Useless Dresses

Sometimes, when it was dark enough, I’d open Mom’s letter and make up the words scribbled on the page.

I’d turn off my light and sprint to the closet before my eyes could adjust to the darkness. Then I’d click the door shut and fall to floor, where that old cardboard heap still sat like a childhood monster lurking in the dark—waiting for me to fall asleep, let my guard down, before pouncing.

My hands would shuffle around in the dark for several seconds before finding the little crevice and pulling out the folded page. Then I would unfocus my eyes and pull at the paper until it sat unfolded and flimsy in my hands.

And I would read. Create words with my mind, force them on the page.

Katelyn,
You don’t deserve this.

I would wish, and wish, and pretend.

Katelyn,
You aren’t to blame.
Katelyn,
It’s just something I had to do.

Pretend I never caused my mother’s pain. Pretend I could hate her for leaving—pretend her own selfishness took her away, not mine.

Katelyn,
I’ll miss you.
Katelyn,
I’m sorry.
Kate,
I love you.

Then the streetlights would pierce through my window and sneak under the closet door, forcing me to notice the words on the page. And I would have to push the folds together again and shove the page into its crevice. Hide from it.

I would crawl back into bed on those nights, spooked by my own imagination, wondering what I would find when I read that letter—should I ever read it.

Two weeks passed since I moved to this place. It still snows too much—but it snowed too much in Baltimore, too. And I hated the snow sometimes, no matter where it chose to fall.

Em threw a house party during the second weekend here. Already, the kid worked herself into the social stream at school. She took Denny’s first business trip as a chance to work herself in deeper.

Denny took a lot of business trips. Sometimes I think he spent days at the office just to keep from coming home and facing his family. Sometimes I appreciated his absence. But I tried to stay angry for Bobby—because Bobby loved Denny more than anyone, and missed Denny more than anyone.

I didn’t really plan on staying for the party, but I helped set up and throw bags of chips on the table, and bake those mini ready-to-bake chocolate chips cookies that Emily loved so much. And I gathered all the china and breakables and locked them up in the basement for safekeeping.

“You know all of this isn’t going to last past the first hour,” I told my little sister, who’d been applying glitter to her face and hair over the kitchen sink and didn’t turn to look at me when she responded.

The day sparkled with light as the clouds dispersed and the sun broke through, but now that darkness fell, the outside seemed like a frozen wasteland.

“It’s just to get things started. No one comes to eat, anyway.”

“Are you going to be ok with Bobby?” I asked. I wanted to take the kid with me, but it was already late and there was no place I could take him.

“He’s sound asleep already in the back room, so I don’t think he’ll wake up. Don’t worry about it.”

“Ok…well…” I popped open the last bag of Cheetos and placed it on the breakfast table. “Just be careful. Call me if anything goes wrong. Don’t get the police called on you.”

“Whoa, Kate. Remember in Baltimore? I’m a master at these things. Don’t. Worry. And if you must worry, why don’t you stay? You always stayed in Baltimore.”

“Yea, well, we’re not in Baltimore anymore.” I scooped up my backpack from the floor and slipped out the front door just as the first headlights halted in front of the house. I sunk into my coat to avoid the group of teenagers that slipped from the rusty old car.

“Rich?” I called through the dark. When I told Rich I’d be spending most of the night at the park a few blocks from my street, he’d offered to keep me company—at least until he grew tired and ducked out, which from the way he slept in class, would probably be soon.

“Kate, hey. Escaped before the crowd?” Rich hopped off a swing and came toward me wearing a wrinkled pair of jeans and a white shirt.

“Barely made it. Where’s your coat?”

“So you live in this neighborhood?” he said, dodging my question.

“Yup.”

“Wow. Inheritance?”

“My, uh, dad is an entrepreneur.” The title tasted strange on my lips.

“Have you been to the golf course?”

“I didn’t know there even was a golf course.”

Rich smiled—that little turning of his mouth that usually seemed more like a smirk. “Well, let’s go.” Before giving me the chance to answer, Rich jogged into the little tufts of trees around the park. Not wanting to lose sight of him, I followed.

“Rich,” I called forward. “I don’t think we’re supposed to be out here.” We’d jumped a short wrought iron fence to enter the hilly fields, and continued to walk for several minutes. Lights shot up through the snow to cast shadows on the ground. I doubted this golf course was even usable most of the year.

“Duh.”

“So then—whoa.” We arrived at a lighted pond, where a fountain shot from the center and reached for the stars, only to arch back over again and reflect itself in several white fluorescents lining the shore. The outer edges of the pond were frozen—the middle remains thawed, shaken continuously by the fountain.

“Pretty cool, right?” We sat down in the snow banks.

“Yea…it would be cooler if I wasn’t worried about being arrested for trespassing.”

“Is the rest of your family redheads?” Rich was just full of random questions tonight.

“No. I got it from my mom—though hers was a lot prettier shade of red, and not as ratty. Mine’s like a heap of rotting tomatoes.”

Rich laughed—that deep and oily laugh that came from his stomach and brought tears to his eyes. It sounded beautiful.

“I wouldn’t compare your hair to a rotten vegetable. It’s more like…the way the sky fires up in the morning.”

“Like a sunrise?”

“Yea, kind of like a sunrise. The reds in twilight.”

“Hmhm, that’s…” I looked up at the sky now, still dark and spotted with stars and overhanging satellites, and wondered if Rich really meant what he said. A little buzzing started in me, and I felt the sudden urge to scoot away from him and walk home. Instead, I lie down on the snow and let it pack around me. “That’s really sweet.”

“Lame, I know. But—what did you say?” Rich looked down at me, his eyes widened with surprise.

“It’s just nice. People don’t compliment the stuff that grows from my head very often.” I reached up to pull at my hair.

Rich’s smile crept into me and made the buzzing louder, and eventually I found myself smiling back. “By the way, tomatoes are fruits.”

“What? No they’re not.”

“Yea they are. They’ve got seeds, and fruits have seeds.”

“But they put tomatoes on salads.”

“What…what does that have to do with anything?”

“You’re supposed to put vegetables on salads, like spinach and cucumbers.”

“Cucumbers are fruits, too.”

Rich heaved a frustrated sigh, and then he was on top of me, holding me down by the shoulders. A little puff of air escaped me.

“Now I know for a fact cucumbers are not fruits.”

I laughed, trying not to breathe too hard on Rich’s face—I had no idea what my breath smelled like. “Don’t be jealous just because I know what a fruit is, Richie.”

Rich’s body stiffened and he abruptly sat up. “I told you not to call me that.”

I sat up as well, my brow furrowing in confusion. “Sorry, it just…came out. Are you ok?” Rich tensed up and breathed in deeply.

“Yea, I’m fine. Just don’t—don’t call me that.”

“I won’t. Never again.”

As we sat together in silence, a chill whipped around us. No snow fell from the sky, but the wind felt frozen and brittle. I wanted to ask Rich why he hated the nickname, why he grew so tense when I mentioned it. But as I tried to summon up enough courage to ask such a personal question, Rich offered the information.

“My mom called me Ri—that name, is all. It’s hard hearing it from someone else. I’m sorry if I offended you or anything.”

“Is your mom…”

“No, no she’s not dead. Her mind is just…cloudy. She forgets things.”

“Alzheimer’s?”

“Brain cancer.”

“Oh, Rich. I am so sorry…I had no idea. I shouldn’t have called you that after you asked me not to; it was a really crappy thing to do.”

I watched Rich stand and dust off the snow from his jeans and jacket. Then he offered his hand to help me up.

“No, it’s ok. I should have told you sooner. And I know I can be melodramatic. Let’s just forget about it.”

“Ok,” I said. I wanted to know more about his mother, his family, his home life in general. I suddenly found myself interested—painfully interested—in Rich’s life outside school.
The feeling surprised me so much I wasn’t sure how to react to it. So I told Rich I needed to get home, and I left.