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  Returning my gaze to the blue flowers, I said, “Fine, I’ll tell you what I want to do. But it’s a secret.”

  “So is my deodorant,” Jasmine replied. “And I still have it above my bathroom sink. See? I keep secrets.”

  Choosing not to dwell on the pure insanity of her reply, I blurted, “I want to work for the CIA, as a spy.”

  It felt so good to say that out loud.

  “Really?” Jasmine said as another cabinet door closed. “That sounds exciting. Maybe a little too dangerous. But exciting. What makes you want to do that?”

  Now that I’d started on the truth, I didn’t want to stop.

  So, my courage bolstered, I turned to face Jasmine.

  She had two slices of white bread on a plate, and she was dumping an entire can spam onto one of them.

  My stomach turned a little, but I ignored it and continued, “I’ve had a lot of practice at switching identities and keeping secrets. It’s something I’m really good at.”

  Jasmine tossed the empty can of Spam into her kitchen sink, her boobs jiggling with every movement.

  “Why not keep the danger out of the mix and just go to Hollywood? You could be an actress. Get on the big screen and shoot fake guns instead of real ones. But you’d still get to be a different person from one movie to the next. Wouldn’t that be more fun?” she asked, opening a miniature refrigerator at her left.

  I took a few steps forward and leaned on the counter facing the kitchen. Now that I was closer to the Spam, I could really smell it. And let me tell you, I have never been so glad to be a vegetarian.

  “I thought about that when I was younger. And for a while I wanted to be an actress,” I admitted. Jasmine retrieved a small can of olives from the fridge and used her fingers to pick out five and carefully place each on top of the spam.

  Watching her in rapt disgust, I continued, “But there was this one time, when my mom and I were living in L.A. and we saw Selena Gomez in a restaurant and, unfortunately, we weren’t the only ones who noticed her. People kept walking up to her table, interrupting her. She couldn’t even eat. And by the time she got up to leave, the paparazzi showed up, so there was a literal swarm of flashing cameras and fans trying to get to her while she left the place. I don’t know how anyone can live like that. I wouldn’t want to.”

  Jasmine laughed as she returned the olives to the fridge and reached for a small plastic bag containing almond slivers. “Honey, I didn’t say “why not be famous,” I said, “why not be an actress?””

  “But I’m really good,” I said, watching Jasmine pour the almond slivers over the olives and spam. “If I went to Hollywood to be an actress, I’d become famous. No doubt about it. I mean, I have the hair for greatness, right?”

  Jasmine chuckled and pointed to me. “Look at you! Learning yourself from the truth I speak. Yes, your hair’s energy does emit a certain unmatched greatness.” She set the almonds aside and reached for another small plastic bag containing at least 50 packets of Taco Bell sauce. She pulled two out and ripped them open, “Plus that you’re gorgeous, but you’ve got meat on your bones. That’s what studios want these days- unattainable beauty with attainable body size. It confuses, yet satiates audiences.”

  I blinked back at Jasmine, confused by own feelings. Usually, when someone gives me a backhanded compliment about my weight or my race, I just smile and change the subject. But Jasmine was a crazy person. And I was allowed to be honest with a crazy person.

  “I hate it when people point out my weight,” I said. “It makes me feel like I’m not anything other than my weight.”

  Jasmine shrugged as she poured both packets of Taco Bell Fire sauce on top of the almond slivers. “Well, if you’re going to be an actress, get used to being treated like cattle.”

  “But I don’t want to be an actress. I want to be a spy. For the CIA,” I reminded her. And despite myself, I smiled.

  This was actually kind of fun. It was like having a conversation with a brick wall that had suddenly come to life, oddly comforting and without repercussions.

  “Oh,” Jasmine threw her head back and laughed. “That’s right! I’m so out of it. Wow. My oops.”

  I watched, fascinated, as she put a clean slice of white bread on top of her creation and proceeded to take a bite of her Spam, olive, and almond sandwich.

  She closed her eyes, moaned with delight, and then spoke with her mouth full, “This is so good!”

  “Really?” I asked doubtfully.

  “So,” her mouth still full, she tilted her head and looked at me as she said, “tell me more about yourself, goddess.”

  I’m not sure what it was that made me feel so open around Jasmine.

  Maybe it was the softness of her slightly dilated eyes and the kindness in her breezy tone of voice, or the fact that she was completely mental and wasn’t likely to remember one word of our conversation.

  In any case, I felt totally unfettered, as if I could say anything and still be safe. So, I opened my mouth and continued to tell her the truth, “I miss my dad. I haven’t seen him since I was a little kid.”

  “That’s rough, a cub needs her father. Typically,” Jasmine said as she took another bite of her disgusting spamwich.

  I frowned, guilt washing over me, “Well, I shouldn’t miss him. He was a bad guy. But the truth is that I do. A lot.”

  “There is no ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’,” Jasmine said, her voice soft as she set her spamwich down on the counter and gave me her full attention. “There’s only you being human. The rest is just chemistry and us reacting to our place in the stream of time. Don’t feel guilty about feelings you don’t understand.”

  I blinked back at her, confused.

  Basically, she was just saying a bunch of words. But when those words were strung together in a sentence, they made no sense whatsoever.

  Even so, she looked at me with such empathy that I felt I could keep talking. So, keep talking is exactly what I did.

  “Yeah. I think about him every day,” I confessed. “He used to like to bake. That was our thing. We baked apple pies together. He was good at it. And on the weekends we’d make breakfast together. Usually, pancakes.”

  “That’s so sweet,” Jasmine cooed.

  Despite myself, I smiled, thinking of my dad as he’d put on a silly voice and narrate every step of his baking, as if he were the star of a cooking show. That used to crack me up when I was a little kid.

  “Yeah,” I slowly replied. “Sometimes, it’s still hard for me to believe that deep down, he was so screwed up…”

  A noise, like a sliding door opening, sounded behind me and startled, I turned around.

  Jen marched into the living room. Her long red hair had been braided into one of those Katniss side-braid things that people in the south are still wearing and she had on a cute green jumper that looked like it cost twice as much as her entire trailer.

  I pushed aside nostalgic thoughts of my dad and refocused to sleepover-mode as I waved at her. “Hey, Jen.”

  Thoughts of ditching this weird sleepover forgotten, I smiled even wider as she scowled and said, ”You’re early,” in an accusatory tone.

  “I thought I was supposed to be here at eight.”

  “Not at eight exactly. No one does that.” Her eyes narrowing, Jen looked at her mother. “We discussed you wearing clothes tonight. That was supposed to be a thing.”

  “I am, I have on bottoms,” Jasmine said with her mouth full.

  Jen rolled her eyes and stepped into the kitchen. “We agreed to bottoms and a top, and since you’re in breach of our verbal contract, we’re going somewhere else. Give them to me.” She held out her hand.

  Jasmine shook her head and took another bite of her sandwich. “You know my rules, Jen. I don’t have a lot of them. But the ones I have matter. And they’re not to be broken.”

  “And you know that you need to put on a top when my friends come over,” Jen hissed.

  I tried to be as inconspicuous as possibl
e while they stared each other down, Jasmine chewing a spam sandwich and Jen looking like she could, at any moment, shoot laser beams from her eyes.

  “You’re such a brat,” Jasmine finally said. She made a face and took the last bite of her sandwich. Talking with her mouth full, she continued, “I’ve always said, if you’re going to experience life in this way, you will experience it with your giver of life. You know that.”

  “Then, my giver of life needs to put on a bra, at the very least,” Jen said through gritted teeth.

  “Fine.” Jasmine held up both of her hands in surrender. She closed her eyes and shook her head, “I will wear a bra.”

  “And a shirt,” Jen said.

  “And the stupid shirt! Meaning I might as well wear a… a …a pantsuit,” Jasmine spit that last word out like it was a spoonful of bad yogurt. With this, she tore out of the kitchen, right past me, and into the hallway. A door slammed, shaking the entire trailer.

  Jen turned to me and exhaled. She looked tired.

  I smiled to cover my awkwardness. “I fight with my mom all the time too.”

  Jen glared at me and sneered as if I’d just insulted her.

  I shifted on my feet and spoke to cover the silence. “So, what do you guys have planned for tonight?”

  Jen arched an eyebrow at me.

  “You’re telling me you just heard that entire conversation, and you’ve seen all this,” she pointed to the trailer. “And you still don’t know what we’re doing tonight?”

  Despite my embarrassment, I faked a laugh and tried to look relaxed.

  “I’m not an idiot,” I chuckled and proceeded to lie as hard as I could, “Of course I know. I just want to hear you say it.”

  This earned me a slight grin.

  When I saw it, I nearly lost my ever-increasing anxiety.

  I made Jen Struthers grin.

  “Fine,” Jen said, still grinning. She shrugged. “We’re getting high.”

  My ignorance fell down on me like an invisible giant hammer.

  Oh.

  I glanced at the plants and suddenly realized what the funky smell I’d been trying not to inhale was.

  I also realized that, in spite of all I’d been through in the past four years, I was still incredibly naïve.

  Chapter Four

  “Do you know what it’s like to feel lost?” Kimberly asked. I glanced at her. She sat, across from me, in a cheap plastic lawn chair identical to the one I was in. Jasmine and Jen’s trailer was just a foot or so away to our right. They were inside with Lindsey, drinking and watching some old action movie from the 90’s. I told them I’d stay outside to help Kimberly keep watch for the pizza guy. We’d ordered three large pizzas- two pepperoni and one veggie- around 8:45. It was now 9:30 and still, no pizza delivery dude.

  Kimberly took a slow drag from the blunt in her left hand. Jasmine had referred to it as Royal Gorilla and instructed us to “take it easy” because it was apparently, incredibly potent.

  I wouldn’t know because I’d only been pretending to smoke.

  Letting my guard down around a certifiable nutso like Jasmine was one thing, but becoming vulnerable around a bunch of popular cheerleaders who I’d just met was way too dangerous.

  Getting high and accidentally telling people my mom and I moved around the country like gypsies so she could con rich men out of their money wasn’t exactly on my ‘to-do’ list for the evening.

  Besides, I had a thing about drugs. I didn’t like the idea of not having control over my own mind.

  Kimberly offered me the blunt.

  I accepted it and brought it to my lips, pretending to take a puff.

  I coughed for good measure and handed it back to Kimberly.

  “Do I know what it’s like to feel what?” I asked.

  “Lost,” Kimberly said as she set the blunt down on an ashtray sitting on the tiny little table between us. Just beside it was a half full can of beer. I couldn’t be sure, but I figured it was Kimberly’s third of the evening.

  She wrapped a lazy hand around it and brought it to her lips, taking a long pull before she continued her thought, “Like you don’t even know how to put one foot in front of the other anymore? Like you’ve been wandering through life too long and now you’re just, like, so tired you can’t even pick a direction?”

  I watched Kimberly lean back in her lawn chair and sigh. Her hazel eyes were wide and dilated as she looked up at the stars.

  For a person who was currently higher than America’s national debt, Kimberly looked really pretty. It wasn’t that her clothes were super stylish. She wore a pair of denim shorts and an extra-large flannel shirt. But with her long, blonde hair loose and wavy as it hung over her shoulders and her head tilted back while she stared at the sky, she looked amazing.

  It was easy to see why she was among Sunnyville High’s popular. She’d been blessed by whatever it was in the universe that bestowed great beauty upon a select few.

  What it wasn’t easy for me to see was what someone like Kimberly could possibly have to feel sad about. It wasn’t like she experienced prejudice the way my mom did and she certainly didn’t have to spend every waking second lying to people, like I did.

  She was a rich, blonde, cheerleader.

  Trying not to sound judgmental, I asked, “What makes you so tired?”

  She laughed and closed her eyes.

  At first, she didn’t say anything, and the air was filled with the nighttime sounds of frogs, crickets, along with a revving engine somewhere in the distance.

  I looked up at the starry Texas sky, enjoying the way it stretched itself out, seemingly endless.

  “Everything.”

  Kimberly’s response was so soft I barely heard it.

  I turned to her, surprised to see a tear sliding down her cheek. Her eyes were still closed and nothing else in her expression seemed upset. But the tear said enough.

  I sat up, but that was all I could do because for a moment I was unsure of how to respond.

  “Are you okay?” I hesitantly asked.

  Her eyes still closed, Kimberly laughed and shook her head.

  “A little drunk,” she said with a choked giggle. “A lot lost.”

  “Lost?” I repeated.

  “I’m like wandering towards nowhere,” she opened her eyes and turned to me. “You know, I’m supposed to take over my Dad’s business after college. But I hate cars and I hate money. Especially loans from family. It makes people evil.”

  I blinked back at Kimberly as I tried to connect the dots.

  “So, your Dad fixes cars or something?” I asked.

  “He sells used cars, and he has the stupidest commercial,” Kimberly said with a sigh. “It’s loud and embarrassing and there’s this guy in a chicken suit. And he wants me to run the place. I’m supposed to go to college here, run the chicken car business here, marry some hick here, raise spoiled snot-nosed kids here, and die here. That’s what I’m supposed to do.”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked as I leaned back in my chair and turned on my side so I could face her.

  She chuckled again. “I don’t know. But I know I don’t want to be here. And that’s not good, because if you’re going to get out of this place, you need a plan. You know?”

  “Yeah, I’m big on plans too.” I let my gaze wander back up to the sky, thinking about all the times my mom and I had packed up and left town with absolutely no plan whatsoever. We just left.

  The first time that happened, I freaked out. When I’d asked Mom where we were headed and she admitted she had no idea, I yelled at her.

  I’ve always been a planner and my mom’s always been the exact opposite; she tears through life like a star on a wild trajectory.

  Somehow it works for her.

  But it took time for me to realize that.

  Over the years I went along, loyal but doubtful, as mom’s adventures took us on a series of random stops at cities across the nation. She never had a detailed plan other than, ‘find a rich
man, make him fall in love with me, steal his money and then high tail it to our next unknown destination.’

  And somehow, every single time we relocated, Mom’s lack-of-planning worked.

  That first time we moved and I’d yelled at her for not thinking things through, after telling me to never yell at her again unless I wanted to see a side of her that would “scare the kinks out of my curls,” Mom explained that powerful people accept the fact that they’re as endless and directionless as the universe they’re made from.

  She said when we accept that, we learn to be fluid and move with life’s current, instead of trying to plan each moment.

  “One day you’ll be wise like me,” Mom said. “And you’ll learn there’s no such thing as success or failure, there’s only flowing and dancing with life as she guides you along.”

  Eventually, I realized that this theory worked for Mom, but I wasn’t sure it worked for everyone…

  That said, as I glanced at Kimberly -a rich, white girl who had a lot going for her- I knew Mom’s theory would be perfect for her.

  Unfortunately, I had no idea how to explain it.

  So, I settled with, “You’re going to be okay, chica.”

  More tears filled her eyes. “I don’t think so.”

  As I watched her cry, my heart sort of split in half.

  “Look up there,” I said, lifting one of my hands and pointing to the sky. “All those stars and sky, so pretty. What word does it make you think of?”

  “Huge.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good word. It is huge, and it seems endless, doesn’t it?” I glanced at Kimberly.

  The tears were spilling over, but she just kept looking up at the sky.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know, scientists say the universe is constantly expanding in all directions.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “And maybe that’s what we’re supposed to be like too. Maybe we’re not supposed to choose one direction, but we’re supposed to grow in all sorts of directions, like the universe keeps growing in all directions.”

  “Oh…” Kimberly’s voice trailed off.