Paper Airplane

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Prologue

 

                On my eighteenth birthday, I took the wad of cash I’d been saving for a second tattoo and dyed my hair pink.  It’s not a bright pink, and Jill, my hairdresser, assured me it wouldn’t fade or turn another color.  The cost had surprised me, but I guess it shouldn’t have.  I haven’t cut my hair in years. 

                When I got home, my mother nearly suffered an aneurism.  I remember her eyes widening to the size of the bouncy balls you get out of the quarter machines at the grocery store, and her mouth opened and closed soundlessly like a fish that’s been out of water too long.  She called for my father, Marcus, get in here! and wouldn’t let me step any further than the foot of the staircase, my escape from that uncomfortable encounter.

                Dad wasn’t as angry as Mom was.  He seemed shocked, but not quite angry.  I think he expected me to do something equally as crazy today.  Eliza, relax, he said to her.  It doesn’t even look that bad.

                Her hair is pink, Marcus.  Her blonde hair is pink now! Mom had shouted, her head whipping around to stare at him desperately, crazy with wonder and frustration – why didn’t he understand how serious this was?  You’re not going to do anything? she demanded.

                My dad had just shrugged.  She’s eighteen now.  She can do what she wants with herself.  Let her be.

                He had always been this way, my dad.  Mom’s a little too uptight most of the time, so Dad is her perfect counterpart.  He’s just enough carefree to simmer down her anxious efforts to maintain control over everything.  I’m a lot like my dad when it comes to looks – I’d inherited his deep blue eyes and blonde hair.  Our cheekbones and lips were identical too, as were the freckles we both got in the summer.  Sometimes I think parts of my personality are him too, but then I see parts of that in my mom as well.  But really, I don’t think that most of me is very like either one of them.

                Brady, on the other hand, was a mixture of both of my parents when it came to his personality.  He looked a lot like Mom, but I could see Dad in him too.  Brady got Dad’s carefree attitude and Mom’s ability to focus all time and energy into a certain person or thing.  I used to love telling Brady my problems when he still lived at home, because he knew just how to pay attention to every word I said.  He made me feel like he really cared about what I was saying, and most times, he’d try to fix my problems while also guiding me down the path to fix them myself. 

                Mom reacted similarly to my brother’s desire to be famous as she did to my pink hair.  He came home one day with four other guys and told my parents they’d be in the garage if we needed him.  When Mom had asked what was going on, Brady said, I’m going to be a rockstar, Mom.  We’re a band.  And before Mom could respond, Brady led the other guys outside.

                A year later, Brady decided he didn’t want to be in a band, and he didn’t want to be a rockstar.  But he did want to sing.  As his taste in music changed, so did his goals, and without my parents even knowing, he began researching ways to reach his dream.  By the time he graduated, his future was set.  Because he was unbelievably talented, and after a couple private meetings with a talent scout, Brady was packing his bags for Los Angeles, California.

                This didn’t go over well with Mom.  Dad was a little shaken up as well, but he handled it better.  He’s too young, Mom insisted one night.  What about college?  He’s throwing his future away.

                Dad just patted her back and stared at a picture of our family of four up on the wall.  He’ll be alright, Eliza.  It’s what he wants.

                And it was what Brady wanted.  I couldn’t remember a time he ever wanted anything else.  We spent countless hours together on the basketball court in town, playing one on one or Around the World.  If Brady wasn’t singing our favorite songs, he was creating dance steps with a basketball or coming up with poetry that ended up sounding like a rap verse.  He was so good at it; more than once, a young child or two that could hear him from the swing set halfway across the park would come closer to listen.

                Brady’s been living in LA for three years now, and in that time we’ve only seen him twice: Christmas the first year, and a week before my seventeenth birthday last year.  I keep in touch with him through email and occasional phone conversations, but Mom and Dad both work so it’s harder for him to get ahold of them.  I do miss my brother, but I’d miss him a lot more if I didn’t see him everywhere I went.

                Because this is Brady McAllister’s hometown, many things have changed.  For instance, the basketball court in town was renamed McAllister’s Hoops because that’s the place almost everyone remembers seeing him most.  The grocery store has a little section that sells Brady McAllister T-shirts and other merchandise.  Our high school has a large sign out front that says Home of Brady McAllister.  And perhaps the weirdest, in my opinion, is the renaming of our road from 9th Street to McAllister Lane. 

                Before I knew it, people from all over the country flocked to our too-small-to-house-them town to see the place my brother grew up.  I woke up one morning to a crowd of teenage girls on our front lawn, taking pictures of our house.  I saw later online that in one of the pictures, I could be seen peeking out my bedroom window, and it was then that the world discovered Brady McAllister had a sister.

                I don’t know how he became so unearthly famous without anyone knowing about his family for a whole year, but when I was discovered, I suddenly became very interesting to too many people.  I deleted my accounts on any social media networks immediately, and after a week of the new attention, Brady called to apologize.  He’d been trying to keep me a secret for my benefit, but there’s nothing he can do now – that eventually all the hype will die down, don’t worry about it.

                I learned that eventually took half a year.  But after refusing countless interviews, hiding my face from an impressive number of cameras, and eliminating just about every way to contact me, the hype finally did die down.  I never wanted to follow in my brother’s footsteps before all of that happened, but once it did, I was even surer of my decisions. 

                Why would I want the entire world to know everything about me?  Why would I want cameras to follow me everywhere, to have everyone watch my every move and judge me on every mistake I made?  If my shoes didn’t go with my top one day, or my hair didn’t compliment my jeans, who knew what the world would say about me?  Sometimes I feel like Brady deserves some credit for putting up with such a life, but most of the time I just think he’s an idiot.  Who would want to live like that?

                I dyed my hair pink for three reasons.  The first was because my friend Lillian dared me, and although I knew it was a joke, not meant to be taken seriously, I began to consider it.  Then I mentioned it to my parents, to which my mom replied, Of course you won’t dye your hair pink, Lexie.  Don’t be ridiculous.  That’s the second reason – because she made the decision for me.  Of course you won’t.  Who was she to decide?  It’s my hair.  And the third reason I did it was to throw people off.  I didn’t like attention, but the only attention people paid girls with pink hair was judgmental, amused attention that lasts for about the amount of time it takes them to look away.  And then they forget about me and my pink hair because it’s not their problem.  No one cares about Brady McAllister’s odd sister anymore, and if an interested pap ever did pass me on the street, my hair would repel them.  Lexie McAllister doesn’t have long, pink hair.  She has long, blonde hair.

                Now I have pink hair.  Now nobody sees me for more than a few seconds because no one wants to look at pink hair.  And now, I intend to live my last summer in this town before college as any girl my age should be living it: irrelevant, unimportant, and unnoticed.