I don't know where Ramona is now: 2017

Vicki - Draft

By John Rogan

“Anna Dempsey.”

Anna stood up from the thin wooden bench she had been waiting on. She made her way through the cold, gray door the detective had just motioned her to come into. Behind her followed her parents and their lawyer.

“So this meeting will be tape recorded.” Anna’s parents and lawyer nodded in silent agreement. “Anna, I know Vicki has baby-sat for you on a number of occasions. From what I am aware you have known her very-well for a long time.”

Speaking like she was talking into a microphone although she was not, Anna self-consciously said,

“This is true.”

“And you grew up on Grove Street in Needham, just over the Wellesley Line.”

“Correct.” Anna said more comfortably, the initial oppressiveness of the room and the interview dissipating slowly.

“And Vicki grew up on Bienvenue street, right off of Grove Street, but in Wellesley, close to Dana Hall.”

“That’s right.” Anna said confidently.

“You both attended Dana Hall?”

“That’s right.” Anna echoed, then looked up at the detective to see if the answer was okay. The business-like seriousness on his face said to her it was okay, so she lapsed back into silence and listening.

“Not at the same time. You and Vicki are quite different in ages.”

“Correct”, Anna nervously stuttered on the “c..c” to correct then continued. “I am 14 currently and I believe Vicki was in her 20’s?” looking to her mother. Sharon Dempsey broke her silence to make sure her daughter was not perjuring herself.

“Vicki was 30.” Sharon said.

The detective looked at this new symbiotic relationship between daughter and mother and wrote it down in his notebook. He asked a question that would involve the Mother to Anna.

“Your Mother’s are friends?” He asked Anna. Sharon nodded.

“Yes” Anna replied.

“And Mrs. Dempsey, how did you know Mrs. Linda Heller?”

“Linda Heller and I attended Vassar college together, and we were friends there, we graduated the same year.”

“So how did you and Mrs. Heller reconnect? After college that is?”

“Linda had told me about living in the area and how much she liked it. She had just given birth to Vicki. So, when me and James decided to start a family we moved to Needham. Two other couples James and I knew were starting families in this area, so we thought it would be a good community, knowing a few people, and the good schools.”

“Could you name these two other couples?”

“Ellen and Kevin Darcy, their three Jackie, Sara and Elliot. And Gwen Holden and Harry Reins, and their little girl Mary.” Sharon answered

“Did Vicki ever babysit for any of these couples?”

Sharon’s face went pale as she realized that Vicki had many times.

“She did!” Sharon said shocked, now remembering.

“if you could just write their names, phone numbers and addresses on this piece of paper that would be helpful.” The detective blankly and officially stated.

“Of Course, Of Course.” Sharon said, taking the pen and jotting down the information. She nodded to the silent lawyer if this was okay and he nodded back in confirmation.

“Now, Mrs. Dempsey, when was the first time you met Vicki?”

“I knew Linda was expecting, and after she had been home from the hospital for I think two days I went over and saw Vicki. She was so cute. She looked like a baby-rabbit. Linda dressed her up in a pink jump-suit with a hood with bunny ears on it to keep her warm. You know how babies eyes are barely open when they are born. Vicki looked so little, she was so frail, pinkish and tiny.”

The detective nodded politely and asked: “Mr. Dempsey, can you recall meeting Vicki Heller for the first time?”

Mr. Dempsey answered. “it was a couple Months after Vicki was born, but we had the Heller’s over the house and yes Vicki was a very cute little kid. I remember.”

“Ok.” Pausing, the detective continued “I am going to have some more questions for Mr. and Mrs. Dempsey, but let’s not get distracted. I really want to know about Anna’s relationship with Vicki. Anna, why do you think Vicki tried to contact you, along with many other people, so many different times?”

***

Thin streets interwove in between big, full houses. Off of Charles River Street a swampy offshoot of the Charles River reflected the hysterical pink of the setting sun in a muted orange. The sun set and the algae and lily pads became veiled in a gray silence, the black water turning the same color as the sky behind the stars twinkling into discernment above. It was dark and the dense suburbs 13 miles west of downtown Boston were crawling with commuters trying to navigate the old, meandering streets to their small yards and warm homes.

A dirt road of a nameless street, really an extremely long driveway, jutted 30 feet above the Swampy offshoot of the Charles River. It came to an intersection with Charles River Street. Looking out the rear passenger window Vicki watched the grass sink down from the dirt road like into a funnel. The watery outline of the primordial sludge, lily pads, frogs, turtles and rotting logs lapsed into a stilled darkness that seemed in its solemn, natural remoteness to spurn Vicki’s active imagination. She imagined a woman in an old Victorian dress rising out of the water. The slabs of moonlight that rested on the black water now, stood up and bounced into manipulated energy, things like people, but in the same thought, Vicki determined, not at all. voices and stories coming out of the mud. Energies and emotions compiling, escalating and flying off one another, timeless, like pressure, oozing out of the earth.

The station wagon Vicki’s mom drove came to the intersection of Charles River Street. Vicki had been on a play-date with Allison Rees. The Rees lived in the big house no one from the road could see. The house had been in the Rees family since people other than Native-Americans started living here. The area had once been inhabited by the Nehoyas tribe, whose main village was at the waterfall in South Natick a mile up the road. The Rees’ great, great, great, great grandfather had a section of the town hall named after him because he had made a deal with Indians who wanted to be Christian, they could cut their hair, read the Bible in their native language even, dress like English people and be welcomed, begrudgingly, into the community. This divided the Nehoyas tribe into two factions. The faction that did not listen to Rees’ demands were killed when Rees and several other men invited them for a peaceful talk then surrounded and beat the Native leaders to death. The remaining Native Americans who did not come in with the English settlers died of starvation. The Native-Americans who read the Bible and dressed as the English died of disease. After the defeat of the Nehoyas the area began to thrive. Farms then Mills began to spring up in the new stability the absence of the Nehoyas brought. Rees became a rich man and passed it down through his family.

Vicki, demure, only 8, but already taller than other girls, her black hair already long, looked up with her dark eyes at the splotched black and white figures looking back at her out of the Rees’ walls. Ladies in big, white, lacey dresses gathered around a Model -T, some stared recognizably smiling at the camera, others carried on with their lives as if they were not being photographed. Men with stiff vest coats, gold chain watches, finely trimmed mustaches and bowler hats, awkwardly smiled. Women congregated with glasses of whiskey, having a picnic in a field that was probably a building or a parking lot now. The celluloid flashes of life stirred Vicki, “Do you know who this is?”, “Where was this taken?”, “I wonder where you can get a dress like that?” When Vicki spoke her words came out in a slurry, self-consciousness. Her teeth were still coming in upfront and she wobblily stammered on beginning syllables when she thought of listening to her own voice say things out loud. “Whe- When was this taken? Who..se, Whose is it in this pict- pict- chur- pict-ture?”

Allison grew annoyed with Vicki. Allison showed Vicki her entire collection of America girl dolls. To which Vicki responded: “These thing are creepy, look at their eyes.” Allison was extremely offended by this comment. She had spent years flipping through magazines and asking family members to compile this collection. Allison grumpily sat down and began combing the brown hair of a doll dressed in Colonial fashion. Vicki combed the hair of another doll in an old Aviator outfit, removing the cap and goggles. But soon Vicki felt the photographs staring at her, a woman’s stray frizzy hair catching the sunlight on a black and white photo titled and dated: Groton, Connecticut August 1919. “Hoo-Hu-Who are these people?”

“I don’t know!” Allison said upset “why do you ask so many questions? Just play!” Vicki froze. She was really upset that she had upset Allison so much. She just wanted to look at the pictures. Sitting down Vicki tried to put the cap and goggles back on her aviator All-American Girl Doll.

“You are smushing her hair!” Vicki stopped in mid-air, her stomach hurt, it felt like a piano wire was stretched taut inside her. She just wanted Allison to like her. Again she was not doing well with other kids. Her mom was going to be so mad. Allison let out a welp and left the room and disappeared into her large house. Vicki wandered the ground floor looking at the framed white and black photographs until her Mother came to pick her up.

The swampy offshoot slid behind Vicki as her mom turned onto Charles River Street. Her mother sighed long and frustrated.

“I just wanted to look at the pictures!”

“You’re supposed to play with the other children on these play dates. Engage, be a part of things. Not wander around doing whatever you want.”

“I thought Allison would enjoy me showing interest. I don’t know.”

“Mrs. Rees said Allsion was quite upset. What did you do? Did you call her anything?”

“No!”

“Well, Mrs. Rees is going to tell everyone now. The way people like Mrs. Rees run their lives is so nothing untoward can occur in them.”

“What’s untoward?” Vicki asked her mother, but her mother seemed to be speaking to herself.

“And this was very Untoward!” Vicki realized her Mom was close to yelling. Realizing this too Vicki’s mom calmed herself and with Vicki stunned quiet in the background, the tires and engine humming alien-like in the silence of the car interior, her mother, braking the car to turn into their driveway on Grove street, put her fingers in front of her eyes, massaged the bridge of her nose and said coolly, quietly: “I don’t understand why everything has to be so difficult with you.” Vicki stretched her neck to look out the window, she saw her big house. Her mother hit the automatic garage door opener and they waited for the garage to slide completely open. In the shadows of the backseat and in her own confusion about her own behavior Vicki felt the the cycling anxieties feed off one another: Their anger and her strangeness. Vicki looked down into the backseat and got really confused then sad, she felt like crying, but knew this would just make her mom more upset, so she held it in, lifting her head she felt the car moving into the garage. Vicki extended her neck to look out the window, like she was buried in swampy water, suffocating, trying to get a breath; only to look out on another vision, a different reality, a stiff tableau that flexed its pressures to welcome her into its scene, so she could be somebody else, somewhere different.

Vicki saw the white plaster of their garage walls. She heard her mother yell from the stairs that led into the house. “Vicki!”

***

“Anna is there anything that you noticed about Vicki.? Anything worth mentioning? That comes to mind.”

“uuummmm.” Anna started to twirl her hair. After a rather long silence broken only by the detective saying “Take your time.”

“I know that she seemed to trust me. She seemed to feel out of place. She was shy, quiet, and spoke softer than any adult I know. If we ever watched movies we would have to watch a comedy or she would cry the whole way through. Even during the comedy she would usually cry. She would get really upset sometimes, about nothing, like when she called the police because the screen door was slamming in the wind. I remember her talking to the lady on 911 like we were about to be murdered. She had told me that when she was my age she was on all these medications. She was always kind to me and honestly treated me how I would imagine a sister would. Very caring. Always asking if I was Okay and How things were going. She would lose her temper a lot. Like her anger was real. I got that sense. One time she punched out the numbers on her digital car radio clock. But she always seemed to be able to separate these moods and I never was scared or fearful in any way. She made it known that I was not one of the enemies, I guess is the best way I can describe it. She was always mumbling or talking to herself about this person or that person, like a genuine driving anger, constantly like churning, but she seemed to view me as on her team. There was a raw kindness to her, like just wanting to be a kid. But she alternated into quiet, distant moods where you could hardly hear what she said, when she talked, or she was dead silent but like thinking about lots of stuff far off. If anything I felt she would kill other people to protect me. So ya I felt very safe around her.”

“Ok” the detective looked up from the notepad he had been furiously scribbling on. “That’s very helpful, Anna. Can you recount what would have caused these….instances of….” He flipped over his notebook “losing her temper, as you say.”

***

The railroad ties were lined up end to end. Many were rotting in one form or another, deep brown wood splintered off the side in chunks and small straws of grass and dandy lions came up through the weakened, old wood. The schoolyard consisted of one large rectangle of concrete about an acre in size and another smaller concrete square that gave the schoolyard the outline of the letter “L”. In between the rectangle and the square, at the corner of the “L” is where the teachers stood and watched the children.

Vicki imagined jumping form one railroad tie to the next, seeing the muggy inside of the logs, rotting. The warped wood pylons held a light-weight, tenuous, humid quality to them, so when Vicki jumped from one to the next the big deep chestnut of the log would usually rock slightly. Vicki usually stuck to the upper part of the “L”, boys usually turned the lower part into a huge, violent pick-up football game she preferred to be as far away as possible from. She liked to do at least one full loop of the “L” in order for it to be a good recess.

Vicki was in 3^rd grade. It was early October and one of those strange New England days where the leaves are turning colors for the chill of the fall, but the warm winds of the summer still linger. It was very windy. The moist warm air was clattering uncomfortably with the dry, cold air coming in. There was a thin layer of clouds, but the wind blew bright, gray sunlight intermittently. The shadows that the clouds cast were hardly noticeable, being not all that dark. The sunlight coming out of the turbulent sky, fused with the warm air, the wind, and the scattering ratty clumps of orange to brownish-yellow leaves to make the usually stationary everyday objects in her day feel vividly active. Thick white lines set against the concrete outlined dodgeball squares and basketball courts. Leaves clustered on the ground, kicked up and spread in different directions, finally swaying and adhering to some current, concentrating on the log Vicki looked down and walked upon and then in the next instant the spent, dry, dead leaves disunited, ripping off in the wind and departing for their random and unconnected destinations. Vicki looked up and felt she experienced a kaleidoscope of sensations, something beyond reality that made her feel especially vital.

As she proceeded along the railroad ties, one to the next, she went past Allison Rees and 3 of her friends playing four-square dodgeball. Since the last play-date between Alison and Vicki they had not gone on another one. Alison repeated the simple phrase “Vicki is weird.” To friends and not friends, anyone that would listen. Allison was scared of Vicki. Allison saw the strength which Vicki’s colored imagination gave her, a power to be actually physically absent from situations. Situations that left Allison’s overly-anxious, practical intelligence there to stare the horrible outcomes dead in the face. Allison instinctually knew somewhere, as her parents told her how smart she was, that Vicki was bad. She did not have a rational thought or see a concrete horrible outcome, just a strong feeling that Vicki was evil.

The strange, solitary aspects of life Vicki was drawn to, and her queer, tall, pale body would bring some sort of horrible reality into existence. And so, knowing she was right, Allison had to expose Vicki.

Allison felt insecure about not having her ears pierced. She asked her mom every day after-school, but her Mom replied “not until 5th grade.” All Alison’s friends including the three in the dodgeball square already had their ears pierced and 5^th grade might as well be on the Moon. The empty time of not fitting-in yawned in front of Allison as she pictured girls mocking her, Allison herself crying in anguish somewhere in the future as every one of her friends had maliciously turned on her and her boring ear lobes. Looking over at the small golden stubs in her friends ears she imagined herself walking right behind Vicki, weird and friendless. Girls cackling behind her back, like they were doing to Vicki now as she approached, with no way to control it. Hundreds of voices calling Allison weird, telling her she did not fit-in. Allison kept thinking and was increasingly paranoid that when her friends bounced the ball she looked up at her bare, boring, little-baby-girl ears. Allison was afraid they would move forward to somewhere positive without her, leaving her behind. So far there had been no reaction from Vicki or anyone, about Allison calling Vicki weird so often and repeatedly. With a little innovation, Allison knew she could manipulate the characters in her environment into a desirable outcome for herself, an outcome that would ensure her place amongst friends, maybe even a leader, someone people looked up to not to fit-in with, but to follow behind

Vicki was just about to pass by the four girls. Allison was incredulous that all her efforts at letting everyone know that Vicki was off and weird had only resulted in the lackluster loyalty of her friends slightly giggling at the lanky, pale girl talking to herself, pacing out her steps, strangely by herself on the edge of the schoolyard everyday with no group of friends. Like if she went around calling Vicki weird and no one really agreed with her, as seemed to be the case, was she the weird one? Vicki was about to pass out of their reach quietly, without causing any sort of commotion or odd, scary situations. Sensing Vicki slipping safely away Allison began very quickly and acutely to get hysterical. An energy, that was so urgent because it was linked with her own survival seemed to erupt out of her. Momentarily panicking, Allison side-stepped the dodgeball bounced at her and let its plastic, airy bounce trail past her and into Vicki’s general direction.

Allison’s three friends looked at Allison strangely, like why did you just do that? The frenzied panic rose steadily behind Alison’s eyes and she set her eyebrows down low determined, ignoring her friends, she turned and yelled at Vicki. “Throw it!”

Vicki almost out of earshot did not turn the first time Allison yelled. Allison could her heart beating, growing desperate Allison put as much force as she could while still looking calm and composed like nothing was wrong.

“Hey Vicki, throw us the ball!”

Far away and turning Vicki seemed to ask the question pointing to herself, Me? She looked over at the Dodgeball bouncing past her and thought what does this have to do with me. Vicki annoyed and caught off guard by the sudden yelling of her name, the serene mood of the windy swaying of the leaves still on the trees, x-rayed by passing sunlight, the scattering piles on the ground, picked up and swirled upwards and then down, this amity for her environment, the images only discerned and internalized though detachment, now quickly faded and were gone. Vicki looked quizzically at Allison then turned to continue with her recess, trying to circle the full “L”. A slight annoyance at being interrupted, but Vicki figured she could finish the “L’ before the end of recess still and moved forward, ignoring Allison.

“Hey!” Allison yelled immediately as Vicki turned to continue walking. Allison’s friends giggled as Allison said “Can you believe this weirdo?” to them. And again to Vicki: “Throw us the ball!”

Getting upset and not understanding why Allison kept yelling at her and disturbing her Vicki shot back a piqued high-pitch “No!” Vicki’s voice was squeaky and she sounded funny, outraged and exasperated that Allison kept yelling for her. She never yelled, but now was being forced to yell back at Allison, so Vicki looked uncomfortable and you could see stress breaking out across her face. Allison’s friends outright laughed at Vicki and her squeaky response. Allison smelled blood, while also unsure if her friends were laughing at her or with her, Allison started walking towards Vicki.

Vicki eyed Allison walking towards her trying to intimidate her. It was like there was a dark weight building under Vicki’s eyes. Allison made eye-contact then walked past Vicki. “It’s just grabbing a ball, weirdo, thanks anyway.” Allison’s friends in the dodgeball square erupted in laughter. Hearing the laughter erupt Vicki’s stomach clenched, she grew confused and the confusion spun around on her self-consciousness, Vicki felt humiliated to the point she wanted to cry. “I just wanted to keep walking to finish the ‘L’.” She thought to herself, realizing now with anger that recess was getting close to over and she would not be able to complete the lower part of the “L” in time.

“Think fast!” Vicki barely heard before the rubbery plastic of the dodgeball had hit her in the stomach, slapping red against her exposed lower arms, knocking her off the rail-road tie and into the chain-link fence surrounding the school yard. Vicki scraped her hand on the fence catching herself trying to stay upright. The ball bounced off her stomach and lower abdomen and away back to Allison.

Tears were coming down Vicki’s face. The girls in the dodgeball four square were howling, other kids tired out at the tail-end of recess, began to notice and congregate. Vicki was indignant, extremely upset, the schoolyard blurred to tears and Vicki thought of her mother calling another woman a bad name when she was riding her bumper in traffic.

“I was just trying to throw you the ball, calm down spazz. Stop crying in front of everyone you are embarrassing yourself.” Allison spoke loud to draw a crowd and Vicki could not answer because she kept stuttering and stammering, confused, upset, anxious and feeling attacked. She tried to articulate words but they just came out as jumbled frustrations choking out through inarticulate cries and welps.

Allison stood in front of her “What’s wrong with you?”

Vicki seeing she had to defend herself against the entire school now closing in close, the eyes racing across her brain, painfully stinging anxiety. “I did not do anything to you. Why do you have…” But it came out squeaky, barely audible and disjointed and Allison just laughed more looking back at her dodgeball friends and the steadily increasing crowd.

Vicki felt the humiliation, the anger, the unfinished “L”, the groups of kids now gawking at her trembling body. The outrage and the injustice of the whole thing. Allison had created a piece of token entertainment in an otherwise extremely boring school day, and kids fed off the disrupted excitement of a brief carnival-like atmosphere springing before their eyes like an entertaining television show, just like Allison knew they would react. Vicki hated being looked at by so many. She just wanted to be left alone to do what she wants. All these emotions stirring and Allison animated and giddy now trying to get a response from Vicki she could deflect into a mean-spirited and very public put-down. All the eyes staring at her and Allison laughing and smiling like she had never been this happy before. So that something came together, the sharp word that seemed so poignant and powerful, even as her Mother had screamed it at no one.

Vicki swept her eyes of tears, the schoolyard and all the people came into clarity and with no stutters or stammering it flew out of her lungs, forceful, joined with the exact curvature of her tongue and muscles flexing imperceptibly in her throat: “You’re a bitch!”

Mr. Regan stepped in-between Vicki and Allison

“Hey, hey what’s wrong? everyone calm down. Vicki, you know we don’t allow language like that” Vicki fell to the ground in tears, collapsing in front of everyone. Going down to a constant low wail of crying, half sitting in the railroad tie and half on the concrete. Mr. Regan tried to approach Vicki to get her off the ground and as soon as he touched her arm the unstable awareness, insecurity and protective anger swelled, so she screamed, spit coming out of her mouth “Don’t touch me!!”

Mr. Regan’s eyes bulged along with the rest of the school and frightened he backed up. Mrs. Fleisching came up next to Mr. Regan and turned to Allison asking: “What’s wrong with Vicki? Allison what is going on?”

“I don’t know, we just asked her to throw the ball back, we tried to get her to play, but she just kept getting upset, and we didn’t do anything and then she called me the B word.”

Mrs. Fleisching turned her eyes narrowing, less sympathetic to the hunched figure of Vicki crying on the ground.

“Up, Up young lady!”

The bell rang and everyone started to disperse. Mr. Regan told everyone to line up by the doors. Mrs. Fleisching was giving another sharp “Up, Up young lady.”

Mrs. Fleisching lead the still despondent Vicki back to the waiting lines of kids, so they could do a count and file back into class. Mrs. Fleishcing walked her back slowly, authoritatively distant, but still able to say to the startlingly upset Vicki “just calm down, it’s ok. I know those girls can be competitive calm down before we get over to the other kids.”

“Competitive!” Vicki exclaimed. “She threw the ball at me really hard. It hurt.” Getting visibly animated and her body accelerating back up to being upset.

“Just breath here for a little bit and then we will walk over. Ok” Mrs. Fleishching said. Vicki inhaled deep and exhaled out, in deep and out, slowly cooling.

Allison was already out ahead of it, making sure her version was repeated by so many people that Vicki’s version would seem uncorroborated, strange and detached from what the accepted reality was, just like Vicki herself. Alison knew Vicki was too weird to go around telling her side of the story. She did not even really have friends. She would just day-dream the day away, and by the end of the school day, with subtle gossip, exaggerated rumors and suggested narratives, Vicki, as the whole school got a glimpse for themselves at recess, would be considered truly weird.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her? We didn’t do anything. She just started freaking out.” Allison’s three friends backed up Allison’s version to Mrs. Fleisching. Vicki’s parents were informed that Vicki had sworn at another student at school. Vicki had Detention everyday afterschool for two weeks and her mother on hearing the news from the school took away Vicki’s television privileges, so Vicki missed all her favorite television shows for over a month.

***

The Detective looked over his notes. Anna, Her mother, father and lawyer sat silently in the gray, prison cell-like room.

“Does the term ‘I let you in. I let you in and you judged me and took advantage’ mean anything to you, Anna?”

Anna looked confused and turned to her mother, father and lawyer. The lawyer frowned, motioned for Anna to not speak then spoke: “Representing my client and her family, I would ask if you could clarify the pertinence of the question. I am concerned with the lack of information provided and that no background to the relevancy of this statement is provided as to how it pertains to Anna and Mr. and Mrs. Dempsey.

Quite Frankly, we don’t even know if Anna or her parents are being considered as persons of interest in this case and what she may be saying to you now could be incriminating herself. I along with my clients decided it would be in the best interests of everyone involved to fully cooperate with the Police in the this matter, but with a lack of clarification on the intent on the part of the Police department, me and my clients may have to reconsider such an open pathway of communication.”

“Our investigation is in its very preliminary stages.” The detective intoned, slowly sympathetically, so as to not scare off the Dempseys. He was on their side. “I can assure you at this point we are not considering charges against anyone. We are collecting statements from multitudes of people who knew Vicki. I cannot say what the conclusions of the investigation would be, but I would just say this is standard protocol and Anna or Mr. and Mrs. Dempsey are not considered persons of interest in the case, simply witnesses, witnesses whose statements we need to collect.

As to clarification of the question which I realize now after the fact could have appeared somewhat cryptic as I presented it, was to ascertain if the term was immediately recognizable to Anna. Anna had said she saw Vicki lose her temper on occasions. In the instances where police had to get involved in the past with Vicki, when she was making increasingly violent, threatening phone calls to her psychiatrist, her ex-fiance’s family, her ex-fiance’s sister, her ex-fiance, as well his current wife and their children, this phrase seems to be repeatedly present or infused as a sort of trigger in the more violent and bizarre episodes we have recorded in reports from past incidents. In the statement, we took from her when she accused her former-fiancé of raping and impregnating her the statement is present. And in the statement we took when she claimed her house was broken into by her ex-fiance, his current wife and her former-fiance’s sister. The phrase ‘I let you in. I let you in and you judged me. or I let you in and you took advantage.’ Seems to be present and repeated to point of becoming so redundant we started to take notice of the use of the phrase. We were never able to prove it was Vicki making the calls so the charges were dropped. There was no evidence that her house had been forcibly broken into, other than being in severe disrepair, the health department actually condemned her apartment as unsafe for living after she called us. The phrase was written in some sort of animal’s blood on the wall of her former fiancé’s basement when we had to go out there again for a call of a break-in. Someone had smashed in their rear basement door, ripped up the leather couches, destroyed the entertainment system, plugged the downstairs sink and let it run, so the whole place was flooded. Whoever did it wrote that phrase in squirrel or rabbit blood on the wall then left. We highly suspected Vicki as it seemed to fall in-line with some of her earlier threats, and we found some mail stolen from her former fiance’s now wife listed at that address in Vicki’s apartment, but we had no other evidence and had to let her off.”

The detective wanted to be open with them so they felt he was not concealing anything. He was convinced they did nothing wrong in the matter and wanted Anna to keep giving him information. Her reasoned to himself that since they did appear to know Vicki and her family, somewhat well, they may have already known about some of these incidents and were concerned with being negatively associated with Vicki’s illegal behavior. He wanted them to know he viewed them as innocent, and he let them in on those other side stories Vicki was suspected of, as a free exchange of information to make them feel more at ease, an open pathway to communication, as the lawyer said. the detective knew, he felt, after many years how to deal tactfully with witnesses and lawyers.

The detective was surprised how quiet the room had become. It was only broken by Mrs Dempsey saying: “Vicki Heller? Our babysitter?”

Anna’s eyes seemed to be everywhere but in the room and confusedly coming to reality with her mother’s voice, she turned quizzically to look at her mother then back at the detective and said:

“No I’ve never heard that phrase.”

Mrs. Dempsey started crying. He realized he was losing control of the room.

He looked from Anna to her mother to her father trying to read their body language and he wrote down “agitated” on his notepad.

“No, I can’t think of anytime Vicki used that phrase. Umm”

“Take your time, think back slowly.” Saying it in a calm voice to try and calm the emotions of the room down.

“I can’t recall hearing Vicki ever using that phrase. And I saw her get mad, and talk about other people angrily, but it seemed like what everyone goes through, you know, everyone’s got problems, I, uh, can’t think of anything. I’m honestly shocked. I never saw that side of Vicki” Shrugging her shoulders Anna turned to her mom who reiterated what Anna said, quietly, trying to not cry. Mrs. Dempsey croaked contemplatively down to the floor.

“I mean we were shocked just like everyone when we heard. I had no idea about any of this earlier stuff. Vicki was highly recommended by many people I know well. People I know very well. I guess we had no idea.”

***

Vicki’s grandmother had gone to Dana Hall in the early 1900’s when it was just founded and became a schoolteacher. Vicki’s grandmother taught the nieces and nephews of a family that had grown wealthy off of manufacturing textiles. They owned several blocks of factories and mills in Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts. Their eldest son, who was unmarried, became Vicki’s grandfather, Abraham Heller. He made annual large donations to Dana Hall until his death, so Vicki, although she could have got in on her own academics, was accepted as soon as she applied. Vicki had grown up next to the school and it was a tradition in her family for a lot of the women to go there, so she felt very proud and comfortable stepping onto the campus as a student her first day in 6^th grade.

On the first day Sarah looked like she was going to throw-up. Vicki noticed the excessive fear in her eyes entering English class, as they had just started getting students in the habit of switching classes. Sarah forgot one of her folders and wanted to go back into the class they had just come from to get it, but the teacher told her she could not, so Sarah made a high pitched frustrated scream that lapsed into a despairing cry. None of the girls really knew each other at this point, so people laughed at her, more out of a nervous sense of not knowing what to do, even Vicki gently smiled at the little Asian girl choking into tears about a Social Studies folder. Sarah quickly and silently took her seat, now realizing the attention she had brought to herself. Vicki watched as Sarah lowered her upright posture in her desk, closing down from a 90 degree angle to a 5 degree angle, almost laying on it, like she was trying to sink through her desk through the floor and disappear.

At the end of that school day Vicki was walking over the Field Hockey field to her house on Bienvenue street.

She tried to step over geese poop and felt the flimsy grass sink into the mud below her feet. The day was cloudy and windy like it should be raining, but the clouds held and cool humidity flowed through the air. Alone and withith only 20 feet or so until she reached Bienvenue street, Vicki saw Sarah dart across the wet afternoon grass in her peripheral vision. Sarah shielded her face, as if this made her invisible. Vicki saw her for only an instant, but immediately recognized her as the Social-Studies-folder girl. Sarah looked like a gazelle being chased by a Lion, and Vicki wondered what she was doing out here at the edge of the field hockey field when practice would not start for another two weeks.

Vicki had seen girls living in the dorms coming and going since she was a little kid. She knew that the dorms were on the opposite side of the campus. Curious, she decided to head in the direction she just saw Sarah dart. Vicki came around a big low lying pine tree and saw Sarah flash by her again in a full determined run. Sarah then almost quicker than Vicki could see turned backwards and launched herself into a backwards half- flip where she landed on her hands then flipped forward onto her feet then forward again onto her hands and somehow turned frontwards again, twisting in the air, so that she landed facing away from Vicki with her hands out like she was quietly balancing on a tight rope. Vicki did not want to break the power of Sarah standing with her hands stretched out. It was so quiet, dignified, and precluded by the flips the stance showed an awed peace that came from practice, discipline and being able to accomplish what was otherwise unthinkable.

“Wow!” Vick finally beamed, running towards Sarah, weirdly feeling like she should hug her although she did not know her. “That was great!” Vicki said, beaming, stepping up to Sarah.

“Thank You”, Sarah said cautiously looking up at Vicki, but quickly looking down to avoid eye contact. Vicki flashed back to Sarah’s black hair whipping above her head as her white teeth became visible and she started to scream earlier that day in English class.

“Did you just start? How’s everything going? I just started.” The bubbly demeanor almost immediately put Sarah at ease, as Vicki realized the girl had a bad day. And Sarah was unsure if Vicki was going to mock or judge her because of the incident.

“You just started?” Sarah said guardedly. Vicki coolly nodded back an affirmative.

“I just wanna say that was really, really, cool. Like where did you learn to do that?” A tired smile shot across Sarah’s face.

“My mom has a gymnastics Studio in Seattle. I’m from Seattle so I don’t know anyone here.”

“Where’s Seattle?”

“It’s like on the other side of the country, below Alaska.”

“Wow.” Vicki saw glaciers and penguins and mountains. She had heard vaguely of Seattle, but did not really know where it was, she knew it was not anywhere around here. “That’s so cool. I wish I could do that. I live right over there.” Vicki pointed towards Bienvenue street. Sarah turned, followed her finger with her eyes and said:

“Right there, cool.” Vicki realized Sarah looked really scared as she turned back to face Vicki. Sara’s voice quickly squelched into a crack, Sarah said “I can’t find my dorm. I’ve been lost since my Mom and Dad left. I keep turning around and not realizing where I am. I lost some important papers today and I just got lost trying to go my dorm where all my stuff is. I’m really tired. I’m hungry and I can’t find the dining hall. I just put my bag down and I was just, I don’t know, so I just had to do some gymnastics. I feel better now, but I am hungrier and still have no idea where I am.”

“Haha, Oh my God, right, like I have just like wanted to cry all day. Like I live right over there and I ‘m just like this is crazy, all these girls, the older girls, like this place is like a college or a city or something.” Vicki erupted out, letting the curtain fall that was held up by their unfamiliarity. “I can show you where the dorms are. My mom went to this school and ya I live right over there so it’s not all so new. But still god, the running around with the class changes, the lockers. I cannot remember my combination and I am afraid of locking all my books inside.” Sarah laughed, the heavy stresses of her drawn face finally lightening and lifting. “I’m hungry too, ya I’ll show you the dining hall.” a confidence came into Sarah. Sarah’s chin went up, she laughed out-loud when Vicki said: “I gotta start wearing a bra. Everyone could see my nipples all day.” They both lifted their feet higher and spoke upwards into the air as Sarah picked up her backpack and they strode off together. A free-wheeling, weightlessness commanded their movements. The high-pressure first day of school seemed to slide away to serenity. Walking forward together now it was like a true release of joy, only so much the better because they had created the bond. This feeling, both empowering and endearing, was only being experienced because they had made best use of their new situations to meet one another. Vicki continued on, encouraged as Sarah freely cackled louder and louder. “I mean it’s September could you turn off the air-conditioning. I could cut glass with these things over here.”

Brian was a slight, smart, awkward kid. He stood self-consciously tall, so he stooped, trying to be the same height as the other kids he had outgrown. Vicki had stood by the wall of the “The Ship”. “The Ship” is what they call the huge athletic center at Dana Hall that included the gym where they hosted dances. Boys were invited from all-boys private schools in the area like Saint Sebastians, Xaverian, Roxbury Latin, BC High, and Catholic Memorial.

Vicki watched from the side, detached, smelling the collective sweat. She was swept up in the romance and pageantry of it all. Girls she knew from class danced with stiff boys in collared shirts. Girls wore tank tops. Boys approached girls at random and asked them to dance. She could get asked. It was all so exciting and stimulating, so Vicki needed it to slow down in her brain. She hung back and kept looking over the unrecognizable gymnasium, with its flashing, colored lights, the DJ booth, multi-colored crepe streamers lined the walls, corners and upper doorways, and now Sarah was coming back, since it was the end of “Faithfully” by Journey. The short boy she had been dancing with from CM went back to his pack of boys. The darkness set against the rotating pattern of yellow, green, blue, orange, and red colored lights, created dazzling, almost instantly dissipating, constantly moving shadows. The shadows seemed to flicker as they caught individual students, like a camera, its images being oddly distorted into a grainy, speckled image. The quick images were a bright background with crooked, warped black figures at the center. Just as Vicki’s eyes caught the mangled black figure in the colored splotch, immediately after coming into creation, it dissolved. New multi-colored colored shadows flitted over the dissolved shadows. Sarah said something to Vicki she could not hear. Teachers stood sentient acting as chaperones with a kind of youthful lightness to their usually authoritative dispositions.

It was the first dance of the year. Vicki was surprised that boys kept asking her to dance. At her old school, everyone knew her as weird, so they stayed away. Now as she leaned in to listen to Sara there was a boy waiting when she turned around. She was asked to dance at every song and had trouble turning boys down. After an hour or two she started to decline and gravitated towards the back of the gymnasium, where boys still ventured to ask her since she was so tall and was easily able to be seen. All this new attention was overwhelming her and not able to understand its cause she had to take a break and identify exactly what was happening.

Vicki hardly noticed she looked different in the mirror than she had the previous day. Vicki noticed some days her chest felt tender and sore. She grew her straight black hair down to her lower back. She started breaking out in pimples along her forehead and nose. Her tall, boyish frame became suddenly womanly. Her hips had slightly widened and her breasts were already a B cup. She grew very self-conscious about her large breasts and would see other girls stare at her accusingly as she held a binder over her chest and awkwardly bumbled with the new weight. Vicki hated having people look at her, but the positive attention she received form boys was something new, enthralling, intoxicating and Vicki had trouble identifying its source. She began to flip through fashion magazines and quickly found ways to conceal and amplify her figure by purchasing well-made designer clothes on joint shopping expeditions with her mother. Fashion was one of the only things Vicki and her mother seemed able to agree on. They both liked European styles and any sort of refined elegance that quietly suggested grandeur, class, success and good breeding. She tried to capture the stately elegance of Jackie Onassis. Her quiet demeanor leant itself to this air of mystery, other-worldliness and sophistication her new fashion sense emitted. Vicki’s demure disposition had previously been seen as strange and spacy, but now she seemed gracefully reserved. Vicki began reading through her mother’s magazines and asked for well-designed brands of dresses, blouses and skirts. She wore one of these low-cut dresses to the dance, a sky-blue color, her shoulders exposed, most girls wore tube-tops so Vicki was besieged by boys the whole night.

Her mother was more than happy to pay for the fashionable outfits, but would usually focus on some small details like Vicki’s skin or would say something disparaging about Vicki’s “big hips”. Vick thought she looked great in the new outfits and could not understand why her mother seemed to put so much energy into making Vicki feel uncomfortable when an outfit made Vicki feel attractive. Vicki noticed men honking their car horns at her when she walked places. One man even stopped his car, asked where she was going and how old she was. Questions Vicki dutifully answered before declining an invitation to go drink beer at the man’s house. Strange interactions with male cashiers began occurring more often than not. Older men leered at her for long periods of time from a distance. It made Vicki slef-concious, but also a vital potency started to seep into her outlook. She fluttered in and out of confidence, one moment embarrassed and overwhelmed, the next empowered and in-control. The People in her environment seemed to cause these massive shifts in ego, usually saying something suggestive or doing something passive-aggressive to even the superiority they felt Vicki emitted with her physical presence. But on the other hand individuals smitten by her beauty were easily controlled. She did not understand why she caused such a charged response from other individuals. While in a wider group setting she could become a polarizing force merely by existing within it. She returned to what was familiar and milled around the back of the gymnasium for the next dance, trying to hide, where Brian, also trying to hide, saw a beautiful, dark, lone girl approaching him and asked her to dance. Vicki rolled her eyes and said yes, her demeanor turned to an amicable joy as Brian led her to the front and the dance floor.

Vicki thought Brian was cute, unlike many of the other boys he was taller than Vicki which made her feel more comfortable and in a vague, far-off way she felt very safe slow dancing with him. As the dance started to come to an end Vicki presented herself in front of Brian and was ecstatic when he asked her to dance again. Brian went to Xaverian. Vicki gave him her screen name and they began chatting online, in the following weeks. Sometimes on the weekends the chats went late into the night. Vicki and Brian arranged to meet for ice cream at White Mountain Creamery in Wellesley Center. Vicki stayed up the whole night before she was to meet Brian on a Saturday afternoon. She spent all-morning getting ready, doing her hair, stealing some of her Mom’s make up. And tired, but energized by the excitement of the coming situation she walked down to White Mountain Creamery. Brian sat and inside and Vicki looked through the window at the gawky, hunched, boyishly handsome figure waiting for her at the table. Taking an inhale she went for the door handle, the bell dinged and the man at the ice cream counter and Brain looked to the radiant figure coming through the door. Vicki felt appreciated and wanted, by Brian. She clung to these positive, emotional nuances, suddenly present in her life, with such a supreme influence on how she was viewed and treated. The sense of belonging had alluded her throughout her life, and so it was only that much more painful when she was cast out again.

The summer between 6^th and 7^th grade Brian and Vicki began to go steady. Still emerging into puberty they would hold hands, grow stressed out about kissing then finally kiss. They went to movies and Vicki went over Brian’s house for a party with Brian’s friends from the Xaverian basketball team. Vicki brought Sarah along. They were the only two girls there. Vicki hung on Brian, so he started to get made fun of by his basketball friends. They had a water bottle full of Vodka that they took sips from. After a couple sips Vicki began to passionately kiss and make-out with Brian, so that the other boys could see. Her arm floated on arou d his neck and shoulder. Vicki seemed disinterested in speaking with anyone else at the party. When Brian tried to speak to someone else she would interrupt, speaking manically and caustically, and ask a question to try to draw attention back to her and Brian. Vicki herself was shy, but she wanted everyone to know how great she thought Brian was, so she made a point of positioning these public displays of affection in the viewpoint of others. By the end of the party Vicki was going in to kiss Brian and he stood up and asked angrily “can you just like leave me alone for a second, God.” Brian walked out of the room and all the boys in it went silent before rising up in a cackle as Vicki worriedly followed Brian out of the room.

Out on Brian’s deck Vicki told Brian that she only did it because she loved him so much. Brian responded that it was just getting to be too much, he needed space. Vicki was crushed. Her stomach seemed to drop through her body and reality seemed to be viewed by an entity outside herself. It was like she was watching herself.

“I thought you were happy.” Vicki said loudly contorting into tears, the boys inside now coming to the screen.

“I am it’s just I think this is too controlling and too Serious for me. It’s been great going out, but I think it’d be better if we were good friends.” Brian said.

“I can do better, I’ll be less possessive. I’m sorry.” Vicki looked pitiful as she loudly contorted into pained tears. The boys inside now came up to the screen and Brian walked back inside embarrassed to be the focus of all the overwrought dramatics streaming out of Vicki. She walked down the wooden stairs to the deck. Humiliated, the landscape seemed like it was squirming, squiggles of light swirled, collected and dispersed in front of the night-time suburban neighborhood. Putting her hand on a telephone pole she threw up on a neatly cut lawn, she began shaking like she was cold, but she was over-heating and sweating. The more upset she got the more she shook, until her legs and her arms seemed to be wavering, unable to support her, she was getting dizzy and choking in air to breath she began to lower herself down to the ground. Her legs bent up at the knee, her tall upper body hunched over as she held her head in her hands trying to get everything to hold still.

Vicki was to sleep over Sarah’s house the night of the party, and Vicki now realized she had completely forgotten Sarah at the party. So Vicki, not wanting to back to the party, collected herself and made her way to Sarah’s house which was in walking distance from Brian’s.

Vicki called Sarah and left a voicemail that Brian was a jerk and she was heading to her house. Vicki sat down on the cool grass in front of Sarah’s house and waited, her sadness spiraling into anger at Brian. Sarah called her back unclearly saying “I have to tell you something.”

“Ok.” Vicki replied flatly wondering if Sarah was Okay. “Are you crying? It’s okay just come back to your house I’m sitting on your front lawn.”

Sarah really was sorry. Sarah thought one of the boys was very cute, so after a lot of vodka she began to make out with him. But she got confused and responding to the cheers from the boys she started making out with another boy, then another boy and more cheers, and pulling back she realized she had just made out with Brian. The boys were absolutely ecstatic and realizing she was being used, she turned and blurredly saw the boys jeering around her, Brian’s face, and the back door, so she got up and walked though it. Sarah stumbled out through Brian’s backyard, into a line of bushes, then she entered into the yard behind Brian’s house, cut herself on their rose bushes, set off the automatic light so their dog started barking then tripped over then fell into flower beds that lined the side of the house, dirty and bruised she walked down their driveway and out onto the street, lost, drunk, queasy and not sure which direction to take. Even as the landscape seemed to lilt and tip Sarah realized this news would probably get back to Vicki, so emboldened by her drunkenness she was determined to be honest with her friend, to be open and communicate freely and hope that they could come to understand that while they had poor judgment in some of their decisions that night the result was neither of their faults. Sarah noticed a street, and was able to locate herself even in her somewhat spinning landscape. She headed for her house.

Sarah came down the street out of the vaporous glow of the streetlights. Vicki stood up on seeing Sarah approach. Sarah was red and crying. She was wobbly on her feet and when she saw Vicki she jumped at her “I’m sorry. I drank so much and I got confused and the boys were all being nice, but they were trying to confuse me and they made it so I kissed Brian, I did it I’m sorry, but they kept giving me vodka and making it confusing, saying I liked this guy and that guy. I liked it and they kept saying I was pretty.” Sarah was basically yelling all this at Vicki who stood motionless, the sense she was watching herself from another place permeated reality. She was watching Sarah tell this to Vicki. The numbness sliding off, Vicki came back into her own body and just the two of them stood on the lawn. A rage seemed to rise up out of Vicki and immediately, instinctually her body and brain coursed with a psychic anger that tightened all the muscles in her body simultaneously. “I brought you here.” Vicki began saying. a humming energy seemed to give Vicki tunnel vision and she forgot where she was. Sarah looked stupid in her drunken stupor, this being one of the first times she had ever been drunk. Sarah was too sick feeling to focus on what Vicki was saying. Vicki took it as Sarah ignoring her or acting dismissive about her feelings.

“I Invited you.” Vicki was slowly saying her teeth gritting in-between the words she was clearly enunciating so Sarah could hear. Sarah’s eyes were unfocused and she bent her head forward and threw up on Vicki’s new sandals.

Vicki saw the top of Sarah’s head bowed after she threw up. She heard all the voices calling her weird throughout her life rising like a cacophony. She had trusted Sarah, enough to be around the boy she loved, her first love, and she had used her. Sarah used Vicki’s good looks to get invited to this party and jump on Vicki’s boyfriend. She wondered if the reason Brian broke it off with her is because he had his sights set on Sarah all along. Confused, her illusion of belonging somewhere was now collapsing and it hurt acutely. The outrage took on an other-worldly weight, growing unwieldly as Vicki explored all the times she had trusted each of them. The anger seemed to metastasize into different pockets of Vicki’s thoughts, coming fast. Previous feelings of safety, trust and belonging, each scene and instance stacked and compiled into her remembered reflections, evoked another pang of humiliation and escalating hatred that was ratcheting up her body into an uncontrollable animation. Her hands shook now, but from physical restraint. Vicki felt betrayed by Brain and Sarah, but in a larger sense these two just seemed to be the most recent contributors to a lifelong trend of verbal abuse, and the contributing indifferent, dismissive and malicious attitudes towards Vicki and her identity. These attitudes lead exactly to the poor treatment, the isolation, as well the creation of names and reputations that followed her, like a gloomy cloud, so that she would not be able to belong anywhere. The incessant negative emotions seemed to chase her throughout the scenes of her life, as they were emitted from people’s mouths like a physical reality being birthed into existence, ensuring that she would always be off-kilter, question her own viability, but most painfully, she would be alone.

It all flooded forward and Vicki could not remember afterwards, but she had grabbed Sarah’s hair and thrown her onto the lawn and called her a bitch. Every time Sarah drunkenly tried to stand Vicki would push her back down, pushing harder each time. No one had ever been nice to Vicki she felt, so she showed no mercy. When Sarah sunk onto the ground defeated, crying and weakly saying sorry, Vicki started punching her in the head. Each punch felt good, the abrasive power of her knuckles as they clapped with Sarah’s skull satiated some deep feeling of impotence in Vicki. The feeling was intoxicating in how good it felt, power surging through her body, she punched faster trying to get higher and higher. Vicki seethed, spit flying out of her mouth at each syllable, screaming animal-like in between strikes: “I let you in! I let you in! And you judged me! You judged me and you took advantage!”

Sarah started to scream and the front light of Sarah’s house came on. Sarah’s father opened the front door only wearing a t-shirt and his underwear. He saw the two drunk, very young girls fighting on the ground on his front lawn.

Sarah’s father called Vicki’s parents and said the girls had somehow gotten hold of some alcohol and that Vicki and Sarah had gotten in a pretty ugly fight and Sarah was actually hurt from the altercation. Sarah’s father was very mad at Vicki and seemed to blame the alcohol on Vicki while he spoke to her mother over the phone. “My little girls has blood coming out of her scalp. We’re going to take her to the hospital and you are going to pay any bills that come from Sarah’s injuries.”

Mrs. Heller refused to pay any hospital bills immediately putting the blame on Sarah, that Sarah had provided the alcohol, that he was responsible for the welfare of her child and now she was drunk and not so subtly suggested that the reason Sarah had so many bruises and cuts was from falling down because as Mrs. Heller put it, “Most Chinese people don’t have a good constitution for alcohol.” Sarah’s family was Japanese, so Sarah’s father said into the receiver, “Come pick up Vicki or I am calling the cops.”

Mrs. Heller got out of her big, wide, white Cadillac and intoned loudly and dramatically as she entered the front door of Sarah’s house: “Where’s my daughter?!” and seeing Vicki she said even louder: “Oh Vicki, what have these poor people done to you!” Sarah’s mom had already taken Sarah to the hospital just to get checked out. Sarah’s dad stood with his arms folded watching Mrs. Heller get Vicki onto her feet. Mrs. Heller smelt the alcohol and tried to cause a big commotion going out of Sarah’s house saying out-loud how: “I have never seen such an irresponsible family.” Sarah’s father not getting drawn into it simply responded “Please leave or I will have to call the police.” Mrs. Heller responded with a look of outrage, like she could not believe he just said that. And with one last incoherent guffaw The front door was slammed on Vicki and her mother. Vicki still wobbily from the alcohol. the theatrics of the night had exhausted her. She laid down in the long couch-like back seat of her mom’s white Cadillac, curling into the fetal position Vicki felt completely drained and fell almost immediately asleep. Mrs. Heller said one last inaudible outraged phrase before slamming the driver-side door shut. She then accelerated, so the tires loudly screech away from Sarah’s house. Sarah’s father, relieved, watched the White Cadillac disappear down his street. The sound of the car’s engine was now distant and the red luminous pattern of the taillights bounced quietly away into the night.

***

Anna continued for the detective relaying any memory she had of Vicki at all.

“I remember being out with her at the grocery store and she saw someone she knew in the parking lot. She ducked behind a car, she told to me crouch down and we actually had to hide behind a car, until the woman got in her car and left. Vicki was watching her the whole time saying to me “that woman is the biggest phony, she went around saying all this shit about me to try and make sure I had no friends.” And again it was like I said before the anger was just there, very real. Getting up and proceeding into the grocery store I remember feeling a wave of discomfort coming over me as I realized Vicki was like really upset. “Why did we have to crouch and hide?” I remember asking like kind of with a laugh, but I could quickly tell I should not have laughed. And I remember Vick looked at me like I had just interrupted a very important thought and she said fairly intensely and like woa, seriously “I would have killed her, if she said anything to me.”

I remember being like woa, like with a fierceness, there was clearly something serious there. But as we got to the door of the grocery store there were Firemen with a dog trying to raise funds for charity. I remember she knelt down and pet the dog, asked the firefighters his name, then gleefully joked around about having beers at the American Legion hall after they got off. She asked them if some guy named Earl was still the bartender down at the Legion and their eyes lit up, impressively surprised and they said “Ya, he’s still around.”

We went through the automatic door and Vicki pulled a cart apart from the others interlocked in a line together. Moving forward down the first aisle Vicki started snickering like so I could hear and I said “What?” Vicki showed me the piece of paper with a fireman’s phone number on it. “Are you going to call him?” I asked.

“Probably not.” She said back.

***

Vicki already knew all the words to Mazzy Star’s “Be My Angel.”

               They say it's me
                      that makes you do things
                      you might not have done
                      if I was away
                      and that it's me
                     that likes to talk to you
                      and watches you
                      as you walk away

People were maturing. Full Classrooms of girls longingly looked out the windows. The straight- forward taunts of being strange and weird were no longer socially acceptable as behavior. Especially in a place as dignified as Dana hall at the beginning of Vicki’s freshman year. But people wanted a conflict. They heard the gossip and the rumors. Little comments said by her just loud enough to hear. So in order to get this they would do small suggestive actions to try and draw Vicki into a conflict, and once Vicki objected they could manipulate her easily excitable personality into a scene, of their creation, which Vicki unwittingly again, again found herself blindsided and almost instantaneously she would be embroiled in some sort of conflict when she was just trying to get her books out of her locker, and get some private, quiet moment to herself, before it was shattered, by someone kicking her books over then saying it was an accident. Frilling her sweater sleeve she was almost constantly seething from trying to decide to just let it go or enter into a fight and get ganged up on and quietly seen as a spaz or a problem.

Sarah and Vicki were never able to make things right again. The fight between the two girls had turned into a gargantuan piece of Social curiousity and many of the negative rumors that now circulated at Dana Hall and at other Boys Schools were largely to do with the aftermath of Sarah and Vicki’s fight.

When Vicki had first come to Dana hall in 6^th grade it felt like hers, she knew the area well, the school was a part of her family, but slowly as middle school ended, adulthood seemingly loomed, and so the endless competition that results from human insecurities began with an energy and intensity only incoherent teenage angst could create. So this environment was slowly ripped from her, this familiar sense of comfort, home, tradition and family became something she just wanted to avoid. Walking up to school most days she wanted to go home and watch t.v., but was too scared of her mom. The more sociable and successfully competitive girls set out to run the school. In order to be on top someone had to be on bottom. Rumors about Sarah going to the hospital, and with Brian from Xaverian talking triumphantly about dumping that weird girl were where people started. Slowly chipping away after each obtained piece of information concerning Vicki.

Freshman year was like a machine gun finding its mark. The voices like ghosts fluttered through Vicki’s pained fantasies. It was not so much the inferred name calling, but the avoidance, the not being wanted just because of who she was. The rumors and gossip were just an excuse. She did not fit-in. When other kids were having a good time together it made her nervous and she needed to go somewhere that was quiet. If a situation she was present in became too loud and bright she would detach, not really ever wanting to be present in the situation in the first place, her imagination would take her some place, where the peace spread over her eyes and the look of normalized relaxation began to characterize her smooth movements that were otherwise jerky, nervous and unsure. Vicki off alone somewhere staring at some static object and getting lost in its details. People saw this and made sure that look of relaxation never spread over her face. Vicki did not deserve it. It was a sign of vulnerability and an sensibly trained girl who just wanted to make it to the top knew this at this point, so they humiliated her. “Hey Vicki!” Screaming her name to throw her off. They knew the constant jarring quality yelling of her name would be more than the sensitive girl could handle, and would throw her into a bad mood which they could then prod and poke until Vicki got upset and then they could point out how Vicki was upset and they were not, so clearly Vicki just lost. Vicki hiss at the like a cat, icily stared them down, but she effectively powerless and outnumbered.

After entering situation after situation in the cafeteria, in the hallway, getting her books out of her locker, before class, after class, before school, after school and in the classroom she could not understand what it was about her that seemed to magnetize these individuals who seemed to sense that she did not want to compete, so they challenged her knowing they could easily win.

Sophomore year, after the painful, mistrusting wounds of Brian were still fresh, even two years later, Vicki met Brendan at a BC High dance. Guys usually approached her, but their juvenile eagerness just seemed to depress her after Aaron and Sarah, so she kept to herself, not really having any romantic notions until she met Aaron.

just be my angel if you love me
be my angel in the night
be my angel cuz you need me
be my angel and treat me right

don't say you love me
if you don't need me
don't send me roses

on your behalf
just take me down
and walk through your river
down through the middle
and make it last

Vicki was exceedingly excited about male anatomy, so she jerked Aaron off so she could see him with his pants off. Boys seemed so powerless naked, like infants waiting to be told what to do. Many times before the quiet poise of Vicki with her top off they became nervous and awkward when they had previously been super-confident and cocky in their groups of friends with their complimentary set of preppy girlfriends. Vicki saw them cackling in sunshine in her darker moods.

Pressure was applied. The rumors that swam around Vicki began to infect Aaron. Friends began having problems with him. He started not getting invited to certain places and parties he had previously been more than welcome. People began to throw temper tantrums on him then when Aarron would calmly question why they were acting so mean- spirited and unfair they would deflect and blame Brett for being so “off” or “strange” that he caused the fight, that he was so weird and crazy that his objections were easily dismissed, and now he was making a big deal out of nothing, it had all just been a joke, Brett had blown it out of proportion. Typical response for someone who thought that being the boyfriend of that slutty girl was something he should be doing. The girl who wore the nice dresses, and acted better than anyone else, because she was always staring far-off or spaced-out. “She got in just because her mother went here.” “She comes from huge super-powerful Jewish family that’s the only reason she got in.”

By the end of Sophomore year Vicki had a grade point average of 4.3 out of 4.0 since she had gotten A’s in her AP classes. Her Father and Mother bought her a car for the good grades. A little red Honda Civic. She drove it over to Aaron’s house to show it off. Aaron was torn. He really liked Vicki, her wistful demeanor soon gave way to a vibrancy, uncontained energy and meandering intelligence that Aaron could liken with no one else his age. But the pressure was becoming real. Ideas that had begun in people’s brains formed out of judgements and assumptions began protrude and birth into reality. Vicki was anti-social, she wore clothes that were too expensive and racy, if she wanted to be better than the other girls she had to lead them, at least show an interest so they could be part. But day after day Vicki’s lack of confidence combined with the prevalence of the rumors drew her farther and farther away, making the girls angry. It all made Vicki nervous and unsure how to appease them. Girls were threatened to the point of action and Aaron’s social life had diminished to just Vicki. It was too much. He liked Vicki, but he felt better belonging, being with his friends he had known since he was little. Thinking ahead Aaron thought of Senior year, and saw a cold, isolated blank yawn ahead.

Vicki loved Aaron she felt she leant him some legitimacy after she had been so unwelcome in the fall-out after Sarah and Brian. She could trust Aaron. One of Vicki’s favorite song was “Stand by Your man.” By Tammy Wynette. It was not a whole clique or a big group, but it was enough. Somewhere Vicki could belong. He had a handsome face and adult-like professional demeanor that Vicki found cute and endearing, and alone together they laughed about the ridiculousness of all the kids and the cliques and the rumors. They lay next to each other’s body warmth; Until it felt like the air before a thunder storm; close, hot breaths, crossing, uncrossing in a dewy basement with a movie playing, unwatched.

Aaron’s best friend since he was 8 always invited him down to his family’s house on Cape Cod where he usually spent most of the summer. But Aaron had been having increasing problems with his childhood friend since Vicki came along. And he had not been invited down even though he was invited down almost without asking every year, but this year he felt like he was not invited. Aaron had been spending the summer on the Cape since he was little so the idea of hanging out in the hot suburbs with Vicki, as all his friends laughed at him and his weird girlfriend was making Brett seriously depressed. Even though things were going really well with Vicki. So it was a difficult choice. A choice that people put pressure on him to make. Vicki never applied that pressure she wanted to love Aaron for who he was and so have it be reciprocated. Vicki had built a practical, mutual relationship for respect, to corner the security and love that alluded her lonely school days.

they say it's you
that washes the way
and brings the night
into the day
if you won't notice
how can I show you
all of your worries
have all gone away

don't leave me lonely
don't leave me unhappy
just bring me up
into your faith
if you don't need me
then don't deceive me
letting my freedom
turn into stone

just be my angel if you love me
be my angel in the night
be my angel cuz you need me
be my angel and treat me right

Vicki was telling Aaron how much she loved Mazzy Star as she speed through the suburban streets, switching the song on the cd player, gushing forward with whatever thought was on her mind. Big houses and well-kept lawns flipped by. The cloudless sky held a limitless quality to its lofty blue. She had just received her license in the mail. Little kids playing street hockey clattered out of the way as Vicki’s passed. She waved a thanks to the little boys. Her comfortable and confident demeanor showed none of the self-consciousness she expressed around others. She felt free, welcome and so unburdened. And picking up on this tone Aaron had to inform her that she should not have this disposition that she was in fact not free from judgment around Aaron, but on the contrary he was an open, accessible portal of negative gossip that would soon funnel out and feed the various assumptions and attitudes of hatred placed on Vicki and her often aloof and naïve social outlook. Vicki hated it when others told her how to act, so she did not go around demanding others act a certain way. This lack of aggression or competition on Vicki’s part was construed through her demure appearances as weakness, an idle mind, an unfocused set of goals, anti-social. Vicki was clearly unrepentant about her choice of identity, she seemed to be willing to let it spread to the whole community, letting other weak-minded people like Aaron get sucked in by her beauty and designer clothes. Vicki would create a world of no friends, no parties, no families, just weird people staring into sunsets and not talking when they should.

Aaron had to act. “I just think we need to talk.” Vicki was incredulous. She choked on her words, her eyes rising terrified as she saw her immediately lonely future. “Aah…aaah.” Was all she could respond, before carefully pulling the car over and putting it into park her head lapsed down into defeat and the pain of it hit hard, tears came down fast blurring everything. She had really wanted a boyfriend for the long friendless Summer. Aaron, got uncomfortable and felt like he wasa jerk for giving into his friends, so he began acting like she was making too big a deal out of it. “Why?! is it because of what happened between me and Sarah. Or what those girls are saying?” Aaron acted annoyed like Vicki was making this situation difficult by getting upset. He wanted this to be easy. “Was I doing anything wrong. I always support you in everything you do. I think you are awesome!” Aaron, started to feel very guilty, like he was a scumbag who was being fake to someone who had been genuine with him, that’s why he had liked her, but it was all irrelevant now, this was something he had to do in order to save himself. He knew he could not help Vicki either by introducing her to some of his friends in an equitable manner or standing by her until he had no social life, the pressure was too heavy and he had to yield, even though he did not want to, sadly and regrettably it was beyond his control, he was getting upset, so he acted like this was getting embarrassing and firmly asked to be taken home. Picking up on his unsympathetic demeanor Vicki could not believe how untrustworthy everyone was. The vinyl sided houses ticked by faster. The lawns and double driveways blurring into a bluish green as Vicki accelerated down narrow streets. She accelerated through a group of kids playing basketball and a mother came out into the road to yell after her.

“You think I am crazy, don’t you. You and all your friends.” Vicki said hitting the gas feeling the twisting betrayal ride down form her brain and tighten her stomach. Her stomach loosened the more she accelerated.

“Ok, just take it easy, slow down.” Aaron went form ashamed to really scared. He should have listened to his friends this girl really was crazy, wait until he told them this story. Vicki slammed on the brakes so Aaron slid violently forward only not hitting his face on the dashboard because he put his hand up at the last second.

“ Get out!” Vicki said

Brett looked up from the floor of the passenger seat since his body had been thrown there by the sudden braking. Shocked and wordless he began getting himself up. And realizing how upset he had made her he tried to soften it.

“Vicki. You know I always cared for you. It’s just this is a little overbearing. I’m sorry. I still value you as a good friend.” Vicki felt her eyes itch into a dry bloodshot pain at the word “friend”. Water filmed over the painful red of her eyes. It felt like her face was going to explode outward with screaming or crying. Her face rose to a red where the objects she looked at seemed to skitter and tilt. She looked at Aaron’s stiff jaw and creamy whitening face. It hurt too much to say anything, so she shifted into drive, hit the gas, did not see the bicycle rider, Aaron yelled, Vicki swerved and went up over the grass, the sidewalk and broke through a young tree as she came to a stop on the front lawn, brown dirt showing the skid marks as she had slammed on the brake. Aaron ran over shouting “Vicki!” Vicki was panicking, everything seemed to be vibrating, and sharp embarrassment shot painfully when she heard Aaron’s voice yell her name. She put the car into reverse as the homeowner was coming out the front door. He motioned her to stop but she kept backing up, her tires caught momentum on the sidewalk launching the car backward and skidding into the street. Aaron jumped out of the way and watched Vicki screech back and smashed with an unnatural yawn and crumpling metallic glass into the car parked on the street opposite of the lawn she drove-up on. The sun rays beat vibrant in her vision and she was swearing, sweating and crying, afterwards he could not remember most of it. She slammed the gear into drive. Aaron was joined by homeowners coming into the street as they watched Vicki speed away with a puzzled look of helplessness. They both watched the car disappear then turned to one another, strangers, baffled. The late afternoon receding from chaos into a somber, cool quiet “What we do now?” Aaron said.

The police arrived at Vicki’s house. Her parents did not know what they weret talking about. Her other lapsed into tears and her father walked niot another room on hearing the charge. Vciki’s parents were horrified.No one intheir family had ever been arrested. The police made it clear because if Vicki’s age if she cooperated they would not arrest her. Right then her simmering tears and red face like bruises on a peach pulled hopelessly into the driveway.

She was charged with leaving the scene of an accident, destruction of property and reckless endangerment. The story ran in the local newspaper. Vicki’s mother cried in anguish on seeing the newspaper article. Vicki’s mother cried often about Vicki, making sure Vicki saw how upset she was making her mother. Vicki had gotten off on community service since she had a good lawyer and her age was factored in. But the damage was done. Vicki would never be able to be a normal part of her community. She was what people talked about, not a person, but a subject, a vague threatening atmosphere electrified the air around her, and she was a subject that was important but only important that it was not promoted, so it, she was cut off, deprived of growth, opportunities were stamped out so she boxed-in, stagnated and grew bitter. Stifled and suffocated downward Vicki felt like nothing was in her control. Everything was appearances and people who could manipulate appearances and put the time and energy into the manipulation would always win, devoid of who was right or truthful or kind. Whoever looked good won. The more Vicki objected, grew indignant then overreacted at how she was being viewed and subsequently treated, people used it as a justification to pursue their self-fulfilling narrative further. “I told you there is something wrong with that girl.”

It dawned on Vicki at one dance at the beginning of Junior year that if that’s how they wanted to play, she could make things about appearances. So Vciki at 16 gave up, she had tried to be friendly, loving and people had seen it as a weakness to be exploited and mocked. She was on the offensive now. At the lockers Valerie Setter passive-aggressively knocked over her books on the hallway floor. Vicki came up behind her as she was walking away and began to pull her hair back, so Valerie chin lifted, her yes shocked. “You just knocked over my books.” Vicki intimidated into words.

“What is your problem. You fucking psycho!” Valerie pleaded.Vicki pulled down Valerie’s skirt and held her hair so the rest of the hall could see Valerie’s frumpy pink underwear. Kids laughed. But passed by quickly realizing how messed up the situation was. Vicki’s parent shad to come in and talk with the principle and Vicki was suspended, but she considered it worth it. Vicki did not think it was messed up, how she was treated was what was wrong, and if people could not understand her that was not her problem anymore. The story was everywhere.

Vicki chose Lisa Everton’s boyfriend, Mike. Lisa was in the with the group of girls that swarmed around Aaron and his collared shirt wearing friends. Vicki approached Mike in the McDonald’s parking lot on a Friday. He was there with only one of his friends who had drank too much flavored and Vodka and was in the bushes behind the parking lot repeatedly vomiting. Vicki was successfully screened from attending or being invited to any parties, but she still was physically beautiful, increasingly the mature air of womanhood seemed to be settling down along the borders of her body, while her skin, her hair, and the way she wore tight dresses evoked a youthful intrigue and sensuality to many boys who, their pubescent desires delayed by natural male development, were just starting to notice girls. She gave Mike a blow job behind the dumpster at McDonald’s knowing she could because Mike was drunk and his friends were not around.

The condemnation was immediate. The story spread from Dana hall to every private Boys school in the area. “Oh it was that Vicki girl.” Lisa cried all week in the cafeteria and Vicki did as she always did detached, she said nothing and lived in her own world. She took no personal responsibility for her angry overreactions and tantrum exploding behavior, just balanced it with a smile, a kind word, and never understood why everyone hated her. The reciprocating trauma of abuse was causing a mental block in her head. Essentially all of the assumptions were unfair, but they were sustained by Vicki’s easily provoked outrage. Those frightened by her, and acting against her perceived threat, often became more malicious as Vicki spiraled into incoherent anger. As high school and cliques progressed to their conclusion she was continually disappointed that boys of various social orders kept side-stepping her after a date or a make-out session. She tried to make boys happy so they would stay, usually giving them a blow job which not many of the stuck-up Dana hall girls even knew how to do yet. She realized the benefits of the potent commotion surrounding her name that acted as a mysterious allure. Boys looked up at Vicki’s breasts for the first time, their eyes soaking into the grandeur with an awed look of submission. She felt in control in these small romantic moments of heat. No one could say something behind her back or isolate her from this feeling of being wanted. There. It rested solely within herself as well as within her control. She completely and unquestionably possessed. She used its power to fight the feelings of isolation, hatred and uncertain mistrust that seemed to characterize all her social interactions.

By Senior year Vicki was described as the slam-pick of the outgoing Senior class at CM. Crinkled sticky condoms and the backseats of cars, in parking lots, rooftops, behind bushes, on lawns; the passion and breath and heat drew Vicki in as she conducted its cloistered affections and ecstatic sensations, creating a close moment between two people as everything else fell away like stars as the sun rose. She even took the virginity of a mature looking freshman by accident. She went to the mall and saw groups of guys her age and started talking to them, she could usually get them to invite her somewhere, treat her kindly for a short bit, give her attention, positively praise her, hook up with her then nicely and quietly duck out of the way, because they could not date someone with a reputation like that. Leaving Vicki to watch the dawn give way to the day by herself, birds singing, increasing as more light came. A weary weight settled under her eyes, after all the time alone, she stared down more of it.

With Vicki’s reckless behavior came an almost complete lack of care about schoolwork. An A student sophomore year. Mrs. Heller was now getting phone calls about Vicki turning in Major tests with all of the answers blank. She started skipping class daily and received two suspensions, before being warned she was in danger of not graduating. Vicki received a detention for vandalizing several girl’s lockers. She was caught by a janitor writing “cunt” on Laurie Spelding’s locker one day after school.

Vicki’s parents began to push her to focus on college. But Vicki seemed to have very little respect for anything. The focus of her life seemed to be disrespecting anything that had disrespected her which was everything, society in general. She began hiding make-up in her bra and shoplifting from the local CVS. One day the manager suspected her of stealing, he held her by the arm and said he was going to call the police. Vicki then started screaming that he was hurting her, so that others looked, and transmitting her image of a victim to those around her she thrashed into a helpless I-have-done-nothing-wrong outrage and started begging other people to help her and call the police before wriggling out of the manager’s grip and making a run for it. She got away after she entreated a burly male customer walking into the store to: “Please help, she teared, he already touched me and he’s trying to do it again.” The male customer confronted the manager and by the time they had it sorted out Vicki was gone.

Her parents sat her down and wanted to talk about her future. Vicki retorted “No one has respected my past, so why should I respect your future.” Vicki’s father sighed, not knowing what to do with Vicki’s increasingly difficult and problematic behavior. Vicki grades looked like she was heading for the closest community college, but one day coming into the kitchen she informed her parents she wanted to go to school where it was warm like Florida or the South. Her parents were enthusiastic that she showed some direction and were able to get her into a low tier college in New Orleans, Antioch College, a small Catholic affiliated school that could act as a feeder school to other state universities. Her parents were hoping that if Vicki could maybe get into a new environment, bear down and be faced with a little independence she would react well to the freedom that College gave her. “She’s a smart girl and a lot of kids who are super-intelligent like her they get suffocated by these closed high school environments. She’s always gone by the beat of her own drum and I think this will be beast for her.” Her father reasoned to Vicki’s nervous, ignorant and overly-critical mother. Vicki although completely terrified of leaving the suburbs and the landscape she had known all her life was quietly thrilled about the far-off warm climate in her future, but the anxiety of everything moving and shifting away from what was comfortable to her drummed on her mind. She had enjoyed at least some beneficial privileges by being a native for the last 18 years here. This sudden change looming on the horizon compounded with the lack of acceptance that characterized the flashes of stress Vicki had endured for years. The flashes became so fast and unrelenting, like she was running from something and was so tired. Now an innate terror arose at random times that seemed to arise almost biologically, a natural consequence of having one being portrayed negatively to oneself over and over. Maybe her mother and the girls of Dana Hall were right. There was something off with her, everything was moving into larger spaces, different locations and she was afraid of getting lost. Her fear was exacerbated by the lack of sympathy she had received in the last four years of high school. She would probably not be welcomed wherever the new place was she ended up, as had been true again and again in the past. This scared her: Being somewhere she did not know and having everybody hate here, here she had her family, so she could ignore all the girls, but Vicki did not understand why everyone had to be moving, entering and exiting out of other people’s lives. She wanted to just stay still. But Bienvenue street was slipping away. Her father joked they were going to turn her room into an expanded bedroom for him and his mother which Vicki bitterly did not think was funny.

As the last days of high school ticked down Vicki began organizing the large amount of shoes that messily stood by their back door by pairs. Mrs. Heller thought Vicki had gone off to school and was shocked to still see her in the house silently organizing the sneakers by the back door. “They are all mismatched, Mom!” She said before being forced out the door to arrive at school late. As people announced the different schools they had got into Vicki felt like something bad would happen if she stepped on cracks in the sidewalk. In a steamy car Ryan Laughlin told her where he was headed next year and after he finished in her Vicki got out and told him to hit the brakes. “Ya, they are both working.” She said getting back into the car.

“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with them.” Ryan said.

‘I know” Vicki replied back matter-of-factly.

Graduation came and all those petty fights which at the time had seemed so eternal and serious dissipated when everyone threw their cap’s up into the air. Old teachers dressed in stupid looking robes warned, encouraged, cautioned, and eventually told them to embrace the future. Sarah came up to Vicki at graduation to wish her good luck, even though they had never been able to seal back up their friendship. Vicki responded icily and automated “Thanks Sarah. I wish you the best in your future too.” Vicki shielded back from a hug and Sarah awkwardly walked away. Vicki’s family had a big graduation party with all Vicki’s cousins and Aunts and Uncles. The thin curve of Bienvenue Street with Vicki’s now Alma matter behind streaked yellow rays against the thick green lawns. The sky had distant bluish tufts for clouds and was an otherwise translucent, powdery blue. Vicki had insisted on setting out the plates and the dinnerware, saying she was the only one who could do it right. Vicki listened to her parents stand by the front door and welcome their brothers and sisters and their big families. She heard “Antioch College!”, and she went back to the first place setting because she thought the knife was a little crooked, but no, now it was perfect, knife, fork over napkin, plate, big spoon, little spoon - all lined up perfectly. She hugged Uncle after Uncle, said thank you to cousins, and was kissed by Aunts. Vicki realized looking around her house that it had been difficult, but people did not hate her as much as she felt some time. Her father kept saying he was proud of her and she realized he was not just saying it to his brothers and sisters, but he really meant it. Even Vicki’s mother had to congratulate her. Her Mother had a triumphant relief infused into her attitude. She and Vicki were glad that the seemingly endless unfolding Horror show of high school had turned out all right. “You did it! ” She said to Vicki, sincerely pleased, somewhat surprised. Vicki, in that moment, remembered her Mom picking her up from pre-school, when she was little, the big sunny parking lot scattered with the dried leaves and the wings of helicopter Maple seeds. Vicki remembered the unmitigated joy, on recognizing her Mother’s face amongst all the other waiting parents.

Vicki cringed when everybody picked up their utensils to eat. “To Vicki!” they held their glasses up to her and she lifted hers back “To Vicki.” She said. She took a moment to enjoy the moment, look over her family hungrily digging into their food. Each knife and fork moving furiously, cutting meat, scooping potatoes, the lowering orange sun reflecting white, and darting thinly off the moving silver. She wished the knives and forks had stayed in the nice order she had arranged them. Vicki gulped trying to stay the tears that were starting to materialize on her eyes and were dangerously close to spilling over, before her little five year old cousin, late, lifted his juice cup towards her and said “Ta Vi-ki” it knocked her back into the moment with her proud family, and the scary tears gave way to a youthful playfulness she would only be too happy to return to. “To Vicki!” she said emphatically leaning over to her little cousin, grinning playfully into his face, clinking her glass with his plastic juice cup.

holding on to you
holding on to me
holding on tight
'till my love is crossed
don't say it's useless
and don't say forget it
you are my spirit
now you are gone

I don't know where Ramona is now

Monday, November 20, 2017

new blog https://www.tumblr.com/blog/marina-ramirez-emotional-horror

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Sunday, March 19, 2017

Vicki - Draft