Strays (3 page)

Walking along the path was a little girl with pigtails holding her father's hand. I took out my black notebook and started one of my famous lists. My scientific brain was always trying to categorize and organize information.

This one was called
Resolutions
.

Study hard for my upcoming finals.

Make more of an effort to hang out with the girls, even if I feel like being alone.

Stay away from all guys.

Try to hang out with Dad. (Do something nice for him.)

Seemed simple enough. I flipped through the other pages of lists that included things like
What I'm Looking for in a College
and
Ways to Get Over Andy Dunn
. Some of the items were crossed off, if I had accomplished them, but others remained as a reminder of how little I ever seemed to get done, like the relentlessness of the waves that continually crashed along the shoreline.

Below me, serious beachgoers had staked their claim to prime sunning spots, the sand covered in a smattering of colorful umbrellas and towels. I didn't realize how much time had passed as I sat on my bench. Something about the salty air and sea breeze made it feel as though time were standing still, and yet, before I knew it, it was four o'clock. I could have stayed longer, but when I heard the clinking of collars and leashes, it was time to go.

As luck would have it, on the other side of my favorite bench was a makeshift dog park. I had inherited my mom's brown hair and hazel eyes and her propensity for freckles on her arms. I'd also inherited her fear of dogs—or, to use the more technical term,
cynophobia
. I guess my fear wasn't really in the genes but, as Mr. Sommers, my bio teacher, would say, a learned behavior: Mom was attacked by a pit bull when she was sixteen.

When I used to touch the big scar on her forearm, she would make a barking sound and simultaneously jolt her body, always scaring me just the right amount to keep me coming back for more.

Luckily, the leash law was only lifted for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening. The dogs ran around spastically, and their owners followed with little colored plastic baggies, picking up dog poop.

A lanky guy in a UC Santa Cruz sweatshirt came jogging up to me.

“Excuse me, would you mind watching Corky for a minute? I have to use the restroom.” Before I could say no, he went ahead and tied a red, fraying leash to my bench and trotted toward the public bathrooms. At the other end of the leash was what looked like a rat trying to pass for a dog. The dog looked up at me and whimpered. I stared back, petrified.

He kept sniffing my ankles even though I was shooing him away. I lifted both legs onto the bench.

“I hate dogs,” I said to the creature by my feet, hoping he'd take pity on me and just leave me alone.

He only sniffed in response.

After what felt like a lifetime, the owner returned.

“Thanks so much,” the man said, taking back the leash. “Corky's like my baby.”

The man carried the dog down the path that led to the beach, and in a few minutes it was weaving in and out of the legs of a Great Dane. I brought my focus back to Seal Rock. The pinnipeds were stirring, some climbing over others, awakening them from their afternoon slumber. The seals dove headfirst into the water. Then they began barking, competing with the dogs' barking. Soon, seals were entering the water from all sides of the rock—headfirst, tail first, belly flopping, and haphazardly sliding into the water.

On the ride home I thought about my resolutions. Every change started with one step. Tonight, I'd start with Dad. I'd do something nice for him. Even though he was busy with work, I hadn't exactly made much of an effort either. Pumping up the hill to our home in Seabright, I decided that tonight I'd surprise him with dinner. I stopped by our corner store and, using my ATM card, grabbed a baguette and all the fixings for chicken salad. If worse came to worst, we could enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches together. It didn't matter what we ate—as long as we had some time together. We could really talk; I could even tell him how depressed I'd been lately.

At home, I grabbed the mail and locked my bike to the fence out front. The neighbor's dog, a huge bullmastiff, barked at the sound of the rattling lock. It always got my adrenaline rushing. The neighbor kept that dog fenced in outside all the time, and I was convinced that if it ever got out, it was coming straight for me, the Bike Chain Lady.

Calla lilies lined our driveway and reminded me of that Diego Rivera painting with the woman holding a huge bundle in her arms, like she was hugging them. I made a mental note to pick some and put them in a vase as a centerpiece for our dinner tonight.

We lived on the top story of a duplex, but the unit below us was usually empty. It was owned by people who lived in San Anselmo and used this home as their “vacation” home. Once in a while they'd come down for a weekend in the summer, so we rarely saw them.

I dumped my stuff in my room and went straight to the kitchen to get to work on my father-daughter bonding meal, preparing the chicken and washing the lettuce. I had all of the garlic cloves peeled and pressed for the garlic bread when Dad walked in the door. For once, he wasn't on the phone.

“Hey!” I said, full of optimism and excitement.

“Smells funny in here,” Dad said.

“It's the garlic.” I pointed to my large plate of crushed garlic that had occupied the last thirty minutes of my life.

“What's it for?”

“For us. Dinner. I thought I'd make us some food,” I said.

Dad looked around the kitchen, from the salad soaking in the colander to the chicken roasting in the oven.

“Iris…”

This wasn't good.

Dad couldn't even make eye contact with me. “I'm so sorry, but I have plans tonight.”

“Work meeting?” I asked. It was the usual reason he was never around at dinner. “Actually, more like…a date,” Dad said casually.

“A date?”

He nodded.

The waters swiftly rose
to their absolute breaking point. Why was this driving me nuts? Mom had been dead for almost two years. I should be okay with this. I should want my dad to be happy…to move on if he was ready.

But I wasn't.

He had been so busy over the past year and a half working on this job promotion, we never did anything together anymore—and then the first free moment he has he chooses to spend with a complete stranger?

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Janet. She works at the plant. She helps with the bookkeeping. She's new. They hired her a few months ago, and we just hit it off. It wasn't even really my idea,” he continued defensively. “The guys at work…they just think it's time.”

I held back tears with all my might. But one escaped. I tried to brush it away before he could notice.

In my head was a running monologue of insults to sling at my dad—
deadbeat
,
jerk
—but none of them left my lips. I just stood there, silent.

I must've looked utterly pathetic because Dad said, “You know, I'll cancel. Let me just call Janet.”

But by the time the words came out of his mouth, I wasn't sad anymore. I was angry—angry that he was making time for this Janet but didn't have a second for me. Angry that he hadn't even brought up the meeting at school, like I was just supposed to pretend it didn't happen. And, most of all, I was angry that he didn't realize just how angry I was.

“Forget it,” I said. “I'll invite the girls over instead.” Little did he know they weren't really
my
girls—at least not at the moment. I had blown off meeting them on Pacific this afternoon, and I had ignored all subsequent e-mails and texts. There had been a lot of them to ignore.

“Are you sure?” he asked, eager that he might actually have an out.

“Yeah, positive.”

I had no intention of inviting the girls over. The second he walked out that door smelling of awful cologne and hair gel, I dumped the food into the trash and went to my room.

I grabbed the hammer from my bedside drawer and went straight to my closet, bearing down on an unaltered section of the wall. I pounded and pounded as the plaster gathered at my feet. When my fingers began cramping from my tight grip, I released the hammer and caught my breath.

Instantly, I felt a bit better. I rearranged my clothing to cover up any evidence of my anger.

M
y performance on this morning's English final would seal my summer fate. But instead of studying, I had spent the majority of the weekend simply staring at my various textbooks. I had completely memorized the covers: the rendering of the shiny compass on my math book, the portrait of Shakespeare on my book of grammar, and the broad-shouldered matador on my Spanish book—but the books themselves all had remained closed.

I barely managed to wade through history, Spanish 3, and precalculus. I did okay with history—maybe a B—and I'd be lucky if I got a C-plus in Spanish and math, but at least I knew I passed. I should have been studying more, but everything seemed to distract me. The weekend was kind of a wash. Between marathon music-listening sessions, the next-door neighbor's dog barking at all hours of the night, and Dad's cell going off every five minutes (he had that annoyingly loud rumba ring), I had found it difficult to concentrate. Early in the week my computer had pinged at full throttle; the girls were smothering me with instant messages, wondering where I was and why I wasn't returning any of their phone calls and why in the world Mr. Cagle had wanted to meet with me.

Finally, when the last day of my junior year of high school arrived, I was determined to get to school on time. While Dad was taking a shower, I filled my Monterey Bay Aquarium souvenir to-go cup with whatever was left in the coffeemaker. I even left the house and was on my bike fifteen minutes earlier than normal.

Outside, the morning mist reminded me of a Carl Sandberg poem I'd memorized in middle school when I was living in Los Angeles—“The fog comes/on little cat feet”—but in Santa Cruz it was more like tiger paws, thick and dewy until the mid-morning sun burned through the haze.

As I made my way up Water Street, I kept replaying the past week in my head: the scene in Mr. Cagle's office, struggling through all those finals, exams that had once come easily to me, when I had the focus and determination to actually sit down and study. Was this how it was going to be from now on? It felt as though I were stuck in a long tunnel with no end in sight. My only solace was thinking about summer break—time I could spend away from school—and then, looking further to the end of next year, when I would be out of high school and heading to college. Away from Dad. Away from Andy. Away from Santa Cruz. It would be a completely fresh start.

Just then I hit a large crack in the sidewalk, and a loud popping sound came from my back tire, startling me out of my daydream. My handlebars swiveled out of control. Luckily, there were no cars coming as I swerved in and out of the bike lane before hitting the curb and falling over, right next to a bus stop where some Santa Cruz High kids were waiting.

I wanted to have the perfect, witty thing to say to them as I heaved myself up off the concrete, but instead, keeping my eyes down, I surveyed my bike and assessed the damage.

Handlebars: busted.

Left leg: bloodied.

Tire and ego: deflated.

“Are you okay?” asked a boy who might've been a freshman.

Too shaken from the fall to speak, I just nodded my head. My fingers trembled as I picked up my bike.

There was no way I was getting to school on this mess of metal. After locking the bike to a nearby parking meter, I waited for the bus with the other students, thankful that I'd gotten an early start; I could still make it to my final on time.

When I finally arrived at school, I still had a few minutes to spare. I had planned on finding a seat in the gymnasium-turned-exam-room, so I could really focus, whip out my grammar studies book, and start cramming.

But the sight of Ashley and Sierra talking and laughing outside the gym distracted me. Maybe that shopping trip to San Francisco would do me some good. I thought about telling them about my fall; I could probably have used some comforting words before walking into this final. But when I got to them, they stopped laughing and seemed like they were trying to avoid eye contact with each other.

“Is this a bad time?” I asked. Not knowing what else to say and feeling, once again, like the new girl, I reached down to grasp my left knee, which was still throbbing.

“Are you okay?” asked Ashley.

“Yeah, what happened to you? You look stressed out,” said Sierra.

I decided just then that I didn't want to get into the embarrassing details of my accident. “It's finals week; I'm sure I'm not the only one,” I said.

Sierra looked at Ashley and rolled her eyes. Maybe now wasn't the right time for my sarcasm.

“So, last day,” I said, trying to feign optimism.

“Yup,” said Ashley, unusually quiet.

We stood there awkwardly. Why did things feel so weird?

Luckily, buggy-eyed Lydia Cordova sidled up to us. She was always overly enthusiastic about everything, which Ashley and I used to make fun of when we were alone.

“Can you believe it!” she squealed. “It's the last day of school!” Sierra and Ashley giggled, affirming Lydia's enthusiasm. I had said the exact same thing not thirty seconds ago and had been met by silence.

“I am so excited you guys conference-called me last night! I can't wait to go shopping in San Francisco this weekend! It's gonna be so much fun! Ashley, please thank your mom for me. And I've never stayed at a hotel as nice as the Fairmont before!”

And then it all clicked—I'd been ousted from my spot in the Volvo and replaced by Lydia.

Even though I knew my own recent isolation was responsible for being left out, it still stung.

There was nothing I could say, so I walked away, toward my final.

“Iris, wait!” shouted Ashley. I thought about turning around and going back to talk with them about the situation, like adults. But then Sierra said, purposely loud enough for me to hear, “It's not like she even
wants
to hang out with us anyways.”

So I kept walking.

*

I entered the gym, where all of Mrs. Schneider's five English classes were taking the same final. I picked a seat in the back and didn't even bother to open up my book. I was seething. I needed some sort of release. If I didn't care about what other people thought about my sanity, I'd have let out a guttural scream. I'd give anything to be in my closet, hammer in hand. I looked down at my knee. Still bloody. Students filed in, some with confidence in their eyes that said they had spent the weekend actually studying.

Hoodie Boy, part of the bad-boy crew who had lobbed a paper bag at Ashley's head the week before, took a seat next to me. If he was planning on cheating off my exam, he picked the wrong person.

Then Andy and that soon-to-be sophomore trotted in together, holding hands. What was she even doing in the gym anyway? She was in ninth grade. And even if she were in accelerated English, she wouldn't be in our English class. She took a seat on his lap and ran her fingers through his hair.

“There is a time and a place, Mr. Dunn,” Mrs. Schneider said to him.

I thought the nauseating scene was over and his new “friend” would take her cue and flee the premises, but instead she took him by the hand, led him out of the gym, and started making out with him in the doorway. At one point, I thought I could see Andy's eyes open and look straight at me, but then they closed again, and the two of them continued their suck fest.

I felt sick to my stomach.

Five more minutes to spare. The walls of the gymnasium felt as though they were closing in on me. The whole world was closing in on me.

I pulled out my black journal and opened to an empty page. Time for a new list.

“PEOPLE I WANT TO BASH WITH MY HAMMER,” I wrote in big block letters.

If I could write it out on paper, maybe I'd get some sort of release from the pain.

Then I began to list them:

Andy (and his stupid girlfriend)

Sierra

Ashley

Lydia

Dad

And just when I thought I was done, I caught Mrs. Schneider filing her long fingernails while glaring at the clock, waiting to see who she would be able to give tardy slips to in another minute. She lived to torture us. So I started a new list.

PEOPLE I WANT TO KILL

Mrs. Schneider

Air filled my lungs at a normal pace. I had just saved myself from doing something extremely stupid, like hurling a desk across the gymnasium or throwing a book at Andy's head.

I closed the journal and placed it in my lap, wanting to keep the list close to me, reminding me how good it felt to get the rage out.

The bell rang, everyone took their seats, and the English exam began.

I scanned the eight pages of questions, and I felt I actually had a chance of passing this final. There wasn't nearly as much sentence graphing as Mrs. Schneider had threatened. Maybe this day could do a one-eighty.

Mrs. Schneider paced the room with both hands behind her back like a prison guard. I tried to focus on the task at hand, but before I knew it, she was hovering over me like a blimp, casting a shadow on my paper.

“Iris Moody?”

I looked up. Her steely blue eyes met mine. I was on a roll, picking out all of the prepositions in a sentence, and now she'd gone and disrupted my rhythm.

“What's that in your lap?” she asked.

I looked down. My black book.

A few students turned around to check out what was going on. Blood rushed to my cheeks.

“Pass me the book,” Schneider commanded.

I hesitated.

“Cheating is grounds for expulsion,” she said, loud enough that it seemed most students shifted in their seats to watch the drama unfolding behind them. Schneider took the book off my lap and began flipping through my lists of my innermost personal thoughts.

“Do you mind?” I asked. What right did she have to look through something so intimate? It should have been fairly obvious to her that it wasn't filled with English exam answers.

She flipped though the pages and paused at my most recent entry. Why did I have to write the title in block letters? I knew she had arrived at her own name when her expression suddenly registered the shock of someone who has been slapped across the face.

“Interesting.” She looked at me.

“I told you I wasn't cheating,” was all I could think of to say to her.

“I think you'll find this is worse. Much, much worse. Pack up your things and come with me.”

I quickly rose to my feet and lunged for the book. It was mine. She had no right to be looking at it, but she held on tight. It was an intense game of tug of war. Who knew Schneider had so much strength? I wasn't gaining any ground by pulling the book, so I tried a new strategy and pushed the book forward with all of my strength, accidentally throwing Mrs. Schneider off balance. The book was back in my possession, but the force of my jostling had sent her flying backward and down to the ground. I hadn't meant to push her. I just wanted my book back. This was merely physics at work.

Another teacher proctoring the exam rushed to her aid and helped her up.

Schneider snatched my notebook and grabbed my unfinished English final from my desk, and, as she instructed, I packed my pen and water bottle in my backpack. I slid the loop of my bike helmet around my wrist, and it clanked against each desk I passed as I followed Schneider toward the exit door of the gym.

Turning to the other proctor, Schneider whispered, “I'll be right back.”

As I was being escorted out of the building, I accidentally happened on Andy's once-familiar blue eyes. They showed no sign of compassion or empathy. In that moment, I let him go forever.

*

Things went quickly from bad to worse. I was turned over to campus security—a large balding man who stood next to me outside the gym, speaking into his walkie-talkie.

“I have the suspect in custody,” he answered when the voice of Mr. Cagle, on the other end of the contraption, asked, “Where's Ms. Moody now?”

Joe (as his nametag indicated) seemed to be living out his fantasies of feeling very important.

We stood there for a long time. So long, in fact, that some speedy exam takers handed in their finals and were exiting the gym when the cops finally did show up.

“Seriously? The police?” I questioned Joe, confused at the sight of the man and woman in uniform.

“Hit list. Death threat. You caused a big stir in there,” said Joe, adjusting his security belt.

No one was supposed to read that list. Those were my private thoughts. But none of that seemed to matter now.

Mr. Cagle emerged from wherever he was to shake both officers' hands. I stood next to Joe and watched them speak, and then Mr. Cagle entered the gym and produced Mrs. Schneider, who had to come out presumably to give them a statement. She presented my black book and handed it over to the police officers, who took a look at the inciting page, nodded, and placed my journal in a large Ziploc bag.

They then approached me.

“Iris Moody,” said the woman, “you are under arrest for violating California Penal Code Section 422.”

I had officially become a criminal.

*

We used to play a game at recess in elementary school. The boys would be the captors and run around chasing the girls. I know—totally chauvinistic. When they caught us, they'd grab our wrists tightly and hold them behind our backs as they led us to the sandbox jail.

Being cuffed by real officers on my high school campus was much more painful than my memory of make-believe.

“Let's go,” said the male cop as he gently nudged me on the shoulder, urging me to walk as though I were a horse tethered to a wagon. Ashley happened to be walking by as they led me to the car. Her mouth was agape. Her eyes said, “Who are you?”

Mine answered back, “I don't know.”

*

I'm not saying that jail is the kind of place I
ever
want to be again, but I will say that there was something kind of nice about sitting with my thoughts for six hours (yes, it took that long for them to reach my dad). After going through the motions—mug shot, emptying out my pockets, removing my gold necklace, and giving them all of my personal information—I was led to an empty cell and tried to take as much pleasure as I could from the silence. No exams, no Andy, no catty friends, no Dad.