I Am Anastasia

Art Show Meeting

I shouldn’t have stayed up so late last night writing.  Friday morning I'm a wreck.  I yawn all morning at work and Mrs. Beth growls at me that I need to work faster and pay more attention to customers.  I say nothing, keep my head down, avoid her gaze. Try not to fall asleep on the chocolate chip muffins I'm supposed to be packaging.

            There's a new girl working with me today.  Crystal.  She's tall and beautifully brunette.  She has eyes that are spaced perfectly in her face, bigger than usual and deep blue instead of brown.  Her cheeks are flushed just enough to look like she’s wearing blush. She's got a small ski-jump nose and red lips.  Her laugh is high and sparkling and I hate her almost immediately.  She talks about her boyfriend constantly and I hate him too.

            I nod at Crystal’s boring stories; chuckle like it’s funny in the right parts, and pretty much package bakery goods like a machine.

            Just get through the day.

            At quarter to five I tell Mrs. Beth I’m feeling sick, and I guess she takes in my glazed-over look, - the result of the many stories about Crystal’s boyfriend - and decides I’m telling the truth because she says I can go.

            I'm setting things up for tomorrow. I can’t go to work tomorrow; I have an art show to go to; I have a mother to confront.  How am I going to act tomorrow? Will I be mad and yell at her, accuse her of leaving me and making me grow up without a mother? Or will I be sad, cry crocodile tears to make her feel bad, hug her and ask why she didn’t at least write her poor broken child. I don't feel like either of those. Those emotions are so much work to feel for someone you don’t even know. I guess I might settle for a lazy resentment. Neither rage nor sadness.  What else is there to feel about the situation?

            Dad is home when I get there, sitting at his desk in the computer room staring blankly at his laptop. “Don’t leave your shoes out in the hall this time.” He says without glancing up.

            “Fine.” I walk past the computer room and sit on the living room couch, picking up the book I abandoned on the end table yesterday. Dad’s voice floats from the computer room.

            “Did you ask your boss about full time, Samantha?” He says it less like a question, more like a demand.

            “Yep,” I lie. “She said she only has part time available. She just hired someone.”

It was sort of true. She did just hire Crystal, although I doubt anyone knew her boyfriend apparently came with the package.

I wince, wait for an explosion, or a “you could have tried harder” or maybe he would storm in and tell me to go get my resume and get out there and look for another job. Over the years I've learned dad’s moods. They ebb and flow like the tides of the ocean. Sometimes there would be smouldering criticism, sometimes rage, often he was just grumpy.

            “Well do you at least have three days?” he says crossly.

            “Every week,” I say, and shove my nose firmly back into my book.

            Saturday morning I'm up at nine. I could have slept in - the art show isn’t until eleven, but I want to be there early so I hop on a ten o’clock bus downtown.  On the way I phone work, put on my best sick voice and tell someone (I don’t know who it is that picks up) that I feel terribly ill and will not be in today. I forget to bring my book with me, so I mostly fidget with my book bag and stare out the window watching the road fly past.  The crack-head sitting two seats ahead of me is craning around in his chair like a kid at a restaurant staring into the booth next to him. It bugs me when kids do it at Denny’s, and it certainly isn’t any better when it’s a full- grown man and he’s stoned off his face.  He tries to talk to me, something about rubber ducks. I concentrate very hard on the landscape.