hills. Lots of Harleys and trucks towing silver Airstreams passed the “shuttle.” A vulture circled the cloudless sky. Emily imagined she could see the van as the vulture could, a flat, white rectangle zooming toward Bisbee.

An older couple sat in the row behind Emily, the man giving a running commentary on the scenery. Every sentence was punctuated by, “Well, will you look at that!”

In front of her was a guy in his mid-twenties or so, who wore lime green glasses and voraciously read
The Corrections
by Jonathan Franzen, a book Ryan liked. Emily swallowed the now-familiar tartness that lingered in the back of her throat.

When the shuttle entered Bisbee, a small old-west looking town surrounded by orange, terraced hills and copper mines, Emily’s mouth went dry again.

The van dropped her off in front of a RE/MAX real estate office. She tipped the driver three dollars and stood there watching him pull away, her backpack over her shoulders, a Google map in her hand.

The buildings were two or three stories high, bay windows pushing out over the narrow street, small signs hanging across doorways. She couldn’t take in any other details. She was too distracted by her final destination: Marilyn Wozniak’s house.

The air at the higher altitude was cool, almost misty. This disappointed Emily. She wanted the heat of Tucson. The break from drizzle and clouds. But then, she wasn’t there for a vacation, was she? She’d come to Bisbee, Arizona for answers.

She checked her map. Marilyn lived three-quarters of a mile west, on a street called Harrison. Emily began to walk. She went until the buildings thinned and the sidewalks disappeared. She’d never been so nervous. How would her mother react? What if she hid and wouldn’t open the door? Or yelled? Or cried? Or called the police? Or wasn’t there at all?

Twice on her trek, Emily stopped and ambled in small circles along the side of the road. Could she really do this? She was terrified.

Each time, she took a deep breath and ventured on. She hadn’t blown $350 she could’ve spent on new jeans just to loiter on the decaying pavement.

Emily slowed as she approached Marilyn’s block. She gulped in deep breaths and crossed her arms over her chest. She checked the address two more times and licked her parched lips.

There was a car in the driveway. An old Volvo. The house was barely visible through a wooden fence tangled with ferocious vines. Emily peeked through a couple of slats. She saw an overgrown yard, a small iron table and chairs, a trellis leading up to a weathered front door.

Her mother lived there.

60. Peace on Earth

W
HEN
T
RIX GOT
to Golden Gardens, it was dark and drizzly, but she could easily see the roaring bonfire on the beach. Around it were the silhouettes of kids holding beers.

Marjorie called, “Hey Bi-otch!” and offered Trix a cigarette. Gratefully, Trix took it. “Merry Christmas! That’s all I got you.”

Trix laughed and said, “It’ll do.” Screw Christmas anyway. It was just some stupid day for families with little kids. She took a long drag on the cigarette, was handed a PBR, and popped it open. Maybe this would become her new Christmas Eve tradition. Beach party. Could be a whole lot worse.

She thought about Emily, probably having a perfect family get-together, roasting marshmallows in the fireplace or some such B.S. For a moment, Trix felt immensely relieved by her freedom. She wasn’t the type who’d do well with a full family and the associated rituals. She’d chafe, wanting to be out with her friends.

So, here she was. Celebrating on the beach with a bunch of other kids. And a few people who looked of age. Or older. Whatever. She was just glad she’d escaped her thieving mother.

Trix sat on an old log, the front of her scalded by the heat of the flames, the back of her cold. The orange glow from the fire flickered against everyone’s faces. Someone had pulled their car up to the edge of the parking lot, opened their windows, and was blasting The Shins.

“It’s not exactly Jingle Bells,” Trix said. A guy to her left laughed.

“Thank. God,” He said.

She wondered who all these people were. Misfits. Transplants. Kids without real families. Isaac was there. And his friend Adam, too. She didn’t recognize anyone else.

The guy next to her said, “So, what’s your story? Why aren’t you riding in a sleigh or sipping hot chocolate under the mistletoe?”

“Right.”

She found out his name was Jamie when another guy called across the fire to him. “What about you?” she asked. “No twinkling lights on your Christmas tree?”

“I’m a Jehovah’s Witness,” he said.

“Aha.”

“And you’re all pagans.” Jamie said and laughed. He was twenty-one and had moved to Seattle from Butte, Montana. He lived in the parking lot of Fred Meyer, sleeping in the back of his truck and peeing in the bushes at night. He said he took the occasional job as a day laborer, but mostly liked to hang out at the beach.

Loser,
Trix thought. But as the night wore on and she consumed more beer, she started to admire him. Talk about freedom. Besides, he was hot, with caramel skin, black hair, and arm muscles that rippled when he tossed logs onto the fire.