Surviving Valencia

At ten the dance ended. I went outside and waited for my dad. Cars came and went while I sat on the bench by the school. I considered asking someone for a ride, but I didn’t see anyone who lived in my neighborhood. Besides, how angry would my dad be if he showed up and I wasn’t here? So I kept waiting. Soon it was still and quiet all around me, with everyone gone. I’d had this funny feeling he was going to nod off on the couch and sleep right through picking me up, and now it was happening.

The worst part was that I was wearing my mother’s shoes, a pair of impossibly high heels with velvet bows on the sides. They were a little too big, but I could no longer squeeze into any of my dress-up shoes, so I’d felt I had no other choice. I had always coveted these sassy, slutty shoes. She was much too old and frumpy for shoes like this. I had sneaked them out of her room a few days ago, thinking I would sneak them back into place sometime after the dance and she would never know. I was trapped. If I called home, I would risk waking her up and having her come to get me instead of my dad. She’d kill me if she saw me in these. And I doubted this handmade dress would go over well either. I couldn’t bear to be grounded again. I had just finally served my sentence for the night I’d accused her of having an affair when she was actually going to her support group.

I tried to get back in the school, but it was locked. I couldn’t walk home. It was too far even in nice weather with good shoes on. So I just sat there.

Soon the few houses that had been lit up became dark. I tried walking all the way around the school, in case one of the lesser-used doors was unlocked, but they were all firmly fixed in place. Through the tall window by a side door, I could peer in and see a row of payphones. I was starting to think being grounded wasn’t as bad as freezing to death. I considered going to one of the dark houses and asking to use their phone, but I couldn’t do it. When you’re twelve it sometimes feels like you will get in trouble for any decision you make. I went back to the bench and sat down again.

I listed the states and their capitals in an inaudible whisper that got lost in the winter night. I translated words from English to Spanish and then counted to one hundred in French. I tried to put the presidents in order but couldn’t get past Andrew Jackson.

I watched the hands on my watch go round and round. I waited for a car to go past, but the street was dead silent. At 12:00 it started to snow. I opened my mouth to catch the big, fluffy flakes. At least it wasn’t windy. At 2:00 I heard yelling far off in the distance as some bars closed and people headed home. This made me a little scared, but after a moment it was silent again. The snow continued but got a little smaller and a little wetter. Now I was getting upset. I was crying and shaking from the cold. My nose was running endlessly, and the sleeves of my coat were covered with snot.

At 3:45 my dad pulled up. He looked groggy and did not utter a sound as he leaned over to open the door for me. The roads were slick and he gripped the steering wheel with a tired, furious look that had intensified since Valencia and Van’s deaths. Just a few blocks from the school a cat darted out in front of us. He hit it and I gasped, winced, looked back over my shoulder to see it lying still in the street, but he said nothing. We got halfway home in silence before he said, “You know, if you had some friends you would have been home in bed right now.”

Chapter 34

May is my favorite time of year. It always has been. School’s almost over and my birthday is in May. Everything is blossoming and winter is behind us. I was looking forward to turning thirteen. There would be no party. Most likely no gifts, but usually relatives sent me cards with money. Mainly, I just wanted to know what it felt like to be a teenager.

I remember that the morning of my thirteenth birthday was hazy and hotter than normal. My mom had recently started working at a dental office at the front desk, I guess having admitted to herself she no longer lived up to the title “Stay at Home Mom.” To some degree, she had snapped out of the funk she’d been in for the past eighteen months, and was starting to exercise along with the ladies from Super Abs and Ultimate Buns. She had to dress up for her new job, or at least that’s what she told my dad and me when she showed up with five big shopping bags from TJ Maxx the day after she got hired.

Now she was rushing around the house, her new cordless curling iron in one hand and a toaster strudel in the other. No matter how busy she was, she always had time make a perfect crisscross trellis of icing on her toaster strudel. Even in her depths of depression, she got that right.

I was packing my backpack with books, getting ready for the bus to pick me up. I’d been reminding her for two weeks about my birthday, so we could both avoid the embarrassment of her forgetting it. I put my backpack on and when I craned my neck I could see the bus way down the block. Two more stops before it would pick me up.

“I better get going…” I called, testing her, giving her the chance to remember.

“Okay. Have a good day at school,” she yelled. The words were muffled by toaster strudel.

Umm. Should I say something? The bus was getting closer. I opened the front door and stepped outside but didn’t yet close it behind me.

“Mom?” I yelled, but she didn’t hear me. I yelled it louder.

“What?”

The bus was approaching. I hesitated.

“It’s my birthday.”

“What?”

“It’s my birthday! I’m thirteen.”

Silence.

“I’m a teenager!”

The bus horn honked loudly and I looked up to see the mean old driver glaring at me. He honked again.

“Don’t miss that bus! I can’t drive you to school if you miss it,” my mother yelled.

So I got on.

When I got home there was a chocolate cake from the supermarket on the kitchen table alongside actual wrapped presents.

My mother was waiting for me. She had changed from her work clothes into jeans and a t-shirt, but her face was still made-up and her hair was teased and pulled back in a banana clip. She wore giant, shiny gold earrings that weighed on her lobes. She looked like a doll whose head had been popped off and put on the wrong body.

“Your dad will be home a little early tonight. Should we order some pizza?” she asked. I was in shock.