The Thirst Within Read online

  “Hi,” I smile at her, timidly but hoping to look like I want to get along.

  “I’m June, your uncle’s wife,” she says and hugs me briefly, like Uncle Roland did. I notice that she doesn’t refer to herself as my aunt June. “I’m so excited you’re here, and on New Year’s, of all days! Brand new year, brand new niece.”

  Well, at least she referred to me as somebody’s niece. But if she’s so excited, how come she didn’t bother to greet me outside?

  After some small chitchat about my trip here and the weather—always the weather—I’m taken to the first door on the second story of the house.

  “This is youu,” June says, extending the last word as she opens the door, revealing a small but homey-looking room. It has a twin-sized bed, a desk and a small office chair by the window. I see my boxes placed against the wall by the window next to the desk. The room is painted white, and I have faith that during the day it might look bigger. My room. The bed has a light blue cover on it, which is probably what makes me feel at home, since blue is my favorite color. There’s a faint smell of old room; nothing that a good aerating won’t fix. Or what’s more likely, I’ll just get used to it.

  All in all, it’s not bad; however, the fact that the bed is so small throws me off; it seems so tiny. But it’s the proper size, I guess, for the small room. Back at Nana’s house, I used to sleep in a huge four-posted bed. In fact all of the bedrooms had four posted beds. I think it’s an old person thing. And this last week I spent at Aunt Marie’s, I slept in her guest bedroom which had a full-sized bed.

  I realize I haven’t said anything to acknowledge their kindness. “Thanks. It’s really pretty.”

  “Why don’t we leave your stuff heeere…?” She says as she puts the small purse she was carrying, and makes room for my uncle to put down the two large duffel bags. “Okay,” she continues enthusiastically as though I was a child in Disneyland. “Let’s give you a quick tour of the house.”

  “This is the guestrooom…” June says, pointing at the door across from mine, but she doesn’t open it. “I like to keep the door closed so that it stays clean,” she adds, reverting to grownup voice; but doesn’t explain why she won’t open the door for a second to show it to me.

  Down the hall adjacent to my bedroom is another closed door, and I finally learn my new stepcousin’s name. “And this is Fiona’s room, but of course she’s not here since it’s New Year’s, and she spent the night at a friend’s party.”

  “She should be joining us for dinner, though,” my uncle chimes in quickly, as if to ease any disappointment I may have at not having met Fiona the second I walked into the house.

  “Great,” I say, because that’s what it sounds he wants me to say.

  “And here’s Jack’s room,” June says, and knocks softly on a door across from Fiona’s. “Jack? Please come out and meet your cousin.”

  After about thirty awkward seconds during which I don’t know if anyone inside even heard June, the door finally opens. I see a room twice the size of mine in the background. I pretend not to notice and shift my eyes to the little kid in front of me. If I recall correctly he should be six years old, and turning seven this year.

  “Hi,” I say.

  He just looks at me.

  “This is Tori, your cousin who’s going to be living with us from now on, okay?” His mother says, but makes it sound like if it’s not okay with him I may have to find another place to live.

  Jack looks up at me and there’s no smile, no encouragement; just slight curiosity, and possibly a desire to go back to whatever he was doing inside his room. He finally says, “Okay.”

  Phew! I get to stay.

  I hate the little dipshit already.

  “Great,” his mother praises him for his civility. “We’ll see you at dinner, okay?”

  “Okay,” he says, possibly the only word he knows, and closes the door in our faces.

  After the rest of the tour, which has left me fascinated with the house, and very disenchanted with June and my uncle, I return to my small room. The blast of dusty old air hits my nose, this time without the homey feeling I associated with it before. Compared to the rest of the house, it suddenly seems too small and uninviting. I wonder how small the empty guestroom is.

  I lie down on the bed. At least it’s sturdy wood and not squeaky. After a few minutes I detect a faint smell of pee. I sniff around and discover it’s the old blue comforter, which smells a little like urine. Gross!

  FML to the max.

  ***

  Fiona shows up when Uncle Roland, June, Jack and I have already taken our places at dinner. Uncle Roland excuses himself from the table and meets her at the foyer. He lowers his voice a little but we can all hear him chastising Fiona because she was supposed to have come back earlier, and we had to start dinner without her.

  And then I hear her say, not even pretending to be hushed, “So what? We never have dinner together. Why are y’all pretending for? Don’t fool the poor thing into believing she has a warm loving family here.”

  “Fiona!” Her stepfather exclaims, shocked. “You get back here this instant,” his lowers his voice towards the end, resigned that she’s already bouncing up the stairs.

  She delivers a classic “What-ever” as she reaches the top of the stairs.

  I can’t figure out if she hates me for taking my place at the table before she got here, or for coming here in the first place; or if she’s on my side, actually defending me from my foster parents who tried to make me believe that they normally have dinner at the table, when supposedly they do not.

  I decide that yelling when she has to know everyone can hear, and not even introducing herself to me, is rude as fuck, and she’s added to my shit list. At this pace I’m gonna need more paper.

  After dinner, Jack makes a dash for his room and shuts himself in again. If he was older I’d make masturbating allusions, but c’mon, he’s six. Why does he spend every possible minute locked up in there for? Fiona is nowhere to be seen. June and Uncle Roland stick around doing the dishes. I offer to help.

  Uncle Roland immediately declines. “No, thank you, Tori. But you go rest. You’ve had a long day.”

  June also declines with a big smile. “Yeah, Tori. Don’t you worry about this mess. Your uncle and I got it covered. Plus, you wouldn’t know where to put the dishes, and I’d have to spend the same amount of time showing you.”

  Oh my God. Did she really have to add that last part? I know that I don’t know where anything goes, and I’d probably be in the way. If I wasn’t going to help anyway, what’s the point of mentioning that? It’s like she’s reminding me that I don’t know where anything goes because I just got here, to eat their food. It only makes me feel more like an outsider.

  And worse, it’s not like I wouldn’t learn where things go, if I were to help. I can be taught things. Jeez. She manages to sound like a total bitch even when she’s supposedly being nice to me.

  So I say, “Thank you,” against my will, and go back upstairs. I almost open the first door to the left when I remember that’s the guestroom; my bedroom is the one across it. I turn towards my door, but pause, thinking of the doorknob I mistakenly grabbed a moment ago.

  I wonder if it’s unlocked. It has to be. What psycho locks their guestroom? I wonder what it looks like. The room she didn’t open. Was she embarrassed? Is it full of crap? Curiosity burns within me, warm and vibrant. I look left and right. I could open it. Take a peek. Why not? What’s the worst that can happen? I get caught and yelled at. I’m so upset at June’s dig at my learning skills, Fiona’s attitude, and Jack’s lack of interest in me, that I don’t care if anyone catches me doing it and yells at me. If June comes up, I’ll just say I got mixed up or turned around with the doors, since this door is right in front of mine.

  The fact that I already came up with an excuse means that I do care if I get caught, my little conscience tells me. Scenes from Aunt Marie’s house flash before my eyes and I shake my head to clear th
e thoughts away. Deep down I want this to work out. I don’t want to piss off my new family. I don’t want to be rejected again.

  But whoever said curiosity killed the cat didn’t say anything about how the cat felt. There’s something in my chest that glows with unfounded interest, and I just need to open that goddamned door. So I do.

  I gasp. The room is big, much bigger than my bedroom. It has a beautiful full-sized bed with an elegant comforter on it. It is about the size that Jack’s room looked like to me. And I’m pretty sure Fiona’s has to be the same size, if not larger, than Jack’s.

  Why did I get the smallest room with the smallest bed when there’s a larger room available?

  ***

  About an hour later there’s a knock on my door. “Tori?” It’s Fiona’s voice.

  “Coming,” I call. I open the door and I see a pretty girl with straight dark hair, green eyes—no, a light brown, or hazel—and full lips. Fiona’s got her mother’s dramatic looks and olive skin. She’s probably popular in school, and now I’ll have to go to school with her and pretend I don’t know her.

  “Hey, I’m Fiona.” She does a quick sweep of her hand in an arc; a wave of sorts.

  “Tori,” I say. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Yeah, you too,” she says with questionable enthusiasm. “Sorry I didn’t join you at dinner.”

  “It’s okay. At least I had the rest of the Harris.”

  “The Harrises.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s the Harrises, not the Harris. Like Etta Jones, the Joneses.”

  I’m at a loss for words. How do you reply to that? “Oh. Sorry.”

  She laughs. “Fuck the Harrises! I hate that my mom changed my last name. I was born Fiona Ferreira. We were the Ferreiras before my daddy passed away. None of this Harriseses bullshit.” She adds an extra syllable at the end to sound extra bitchy.

  “Sorry about your dad,” I say, which is what you always have to say when someone says their parent passed away, apparently, no matter if their dead father was better off dead. I barely remember my parents but when anyone finds out that my parents passed away, I always, always get an “I’m sorry.” It’s automatic.

  “I like Roland better,” she says, shrugging, and something about the way she says it bothers me. “I just hate his name. We made up, by the way. I know you heard us fighting, but we’re okay now.”

  “Oh, okay. I mean, that’s great,” I say, once more not finding anything to say. “Well, thanks for coming by.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll talk to you later, Tori.”

  3. An Outcast

  I’ll start the second half my Junior year next Monday at Fiona’s high school, whatever it’s called. I don’t know. No one bothers to tell me anything.

  I’ve been thinking about this high school ever since I was told I was moving to New Orleans. New school, new me, I used to think. But now seeing how pretty Fiona is, and knowing she went to a party overnight somewhere for New Year’s, it means to me that she’s popular and already has a circle of friends I can’t possibly penetrate.

  It’s only Wednesday, the day after I arrived, so I only have a few more days of freedom. The rest of the week and the weekend. My uncle works for The Man so he had to work today, January 2nd. Suck it, Uncle.

  When he comes back from work, June asks us to sit together for dinner again. Jack doesn’t say anything to me; he only complains to his mother about his food. Uncle Roland tries to make small talk about work, but it’s so boring not even his wife is paying attention. Suddenly Fiona announces that she needs the car because she’s going to meet with her girlfriends—Friend One and Friend Two, I forget their names the second after she says them—at the mall to buy new clothes for school.

  “Why don’t you take Tori with, Fiona?” My uncle asks, probably thinking he’s stepping in to my rescue. No, I want to say. How embarrassing. As if I didn’t feel unwanted enough already.

  “Sure,” she says after a pause. That pause to me is synonymous with Fuck no.

  “Thanks, but you don’t have to if you’ve already got stuff to do with your friends,” I tell her, letting her know she’s off the hook.

  “Nah, Tori, there are plenty of things to do at the mall.”

  I have no idea what she means, so I only say, “Thanks. Okay, I’ll go.”

  “How fun,” June chimes in, batting her long lashes enthusiastically. She’s wearing pink tone eye shadow today.

  “Great,” Uncle Roland says. “You girls have fun. Do you need any money?”

  “Dad, please!” Fiona says, and she laughs.

  Please what? I could use some money, but I’ll never say anything, at least not at the dinner table in front of everyone else, and definitely not right after Fiona made it clear that she won’t take her stepfather’s money. Oh, how interesting—she calls him Dad.

  I run upstairs to my room to change. Since I’m meeting Fiona’s friends, presumably cute girls like she is, I want to make a good impression. I choose clothes that I think make me look best, fix my hair and even trade my glasses for my contact lenses.

  We leave, Fiona driving her parents’ old car, a 2008 Chevy Impala, which she tells me was all the rage when they purchased it new. She talks about TV, Hollywood and haircuts. She complains about her parents and her brother; however, the whole time she’s with them she’s everyone’s favorite, so I don’t trust her.

  When we get to the mall her friends are already there. She introduces them as Lauren and Megan. They make quite the odd trio: one looks Asian but has blond hair (it actually looks good on her); the other one has long curly hair and she’s the palest of the three. And neither of them look remotely like the exotic Fiona.

  Fiona joins their conversation and soon they’re talking about scenes and people I’ve never heard of. They don’t include me, but they’re not rude, either. I just feel like a total outsider.

  I spot a small, trendy-looking office supply store, and tell Fiona I’m going to look for some school stuff. I’m lying; I just don’t want to feel so invisible anymore. While I like the office supply store, it’s the type of store that is full of things I shouldn’t spend money unnecessarily on. I only have a small amount of money in my bank account. When Nana’s estate is settled I’ll receive a small amount of money, maybe a few grand, if Aunt Marie doesn’t sue me for my father’s share. Still, I won’t get it for a while. And that’s for college, anyways.

  It’s settled with the girls; after a lengthy admonishment about how they’ll never find me since I don’t own a cellphone, I agree to look for them later at one of three clothing stores where they’re going shopping. As I walk to the office supply store I try not to take the whole conversation personal, but it’s so hard. It’s like they were making fun of me for not owning a cellphone. I can’t help it—a combination of growing up with old people and being poor. And even before the phone issue came up—the reason I announced I was leaving in the first place—they just went on and on with their stories. It felt like they did it on purpose. How could they not tell that they were leaving me out? I regret coming here. But, on the bright side, I met them before school started. If this was the first day of school I’d be crying under the gym bleachers.

  Inside the store, by myself, I feel much better. I make my way to the school supplies aisle in automatic mode, in search for the art notebooks. I love blank notebooks that have pretty stationary; my Nana Fran gave me my first journal when I was six and told me to write or draw in it whenever I needed to. Since then I’ve always had one, and used them for writing my feelings, sketching, or writing poems. Whatever keeps me from hating life.

  I move up and down the store reading the aisle contents. I find the one I’m looking for and move towards it. As I turn into the aisle, I see a guy poring over the blank books. He looks cute from afar; nice clothes, nice body. Brown hair, short but not cropped. What I call the perfect length, but with an extra bit of length towards the front, which makes him look boyish and attractive.

 
I’m instinctively self-conscious although I haven’t even seen his face. As I get closer to him, the picture keeps getting better and better. Then he looks up and I have to pretend I’m looking at a point behind him, some item on the wall. I’m doubly embarrassed because he caught me looking, and he’s very cute in the face as well. Blue eyes and nice features.

  Well, there goes that.

  I lose interest immediately. Unfortunately for me, he’s a hot guy. Hot guys turn me off because they’re always full of themselves, and that leads them to cheat on their girlfriends, as everyone knows.

  I give him a brief, courteous half-smile with a half-nod, in acknowledgment that he’s there. He replies, “Hey,” with a polite smile. I pick up one of the blank books and flip through the blank pages. I close it and look at the cover.

  “Oh, that’s kind of pretty,” the guy says next to me. I look up and get a close-up look. His skin is flawless; holy shit. I can’t tell his age, other than he looks a few years older than me.

  “Yeah, I agree,” I tell him. The cover fascinates me. It has an intricate vine pattern etched into a black background. Gray metallic swirls merge into clouds filled with crisscrossing lines. It’s artsy without being overly girly.

  “I’m looking for a journal. I think you found the one for me,” he says with an easy smile. “I might get it, if you don’t mind.”

  “No, why would I mind? Go for it,” I say. As he picks up another copy we both notice it’s the last one on the shelf.

  “Last one! It’s fate, then,” he says.

  “Did you see the sheets? Pretty decent quality paper, too,” I say. He’s friendly, so I can’t help but mirror his mood. I don’t show any interest other than what he shows in me. A nice guy talking to a nice girl in a store.

  He flips open the journal and touches the paper. “Wow. I’ve been staring at these over here”—he points to a group of seemingly inexpensive ones a few feet away—“for five minutes, but nothing caught my fancy. You come in here, and the first book you pick, bam. Perfect.”