Four
My plan to blare music as an attempt to not appear depressed fails. The sun is just starting to move from its high position in the sky when Mom forces me to come downstairs for dinner. I leave the tape deck on at her request and trudge down the stairs, feeling incredibly lazy from lying around half of the day.
I pick through my ham and push my peas around my plate, feeling my parent’s eyes on me at the small, uncomfortably circular kitchen table. Even for only three people, it’s cramped.
“So what do you think?” Mom asks after ten minutes of silence; I’ve been watching the old clock on the wall tick by the entire time. “About The Ink Spots, I mean.”
I lift a spoonful of peas up, decide against it and drop them one by one onto my plate. Nobody stops their staring as each green ball drops.
“They’re cool,” I mumble, looking at my piece of ham.
“Do you want to go for a walk after dinner?” Dad asks both my mother and I. “I wouldn’t mind meeting the neighbours. I haven’t had much of a chance to talk to them since we arrived.”
My mother smiles as she wipes the corners of her mouth with a napkin. “I’d love to, honey, but I have to do the dishes and then write. I’ve had a sudden change in plot on my latest novel and I can’t wait to write about it!”
Dad smiles at her. “That’s great!” He turns to me next, that same smile growing slightly. “How about you, Bam?”
I open my mouth to tell him I’m fine when Mom shoots me a look that I know better than to disobey. I clearly have no choice in the matter.
“Sure.”
A short while later my father and I step into the fading day, basking in the leftover warmth. My radio is still blaring from upstairs, casting out small, grassy front yard in crackling sound.
“Let’s go this way,” Dad says, opting to take the curve to the right. I nod, still not wanting to go anywhere near the crazy yard man. It doesn’t take long for Dad to spot a man watering his garden with a hose, looking cheerful despite the boring task. “I’m just going to go introduce myself. You keep walking, I’ll catch up.”
He grabs my shoulder briefly and smiles before taking off towards the man. Alone, I keep walking a slow pace and look over my camera around my neck, trying to distract myself from having to do something I didn’t want to do in the first place by myself.
When I reach the first intersection on the road I stop at the stop sign, turn around, and stare at my father. He looks unbelievably happy, talking to the man who looks equally as joyful talking to my father.
I wait a few minutes, drawing patterns with the tip of my Converse in the sand on the pavement. When I’ve made a heart, scratched it out, and redrew it broken, I look up. My father is heading towards the front door of the house with the man. He turns towards me, looking for where I am. When he spots me, he grins and mouths something I can’t interpret. When he sees my blank space, he waves his hand. He wants me to keep walking.
I let out a sigh and walk down the road, unfamiliar with the streets. When I spot Highview, the one that Mom drove quickly down the other day to get home, I turn onto the brightly lit street. Since Dad’s taking so long, I can go home and tell Mom I got ditched. Then I have an excuse not to keep walking.
Only a few trees scatter the road, leaving the setting sun to shine brightly across the grass and cottages. After a few minutes I reach a dirt road that goes left and stop, wondering if it’s the way home. When I hear the faint music of a radio playing my face falls. It’s the crazy yard man’s street.
Needless to say, I keep walking forward.
Highview turns out to take much longer to walk down than I thought, and pretty soon all the housed streets and names blur together. I’m lost, without my father who is undoubtedly still talking to his new friend.
I see a few people walking the streets, who smile at me as they walk their dogs or hold onto their babies. I debate asking for directions but decide against it. Maybe if I’m lost for a bit longer and tell Mom, I’ll never have to do this ever again.
I don’t know how long I’ve been walking. The sun is even lower in the sky, creating shadows large enough that it takes minutes to walk through just one. They chill me and I hug my sweater sleeves up to my fingertips, trying to stay warm.
Eventually I decide that even though I’m completely introverted, I have to ask someone for directions. No one scatters the streets anymore. Everyone is probably tucked away in their little cottages relaxing after the day, and I’m stuck outside, lost because my father ditched me for his new best friend.
After a few minutes of scanning lawns and walking, trying to find either my way home or someone to ask, I spy a boy, most likely around my age, sitting on his front porch.
His head of messy, dark hair is easy to spot against the sky blue of his cottage. He’s leaned back in a chair, his feet resting on the table as he drinks a bottle, unquestionably beer. I scrunch my face up, already imagining the smell I’ve grown to hate over the years. I debate whether to ask him, concerned that maybe he’s as crazy – or crazier – as crazy yard guy, but I end up stopping at the edge of his grass anyways.
“Do you know how to get off of Highview?” I call, not only feeling awkward but also kind of confident.
The boy smirks, takes another sip of his beer, and then sets it down on the white, plastic table. He stretches his arms behind his head and leans on them. “Maybe I do.”
I narrow my eyes, annoyed. “Can you, I don’t know, direct me?” The boy shrugs and I let out a breath of exasperation. “Please?”
All he does is smile.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I start off down the road, praying that I’ll find somebody else to ask. I only get to his mailbox when he calls for me, telling me to stop. Defeated, I halt in my tracks and turn to him.
“You’re not on Highview,” he says, now standing at the railing of his deck. He’s resting his arms on the wood, leaning forward, towards me. “You’re on Beachview, so you must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.”
I look back and forth down the street. “I don’t see a beach view.”
The boy shrugs and nods towards his cottage. “The houses block the way. They named the streets before they built the cottages. What street are you trying to get to?”
I put my hands out in front of me and shake my head. “I have no idea.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate.”
I turn to walk off again and the boy calls for me to stop for the second time.
“Turn left at the end of Beachview and it will take you along the shoreline. You should be able to find your street that way.”
I don’t stop this time, but keep walking until I reach the end of the road. By now, the boy and his bright blue cottage are both out of sight and again, as I turn left and see no shoreline, I’m hopelessly lost yet again.
It doesn’t take long to find another person to ask and this time, I recognize the girl. She’s walking the same direction as I am, and even though I’d rather not act like a stalker, I need somebody to tell me how to get home. By now it’s almost dark and crazy yard guy might be hiding in the shadows, ready to yell at me.
“Hey, do you know how to get to the lighthouse cottage?” I ask, breathless from running. The girl stops and turns, causing her braid of half-blue, half-pink hair to whip around.
“Yeah, it’s on the way to downtown, where I’m heading. You can walk with me.” She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. I fall into step beside her and off we walk, listening to the sound of the crickets.
I can’t stop looking at the girl. Even though to some she would come across as strikingly out there, to me she’s unique. She’s wearing shorts, but has black, see-through tights underneath and her sweater is a baggy grey one with a cut out heart in the back, revealing a black tank top. I don’t know how it doesn’t tear, but I don’t open my mouth to ask.
“Are you new here?” she asks, meeting my eyes. I nod and she returns the gesture. “Thought so. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you before.” When I don’t respond, she smiles. “Not much of a talker, huh?”
“Not really.”
The girl smirks and keeps going on, as if my answer was the opposite of what I said. “So you live in the lighthouse cottage?”
“Yeah,” I respond, staring down at my shoes. I have no idea where we’re walking but I trust this girl, because it’s either her or waiting for my dad to find me.
“That must be cool. I’ve always wondered what it looked like inside.”
“My room is in the top of it,” I explain.
The girl looks at me with wide eyes and stops on a bend in the road. No cottages line the right side, just rocks that separate the pavement from the stony beach.
“No way,” she says. “That is so cool.”
We continue walking again, listening to the sounds of the waves lapping against the shore. Eventually, I have to ask and regret my question the second it leaves my lips.
“Why did you dye your hair like that?”
She shrugs, but looks down at the ground. “I wanted to be different.”
I smile but she doesn’t see it, so I let it quickly fade away. “I know the feeling.”
When my house comes into view, The Ink Spots are still blaring from my balcony that I can’t see because it’s facing the ocean. My mom must have flipped the tape and I’m not sure how I feel about her lurking in my room when I’m not there.
The girl walks me all the way to my wooden front door and we stop, facing each other. Head on, I notice that she has thick, dark eyelashes that look so long that they have to be fake. But when I see that she’s not wearing any makeup, I question whether they’re natural.
“Thanks for walking me,” I say, avoiding her gaze. “I wouldn’t have gotten here without you.”
The girl smiles. “You probably would have ended up here eventually. I just wanted somebody to walk with and you looked interesting.” I meet her gaze and she stares at me for a moment before holding out her hand. “I’m Hadley.”
I shake her hand and label her as the only teenager on Earth who still does this.
“I’m Bam,” I reply.
“Bam,” Hadley says, dropping my hand. “What a cool name. That reminds me, want to do something tomorrow?”
I have no idea how my name reminds her of making plans with me, but I go along with it anyways and shrug.
“We should do something. I’ll come pick you up, I can give you a tour of Mermaid so you don’t get lost again.”
I smile. “Thanks.”
Hadley gives a small wave and starts walking away, leaving me at my door. “See you tomorrow, Bam!” she calls before I step into my house.
I almost run into my mother on the way to my room. Her face is completely shocked, as if she’s staring at me and I’m a ghost. Her words come out so rushed that it takes me several moments to decipher them.
“Wherehaveyoubeen?”
“Dad made a friend,” I explain, ignoring her concern as I untie my shoes. “And he told me to keep walking, so I did, and I got lost.”
“Your father is out driving around town looking for you, Bam!”
I roll my eyes and take of my left shoe. “It’s not my fault I got lost. He’ll come home eventually, like I did.”
Mom, with her hands on her hips, leans forward to look out the window beside the door. “Who’s that?”
“Hadley.”
“She walked you home?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she nice?”
“Yes.” I drop my right shoe onto the floor with a thump.
“She has some interesting hair.”
I smile and walk towards my staircase. “I know.”