Aspen

IN THIS TOGETHER MEDIA

New York, New York

IN THIS TOGETHER MEDIA EDITION, JUNE 2014

Copyright © 2014 by Rebekah Crane

All rights reserved. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States by In This Together Media, New York

June 2014

BISAC: [1. Girls & Women—Juvenile Fiction. 2. Depression & Mental Illness (Social Issues)—Juvenile Fiction. 3. Adolescence (Social Issues)—Juvenile Fiction. 4. Dating & Sex (Social Issues)—Juvenile Fiction. 5. Hispanic & Latino (People & Places)—Juvenile Fiction 6. Alternative Family (Family)—Juvenile Fiction. ]

Katelyn Ryan sat in front of me in chemistry. I’d stare at the back of her head and wonder what it would be like to have straight brown hair instead of the curly, dirty blonde mess that protrudes from my head, like a perm on a troll doll. I bet she used one of those big paddle brushes instead of a pick and ran it through her hair at least ten times before school.

We even spoke once.

“Do you have a pencil I can borrow?” she asked, turning around and tossing her hair over her shoulder.

“No, sorry.”

“That’s okay,” she said, and smiled.

I dug into the front pocket of my backpack and felt the pile of No. 2 pencils at the bottom. I’m not good at sharing.

One other time, I almost asked her what conditioner she used, but the class ended and I didn’t.

Last month, Katelyn Ryan’s baby blue Honda Accord crashed into my white Volkswagen Rabbit. We hit head-on and she flew through her windshield. When I was getting stitched up at the hospital afterward, all I kept thinking was that I should have given her a damn pencil.

Katelyn Ryan is dead. I know that. I just can’t figure out how to get her to leave me alone.

“Aspen Yellow-Sunrise Taylor, get your gimpy butt down here,” Ninny yells from the bottom of the staircase. “I can’t believe I have to drive my 17-year-old daughter to her first day of senior year like you’re still in kindergarten.”

I roll my eyes. “Real sensitive, Mom,” I yell back as I pull my tie-dye T-shirt over my head. Its spiral rainbow matches the royal blue cast still suctioned to the bottom half of my right leg.

When the doctor asked me what color cast I wanted, I stared at him and said, “She’s really dead?”

“Yes,” he replied in that flat, no-nonsense tone only doctors have.

“I guess I’ll take blue.”

“Good choice.”

It itches underneath. I stuck a marker down it last night to scratch my calf and went too far. Now one of my Sharpies has gone into the abyss of flaked-off skin and mildew.

Good choice
.

On the plus side, I got to ditch the crutches a few days ago. Now I hobble around on both my legs, like a proper troll, thanks to the rubber bumper on the bottom of my cast.

“You know that’s not what I mean,” Ninny yells, her voice turning sweeter. “I’m still sad that girl died. I just have stuff to do this morning before work.”

I hear her walk into the kitchen and pull out the coffee maker. Our house is so ramshackle, I can hear everything. Including her and Toaster doing it.

“Like what?” I bellow back.

“I need to refill my prescription.”

I groan, pulling my cutoff jean shorts from my bottom dresser drawer. She got a medicinal pot prescription five years ago for anxiety, even though pot is legal in Colorado. It’s sold on practically every street corner in our town. But Ninny said buying it on the street just didn’t seem like a good example to set for her teenage daughter. I’m convinced the only thing she’s anxious about is the prescription running out or Colorado changing its marijuana laws. She’d have to go back to scoring her stash the old fashioned way, and then what kind of example would she be?

“I’m almost ready.” I look at myself in the mirror, at my curly, tangled bird’s nest of blonde hair, and something moves behind me. Turning around, I check my room, searching the corners for the girl who has taken up residency here. Katelyn had this habit of running her fingers through her hair every day when the bell rang at the end of chemistry. It was like clockwork and drove me crazy. Inevitably, long strands of brown hair would fall on my desk.

My eyes shift around the small space, looking on either side of my double bed and behind the desk nestled against the wall next to my closet. An old computer, the kind from the ‘90s with a huge monitor and keyboard, sits on top, turned off. Ninny’s ex-boyfriend gave it to me two years ago for my birthday. Uncle Hayes only lasted about four months, which was good. He refused to use deodorant, claiming it caused cancer. I’m not sure about the cancer bit, but not using deodorant definitely causes a person to stink.

I bend down and check under the bed. Nothing. Standing back up, I stop in front of the Grove. A few of my sketches rattle in the breeze coming through the window.

I started taping my sketches to the wall a few years ago. They’ve grown to the point where almost no space is left, each picture feeding into the next. My best friend, Kim, coined it the Grove because each tree in an aspen grove connects to the rest through a collective root system to make one the largest living organisms in the world. And each picture on my wall connects to a piece of me. It helps that my name is Aspen, too. Kim’s pretty damn smart.

As I take a breath, my chest pinches, pulling tight. It’s the side effect of my steering wheel banging into me like a horny teenage boy. I loosen the neck of my shirt, pulling the cotton until I hear a few threads pop.

“She’s not real,” I say out loud to all the sketches as they flutter in the breeze.

In the kitchen, Ninny leans back on the counter, sipping a cup of black coffee and staring at the vase of dead daisies. Each stem has only a few dried white petals left. She brought them and a container of mint chocolate chip ice cream, which she accidentally left in the car to melt everywhere, to the hospital that night. I forgot to water the flowers when we got home.

“Ready,” I say, grabbing a sponge to wipe down the counter where Ninny spilled coffee.

She snaps out of her trance. “Salvador’s coming over for dinner tonight, so would you please be on your best behavior?”

Ninny licks her hands and runs them over the top of my head.

“Your spit isn’t going to make it straight.” I pull back from her and take the empty coffee cup out of her hand. Rinsing it, I place it in the drying rack next to the sink.

“You’re so pretty, baby. Your dad would be proud.” Then she looks me up and down, and puts her finger on the bottom of her chin. “Maybe it was Andy Romaine?”

I groan and pull the full garbage bag out from under the sink. “How many people
did
you sleep with?” I say, tying it closed.

Ninny waves her hand through the air, jingling the silver bangles stacked up to her elbow. “It doesn’t matter. What does is that I got you.” She squeezes me to her boney body, her patchouli oil tickling my nose hairs. “My sweet Aspen-tree.”

My mom had no idea she was pregnant with me, like one of those terrible shows on TLC,
I Didn’t Know I was Pregnant
or
Crazy, Young and Stupid
or something like that. The summer before her junior year of high school, Ninny went to a four-day-long Widespread Panic show in Winter Park and did drug after drug until one morning her stomach felt weird.

“I thought it was gas. Altitude does that,” she told me when I was little. She lay down under an aspen tree and tried to push the gas out. Instead, she pushed out a baby. She was seven months along. A man saw her and called for help. When he asked what the baby’s name was, she said, “Aspen Yellow-Sunrise Taylor.” Clearly a rookie mistake made by a high school student who had no idea what a name like that would do to her daughter in the future. I may have to change it in a few years when I want a real job.

I’ve asked her numerous times who my dad is, but Ninny claims she was in a “free love” phase and doesn’t want to be judged on her openness. I’m not trying to judge her. I just want to know if I’m genetically inclined to cancer or heart disease when I’m older. I keep waiting for the day I start seeing dancing bears or have kaleidoscope vision, but Ninny swears she only did drugs that weekend. If you don’t count pot as a drug.

The first time I saw Katelyn, I cursed Ninny a thousand times over, sure she was some residual hallucination from Ninny’s bad decisions during pregnancy. A few weeks ago, Katelyn appeared in the corner of my room, like one of the ghosts in
A Christmas Carol
, except she didn’t move or talk or anything. She just stood there in her soccer uniform, looking alive. I screamed at the top of my lungs and squeezed the entire tube of blue paint I was holding onto the floor. Ninny wasn’t home to hear it or see the mess. Thank God. I scrubbed most of the paint out of my beige carpet. No one would notice the blue mark that’s left unless they were looking for it. I haven’t attempted another oil painting since that day. I prefer sketching with charcoal pencils anyway.

As much as I’d like to blame Ninny for my current hallucinogenic state, I can’t. It’s not her fault.

“Does Toaster really have to come over for dinner tonight? It’s the first day of school,” I say.

“Please don’t call him Toaster.” Ninny lets me go and grabs the car keys off the cracked-tile counter.

“Mom, he brought you a toaster from someone’s trash.”

“We needed one,” she yells.

“He plays the drums on Pearl Street for a living. And they’re not even proper drums. They’re upside-down white buckets.” I put my hands on my hips as we fall into our usual role reversal. Me, the mom, and Ninny, the petulant child.

She shakes her head and plugs her ears. “La, la, la, I can’t hear you and your negative vibes.”

“Whatever.” I sling the garbage bag over my shoulder and take one last look at the dead daisies. Maybe today Ninny will finally throw them out. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Dinner to celebrate my baby’s senior year. You, me and Salvador. It’ll be great.” My mom kisses my forehead before grabbing her patchwork bag and walking out the door into the warm sun.

Opening the garage, I fling the garbage bag into a half-full can and drag it to the end of our driveway for pickup.

The engine in Ninny’s minivan putters on and a cloud of exhaust blows out the tail pipe. Her minivan looks like a meth lab, all dark blue and rusted around the bottom. These types of vans are usually on the side of the highway, abandoned. Ninny needs a new car, like, yesterday.

My car is still in the shop. The entire front crumpled like an accordion. Those were the exact words the guy at Boulder Bump Shop said when he called to say it would take at least a month to fix.

“Your car is old as shit,” he said. I’m still not sure how old “shit” is, but I’m guessing it’s at least as old as the ‘80s, when my car was built.

I yank on the van door, forgetting the lock is broken, and the pinch returns to my chest. I rub the spot right between my boobs.