My last day of school at Bigsley wasn't what I'd expected it to be. Well, I hadn't expected much, but at least a
goodbye party. Darlene, my best friend, would really be the only one who'd miss me, seeing as how she was practically
the only person in school who knew that I existed. You see, Bigsley is the biggest school in the state, a 9th and 10th
grade school, of about 9,000 students. The campus: huge. It was a great place for a great education, you can be sure of
that. But when it came to making friends and being popular, Bigsley wasn't my place.
Everything was preset: when I came two years ago in the middle of the school year, my chances at getting in to the
"in" crowd were a hundred to none. School had already been going on for 5 months, friendships already going strong,
cliques developed..making a friend was a three ring circus to a new girl. And that was where I was. I'd never been to a
school so big- in fact, I didn't know schools came that big- so my first couple of days there were pretty hopeless. Then,
my second week of school at Bigsley, Darlene came. She was in my Biology class, and she was as lost as I. Darlene
approached me one day in the lunch room. I was sitting in a corner by myself when out of the blue came Darlene, who
wittily asked me, "Is this the new kid, no friends section?" Before I could reply, Darlene had plopped down beside me,
and our friendship had begun.
I've never been 'popular', but at least people knew my name. That is, before I came to Bigsley. I remember it like
it was yesterday...things definitely got better when I had someone. Without Darlene, I'd have nothing to miss about
Bigsley.
Okay, where was I? Ah yes..last day of school, right? Yeah, Darlene gave me a cute little teddy bear with a balloon tied
on to its paw, with a little note dangling from the balloon string, containing a short "goodbye, I'll miss you buddy" message
and her phone number circled in red, with a little "day or night" warranty out beside it. I'm not a wishy washy person, but
the note brought a sting of tears to my green eyes. We hugged, and ten minutes later I was out the front doors of Bigsley
for the first time.
My dad came to get me. He's a single parent, but I have a brother, Nathaniel (Nathan for short). Nathan's in sixth
grade, and he's hyper-active. He has to get regular check-ups and take Ritalin. If he misses his medicine, he goes on a
brat rampage, cussing at my father, ripping my magazines up, getting dirty...You'll be sitting there talking to him and he'll
just stare off in to space like you're not even there. It was kinda weird when we first found about it. Other than that,
though, he acts like any other twelve year-old..when he's on his medication, that is.
Nathan was still at school when Dad came to get me, it was only lunch time. I glanced back one last time at my
school. Then, without a further thought about Bigsley, I got home, and started packing.
You see, to understand the story, you'd have to understand my dad.
He's the most complex person I've ever met. When my mom died six years ago, I was eight years old and my dad was
32. It hit him harder than it did me. My mom and dad were the ideal couple. Together, they never fought or argued. It
was like a TV show--it was all like, "Sure, honey, whatever you like" and "Here, let me do that, sweet heart". I mean, my
friends would come over and they couldn't believe that my parents were still like that. "Why?" I'd ask them, "don't
everybody's parents love eachother?"
"Love eachother, yes," Aunt Chloe once told me, my mom's little sister, "but always agree and get along? No."
Myself being a child of only eight, I didn't understand every little thing. But I do remember a lot. I think its because
those were the best times of my life, and you're supposed to remember those the best. Yeah, that must be what it is.
When my mom died, my dad didn't do what you'd expect. He didn't throw himself on to the couch and moan and
cry helplessly after the funeral. He didn't drown in the pits of depression and despair. Of course, things around my house
changed a lot. It was quieter, for one thing, without mom's bright, happy laughter lighting everything up. Of course Nathan
and I could tell my dad missed her. He didn't sleep as much, and his young face, which should've started showing slight
signs of age already, but must've been delayed because he was so happy, finally began to look older. But like I said, Dad
didn't over do the grief thing. To this day he doesn't get teary-eyed when he hears her name, he doesn't go on pretending
she's not dead, nor does he try to forget about her and never mention her name aloud, and pretend he never knew her.
He simply goes on, and when he does talk about her, the tone of his voice changes, barely noticeably, if you've been
around him enough...it doesn't get sad, but it gets..I don't know, thoughtful. Like this one memory he's sharing with the
room of Mom leads on to another whole chain of thoughts, but chooses not to reveal them because they're sacred,
special. Yes, there are some things, you can tell, that he's about to say and then changes his mind. Mostly he laughs about
the funny things she did, or they did together. And when he does think aloud about what he misses about Mom the most,
it's always happy. He thinks about the good things, sees them, remembers them, and I know he likes to share them. He's
alright with the way things are.
It must've been harder at first, to be so comfortable with it, but I think he worked toward this by keeping in mind
that he had two small children, both of which had been brought into the world by the one woman whom he'd loved more
than life itself. He dedicated every second of spare time to my brother and I. Dad's a free-lance architect, meaning he
doesn't belong to a firm but has his own business card. So, he didn't have all the extra time in the world, but he worked
with what he did have toward outings, trips, baseball games, and movies with his two children.
Watching my dad go on pretending not to miss her was hard for me. Some nights, after he tucked us in, it would be really
late and I'd get thirsty, so on my way to get a drink of water from the kitchen, I'd peek into my dad's room to see if he
was still awake. When he was, he was sitting on the bed with his back to the door, holding someting in his hand, and
crying. Before Mom died Dad never cried. What he always held when he cried was a picture of Mom , that sat on his
bed stand. She was standing ankle deep in mud, wearing rolled-up blue jeans and a dirty white tank top. Her hair was
blowing in the wind and she was smiling; she'd just caught her first fish, which she displayed proudly for the camera. On
these nights I would see Dad cry I went straight back to my room and cuddled up under the blankets and closed my eyes
and thought of heaven. Mom always told me to do this. I got stomachaches a lot when I was little, and she would always
come hold me late in to the night. Finally, when the hurting stopped, I didn't want her to leave, because as soon as she
left, the hurting came back. Before kissing me one more time and closing the door, she would tell me to think of heaven.
"Think of something magnificent, Michelle. Think of clouds and angels, and your favorite songs, and lots and lots of blue.
So, she never actually said "think of heaven", but those words she said to me made me think of heaven. Sadly and
ironically, my Mom left me for this place only a few months later. Thinking of heaven still helps me go to sleep when the
pain of it all, which isn't always physical, hurts too much.
In our 1995 white Honda Civic I turned the radio on. It was an oldies station, the only thing my dad would allow in
the car. "In the house," he said in a joking, old fashioned voice, "play that crap you like to listen to. But I won't have it on
in the car rubbing off on me!" It was a reasonable rule.
While my dad sang along to "Brown-Eyed Girl" I stared out the window thoughtfully. I already missed Darlene.
My new school would really be drab without her corny jokes.
I was moving on though, to bigger and better places. Well, better strike that from the record. Better, okay. Bigger?
NO.
My Aunt Chloe that I talked about earlier lives in Arkansas. She lives in a teensy weensy town called Yellville. You
see, Aunt Chloe and my mom had both been born and raised in northern Connecticut, and when my mom married my
dad and we moved to Ohio, Aunt Chloe was only 19 or so. A few years later she met a southern fellow who was in town
only for the weekend visiting relatives (this began a long-distance relationship and eventually dating, and finally marriage)
and they moved to Arkansas, where he was from. After seven months Bruce (the husband) ran off with another woman,
leaving Aunt Chloe, still fresh and young at age 24, in the sticks with nothing but a run-down farmhouse, a large herd of
cattle and a teaching job at Fairview, the school that I would soon be attending. After a good, steady recovery, Aunt
Chloe sold her 'husband's' cattle and brought in enough to build a new house, a beauty. She still lives alone. Not for long.
Now back to Yellville. This is a hick town we're talking about here. I've visited her once, but it was a long time
ago- I was still in diapers. This town Yellville is so small it doesn't even bother to have a population sign. All it is really is a
bunch of houses scattered around in an area with a post office, a Lodge Hall for town meetings, a phone booth, and three
old deserted buildings: one a broken down garage, one a huge two story building that used to be a general store (hadn't
been used in fifty years) and other a small, tan structure with two gas pumps out front, whose owner had died four years
earlier leaving it there empty, useless.
That was about all I knew about Yellville, and what I did remember was mostly from questions I'd asked Dad.
"What do teenagers do there for fun?" I thought out loud. Dad looked at me. "Oh well, I don't know, it was far
more populated back when your mom and I viisted, but that was years ago, honey. You'll have to ask your Aunt Chloe."
We neared our house, a neat little three-bedroomer with white siding and red brick. Dad pulled in the garage
driveway, and was still humming the song off the radio when we both walked in to the living room.
I was on my way to my room when Dad called me.
"What is it?" I asked, with a little impatience in my tone, I was ready to get back to the remainder of my packing.
Dad gestured toward the couch. "Come on, that can wait. Have a seat."
I knew it was time for yet another talk. There's another thing about my dad. He loves to discuss everything. Like,
for example, I've always had above-decent grades, and in 7th grade I brought home a C in math. This upset him greatly
and he made me sit down with him and have a heart-to-heart so we could "get to the bottom of this". "Is it your teacher?
Your classmates? The school? Why are your grades slipping?" He had asked... I'd replied, "Dad, it's ONE C! No,
nothing's wrong!" I gave him my word, yet the talk changed gears: he decided that of all times, it was the appropriate
time for us to have the SEX talk! Can you believe it? "Is it drugs? Boys? Is that why you can't concentrate at school
anymore?" I'd accused him of being wacko and that it was nothing of the sort, simply a test I'd failed to study for. And
then he started talking about boyfriends, which led to dating, which led to sex! Of course I'd had sex-ed at school, (and it
isn't like we don't hear enough about it while we're just living our every day lives, I mean we ARE teenagers!) Anyway to
make a long story short, Dad jumps to conclusions, a lot. However, I braced myself for another father-daughter session.
Dad cleared his throat. "What I'm letting you do here, Michelle, is a sign of trust. I trust you, and that's why I'm
letting you go live with your Aunt Chloe. Now there are a few things we have to discuss first, things that we neglected to
mention when we made this arrangement." Uh oh.. I thought. He continued. "Your Aunt Chloe loves you very much, and
I know that you and your brother tend to take advantage of that love." Dad was right. Every time Aunt Chloe visited she
took us shopping...as in, you even glance in the direction of something and she hammers you until you say, "Yeah, I kind
of like it" and she buys it for you. I couldn't help but smile. Dad knew me too well.
"And that will all change when you live with her, you understand. She's a teacher, which means she can afford to
go on shopping sprees when she visits you kids twice a year, but she can't do it every day. You will have to learn to tell
her no or else she will spoil you rotten. Also, you will have a curfew." He paused to see what my reaction would be. I'd
never had a curfew before, but Dad could always call Darlene's house when it was time to come home. Thousands of
miles away, it was up to Aunt Chloe, and Dad was worried.
"Yes, that's right, and I haven't quite decided when exactly it will be, but I'm leaning toward 10:30 pm. Afterall,
you are only fourteen." Hmm... I thought...that's not too bad I guess.
He was quiet. "Anything else?" I asked. Shaking his head, he excused me from the conversation. As I left, he
called over his shoulder, "Remember, Michelle, this is your first time out there, you have to be careful. All it takes is one
time and you'll be back home." I could trace the seriousness yet concern in this comment. I entered my room and closed
the door, an unbreakable habit of mine.
It was nearing 1:00 pm, and when school let Nathan out at 3, my bags would be packed and we'd head to the
airport for my 4:15 flight into Little Rock, Arkansas with a layover in Dallas.
My room is my most favorite place in the world. It was once covered with posters of Leonardo DiCaprio, wall to
wall. Then one day I decided it looked too cluttered and tore everything down. It was a hard thing to do. I put paintings
up instead. There's a Monet above my dresser, and a watercolor of flowers in a vase on the wall at the foot of the bed.
My room is so warm and cozy, it's a perfect bedroom for a girl. Another of my favorite things are my blue hippie beads
covering my open closet. The carpet is light blue, the walls white, and the dominating decor colors are pink, baby blue,
and creamy white. The bedspread on the most comfortable bed in the world is a hand made wedding-ring pattern with
the coordinating colors of the room. If I could, I'd pick up my room on suspenders and take it with me everywhere.
I sat down at my desk and started gathering up my toiletries and make-up into a bag. It was hard for me to leave much
behind, I've always been a heavy packer.
Okay, so you're wondering why I'm going to live with Aunt Chloe, right? Well, there's not much to tell. It was
spur-of-the-moment more than anything, and the more I sat there and thought about it, the better it sounded. It would be
exciting. And, I wasn't exactly happy at Bigsley, and I was ready for a change, a drastic one. Life was getting boring, and
somebody once told me that when life gets to going slow, all you need is a little change. I talked about it with Aunt Chloe
first, since she would be hosting my stay, whether it be temporary or permanent. It was easy. Aunt Chloe was a happy
person, but I knew she got lonely sometimes like the rest of us. Dad was the tricky part. He was set on keeping me here!
"You're too young to be out on your own! Your aunt, she's not responsible enough! She doesn't know anything about
teenagers!" That was when I pointed out to him that Aunt Chloe was a high school teacher, she was surrounded by
teenagers all day every day. It still wasn't enough. Dad needed something concrete. So, I resorted to the responsibility
issue. I remember my exact words, I practiced them so much. "Dad," I said, "Don't you see how much this will help me
become a responsible person? I'll be away from home, it'll be just like summer camp, only a little longer! And I can
always come home when I want to. I've been under your wing for fourteen years Dad! I'm ready to prove to myself and
everyone else that I'm not a little kid anymore. I can do this. Please don't hold me down." I had said smoothly. That, and
constant chattering on about the matter, made him relent. Now, in a few hours, I'd be off, ready to start a new life, in a
new place with new people. I knew a change was all I needed. I couldn't wait.
Comments for Michelle Rice? Email her:ccrice@yell.com Michelle has stated that she'll keEp writing this story if she gets one single comment.
