“I don't need anything to fall back on. I'm making it to the big leagues, man. I am going all the way. I will have all the money I need.”
“I'm going to see Dad in a few days. Why don't you come along?”
I laughed. “You don't stop, do you?”
“No, and I'm not going to.”
I looked around the gym. In mid-afternoon the place was really busy, and I felt weird about having that conversation with Craig there.
“When are you going to forgive him?”
I groaned. “Craig, do we have to do this right now?”
“Yeah, man, I think we do, because you won't deal with it any other time.”
I sighed. “I don't want to forgive him.”
“I have.”
“Yeah, I'm aware of that.”
“Shit happens, man.”
“He cheated on our mother with his secretary. He wasn't even original about it. If that wasn't bad enough, he left that great woman we call Mom, and shacked up with that girl. He broke your mother’s heart, and you want to forgive? You want me to have dinner with him and his new girlfriend? You must be kidding me.”
“He's my father too, and I don't agree with what he did. But I love him, too, and what happened is between Mom and him. I don't like being angry all the time, and you shouldn't be either, Jet. At least talk to him about it.”
“I don't know.”
“Just come with me this time, please. Just come. Do it for me.”
“Okay, I promise I will go this time. Just get off my back.”
Craig laughed. “Thank God. I have to get out of here, but I will message you the details later. Don't blow me off.”
I waved him off and got the hell out of the gym.
Chapter Three
Natalie
Halloween was right around the corner, and festivities were being held all over campus. Decorations were up and people were out looking for costumes. Guys always bought the ridiculous ones, and of course, girls found a reason to dress completely slutty for one day of the year. I had never been one for dress-up, so I wasn't sure what I was going to do. Julie and Brenda had been talking about finding a party or going to the club, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to partake. I had done so much drinking over the past few months that I felt I was accruing brain damage. Look at the decisions I had been making lately?all bad news. Jet alone was the result of all my drinking, I didn't think I would have done half those things with him had I not been half out of my mind.
Searching for costumes wasn't the only thing students were doing these days. For the whole month of October, the haunted house was set up as well. It was a scare house set up for kids to go in and have the wits scared out of them for fun. For as many years as it had been in town, I had only ever gone once. That was enough for me. I had been scared so badly I had no desire to ever return. Call me a scaredy-cat or not, I wasn't going back.
That night I had agreed to go to the school for an extracurricular activity for my art class. We had been asked to decorate pumpkins and put them all over the campus for Halloween. I had gone to class, and the professor asked me to be in charge of determining how the pumpkins should be decorated. So I walked up to the front of the class, feeling nerves tittering in my stomach. I was honored that my professor thought I was talented enough to do this; I wanted to make her proud.
I faced my classmates. “Hey, guys, I was thinking about what we could all do with the pumpkins, and I don't want there to be any carving tonight. Let's use the skills that we have learned so far this semester and create pumpkin art. We can use any type of medium that we like, such as, let's see, how about ink? Paint? We have lots of oils and acrylics that we can use up. Let's have abstract pumpkins, floral design, moody ink work, whatever we want to create, and we'll have the most unique pumpkins on campus this year.”
The class clapped in excitement, and students got up right away to choose what medium they were going to use. I helped the professor pass out pumpkins. We had enough for each student to do three of them, and I was so excited to see what they were going to come up with. Once the pumpkins were passed out, and students found their way back to their seats, I started walking around to see what I could find.
I went up to Crystal, who was an art student often inspired by other artists, and mimicked them in her art. I watched as she poured out various colors of paint and tested them. She was what one would call a free artist, in that when she painted, she never needed to draw pictures first; she painted by freehand. I wished that I had that sort of talent, but art itself never came easily to me. I always had to pencil in items first, and then paint in the colors. I watched as she started in on her pumpkin; I was interested to see who she would emulate this time.
As the paint stroke molded in droopy lines, I realized she was painting the eyes of the pumpkin, using drooping clocks for the eyes. The same sort of clocks that were often depicted in Salvador Dali's famous paintings.
“Wow, Cry
stal. I love it; great idea.”