Steamin' at the Seams

Bright and early Wednesday morning, two trucks arrive in front of our house, plus a trailer with our three cars. I crawl out of my sleeping bag and take a quick shower before heading upstairs to start the unpacking ritual of moving.

Two big muscled guys are carrying our couch inside when I get upstairs. I sidestep them and walk outside. It's not raining today, but it's still cloudy. Mom is standing by one of the trucks, trying to direct Dad and Will as they carry…my bed. Oh dear.

"Hey, don't break that!" I call, walking up to my family.

Mom laughs. "I won't let them."

"Yeah well if they do, I get Will's bed."

Will rolls his eyes, struggling under the weight of my bed. "We're not going to break it."

"For your back's sake, I hope not." I say.

I walk to the back of one of the trucks and spot a box that says Lacey's books. I grab it and carry it into the house, down into my basement. When I get back to the top of the stairs, I find myself boxed in, with Dad and Will trying to carry my bed down.

"I think we're going to have to take it apart to get it down there," Dad says.

"Ok, well, you might want to get on that, or else it'll have to sit in the living room and it'll get in everyone's way," Mom says, walking into the room.

I inch around Dad and walk into the living room to sort through the boxes piled up in the middle of the room. I grab one full of my clothes and push it down the stairs before finding one full of shoes and tossing it down, too.

Will laughs. "Lacey, what are you doing?"

I glance up at him as I shove another box of clothes down the stairs. "I'm putting my stuff downstairs, what does it look like I'm doing?"

He looks at me like I'm insane, then walks away. I shrug and resume throwing boxes down the stairs. You know, I'm really lucky we decided to tape these shut…

*

"Pizza's here!" Will shouts down the stairs.

I glance at the display on my phone. 6:53. It's been hours since lunch…I'm starving. I leave the dresser drawer that I'm working on filling open and sprint up the stairs.

Mom's at the counter in the kitchen, putting pieces of pizza onto paper plates. I grab a Coke from the newly-plugged-in fridge and grab a slice of pizza. I walk over to our big kitchen table and sit across from Will.

"So, Mom, how long did it take for you to get the table in the perfect place?" I ask, cracking open the soda and taking a sip. Yum.

"It took at least forty minutes!" Mom exclaims, joining us at the table.

Dad walks over and sits at the head of the table. "You shouldn't be complaining, you weren't the one moving it!"

I laugh. "Dad, she has you beaten down."

He signs, making a forlorn face. "I know, it's so sad, isn't it?"

We all laugh and I take a big bite of the pizza. Maybe Forks won't be completely horrible.

*

I stand in the middle of my basement bedroom, trying to figure out where I'm going to put my bed. It's about ten in the morning, Thursday. I've been trying to figure out how to set up my room for the past two hours.

I turn slowly, taking in the room. My eyes are drawn to a wide closet in the corner opposite the stairs. I walk over and hold my arms out against the doorway. Then, keeping my arms out as wide as the closet is, I measure it against my bed. The closet is about eight inches wider than my bed. It's like two and a half feet deep, too.

I sprint up the stairs, calling "Mom?"

She comes down the stairs into the living room. "What?"

"You know that white table that you couldn't figure out where we were gonna put it? The one with the drawers and stuff?" I ask.

"Um, I think it's against the wall in the dining room for now," She says uncertainly.

"Can I have it?"

She shrugs. "Sure."

"Thanks!" I go into the dining room and, sure enough, there's the table. It's more like a long nightstand, really, but still. I pick it up and carry it carefully down the stairs.

I drag it into the wide closet and push it back up against the wall, so that the drawers and such are facing out. It fits perfectly into the closet, leaving about an inch on either side. I go back into the room and push my bed into the closet as well.

You know, when I was younger, I used to not like having such a weird bedframe. My bed sits low to the ground, lower than my waist, and I don't have a headboard. Now this won't be so bad.

I push the bed against the little cupboard, and about half of the cabinet still sticks up over the top of the bed. This is good.

I go back upstairs and find Dad in the living room. "Hey, Dad, where's a strip?"

"A strip?" he asks, confused.

"Yeah, you know, like a plug-in strip thingy," I try to explain. Dammit, why can't I remember the word!

"Oh, I know what you mean," Dad said, understanding. "I've got one I'm not going to be using, why, do you need it?" I nod, and he says "It's in that box over there." He points to a box over against the wall.

"Thanks!" I say, going to dig through the box. I find the strip and carry it triumphantly downstairs.

I plug it into the outlet that is conveniently located like right next to the closet, and run the strip down the side of the closet, next to my bed. I carry my lamp in and put it on the little table, plugging it into the strip. I flick the light on, looking around at the inside of the little closet.

The walls are light blue, just like the rest of the basement. There's a single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, but I don't think I'll be using that. You know, it'll probably get pretty dark down here at night, with all the lights off. I wouldn't know yet, for the past two nights, I've fallen asleep with a light on, in the middle of reading.

I climb off my bed and dig through one of the boxes of my stuff scattered haphazardly across the floor. I come up with a string of light-up flowers, from a party I had back in like, fifth grade. I grab a container of tacks from a box of school supplies and commence in tacking the light-string around the doorframe of the closet. I plug them into the strip and flick the little switch on the cord. The flowers light up in a rainbow of colors. I grin, and turn back to the rest of my room.

I've got my wardrobe – when Mom insisted on buying the big piece of furniture when we were getting ready to move, I just figured she was insane. Now I know, there isn't a real clothes closet down here – against the wall with the steps. My desk is pushed against the wall adjacent to the door leading outside. I managed to inherit some of the furniture that we had in our old basement, which was at the time our family room. I've got a TV in between the bathroom door and the door outside, and a small couch pushed against the wall across from the TV. My dresser is next to the wardrobe, for all of my stuff that I can't hang up. I've got three bookcases, but they're not tall…hence there being three. I've got enough books to almost fill up the shelves. It's great.

I open a box and pull out my bright green sheets. I slowly make up my bed, listening to the footsteps racing back and forth upstairs. Mom's probably all frenzied up, trying to get everything back where it was when we were at our old house. She gets like that.

After I've got my bed made, I work on unpacking my clothes. I've been living mostly out of boxes and duffle bags for a while, and I want to stop doing that. I rip the tape off of the top of one of the boxes, throwing it open. The box is full of T-shirts. I pull one of the deep bottom drawers of my dresser open, and start stacking the shirts inside it. When I've finally emptied the box, the drawer is almost full. I rip open another box and find jeans and shorts. I hang them up in the wardrobe, shoving them all to one side when I'm finished with the box.

The next hour continues this way. I open boxes, not knowing what I'll find, and then figure out where whatever's in the box should go. It's like a game. I get to the point where I'll try and guess what's going to be in the box before I open it. It's kind of fun. Mostly just hard work, though.

I hear a knock at the top of the stairs, and then the creak of the door opening. "Hey, Lacey, we're going to have lunch." It's Will.

"OK, I'll be up in a sec," I call.

I glance back down into the box I'm sorting through. It's full of stuffed animals and the like. I abandon it and jog up the stairs.

Mom's at the counter, making peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches. "White or wheat?" She asks when I walk in.

"Wheat please," I say, grabbing a newly-washed glass from the strainer and pouring soda into it.

I carry my glass over to the table and sit down. Will's already sitting down. "How's your room coming along?"

I shrug. "It's going pretty well. I put my bed in a closet."

He looks at me incredulously. "Are you serious?"

I laugh, nodding. "Yeah, come down and see when we're done eating. It's really cool."

He shakes his head slowly, his eyes shut. "You're so weird."

Mom walks up with out sandwiches, so Will is spared an insult from me. I'll get him back later.

We eat quickly; Will eager to see what I did downstairs, and I was just really hungry.

"This is it," I say, leading the way down the stairs.

He looks around at the progress I've made so far. "It's shaping up." He walks over to the closet with my bed and laughs. "Only you would come up with doing something like this."