Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels) (7 page)

As fate would have it, Brenda Tuttle moved to Brookdale in mid-November. I noticed her right off because of her distinct style of clothing. For starters, her skirts were even shorter than mine. And she wore long, hoop earrings that reached almost to her shoulders. Her lips were painted a pale shade of whitish-blue, and she wore thick, black eyeliner all the way around her eyes (not just on the upper lids, but on the lower ones, too). I’d never seen anyone or anything like her, and quite frankly, I was fascinated. Just the same, I decided to play my cards carefully—I’d been rejected enough times to know how to protect myself. At the end of her second day, I hung out by the entrance that I’d seen her use the previous day and offered her a Camel.

“Thank God,” she gasped as she took the cigarette from me. “I was worried sick that no one in this moronic junior high school smoked. What a moronic bunch of Goody Two-shoes!”

“That pretty much describes it,” I said as I let out a long, slow puff.

“I’m Brenda,” she said, glancing over her shoulder back toward the school. “You s’pose we should go ‘cross the street? My mom’ll kill me if I get into trouble on my second day here.”

I nodded. “Sure. I’m Cass.”

“Nice to meet you.” She smiled. “And I like your name. I’ve been trying to think of a cool nickname for Brenda, but haven’t gotten too far.”

“How about just Bren?”

She thought about that for a moment. “Yeah, maybe so. Maybe with a
y,
though.
Bryn
…” She said it slowly. “Yeah, that sounds kindacool.”

By now we’d reached the other side of the street and were standing in the Baptist church parking lot—where my grandma used to go to church (when she did, which was rarely). I knew there were people inside who might recognize me, but I didn’t really care if they observed me smoking. In fact, I rather liked the idea that it would bother them.

“Groovy top, Cass,” said Bryn. “You get that here in town?”

I laughed. “Not hardly. I made it myself from an old tablecloth. You can’t find anything worth wearing in this stupid backwater town.”

She laughed too. “I figured as much. I still can’t believe my mom made us move here.”

“Your mom?” I thought this was curious, since it was usually the dads that seemed to run things back in those days—at least in our town.

She flicked her ashes onto the ground and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, my mom’s a divorcee, and she got this job at the chemical plant that pays her almost as good as a man.”

By now our cigarettes were both burned down to almost nothing. “What do you like to do after school, Bryn?” I asked, suddenly wondering how it was that one made a friend—especially a girlfriend. I’d never had a real friend other than Joey, and the things we used to do to fill the time seemed pretty juvenile and silly now.

She frowned. “I don’t know. I just kinda hang out. My mom works graveyard, so she doesn’t like me making any noise while she sleeps during the day.”

I nodded. “That makes sense. Well, do you want to go get a Coke or something?”

“Sounds cool.”

And that was pretty much how my friendship with Bryn began. It didn’t take long to learn that she wasn’t the brightest porch light on the block—at least not when it came to academics. But she was clever in some ways—like boys and smoking and drinking, stuff like that. I guess you’d say she had street smarts.

I’m sure she was what my grandma would have called a “bad influence,” but I figured I’d already started to go bad all on my own by then. It just turned out that Bryn was already going in the same direction. I remember when I first met her mom. It was about a week after they moved to Brookdale. Mrs. Tuttle was a large, buxom, peroxide blonde, but not the kind men are necessarily attracted to. Oh, maybe some, but she was more that loudmouthed, tough, bossy type—the kind who could easily hold her own in a bar full of men or down at the chemical plant. But I liked her. In some ways I trusted her more than I trusted Bryn. And I think she actually liked me, too. Ironically, I think she even thought I was a good influence on her daughter. And maybe, in some ways, I was. You just never quite know about these things.

Six

I
remember my grandma saying
,
“You can’t squeeze blood out of a turnip,” and since that sounded fairly obvious, I had to ask her what she meant. “Well,” she’d said, “it means that you can’t expect something from somebody when they just plain don’t have it to give to you.” And I suppose that pretty much describes my friend Bryn.

By Christmas vacation of ninth grade, we’d become fairly good friends, relatively speaking, that is. It bothered me that she wasn’t a bit like my old friend Joey Divers. Of course who was I to be picky? Still, the truth is, I never felt completely close to or even very comfortable with her. I’m sure this was partially due to her habitually deceitful ways and partially because she was so hopelessly boy-crazy. Her obsession over boys made it hard to really know who she was—or what worried me even more was that maybe that
was
simply who she was, that that was all there was to her. And I suppose it didn’t help that I knew she used me some. But then, of course my original plan had been to use her, too. And since that’s how I’d started this odd friendship in the first place, who was I to point fingers at anyone? Kind of like the pot calling the kettle black, as my grandma used to say, which is just another way of saying, “Don’t judge.” She’d explained that to me one day when I told her how Aunt Myrtle had been gossiping and putting down one of her coworkers at the bank.

Anyway, my goal with Bryn had been to find a place where I might crash in the event my daddy’s drinking habits got out of hand, which they were rapidly starting to do. And it came in real handy that Mrs. Tuttle worked graveyard, too. I always knew I could sneak out of my house whenever I needed, and then just wait until eleven to go knocking on Bryn’s door. I had a system all worked out where I’d bolt my bedroom door, then grab my bag and slip out the window. Naturally I only did this when my daddy came home yelling and cussing and knocking stuff around.

Bryn always welcomed my unexpected visits, for they afforded her the opportunity to sneak out too, and then she could stay out as late as she liked, knowing that I was there to cover the phone for those unexpected nights (mostly on Fridays or Saturdays) when her mom might call after midnight to check up on her. I usually made up an excuse like she was in the bathroom or already asleep. And Bryn didn’t hesitate to tell her mother she was spending the night at my house when she was really out partying with her latest wild and crazy boyfriend.

I suppose if the truth were told, it was Bryn who really managed to nail down my reputation as a “fast girl,” even if it was mostly a case of guilt by association. It didn’t matter much to me, though, since I was quickly reaching the place where I no longer cared much about what anyone thought of me. Other than my grades, that is. I still cared about my education.

Sometimes Bryn would tease me for taking my classes too seriously. Maybe it was Joey’s early influence on me, or just my own personal pride, but I still wanted to get good grades. I suspect the reason it irked her so was because even if she’d really tried I don’t believe she had the brains to cut it. Her memory was appalling. So she put her energies into other things—primarily her appearance, which grew increasingly colorful, and then boys, of course.

And when it came to boys, Bryn just took for granted that I was doing the same as her. It never even occurred to her that I was still a virgin, and I certainly didn’t make any effort to straighten her out on this account. In fact, I preferred her to think I was sleeping with guys—even if my head count would never appear anywhere nearly equal to hers. Whose was? And sometimes I even concocted wild stories (based loosely on the trashy magazines I’d discovered lying around the Tuttle’s house) just to convince Bryn that I was really “doing it” when she grew suspicious that I might’ve been holding out on her.

Oddly enough I was still getting asked out by boys—mostly ones in high school and never any that I cared much for, and mostly, I think, because they’d heard overblown rumors about me and Bryn and how we had these “reputations” for being wild and easy and all. I have to laugh now when I think how these things get started. For instance, I can just imagine Kurt Laurence (the first guy I went out with) lying to some other guy about how willing I was. I mean, what was he going to say? That I wasn’t? That he, a senior who played in Pete Jackson’s rock band, couldn’t even get anywhere with Little Miss Nobody? Of course not. Guys love to brag about these kinds of conquests, even if their conquests are only a mere figment of their hormone-driven imagination and ability to spin a lewd and outlandish tale.

I would go out with these older guys, and while I’d make out and stuff, I never, ever went all the way—and, oh, did that tick some of these guys off. And occasionally it would give me a real, scare, too. Like the time Rick Stone simply would not take no for an answer. He started getting really rough with me, and I swear if I hadn’t been the daughter of an abusive drunk I might not have been able to defend myself in the manner in which I did. Oh, the things that Daddy never realized he taught me in the ways of self-defense. All the same, it was a long and chilly walk home for me that night. (And as a result I slowed down that whole dating business after that.)

I must give my daddy some credit, though. He completely avoided alcohol for several months right after the New Year. I think he could’ve almost died after a serious binge on New Year’s Eve. He’d gone to some party with an open bar, and I suspect he’d taken full advantage of all the free booze. Someone brought him home in the early morning hours, just dumping him on the couch like a big, old sack of potatoes. I remember standing there and staring at him, white-faced and limp like he was half dead. And I suppose he almost was. I even considered calling for an ambulance when he didn’t regain consciousness for the better part of the day. But I was afraid if I did, he might get mad. I knew that we didn’t have any health insurance coverage and ambulances were fairly costly, even back then. And so I just hung around and waited. Finally, I saw him move, and I made him a pot of coffee and encouraged him to take a shower.

It was after that when he really did
try
to give up drinking. Every single week he tried, always on a Monday. And sometimes he’d actually make it until Saturday before he’d go out drinking again. Fortunately for me, he somehow managed to preserve his job at Masterson Motors, but he wasted so much money on liquor that we just barely managed to pay the rent and keep a little bit of food in the fridge. And most of the time it was pretty slim pickings at my house.

I remember how shocked Bryn was the first time she saw our barren kitchen. She went through all the cupboards and the fridge and then finally turned to me and said, “No wonder you stay so skinny, Cass. You guys must live on air around here.” I considered making up some big old tale about how it was shopping day that day and how we’d just cleaned out our cupboards last night. But too many times I’d witnessed her twisting and turning in some crazy whopper she’d gotten herself caught up in, and I simply decided to stick to the truth.

“Well, I guess this is what comes from having a drunk in the family, Bryn.” I smirked at her and pointed my finger in mock accusation. “Just let it go to show you that if you keep up your wild-thing drinking ways this might happen to
you,
too.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Oh yeah, I’m so sure. I can just see me at an AA meeting now. Hi, my name is Bryn and I’m an alcoholic.” Then she got serious. “Is that why you won’t drink none, Cass?”

I shrugged. I usually tried not to make a big deal about it when I refused a beer or whatever the going thing might be, but I suppose she was partially right. “I just don’t like the taste of alcohol,” I admitted, which was not untrue.

She laughed again. “Ya don’t hear me complaining none. That just means more for the rest of us. Hey, where does your dad hide his booze, anyway?”

I showed her one of his secret little hiding spots beneath the bathroom sink and watched as she poured herself half a glass of amber liquid. I didn’t really care if she emptied the entire bottle, didn’t care if he noticed it missing or not.

By then he and I were like ships that passed in the night, anyway. I made sure I only spoke to him when I stopped in to see him at work when he was mostly sober—and then it was always just to say “hey” and joke around before I’d hit him up for some cash. I’d found that was my best chance of obtaining money during those on-again, off-again drinking days. If I waited for him to come home at night, his head would often be swimming and his pockets empty. But when I caught him on a payday, every other Friday, he’d usually give me enough for groceries and then some. Problem was, he sometimes got a draw on his check, and I could never tell exactly when that might be.

As a result I ate at Bryn’s home quite a bit. And here’s one more thing I’ll have to give Bryn—she may have been a liar and way too loose with the boys, but she had a most generous and giving spirit. And so did her mother, Mrs. Tuttle. In some ways, looking back, I see those Tuttles almost like angels in disguise. Okay, so maybe the disguise was laid on a little thick, but I’m not quite sure what I’d have done without them. Or maybe things would’ve just unraveled all that much sooner.

By the time I turned fifteen (the summer before entering high school) I was already feeling somewhat old and frayed and worn down in my spirit. And, I suppose, just slightly jaded, too. Life no longer seemed to hold much promise or sparkle. Not that it ever had, but at least when I was a kid, I’d had Joey around, and together the two of us weren’t afraid to dream big, and in those days we could even believe in those impossible dreams. And dreams could carry you a long ways back then. But more and more now I felt just like a kid standing outside and gazing longingly through a candy store window. I saw others living the kind of life that I knew I could never have, and I suppose it was finally getting me down. For years, I’d tried not to pay much attention to those other girls—the ones like Sally Roberts and the like. And you’d think it might’ve gotten easier over time, but it never really did. In fact, I’m sure it only became harder. And for some reason the summer of ‘69 pushed me to the limits.