Becoming Death (3 page)

“Seriously? Not now!” I shouted at the car. After trying the key again, I was met with the same effect. I kicked the pedals. “I hate you, you stupid piece of junk.”

I crumbled onto the steering wheel and seethed in my seat. Was I being punked or something? Perhaps I was a contestant on a sick game show. Shaking my head, I pulled my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my contacts until I came to Aaron. My chest rose and fell as I listened to his phone ring until his voicemail asked for my message. I hung up and scrolled to my mother’s details. I paused for a moment before continuing onto my sister’s name.

“Clarissa… Clark,” my sister’s voice came out strained as she fumbled with the receiver.

“Hey Clarissa, it’s me. My car is dead, can you please come get me?”

I could almost hear my older sister roll her eyes through the receiver. “Madison, I’m at work. If your car won’t start call AAA. That’s their job.”

“I can’t. I canceled them last month. Can you please just come get me? Today has been really bad, the blisters on my feet are bleeding and I’m stuck in the bad end of town. Please don’t make me walk home,” I blubbered into the receiver.

I waited in silence before my sister answered with one word. “Fine.”

“I’m at El Taco on Park Road. I’ll be in my car.”

“I’ll be there in a half hour,” my sister said and hung up.

Thirty minutes later, my sister’s silver luxury car pulled up next to mine and she honked the horn. I bolted up in my seat and, with a defeated sigh, yanked open my door. I crossed over to her car, setting into the passenger seat.

I waved at her. “Hey.”

Clarissa looked frazzled. Her face was flushed and her curly hair was knotted into a loose bun with a pencil. Her pearl necklace was on backwards and half the buttons on her blouse weren’t lined up properly.

“Everything okay?”

She shooed me away with a open palm before I noticed she was wearing a pair of ear buds that ran from her phone. “Of course, Nick, I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise we will finish our meeting. See you soon,” she said, twisting the wires.

“Thanks for coming to get me. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t answered.”

Without an acknowledgment of my thank you, my sister drove out of the parking lot and back onto the road. She tapped her well-manicured nails against the steering wheel and lowered her eyes at me. I turned towards the window, trying to look fascinated by the strip mall lining the road.

“I can’t believe you made me come all the way out here to get you,” Clarissa said.

I leaned back in my seat and kicked off my shoes. “Nice to see you too, sis. I see you’re as chipper as always.”

“Madison, I can’t always be your personal chauffeur. I was in the middle of an important meeting. A delay like this could put me behind a day,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose.

I pushed back some stray hair with my hand. “Next time, I’ll just walk home.”

“Don’t be that way. I just need you to understand where I’m coming from. I was in the middle of something important. You made me disappoint a client.”

I held the side of my face. “Sorry.”

“Why didn’t you just call Aaron or Mom?”

“I couldn’t. Aaron didn’t answer, and I’ve already asked Mom for enough this week.”

She looked over at me. “What did you ask Mom for?”

I coughed. “Money.”

“I’m guessing the job search didn’t go well. I wish I could help, but there are no job openings in my company.”

I slumped forwards against my seat belt. “This might possibly be the worst day of my life… Well, second worst.”

Clarissa patted my thigh. She knew I meant the day of the accident. I smiled at my big sister. Sometimes she was alright.

The thought of my father reminded me of my mother’s strange behavior. “Have you noticed Mom has been acting all weird lately? I found this trunk hidden inside her couch. She’d hollowed it out or something. I think she might need to see a doctor.”

“She what? A trunk?” Clarissa asked, pausing longer than was needed at the stop sign to adjust her pearl necklace.

“It looked really old, and the weirdest thing was it had my name on it.”

“It said Madison on it?”

“It said M. Clark. I tried to have a closer look at it but Mom kicked me out. She’s hiding something.”

“You’re not the only M. Clark,” Clarissa corrected me. “Maybe it was Marty Clark, not Madison.”

“You think it’s something to do with Dad?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t it be? It’s in their house. It’s his initial.”

A shiver went down my spine as I remembered the way the name was jaggedly cut across the wood, like it was in pain. “I’m not sure. Don’t you think it’s a bit strange? I’m going to have to ask her about it again.”

Clarissa shook her head. “Just leave it. If it’s Dad’s you’ll only just upset her. You know how she gets. Don’t worry, I’ll speak to her and sort it all out.”

“Fine,” I lied. “Did Mom tell you about her new boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend?”

“Yeah, when I found the trunk she made an excuse that I had to leave because her boyfriend was coming over.”

“Oh, you mean Gary.”

“Gary?”

“Gary Rerry, that guy Mom went out with a few weeks ago,” Clarissa explained.

“That can’t seriously be his name, it sounds like a bad Scooby Doo impression”

Clarissa shot me an annoyed look.

“What? Mom never even told me she was dating someone, let alone someone with a ridiculous name.”

“Can’t you be an adult for even a few seconds?” Clarissa sighed. “Whether she told you about it or not, another date sounds like they’re getting serious. She’ll probably let you meet him eventually. You shouldn’t make fun of him. He’s a nice guy but so shy.”

Of course, Clarissa had met him. Why was I surprised?

“Any chance of a pit stop?” I asked, playing with the switch for my window.

Clarissa tutted but asked, “Why? What do you want? I’m in a hurry to get back to the office.”

“The new issue of
Skye Hawke
is out today and Stan the comic man has put a copy aside for me.”

“I thought you didn’t have any money and were relying on Mom to finance you?”

“It’s only a couple dollars, plus it would make me feel so much better after what I’ve been there today,” I told her. “Come on, Clarissa,” I whined, shaking her sleeve. “I’ll be in and out in five minutes, I promise.”

She sighed. “Aren’t you too old for comics?”

“Never. I need to do research for my stories.”

“I suppose. We can’t disappoint your fan literature readers,” she said, looking towards the ceiling.

“Fan fiction readers. I have to get it posted quickly, before someone else takes all the good plot threads,” I said.

“If you showed this much enthusiasm for finding a job instead of that junk, you’d employed by now,” Clarissa told me.

I shot her a frown. “Don’t judge it until you’ve read it. Skye and Ethan are one of the greatest romantic pairings in history. In the last issue, Ethan walked in on Skye wearing only a towel. They are so going to get together in this issue,” I said, bouncing in my seat.

My sister’s eyes widened. “We’ll stop, but only on the condition I don’t have to hear anymore about the greatest couple in history. Save it for the Internet,” Clarissa said, heading in the direction of the comic store.

I wobbled into my apartment to find my roommate engaged in some sort of epic video game showdown between a troll and a wizard. I collapsed on the sofa next to him and lay my head on his shoulder.

“You have no idea what I have been through today.”

Aaron flicked away a strand of curly hair from his eyes. “Hold on, I’ll join your pity party in a second. I’ve been playing this guy on and off for three days and I’m about to settle this, once and for all.” He jammed the buttons of his game controller, muttering curse words under his breath.

“It’s okay, I have Ethan and Skye to comfort me,” I said, pulling out my new comic to examine it.

“Well you’re missing the fight of the century.”

I winced as Aaron’s avatar, the wizard, took a painful looking punch to the abdomen. “Are you sure you want to fight this guy? Your wizard doesn’t seem to be doing so good.”

Aaron shrugged. “He’s just some twelve-year-old in Russia. Nothing to be worried about. Believe me, I’ve got this.”

I checked the scores and Aaron’s health bar. “Your death count says otherwise. It looks like he’s handing you your ass.”

“Lies! Scandal!” he said, nudging me with his elbow.

The TV screen exploded with light and I couldn’t resist smiling as the Russian kid took advantage of Aaron’s momentary distraction to finish him off with a magic grenade.

“Hey!” he shouted, tossing his controller on the floor. He turned towards me. “Mads, I didn’t know you were working with the Russians.”

I set my comic down on the side table and held my hands up. “Don’t blame me, I didn’t throw the grenade.” The troll on the screen rubbed in his win by doing a victory dance on the wizard’s remains.

“In Soviet Russia, there are spies everywhere,” Aaron said, reaching to tickle my side.

I pushed him away, holding up one finger. “Knock it off. I am too tired and sweaty to deal with your immature behavior, Aaron Rodriguez.”

“Point taken. Spill.”

I picked up the remote, ending Aaron’s torture. “Well, my day was full of suck. Every one of my interviews went badly. I’ve been shouted at today, ignored and been called a fraud in Spanish. At least that’s what I think she called me. It could have been a porcupine for all I know.”

“Maybe it was. Your hair does stick up sometimes.”

I ran my hand through my hair, smoothing it down. “If she had just made it clearer I needed to speak Spanish, I wouldn’t have bothered.”

He reached an arm around me. “You mean you didn’t pick up enough to get by from listening to JLo and me over the years?”

“Your Spanish is worse than mine.” I leaned into him, letting him untangle my hair. “Plus I don’t remember the song where she sings about interview questions. Which one is that?”

Aaron shrugged. “That doesn’t prove she didn’t write one. At least you got out of there quickly when you realized.”

“I knew it was a Mexican restaurant, but where in Michigan only interviews in Spanish? I didn’t think they were serious.”

Aaron’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t try to fake it, did you?”

“I tried to explain to her but—”

“Really? That’s hilarious. I wish I could have been there to watch you crash and burn. Next time can we send you to a Chinese restaurant so you can butcher some Mandarin?”

I glared at him. “It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t speak enough Spanish— she just wouldn’t listen to me. What was I supposed to do?”

“Tell her there’s been a mistake, get up and leave. I don’t know. I don’t think trying to fake your way through an interview with three words in Spanish will impress anyone,” he said.

“Actually, I know four words!”

“Yeah, see that extra word was the deal breaker, because you’re among the employed now.”

“It smelt there anyway, and what do you know about being employed? You’ve never even had a job.” I picked up the cushion from the couch and lightly smacked him with it.

Aaron blocked my attack, grabbing the pillow from my hands and throwing it out of reach. “I know plenty. You don’t have to experience employment to know what a waste of time it is.”

“I’m sure your dad wouldn’t agree. He needs to stop letting you mooch off of him and force you to get a real job.”

“It’s not mooching if it’s on his terms. He was the one who insisted I didn’t work while in college. If I’m going to be the first doctor in my family, I need to keep my grades up and have time to de-stress after my lectures.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Mooch. At least when I beg for money I feel guilty afterwards. Speaking of guilt, it’s back to my mother’s on Sunday. I can’t do anything until my car’s fixed. It stalled in the El Taco parking lot. That crazy manager will probably get it towed.”

“Again? I thought you got the Beetle fixed a couple months ago?”

I shrugged and threw my hands up in the air. “I don’t know why I’m surprised. I’m poor, my car’s dead in an evil taco hell hole’s parking lot and even my mother has a boyfriend.”