Not Another Vampire Story - 11
11. Coming Clean
PG13. Tween, humor, middle school, angst, vampires, serial, teen, fiction, summer. #ReadFree
Suggested Music: on K-Pop (2NE1) YouTube
Sometimes a picture is worth 1,000 words, and sometimes you can’t outrun what you’ve seen. . . And sometimes, pictures lie.
The following week of school was a drop for Sylvia. Her classmates and teachers began to settle into a schedule of lockers, cafeteria food, and homework excuses.
Sylvia saw more of Matt than she cared to, and not because she wandered into the wrong locker room again. It was a traditional tasteless meal at lunch, the usual spaghetti Holly and Sylvia were sure had been scraped off leftover high school plates, and the stale rolls that went with it.
Holly had gone into chocolate mode as Jamie became more attentive at lunch, offering to squeeze the ketchup over her French fries and unwrap her straw. Sylvia sat captivated by the warped middle school concept of going together until she wanted to throw-up. It was a little much, even with the fact that Jamie was actually a sweet guy, pick of the litter of eighth grade, and a basketball hero.
Well, as close as anyone was going to get to being a basketball hero in eighth grade. More accurately, he just fumbled all the plays less than everyone else on the team.
"I think it's a good picture," Jamie said, sliding back Sylvia's camera to her.
The image of her, Holly, Julia, and Terry at the beach faced her. It was taken with Terry's camera and he'd sent her two—this one was the better one—they'd taken just before leaving, when the sun was brilliant over the water. She and Holly wore frozen, rigid half smiles as Julia and Terry stood on either outer side, pulling them in for a closer huddle.
"Don't worry," Jamie said with a chuckle. "A little Photoshop and we can put a less-mugshot smile on you."
Sylvia knew it was for her, even if Holly also looked slightly stalked. "Terry said the same thing." She quickly flicked the photo off, then brought it back, frowning at the corner of the image. A tiny crab had crawled into the screen view at some time, probably trying to steal the scene. She swiped the image away. "Ew."
"What about Matt?" Jamie said for the fourth time that week as they sat at the lunch table. He looked to Sylvia expectantly.
"Please, no." She pocketed her phone and finished her chocolate milk, sighing over her nachos.
A table away, Matt's radar must have gone off at the mention of his name. He waved at her, and smiling, elbowing the nerdy-looking boy beside him to witness.
"But he's nice," Holly added.
Sylvia shook her head. "He smells like astringent." She made a face as she looked to where he was running a hand through his reddish brown hair. He caught her gaze and stopped, letting his arm fall quickly, and knocked over his milk onto his pants. She shook her head again, looking to Holly. "And it's not helping any."
"You're gonna ban the boy because he's got complexion issues?" Holly shook her head, nibbling on a fry.
Sylvia looked to Jamie. Yup, Jamie. No complexion problem there, she thought. Not many problems at all, in fact. Against her better judgment, her attention turned to Matt, who was dabbing at his pants with a napkin. Okay, she thought fairly, a little thin, poor dresser, fashion-less, too much hair, but he was nice. A little ingratiating, she'd learned from third hour science class, and a little nasally.
"What about Lane?" Holly suggested.
Sylvia lifted an eyebrow, picking a tortilla chip out of her cardboard basket and dipping it in what was passing for cheese sauce. "Lane who?"
"Brian's ex's kid. Number One's kid." Holly smiled at the thought, recalling the New Year's Eve's party. "He's okay."
Sylvia nodded. "Yeah, he's okay." She put the tortilla chip in her mouth, pretending it was delicious. "He's got a new tattoo."
"Oh, yeah? Where?"
"Dunno. He got shipped off to some military boarding school. Make a man out him or some shit like that."
"He looked like he was turning out like one to me." Holly smiled endearingly to Jamie, who'd given her a frown at the statement.
"Yeah, I guess so," Sylvia agreed, intent on her nachos.
"What I don't get," Holly said, dragging a fry through her mound of ketchup, "is why Number One's kids are younger than Number Two's kids. What happened there?"
"Oh, yeah." Sylvia shrugged. "Number One is also Brian's Number Three wife. They married, got divorced, he married Number Two and had kids, and then got divorced, remarried Number One and had Lane and Kristi, and then got divorced again." She licked the cheese off her thumb. "Simple, huh?"
Holly gave her a baffled frown. "Real simple, Red."
Sylvia looked to the next table, where Matt returned her a grin, despite that he'd just taken an enormous bite of spaghetti. He waved, then choked down the bite.
But not entirely, Sylvia realized. Before she could look away, Matt made a struggling face, trying to gulp down the sauced pasta, and then lost the battle.
To her horror, the pile of spaghetti regurgitated back onto Matt's tray, his lunch friends parting like the Red Sea to escape the splatter, and then he heaved again.
Sylvia clapped a hand over her mouth and tried to squeeze shut her bulging eyes. "Good grief," she muttered.
Jamie turned to look behind him as a chorus of "Ewww!" went through the table.
"Shit. That sucks," he said, turning back, grinning at Holly.
"Give that a chance?" Sylvia said, face wrinkling into a wretch of her own. She cupped her hand over one temple so she couldn't see the lunch lady and other students move in for a better look at Matt.
Holly had stopped eating, too, eyes locked in horror. "That's so disgusting. Yeah, well, forget him, Red."
Sylvia looked back down at her nachos. She pushed it away. "Yeah, but I'm still stuck with that for science."
There was too much time to think on the way home from school that day. Not all of it centered around Matt's retch in the lunchroom. She couldn't help but notice, maybe it was the time of year, but it seemed everyone she passed on sidewalk had an other.
Men and women, teen boys and girls, all arm in arm, holding hands, some of them a little closer as they walked. Everyone seemed to have an other. The plus-one that completed them. In cafés, in passing cars, on benches at the park, all happy together.
She pulled out her phone and opened her images. The beach picture was first. Even with she and Holly between them, Julia and Terry had managed to locked hands behind them. She could see their hands clasped when she enlarged the image.
She mechanically plodded on along the sidewalk, pushing out the image to look closer at Julia.
It wasn't just this image. Every time Julia was photographed, she managed a perfect smile, a perfect pose, a ready, easy grin that made everyone smile back.
Or want be her.
Never had Sylvia seen Julia in a bad shot.
And it wasn't just her appearance. Julia was actually nice.
She flicked through other images, mostly of she and Holly, but many with she and Julia. Julia was perfect in each, even with Sylvia making bunny ears over her head with her fingers.
"I'll never look like that," she murmured aloud, eyes staying on Julia. "Not in two million years."
With a heavy sigh, she pocketed the phone and trudged on.
There was something amiss at the Burns house that next Saturday morning. It came up from somewhere inside Julia, and Sylvia wasn't even aware there was trouble until breakfast was on the table.
Sylvia looked down at the pile of French toast and scrambled eggs her sister placed before her. "What gives?"
"In case you haven't noticed, Mom's not home. Yet."
Sylvia had noticed her mother wasn't home; she just didn't realize the yet part. "She's still at Brian's?"
Julia nodded, pulling her white halter tighter at the knot at her waist. Even with the cutoff jean shorts, she managed to make the outfit not look Daisy Duke-ish. "She's never spent the entire night. She's always gave some semblance of decorum."
Sylvia rolled her eyes. If Julia was going to make her look up words in the dictionary, she at least wanted to eat first. She set her manga aside—the first volume of Vampire Knight—and pretended to know what semblance of decorum was. "She is an adult, Julia, and single."
"She's a mother. Our mother. Doesn't that count? What about a good example?" Julia crossed her arms, making her bust plump.
Sylvia looked down at her plate, then slathered the top piece of toast with butter and poured syrup over it all. "Maybe you shouldn't meddle. She might meddle back."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Sylvia wasn't quite sure. She forked a bite of toast and syrup into her mouth. Julia was in no mood to hear anything bad about Terry. "Nothing." She looked down to the manga, one that Holly had let her borrow, and her thoughts made a tight circle back to Terry. "I just meant that she might get nosey."
The back door opened and their mom walked in, a little disheveled and sheepish-looking. "Hi, girls. Sorry I'm late." She set the canvas Toledo Zoo fundraiser tote bag on the counter and smiled at them.
"Late?" Julia said. "Late was last night. This is the morning, Mom."
Sylvia's mouth dropped open, her next bite of toast dripping with syrup halfway to her lips on the fork.
Their mother looked surprised. "Well, yes, it is, Julia, but it is a weekend. You know Brian and I have been dating steadily for a year." She brightened, clearing her throat. "When you get older, and are divorced, you'll understand that—"
"When I get older I'm going to get married, Mother, not divorced," Julia snapped, hands going to her hips. "That's a faulty way to look at marriage."
"Divorce changes things."
"Yeah, we know," Julia said pointedly.
Oh, don't drag me into this, Sylvia thought.
"I thought you girls liked Brian," their mother said.
"We do," Julia said.
Sylvia nodded.
Julia wasn't done. "You didn't even call us, Mom."
"Well, I thought it would be uncomfortable," their mother said, attempting a smile. "Sometimes adults don't—"
"Mom, I'm going to be an adult in a month. I can handle the phone call. And would that make it okay?"
Holy shit, Sylvia thought, the toast forgotten. Why was Julia going for the jugular this morning? They'd assumed their mother was intimate with Brian, but she'd never spent the night. Now there was no ignoring it.
"Is there something else bothering you, dear?" It was classic Mom analysis.
It only pushed a button somewhere on Julia. "Would it bother you if I slept with Terry?"
Sylvia could only stare now. It was too early in the morning to be throwing down the gauntlet.
Their mother nodded slowly, but not in answer to the question. "That's what this is about. You think that by my sleeping with Brian I have to permit you to take similar liberties." Now their mother shook her head. "You're your own woman, Julia, but I hope you don't."
Julia shook her head. "No, Mother; you're supposed to say 'Absolutely not, Julia. There's to be no sleeping around while you're under my roof, and that goes for you, too, Sylvia'." She looked pleadingly to their mother. "I thought it mattered."
Their mother sighed. "I didn't want to be too strict with you girls."
Julia nodded. "Yeah. Well, glad you're home."
"From now on, I'll be more honest with you girls. Okay?" Their mother smiled. It was the same smile they'd seen when she'd said she was divorcing their father, but it was going to be all right, okay?
"Well, as long we're being honest," Julia said, glancing to Sylvia for a moment, then back to their mom, "then I might as well tell you now. Terry's twenty-three, not twenty."
Sylvia nearly dropped her fork. There went her trump card. Her blackmail ace. Played by Julia herself.
Their mother looked a little surprised, and then nodded slowly. "Well, thank you for telling me. I think it's healthy to—"
Julia threw up her arms, made a strange grousing noise of frustration deep in her throat, and then disappeared down the hallway to her bedroom.
Their mom looked to Sylvia. "Do you think she's pregnant? Is that what all this is about?"
Sylvia's gaze dropped to her plate. "Nah, she's just hormonal."
But it didn't stop Sylvia from barging into her sister's room twenty seconds later after wolfing down her breakfast in record speed. Julia was straightening her already perfect line of clothes in her closet.
"Mom thinks you're pregnant," she blurted, then groaned. She'd meant to lead up to that.
Julia just laughed. "Well, we'd have to do something in order for me to be pregnant."
"You haven't?" She sat carefully on the edge of Julia's bed.
Julia threw her a disappointing look. "You know, there's never been a divorce in Terry's family. Not in generations. Ever."
Sylvia shook her head. "Maybe all the guys are way domineering. Control freaks or something." Or vampires, she thought, then shook her head again to clear it.
"That's what I want." She sighed wistfully. "Nothing temporary. Not like Brian, hopping from one wife to another, maybe back again."
"Well, divorce happens." Sylvia screwed her courage up. "You know, Terry's got other problems, Julia."
Her sister looked to her, hand pausing on a mini dress. "We all do. I told you he's stopped smoking."
Sylvia gathered her moral fiber and said it. "I saw him shooting-up at Brian's party."
Julia turned to face her, eyes narrowing, and then she laughed. "No, you didn't."
Sylvia nodded. "I did, Julia. After you left the bathroom where we were talking. I saw him in the bedroom."
Her sister sighed, shaking her head. "You saw him taking insulin, toady. He's diabetic."
Sylvia just stared, mouth slack. "Diabetic?"
"You didn't think of that?" Julia turned to the closet, pulling out a yellow skirt with small ruffles along the bottom. "Borderline, but, yes, diabetic. He takes insulin occasionally."
Sylvia nodded, sighing in more relief than she expected. "Good. Oh, I'm so glad it wasn't anything else."
Julia went over to her sister and kissed her cheek, then mussed her hair. "Sometimes you're so sweet, Sylvi." She pulled Sylvia from the bed and hugged her to her side and turned them to her closet. "Hmm, now, let's see what fits you."
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Thanks to Sakurapu for sharing her story!
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