Lop-Sided

My life began unraveling last Friday at school. The night before, I hung out at Marissa’s house. It was like old times. We were in her bedroom, listening to the original version of Total Eclipse of The Heart. A veil of smoke hung in the air between the burgundy-colored walls. She opened the window, but there was comfort in knowing Marissa’s mom was always passed out drunk on the couch downstairs. She wouldn’t come barging through the door like my dad if there is the slightest chance of mischief. Marissa and I laughed at pictures in last year’s yearbook, and she convinced me to let her cut my hair in an asymmetrical wedge.

This wasn’t our first time experimenting with haircuts. In kindergarten, we cut each other’s hair, and our moms laughed at the short bangs memorialized in our class photo. Marissa only lives a block away, but our families drifted apart after Marissa’s parents divorced a few years ago.

When I got home from Marissa’s house, I tried to dash from the front door to my bedroom, but mom stopped me with a joyful call from the kitchen.

“Shelby! Come let us see that new hairstyle!”

I reluctantly walked into the kitchen under the bright, flickering bulbs.

“Why would you do that?” Dad frowned.

Mom replied, “Oh relax, Frank. It’s just hair. It will grow back.”

I snarled that I liked it, and that’s all that matters. As I turned toward my bedroom, Bethany stood there displaying her latest drawing of a house. She smiled enthusiastically and told me she likes my hair.

“Thanks, Bethany. I’m so glad to get the approval of a six-year-old.” I went to my bedroom and slammed the door.

By lunchtime on Friday, Marissa reverted back to being cold and distant. She sat at a table with her new friends, the older girls. I walked over to their table and told Marissa to scoot over. She sat motionless, not even glancing my way. I stood there against the first wave of rejection, confused how we had sneaked cigarettes from her mom’s purse the night before and laughed until our stomachs hurt. Now this.

“Scooch!” I said to Marissa.

Kelly, the tall girl with sparkly gold eyeliner yapped, “Go away lop-side.”

Lop-side? What the hell does that mean? I waited for Marissa to move over.

Kelly’s sidekick chimed in, “Your hair looks dumb.”

Kelly belted out a laugh that traveled across the cafeteria. Stunned with bewilderment, I stared at Marissa. She slowly peeled her eyes away from her mango smoothie with a death stare.

“We’re done here. You can go,” Marissa said dismissively.

Baffled, I asked Marissa what I had done. Kelly spoke for the group threatening that if I didn’t walk away, I would get my ass beat. My heart thumped in my ears, and the air escaped my lungs. I shrugged with a "whatever" as I turned away with legs wobbling like Jell-O.

Throughout the rest of the day, the whispers grew louder in the hallways, and by the end of the day, the rumor had met my ears. Kelly was planning to beat me up for some unknown reason on Monday. I didn’t even know Kelly. Suddenly she was a fixture in Marissa’s life, and I was an enemy.

As I walked home from school, I passed by Nathan’s house. He was in the driveway sorting newspapers for afternoon deliveries. Nathan is one grade below me in school. I plopped down on the concrete next to him.

“I like the smell of paper,” I said.

“Huh?” Nathan looked up.

I had to explain. “You know the weird things that you only share with a good friend?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I like the smell of different kinds of paper. That’s all.”

“Okaaaay,” he said. Nathan continued bundling newspapers as I fished in my backpack for gum.

“I’m supposed to get beat up at school on Monday.”

“By who?” he asked.

“Some new friend of Marissa’s,” I said.

“Why?”

“I dunno.”

“Isn’t Marissa your best friend?”

I shrugged.

“Just don’t go,” he said.

“Don’t go to school? That will make me look chicken,” but I had to admit the idea was taking hold as a viable option.

“I don’t go to school when I don’t feel like it,” he said. “We could watch movies at my house.”

It was weird to have a younger kid convincing me to skip school. I had ditched school once before, but that was different. This time I wasn’t planning to spend the day swimming at the lake.

“Does your dad know you don’t go to school?”

“No,” he said, “Ever since my mom died, there’s no one here to know if I left for school or came home on time.” We sat in awkward silence for a few minutes. I always wanted to ask him about his mom.

“How did she die?” I asked.

“Cancer.”

“Oh.” I stared at the tiny rocks embedded in the concrete while Nathan continued bundling newspapers that old people read. He stood up and began loading the newspapers into a bag that he carefully balanced on his bike.

“I gotta go,” he said, “but think about it. I probably won’t go to school on Monday anyway. I hate Mondays.”

All weekend I stayed in my room wondering why Marissa betrayed me. The haircut was her idea. Mom and dad wouldn’t understand, so I didn’t bother telling them I was a pariah. I stood in front of the mirror with scissors and a peach scented candle burning on my dresser. It was the candle grandma got me from her trip to Hawaii. I tilted my head back and forth contemplating whether to cut my hair even, but I set the scissors back down. I tried calling Marissa. She didn’t answer.

From the living room, I could hear mom and dad listening to gloomy Willie Nelson ballads. Mom prefers upbeat jazz, but she usually goes along with what dad wants. I asked her one time why they got married since they don’t like the same stuff. She said they’re yin and yang—whatever that means. Mom makes pottery and spends hours rearranging Bethany’s artwork on our fridge, while dad buries himself in aircraft manuals. He’s an aircraft mechanic.

Mom is always lofty, dancing through the house. Dad wears a scowl, and all the neighborhood kids are scared of him. He’s not really mean though. He’s just unhappy. He never got to be a kid since he was the oldest when grandma became a widow. That’s what mom says anyway. After a few glasses of rum, dad starts smiling and dancing with mom. That’s when he elongates her name like a song. Gloooor-eeee-aaaaahhh. Any other time, it’s Glo. One syllable, as if he doesn’t have time to say Gloria.

Monday morning, I threw my backpack over my shoulder and began walking to school with knots in my stomach. Nathan waited on his porch. Since he usually goes to school before me, I knew he already made his choice. I looked back down the sidewalk at mom and dad’s cars parked at my house. The street was empty of people. I walked into Nathan’s house, and just like that, the decision was made. I was not going to school. Butterflies in my stomach took flight, and Nathan offered me some apple butter toast.

“Sure,” I said even though I already ate breakfast.

We spent the next few hours watching his dad’s old cult-classic movies like The Toxic Avenger and smoking weed he found in his dad’s nightstand drawer. I was only five houses away from home but a million miles from anywhere. By noon, I felt emboldened and asked Nathan if he could get some stronger weed from his cousin. Nathan hesitated. Ever since Nathan’s mom died, his dad didn’t let him affiliate with the other side of the family. Probably for good reason. I persisted, so Nathan called his cousin.

“We have to go over there now if we want to get something,” he said when hanging up the phone.

I jumped up eager for an adventure, and since mom and dad were already at work, there was no chance of me getting caught. Nathan and I walked ten blocks, crossing under the freeway to get to his cousin’s house. Even though we weren’t far from home, it felt like we were in a distant land. The sidewalks faded away, dandelions grew tall, and garbage pressed firmly against the chain-link fence.

“That’s his house,” Nathan pointed.

The yellow paint peeled away from the house in large strips revealing raw wood underneath, and the gutters overflowed with dead leaves. The porch smelled like wet dog. We stood there with hands in our pockets, shivering until Nathan’s cousin opened the squeaky front door. We stepped inside to a dark living room where the curtains had probably never been opened. I heard a baby crying upstairs muffled by an infomercial blaring on the TV nearby. I stayed quiet and let Nathan do the talking.

“We want something good—to have fun.” It was obvious Nathan didn’t know exactly what we were asking for. Neither did I really. Nathan’s cousin told us to sit down, and he lit a small pipe before passing it to me. In my limited experience, I knew this ritual was required to prove I’m not a narc. I took a hit and immediately tasted something different than I ever had before. I passed the pipe to Nathan who confidently inhaled a big hit. When the pipe came back around to me, I didn’t want any more, but I was afraid to say no. I took another hit, and that’s when the wave washed over me. My heart was racing. The walls began breathing, and I jumped to my feet. “Let’s go, Nathan!”

I don’t remember any good-byes with his cousin. I just wanted to get home. Instead of going back the way we came, I ran straight toward home and jumped over the freeway railing to take a short-cut. The next thing I knew, I was face down on the freeway with Nathan yelling.

“Shelby! Get up! Get up! You’re in the road!” Get up!” He pulled on my arm while my eyes scanned the dark and gritty asphalt with slick white dashes. A bitter chemical coated my tongue. The world tilted upside down, emptying my mind of all thought. My heart pounded hard against the ground. And like a flaming arrow to my chest, a fire ignited inside me to jump up and keep running to the other side of the freeway.

We made it back to Nathan’s house before the end of the school day, both sitting on his couch in silence sipping tea. Nathan said his mom used to make him tea when he didn’t feel good. Everything I ran away from that day crept into my mind as the clock’s ticking came into sharp focus. I needed a couple hours to come down from this horrible experience before walking back home to pretend it was an ordinary day to mom and dad.

“Can I ask you a question?” Nathan began. I nodded. “Why did your parents name you Shelby?”

Dad said I was named after a car, but mom said she picked from a list of gender-neutral names. The day I was born, she looked at me and said, “It’s Shelby!” I guess I could have been an Adrian, Jordan, or Taylor, but mom landed on Shelby and dad agreed. Or maybe it was the other way around.

“It’s a cool name,” Nathan said with eyes fixed on the coffee table.

“Thanks.”

While cartoons played on the TV, I sat on the edge of the couch watching the clock until the moment it would seem normal to be strolling in from school. I didn’t really know Nathan that well, but now we were bound by a terrifying experience and had to wash it from our memories like it never happened. I grabbed my backpack and headed for the door while Nathan prepared to do his afternoon paper route.

“See ya later,” I said sheepishly.

“See ya,” he replied.

I walked up to the house and noticed mom’s car was gone. Instead, Aunt Margie’s car was in the driveway next to dad’s car. As I opened the front door and heard all the voices, I wondered why Aunt Margie, Uncle Spencer, and my two cousins would be at the house on a Monday afternoon. In the corner of the living room, the TV was louder than usual, and our cousins played with Bethany, distracted from the adult conversation in the kitchen. The adults were discussing some kind of logistics about picking up mom’s car.

“Where’s mom?” I asked.

Margie guided me by my arm to the dining table and told me to sit down. Dad stared at the floor with his jaw clenched. Spencer stood with arms crossed.

“What’s going on?” I asked. Suddenly words floated in the air like tiny helium balloons drifting overhead. I only caught glimpses of them one at a time, not piecing together the whole story. The phone kept ringing. I looked at dad, but his gaze was fixed on the floor like he was meticulously mapping out how to put an airplane back together. My throat closed tightly as Margie slowly enunciated her message to me.

“Your mama had an aneurism at the store today.”

“A what?” I waited for more words, but it felt like each one had to cross an ocean single file before washing upon the shore of my ears. I searched for my own words, but the door to my throat closed.

“Your mama passed on today.”

My eyes scanned the room. Where was mom? She couldn’t go away. This is a mistake. Bethany played across the room, oblivious. I jumped up and ran out the front door all the way to Nathan’s house. He was about to get on his bike with a bag full of newspapers. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I gasped for air. Nathan paused with puzzled eyebrows when dad ran up behind me and hugged me tight. Between each gasp for air, I managed to get one word out at a time to string together the question.

“Where…is…she?”

Dad said mom was at the hospital and led me back to the house with his arm wrapped around me. I didn’t look back at Nathan.

The rest of the night was hazy, yet I somehow slept until morning. I woke up with eyeliner and mascara smears around my eyes. Mom always called me her matchbox girl when I woke up with yesterday’s makeup, but she wasn’t parked at the table with a cup of coffee as usual. Dad made enough breakfast for all four of us even though Bethany stayed the night at Aunt Margie’s house with our cousins. My breath had returned to my body, but I didn’t have anything to say. Dad and I ate in silence, staring at the excess of eggs, biscuits, and orange juice on the table. He didn’t need to tell me I wasn’t going to school. I wanted to call Marissa.

The next few days were fuzzy with people streaming in and out of the house with more food than we could ever eat. I became a geometry whiz at rearranging the contents of the fridge while Bethany made drawings of mom. Dad spent his hours on the phone or politely smiling and accepting casseroles from well-wishing neighbors. Aunt Margie managed a notepad by the door with each person’s name to send thank you cards for all the food.

As the days passed, my thoughts shifted to how shitty it was that I ditched school and was getting high while mom was lying on the floor at Kings Supermarket taking her last breath. I kept wondering ‘Where is mom now?’ My parents didn’t believe in heaven or hell, but she had to have gone somewhere.

Eventually I returned to school. I was invisible to everyone except my teachers overflowing with condolences. Each time, I clutched my books and wished for the floor to swallow me up. Marissa passed me in the hallway, issuing a kinked smile that seemed to be part apology, part pity. I’m not sure. I was a zombie drifting between home and school with my backpack loaded with the contents of my locker. Kelly’s locker was close to mine, so I didn’t take any chances.

One morning I woke up from a dream about mom. I patched the pieces of the dream together as I made my way to the dining table where dad had breakfast waiting.

“I had a dream about mom,” I said.

“Oh yeah?”

Normally it was mom who listened to Bethany and me talk about our dreams, but I laid out every detail to dad while Bethany pushed eggs around on her plate.

In my dream, I was alone standing next to an old barn like the one at grandma’s house. Dense trees surrounded the barn on three sides, but there was a huge grassy field on the side near the door. It was dark with no streetlights to be seen, yet the stars were bright. The earth was quiet and damp. Suddenly a barn owl swooped down, performing a solo dance through the air. As the owl flew away into the dark, mom appeared in the distance walking toward me.

I ran toward her asking “What are you doing here? You died!”

“I know,” she said nonchalantly.

“How are you here?” I asked.

“I didn’t go anywhere. I just don’t wear shoes anymore. That’s the only thing that changed.”

I soaked in the sight of her face and inhaled the familiar smell of clay, clinging to the moment before I woke up.

I remembered seeing a barn owl once at dad’s work. It was late at night, and he had something to show me. He opened the hangar doors where a few airplanes were held for maintenance. I followed him into the dark with the streetlight guiding our path to the light switch. With his finger on the switch, he said, “Watch this” and pointed his nose to the ceiling. As he flipped on the intensely bright hangar lights, a barn owl silently swooped through the air to a perch on the opposite corner.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Just keep watching” he said softly.

Another owl sailed through the air, crisscrossing the path of the first owl. The two gorgeous white owls lived in the rafters. Dad watched me as I took in the display of the soundless dance between these beautiful creatures. This was a moment when all was right in the world. Dad pointed out the nests in the corners of the room and promised me they would not be evicted. It’s a time I remember him smiling without a glass of rum in his hand.

After telling my dream to dad, I expected to get ready for school, but dad said we’re taking a break from school and work for a while.

“I don’t have to go to school?”

Dad looked surprised, asking “You don’t want to go to school?”

“No, I hate school.”

Dad let out a defeated sigh signaling the lack of strength to know more.

“Where are we going?” I quizzed him.

Bethany showed no interest in our conversation until dad said, “Grandma’s.”

A little smile of hope emerged on each of our faces. I imagined us sitting at grandma’s kitchen counter, swiveling in her vinyl barstools, and eating grilled cheese sandwiches.

The obvious question emerged. “Why?”

Dad sighed again and took my hand. “With your mom gone, we’re going to stay with grandma so she can help take care of Bethany . . . and us.”

The void of mom’s presence had a stab of permanence in my chest.

“Will we come back here to this house?” I asked.

“Probably not. Is that ok with you?”

I thought about everything we were leaving behind and whether to say goodbye to Nathan and Marissa. We wouldn’t shop at Kings Supermarket anymore or watch mom spin her pottery wheel at the studio. I also felt relieved by the thought of never seeing Kelly and her stupid gold eyeliner again.

“Yeah, it’s ok with me,” I said.

“Me too!” Bethany echoed.

I tried to imagine our new life at grandma’s from a slideshow of familiar memories like dad taking us to the beach and doing somersaults in the ocean or dad’s famous ‘backwards night dinners’ when we ate ice cream for dinner before heading home for rice and vegetables. He would teasingly say “You have to eat all of your dinner or no vegetables!” as we polished off ice cream cones in the back of the car. Mom and dad laughed and exchanged loving glances from the front seat while Bethany and I rushed through dinner.

Dad broke my reverie of salt water and the race against melting ice cream to make his declaration. “The world is a little lop-sided right now. We could all use a reset.”

I smiled at dad, took a deep breath, and decided not to tell him just how lop-sided the world really is.