Chasing Tail Lights Read online

  It was so odd to see Grandmother Weathers in her open casket without any hair. Nobody put on a scarf or a wig, or covered her bald head in any way. The cancer took her life, but then her family took what little dignity she had, even in death. I think Mama and her sisters finally paid her back for her neglect, for her selfishness, and for her vanity. But I wonder if you can really pay anybody back for what they've done to you, because it's done. Can you close a wound by pouring salt into it? If you don't forgive, then how can you ever forget and move forward?

  5

  october 26, senior year

  "Chase him!"

  "Got him!" Anne shouts, smoothes out her pink bandanna, then puts her foot to the floor as we take off down 1-75, following the tail lights of a black Ford Explorer with California plates.

  "Why would anyone from California be visiting Flint?" I ask, which is part of the chasing tail lights game: asking the question, then writing the story to figure out the answer. Now that I'm not doing it alone, and have wheels—Anne's father finally gave her the keys to the car—rather than just words, the adventures are just beginning. Anne loves to drive too fast, do whatever she wants, and act out of impulse. She doesn't plan or dream, she just does.

  "You ever been to California?" Anne asks quickly; we've got two hours before she's due at a job she already hates with a passion, while I really liked my first day at the library.

  I redirect the question back to her, since I've never been anywhere. "Have you?"

  "We used to go to visit family in Los Angeles," Anne says. "It was pretty boring."

  "Not like Flint!" I counter, and our laughter fills up the car.

  "Cuz, Flint's okay, it's just some of the people who live here, like those immature jerks at school." Anne starts in with one of her constant complaints. "You know who I hate worst of all?"

  "Seth Lewis?" I reply out of instinct. We don't have classes together, and it's a big school, so I've mostly avoided Seth's putdowns so far this year, but then, it is only October. It's avoiding Seth as much as stalking Glen that drives me outside the theater every lunch period.

  "No, he's too pathetic to hate," Anne says, and I let it go.

  "I guess," I add gently, thinking of the things I could say about Seth Lewis.

  "Rani Patel, I so hate her," Anne says, knowing I'll agree, since everyone assumes that the great actors Glen and Rani are backstage lovers. "She thinks she walks on water, you know?"

  "I don't stand a chance with Glen," I say, then let the car seat swallow me whole.

  "Yes, you do Christy, you just have to get some confidence," Anne reassures me.

  "Easy for you to say. In case you haven't noticed, I'm not winning homecoming queen."

  "That's because you think that way," Anne says. "Come on, you've read enough books to know that beauty, real beauty is on the inside, and not on the outside. Maybe Glen is like other guys at Southwestern, just too immature to know that. We need to hook up with men, not boys."

  "Maybe," I whisper. Anne always sounds and looks so smart; she's just gotta be right.

  "Glen is all man in bed, I bet," Anne says, fiddling again with the radio and following her sex obsession. Anne dreams of real men, not the boys at Southwestern or the dates arranged by her dad with bright, young boys, sons of his doctor or family friends, each duller than the last.

  I fall back on my best ploy: question redirection. "Did your CD player get boosted?"

  Anne's pushing buttons frantically, trying to find something of interest in the wasteland that is Flint radio. "No, Dad took it away. Yet another punishment from his highness."

  "For what?" Curious, but mostly jealous of the trouble Anne gets into.

  "I told him I wanted to quit my job. We had a fight. I lost, per usual," she replies, then shakes her head and gets all serious looking. "He's just jerking back on the chain a little."

  "What do you mean? I ask, then shift in my seat as we zip down 1-75 north toward Saginaw, or wherever the California plate steers us. I've heard Anne's hard-luck story a hundred times, so I'm thinking about her remark about jerking back on the chain more than listening. We used to have a dog named Brutus that my dad chained up in the backyard. He'd see something, start barking, run after it, and then yelp in pain when he reached the end of his chain. I could see how the fur was all pressed down where the blood matted. I was only seven, but I knew it was wrong to keep an animal chained up, so one day I figured out how to unchain him. Set free, Brutus promptly ran out in the street and got hit by a car. That day, I learned a sad and hard lesson: you can't get set free all at once, you gotta take small steps into the world.

  "You listening?" Anne says. "He's ruining and running my life. I should be used to it."

  "How's that?" I respond, throwing myself back into present drama not past trauma.

  "He still wants to control everything: how I dress, who I date, what clubs I join at school. Everything!" When Anne gets angry, she drives even faster. We've passed our California leader, so Anne must be in search of another set of tail lights as she exits off the freeway.

  "That's not fair," I finally respond, lost in my own thoughts of wishing someone would even care about those things in my life or teach me how to dress or how to date or how to talk with people so I could feel normal, if only for just one day.

  "I'll show him," she says, a glint returning to her heavily made-up eyes.

  "How's that?"

  "We're going to get tattoos," she announces at the top of the exit ramp.

  "I don't want any stranger touching me, you know?" I tell her; it's only my first line of defense, but probably the rawest emotion races fastest to the surface.

  "I know that's right," Anne says. "I know all about that!"

  "What do you mean?" I ask as we turn on Clio Road, headed back to Flint. Along the way, we pass dumpy motels, junkyards, boarded-up stores, and many bars with full parking lots.

  "My boss at work, you know my father's buddy Mr. Wallace," she says.

  I nod, trying to pay attention to her words, as much as to the urban badlands around us.

  "The other day, I'm busing tables and he comes up behind me, to tell me he needs my help in the kitchen, but he was just too close," Anne says sounding so fearless.

  "What did you do?" I ask.

  "He's my dad's best friend, so what am I going to say: 'Daddy dearest, your pal is a perve,'" Anne says, then laughs. "But the way he looks at me sometimes, pretty damn creepy."

  "What's so funny?" I ask.

  "I'm just thinking how my dad is always telling me to stand up for myself," Anne continues, laughter quickly replaced with an angry tone. "Except when it comes to talking to him."

  "You should say something," I suggest, like my advice mattered. Anne and I are like sisters, even though we're so different. Anne refuses to conform to the "intelligent doctor's daughter" stereotype that her father wants her to act out. While I'm a non-box—this great phrase I found on an online quiz—someone who won't fit in anyplace. We're triangles in a world of circles and squares.

  "I guess," Anne says, then we're silent for a while until we pull into the parking lot littered with cigarette butts and Halo Burger bags. "This is going to change your life!"

  "Maybe getting a tattoo will get Glen to think of me other than as his friend," I suggest.

  "You could get his name tattooed on your . . . " Anne says, pointing at my chest.

  "Good thing, his is a short name," I joke. With Anne's sexy self around, no boy, man, perve, or lesbian will lay eyes or hands on me. Her attention-stealing looks, along with her fast car, grass cash, and occasional weekend hotel service, top the list of why she's my best friend.

  "How about a fire-breathing dragon here," she says, tapping her fingers against her tight black sweater. "How about you?"

  "I don't think so," I reply.

  Anne parks the car next to a Harley near the front door. "Why not?" she asks.

  "For one, who is ever going to see it?" I shoot back. "And don't say Glen becaus
e—"

  "Because you won't approach him," she reminds me for the hundredth time.

  "I'm waiting for the right moment," I say. But it's not the right moment I'm waiting for: it's the right me, instead of this person with so many things wrong with them that he could never love.

  "Listen, Speedy, if not now, then when?" Anne says, another constant refrain.

  "Still, I don't want to get—"

  "Don't worry, I'll pay for it," Anne says, clumsily reminding me of the economic basis of our friendship. She pays and I play along with whatever she wants to do.

  "It's not that."

  "You scared of your mom saying something?"

  "No, she won't even notice," I respond, as the truth of Mama's indifference stings.

  "Then what?" Anne mumbles as she presses on more lipstick.

  "I don't think my brother Robert would like it, that's all," I say, telling her a half truth.

  "Why not?" Anne offers me her dark red lipstick, but I wave her off.

  "Robert's loaded with tats," I confess, trying to avoid the subject. "It's a gang thing."

  She cuts me off with a wave of her hand. "Okay, then, you just be different."

  "Like that is so hard," I say, and then we both kind of laugh at the absurdity of my statement and our situation. Anne and I are probably not that unlike other girls at Flint Southwestern or anywhere in the world. We like to think we're different: a little smarter, a little wiser, a lot better read, and, in just a few minutes, with more decorated bodies than most.

  "Let's do this thing," she shouts. "I don't want to go it alone, Cuz, come on!"

  I shrug my shoulders, and as always, give in to what Anne wants. "Let's smoke a joint first, okay?" I start to open up her purse to retrieve her recently purchased product.

  "Can't do it," Anne says taking the purse away from me.

  "Why not?"

  "How do you think we're going to pay for this?" Anne says, then laughs. "I'm sure whatever fine and upstanding gentleman is working here might be glad to overlook our underage status in exchange for certain cannabis products, don't you think?"

  We walk inside, and it's even worse than I imagined. There's thumping, bone-shaking rap music turned up too loud, no doubt to drown everyone's other senses with sound. There's a burly bald-headed white guy sitting on a stool. His arms, and skull, are mostly covered in tats. He's smoking a cigarette and talking on a cell phone. He makes eye contact with Anne, which pulls her closer to him, while I'm looking for a bathroom and a quick exit. Tatman points toward a notebook on the filth-covered counter, mumbles something to Anne, then continues his loud conversation. Anne starts looking through the notebooks for her dragon design, although I doubt she'll really let this guy take her sweater off. Anne's usually lots of talk and little action. But about this, she seems serious. She pushes one of the notebooks over to me, and I start glancing through it, not really caring or concentrating. The last thing I want or need is something to attract attention, like a tattoo. But, if I need to do this to follow Anne, then I'll get one of those small ankle tattoos that no one but me will ever see.

  "What do you want?" Tatman growls, like a hungry bear that just woke up, as he taps the notebook in front of me. The question of what I want overwhelms me, and my strength to resist escapes me. I'm just like our old dog Brutus, shackled around the neck.

  "This one." I'm pointing at the book, as I look down at my virgin left ankle for the last time and almost smile.

  "Nice choice," he says, as we both stare at the design of a link of chain.

  sophomore year, november

  "So when are your parents coming back home?"

  "Not until after ten," Anne replies, taking the pipe from me. She's locked the door to her room, and we're sitting on a small bench in her big bedroom by an open window, letting the frosty fall night bite us. Anne's moved from customer to best friend quickly to both our surprise.

  "They go out often?" I ask. It's getting too cold to chase tail lights from the bridge, I'm looking for some other place to call home. Anne's Miller Road mansion will do nicely.

  "Not much, so carpe diem," she says, inhaling deeply.

  "Carp what?" I reply. The only carp I know about are those that swim in the Flint River, but it's a river more known for catching fire many years ago than containing fish.

  "It's Latin; it means 'seize the day,'" Anne says, looking somewhat embarrassed.

  I show my closed-mouth half smile and look around the room, making sure not to touch, not wanting to leave fingerprintsbehind. Anne told me her father isn't thrilled with her choice of friends, meaning me, which thrills her to no end. "What's Latin for 'seize the night?'"

  "Chronic!" Anne says, handing me the pipe, but I'm too busy laughing to take it. "I wish Daddy dearest would get high and mellow out. He can be such an asshole sometimes."

  "He was nice to me," I say. Anne and I meet at school. This is my first time at her house.

  "To your face," she counters quickly.

  "What do you mean?" I ask.

  "Never mind, it's nothing I need to tell you," she says.

  "We're friends, no secrets, right?" I whisper directions to that one-way street.

  "He doesn't like you, Christy," she tells me, and I wish I had the pipe back in my hand. I don't say anything, but the big hurt in my heart's showing in my red eyes.

  "He asked about you, and I told him the truth," she says slowly, almost ashamed.

  I hide a laugh at Anne thinking she knows the truth of me. "What did you tell him?"

  "I told him where you lived, and he rolled his eyes. Then he started with his 'peoplejudge you by whom you associate with' speech. When he lectures, I don't listen," she says.

  "You didn't tell him about Robert, did you?" I ask as I let one family secret slip.

  "He knew, so he assumes, Christy, that you're like him," she says, handing me back the pipe, and then laughs her loudest laugh of the night. "You know, like you're a drug dealer."

  I'm not laughing. I'm not speaking. I'm barely breathing.

  "Christy, you're not a dealer, you're my friend," she says reaching out to me. I take a deep breath and accept the hug, even if her words—and my reality—feel more like a punch.

  She releases the hug, readjusts the wool cap she's wearing, and sits on the floor.

  "Should I go home?" I ask.

  "No, you should stay. You should stay over as often as I want. I'll show him!"

  "Show him what?"

  "He's not telling me what friends I can have," Anne says. "He's so mean to me."

  "Idon't want to—"

  "Christy, this ain't about you; this is about me and him," Anne says, stretching out on thefloor. She motions for me to join her. The white carpet smells fresh and feels cozy.

  "I don't understand," I say. I'm staring at the ceiling of Anne's room, taking in the details of the perfect white paint. I've memorized every crack, water stain, and tan paint chip in my own room. Everything in her room is perfectly organized, every book lined up, every piece of clothing flawlessly arranged, even in a closet that seems bigger than my tiny, dirty bedroom.

  "Understand what?"

  "How could you say that your father is so mean? Look at all the stuff he buys for you."

  "This isn't love, this is a bribe," Anne says dismissively, then takes off her glasses and pulls her green wool cap over her eyes. Like a computer, she's in the process of shutting down.

  As I look around the room, I'm taking in all of the details of the things that I will never have. The computer with a screen as big as our TV; the TV with a screen as big as my desk; the shelves lined with as many books as are in Ms. Chapman's room; the treasure chest disguised as a desk filled with toys like a white iPod, a shiny new silver digital camera, and a striking silver DVD player. The windows are covered with thin lace curtains to tease in the sun; mine is covered with an old black towel. The windows are clean and large, and I bet don't get covered with ice on the inside come wintertime. While Anne's closet is b
ursting with clothes, I worry that I'm just another outfit she's trying on for size, seeing if she likes my color or my style. I wonder what she sees in me.

  Visiting Anne is like a dream in some way: the buzz from the pot making it even more so. Here are all the things that I've always wanted; here are all the things I know I'll never have for my own. So, this is my closet, these are my outfits I get to try on and learn they don't really fit me. I hope if they don't really fit me, then I will no longer want them. I want a place to call home that isn't my own. And I want more than that, I want the wealth of Anne's friendship. It's not just that she's smart, funny, and happy to capture the attention that I avoid. I know it is something else, something deeper, yet something quite shallow. But among all these things, the thing I want the most is not something to have or hold or horde, but something to hear: the sound of a door locking.

  6

  november 1, senior year

  "So when did you start?"

  I'm focused on the sorting-room shelves packed with the unorganized books that I, super shelver extraordinaire, will arrange in perfect order in a matter of minutes.

  "So, you're the new girl," a deep but soft male voice says.

  I turn to see a guy my age, and about my height, standing in front of me. He's got curly long black hair, a small scruff of beard, and gray eyes behind small silver-rimmed glasses. His white skin is dark, but not that weird orange store tan. "Last week," I mutter not to his face, but toward the camera hanging around his neck.