The Fortunes of Indigo Skye (30 page)

"Officer! Oh my gosh," Mom gushes. She's
suddenly turned all Catholic girl in the presence of authority. Mom never says
"gosh."

"My cat..."

"You need to understand that we take animal
cruelty cases very seriously," he says.

I don't doubt him. He looks like he takes
everything very seriously. He has a square jaw, too, and his eyes are hidden
behind sunglasses. His hips are bulked up by radios and other cop stuff that
hangs off of him. If he actually had to run, it'd be as awkward as having a
toddler strapped around your waist. "No, there's been a misunderstanding," Mom
says.

"Mmmm-hmmm," Officer Friendly says. "We got a
call about someone throwing a cat onto the freeway."

"I wasn't throwing a cat.... This is my pet.
We'd never hurt him."

"Ha," I say.

Mom shoots me a look. "He was in the
backseat."

"The caller witnessed a cat being thrown," the
officer says.

"We didn't throw him! He jumped up ... My
daughter had her window open ... He panicked when we got on the freeway, and now
... I don't know how to get him down ..." Mom's voice cracks. Mom's voice cracks
and Mom cracks. She lets out a small sob. She puts her palms to her
eyes.

"Ma'am?" the officer says.

"I would never hurt my cat. Never. Any living
being ..." She's crying now. "He's part of my family. His shots are all up to
date...."

"Ma'am? It's okay, all right?" The officer
removes a radio from his hip. Clicks it on, holds it up to his mouth. He spits a
few words into it, hooks it back to his hip again.

228

"He gets this special medicine for his
eye...."

"Mom, it's okay," I say. She has branches in
her hair.

"The fire department will be here in a minute
to get him down," the police officer says.

"I'm sorry," she says. "It's just been one of
those days....One

thing after another. You know?"

He lifts his glasses off his head. Maybe his
eyes aren't so bad underneath. Maybe they're slightly kind. "You look really
familiar to me," he says. "You didn't happen to go to Lake Washington High, did
you? In Kirkland? Mr. Cassady, history?"

"Yes ... ," Mom says. "I did."

"Brian Murphy?" he says.

She squints her eyes, like he's a tiny, fuzzy
place on a map that she can't see without her glasses. "Brian? Oh my God, I'd
have never recognized you."

"Naomi Connors? You look great!"

She doesn't correct her last name. I can hear
the heaving sound of a truck pulling up, and see the spin of red lights through
the trees. The fire truck is here.

"The fire truck's here," I say.

But they ignore me. Mom is flashing this smile
as bright as an amusement park at night, and Officer Brian Murphy is grinning
like a goofy kid who just won a ribbon for his volcano at the science
fair.

"So, how've you been?" he asks. "God, you
haven't changed a bit."

"I'm not sure if that's a good thing." She
laughs. "Oh it is, it is," he says.

Two firemen are picking their way through the
forest, hauling a mega ladder between them. Freud must see it too,
because

229

he stands lazily, and begins inching his way
back along the branch.

"Mom! Freud ... ," I say. But Mom has forgotten
the reason we are standing out in the middle of a forest. Mom has forgotten we
are out in a forest at all. She may as well be at a cocktail party, swirling her
ice cubes in a glass and contemplating the basket of tortilla chips.

"You live here in town, then?" Officer Brian
Murphy asks. He folds his arms and leans his weight on one foot, turning his
shape from intimidating square to friendly triangle.

"I do. After my divorce ..."

Blah, blah, blah. I leave the exciting plot
right there and wait under the tree, scooping up Freud when he touches down. The
firemen barely make it halfway, when I head toward them with Freud in my death
grip.

"He's a hideous beast who came down the minute
he saw you. I'm sorry," I say.

"Cats," the fireman says to his partner, and
shakes his head.

I roll up the car window, place Freud in the
backseat. I sit up front, waiting for Mom and Officer Brian. When she finally
gets into the car, she's all cheerful. "Okay, Freudy Boy," she says. "We had
quite a little adventure, didn't we?"

"Did he give you happy drugs from some
bust?"

"He asked for my number. Isn't that funny?" she
says. "Now, I don't want you to ever, ever do that naughty thing again," Mom
addresses Freud. "Indigo, hold his collar from here so he stays in the
back."

"You sure are cheery," I say. "For just getting
mauled by the cat and almost arrested."

She laughs. "Brian would never have arrested
me." She flips

230

down her visor, smiles at herself and makes
sure there's nothing in her teeth. Satisfied, she pulls out into traffic. Her
windshield wipers are on.
Flick-flick. Flick-flick.

"Mom, your wipers, for God's sake," I
say.

"Oh!" she says.

She swipes at the wiper handle. But she doesn't
turn them all the way off. They're set at that annoying channel where they seem
off, but give a single, sudden burst of on after fifteen seconds. Mom doesn't
seem to notice. The wipers are silent, then fifteen seconds later, on
again.

I consider letting out a single, bloodcurdling
scream. Then I consider pulling a Freud and leaping out of the window myself. It
all suddenly seems too much. Firing myself from my job; Leroy's and Trina's and
Severin's humiliation; a near breakup with Trevor; Mom in all her Mom-ness. I
feel the sudden Had Enough that is quiet but powerful in its certainty. I want
out of here. Away from all of them. I want into a different "real world."
Everyone wants a Big Decision? Fine, my Big Decision is going to be to make my
world bigger. I will take my two and a half million dollars and head to the only
place I have an invitation--with Melanie to Malibu. Indigo Skye, phase
two.

231

14

What I did next was shitty. Only I didn't feel
like it was shitty at the time. I felt it was my right, and "my right" is the
guilt-avoiding umbrella under which most shitty things are done. It was my right
to call Melanie as soon as we got home, the very second after the Taco Time
papers had been balled up and thrown away, the splotches of hot sauce wiped from
the table. It was my right to not tell anyone where I was going, until I left
the next morning. It was my right to tell only Bex, who was still hypnotized in
front of the television.

"I'm going to California for a while with
Melanie," I say. "Tell everyone."

"Okay." Bex watches an enormous wooden spoon
stir an even bigger pot of a rice concoction the yellowish tones of risotto.
"Tell Trevor I'm gone," I say. "Mmmm-hmmm," Bex says.

Every conflict, I've decided, is about power.
Every one. Wars are about power, sure, and immigration, and crime, and poverty,
but so is who gets the parking space and if you go to the movies or out to
dinner and if he thinks you look fat in those jeans and if she'll let you change
shifts and whose turn it is to let the dog out and if he loves her more than you
and if she snubbed you at that party. Power--who has it and who doesn't, and who
has what the other person doesn't have. Who's up and who's down. Sandbox stuff.
He took my tractor. We both want that shovel.

Power.

And what's the shortcut to power? The winner,
the king, the

232

insta-got-it? Money, naturally. Take it from
me, someone who didn't have it and then did, you feel different when you've got
it. You've got rights. You've got a voice. You've got power-over. And maybe,
just maybe, you feel a little smug about that. Maybe you feel a little entitled.
You, after all, sit in the part of the plane where they use china and linen, or
better yet, a different plane entirely from those poor slobs whose knees are
scrunched to their chins all the way to their destination.

Maybe, too, my father was right. And maybe I
didn't care that he was.

Money, see, it gives you the ability to say
Fuck you.
And that ability feels good. It feels swingy and wide and
soaring. It feels large and strong and without borders. Borders? YOU make the
borders, if you want them. And when you've got the ability to say
Fuck
you,
you want to use it. Money is power, all right, but that in no way
should indicate that those who have it will do the right thing by it. You feel
different when you have money, set apart, and for most people, I'd guess that
"set apart" is not even a half step from "better than." You can meet everyone's
eyes, unlike the kids at school, the poor ones, who often look at their shoes
when they speak. You're in the mental box seat, and they're in the last, upper
rows. "Set apart" means
you
and
them.
It can get away from you. It
can spin out of control and make you ugly. But hey, you've got a right to be
ugly.

That's my explanation for my shitty behavior,
anyway. Why I ignore my phone ringing and ringing until I finally shut it off.
How I manage to enjoy the literal first class on the plane, and disregard the
spinning elf of guilt in my gut. How I've justified my no-plan plan. Maybe I'll
stay a week. Maybe I'll stay forever. Maybe I'll do whatever I damn well
please.

233

"Put that thing away, Indigo, it's giving me
the creeps," Melanie says. She flicks the laminated corner of the safety card. I
didn't realize I was still holding it. The cartoon people seem to be enjoying
going down the poofy yellow slide. It makes me think of a birthday party Melanie
had, where her parents rented one of those inflatable tents you jump in and the
same sort of slide, minus the life jackets. "Remember that party your parents
had for you with the slide?" I ask.

"Oh my God, don't remind me. Given the fact
that I was fourteen at the time ..." Melanie's chair is reclined all the way.
The man behind her could almost clean her teeth, if he had one of those spiky
tools and a paper bib. Melanie raises one finger to get the flight attendant's
attention. The woman has blond hair combed up in a tight twist. She seems
familiar but I don't know from where, and it's driving me crazy. Then I realize
she looks like the woman at the makeup counter. Same hair, same creamy tan
powdery face, same outlined lips. "I'd like a sparkling water with no ice and a
lime," Melanie says. "Indigo, do you want anything?"

"No, thanks," I say, and smile at the flight
attendant/makeup counter woman. She smiles back at me, but it's only a tight
exercise of facial muscles merely posing as actual pleasantry. Maybe I know that
because I've given that same smile myself sometimes.

The flight attendant returns a moment later
with Melanie's glass. In first class, you get real glasses, and real knives,
too-- apparently, the terrorists sit with the general public.

Melanie doesn't acknowledge the flight
attendant; she only takes the glass and sets it onto her tray and flips another
page in one of the catalogues she's brought along.

"Thank you," I remind. People with no manners
suck.

234

"No problem," Melanie says. She focuses on the
rectangular photos of leggy women in shorts, T-shirts, this skirt, that skirt.
Melanie reads the catalogue like it has an engrossing plot. After a while, her
chin pops up suddenly. "Feel that? We're descending."

It's true--we're not so much descending, which
implies easing gradually downward, as seeming to drop down a staircase with very
large steps. It makes me remember that we are in a hunk of metal in the sky,
which is downright crazy when you think about it. It's best not to think about
it. My body knows the truth, though, and is protesting this situation to the
best of its ability, with a fluttery panic in my chest, and ears that are
balloons suddenly filling. I fight the urge to grab Melanie's arm and sink my
nails in, but she just sits there, folding down the top corner of a page of some
pair of pants she likes.

This is the second flight I've been on in just
a few short months, but I already have the necessary information to compare the
skill and expertise of pilots. The wheels hit the ground with enough of a bump
that my ass rises briefly into the air, and the wheels make this grinding
metal-on-metal screech that reminds me of this semi truck I recently
encountered, which tried to stop suddenly just because I changed lanes. I clutch
my arm rests against the g-force, dig my heels against the floor to aid in the
braking, same as Fred Flintstone in his foot-powered car.

"I like this sweater, but I'm not so hot on
V-necks," Melanie says.

"Jesus, I think this plane should have had a
'Student Driver' sign on the back," I say.

Melanie gives me her usual Melanie look of
scrunched, quizzical eyebrows. These are usually released a moment later with a
barely discernable shoulder shrug, a physical demonstration of
Whatever.