Annie
stared out the window. Hands in her lap, she worried at the frayed edge of her
shorts.
“You
can’t do this,” her mother said, pacing on the other side of the room.
Annie
pursed her lips and still looked stubbornly out onto their small yard, grey and
dismal looking in the fog.
“Stop
ignoring me, I am not going to let you ruin your life!” her mother stopped in
front of her. “Look at me God damn-it!” her voice rose high. Annie rolled her
eyes.
“Stop
being hysterical mother,” Annie said, her tone measured. She turned and finally
looked at her mother, “this is not your choice.”
Her
mother began pacing again, wringing her hands. “What would your father think?”
she asked her suddenly.
Annie’s
hands stopped their nervous movements and suddenly clenched into fists. “I
sincerely doubt that the drunk bastard would have cared.”
Her
mother stopped her pacing and made the sign of the cross. “Don’t disrespect the
dead.”
She
stared at her mother unblinkingly until the woman was forced to break the
glance. Annie laid a hand on her flat stomach, “Don’t you disrespect the living
you fucking hypocrite.”
Her
mother shook her head violently but retreated to the next room. For a moment the
house was silent. Then the high tones of her mother crying began to filter into
the room. Annie jumped to her feet and paused only long enough to grab her
sweatshirt off the back of the couch before banging out the door. She didn’t
know where she was going. It was Sunday and most everything in Johnson was
closed. The town itself wasn’t much more than a cluster of sad little houses
and a drug store anyway. Annie stalked down the road at a fast clip, rubbing
her eyes as she went. The fury was burning out of her fast, replaced by an
emptiness that quaked when she thought about it too hard.
She
wasn’t at all surprised by her mother’s reaction. Catholic or no, her mother
would take any road that kept her out of the neighbor’s gossip, even if that
meant hauling her daughter fifty miles to the first abortion clinic she could
find and begging them to scrape her grandchild out. Still, just the thought
made Annie want to scream. She rubbed her stomach again and looked out over the
fields, corn on one side, soybeans on the other. There was nowhere to go,
nowhere to hide. That was always how Annie felt, trapped with no way out. Sure,
for the kids who got top marks in school or knew how to pass a football or swing
a bat, there were scholarships that gave them tickets out. But for Annie
nothing like that had ever been an option. For as long as she could remember
she had turned graded tests face down to hide the C or lower that always shown
out like a bright red banner for all to see. It wasn’t as if she didn’t like to
learn, it just never made sense once the test sat in front of her with all
those little bubbles waiting to be filled.
After
awhile she just stopped trying. What was the point of studying if the same bad
grade always showed up at the end? So she did poorly on tests and let the
homework keep her floating through. Annie knew that everyone was surprised that
at seventeen she was still in school. Long ago she had been written off as just
another Johnson nobody going nowhere, destined to stay put and have babies like
her mother, and her mother before her. And wasn’t she just living up to their
expectations nicely? She hated it all, which made her question why she was
fighting her mother so badly. But, as her best mate Joe liked to say, why not?
That was how it had always been with her and her mother. Annie scuffed the dirt in front of her with
her shoe and thought about going back and apologizing. She didn’t notice the
sounds of the approaching car until it was nearly on her. At the last moment
she looked up to see the front end of a Buick the size of a boat barreling at her
at a speed that didn’t seem to be slowing. The surprise froze her muscles and
Annie’s arms curled against her chest and her mouth gaped like a corpse giving
in to rictus.
Closer
and closer it came until it screeched to a halt less than a foot from her knee
caps. Still rooted to the spot, her heart beat thrumming in her ears, Annie
watched the car back up some and then slide up next to her. The window was open
and she didn’t know what she had expected but it wasn’t this. A girl sat behind
the wheel. Her make-up was applied heavily, all dark shadowed eyes and lipstick
bright artificial red. A cigarette stained half way up the hilt with pink
smears hung from her lips. Despite this, she couldn’t have been much older than
Annie, her cheeks rounded and young, the shirt she wore hanging off small
narrow shoulders.
“Say,
where’s a good place to hide around here?”
With
difficulty Annie unstuck her tongue long enough to echo, “Hide?”
“That’s
what I said.” She said impatiently, sucking hard on her cigarette.
“Um,
there isn’t.” But as the girl let out a thick puff of smoke that just kept
coming she realized she had lied. “There’s the old Andler’s place. Mr. Andler
died and his kids haven’t come down from Chicago to settle things yet. The
house and land should be empty.”
“Sweet.”
The girl said and reversed abruptly with a great jerk, only to jerk back to
almost the same place and then look Annie up and down. “You’ve been real
helpful. You can come along if you like.”
Annie
wasn’t sure where she was coming along to, and was half sure the girl was
crazy. Yet, somehow she found her legs moving, taking her around the front of
the car and to the passenger door which she slowly opened before slowly sliding
into the soft leather seat. The car smelled of old person, bleach, and smoke.
With another jerk the girl shifted the car into first and they shot forward and
back onto the road.
“I’m
sure glad I ran into you,” the girl said, not turning her eyes from the road,
of which Annie was extremely thankful. “See I robbed a bank and I need a place
to lay low until Jimmy catches up.”
Annie
stared, her stomach lurching as the girl shifted into second. She hadn’t been
sure for a few minutes, but Annie was now positive she was going to be sick.
By Alissa Tsaparikos
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