Dreams and Memories

In dreams I remember

Your smile

The memories I try to piece together

But your face is a blur of tears

It’s been six years

So much has passed between

I’m such a different me

But still I see

The ways I fail and fall

Trust

Trust is so frail

And it shatters still

And I can’t remember what it was like

Before you were gone.

* * *

But my tongue was still frozen.

  “I don’t want to drag you into this.” Marti was saying. She started to pace, something she only did when she was really thinking hard.

  “Too late for that.” He laughed a little. “Are you ok?” He took her hand and tried to look into her eyes, but she pulled away. My heart started to race. Why hadn’t she told me about this guy? I suddenly wondered how well I really knew Marti.

  “Yes I’m fine. Would you mind,” She paused, and the rest of her question was lost in the wind. Suddenly, it started to rain. Not a gentle drizzle, but hard, hot, pouring rain. I was soaked through in a minute. My hair stuck to my face and my legs felt slimy when they brushed one another, a mix of lotion and rain water creating an oily film.

  I peered through the raging drops and saw that Marti and her friend were hopping in the red BMW. Suddenly recovering my powers of motion and speech I darted out from my hiding place. The car started backing away, with my best friend inside it.

 Whoever he was, the kid was a driver in a hurry. He flew out of the lot and started towards the highway before I could catch Marti’s eye. I ran after them, all the way to the highway on-ramp and up onto the busy interstate. I couldn’t believe myself. I was racing alongside a dangerous road chasing a pair of taillights.

Why?

Why, why, why? My mind screamed. But I kept running, afraid to stop, afraid to lose the faint glow of those red taillights fading into the distance. I tripped over something on the shoulder, falling. Gritty residue from the side of the highway scraped along my arm, smearing me with dark streaks. The rain made my eyes cloud with watery black mascara. As the cars flew by they splashed up sheets of hot, dirty road water but I was too terrified to care. I leaned back against the cold concrete barrier, trying to think if there was some way I could have prevented this.

There wasn’t.

Surely.

Surely there was nothing more I could have done. She had sealed her own fate from day one. And I was too tired to chase after her anymore.

Story time.

Hey. You want to hear a funny story?

I was walking to the park

just minding my own business when I

met this old lady. She looked really confused. She had a walker with her  and I thought she was lost.

“You ok?” I asked.

And she just stood there with

this blank stare on her face. I was like

“Is she alive? Haha This lady could be a little

crazy for all I know. It was so weird, her justt standing there motionless.

But anyways then she was like “Who are you?

Here’s a cookie dear.” and she handed me this fortune cookie.

My weakness. But I’m not that stupid so at first I said, “No thank you.”

“Number sixteen is my lucky number.” She said, beaming and still trying to hand me the cookie.  

So then I didn’t know what to say because I was suddenly really curious about that cookie.

Call me a hopeless romantic, cuz I believe in fate. I took the cookie.

“Me and you are going to be lucky today dear. I can feel it.” She said. She was really old, but so sweet.

Maybe this is my lucky day I thought.

 

The cookie said: Go back and read the first word of each line. And bow to the master of awesomeness.

* * *

I suddenly sat bolt upright.

  “Where’s Marti?” The question was directed at no one in particular, but Madelene seemed to be the only one paying any attention to me. She looked around her, drunkenly.

  “Gosh, I don’t know. Probably went to the bathroom, Meggy. I wouldn’t worry.”

Meggy?

Only Marti called me that. I wanted to stay and unload a serving of sarcasm on her, but I was too busy looking through the crowd. How had I let her slip away from me? I jumped up onto the hood of a car that was parked on the sand.

  “Hey get off!” Some blonde surfer dude called. I didn’t listen. I had to find her before she did something really stupid. My eyes preyed on the crowd, searching, searching. They darted back and forth between tall and short, dark and pale, fat and skinny, straining for a glimpse of a thin girl with long dark hair in a faded tank top and denim shorts.

Where are you Marti?

There. I saw her on the boardwalk, making her way towards the boating docks.

I leapt down from the car, just as the boy who had shouted at me was making his way over, and started off as fast as I could.

I pushed and shoved until my feet hit the splinter-filled boards of the docks. Shops along the water were full to the brim with rich kids fritting away their folks’ money. As the throng thinned I was able to run, feeling dizzy with the heat of the night and breathless with nerves.

 I made it to the edge of the dock. Marti wasn’t there. I looked all around me, frantic. Then, spying a short path back to the mainland, I saw her in the distance, standing up in a little parking lot next to a red BMW. There was someone with her, but I couldn’t make out his face.

I started up the path, gripping the rail. The small dock rose perilously over the water up to the shore, and wood was slick and hard to balance on.

  I made it to the top and crept close enough to the car to hear their conversation. I had come intending to tell Marti outright that she was being an absolute idiot and make her abandon whatever she was planning. But now that I was here, I had no words. I suddenly felt as shy and afraid as I had been my first day of kindergarten. So I stayed back in the shadows of the beach ferns, waiting.

And listening.

 

 

  “What do you want to do? Go and find him?” Marti’s companion had a low voice, soft and kind. Somehow it relaxed me. I could hear worry in it, which somehow made me feel better about him. Like maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. Maybe he was like me and actually cared about her.

He sounded young. Around our age. That made me feel better too. But I still couldn’t see him clearly.

  “I don’t know.” Marti answered. Her voice sounded strange and distant.

  “You know I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

At that I was back to worrying. Surely she wouldn’t run off with this twit. Oh why couldn’t I say something?




( P.S. Just so you know, Mozzie didn't die! )  

* * *

“Marti! Help, quick somebody please!” I screamed, my bare feet pounding on the asphalt. The glare of the headlights whizzing by blinded me, but I kept running, afraid to stop, afraid to lose the faint glow of those red taillights fading into the distance. I tripped over something on the shoulder, falling. Gritty residue from the side of the highway scraped along my arm, smearing me with dark streaks. The rain made my eyes cloud with watery black mascara. As the cars flew by they splashed up sheets of hot, dirty road water but I was too terrified to care. I leaned back against the cold concrete barrier, trying to think if there was some way I could have prevented this.

 


Three hours earlier I had been riding shotgun in Marti’s Honda with my eyes burning like wildfire.

  “I think I’m allergic to this stuff.”

  “Don’t be silly, you look gorgeous.” Marti smiled with her lips but not her eyes. She was staring at the road but her mind was someplace far, far away.

  “Well I don’t know.” I flipped open the mirror on my visor and studied my reflection. I looked nice enough in my contacts (which Marti somehow managed to wheedle me into) and black mascara on my dusky lashes. I was wearing a nice top of Marti’s and a pair of shorts. I wasn’t as nervous tonight as I had been at Madelene’s. Somehow I was too busy being worried about Marti to worry about myself.

  “We’re almost there.” She swung into a vacant lot near the water. Down on the pier there were a few hundred kids looking like your typical bunch of intoxicated idiots. I held my breath, hoping Marti wasn’t going to be stupid enough to actually go down there.

  “You coming?” She smiled, wickedly. Somehow deep down both of us knew that I knew that she was up to something.

  “Of course.” I replied, just as wickedly. No way I was going to back out now. Marti looked a little miffed.

  “Well come on then.”

We walked into the throng of people, and Marti kicked off her shoes. “Here, put your shoes in with mine in my bag, Meg.” I obeyed, wiggling my toes free, loving the feel of sand between them. We pushed our way through the crowd without any mishaps until we got to Madelene and her crew.

 “Hi!” Madelene shrieked, her almost white blonde hair jiggling crisply under its layers of hairspray. “Come sit down and have something to drink M!” She saw me and giggled. “Or should I say double M!” She laughed so hard she almost chocked on her beer. “Oh my god we’re the three M’s! The three musketeers!”

 I recoiled with dislike, sitting gingerly down on the sand as far away from the bucket of iced drinks as possible.

 The music from the bandstand started up, louder than a thunder squall and full of profanity. I wanted to crawl under the beach blanket and die.

 I turned to give Marti a disgusted look, but she was already gone.

* * *

  “Hi honey! Are you having fun?” My mother’s voice drifted clear and familiar through the air waves from miles and miles away.

   “Hi Mom, yeah it’s been a blast so far.” I waited for the inevitable firing squad of questions.

   “Are you eating?”

Here it comes.

I sighed. “Yes, Mom I’m eating fine.” My mother lives in constant fear that I’m malnourished, just because I have lean bones. I got them from my dad’s side of the family and she’ll never get used to them.

 “Are you and Marti getting along?” Here was a question I hadn’t expected, and I didn’t know how to answer. Were we getting along? I didn’t really know, but I didn’t want to explain the whole situation to my mother. I also didn’t want to be so vague that she would ask a million more questions that I would have no choice but to answer. The trick was balance.

  “Oh sure. But you know how it is when you share a room with someone for a few days.” I laughed. “Marti’s so messy!” There. Just the right amount of truth.

 My mom laughed too. “Try living with your Dad.”

My dad. He was messy. Oh how I missed him though!

  “What are you doing tonight?” She asked.

   “Going to another party.” I tacked in “another” so she’d know that I hadn’t been a complete introverted, anti-social all week.

  “A party? Fun. Who all’s going to be there? Have you met a lot of Marti’s friends? I hope you will be responsible. Try to look pretty.”

Ah, the party advice. Here we go. Look pretty. Talk to the boys. Wear your hair in a new style. Blah blah blah.

Did she think I didn’t try?

“I should go get ready, mommy. Talk to you later.”

 “Ok sweet pea! I miss you. I’ll call you tonight and you can tell me all about it.”

Yeah sure. If I was still in one piece.

  “Ok. I’ve really got to run.”

  “Ok, love you honey!”

  “I love you too.”

* * *

  “What?” Marti asked incredulously, her baby-blues blinking daftly.

  “I don’t mind coming with you.” I repeated, doing my best imitation of an innocent smile. “But I’m not wearing my contacts.” I added this, just to make sure she knew I was still me.

  “You’re sure you want to? Because I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Ha. I tried not to laugh at the pure ridiculousness of that statement. Marti had been trying to get me to do things I didn’t want to do my entire life.

She was biting her lip, looking like a worried puppy whose master had suddenly offered them a treat for no reason. I could see the wheels turning in her head, trying to work it out so her plans, whatever they were, wouldn’t be ruined by my presence at this party.

  “What time are we leaving?” I asked sweetly.

   “Nine.”

   “Nine?” Are you kidding me? “That’s usually when I come home from parties,” I said, trying not to grimace.

   “Well like I said, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to Meg. I’ll understand.” She gave a phony little half-laugh. “After all, I’ve dragged you to enough stuff already this week.”

Not so fast. You won’t get rid of me that easily Miss Marti.

 “Oh no, I really don’t mind.” I replied hastily, before she could talk me out of it. She was going to meet someone there, I was certain of that. And with the strange way she’d been acting, I wanted to make sure that I was around to see who this joker was and what he wanted with Marti. Or what she wanted with him.

Marti’s smile started to look like it was just pasted on her face, not really there at all.

  “Ok. Cool.” She said, unable to think up another excuse.

I’d won.

But the battle hadn’t even started yet.


I looked back into the mirror, and wondered what kind of torment I could expect tonight from the “McGilligan Beach” crowd. I pulled my hair into a twisty and sighed from behind my spec’s. Sometimes I didn’t like being the nerdy one.
Sometimes I wished I could be beautiful.
Like Marti.


  “Hey,” Marti popped her head back in the doorway. “Your mom’s on the phone, Meggy.”

I sighed. If there was anything that could make me feel less beautiful, it was a conversation with my mother.