March Exclusive - "Choosing" - Part 2

Last night Emma stayed over. Ostensibly to talk about our plans for the next couple months. A summer of service, where we do good deeds around Blowing Rock - back and forth to Food Lion fetching groceries for the elderly, hot afternoons at Price Lake teaching youngsters how to row, taking the special girls to Dilwin’s for ice-cream - and wait for some bronzed, well-mannered boy to show interest.

Hold on. It’s okay. That wasn’t the real plan.

We’ll leave when your parents are asleep. When the whole damn town is asleep.

We would walk in the darkness. Heck, it was just another hike, hadn’t we been doing that our entire lives? A dark one, that’s all. A sneaky one.

We can take the Middle Fork greenway to Boone. Where people know better. Where they’re normal.

So, not that tough. Not that complicated.

But it didn’t happen. Something funny; both of us got so tired after supper, couldn’t even make it through American Idol, crawling upstairs, me in my own bed and Emma on the fold-out.

By the time we wake up, the sun is firmly up. We didn’t just miss our midnight getaway; we even missed breakfast.

And we missed the changes that my parents made to my closet. They must have been whisper-quiet, shuffling around and careful not to bump. Did my mom feel like the Tooth Fairy? Did my dad feel like the Easter Bunny?

I sit up in bed, rub my eyes. I notice the changes – there’s even a new frame print on the wall above my bed – more exhortations for a perfect ray of sunshine.

And then I crouch down by the cot and shake Emma’s shoulder.

“Hey,” she says, grumpy and muddled with sleep. She wants me to leave her alone. She wants to roll over and return to her dreams.

I can imagine the kind of dream she was having.  I bet they were pink, I’m certain they shimmered.

But this isn’t something you can sleep through. The school counselor was clear about that.

I give my friend another shake. “Emma. Hey.”

“What?” She opens her eyes, pouting, and then frowns. As if she can’t remember where she is, and then she can’t remember why she’s here.

“Something happened,” I say.

“Huh?”

“They did something last night,” I say. “My parents. Probably, my parents.”

I walk to the window and pull back the curtains, flooding the room with brightness.

Emma blinks stupidly, and I wonder how my smart, funny friend can look so lost, so utterly confused. “What? You’re not…” She joins me at the window and looks out. I imagine a pair of special girls walking down Chestnut with perfect timing, but the street is empty.

“Honey,” I say. “They did the thing. Maybe they knew we were about to try and get out of here.”

“Did what?” She looks down at her hands, turns them over as if inspecting them for dirt. They’re the same pair she went to bed with, but maybe they feel different now.

I sigh. “The thing.”

Emma rolls her eyes at me. “What thing?” Her nose wrinkles. “I’m hungry.” She looks to the bedroom door. Is she wondering where my mother is? Is Emma going to ask Mom for pancakes, to top off the perfect sleepover?

“This thing.” I grab her hand and go over to my closet. I let her open it.

She says nothing. She stares. I can’t decipher the expression on her face.

“Oh,” she says finally.

Oh is right. I let her take it all in.

My regular clothes have gone. The plaid nightgowns Emma and I are wearing now count as the most mature clothing in the room.

She reaches to touch the outfits – perhaps to verify that they’re real, or maybe because she just can’t resist them.

It’s a lot of pastel colors. Plenty of pink. So many ruffles. So much shimmer. These are adult versions of toddler dresses.

These are clothes for the special girls.

Emma frowns. She looks so muddled. I realize in the moment that I think she looks adorable. I want to take her into my arms and stroke her hair, and I feel a pang of regret that her hair isn’t long enough for pigtails, or even a bow.

Not now. I shake away the thoughts.

“Why?” asks Emma. It’s a good question. But she’s not outraged. Did they take that away in the night as well?

We’ll find out in the next few minutes, I suppose.

“I don’t know,” I reply. Is that my first lie? Will my nose grow long? I want to take back the lie, I want to swallow my tongue.

“They must have found out we were going to run away,” I say. At least that’s true enough. I imagine my Pinocchio nose returning to its natural size.

Silly thoughts. Silly as the dresses and rompers and bubbles in my bedroom closet.

“So they’re gonna make you dress up like a…” She looks at the dresses. Like a dumb baby? Like a pretty princess? How does it look to her?

She narrows her eyes. “They can’t make you.” She shakes her head. “It’s only…the special girls, they likewearing those dresses, they…” She frowns. “Um, they like those dresses, they…do it ‘cause they want to. ‘Cause they’re…you know…” She points to her temple.

Yeah. I know. Because they’re happy idiots.

I lift a pink smocked dress from the rack and hold it up. “And you don’t, Emma?” I soften my tone. I test the water. “You don’t want to be all pretty and sweet?”

Emma blinks. She backs away from the dress. “No,” she whispers. “Course not.” She looks at me. “Do you think…my mom and dad…”

I nod. “Probably planned it this way. Wanted us together like this.” I point at the closet. “Bet you’ve got outfits like this back home.” I use my tone from before. “Bet your mommy can’t wait to dress her baby girl up in pink sparkles.”

It’s funny to see her eyes brighten. And maybe this is all it takes.

But not my best friend. Not Emma.

She folds her arms. “No way. They can’t make us.”

I sigh. “I think maybe they can.”

Emma shakes her head fiercely. “I’m just gonna leave.” She squeezes my hand. “Come on! We’re just gonna go, Cassie!”

I raise an eyebrow. “Where, honey?” I pat the non-existent pockets of my nightdress. “We don’t have money, we don’t even have a phone.”

Emma bites her lip, and then her face brightens. “We have the plan! We go to Boone!” She beams at me, and the sight will surely break my heart. She looks so wonderfully, impossibly hopeful. “And we’ll get jobs in Boone, and we’ll make our own money. And we can live in the same house every night and every night it’ll be like a sleepover!”

I don’t return the smile. “In broad daylight? We just walk away?”

My best friend’s jaw hardens. “Yeah. We just do it.” She nods. “They can’t stop us, Cassie. They don’t got no…” She fumbles with the grammar, self-conscious of what she’s lost in her mind. She blinks, and then her resolve comes back. “They can’t stop us.” She bares her teeth and grips my hand so tightly that it hurts. “We’re fierce!”

So they didn’t take her outrage away after all. I see the color rising in her cheeks and I remember my brilliant best friend who was never going to settle for a safe, censored life in Blowing Rock.

I feel a stone in the pit of my stomach. Because I can see how they have put us together. I understand my job.

I sniff. “I don’t feel fierce right now,” I say. I let go of her hand. I point at the poster above my head. “Fine. We’ll go. Head toward the perfect ray of sunshine, I guess.”

Emma stares at the poster. She walks over, gets onto the bed, and touches the poster with her fingers. She has the strangest expression on her face. And I wonder to myself, maybe this is going to be easy for her. Maybe it’s going to be right now.

Emma traces the lettering on the poster with one finger. And then she turns to me. Her eyes are so full of tears, I don’t understand how they’re not spilling down her cheeks. It’s like a tragic magic trick.

“Can’t read it,” she whispers. She sits down on the bed and her shoulders slump. “I can’t read the words.”

I nod. “I know.” I sit down beside her and pull her into a hug. “Neither can I.”

My second big lie. Funny, I can feel ashamed, but I can also feel purposeful. And I manage to get past the shame. Because some girls read, some girls don’t. Some girls are special.

I can feel the wetness of her tears now, making my shoulders wet.

“They took it away,” I say, stroking her back. “They took away our reading. But I’m going to protect you, Emma. I’m going to make it all okay.”

She looks pleadingly at me. “I wanna get away, Cassie. We gotta get away!” More tears fill her eyes and she whines, “I wanna another sleepover!”

Even with her mind so altered, so reduced, she is filled with resolve.

But we waited a day too long.

I take her hands and squeeze them. “Calm down,” I say firmly. “Mustn’t get excited.”

“Where’s your mommy…mom and dad?” asks Emma. Is she looking for answers, or is she keeping an eye out for monsters?

“Out,” I reply. “They normally go out for coffee first thing. They’ll be back soon, I expect.”

Emma waves my hands with her own. “They we have to go! We have to go right now!” And I almost believe her, but then she spoils her plan with an open-mouthed yawn.

“How do you feel?” I ask.

“Sleepy,” Emma says, with a return of her grumpiness. I can hardly blame her for feeling annoyed – who wouldn’t? But then her thoughts shift to something more appropriate for her new circumstances. She twists her lips. “Hungry.”

I smile. “So…are you hungry or are you sleepy?” As if these are the most pressing issues.

I cringe at how easy it is to distract my friend. Emma, who has always been proud of her sharp mind, arguing with the boys, arguing with everyone.

She wrinkles her nose thoughtfully. “I guess…hungry. Is your Mom making breakfast?

I shake my head. “No, honey, remember? My mommy’s out. She’ll be back soon. And it’s okay, she left me in charge. I know how to make breakfast.”

Emma nods. She can believe it. She wants to believe it. And that’s why this will all be so easy. That’s why the only thing in my way is my broken heart.

“First, we have to get dressed,” I say. I produce a mischievous smile. “And I have a plan to get us out of here.”

Emma blinks. Had she already forgotten? Maybe we’re done already. But then I see her refocus. “Right. We gotta…” She tilts her face at me. “What’s your plan?”

“Well,” I start, “going back to the closet. “We’re going to pretend. And I pull the best dress from the rack. The sweetest, cutest one. The one I’ve been imagining dressing my best friend in since I first saw it.

Because she will be precious. She will be adorable.

Emma looks at it. Festive sprinkles on a soft pink background surround party-going animals.  And I know in this moment; all I care about is dressing my best friend in this outfit. And then my heart will melt. Because she will be perfect.

Emma looks at the dress. “Huh?”

“Touch it,” I say, holding it out.

She doesn’t refuse – because I’m in charge, because she’s a good girl, because of all the things they did to her brilliant mind during the night – and she has a dreamy look on her face.

“We’re going to pretend,” I say gently, still smiling. “We’ll pretend that you’re one of the special girls, and that I’m your mommy.”

Emma does a hard blink, as if that will help clear the fuzzy muddle from her brain. Her jaw drops open and she stares at me.

“Huh?”

To be concluded...