Caught In A Jam Read online

  “so I wait for you like a lonely house

  till you will see me again and live in me.

  Till then my windows ache.”

  ― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

  Caught In A Jam

  Love and Skate #4

  Lila Felix

  Nixon Montgomery Black

  Three years later

  She only wore pink on Sundays.

  I swear, if it weren’t for coffee and Aunt Sylvia’s food, I wouldn’t survive. I actually had two coffee pots. One for home with the largest capacity carafe I could find. And another at work which I bought myself since they didn’t provide coffee. Seriously, what kind of construction site doesn’t have coffee? I woke up to it, I used it as a crutch during the day, and as soon as we got home every night I’d push the flashing red button and listen for the drip.

  Tonight was especially exhausting. I worked a ten hour shift and then went to derby practice for an hour. Yes, even zebras go to practices sometimes just to keep their skills in check. But after lifting and walking all day it wasn’t my first pick of activities. We ate dinner, thanks to Sylvia I didn’t have to cook, and went through our nightly routine.

  Now here I sat on living room couch alone while she slept. I was supposed to finish a slide show for my Econ class but the longer I sat here, the more it didn’t get done. I sat back into the cushions and closed my eyes as the last sip of coffee ran down my throat. And like they did every night, my thoughts drifted to Journey.

  I’d heard things through the proverbial vine, some I treasured and some I despised. I despised hearing that she’d married Justin after finishing school. But she’d given up on her dream of being a nurse in favor of the title of Mrs. Conrad; never even stepping foot in a hospital. But then again, I’d also heard she had quit school to become a stripper and Justin had moved on. Who knew what the real truth was? I’d only heard one that I really believed. That she’d decided to start some rebellion against an administrator at Duke University—now that sounded like her.

  I got up and made another cup, stirring in way too much creamer, so much that my coffee was now cold. I peeked into the bedroom and she was sound asleep. When I closed the bedroom door it squeaked and she rolled over but remained dormant. It was a shame to feel this way. I felt guilty every night when I sat here alone and completely reveled in just the state of being alone with my thoughts of Journey. But I needed it and felt the withdrawals if I shied away.

  I sat back on the couch and let the heels of my palms dig into my eye sockets, shutting out the light so I could focus on her. It was getting more and more difficult to remember what she looked like or how she smelled. But I remembered the little things. I remembered she called all cola products Coke and didn’t get how some people called it soda or pop. She always took out one strand of hair and wrapped it around her hairband proclaiming it made her ponytail look good. She constantly stole my boxers to sleep in, even though she had a slew of boyfriends to steal from. She had a triangle of freckles on her right earlobe. I could tell the difference between her ‘pissed off’ whine and her ‘feelings hurt’ sob from oceans away.

  I heard footsteps from the girl in my life as she entered the room but I wasn’t ready to let go of Journey just yet and rejoin reality. Her hands, soft and warm pulled mine from my face. I could smell the shampoo that Reed insisted I buy for her. At the time I had no clue what girls liked. I’d had to learn quickly.

  She huffed out a tired but annoyed sigh at me and I opened my eyes to see red curls and freckles everywhere. She literally was covered scalp to feet in clusters of light brown freckles and I’d seen every inch of her. She wiped away tears I didn’t know were there and then wiped her fingers on my pajama pants. Before me was the most beautiful creature I’d ever laid eyes on.

  She finally knew she had my attention and I knew by the smirk on her face it would be good, whatever came out of her sweet mouth.

  “What is it, Button? It’s late.” I asked her, rewiping my face.

  She batted her big eyelashes at me and put her tiny hands on her hips. “Daddy, I think I need a bunny wabbit. Parker said he has a bunny wabbit. I need one too.”

  I sucked my lips in between my lips and bit down desperate not to smile at how damn cute she was—especially when she was as drop dead serious as she was right now.

  “Scout, we can’t have a rabbit in an apartment. They don’t allow pets.” This probably wouldn’t have flown with a regular three year old. But did I have a regular three year old—No.

  I blame Falcon. Let me reiterate—I blame Falcon.

  He came in one day when she was about eight months old and gave me this huge pack of stuff. I didn’t even look at it for months. I was too busy being a zombie and trying not to completely suck at the ‘Dad’ thing. But what I didn’t know was that Storey and Aunt Sylvia were using it when they kept her. It was some kind of “I Taught My Baby To Read” kit. Well, it turned out my baby could freakin’ read. By the time she was two, she could read an entire first grade book front to back and write her name, which was difficult since I named her Scout Alessandra Black. But she could.

  A few months ago her four year old preschool teacher told Storey, who usually picked her up from school, that she was too advanced and needed to be moved to the five year old Kindergarten class. Storey and Aunt Sylvia were excited. But my Daddy worry kicked in immediately. She was only three years old. I wasn’t ready for her to enter into anything that remotely resembled school. Preschool is one thing, playing kitchen and nap time, but the word Kindergarten threw me off.

  “When we move to a big house we can get one,” she told herself more than me.

  “If you say so, now is that what got you out of bed, dreams of big houses and rabbits?”

  That cracked her up. I touched the cluster of freckles on the tip of her nose, “Back to bed. Do you need a ride?”

  She giggled and climbed up on the arm of the sofa. I backed up to it and she climbed on. This was our thing. I don’t think the kid had ever walked herself to bed. I was lucky. She was so precious to everyone. And Aunt Sylvia never treated her like she was anything but another one of her own grandchildren.

  I dropped her off on her bed and she snuggled in. I noticed her toes touched the footboard of her pink toddler bed now. I’d have to remedy that soon.

  “Daddy, turn my music on. I know I can go to sleep if my music is on.”

  Any other kid probably wanted Laurie Berkner or that Raffi cat. That’s what she complained was played when she went to preschool. But then when she started Kindergarten, she complained they didn’t play music at all. She had me buy a cello CD, apparently influence of Aunt Sylvia, and give it to the teacher.

  “Name it,” she put a finger to her chin and feigned deep thought but she and I both knew she was going to pick Iron and Wine. I showed her the band on the iPod and she agreed—Iron and Wine it was. I bent down and kissed her forehead.

  “Get to sleep, Scout. You’ve got a spelling test tomorrow.”

  She nodded, “Sleep, S—L—E—E—P.”

  The P was masked by a yawn and I knew she would soon be back to sleep and I would be alone again.

  Chapter 2

  Nixon

  She always drank Cherry Pepsi.

  I took a hot shower, procrastinating on the homework until another night. I only worked a half-day on Fridays but that just meant I got to get off of my paid job early. I mentally made a list of the other things I had to get done: Grocery shopping, paying bills, cleaning house, laundry. And I wasn’t complaining—not one bit. Because that girl in the other room? She was my first and only priority.

  I woke up early the next morning. Scout was a creature of habit, the teachers and counselors said it was a side effect of her intelligence.
So on Fridays I had to get up early and make her French toast. Every day had a schedule. She became really decisive about things after she could write them down. It was also about the same time she got sick of my half-hazard breakfast fare. She tattle-taled on me to Storey and they both sat down and made a schedule. At first I thought it was a pain in the ass but it actually worked to my advantage.

  “We’re almost out of honey,” a sleepy voice said while two arms wrapped around my leg.

  “Did you write it on the list,” I asked her, flipping the last piece of French toast out onto a plate.

  She nodded, head bobbing up and down, her body still attached to my leg. I reached down and lifted her up onto her chair and she buckled the belt Uncle Mad gave her around her waist. Another one of her idiosyncrasies—safety. She would run these fire drills in the house. She had an orange vest, a whistle and everything.

  And for that I blame Owen.

  I poured honey, real honey, over her French toast and cut it into squares small enough for her tiny mouth. I made her strawberry milk and put it in her favorite cup. She ate in record time and was ready to get dressed. Storey bought all kinds of prissy things for her hair and I had to learn how to use them quickly. Scout had shoulder length bright red hair that fell around her face in tight curls. Storey nearly had a coronary when she saw me using a brush on her hair. She ripped it from my hands and gave me a lecture about curls and wide toothed combs and picks—lesson learned.

  “It’s Friday, Daddy. Honey is picking me up from school today.”

  I looked at her reflection in the mirror and answered, “Yes, Honey is picking you up today and then no school for two days. What do you want to do this weekend?” This should be rich.

  “I want to play with Cyrus tonight. And then tomorrow, we can go to the zoo and then I get to see you skate and then I’m spending the night with Honey.”

  I watched her touch her left pointer finger to each finger on her right hand as she counted off the events of the weekend.

  “Well, we have to call Aunt Nellie and see if Cyrus can play tonight. But the zoo and skating are definite. And Honey is going to paint your nails and all that girly stuff.”

  “Cyrus tries to boss me around. And he doesn’t even know what his middle name is.” She wasn’t being mean spirited while saying it, just matter of fact.

  “You can tell him his middle name is Kensington. All the Blacks have good sturdy middle names. It’s our thing.”

  She smiled at me, handing me some kind of butterfly thing she liked in her hair. “That’s why you named me Scout Alessandra.”

  I nodded at her, “How’s that, Button?” I let her priss and primp in the mirror a few minutes.

  “Perfect,” she said

  “Grab your shoes and your backpack and let’s go.”

  She skipped out, red curls bouncing all the way.

  Chapter 3

  Journey Leigh Holt

  I let myself forget how he smelled.

  I dragged myself out of the bed and smelled the coffee immediately. I silently thanked whatever genius invented the coffee pot with a timer and schlepped to the kitchen to force caffeine down my gullet. I made one cup for now and one in a travel mug to take with me. I was back in New Orleans after being gone for a little over three years. I’d flunked out of Duke after the first semester, put on probation just to crash and burn again.

  I went for all the wrong reasons and I could’ve kicked myself in the teeth and Justin in the balls for it. But ultimately it was my fault. I was forever chasing these guys, built and hot, that was all I looked for. Looking back, I searched for what was safe. I knew that those big guys expected me to act a certain way, look good and be a trophy, they didn’t expect anything else of me, and they never dug too deep. And that’s what I liked about them. It was easy.

  Justin had been more of the same, just using me until the prettier thing came along. His prettier thing came in the form of a Duke basketball player with blonde hair and loose morals. And thus began the downward spiral, the tail of it I’m still on. He dumped her after three weeks when she told him she wouldn’t sacrifice her basketball career for him. I wanted to give her a certificate—she’d passed—I’d failed.

  I pulled on some jeans and my work shirt and threw on some tennis shoes. It was my first day at this new job. It was a good break for me. I’d worked as a waitress for years but I felt like this was a step in a better direction. Besides, I got kinda sick of the whiney people. I worked a ten to seven shift, which let me sleep in a little and I had no social life to speak of, so I didn’t mind getting off work so late.

  I combed my curly red hair into a ponytail. I’d always dyed it dark brown and straightened it throughout high school thinking that’s what the jocks wanted—look where it got me. But soon after leaving North Carolina, I’d colored it close to my natural color and waited for it to grow out.

  I ran to the bank and got some breakfast before heading in. I arrived at The Brain Trust about fifteen minutes early, expecting paperwork and a tour.

  I walked in and was greeted by a woman in her forties with brown hair and a shirt identical to mine. Her name tag read Martha.

  “Hi Martha, I’m Journey, it’s my first day.” I stuck out my hand to greet her but she pulled me in for a hug and I did that stranger-hug maneuver where you just pat the other person’s back. She led me to a back office where a woman who looked just like her smiled and waved me in. I did a double take and read her name tag: Meredith.

  “Yes, we’re twins,” she smiled and answered the question I was dying to ask.

  “I figured that. I met with Lauren the other day. I hope she told you I was coming.” I sat in the chair across from her desk.

  “Yes, of course, she’s my daughter,” she said, “I have paperwork for you to fill out and then we can take a tour. Then we can begin the real fun.” I filled out the tax forms and new employee information sheets. I then followed Meredith through the school. We started with the infants, whose room was quiet with an iPod playing forest sounds and before I left the track changed to ocean waves. Their schedule, tacked to the door, signaled it was time for a nap.

  The one and two year old rooms were full of rosy cheeked toddling boys and girls just trying to figure things out. Each one seemed to be tethered to a pacifier, boys with airplanes or motorcycles on them and girls, pink and glittery. We went through the three year old room and the four year old room, more cuteness and chaos and play houses. This was no daycare. It was some kind of genius breeding ground.

  Then we moved to the five year old Kindergarten room. These kids were not your typical Learning Tree parishioners. The boys wore khaki shorts and white polo shirts, all emblazoned with ‘The Brain Trust’. The girls wore similar shirts but were paired with khaki pleated skirts. All had matching white socks and I felt as if I’d come from the realm of the Lollipop Guild into a regimented flower bed with twenty or so blossoming genius flowers all attentive and absorbing. Before we left I spotted one girl who, if possible, looked more enthralled with the teacher’s garble than the rest. She had hair almost identical to my own when I was a girl but she was smaller in stature than her classmates and resembled the three year olds we’d just left.

  “Who’s the red haired girl? She’s so small.” I really asked myself, almost as a note to find out more information later. Meredith answered me directly, “That’s Scout. She’s three, but honestly, she’s the most intelligent child who has ever come through this school. And I’ve been here for twenty years.”

  I spent the rest of the afternoon observing the children as they were chauffeured through their schedules of learning, eating and playing. Towards the end of the day I was trusted with entrance duty, making sure parents were paired with the right children on the list. The lovely little ginger girl was picked up by a petite brunette. Scout grabbed her backpack and ran to the woman shrieking ‘Honey’ as she pummeled into the woman’s arms. The woman lifted Scout and propped her on her hip as she made her way out, the whol
e time being assaulted by the onslaught of Kindergarten gossip from the feisty red-head.

  By six, everyone was gone and I was shown all of the cleaning and disinfecting that occurred after the children left. By seven I smelled of bleach, Lysol and babies. The latter wasn’t such a bad thing, in fact, I kinda liked it.

  I went straight home, heated up a can of tomato soup and plopped down on the couch. My feet were aching. I watched the news as I sipped on the soup, not really tasting it, just needing sustenance. It was days like these that I wished I had a bathtub. But in this small studio apartment, I barely had a shower stall and infrequent hot water.

  I showered quickly, washing my hair with the only luxury I allowed myself, my favorite blueberry scented shampoo. I finished up and dressed in his stolen t-shirt and his stolen boxers that I still kept even though they were practically shredded. They had stopped smelling like him a long time ago. That was when I called him last, when I forgot what he smelled like, but the call went straight to voicemail and when I tried to call again, it wouldn’t go through. I continued to call here and there throughout the years but there was never an answer. I kept the pictures of us in my bedside drawer for the times when I needed to wallow in my love for him. But tonight wasn’t that night. Tonight I just felt remorse for a life I could’ve had.

  I nitpicked through my memories of him so many times over the years that I no longer could differentiate between fantasy and reality. I know that he once whispered in my ear, sitting behind me in class, that he could see my red roots coming out. I responded that I’d have to get it colored. He told me it was a shame, covering one of the most beautiful parts of me. I brushed it off as a joke at the time but now I cherished it—longed for him to whisper to me again.

  I missed his arms around me, even though I’d claimed they were the arms of a friend. I missed his voice, always slightly scratchy like he’d gargled sandy water. I’d been so stupid. He was the best part of me. And I still loved him.