Enlightened

Chapter 4

The next morning the phone rang early. I answered to hear Uncle Billy’s voice — it was the reminder call about my cousin, Victoria’s, surprise birthday party which we were expected to attend. I hadn’t seen her in a long time — over a year, and although I missed her and wanted to see her … honestly I worried that it would be quite awkward. For a moment I wished I hadn’t eavesdropped and heard about her stay in rehab, twice!

I decided the best way to deal with it, was to act like I didn’t know anything about it. I’d say nothing about it and hopefully nobody else would say anything about it either. I put my favorite jeans on — the pair riddled with holes and faded from years of abuse, and a form fitting ribbed cotton top with bold patterns. It looked like an outfit a college student would wear.

In a way, I wanted to impress Victoria, at least a little bit. I reminisced about our childhood sleepovers and how I’d always tried so hard to keep up with her. I sat at my makeup mirror for the first time in a long time and actually put on a little blush, and lip color instead of just gloss. I dug out my curling iron, which hadn’t been plugged in — in ages — a little bit of hair spray, a little bit of mascara and voila!

I walked down stairs and rounded the corner into the living room where my parents were waiting on me.

“Whoa …” my dad gawped at me as if he was about to give me the, where do you think you’re going looking like that speech, but then he stopped himself when he remembered I was going with them.

“Well, you look ravishing!” Mom interjected. “Are you trying to impress someone?”

“I just don’t want Victoria to think that she’s the only one in the family who’s all grown up.”

“I guess not.” She paused a moment. “It’s a good thing you don’t wear makeup all the time, we’d have to beat the boys away with a stick. Not that you aren’t beautiful without it, because you are, but my goodness,” she stuttered.

“Oh, stop — Mom, you’re embarrassing me. It’s just a little lip stick and blush.”

“And don’t forget the hair,” Dad added. They were both acting like my getting dressed up was a crime — a felonious crime.

“Can we just go already?” I insisted. “It’ll take us an hour to get there, we’ll be there most of the day, and then an hour to get back, and I’d like to get together with Matthew, Tyler, and Stefanie later.”

“Yeah, but you’re not wearing that makeup around those boys.” Dad was adamant.

“Huh,” I made a huffy noise. “Fine!” I said shortly.

On the ride to Victoria’s house, I put in my earphones and turned up my music to tune out my parents. Why did he have to insist on me taking off my makeup before I could be around the boys? He knows that we have been friends forever. Does he know that I have a crush on Tyler? I had no idea how he always seemed to know what was going on in my life, but I found it more than slightly annoying.

The hour long drive to Uncle Billy, Aunt Janet, and Victoria’s house, flashed by in an instant. They live in Richland, Georgia now. Billy was active duty military; most recently stationed in Fort Valley until his retirement a few years ago. He’s one of the lucky ones who joined the military young enough to get a full retirement pension, and he’s still young enough to retire from a second career if he wanted to.

They bought this new house in Richland two years ago. It’s a very nice Spanish style home, but in my opinion, the newer homes simply pale in comparison to the older homes.

Dad turned into their driveway and we all piled out, eager to stretch our legs. Mom rang the doorbell and Victoria opened the door, surprised to see us. Billy was behind her holding a finger up to his mouth to signal ‘shush,’ apparently she still hadn’t caught on to the fact that we were there for a surprise birthday party. I wondered if she even knew it was her birthday.