It’s been awhile, I know. I have no excuse. I assure you that I’ve been reading and writing, actually more so, with my students as of late. With the conclusion of the spring semester came the ending of my first National Writing Project course through the University of Maine. One of the products of my journey through the course was a creative published piece. In my case, a realistic fiction short story. While I had no intention to publish it originally, I thought I might leave it here, in two installments, one today, and one next week. I always emphasize and encourage my students that they have a voice and they should use it. One of the ways to do that is through the power of the written word. So here’s my written word — everyone, meet Alex.
Just Alex
By Kelsey Stoyanova
My hair gathers in bunches on the floor, and with it, the weight of the world. In the chair next to me sat a man with a little girl on his lap, a toddler, she couldn’t have been older than three. “Are you ready?” He cooed and pressed his fingers gently into her side. Her giggles hung in the air as he lifted her from the chair like an airplane, so the hair stylist could slip a booster seat below. They look happy. I considered if I really knew what happy looks like, what it feels like. Do I look happy? I doubt it. I’m a mixed drink of emotions, one part depressed to three parts insecure. I used my hair as a shield from the world. That’s what I told myself. No, my hair was long because that’s how he liked it. A proper woman ties her hair up on her head and lets it down before bed.
“Alex? That’s forty-five —”
“Oh right, sorry, the little girl, she’s cute.”
I gave her sixty dollars and told her to keep the change. It wasn’t the little girl I was focused on, it was my future, and this haircut was the first step.
Ten Years Ago
“Mom! Look! Look what I found in the mailbox! It’s a magazine, like the ones in the waiting room at Dr. Reese’s office!”
“Alexandria, throw that rubbish away before your father gets home. It was probably dropped here by mistake. I’ll have to talk to the postmaster about it when I go into town tomorrow.”
We live “off the grid” just out of Detroit, Oregon. Our little community is nestled near the Salisbury Springs Resort where most of us, my family included, work to get by. I don’t have many friends, except for the children that come on retreat with their families, but Mom says I’m not supposed to bother them. I’m ten years old and I fold towels all day. I think that’s breaking child labor laws, but what do I know? Dad thinks ten-year-olds don’t know anything and a little manual labor never hurt anybody. The blisters on my feet beg to differ. The magazine in my hands trembles at the slight breeze coming in from the window. Entertainment Weekly. The only other time I’ve seen a magazine like this one was when we went to Dr. Reese’s to check on the baby inside Mom’s belly. Before, we only had to go occasionally, but now that she’s getting bigger Mom says the baby needs special care. I sit in the waiting room while Dr. Reese shows Mom the baby on the computer. I think Mom’s worried about the baby, but she didn’t tell me that.
Ree-HA-nah is on the cover, at least I think that’s how you say it. A couple of days ago, I was bringing a change of towels down to guest cabin five when a car drove past with the windows down, “Next up, the new single making it’s way up the charts nationwide, this is Rude Boy by Rihanna!”
I wonder what Rihanna means. Alexandria means defender of mankind. Dad says that means I’m going to make a good wife someday, Mom says I’m destined for great things, I think I just want to leave Salisbury. I make like I’m headed to throw Rihanna to the top of the compost, but when Mom’s begun to busy herself with lunch I head for my bedroom. In the darkness of the closet I feel for the loose floorboard where I stash all things important but forbidden. I started doing this when I was five and discovered my sweet tooth. The food service man from Portland usually brings me a Tootsie Pop when he drops off the meat delivery every two weeks. That’s the only thing we don’t grow here, the meat, although Dad mentioned the board of directors is talking about striking a deal with Farmer Deschene up the road. I hope it falls through.
The floorboard slips back into place just as the front door shuts. Dad must be home for lunch. I think I’ll ask him if I can go into Detroit Center with him tomorrow. I want to buy some new colored pencils with my allowance, and Mom said now that I’m ten, maybe I can get my hair cut.
“Hi, Pa!” I reach up to kiss him on his cheek and he lifts me the rest of the way.
“Alexandria,” he sets me down, taking his seat at the head of the table.
Mom hasn’t turned to greet him yet, which is odd considering it’s the right thing to do. She slips her hands into oven mitts and pulls out an apple pie.
“For later,” she places it near the open window.
It’s rather warm for March, but where the community sits we get the run off of steam from the Spring, so it’s not unusual. Mom sits at her place across from me and I sit last. It’s respectful. My stomach growls at the sight of a mound of kale salad with grilled chicken and pumpkin seeds. Again. The annoyance spreads across Mom’s face when I load mine with ranch dressing, but something has got to give, I’m not a farm animal!
“How was your appointment, Meredith?” Dad’s eyes wander from Mom’s face to her bulging belly.
“We can talk about it later,” she glances in my direction.
The lack of conversation between them strikes me as an opportunity to make my own gains.
“Pa, can I go into town with you tomorrow? I have five dollars and I want to buy new colored pencils because mine –”
“That sounds like a great idea, Thomas. Alexandria hasn’t been to town in quite some time. She could help you drop off the resort flyers to the businesses and recruit the locals. I could use some time –”
“Yes, right. You will have to help me with business first, Alexandria, and then we can get you your pencils at Sonny’s.”
“And then we can stop at Miss Lisa’s and get my hair cut,” I slip in.
“Alexandria, you know the rules, a proper woman –”
“– ties her hair up on her head and lets it down before bed,” I grumble as my father heads to the door. Where’d he get these ideas from anyway? I’m a kid. It must be from some book called, How to Pretend to Know How to Raise a Daughter. No, he wouldn’t have time to read.
“I’ll see you both for dinner.” Mom opens the door for him, he kisses her forehead, and he’s gone just as soon as he came.
Dad grew up, the oldest of three brothers, right here at the resort. Well, before it was the resort. At only eighteen years old, Dad built the resort to take care of his younger brothers. He had no choice, his mother was long dead and his father took the bottle to his grave. Must have been a thirsty man. Uncle Jay visits once a year, sometimes twice, depending on how much of a handout he needs. I never realized Dad was a teacher until Uncle Jay started getting “handouts” from him. Last time, I asked if I could participate in the lesson too, but the office door shut before I could wiggle through. Adult stuff. We don’t talk much about my other Uncles. I know that Uncle Noah lives in New York. He went to college and now works on Wall Street. I’ve always wondered how big the wall is on Wall Street. There’s nothing to say about Uncle Jerry, not anymore anyway, he was killed in Afghanistan. IED. Dad told him not to enlist. He did it anyway. Mom says I’m a lot like Uncle Jerry.
I was supposed to be Alex, just Alex. A boy with hard hands and a tough exterior. Dad was the oldest of four, he grew up with boys, he understood boys. To him, girls were meant to be put on a pedestal and looked at, and when gawking wasn’t an option, chores and bearing children would suffice. I wonder how my mother feels about that.
Five Years Ago
Two weeks ago, I finally brought myself to come here on the fifth anniversary of her death. It was the end of March when it happened. She went into labor while serving dinner to the Yorks, frequent guests from Los Angeles. Mr. Vafiades, the front desk manager, sent me to my house to retrieve the suitcase in the front closet. The suitcase bounced off my knees all the way back to the main dining hall where Mr. Vafiades had helped Mom into the passenger seat.
“Alex, you’ll have to hop in back,” Mr. Vafiades managed as he plopped behind the wheel.
In back? Only boys rode in back. I considered this but did as I was told. The wind in my hair, tears in my eyes, other cars zooming past. It was exhilarating! Dad was already at Dr. Reese’s waiting. The expression on his face when he saw his ten-year-old daughter, arms outstretched, enjoying the ride in the back of a pickup truck? I’ll give you one guess.
“We’ll discuss this later…” he pointed to the back of the truck as I rushed past him to follow Mom and Mr. Vafiades.
Boundaries had been drawn. I was not his son, and yet, I wasn’t his daughter either, not by his definition anyway. He was more concerned with what I’d done wrong than what was happening with my mother who was going into labor at twenty-two weeks. His dreams were dying right before him and yet, his eyes were on me.
My father pointed to one of the chairs by the receptionist’s desk, “Stay put.”
I searched through the magazines until I found the same Entertainment Weekly that had come to our mailbox just one month earlier. I knew it would be here. Last time, I found a Los Angeles Times from December. I was re-reading about Rihanna’s latest album, Loud, when Mr. Vafiades came out from behind the swinging doors.
“I’m taking you home, Alex.”
“Home? What about Mom?”
“Your father will be home later…”
“But what about Mom?”
He ushered me out the door.
My mother and my baby brother died that day and along with them, my relationship with my father. Mom died of complications from childbirth, though her death certificate read, “internal hemorrhaging.” I didn’t go to her funeral. My father said funerals were no place for little girls and he needed me to start cooking for the company that would be joining us for dinner. I made a pork roast with carrots, potatoes, and cabbage.
I still don’t eat pork.
Now, I wipe away the dirty snow from her gravestone. It appears I’m not the only one that hasn’t been making regular visits. I consider how life might be different if she were still here. Then I realize, she never had a backbone either.
After my mother passed, I continued working at the resort during the day and tending to my studies at night. Mrs. McCavern, a retired school teacher, was helping me with my reading, writing, and math. All behind my father’s back. He didn’t see any need for high school, considering I’d be helping with the business in my mother’s place. So, when I completed year eight at the Salisbury Elementary School, I stopped going completely. When the three other Salisbury kids hopped in a van bound for Detroit High School every morning, I just watched them go, longing to be one of them. Mrs. McCavern had been separating the darks and lights in the laundry room when I asked for her help. We had gotten to know one another chit-chatting over the moans of the industrial washer and dryer (not everything here is organic). She used to teach year ten and college English in Portland before retiring to Salisbury where she sought out a simpler life.
Simple, yeah right.
Mrs. McCavern teaches me lessons in her home on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. Monday and Wednesday, my father meets with visitors of the resort to try to convince them to buy a timeshare. We’re always expanding here at Salisbury. On Friday nights, he says he was meeting with the rest of the board of directors, but he really goes into Detroit Center to Tap’s Tavern. He has taken up drinking. One night, about a month ago, he came home three sheets to the wind and made a mess of the house trying to find his way to his bedroom. He blamed me for not keeping a tidy house the next day. After that, I knew I was going to get out of Salisbury.
“Mrs. McCavern, what’s it like to live alone?”
“Well, dear, it’s not always easy. It was especially lonely after I lost my Oscar, but I rather like not having to answer to anyone.”
“Yeah, that sounds nice.” I consider what it’d be like to move to the city. Not Detroit, that’s too close. Maybe Portland, or Seattle. Mrs. McCavern says a lot of writers go to Seattle. The weather is moody there. Writers are moody. I’m moody and Mrs. McCavern says I have a knack for writing stories. Maybe I should be a writer.
For once, I had a long term goal for my life that had an end result, a goal that wasn’t just getting out of Salisbury and getting away from Thomas.
Two weeks after his drunken escapade, Thomas found the loose floorboard in my closet. He said he was searching for his tape measure, but who looks for a tape measure in the closet of a fifteen-year-old girl, much less under a loose floorboard? I was just getting home from Mrs. McCavern’s, startled to see Thomas’s truck in the driveway. Through the window, I saw his shadow. He was tense, sitting rigid at the table surrounded by a pile of notebooks, books, and magazines. He didn’t so much as twitch at the creak of the door.
“Alexandria.”
“What are you doing?” I snapped.
“What am I doing? What is all of this– this contraband?!”
“Contraband?! I’m fifteen! What you’re doing to me is — is abuse!”
He stood up then. His face twisting, heat building in his cheeks, “You are NOT the daughter I raised. She would never — go to your room and don’t come out.”
The bedroom door all but slammed in his face when he followed too closely. I crossed the room to the oval mirror that hung on the wall by my bed.
A proper woman ties her hair up on her head and lets it down before bed.
My auburn hair lets out a sigh of relief as I pull the pins out. It reaches the bottom of my back. Someday, I thought, running a brush down through the tangles, someday.
To be continued…
Maine-ly Middle & #Mom-ing too 