:: Vicious Rumours ::

:: Thursday, August 14, 2003 ::

Harriet Dancer was not your typical mother. No gentle pats on the head, no lovingly uttered nick names. No, Harriet's idea of affection was slapping Emmalinda in the back of the head and shouting, " How was your day you retard?"

Harriet didn't wear cleanly pressed chinos, or make simple but elegant Sunday dinners. She wore to much red lipstick, smoked and drank all day and frequently forgot to feed Emmalinda at all.

Emmalinda thought her future looked bleak if it was true that we all become our mothers
:: Serena Woodward 8/14/2003 01:46:00 PM [+] ::
...

The thing she would ultimatly remember about that summer was the heat. Great , giant sheets of heat, rolling up from the ground in waves. They slammed into her body, pummling her relentlessly as she walked along the sidewalk. Even the grass felt hot. Sitting in the shade beneath a tree there was no relief, just the musty damp oder of earth warmed beneath hours of blazing sun.

Occasionally she would walk past a business and the artifically cooled air from the building would leak out at her like blood from an open wound. Her skin would tighten at the sudden onslaught of frigid air and her mouth would water at the thought of stopping, just for a moment to step inside and pretend to be interested in whatever could be found inside, just to gain a small respite from the intolerable heat.

But she never stopped. That summer was to full of new adventures, new discoveries, new pain for her to divert her attention. In later years she would wish that she had taken those stolen moments. She would wish that she had stepped inside to run her fingers down the spines of new books, or to flick through racks of new clothes, not that she could have purchased anything, but the experience would have be unique, a moment in time that did not begin with her mother's shrill voice yelling at her father. Or the sound of her father's deep barritone responding with words dripping with contempt.

Instead she would wander past the windows, gazing with longing at the neatly dressed sales girls and the men in business suits and she would daydream that they were her family. All smiles and warm greetings. She would wander through downtown to the park and she would sit in the shade under her favorite tree and she would wait for the sun to sink into the horizon before she would go home.

Her mother would always be to drunk by that time to wonder why Emmalinda was home so late, and her father was always gone, out with his latest "secretary". NO one ever bothered to ask Emmalinda Dancer where she went everyday, or why she stayed gone so long. No one in her family cared.

Emmalinda Dancer was a child on her own, and she was happy that way. She never dared to question the way the world worked. Never , that is, until the Morgans moved in across the street.

The day the Morgans showed up, Emmalinda was just walking out of the house, preparing to walk through the heat to her secret place. She stopped when she saw a fire engine red convertible pull up in the driveway of the house across the street. A woman with her hair covered by a scarf and a tall, thin girl stepped out. They looked like pictures from one of Emmalinda's mother's magazines. Perfectly dressed, smiling into the sunshine. The girl wore jeans that clung to her hips and a tank top that showed off her midrif. The woman wrapped one arm around the girls shoulder's and sqeezed lightly, pressing a quick kiss to her forehead before pointing to the front door and dangling her keeys from the ends of her fingers.

Emmalinda heard the girl laugh as she snatched the keys and ran up the drive to the door. She unlocked it and flung it open, poking her head inside a bit before looking over her shoulder and grinning broadly. Emmalinda felt a twinge of jealousy shoot through her. The woman in the perfect dress walked up behind the girl and shooed her inside. The door closed, and they were gone.

Emmalinda started down the sidewalk, images of the two people clinging to her mind as she walked. She imagined for a brief minute that she was the girl in the expensive clothes, that it was her mother hugging her tightly and hading out little kisses of affection. Then she shook her head in disgust and tried to forget the whole thing. Such places and people weren't for her....she was what she was.

That afternoon passed slowly, her mind returning again and again to the scene she had watched. As she walked toward her house that evening she found her eyes returning again and again to the home. The lights were on and Emmalinda could smell something grilling. Her mouth watered as she imagined hamburgers with crunchy chips and cold lemonade. All she would get was stale bread and peanut butter. Emmalinda's mother only shopped when she ran out of booze, and then the food was an afterthought. There were always take out containers and wrappers from fast food places scattered on the kitchen counters and the dining room table. Harriet Dancer was not what anyone would call "tidy".

Emmalinda slowly opened the door and walked inside. She could smell stale cigerette smoke and old grease in the air. The smell choked her whenever she came home.

There had been a time when Emmalinda had attempted to keep the house clean, but then one day, her mother had yelled that she could never find a damned thing and told her father to tell "the little brat" to leave her shit alone. Emmalinda hadn't cleaned since.
:: Serena Woodward 8/13/2003 10:00:00 AM [+] ::
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