I Am Anastasia

The Romance in Fantasy

Dad is at the kitchen table, buried in the newspaper. Neither of us say hello when I walk in.  I bolt down a bowl of cheerio’s and leave him sitting there in his cold silence.  He never says hello.  Neither do I.

            I take the warm glow of the conversation with my mother to bed with me. It’s hard to fall asleep, since my mind is spinning in crazy circles.  I wish a million different things at once. I wish I wasn’t here in bed, I wish I was with her, I wish we had talked longer, I wish I could tell dad I had met her.  I could never tell him that; he would lock me in my bedroom and throw away the key. Then I would truly be like Anastasia, locked in the castle with a fire-breathing dragon guarding the way out.

               Anastasia would have the courage to tell him what she thought; she would speak her mind.  Most of all, I wish I was truly sure of my mother.  How can I know what she'll do? She’s taken off and left me behind before, years ago - what’s to say she won't do the same thing? Two days ago I didn’t have a mother; I didn’t have anyone to miss. What if I spend time with her and love her and then she pulls her vanishing act and abandons me a second time?  I’d like to tell myself she won't do that, but how do I know? She seems warm and wonderful, everything I pictured a mother should be, but I don't really know her.

               I think about her parting words, how she hugged me like she’d never let go and begged me to call her. I know the little scrap of paper with her cell number scribbled on it is buried at the bottom of my knapsack. It will be there when I need it. Of course, I gave her my cell number as well, and I wonder which one of us will call first. When I told her I was always hanging out at Legend art gallery she seemed delighted, demanded I come see her whenever I was there.  I know I should be angrier, I should be furious at her, for thinking she can come into my life after all this time, but it would be almost too much effort to stay angry with her.   She's so much the opposite of dad and I know instinctively that I missed that growing up; it was what I needed. 

               I fall asleep that night and dream I'm painting with my mother. She paints rainbows and sunsets, but all I can do is put globs of runny paint onto the canvas, which drip down over her beautiful landscapes, blurring and destroying them. She screams that I'm ruining her masterpiece again, that she'll have to leave.

               On the days I don't work, which are four out of seven, it doesn't feel like work is that bad.  I learn anew each workday that it truly is as awful as I remembered.

               Today is Sunday, my last day as a muffin shop prisoner for a few days.   I only work Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so I'm free for a whole four days in a row after today.  Sundays I don't mind, since Mrs. Beth has her one day off that day, which is just dandy if you ask me.  You can feel the tension in the shop dissipate, like some kind of nervous smog had been hanging over the shop when the boss was present, and it  thinned out over night while she was gone.  The only downside is that I'm working with Crystal and Rachel today. 

               Crystal, in all her radiantly-annoying beauty, is there when I come in.  Rachel is the baker in the back - she’s more tall and gangly then as I am, and she has frizzy blonde hair that sticks out in fly-away strands around her face; even when she attempts to put it in a pony tail, it's still frizzed. Rachel reminds me of a newborn colt, all stilt-like arms and legs and still getting used to her own body.  She even has a laugh like a horse, a high-pitched whinny that makes me cringe every time.  I would take Rachel over Crystal any day though.  Rachel is another odd bird, like me.  People like her, but there isn't anyone falling over themselves in high school to be friends, nobody wishing they could be like her, nobody about to vote her as homecoming queen.  Crystal on the other hand, Crystal makes me twitch. How is someone that perfect?  I watch her as she gabs, wondering if she ever gets up in the morning with greasy hair or laughs too loudly at an inappropriate moment, or talks to someone without realizing she has something in her teeth.  Probably not. I listen to her natter on about her boyfriend for an entire four hours before I excuse myself for lunch break.  I decide that Anastasia will meet a new character tonight, a perfect princess who talks non-stop about her amazing prince, and then near the end of the story the princess will fall into a giant pit of ravenous trolls.  As I eat my sandwich, I muse that one troll probably would have done just fine, but somehow an entire pit of them seems more satisfying.