Heart on a Shoestring (2 page)

Miranda:
Is the glass half full or half empty?

Derek:
The glass is a figment of your imagination. See ya Saturday. 

I couldn’t figure out if she was genuinely an annoying person or if the age difference made her seem immature. Especially the hair. I can understand dying your hair every so often, but almost every week? And I’m not talking brown or blonde. I’m talking rainbow bright.

Immature, annoying, either way she made me laugh and shake my head. And I needed a break this weekend anyway.

After an exhausting drive to Philly, I stood in front of her apartment door, caught my breath, and knocked. A few seconds passed, the door knob wiggled, and the door jerked open to reveal a grinning Princess Leia. A grinning Princess Leia with pink hair.

“What the hell?” I said. “I thought we were going out to eat?”

“What? You don’t like?” she said in a hushed Princess Leia tone. “Let’s walk the town and pretend we’re fighting evil.”

“Seriously, Miranda.” I shook my head. “Change your clothes.”

“I’m not changing. You need to change.” She pulled the edge of my sleeve. “Brown, brown, brown. Every time I see you. Do you own anything else?” She tugged my hair. “And do you ever wash your hair? I’m all about the Kurt Cobain look if you can make it appealing, but this ain’t appealing buddy.”

I turned and walked away. Fast and agitated. She yelled from the doorway. “Don’t be so boring.”

I got in my car, slammed the door, and stared off. Why did I let her frustrate me so much? Her opinions didn’t matter. Boring is relative. To an introvert a party with a big group of people is boring. To an extrovert a calm afternoon at the bookstore is boring. I’m not freaking boring, I convinced myself. She didn’t even know me. How could she judge who I am based off my shirt choices and lack of desire for roller coasters?

“I’ll show her how ridiculous this is,” I said to myself, then started the car and made my way to the mall. Took a while to find everything I needed. Once I did, I changed and drove back to her apartment, and threw rocks at her window until she appeared in the doorway, still Princess Leia. I hid from her view, then flapped into sight, light saber glowing in the evening air as I twisted it and turned around as though fighting some invisible person. “Come down, Leia. I am the force. And I am with you.”

She covered her mouth with her hands and laughed, then jumped up and down like someone who won the lottery. I waved her down. She held up her hand, ran inside, and returned with her purse and keys.

“Miracle of all miracles,” she said, smiling way too much. “No guy has ever dressed up like Han Solo for me.”

“No guy ever will again. Seriously, you realize how dumb this is, right?”

“It’s fun. And I think you look kinda good like that.”

I laughed. “You do this for some kind of validation. It’s not normal. If you were truly confident in who you were you wouldn’t need to change all the time.”

She rolled her eyes and walked back to the steps. I grabbed her arm and forced her to look at me. “See,” I said. “You run from what I’m saying because it’s true. You don’t want to face the person you are so you avoid her by being all these other people.”

She jerked her arm from me and stomped up the stairs, making it a point to slam the door as loud as possible. And me. Alone. At the bottom of the steps, wishing I didn’t have to be so opinionated. Or at least didn’t speak my opinions so much. David Bennett spoke his opinions and everyone loved him. But everyone hated Derek Rhodes whenever he spoke up.

Still. I was right.

I didn’t need him and his games. Not even sure who he thought he was. Some kind of god of my life, coming to rescue me from the ditches he envisioned me stuck in.

Thanks, but no thanks.

I changed my clothes and took a shower. My favorite place to calm down. After an hour of processing his words and choosing to ignore them, I grabbed a basket of clothes and took them to the washer near my kitchen. Ah, never put the last round in the dryer. Opened the dryer and something thundered toward me, hissing like a creature of the night.

I fell backwards into the wall, slid to the ground, and narrowed my eyes as my heart shot out of my chest and Derek climbed out of the dryer. I held my hands out and shook my head. Shocked.

“You didn’t lock the door.” He brushed off his Han Solo outfit. “Surprised I could fit in there. Took you long enough.”

“How did you know I’d do laundry?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then why did you hide in there?”

“Saw your clothes in your room and figured you might catch up. Then I saw the wet clothes in the washer and knew you’d eventually toss them in here.”

“You are cruel.”

“I can be weird too, you know. I wasn’t always the person I am now.”

“Apparently.”

Cruel prank. Scared the crap out of me. Almost literally too. But I must admit, he instantly earned six double chocolate brownie points for being the opposite of normal. And I actually let him stay a while.

I made two big bowls of ice cream with a thousand and one toppings, then sat beside him on the couch.

He looked at the ice cream and raised his eyebrows.

I shrugged and smiled.

“Where’s the ice cream in here?” he said.

“It’s mysterious.”

He nodded and took a heaping bite of awesomeness as I watched, imagining his pure delight as it surprised his taste buds. 

“This is terrible,” he said.

I shrunk into the couch and took his bowl. More for me then.

He snatched it back. “For someone so strange you really can’t take a joke.”

“Guess I don’t expect joking from Mr. Ho-Hum.”

“You think I believe your facade?”

I stood and walked to the kitchen. He followed.

“I’m serious.” He leaned against the counter and pulled a strand of my hair. “You don’t even know who you are.”

“You don’t understand me.”

“Does anyone?”

I crossed my arms and squinted, hoping he’d disappear if I crushed him with my eyelids. Like a tiny nat caught in my eye.

“You don’t even understand yourself,” he said.

“I understand plenty. You just can’t fathom someone enjoying life and being positive about everything because for whatever reason you hate the world and most things in it.”

“I don’t hate the world.”

“You never say anything positive. Everyone is always falling apart. Love doesn’t last. Dreams fail. The world sucks. You know everything and everyone else knows nothing, unless they agree with you. You complain constantly and you have no desire to change things. You expect me to seek advice from someone like you?”

He slammed his bowl into the sink, his eyes glowing like a hyena on drugs, then walked to my front door and left.

Part of me felt sorry for saying all that, but he had no problem dishing out his opinions, whether they hurt or not. He needed to hear the truth too.

The door opened. He walked up to me, eyes on the ground, mumbling to himself. Still in his hilarious costume. Less than a foot away from me, he stopped, grabbed my face, and looked right into my eyes. My legs weakened. I stepped back and steadied myself on the counter. His eyes searched mine. Looking for some treasure underneath. Not sure what he intended to find. Don’t know why, but I didn’t realize how much I wanted to kiss him until now. And wow, did I want to kiss his face off until we lit up the room with a million fireworks. 

He dropped his hands to his sides and walked out again. I waited for him to come back, my lips urging me to chase him out the door until they landed on him. But I didn’t listen. I stood there for a few minutes, picked up my purse, and headed to the place I loved most. 

It was cool and crisp. Orion winked at me as I took my usual seat and pulled my legs up to my chest. City air filled with busy sounds could suffocate those accustomed to clean countryside air and only the sound of happy crickets, but it rejuvenated me. Inspired me. Tree branches lit by streetlights and benches marked with old gum and cigarette butts. Something about it. Maybe the stamp of struggle and the fight for triumph. Maybe the man across from me, sucking the life out of his paper-wrapped nicotine, enjoying himself until another man stopped and begged him to trade fifty cents for the rest of his cigarette. He waved the pest away with disgust. I smiled.

Derek sucked the life out of me like that man charred the life out of his lungs. Until him, I questioned nothing and lived most days with a perpetual smile. A perpetual longing for the beauty of life around me. Talking to him was like walking into a wrestling match. I defended myself by ducking or lost it and punched him where it counts. Who wants to have conversations like that?

A father walked by with his daughter saddled high on his shoulders. She pulled his hair to direct the horse as he made sounds and laughed his way to their stable, their stability, their life. I dreamed of such things. My dad, if you could call him that, barely talked to the woman he married, much less his kids. Stability seemed foreign, out of reach for a person like me.

A young girl walked by, dragging her feet and kicking rocks. Could’ve been me ten years ago. I imagined her walking off into The Big Dipper as her story sparkled and transformed into something wonderful. Something filled with love and laughter as the tree branches waved with delight. Tomorrow everyone at school would forget who was popular and who wasn’t and love everyone for who they really were. Then she’d get her chance. Then she’d turn her slow walk into an excited skip. Sometimes all we need is a little reason to wake up the next day. That’s all it takes to spark the light inside. Just one little reason. 

I nodded to the man across from me. He half-smiled, then stood and walked away. I liked it here on these benches. No matter which part of the city I found myself in, I found some kind of story to dream up.

Pencil in hand, tablet on my lap, I started writing the story I longed to live. Page one, first sentence:
When dreams evaporate into the clouds and come back down as tiny rain droplets, are they the same dreams, or something altogether new?

It takes a lot for me to admit when someone else is right. Especially when it cuts open old wounds of mine. But Miranda was right and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. Fear of what people would think—of what I’d think—if I revealed David Bennett to the world, consumed me. The very things I berated Miranda for doing, I did myself. That’s why I knew her better than she knew herself. 

She was right. And maybe I did need to tell her. If anything, just for the sake of telling another soul and feeling like someone, somewhere, really knew me.

So, I devised a plan. First, I called my boss.

“Hey,” I said. “I’m going to need off for two weeks. An emergency came up.”

“Two weeks? Sorry, bro. You take off that kind of time and you can kiss this job goodbye.”

“Well, consider me puckered up.” I made a kissing sound and hung up the phone. So unlike me. More like David Bennett. The thought worried me. I didn’t want to be him anymore. I wanted to be the person I was before him or nothing at all.

Okay, so I just randomly quit my job. This must be what she says about living. Truly living. Or was I truly being a stupid person? I couldn’t help but wonder.

With plenty of time on my hands, I packed, and planned, and enjoyed the anticipation.

What three things would you want if you were stranded on an island?
I texted Miranda.

She responded five minutes later.
An old victorian nightgown. My journal. And a pen with blue ink and a fine tip. Why?

No reason
, I said. Then grabbed my keys and went out to the nearest antique store, found an old white nightgown with a tag that claimed it was from 1890, bought it for a hundred dollars, then stopped at Walgreens to get a notebook and a pack of pens. 

I spent the rest of my night preparing the boat, gathering food and supplies, and barely sleeping. Hopefully she wouldn’t mind being kidnapped. She’s weird enough, I thought, but you never know.

The morning light woke me up, but I could barely open my eyes. A long drive twice in a day, then all that labor with my boat and shopping, man, wiped me out. I forced my eyes open as I stumbled to the shower and got myself ready. I skimmed my closet for something nice to wear. All brown except one plaid button-down shirt. I slipped it on over one of my typical brown shirts, pulled on my nicer jeans, complete with belt, and looked in the mirror. Hmmm, I thought. Maybe time for a haircut.