The Wrong Side Of The Tracks (Leighton) (6 page)

"Taking a trip down memory lane?" Alex jumped, startled by her father's voice, she slid the photo of her Aunt at Lost Creek under another p
icture. 

"Davis!" her Grandma jumped up, as quickly as a woman in her sixties could and rushed over to hug her father.

"Are you staying for dinner?  I can make that ham and cheese casserole you like."

"
Sorry Mom, we got to run.  Go get your brother Alex."

"Really? Well maybe next time, we really all have sit down together and have a Sunday dinner soon," she heard her Grandmother saying sadly as she walked back into the kitchen with Donavon.  She felt guilty leaving her Grandma but she was physically and me
ntally exhausted, so much had happened in the last twenty-four hours.  She was grateful her Dad came to get them, now she could blame him for leaving her home alone and lonely, even though she was glad to go home to her warm comfy bed. 

Donavon nearly kno
cked her over to beat her to the front seat.  She didn't even put up a fight, she flopped into the backseat and laid back and shut her eyes.  Her Dad made eye-contact with her as he pulled out of his child-hood driveway, "You all right back there?"

"Yeah.
I'm just beat from yesterday."

"Just tired?"

"Well that," she hesitated for a moment pretending to concentrate on the fuzz on her black leggings.  "And I don't know I feel a little off after spending the day looking at photos of Aunt Sandra."  Her Dad stared at the car driving ahead of them, and she was beginning to wonder if he even heard her.

They took the sharp turn over Lost Creek Bridge, and a car came flying around the corner with their high-beams on causing their Dad to jerk the wheel and honk his h
orn, Alex slid sideways in her seat.  Davis wasn't even flustered. He kept driving calmly as if he nearly died while taking that corner every day.

"Did you ever go swimming in Lost Creek?" Donavon asked as he looked out the window.  Alex could see the pile
of ashy wood from their fire the night before and her heart rate sped up a little.  She thought of the photo of Alessandra standing in front of a bonfire at Lost Creek with her ugly hat on.

Their Dad laughed, "No, definitely not."

"Oh right, because of how unsanitary and dangerous the water is," Donavon said obviously mocking their Mom. 

"No, because kids from my school would have gotten jumped by the public school kids if we crashed their parties at Lost Creek.  The rivalry between the schools isn't as b
ad as it used to be.  There used to be brawls during LVL, and cars and houses were vandalized.  When I was a kid the buy-out was still fresh in everyone's minds, and people were still very angry."

The 'buy-out' he was referring to was when a group of wealt
hy parents got together and formed an organization funded by all their charitable tax write-offs, and that organization bought Leighton Prep from the town of Leighton.  The organization turned Leighton School into Leighton Prep, leaving about seventy-five percent of the students whose families couldn't afford tuition without a school to attend.  The town was then forced to raise all the working families’ taxes by an incredible amount to build a new public high-school.  It was no secret that Donavon and Alex's late grandfather was one of the founding fathers of the Leighton Prep buy-out.  The buy-out was right after Davis and Alessandra were born, and he couldn't stand the idea of his precious babies going to a public school.

"Cool!"

"No Donavon, it wasn't cool.  It was dangerous and scary to be a kid back then, especially a prep-school kid.  We may have had money and resources, but the public-school kids had numbers.  It don't matter how rich or privileged you are, you don't stand a chance against eleven kids, and that's what the ratio of public school kids to prep school kids was back then."

Alex blocked out the rest of her father's political speech.  What was her Aunt doing at Lost Creek then?  Her Dad was
lying; she had just seen a photo of Sandra at the exact spot by the creek that they just drove past.  At some point the prep school kids were obviously welcome at the creek, or else her Aunt wouldn't have been there partying at a bonfire. 

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Alex threw her notebook into her locker and gr
abbed her purse.  She had promised Kenzie she'd meet up with her after school and walk with her to Lost Creek, because she had lost her IPod at the bonfire.  She could hear Camryn making her way down the hallway towards her; she walked through the hall like her father walked through the supermarket during election season.  Camryn said hello to every person she passed, hugging a few, and telling the rest how much she "adored their top."  Alex tried to make a clean getaway but Miss Congeniality had caught up to her as she struggled to get her locker door shut.

"Alex! What happened to you at the game?"

"I left."

Camryn leaned closer to her and talked quietly as if people were actually trying to hear what she was saying, "I'm sorry I was being a super bitch.  I
just was a little jealous I really like Nate.  You shouldn't have went home though, I feel bad you missed LVL."

Alex couldn't tell if she was being sincere or not.  Even if she was honestly sorry, she wasn't ready to let her off the hook yet.  "I didn't go
home; I went to a bonfire with some sophomores.  And, you were a bitch for no reason.  I'm seeing someone, Nate's not even on my radar."

"That's great! I mean not great I was a bitch, but great because I thought you still liked him.  Who's the mystery boy
? Someone I know?"

"No, and his name is Karter."  Alex
was even impressed by how real her imaginary relationship sounded

Camryn was examining her make-up in her compact mirror, barely paying attention to her anymore.  "Ohh, cute.  Well I'm ready to get out
ta here, let's go to the diner."

Alex mimicked Camryn's fake campaign voice, "Sorry, can't today.  I have plans, maybe tomorrow.  Bye! Love you!"  She hoisted her bag over her shoulder and marched towards the door.  She didn't have to turn around to know t
hat Cam was standing there dumbfounded, and shooting daggers at the back of her head with her icy eyes.

She walked briskly through the parking lot
, undetected once again, and made her way down the path to the tracks.  She could see Kenzie standing at the base of the tracks waiting for her.  She had texted her a little since she slipped out of her house, but they hadn't had an actual conversation.  Was she going to be mad that she slept in Karter's room with him?  She hadn't mentioned it in her texts; maybe she already knew and didn't care.  Or what if she had no idea, should Alex tell her or just act like it didn't happen?

"Hey
chica!"  Kenzie waved her free hand, and her bangles rattled up her arm as Alex made her way across the tracks.  She wore a snug Rolling Stones tee with baggy faded jeans with holes in the knees.  The tips of her moccasins were dusty from walking along the tracks.

They made their way into the woods, crunching through the leaves while Kenzie babbled away. 

"I was so mad when I woke up and you were gone!  I was lying in bed like we’re going to get up and have sausage, and pancakes, and eggs, and bacon, and toast.  Yeah I had the hangover munchies.  Then I came out of my room and you were gone!"

"Sorry, I left early.  Like six something"

"I figured Karter probably kicked you out.  Don't let him get to you, he's always faded."

"He drinks a lot?" Alex asked trying to sound
nonchalant, as if she didn’t care.

Kenzie snorted, "Yeah a lot of lean."

Alex stared at her with a blank expression on her face.

"He drinks cod
eine mixed with sprite," Kenzie explained.

"Like cough medicine?"

"Yeah.  It messes him up pretty bad.  He turns into such a weirdo when he drinks it.  He might seem scary or crazy but he'd never hurt a fly."

"That's
strange," said Alex still hung up on the thought of using cough medicine for recreational purposes. 

"Not really, I know a lot of people that get
faded off codeine.  I've tried it, but I hated the feeling.  To each their own though, you know?  I think your choice of poison is genetic.  Karter and I have different dads; my dad is a legit hippy.  Like Grateful Dead, tie dye shirts, headbands, long hair, and the whole nine yards.  I take after him, strictly herbal; I just smoke a lot of bud.  Karter takes after my mom, she's addicted to pills, like Xanax, they prefer prescription medicines.  You obviously like to drink, so probably one of your parents is a boozer."

"You don't know my parents, they've never drank more than wine with dinner.  I probably get it from my Aunt."

Kenzie flashed her mischievous smile, "You don't know your parents either.  One of them is living a double life.  Trust me, my theory is never wrong."

Her
IPod was lying right in plain sight on top of the makeshift beer pong table where she had left it during the bonfire.  Alex scanned the tree line on the other side of the creek trying to determine where her Aunt had been standing when the picture she found was taken.  It was a great feeling to finally get to know what Sandra had really been like, but at the same time the more answers she got, the more questions she had. 

Kenzie stopped her train of thought, "You coming back to my house? I'll make us some food."

"No, I wish.  I got to get home. My Mom has been blowing up my phone since I got out of school.  Maybe we can do something later this week."

"Okay, text me."  Alex watched her make her way back through the woods.  Before she could even start walking her phone
began buzzing again.  What could be so important her Mom had to call her every fifteen minutes?

"Hello?"

"Where are you?"  Alex panicked, where had she told her Mom she was going to be?  Her double-life was getting extremely difficult to live; she needed to start taking notes.  "I'm on my way home right now. I just stopped at the diner with some people."

"Hurry up, we
need to talk," she said in a serious tone.

Alex's mind raced as she made her way through the woods and down Sherman.  She had done so
many things she wasn't supposed to in the last week, it could be anything.  Her Mom could have found out about her going to The Boxes, or the bonfire, or drinking, or lying about going to Cam's, or sleeping with Karter.  She started walking slower, enjoying her last seconds of freedom as she got to their street.  She felt like a criminal walking down the long hallway to the electric chair, like in the movies, these were probably her last breaths.  She made her way up the front steps and reached out to turn the door-knob but her Mom swung the door open before she was able to grasp the knob.  She didn't recognize the look on her face; she was angry, confused, and sad all at once. 

"What's wrong?"

"Sit down."

"Was there an accident?"  Alex asked assuming the worst.

"Cut the melodramatics Alex, no one is dead.  What the hell is this?"  Her Mom tossed a creased piece of paper on the table in front of her.

Alex glanced at the paper, "That's not mine."

"Then why was it in your pants' pocket?"

Alex was confused, was
this some kind of trick?  Was she setting her up for something?  It's 2012, no one passes notes, they text, e-mail, and message on Facebook.  Then it dawned on her, this was the note she found in Sandra's room.  When she got home from her Grandma's she was exhausted, kicked her clothes off on her bedroom floor, and passed out.  She completely forgot she had slipped the piece of paper she found in her back pocket when she was carrying down the box of photos.  She snatched the paper up off the table, and tried to make out the bubbly cursive writing.                                                                                                                                           

He choked me until I almost passed out.  He's a lunatic!  If he
finds out I’m at the fire tonight he will literally try to kill me.  I don't want to miss your party though, so I'll be there.  You owe me one!

-A

Alex flipped the paper over.  It was written on the back of a Chemistry quiz, but the paper had been ripped in half so the heading with the student’s name was missing.  It had been graded though, and there was a red ninety-six scrawled across it with a smiley-face.

"Mom, this isn't mine I don't even take chemistry
.”  Then she added sarcastically, “And I’m sure if I did I wouldn’t be getting anything higher than an eighty.”

"Just because that's not your test doesn't mean you didn't write that, or someone didn't write that to you.  Why was it in your pocket?"

Her Mom's reaction was still confusing her, one second she seemed worried, then the next second she seemed like she wanted to choke her herself.  She really wasn’t sure how to react to her questioning.  She knew she hadn’t done anything wrong though, for once, so she decided to stick to the truth.

"I found a folded up piece
of paper upstairs when I was getting boxes down for Gram, I had no idea what was on it."