To Be Wild and Precious

7

Ten hours could be an eternity when spent with no one else besides your parents and the fifty-somewhat packed boxes shuffling in the cargo bed behind them. Beth found it so painstaking; it was like trying to cut one’s veins open with a spoon and actually succeeding. Unfortunately though, she had no way of getting out of this parental-child confrontation. She was stuck right between the two of them.

Beth was being bombarded with questions like, “So how’s your summer been?” “What was that party like?” “Did you drink at that party?” “Did you meet a boy at that party?” “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Beth had to laugh at that last one. Did she have a boyfriend? Well, she almost did, but that would have never worked out that well because he’s too sexy and desirable by others, in her opinion, and she’s not willing to “take risks,” according to him. There were too many conflicting views and the relationship would have just crumbled, especially under the pressures of long distance. So no, father, Beth thought, I do not have a boyfriend.

They rode for most of the way in silence with the occasional awkward question thrown in, so Beth listened to her iPod and stared out of the window. The trees were passing by and she just couldn’t help but wondering if the trees would look the same in New Jersey. Probably not; things are always better in Ohio. She must have nodded off at one point because, when she woke up, they were parked at a rest stop. She fell back to sleep, the crying the night before must have worn her out and she kept waking up on different songs on her iPod and on different highways. The trees didn’t really look much different, but there were less now. She tried not to think of it, just sleep, she thought. Sleep everything away. It’ll all get better.

“Beth. Bethany! Wake up, dear.” Beth felt her shoulders being shaken and she sleepily swatted at the air.

“I’m sleeping.” She groggily replied.

“I know, sweetie, but we’re almost there. We want you to be up when we get there so you could see it.”

“Why?” She whined, still with her eyes closed.

“Because we think you should see where we’re going to be living. You’re new neighborhood, dear.” She gently rubbed Bethany’s arm until she reluctantly got up.

“Fine, mother. I’m up.” She got off of the door that she had been slumping on and looked straight ahead. All highway and road signs. To her right there were, if she was lucky, two trees, but there were mainly shops and restaurants and malls. They kept driving and then her father took and exit. They turned off the highway and entered Grove Street. They made a turn right and turn left and another turn left.

Beth caught sight of the most hideous house she had ever beheld in her life. The walls were a kind of mamey color, the kind of orange that just doesn’t look right because it looks like it’s having an identity crisis. Is it orange? Is it red? Is it pink? Those were the color options running through Beth’s head when she saw this house. The stones lining the corners of the walls were a dark gray. The door was a deep red. It had all the wrong colors paired with all the wrong stones. And the door! The door clashed with the whole thing. It was horrendous.

On the front lawn of this house there was a sign that said “For Sale” and she prayed to God that this was not the house that her parents had purchased and just forgot to take the sign off the post. If that were the case, Beth would suggest suing the website that sold it to them for false advertisement because there was no way that her parents had that bad of a taste of style.

Luckily, though, they drove past it and turn onto the next street, stopping in front of a house that had a “Sold” sign on the lawn. Her father killed the engine of the U-Haul and Beth opened the truck door and leaped down onto the sidewalk. She looked around trying to gather her surroundings. It wasn’t all too bad. It was light blue, not baby blue, an almost gray-blue, that looked nice against the white window frames. It was a one-story house, which Beth didn’t like so much, but she could make do for her parents’ sake. The area was nice thankfully. There were some trees, at least, and a few really pretty homes if you completely disregarded the Hideous House.

Beth walked up the pathway to her new front door. It was brown. Mahogany, she thought. And it was surrounded by a humble, little porch. She sat on the ledge of this porch and thought as she rested her head against the column that held up the porch’s roof. Brought her feet up to her chest and closed her eyes.

She thought about her friends, what were they doing now without her? Rose was probably still at Camp Whatever trying to mend up her broken heart and Val was most likely working out at the gym, improving her jump shot or some other basketball related skill. And she was here. In New Jersey. On the damn porch of a damn house that she doesn’t want to live in. But she has to because there’s nothing else she could do. This wasn’t her choice to make.

“Bethany, you really are not going back to sleep are you? You slept for almost the entire trip. You cannot honestly tell me that you are still tired after sleeping for ten hours.” Beth’s dad was already unloading boxes into the house.

Beth opened one of her eyes to look at her father and then closed it again. “I didn’t sleep well last night.” It was a slight stretch of the truth, but she honestly had not slept all that well. A lot of it contributed to the fact that she went to bed at a very unreasonable hour, but another really big contributing factor was the thought of actually getting in the truck in the morning and driving away. She was so worried about forgetting things, important things, and not remembering them until she got to New Jersey. Of course, Rose or Val could always ship them over to her a couple days later, that wasn’t a problem, but it was mainly the emotional things that she was afraid of leaving behind. Things like the memories of losing her first tooth or winning her first scholastic Olympics. She can’t take those with her, but she’s afraid she’ll forget them behind.

“Well, okay, sleepy head. You’re forgiven then. Just help out when you feel up to it. The faster we finish up, the faster we get to go out for dinner. Let’s get cracking, Joyce. I want some deep-dish pizza in my stomach already.” He and Beth’s mother had passed Beth’s location on the porch numerous times with boxes in their arms before Beth decided to open her eyes, get up from her spot, and help them out. Her stomach was starting to rumble and she really could go for just about anything at that point.

After an hour or so, they unlatched the family Crown Victoria from the back of the U-Haul and hopped in. Bath’s father announced, “Deep-dish pizza, here we come!”

In five minutes, they were inside a Pizzeria Uno seated at a table. Beth was trying to decide what to eat as she scoured the menu in her hands for appetizing entrees. She didn’t know what she wanted to order but her stomach seemed to just want it all.

When the waiter approached the table and asked what they all wanted to drink, Beth hesitated. She wasn’t sure if they served Dr. Pepper here, but she didn’t want to seem foolish and ask for it if they didn’t. So she frantically started flipping through the menu, looking for the drinks section. It’s usually on the last page, she thought. So she flipped the menu around, but it wasn’t there.

She was so preoccupied with searching for the drinks list that she hadn’t noticed that the waiter had asked her for what she wanted to drink. She was still looking. Her father tapped her on the shoulder.

“Bethany, are you looking for something in particular?”

Beth looked up and realized that all three of them were looking at her expectantly. She smiled sheepishly. “Oh. No, I’m not. Um, I’ll have a coke.”

“We only have pepsi, miss. Is that okay?” He asked.

Damn it. Pepsi doesn’t taste the same. She kept smiling anyway. “Sure. Pepsi’s fine.”

He scribbled down her order and then looked up at them and smiled. “Are you all ready to order your entrees or would you like me to give you a few more minutes?”

Beth was still trying to decide what she wanted. She was thinking maybe some pasta. Or maybe she’s more in the mood for some chicken. Her dad interrupted her thoughts, “Yup, we’re ready. We’ll have a large four cheese deep dish. And a small meat lovers deep dish.” He closed his menu as he watch our waiter, whose name was Paul, finish writing the pizza names down. “That’s it.” And he handed his menu over to Paul, who so graciously took it.

“Alright.” He went for the rest of our menus, but Beth wasn’t really done with hers so he had to wait until her Dad wrestled it from her fingers and handed it off. “Well, I’ll be back in a bit with your appetizer.”

“We ordered an appetizer?” Beth asked when Paul left the table.

“Yes, sweetie. We ordered when you were flipping through the menu. What were you looking for anyway?”

“I was deciding what to order, Mom. And, Dad, you didn’t even let me choose. What was that about?”

Her father calmly replied, “I’m introducing your taste buds to a world of delicious explosion. Trust me. It will be much better than anything you would have ordered on your own.”

Beth is slightly offended, but this is coming from her father and she knows that her father know what’s best for her, at least most of the time he does. So why not try whatever pizza it is that he ordered for her? Maybe it’ll be better than she thinks.

The pizza arrives in about twenty minutes and it’s huge and green. “Dad, what did you order again?”

“It’s four cheese pizza, Beth. Just eat it. You’ll love it.”

She cut herself a slice and served it on her plate. There were tomatoes, which she hates so she picked them out one by one.

“Bethany, what do you think you’re doing?” Her father sounded upset. Her mother even turned in their direction.

“What? What’d I do?” She was mid-picking out a tomato underneath a patch of heavily greasy, orange cheese.

“You can’t take the tomatoes out. That’s what makes it delicious.”

She relaxed. It was a false alarm. She had thought it was about some big thing that she did wrong but her father had been upset about tomato extraction. “Dad, I don’t care. I’ll sacrifice the taste of the over-all pizza for the sake of my taste buds. I can’t deal with the disgustingness of tomatoes.”

“Suit yourself. It just isn’t the same.”

Bethany shrugs him off and takes a bite of her thick slice. It was the most delicious pizza she had even tasted, sans-tomato and all. The cheese and the pesto sauce came together in such a way that her tongue was having an orgasm. She took another bite and another. It was so delicious that she couldn’t stop sighing with each bite.

“This is the best slice of pizza I have ever eaten.”

Her dad let a smile of victory play across his lips. “What did I tell you?”

She and her father finished the whole four cheese pizza while her mother only ate about two slices of the meat-lovers pie. They got the meat-lovers to go and then went out into the parking lot.

Beth was getting into the car when she saw the greatest thing in her life. Across the highway the largest Barnes and Noble Beth had ever seen stood with its lights shining brightly. It was like a beacon of hope in this time of sadness. She could find b=peace and happiness even being this far away from home.

She asked her father, “Hey, Dad. Tomorrow, before you leave for work, could you take me there?” She pointed to the most beautiful sign of God’s mercy.

“Um…sure, Bethany. But that means that you’d have to get up really early in the morning.”

“How early?” she asked as she made her way into the right backseat.

“At around 7:30 in the morning.”

That was really early for a summer day. “Yeah, that’s no problem. Thanks, dad.”

“No problem. Remember we have to unpack when we get home though; so it might be a long night. Getting up in the morning might be harder than you think.” He eased himself in behind the wheel.

Beth didn’t think it would’ve been easy regardless. “Yeah. I’m good with that.” She didn’t care if she’d get no sleep that night as long as she got to see books again in the morning. Beth just needed some comfort. She needed to find something reminiscent of home that would make her feel welcome.

And books would be the only thing that could do that.