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#Post#: 76--------------------------------------------------
It All Fit Together Until....
DIR By: StoryGod
Date: December 26, 2019, 5:05 pm
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Thursday morning, the weather forecast and the ever so helpful
Ms. Zivko, who blasted students at six thirty am, predicted
rain, but Marion did not care. This morning everything fit
together. She was able to diagram sentences in English. She
answered questions in geometry because she worked hard to
memorize theorems, and then it was time for art, that sought
after, wonderful, hard-to-get elective. True it was only general
art, but Marion liked to draw.
Her first choice of project was watercolor, and she started to
lay out her sketch from memory. Zia, by contrast, needed
inspiration. She begged for and got a pass to go to the library
back in Crosby-Magnoni, leaving Marion alone with a blank sheet
of paper and her thoughts. For some reason, her thoughts moved
in a circle. First, they headed forward to the afternoon's
nonwestern studies class. They were going to start with Japan.
Marion had been to Japan once long go, two thirds of a lifetime
ago, when she thought of it that way. She had been four. It had
been winter. The good ship, Ship, was cramped and smelly. There
was not enough water for all seven or eight plus paid crew to
get really clean. Dad got the immediate family, plus Gabriella,
the nanny, a hotel suite. Marion remembered warm water running
down her back in the shower.
She also remembered kneeling at the window feeling safe and warm
while snow fell outside, and the outside in Japan was scary
because the letters on the signs and businesses were all wrong.
In fact, they weren't letters at all, but jumbles of straight
and squiggly lines. Gabriella said Japanese used a different
alphabet. Little Marion did not find that comforting. The hotel
room, however, was a haven. Marion remembered crouching beside
the window on the fourth or fifth floor, watching the snow fall.
Was this the first time she'd seen snow? It probably wasn't, but
it was one of the first times and after the crowded ship under a
steel, gray sky, snow was not fun this time around.
Marion found a straight edge to draw the window frame and then
erased a few small spots, one was for a child, seen only from
the back. The child wore a one piece pajama or a set of loose
fitting pajamas. Marion reasoned that she could decide later.
Inside the window were store fronts and awnings with strange
letters and a tree gathering snow on its bare branches. That was
all. The picture would end up being various pastels except for
the child's hair, because Marion had always been a brunette.
"A child looks out the window," commented Ms. Genaro, the art
teacher. "Very interesting. What inspired it?"
"I went to Japan when I was four."
"That must have been very exciting."
"Not really..."
Ms. Genero groaned. "We went by boat."
"Wow."
"My Dad used to drive a yacht."
No reply.
"When we docked , it was cold and really crowded. It wasn't
fun."
"How long were you there for."
"A few days to two weeks," Marion thought back. She hadn't been
all that good at keeping track of time back then. She remembered
one weekend so the rest must have been weekdays. She remembered
Nestor, then about a year old, was sick. He coughed. He had
trouble keeping food down. She remembered mom and dad, whoever
among them was sober enough not to be an embarrassment, asking
hotel staff about doctors. "I would have been happier if I got
to try some Japanese food," Marion reasoned, remembering the
trip to HongKong years later, but in Tokyo no one paid attention
to a self sufficient four year old who had a nanny. It did not
matter if she knew the world out there was cold and dangerous.
She just knew.
"You look lost," Zia commented as Marion and her roommate walked
to lunch at Landon-Burchard-Durren.
"I started drawing a scene from my past in art."
"What scene?"
"When my family went to Japan."
"Was it fun?"
"No."
"My little brother was sick. The ship got crowded and smelly, so
my parents got a hotel suite for us, but my brother had a bad
cough and he threw up too. Must have been stomach flu."
"You know it's lunch time."
"Yeah...it was a long time ago. It wasn't anything, but it was
something at the time."
"Would you like to go back?"
"Not really."
"How come."
"I don't have good memories of it. That's all."
On the stairs where there was still a line for lunch (Lunch
lines were the worst of all), Marion checked her texts. Art was
a class where you had to surrender your cell phone.
"What are you going to draw?" Marion asked Zia.
"Probably a lady holding a mask in front of her face. That way I
don't have to draw the face."
"Sounds like you found something in the library."
Zia nodded. Marion had a new text from her mother.
--- Quote ---
>
> It's official [emoji779][emoji779][emoji779][emoji779] They
are making us move today. We are going to West Palm
Beach...We're slumming it. Wish us luck!
>
--- End Quote ---
"Everything OK?" Zia asked.
"The lawyer is putting my parents into a new sober home. The
police raided their own one. My parents were keeping their noses
clean, but the lawyer didn't like the atmosphere. Too much shit
going on."
"I hope your parents get out of the sober home soon."
"Not until the trial is over, and that doesn't start until
November."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. You didn't do anything. My parents had some bad luck.
That's all."
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