Spiraling (2 page)

“Maybe Jason will be there,” Kennedy said after we’d separated from Joy. “I hope he is. Do you think you could call him and see if he’s going?”

I looked at her, confused by her preoccupation with the pest. “There’ll be a bunch of upperclassmen at this party, Kenn. Why do you care if stupid Jason Rusamano is there? He’s a freshman.”

“So are we,” she answered.

“Yeah, but you could totally snag a junior. Don’t waste your time on a loser like Jason.”

“I like Jason.”

“You are
such
a dork. You’ve never said a word about Jason before today and now you’re all gaga about him. Really, Kenn, you should be a little pickier about who you like.”

“I’ve liked Jason for a while. I just didn’t say anything.”

“Why not?”

“I wasn’t sure if you liked him. You’re always talking to him.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “
He
always talks to
me
. It’s not like I want him to, either. I could really care less about most of what he says. I don’t even listen most of the time and he is
so
dense he doesn’t even notice.”

“That’s really harsh, Tori.” She dropped her eyes.

“It’s true. At least I’m not mean to his face. I could tell
him
I don’t care.”

“I guess.”

I sighed, annoyed at her. “If you really want me to call him, I will.”

“That’s okay.”

“It’s up to you.”

“If you want to. Do you have his number?”

“No.” I shook my head. “Why would I?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It’s probably in the phone book. I think Jason’s family is the only Rusamanos in town. Or maybe Chad has his number. You could call and ask him.”

“That would work if I had
Chad’s
number.”

“He didn’t give it to you?”

I shook my head. “We’ve been going out for all of ten minutes, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I’ll look in the phone book,” I said. “If I don’t find it, I’ll talk to Jason in school tomorrow. He’s in most of my classes and he always sits by me, so it shouldn’t be hard.”

“Thank you, Tori.” She smiled.

“It’s cool. I’ll let you know what he says.”

“Okay.” Her disposition improved as she strolled up the sidewalk to her house.

I walked back down the block. I lived across the street from Joy in a house that looked a lot like hers. Most of the houses on our street looked the same. They were all various shades of beige and blue. The landscaping was even similar—a tree near the middle of the yard, hedges lining the walk or in front of the porch railing. Some people had put in flowerbeds, others a neat rock garden to break up the monotony, but it was still basically the same house over and over down both sides of the street.

Unlocking the door, I walked inside and set my bag on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. The light on the answering machine in the kitchen flashed, but I didn’t touch it. I flipped through the Caller ID to see if anyone had called for me in the half-hour since school. Most of the calls showed up as private numbers and the ones that didn’t weren’t any I recognized. I set the Caller ID back where it belonged on the counter next to the charger for the cordless phone and grabbed the phone book out of the drawer. Flipping through the white pages, I stopped at the R’s and scanned down the page. Kennedy was right, there was only one Rusamano in the phone book. I hoped it was Jason’s number as I punched the buttons on the cordless receiver.

“Hello?” a woman answered.

“Hi,” I replied. “Is Jason there?”

“Whom may I ask is calling?”

“Tori Douglas.”

“Just a moment, please.”

I heard her calling for Jason, followed by his clumsy footsteps on a hard surface. He asked her who was on the phone and she said my name. There was a pause and then the shuffling sound of the receiver changing hands. I waited impatiently for the interchange to be complete, getting irritated that he took so long.

“Hey, Tori, what’s up?” Jason asked as if he’d rehearsed what to say.

“Hi,” I replied. “I have a question for you.”

“Ok.”

“Are you going to the party on Saturday?”

“Saturday?” He paused. “I don’t know.”

“It would be really cool if you could go.”

“I don’t see why I couldn’t. I’ll have to ask my parents.” He spoke slowly as if he were suspicious of my motives.

“Great. Can you let me know in first hour?”

“Sure.”

“Sounds good.” I smiled. “Talk to you then.”

I hung up the phone as soon as he’d said goodbye and instantly dialed Kennedy’s number. She was busy, so I told her mom I’d call her back later. Setting the cordless phone back on the charger, I decided I’d start on my homework. With all the problems Mrs. White had assigned, I knew it would take a while, and I needed to get as much done as I could before my mom got home.

Mom pulled up in the driveway just after four, earlier than normal for a Monday. The twins, Colton and Candace, bolted through the front door seconds later, screaming at the top of their lungs as they ran circles around the room.

“Tori, Tori, Tori.” They sang as they jumped onto the couch beside me, hopping up and down like pogo sticks.

I quickly shut my books, put them in my bag, and carried it over to the stairs. Mom walked in the door as I turned back around. She glanced at me before she spotted the twins bouncing on the sofa.

“Tori, don’t let your brother and sister do that,” she said. “What if they fall and get hurt? You know better.”

“Sorry, Mom.” I took a deep breath and walked back to the twins. “Get down, guys. The couch isn’t a trampoline. Let’s go into the kitchen and get a snack. Then you can play in your room for a while.”

“No!” They screeched in unison.

Bounding from the sofa, they took off. I tried to stop them as Mom continued through the room, oblivious to the chaos around her.

“Have you gotten started on dinner yet, Tori?” she asked as she flipped through the mail.

“Not yet,” I answered.

She looked at me. “You’d better get started. James has a meeting tonight so he won’t have a lot of time to eat. I’m going to be working in my office. Please, keep the twins quiet. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

She opened the door to her office and disappeared behind it. Taking another deep breath, I set about wrangling the twins. After a few minutes, I was able to bribe them to go to their room with a handful of cookies each. Then I started dinner. Spaghetti with meatballs was on the menu.

My stepfather, James, walked in the house as I strained the pasta. He set down his briefcase on the kitchen counter and checked the answering machine. There was a message from one of his friends about his Saturday night poker game. Someone’s wife had to go out of town so they needed to change the venue.

“Did you mess with the Caller ID?” he asked after the message ended.

I looked up from the pasta. “I just checked to see if—”

“How am I supposed to know which calls I missed, Tori? You know you aren’t supposed to touch the Caller ID until I have the chance to look at it. I pay for the telephone in this house and if you want the privilege of using it, you’ll obey my rules. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” I nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Is dinner ready?”

“I just need to set the table and get the—“

“Get it done. I need to make a call.”

He picked up the phone and walked out of the room. I quickly set the table, then poured the pasta and sauce in separate serving bowls. James didn’t like pots being placed at the table and preparing plates over the stove was unacceptable as far as he was concerned. I put the large bowls in the center of the table. Then I retrieved the Parmesan cheese wedge out of the refrigerator and the grater out of the utensil drawer. Along with the rest of his eccentricities, James preferred fresh ingredients. He would not allow a plastic container of pre-grated Parmesan at the table, so I put the wedge and grater on a small plate and set it next to the sauce bowl.

The twins put up a fight about eating dinner. Neither of them wanted to stop playing. It was a battle to get them to wash their hands and faces, let alone sit still during dinner. They danced around in their chairs the entire meal while James berated me because he thought the pasta was undercooked. After we’d finished eating, I got the twins in a bath and cleared the table.

There were enough leftovers to feed a couple people even after I’d taken a plate to my mom, so I dumped them onto a large plate and covered it with cellophane. My older brother, Christian, hadn’t made it home in time for dinner and I knew he would be hungry.

“What are you doing?” James asked.

“Making a plate for Chris,” I answered.

“You are on a roll today, aren’t you?”

“I didn’t think—”

“That’s right, you
don’t
think. We don’t save leftovers. Throw it out. If your brother can’t be home in time for dinner, he doesn’t need to eat. I’m tired of his disrespect. We have a schedule in this house. He knows what time we have dinner every night.”

“But—” We’d had dinner an hour earlier than usual because of James’ meeting.

“Throw it out!”

I pulled the cellophane off the plate and dumped the spaghetti in the trash. James watched me for a minute while I loaded the dishes into the dishwasher, as if he was worried I’d get the spaghetti back out of the trash. When he was satisfied I wasn’t smuggling any food for my brother, he picked up his briefcase and headed for the front door. I finished cleaning up the kitchen, got the twins out of the bath, put their pajamas on, and had them play in their room while I cleaned the bathroom.

When all evidence of the twins’ bath was gone, I picked up the front room. There wasn’t much to clean. The twins had pulled out some toys and thrown the sofa pillows on the floor, but otherwise, it didn’t look dirty. The phone rang as I put the last toy away. I hurried into the kitchen to answer the cordless before it disturbed my mom. She got irritated if she was bothered while she was working.

“Hello?” I put the receiver to my ear.

“Tori?” Kennedy asked.

“That’s my name. What’s up?”

“Mom said you called earlier. Did you talk to Jason?”

“I did.”

“What did he say?” The excitement in her voice was unmistakable.

“He said he would let me know tomorrow if he was going. He has to ask his parents and he’s going to tell me in first hour.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “You’ll tell me as soon as he tells you, right?”

“Of course.”

There was a long pause. I pictured her picking at the fringe on the side of her pillowcase the way she always did when she was upset about something.

“Hey, is my brother at your house?” I asked.

“Chris?” She seemed caught off guard by my sudden change in subject. “Yeah. He’s downstairs playing some stupid game with Becky. Why?”

“Just curious. I hardly ever see the loser anymore.”

“He’s always
here
.” She chuckled.

“I know.” I sighed. It wasn’t so much that I missed my brother. It was more that I missed having an ally. Chris was the only person that understood what life was like in our house. It was nice having someone to talk to when our stepfather was being a jerk. I couldn’t tell my friends. They’d use it as fodder for the gossip mill. Even Kennedy had a tendency to run her mouth.

“It doesn’t really bother
me
.” Kennedy went on. “He’s nice to look at. That cute little butt is s
o
adorable.”

“Gross.” I stuck out my tongue. “That’s my brother you’re talking about, Kenn.”

“He’s not
my
brother. I can admire him all I want.”

“Whatever.” A disgusted shiver ran down my spine. “Ew.”

“Chill out, Tori.” She laughed.

“I am seriously about to hurl,” I said. “Please, don’t talk about Chris and cute in the same sentence ever again. Those two words do not even belong in the same zip code.”

“It’s not like I even stand a chance with him.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“Tori!” Mom called from her office.

I walked to the kitchen doorway and looked around the corner. “Yes, Mom?”

“I need to use the phone,” she said.

“Okay,” I answered. “Kenn, I need to let you go. My mom needs the phone.”

“All right,” Kennedy replied. “I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

I said goodbye, hung up the phone, and took it across the room to my mom. Free from the distraction, I went back to my evening chores. At seven-thirty, I went in to get the twins settled down for bed. Their room looked like a war zone and, like most nights, they refused to help clean up. I did my best to quickly organize the chaos. They had so many toys, I ended up just tossing them in whichever bin was closest before I took the twins back in the bathroom to brush their teeth and use the toilet. Thankfully, they didn’t fight much about going to bed. After they were tucked in, I read a Dr. Seuss book and they were both droopy-eyed when I turned out the light.

It was after ten before I finished with most of my chores. I was tired and still had tons of homework to get done before I could call it a night. I left the vacuum in the closet and went upstairs. The carpet looked clean anyway. If I hadn’t known better, I wouldn’t have been able to tell I hadn’t done it.

My wishful thinking came back to bite me at five-thirty the next morning. I woke to the sound of my stepfather beating on my bedroom door. It had only been four hours since I’d gone to sleep and I was reluctant to get up as I rolled over.

“Tori, get your butt out here,” James yelled.

“Coming.” I got out of bed and trudged to the door, opening it. “What is it?”

“Did you finish all your chores last night?”

“Most of them. I had a lot of home—”

“So, you just decided to leave the dishes in the sink?”

“I
did
the dishes.”

“There are dinner dishes in the sink and the pans are sitting on the counter,” he said. “You know part of your responsibilities is to make sure all of the dishes are cleaned and put where they belong every night.”

“Yes, sir.” I sighed.

“Get dressed and get downstairs. I want this house clean before you go to school, do you understand? We’re not living in a pigsty because you’re too lazy to do what you’re told.”

“Yes, sir.”

He walked down the hall. I shut the door and turned on my bedroom light. Changing into an old shirt and a pair of jeans, I met my stepfather in the kitchen. He stood at the counter pouring a cup of coffee. As he’d said, there were dishes in the sink and I had forgotten to put away the pans after I’d washed them. They were still propped in the dish strainer on the counter. I got a towel out of the linen drawer and wiped them.

“They need to be washed,” James said.

“They’re clean,” I replied.

“No, they’re not. They’ve been sitting out all night.”

“But, they’re clean. I washed them last night.”

“Then wash them again.”

I put the pans back on the other side of the counter and rewashed them along with the dirty plate and cups that were in the sink, then unloaded the dishwasher, inspecting every dish to make sure it was clean. Anything that wasn’t spotless I put in the sink to scrub by hand. By six-thirty, every dish was clean and put away. After James had inspected the sink and counters,  he sent me to get ready for school.

Chris was already in the shower when I made it to the top of the stairs, so I went to my room to get out my clothes. A cute red top my aunt had given me for my last birthday and a pair of black hip-hugger slacks were the first things I came up with. I was too tired for anything more complicated. Plain black, heeled boots would work with it. The forecast said there was a fifty-percent chance of rain and my boots would fare better than any of my other shoes.

Kennedy and Joy were waiting at the end of the driveway when I finally made it out of the house at a quarter to eight. Chris had taken his time in the shower, so I had to rush through my morning routine. It usually took me at least half an hour to tame my waist-length curly hair, but I’d only had ten minutes to mousse it and throw it into a messy ponytail.

“Are you okay?” Kenn asked.

“Yeah.” I nodded. “Chris was being a jerk this morning. He hogged the bathroom until after seven, so I didn’t have time to do my hair. Then the light in my closet wasn’t working, so I just grabbed the first thing I could find that didn’t look hideous. I so don’t even look cute today. I hope Chad doesn’t think I’m a total skank.”

“Whatever.” Kennedy laughed. “You look great. I like that shirt.”

“Thanks,” I replied. “My aunt gave it to me.”

The school was crowded by the time we got there. We didn’t have time to linger very long at our lockers before first hour. Joy emptied her bag, organizing everything quickly before she hurried to class. Kennedy and I moved slower. I was too tired to rush and Kennedy couldn’t find her algebra book. Sluggishly, I retrieved my Spanish book and binder from my backpack. I went to class, leaving Kennedy to sort through her mess alone. Knowing her, it would take a while and I didn’t want to get detention for being late.

Jason was talking to one of his friends when I walked into class. I glanced at him as I took my seat in the second row and dropped my books on the desk. Maggie Archer turned around to say something to me, but I barely heard her. I focused on finishing the worksheet we’d been assigned the previous day. It was the last thing I’d been working on before falling asleep and there were a few blank questions at the bottom of the page.

“Hey, Tori.” Jason flopped down in the chair beside me.

“Just a second,” I replied, not looking away from the last question on my worksheet.

“It’s library.”

“What?” I looked at him.