Читать книгу Hello There, We've Been Waiting for You! - Laurie B. Arnold - Страница 5

“Okay, now you can look. She’s not watching.”

I peeked over at the neighbor’s house. An African American lady about Florida’s age was checking her mail. She wore layers and layers of clothes, even a pair of sweatpants pulled over her jeans. Her kinky jet-black hair was twisted in a tangle of braids encircling her head, ending in a fat topknot. Her skin was the color of coffee, and she was singing so loud I could make out the words even through our closed car window with the air conditioner on high.

“That woman is possessed by the devil,” Florida told me. “Number one rule? Stay away. She’s crazy as a loon.”

She did look a little odd, wearing all those thick layers in the hot New Mexico sun. I watched as she slid an enormous stack of mail into a small beat-up leather fanny pack. I couldn’t imagine how it all fit. Weird.

We waited for her to go back inside before we got out of the car.

Inside Florida’s house it was dark as a cave. My eyes struggled to adjust after the bright New Mexico sunlight.

I followed my grandmother to the end of the hall, my suitcase clickety-clacking behind me on the hard tile floor.

“Prepare to behold a true vision of sheer beauty.” She said it in the most dramatic way, as if she was revealing some well-kept secret of the universe. Then she opened the door.

“Ta-da!”

My new bedroom was pink. The bedspread, the curtains, the throw rug, the fluffy stuffed poodle, and the ballerina lamp. It was all cotton-candy pink.

“Isn’t it divine? I bought the entire ensemble on The Shopping Mall Network.”

I hate pink.

It’s true that plenty of girls like it, and that’s perfectly okay with me. I would never hold it against them. Give me any other color in the universe and I’m happy.

“Honey, isn’t this room just you all over?”

“It’s, uh, nice. Thanks.” What could I have said without hurting her feelings?

Then I noticed a wall of boxes stacked to the ceiling.

“Don’t worry about those. They’re just a few must-have goodies I bought from my shopping shows. Or I thought they were must-haves when I bought them.” Florida shrugged. “But I might need them someday. You never know! Now, are you ready for a TV dinner? Glazed turkey Lean Cuisine?”

“No thanks. I’m not hungry,” I said.

“We could watch the Shop ’Til You Drop Channel together. They’re featuring hair accessories.” Her eyes sparkled and gleamed as if hair accessories were the best things in the entire universe.

“I think I’ll just unpack and go to sleep.” I slung my backpack onto the girly-girl bed.

“It’s awfully early, but suit yourself. If you need me, I’ll be looking for treasures on my shopping shows. Nighty-night.”

I shut the door and sat on what was once my mom’s bed. I pulled my most prized possessions from my backpack. My drawing book and colored pencils. My good-luck soccer ball that my whole team had signed after I scored the winning goal in the championships. My two favorite framed photos—one of Violet and me in our soccer jerseys, and the other one of my mom and me at the beach, our matching hair blowing in the wind. I set them on the nightstand, beside the ballerina lamp.

At the bottom of my backpack was my mom’s Washington State Ferry jacket. It was the one she’d worn at work, directing cars on and off the ferryboat that went back and forth between our island and downtown Seattle.

I unpacked my suitcase—mostly T-shirts, shorts, and blue jeans. Most of my stuff I’d left at Violet’s house for safekeeping. Maybe I was trying to convince myself that moving in with Florida would only be temporary.

Even though it had just turned dark outside, I curled into a ball on top of the covers and buried myself under my mom’s jacket. It smelled just like her. When my eyes were closed it was almost as if she were beside me. I inhaled the sweetness of cinnamon and butterscotch, waiting for the moon to rise in that same room where my mom had slept when she was a kid. I’m pretty sure she’d be horrified to know it was now baby-pink.

I couldn’t sleep. My head was filled with thoughts I couldn’t switch off. The weirdo lady next door. My best friend, Violet, in perfect Paris. My strange grandmother. My mom dying. Outside a dog howled and a man yelled bad words to make it stop. But loudest of all was the steady blare of the TV as Florida flipped through the channels, searching for something to buy.

My second biggest wish was that the bottomless pit in my heart would go away. My first biggest? That I’d wake up and all of this was really just a super-strange dream.

But the next morning I was still in a cotton-candy-pink bedroom on Grape Street. Living in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico, with Florida Brown was my strange new reality.

My mom used to say, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” I was pretty sure that this was the first day of what would be the worst life in all of recorded history.