Ditching
Barbie
by
Jill
Zeller
SMASHWORDS EDITION
******
PUBLISHED BY:
J
Z Morrison Press on Smashwords
Ditching Barbie
Copyright ©
2011
by Jill Zeller
Cover art by http://depositphotos.com
Smashwords
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Dad was outside barbering his shrubs and raking leaves in tender piles. Since his daughter Iris, spawn of a woman he no longer loved, came to live with us, he spent more time in the garage polishing strangely shaped bits of wood.
That was where Dad was now as I watched TV for an hour before Madeline finally rose, her hair a wire mesh of day-old hairspray. Carrying a glass of juice, she stood next to me, smelling of deodorant. “Isn't Iris up yet? I bet she took off. I bet she got out of here and ditched you.”
Hot fear poured into me. How could I have been so stupid? Getting up from my chair I went down the hall, my slippers silent on the carpet, and stood before Iris’s bedroom.
Silence breathed through the hollow-core door. If she were up her radio would be chattering Little Stevie Wonder or James Brown. A hand squeezed my heart, a nauseating hand. She had run away again so she wouldn’t have to take me to the mall.
The doorknob burned in my hand. I turned it quietly, making no click. I knew how to open all the doors in the house this way.
Her curtains were closed. I could see nothing unusual about the sheet and blanket jumble chronically cloaking her bed. I listened for breathing.
I heard nothing. The room felt vacant. A terrible sadness filled me. Though I both feared and loved her, I wished just once she would take me with her when she ran away.
But the covers moved. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, what I took for one of her stuffed animals was her hair clouding the pillow.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was muffled. The room smelled faintly of cigarettes. She probably had gone out through the window in the night.
“I thought maybe you— It’s almost eleven. We were going to the mall.”
“Shit!” Sitting up, she ran a hand across her face. “Why didn’t you wake me up sooner? I’m picking up Cheryl at 12.”
She bounded out of the bed, swept past me like a fireman going into a burning building. I heard her pounding on the bathroom door.
“Madeline get the hell out of there! I have to use the bathroom!”
Standing behind her in the hallway, I watched as she kicked the door, her wrinkled baby doll pajamas clinging to her back.
Turning to face me, she gave me an angry look. “How come you aren’t dressed yet? We have to leave in a half an hour.”
Cheryl and Iris sat in front. Instead of going toward the freeway, they stopped at another house and picked up Martha and Debbie. I sat between them in the middle of the back seat of Dad’s station wagon. Giving me scornful looks, they asked Iris about me.
“Oh, that’s Eddi. Her mother made me bring her to get a coat. She doesn’t have to hang around with us.” Iris gripped the wheel as the car merged onto the freeway.
That seemed to satisfy them. The girls smelled like over-ripe chrysanthemums. They talked about boys. Iris seemed to have a new boyfriend every week. This week she was going steady with John. John and his friends were going to meet them at the mall.
They ignored me, which was fine with me. Invisibility was an asset. At least they didn’t talk about me the way they talked about the freshman girl they beat up.
Martha said Iris kicked her. They hit her in places where it wouldn’t show. She ran away crying, left her purse behind. But there wasn’t anything worth stealing in it unless you counted the wallet-sized photos of Fabian, Ricky Nelson, and the Everly Brothers. I had a new respect for Iris. She could beat up another girl.