Forever Now (Forever - Book 1) (4 page)

And a tampon.

All heads turned in unison from Mess Parker to the tampon on the floor. I was relieved but mortified for her. I couldn’t imagine her recovering from the tampon incident.

It turned out that I didn’t need to feel sorry for her. She didn’t care in the least about revealing her Tampax Pearl Active Regular. She picked it up and looked at it like, “Oh, there it is” and tossed it back into her large purse.

“I hope it’s humanities,” she continued, not embarrassed at all. “This is my third classroom. I can’t figure out the room numbers.”

Mr. Lawrence stared at her with his mouth open, but no sound came out. The ticking of the clock grew louder. Then, the snickering resumed, but it was directed at her instead of me.

She joined in with the laughter, not realizing or not caring that they were laughing at her.

Finally, Mr. Lawrence remembered how to speak. “Take a seat, Miss--?”

“Dahlia. Dahlia Sherman.”

She smiled ear to ear and took a seat, fighting against her tutu, which was bigger than the chair. She stuffed the tutu under the desk, her bangles clanging the whole time. She pulled a small glitter-covered notebook and a feather-topped pen out of her purse, crossed her legs, and sat back like she was ready to take on the world and she was on a cruise or somewhere else equally fabulous.

“Phew,” she said to me. “What a morning. I never thought I would find the class.”

Oh, yeah. Did I mention that she sat next to me?

“Uh,” I said.

“I’m Dahlia,” she said, extending her hand. I shook it. “New, of course. You probably already guessed that.” She rolled her eyes.

Mr. Lawrence was handing out textbooks and giving instructions on how to write our names in the books.

“Yay,” she announced, showing me her book. “No penis drawings in mine. Usually I get the one packed with penises.”

I showed her mine. There was a drawing of a penis every ten pages or so.

“Circumcised,” Dahlia said, nodding. “Nice.”

***

Weirdly, Dahlia and I had all the same classes until lunch. For the first time since I was eight, school flew by. I was almost happy to be there. I was having fun. Dahlia was crazy weird. She giggled in math class, pirouetted in biology, and couldn’t stop talking to me.

To me.

She talked about global warming, ballet, Adam Levine, and butter. She talked about everything and anything and all the stuff in between.  And she was happy, like she had the happy gene and not even high school could bring her down.

She was the coolest person I had ever met.

The lunch bell rang, and Dahlia followed me to the cafeteria. I typed in my pin number for free lunch. We both got the chicken sandwich and chocolate milk.

“This is so much better than my last school in Virginia,” she said, taking a seat across from me. “That was more like Alcatraz than a high school.”

“Virginia?”

“My dad’s in the military,” she explained. “We move around all the time. Virginia, New York, San Francisco, Paris—“

My ears perked up. “Paris? You’ve been to Paris?”

“Eighteen months. Have you been there?”

“I haven’t been anywhere.”

Dahlia shrugged and smiled ear to ear. “I’ve been enough places for both of us.”

Lunch was over before I knew it. We said goodbye because Dahlia had drama and cheerleading, while I had computers and study hall.

The rest of the day I thought about having a friend who had been to Paris, about having a friend at all. Period.

That’s why I spent the rest of the day at school in a great mood. And why I went home in a great mood. And why I stayed in a great mood right up until I walked through the front door and was surprised by my mother, who was home from work in the middle of the day. She had packed two large suitcases and was wheeling them through the entry on her way out.

Leaving me.

Anger as soon as fed is dead—‘Tis starving that makes it fat.

--Emily Dickinson

My mother was in a great mood, too. Much better mood than simply finding a new friend, she was resplendent with the joy that comes with true, new beginnings.

I knew that look. It was the look I had imagined on my face each time I fantasized about going to Paris. Like a new bride or a new mother or the first day of a really great job, my mom was glowing with the anticipation that her life was taking a right turn.

“What’s going on?” I asked her. “Are you going somewhere?”

“There you are. I was going to leave you a note,” she said, taking a look at herself in the hallway mirror. “I’m getting picked up any minute now.”

“Where are you going?”

“We’re going to Mexico!” she announced, hopping in her high heels, giddy with excitement.

“Out of the country?” I asked. “We? You mean with your boyfriend?”

“Who else?” she said and adjusted her boobs in her push-up bra. Then, she looked and me and scowled, forming lines between her eyes. “No attitude from you. It’s just for a few months.”

“A few months!”

A few months? She was just going to pick up and leave me for a few months?

A car horn blared outside, and my mom wheeled her suitcases outside, nudging me out of her path. “Water the plants,” she said over her shoulder.

I stood on the front porch with my mouth wide open. I was startled, shocked, freaking out.

A few months?

The Boyfriend hopped out of the car and put Mom’s suitcases in the trunk of his BMW. He opened the passenger door for her, and she slid inside and took a seat.

“Don’t give me that face,” she called to me through the open window, as The Boyfriend started up the car. “It’s not like you’ll be on the streets. Besides, you won’t be alone. We’re sending Cruz to watch you.”

And then she was gone. Off to Mexico for a few months.

***

I watched The Boyfriend’s car race down the street, away from me. I stood and stared until it was long gone and only the quiet street remained with its rows of small track homes and palm trees.

“We don’t have any plants. How can I water plants we don’t have?” I finally said, although my mother couldn’t hear me because she was miles away inside a BMW, probably listening to 80s music, and on her way to the border.

Aloneness descended on me, wrapping around my body and squeezing tight until I couldn’t breathe. For that moment there, standing on the front porch—alone, alone, alone—there was nobody else in the world. At least, there was nobody else in the world who cared about my existence or even knew about my existence.

It was like I had a force field around me and nobody would ever break through. Alone. I had out-Emily Dickinsoned Emily Dickinson.

Like a person falling off a cliff and seeing his life pass before his eyes, I thought of every bad thing that could happen to a sixteen-year old girl, alone without any support or supervision for a few months.

There were serial killers, hit-and-run drivers, appendicitis emergencies, and starvation.  There were house fires and home invasions and tooth abscesses. Just to name a few.

It wasn’t like my mother was all that supportive when she was around. For all intents and purposes, I took care of myself. Besides, she had left me before—many times—but not for more than a week, and she had warned me beforehand.

And she paid the rent.

Who was going to pay the rent?

Did she leave money for the rent?

Oh my God.

I was hit by a bolt of lightning. Not the kind of bolt that leaves you dead near the ninth hole at the golf course. This bolt of lightning was the “ah-ha” kind of bolt, the kind that hits you and tells you that you are so S.O.L. that you might as well kiss your future goodbye because you are screwed.

Screwed.

Screwed and poor and destined to be thrown into the street.

I ran inside the house without bothering to close the door behind me. I threw my backpack off and took the stairs two at a time. I was still running when I got to my bedroom, hurled myself onto the floor and crawled under my bed.

I grabbed my Danish Butter Cookies tin and opened it.

I gasped, taking in air but forgetting to breathe.

Empty. Nothing. Not a dollar. Not a cent. Not even a cookie crumb.

“No. No. No. No,” I moaned.

I looked again, as if I had missed seeing a big wad of cash in the metal container the first time around.

Nope. Empty.

Gone was my Maclaren poop and puke money. Gone was my ticket to Paris money. And now that I was alone, gone was my survival money.

My head dropped to the floor and nestled in the deep shag carpeting. I lay like that, face down, under my bed for I don’t know how long.

There was no reason to move. I was safe under my bed. There were no serial killers under there. Ditto bill collectors. If I could just stay under my bed, I reasoned, I would be okay.

Then, my stomach rumbled, which reminded me that I didn’t have money to eat, which reminded me that I needed to eat—I had a very big appetite, usually—every day, in fact several times a day, which made me start to cry. Weep, actually.

I was weeping pretty good with a whole snot thing happening and was about to erupt in a “why me?” whiny song when I was interrupted.

“Hello?” a man’s voice called from downstairs.

I froze.

“Hello!”

It was a serial killer voice. A rapist, burglar, home invader, Hannibal Lecter voice. I had left the front door open, and now I was going to die a horrible death.

I turned on my side and wiped the snot off my face with the hem of my t-shirt. What to do? My cell phone was in my backpack downstairs. So no 911, and I couldn’t protect myself. I didn’t have a weapon, not even a baseball bat because I had never been into sports.

Why wasn’t I sporty? If I had been sporty, I wouldn’t be about to be murdered by the star of
Saw III
.

“Hello?” he called again. “Tess? It’s me, Cruz.”

“Oh, my God, I’ve gone delusional in my last moments of life,” I said to my empty room. “Help. Help. I’m hearing things. I’ve gone crazy. I’m Brittany Spears shaving her head.”

I heard the serial killer climb the stairs in a hurry. A second later, he was tapping my leg, which was sticking out from under the bed.

“Tess? It’s me. Cruz. You under there?” He tapped again, and I stuck my fingers in my ears.

“Don’t hurt me,” I squeaked.

His hands wrapped around my ankles, and he pulled. I glided over the carpet out from under the bed in one swift movement. Cruz leaned over me, one of his eyebrows raised up to his hairline, as if he were questioning my sanity, and he probably was.

He was beautiful. More handsome than I remembered. I was amazed at how my mind could conjure up an exact replica of Cruz right before I was going to be killed. With the power of my brain, I had transformed a serial killer into a gorgeous, perfect boy. Talk about wishful thinking. I was a master.

“Tess, it’s me,” he said. I noticed that his serial killer voice was gone and his soft, deep, comforting voice was back. I blinked and wiped my eyes.

“Cruz?” I asked.

“What were you doing under there?”

“I thought she was joking,” I said. “I thought she was teasing me about you coming.”

He gently lifted a strand of my hair that had fallen over my face, and tucked it behind my ear. “Your mom?” he asked.

“She left with your dad.”

“I know. He called me this morning.”

“She said they would be gone for months.”

He nodded and sat cross-legged next to me. “He got a job in Puerta Vallarta.”

“A job?”

“He’s very excited about it.”

I sat up. “So he left you alone in the condo?” I asked him.

“No, he gave up the condo,” Cruz said. “Besides, he kicked me out two weeks ago.”

“Why?”

Cruz shrugged. “Why. Good question. But I’m here now.”

He stood and helped me up.

“Did he leave you money?” I asked.

“No.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed. I kept hearing
Doomed! Doomed!
over and over in my head.

“Let’s go downstairs and take stock of our situation,” he said, wisely. I studied his face. Serious but kind. And something else, concerned for me.

I nodded. For the first time since my mother left, I felt safe and secure. In addition to his beauty, there was a calm strength about him.

I followed Cruz downstairs. His back was as good as his front. He had wide shoulders and narrow hips, and he turned around twice to make sure I was following him. Of course, I was following him. I would have followed him anywhere.

Where thou art, that is home.

--Emily Dickinson

We weren’t alone. There were two other people in the house. A guy and a girl, both older than me. Both way more good-looking and well dressed.

“Everything alright?” The guy asked Cruz. He was tall and slim, with a perfect face and body, like he had been constructed by GQ Magazine. He wore a tight black suit and shiny shoes, and I noticed his fingernails were manicured. Buffed.

“Yeah,” Cruz said. “Fine. Eric, Dana, this is Tess.”

They looked me up and down. Dana took stock of me quickly and looked away, probably feeling that I wasn’t worth her time. She was gorgeous, heavily made up, wispy thin with skyscraper high heels.

It was like they were vampires. You know, the Twilight kind. Perfect, beautiful, young. I wanted them to bite me and make me beautiful, too, but no such luck. They didn’t seem to have a craving for Emily Dickinson girl.

“Hi, Tess,” Eric said, shaking my hand. “I guess we’ll go, now. Dana has a shoot. I can take you to school tomorrow, if you want, Cruz.”

“Awesome,” Cruz said.

And then they were gone, leaving a trail of swagger behind them. They didn’t look like high school kids. They were way too cool for that. More like they had just hopped off a yacht at the Cannes Film Festival.

Cruz closed the door behind his gorgeous friends. I noticed a suitcase in the corner, which I assumed belonged to him. He ignored it and walked with me into the kitchen.