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#Post#: 35--------------------------------------------------
Girl Who Wasn't a Raisin
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: December 8, 2019, 5:49 pm
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The penny danced with a satisfying whump when Corianne threw it
onto the freshly made bed. With the right flip of the wrist any
coin, except perhaps a little, thin, dime would bounce. "Ander
enough!" snarled Cheryl, the step mother du jour. She was dad's
fourth wife, and one determined to keep him by giving her womb a
workout. She had two children by previous marriages and had
managed to produce twins and a singleton by dad. None of the
other wives, including Corianne's own mother, gave dad more than
two children. Corianne was her mother's only child.
"Come on what?" Corianne asked. The roommate was still
sniffling softly as she put away shirts and hung up coats,
sweaters, and pants.
"We're here to work not play games." Cheryl spoke perfect
parentese.
"As if I don't know."
"What got into you?"
"You're rushing me."
"We have a deadline."
"So..."
"Come on snot head. Are you going to treat the House Mother like
this."
"She's a Suite Advisor."
"Andi, get to work," her father finally ended the squabble. Of
course he didn't help. Women's clothing, even a ten year old
woman's clothing was a woman's task. Corianne watched as the
clothing piled into the trunk gradually shrunk. The duffels and
backpack came next, along with the cardboard box that held
hangers and beneath them three art projects that Corianne had
carefully made and selected including a framed collage of her
favorite paper dolls.
"Where did this come from?" Cheryl was clueless.
Corianne decided to give the step mother du jour the last word.
"We need to put them up with a pushpin," Corianne realized she
would have to explain things.
"Won't that make a hole in the wall."
"Yeah... but that's what I used at home and it worked, and it
doesn't make particularly big holes when you think about it."
The pushpins were with the school supplies in the backpack.
Corianne drove one into the soft wall board and hung the wire on
the back of the paper dolls in suspended animation from it. The
picture was neither straight nor even, but it was hers. The
roommate had brought a pastel abstract in red and gold. It was a
handsome thing. "At least my roommate likes to draw," Corianne
told herself.
Alas, the unpacking was nearly done. Dad offered to drag the
trunk and large duffels into the hall, setting them next to a
trunk and two large duffels and one flattened box belonging to
the roommate. Tikvah, the rommate's name sounded oddly familiar,
but Corianne could not place it. She let herself back into the
double that now looked more like two girls lived there.
"Excuse me," said the roommate's mother. She was an aging beauty
with long pink and white nails and blonde frosted hair, cut in a
feathered bob. Out went the roommate with her mother. "This is
it," sighed Corianne's father.
"No it isn't. We have orientation to go to."
"But after that..." Dad paused. "We leave and you'll be here by
yourself."
"By myself," thought Corianne. She thought of the roommate's
bed with its pastel striped chenille spread and its stuffed frog
pajama holder lolling on the pillow. No, she would not be by
herself, and that was even before she entered the sitting room,
called a lounge that was filled with kids and parents. She would
be with seven other girls and a Suite Advisor.
Corianne's older stepsister, Molly, would crow with joy at the
prospect. A sisterly lecture of Molly's played out in Corianne's
memory: "You're not spoiled. You're particular and you don't
know how to take what's out there. That's why you either get
what you want a little bit of the time, and the rest of the time
everyone runs over you, including me. I mean, you're not going
to make it in this family the way you are."
Well, in a few minutes Molly's prophesy was going to come
through, except for one thing. "I lived to make to
Kotiah-Yovanovitch," Corianne told the absent Molly who was down
in the RV along with Haley babysitting for the little brothers
and sisters, including the sleeping six month old singleton. "I
even won a few victories along the way," Corianne added.
Corianne had more than once crawled out of her corner of the
loft to demand to order her own food at roadside restaurants and
rest stops. She found a good book and a white noise app to block
out the sound. She even got Dad to recharge her phone, when she
blew its battery. So much for not surviving.
In the lounge the adults made small talk while the kids stared
awkwardly into space. Then at some prearranged signal everyone
crowded into the elevator. At the ninth floor, a clueless father
tried to board with an empty dolly cart. There was no room.
Orientation was in Papke-Sienko, the high school STEM building.
It had the largest auditorium and it was packed. Orientation
went over the rules in the Student Handbook, mainly curfew,
passes, quiet hours, and lights out, as well as contraband.
Corianne's parents were too smart to give her any contraband.
She had no interest in cigarettes, vaping, or illicit
substances. As for the passes and curfew, it seemed no different
than the middle schools she attended last year, both the private
and public one. In other words, the rules were a yawn.
Corianne was glad that she could stretch her legs after
orientation. She looked around for her whimpering roommate and
could not find her. They'd have to meet up sooner or later, she
told herself. Meanwhile, she walked over to the RV with her
parents. Molly, Haley, and all the little kids who could walk
spilled out. They surrounded Corianne as if she had been away
for eons. They reminded her of dogs wanting to sniff each
other's butts. "Sorry," Corianne thought. "Mine only stinks in
an ordinary way."
"OK, this is it," Corianne's father began.
At first the words did not register.
"We're going to go," he said.
"It would have to happen like that," Corianne told herself. "Of
course he had to leave."
"I'm going to miss you Ander. If this doesn't work out, you can
come home you know."
Indiana really wasn't home.Home was gone. Mom was in the
Emirates for the year, her second year. Mom had to work. Dad had
to leave.
"I'm really going to miss you Ander," Dad repeated.
Corianne hugged her father, smelling his aftershave and closet
of men's clothes smell. More than once she tried to imagine him
playing pro football, but she never could. He was still strong.
His hands were huge, but he was not a wide receiver. He'd been a
full back.
"I'll miss you too," Corianne thought she had already said
goodbye to mom. She watched her parents herd the brothers and
sisters back into the SUV and then climb in themselves. They
stared the engine, and drove away. Corianne was seized with a
wild impulse to chase after them. She even ran a few steps and
then stood in the middle of the parking lot feeling...
She was not sure how she felt. Empty, was the best word. She
thought of her roommate whimpering and wanted to cry too, but
tears wouldn't come, not even the familiar ache that preceded a
good cry. Instead, Corianne felt light headed and numb. Somehow
she remembered to walk back to Cerny-Al-Sigh, use her RFID in
her D-Card to open the door, get on the elevator as a father and
older teen boy, wheeled a dolly cart out. They said hello to
her, but she did not feel like talking. She squeezed in around
them. They were leaving another kid behind. Yes, she'd been left
behind, and somewhere Molly was crowing.
Corianne leaned against the elevator's rear wall. Her legs were
rubbery. She longed for her corner in the RV's loft. Now that RV
was barreling down the Thru-way heading back to
Indiana...without her. Molly got off on the eleventh floor and
let herself into her suite.
"Everything OK?" Albina, the Suite Advisor asked a typically
clueless adult question.
"They're gone," were the first words out of Corianne's mouth,
and she was surprised that they only came out as a croak instead
of a scream. Corianne thought of the bedroom with its bright
decorations and all her possessions that she cared about.
"I'm going to do wardrobe check and then we'll have a campus
tour. If we don't start lining up for dinner early, we may get a
shorter line," the Suite Advisor blathered. Corianne barely paid
attention. It took her three tries to tap into her room. It
wasn't entirely her room, but the roommate was somewhere else.
"Was she still crying?" Corianne wondered.
Corianne walked to the window and put her hands on the glass.
Here there were no parents to tell you not to leave finger
marks. Through the glass she saw the back sides of various
academic buildings. Her mother would say this was just like a
college, but mom was in the Emirates. Dad was on his way back to
Indiana. The step mothers and ex-wives were all over the US.
"This is it," Dad's words echoed in Corianne's head. "So what?"
Corianne replied in her mind.
Her roommate had been smart to bring a stuffed frog pajama
keeper.There might be times when even big girls needed to sleep
with stuffed animals. "We all need memories of home and
something to hold on to," Corianne told herself. Then she
wondered what she had to hold. She knew kids at school with
stuffed animals, but she had brought nothing soft, and she
needed something soft now. She thought about stealing the frog,
but she didn't want to piss off the roommate who had troubles of
her own.
Instead, Corianne sank down on her spreadless bed, with its
blue, yellow, and orange mismatched sheets and its blue, plush
blanket. She bent over because being curled up is more
comfortable. She thought about drawing up her legs and making a
ball. She wondered if she would shrink up to nothing if she did
this. More precisely, she decided, she would shrivel up like a
raisin. "I don't want to be a raisin," she told herself,
imagining the Suite Advisor looking for her and then relaying
the bad news to her parents. The thought left her nauseous.
The thought left her incredibly, really nauseous. Corianne made
a quick grab for the waste basket and retched violently. Not
much came up but a mouthful of bitter spittle, but throwing up
made her ribs and stomach ache. It also brought tears to her
eyes. Corianne settled the wastebasket on the floor. There was
nothing to clean up, but she hurt. She hurt so now she could
cry. At least finding a crying kid was better than finding a
girl turned into a raisin.
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