Chapter Thirteen

 Two family sized Bimbo’s specials and three orders of their famous hot wings barely survived the party, and only when its attendants could no longer stuff food into their mouths for fear of puking it all back up in their mosquito filled bathrooms where the remnants safe. At least, that’s how Mike put it. I just said that one college male plus one high school female would send any restaurant in panic.

        “You two,” Molly chided, and her cousin nodded in agreement. We just laughed as he tried to get left over ranch sauce on my nose but only succeeding in getting it in my hair.

        “Oh come on, let them be kids while they still can,” Tyler laughed as he joined in. Henry chuckled alone with his son-in-law as the two of them finally managed to cover the bridge of my nose with the white stuff.

The waitress came with our take out package then, a cardboard personal pizza plate and paper bag. “We’ve stopped using Styrofoam, so I hope these will do.”

        Henry nodded in approvement. “Yes, that is marvelous. It will do perfectly.”

        She turned to me and asked, “Is this the young lady that played the violin for Henry’s radio thing?”

        I blushed and muttered, “Just how many people know that I’m the violinist?”

        Mike smiled. “Everyone except Grandpa’s relatives it seems. That was you? I missed it when they said who played it. You’re better than I thought.”

        I rolled my eyes. “Sure I am.”

        “Really! Jeez, when will you get it?”

        “Never,” I replied stubbornly. Everyone just laughed at me.

        I had great fun that evening. More than I had had in a long time. But it didn’t last forever. I eventually had to go home, mostly alone save for the old man I barely knew passed out on the couch.

        My life went into a cycle soon. Get up, go to school, visit Mom, do homework, play violin, go to bed, then start it over again. Not much time for friends in any case. I didn’t miss it. The secrets that were slowly revealing themselves, and it was painful to keep the rest of them hidden. Too painful.

 

Christmas break came quickly enough. I was trying to maintain good grades in school, and I thought for the most part that I was succeeding. Mom was still in the hospital, and true to her word, Mrs. Sylvia was paying for all of the expenses. The nurses and doctors started grumbling that they needed the room, but they knew that there was no way for her to be transferred. It had been hard enough for her to get used to being there, and she still needed careful watching over so she couldn’t go home yet, no matter how shabby our apartment got. Eventually I had to give up our regular phone, using my cell phone for everything. It served all my purposes.

        For Christmas I put up our small, plug in Christmas tree. Dad had found a job for minimum wage, but it was still money, so I had to go over to Mrs. Sylvia’s place less often. I have to admit that I missed those afternoons in her warm home, but I was able to keep up my end of the bargain in my own better.

        As I said, Dad had found a job. At Super One. He stocked shelves, but he was gone from around noon to eight at night. I had about five hours by myself, so I did most of my homework then and started on some cleaning and preparing food. Not much to do, really. Oh, and somehow I managed to squeeze in paying the bills.

        I was going back and forth between my house and the hospital as much as I could, which wasn’t much.  There was just too much homework to do, and I couldn’t do it while Dad was there.  So I had to do all of it while he was at work.  At least I wasn’t the only one paying the bills anymore.

        Soon enough, which wasn’t really all that soon, school started up again.  The most popular, most pretty, girl in school came back with a tan from spending Christmas break skiing in the Rockies, visiting her cousin in Nevada.  Christina Michaelson was her name, but everyone, even her people who weren’t her friends, called her Christie.  Except me.

        Christina and I had gone to elementary school together.  She was at my first violin recital in first grade when I screwed up on Minuet 2 from the first Suzuki book.  She made fun of me for it for a year, and later when Brian Milani screwed up on a piano version of Pachelbel’s Canon in D, she moved on to her next victim.  Because after that first recital I never made a mistake.

        In any case, Christina came back, blonde and tan and snooty and “perfect.”  And I was pale with mousy brown hair, quiet and an outcast.  So of course she pointed that out as soon as she could.  Which was first hour.

        “Katie, didn’t you go outside at all during break?” she asked.

        “Hello to you, too,” I replied, avoiding her question and continuing on with the Science worksheet.

        Christina scoffed.  “You still didn’t answer me.  Why are you still so pale?”

        “I had work to do.  That involved staying inside,” I replied.

        “Well, that’s just dumb.  You couldn’t go outside for five minutes?  It would have done wonders for you skin.”

        “Now now ladies, be nice to Katie.”  I jumped and looked up to find Mike smiling down at me.  I smiled back.  “Surprised to see me?”

        “Heck yeah!  What are you doing here?”  It was towards the end of the hour, so I got away with jumping out of my desk and hugging him.

        “Well, I’m supposed to be helping out with a couple of the classes, but I just had to drop by and see how my favorite sophomore was doing,” he laughed.

        I rolled my eyes.  “While you’re here, lunch with me?  Rudy’s Pizzeria?”

        He shrugged.  “Why not?  I have the entire week here.”

        “How’s HCC?  Not too hard for you?  I still don’t get why you didn’t go to the Cities or some other larger city for college.”

        “I couldn’t leave you here, all alone and so bored without my good-looking face to gape at.”  I punched him in the arm.  “Hey!  Not the arm you carry the violin with!”

        “Oh, like you’re not stronger than me,” I scoffed, a tone that could have matched the tone of the popular girl now staring at me.

        “Well, that’s true, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t strong, Katie.”

        And just to ruin the moment, the bell rang.  Mike had to stay and talk with Mrs. Warner, the head of the everything to do with the Almighty Science at our school.  Even so, he promised to meet me at my locker to take me to Rudy’s Pizzeria as soon as the fourth hour bell rang.  And let me tell you, it took a very long time to ring.  The longest time it ever had.

Author's Note

Just for the record, the story is set in my hometown. The names of the teachers have changed (except one), and I live in the same neighborhood as Katie. Just not in the apartments =)