Growing Up

By Amethyst Turner

"Hold me closer please, Mommy"

Said the little bird

"Sing to me and feed me

Because I love you best."

"Well gee, I love you too, my girl

Said weary mother bird

She said, "I'm afraid my work is done"

And shoved her out of the nest

XXX

When Melissa returned to the diner, she was by herself in a very deliberate way.

She felt a little high on the novelty of it: pulling out her own chair and smiling at a nothing across the table. Beginning to rack her brain for conversation topics and then, with a thick whoosh of relief, realizing she didn't need to.

Maybe this was how Ashley felt when she was by herself. Melissa could already feel the weight of daily sociability melting away from her. She sat with her legs uncrossed and unhooked her hair from its tight knot. She could feel some eyes on her, but they made her feel interesting instead of self-conscious.

For a second, she forgot that she had come here with a mission, a mission not to be forgotten. She had a gut feeling about this, a feeling that it was more important than it seemed. The way that girl had flushed such a bothered red when Trent recognized her. The way he turned pale and sent her on her way. Melissa was here because she wanted to know.

She only remembered this when the waitress came sauntering over, hips rocking and teeth chomping a piece of gum. Her name tag said, Brisha.

The waitress looked at her, shadowed eyelids lowered. "You waiting for someone?"

"Nope." Melissa offered a smile that Brisha did not return.

"Move to the bar, then," she snapped. "You'll look less weird."

The diner was semi-full, some soused men crowded to one side of the room to watch the football game that was on. There was a group of teenagers laughing too loudly and a bored looking couple in the corner. The bar was lined up with guys drinking beers and shouting to each other across the space, one woman among them. They wore the neon vests of construction workers.

"What if I want a table?" Melissa countered.

Brisha rolled her eyes. "What, you scared of men?"

"No. I just want to sit here."

"Fine. Something to drink?"

"Yeah, I'll just have some water. Wait, don't go yet. I have to ask you something."

The waitress opened her eyes wide, her face reading, what?

"Do you know when, um, I think her name is Owl? She's a waitress here. Do you know when she'll be working?"

". . . Why?"

"I need to talk to her."

"Um, okay." Brisha frowned at Melissa, but said, "I think she's doing evening shift today, so if you hang around a little you'll probably catch her."

"Alright, thanks," said Melissa. She put her purse down on the chair across from her and smiled at the waitress. "That's all."

XXX

The girl stayed well hidden. Owl might have called for her, but Richard hadn't mentioned her name. She decided it was better to let the child be, anyway. When she was around children, she had this heavy fear pressing on her skin, a cloud of doubt where her sanity should be. She always felt like she might accidentally hurt them, break them, kill them, and have no idea why.

She had to change in the front room since the half bath on the first floor had a floor covered in damp mildew that Owl couldn't bring herself to step on. Maybe she would take it upon herself to clean it up one of these days.

Owl pulled up her fishnets and considered her long black heels. She stuffed them in her purse and pulled on her short red work skirt over the tights. Her belt was a little low, showed its lacey edges under her skirt, but she pulled it on and buttoned up her blouse. She fluffed up her pillow and arranged her blanket on the couch. She wouldn't be back until morning.

XXX

Richard had a headache that wouldn't let go of him. His hands were shaking. He could feel beads of sweat traveling through the crevices in his clothing. He hadn't had a drink all day and now, he regretted it.

When he walked in the house, he didn't bother to lock the door or hang up his keys before stumbling to the kitchen and grabbing onto the fridge handle like a life preserver. He yanked it open, rejoicing in the familiar wall of cold air that greeted him when the door swung open. Richard grabbed a six pack and, in one sloppy, arcing movement, dropped it on the table and collapsed into a chair.

He realized with a start that there was already someone in the chair. He felt the soft squish of skin beneath him and behind him, a child's warm, fragile cheek on his back. Richard threw himself forward, his face going white.

There she was, his strange little daughter, so quiet and fey and nervous. Her eyes were teary as she slid out of the chair, holding herself up with her arms until her bare feet touched the floor. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She began to back out of the room, but Richard grabbed her by the collar of her shirt.

"I'm the one who should say sorry," he told her. Richard sank back into the chair, sighing deeply. He lifted her into his lap. "I should look where I'm going."

Amethyst touched the stubble sprouting on his cheek, wrinkling her nose at the sandpaper sound it made when she rubbed her fingers against it. "Who is the lady in the living room?" she asked.

"Oh, is she here?"

"No. She left."

"Okay, well . . ." Richard popped open his beer. There was something sick, something perverse about downing a bottle with such an innocent child perched on his knee, but he couldn't help himself. The alcohol was like an antidote to a poison that had been working its way through his veins since he woke up this morning. More than half the bottle passed through his lips before he stopped to swallow.

Amethyst stared, waiting.

"That's Miss Owl," he told her. "She's going to be your friend, okay?"

"Oh." Amethyst turned pink. "I was scared."

"Of what?"

"I didn't know who she was."

A sick guilt brewed in Richard's stomach. How could he have overlooked this? His daughter who was pale as snow because she never saw the sun, who flinched when he moved too suddenly, who spent her nights crying quietly into her pillow. Of course she would be afraid to find a strange new person living in her house with no warning at all.

He patted her head and said, "There's nothing to be afraid of, I promise. She's a very nice lady."

"She has weird clothes."

"Does she?"

Amethyst nodded, trying to meet his eye while he took another swig from his bottle. "I saw her putting shoes in a bag earlier, and they were really long and pointy. And she had a . . . a . . . I don't know what it's called."

"What'd it look like?"

"There were a bunch of straps? It was like an outline of pants but without fabric."

"Ah. A garter belt?" Richard moved Amethyst away from his lap, hoping she hadn't felt anything under her leg. In his mind, he saw Owl in his bed, bare chested in her garter belt and high heels. "You don't need to worry about that."

"Why was she wearing it?"

A reasonable question that Richard might have devoted some more time to, but his need to drown himself in alcohol tugged at him, begging him to quit talking and start drinking. "Go play," he said. "Daddy's tired."

XXX

Ashley thought about locking her door, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. Last time she had, Melissa started to cry.

Instead, she pretended to be asleep.

"Ash?" She heard Melissa's voice bouncing around the walls. "Ash? Are you here? I need to talk to you."

Ashley turned her face to her pillow and laid still, making her breath go in and out steadily.

Suddenly, Melissa was upon her, her breath hot and close on Ashley's skin. "I know you're awake," she said. "You just don't want to talk to me, do you? Ashley. Ashley!"

Ashley jerked forward, pretending to have been roused from a deep sleep. "Oh, hi," she said in a disgruntled tone she reserved for mornings before her coffee.

"I figured out who she is, Ashie. No, sit still and listen to me, okay? This is important."

At that moment, Ashley couldn't really think of anything less important than who the waitress Melissa's boyfriend had been talking to was. Probably his ex-girlfriend, probably a college fling, probably a one night stand. Why did Melissa think her sister cared? "You know, Liss, I don't think it's worth worrying yourself over."

"Too late. But I know who she is now!"

Ashley looked up at her sister and sighed. She would be so much happier, Ashley thought, if she just kept her preschool teacher persona on throughout the rest of her life rather than shrugging it off the moment she left the school building. All throughout their childhood, she had been the person that she was in school. Why did she so often change herself, make herself coarser and meaner and harder than she was, just to fit in with the world?

If she was herself, she could go out with a nice man who loved her instead of a douchebag who wanted to get into her pants. She could find herself some hobbies, find authors she liked, find music she liked, if she had the time and the will to just explore herself. She could find out what it was about her life that made her so unhappy all the time, and eliminate it.

"Who is she?" Ashley sighed.

"She's a stripper," Melissa breathed, in the same tone as she might say, I forgot to turn off the oven while on a plane going to the other side of the country. A tone that demanded Ashley to be impressed by the terror, the atrocity of the situation.

Ashley blinked. "Did she tell you that?"

"No, but I could see her garter belt under her skirt! Why else would she be wearing that?"

"Oh. Well, okay."

"Do you understand what I'm saying to you? Trent, he recognized a stripper. He goes to strip clubs!"

"I hate to be the one to break this to you, but a lot of men go to strip clubs." Ashley shrugged, trying not to let Melissa's pitiful frown infect her with sympathy. "Most of them are just a little better at hiding it from their girlfriends."

Melissa let out a long sigh. She laid down beside her sister and closed her eyes. "I guess I just didn't think he was like that."

Ashley closed her eyes as well. "No one's how you think they are."

"Really?"

"Yep."

XXX

Can we fast-forward till you go down on me?
Stop there and let me correct it
I wanna live a life from a new perspective
You come along because I love your face
And I'll admire your expensive taste

-New Perspective by Panic! At The Disco