Unknown World: Chapter 01 – Hope’s Reality

Posted by Jay Rose & Jasmine Thursday, September 11th, 2008

One

She turned in the doorway, head cocked slightly to the left as always, and twirled a soft lock of her lengthy, nutmeg hair absentmindedly. Blinking slowly, deliberately, as if to clear the cobwebs from her thoughts, she answered smartly,

“And if a certain Angel doesn’t write him a letter, how will Santa know what she wants for Christmas?” And with her signature smirk, she dimmed the lights and pulled the door behind her.

That was the last time Corday had ever written a wish list. Nine years ago. In a hasty furor, the five-year-old had slipped out of bed after her mother’s departure to hunt for a marker to scribble her last minute catalog for an overweight, white man with a rosy cheeks and a tumble of silver tresses spilling from under his red and white cap. She hoped he wasn’t too hungry; they hadn’t had enough cookies and milk–or anything for that matter–to leave him.

“He’ll understand, Angel,” she had told Corday, much to the girl’s reprieve. Unable to find a blank piece of paper in the muted light, Corday had settled for the back of an envelope. As she kneeled over her miniature writing desk, thoughts of the Susie Swim a Lot doll, and the newest video games swarmed her head, or maybe that sing along cassette that Disney had just debuted the week before. But as she poised her highlighter over the crumpled page, twirling the end of her ponytail idly, she could only think of one thing that really mattered to her.

Thinking of this now, Corday sighed and rolled over, slamming her textbook shut in resignation. How could she expect to do homework with so much clouding her brain? Almost without thinking about it, her hand flew under her pillow, checking for that aged envelope. Immediately, she felt the familiar ache as she fingered the sloppily written words, printed in red marker: Please make Mommy get better.

She had left that note at the foot of her canopy bed nine years ago for Santa. The next morning, her mother was gone, to “a better place”, Corday’s father had said. But she knew better. Her mother had always been open with her only child about her illness.

“Mommy may look all well, but I’m not, Angel,” she’d admitted. Even in sickness, her mother was the picture of perfection in Corday’s eyes. Tall and slender, wide set shoulders and hazel eyes that could bore a hole in a wall in one instant, then turn to amused bliss when looking upon her child. She was stubborn and mulish, no match for her submissive husband who always seemed to give in to her, though he would never admit it. Sweethearts from the time they were teenagers, Aaron couldn’t deny, she was his weak spot. So what could he do when, after only six years of marriage, many failed attempts at starting a family, and one beautiful daughter later, she was defeated by the ailment which had haunted her from the start? He did all he could do: Broke down and withdrew from reality.

Corday had been six when the crumpled man packed up the one bedroom apartment that the family had shared, and moved them from the suburbs into the heart of South Baltimore, with his aging mother. Corday loved her Nana, and loved Nana’s significantly more spacious row house, but this was not home. She loved Nana’s pot of grits in the morning and greens and biscuits for dinner, but she missed the way Aaron had taunted his wife good-naturedly, though he ate whatever she attempted to cook. Corday missed her mother’s smell of baby lotion (which she said kept her looking so young), and department store perfume. (“Why would I spend a fortune when this smells just as nice?”, she’d said indignantly. ) Aaron had thrown all of her feminine bottles and flowery knick knacks into a box which he hid under his bed.

After much persuasion from his mother, Aaron went back to school and got his degree in marine biology, as it had always been a passion of his, and he knew that he could not support his daughter on the wages made working at the aquarium downtown. As one of the top in his class, he even secured a job for himself in a government oceanographic laboratory within two years. Just as life seemed to be returning to normal, or as routine as possible, another twist of fate was thrown when Aaron buried his mother. Corday was twelve years old. She watched in despair as her father turned to a puddle of desolate, inconsolable disorder. They lived in Nana’s house for another year and a half before, offered a job abroad, Aaron moved the family out of the country. Nana had no close relatives, besides them, so her only son sold her house and packed up his things, once again, in pursuit of a better life.

Angel.
Nobody called her that anymore. No one even knew she existed. Even her own father. Bogged down with work, Aaron Hollis allowed his graying facial hair to grow shaggy and somewhat untidy, something his late wife would never had tolerated. After all, he was a oceanographer who went out on expeditions and collected data. He didn’t have to work behind a desk in a suit and tie for forty hours a week. He wore button up flannel shirts and faded blue jeans with boots. Though it was always balmy, he had became accustomed to life on the ocean, and therefore, dressed the part, clumsily clomping through the town grocery stores, an oddball amongst shorts and sandal- clad locals. Not that he needed winter clothes on to be the outcast. Naturally reserved, Aaron’s ordeals had, if possible, limited his vocabulary and interactions with humans even more. He sat at the dining room table, late into the night, studying things under microscope and muttering incoherently to himself. Corday gave up on pointless conversation, and only approached her father when there was something she could not handle on her own. She was fourteen years old.

Puerto Rico had looked beautifully enticing on the brochures, but Corday knew firsthand, that it was not as dreamy as it had seemed. Well, not entirely, at least. Aguadilla was friendly enough. It was attractive enough. But day in and day out, Corday grew bored with the feelings of being an outsider. This had been her residence for two years now, and she still had not learned to fit in. Spanish was foreign to her, and though most of the high school she attended could very well speak English, it was much easier for them to speak Spanish, and for Corday to slip under the radar. She maintained a high enough GPA for them not to alert Aaron.

Ha, she scoffed. Like that would matter.

She had even tried talking to her father, who suggested she explore the town, make friends. A girl, maybe two years older than her, stayed on the bottom floor of the apartment-house they lived in, with her family. But Corday had only seen her a couple of times, coming and going, always on the cell phone talking noisily in hurried Spanish, on her way to the blue hoopty she drove. As her family was so large and possessed multiple cars, she always stationed her getaway car in the Hollis driveway to insure a speedy escape. But Corday didn’t drive, and her father’s beat up Corsica only took up half of the two- car parking pad, so he never said anything. Either that, or he thought his daughter had somehow purchased a car illegally. Corday laughed at the thought.

Because the apartment was several miles off of the main Route 2, almost everything in the city was a bike or short bus ride away. Corday had memorized routes to all of the beaches within two miles of the house, and had grown particularly fond of one about half way between the apartment and the high school. Not as heavily populated or notorious as the equally close Crash Boat Beach, this unnamed shore was only a few miles from end to end, with a rocky, half concealed shelter marking the entrance, the end punctuated by the uneven shallow of the ocean kissing the overgrown vegetation at the far side. There was no boardwalk, no hot dog vendors or bike rentals, just pure, unadulterated tranquility. The only way to get into the haven, miles off of the main strip, was to leap from the crumbling roof of the pebbly cavern to the white sand about three feet below. There, sheltered on all sides by wild crabgrass, Corday felt as though she were in a different world.

“How was school today?”

His voice startled Corday out of her daydream, causing her to jump slightly. Recovering, she cocked her head slightly to the left, wandering where this conversation was heading.
“Cool,” she shrugged half heartedly, not looking at the wrinkled man leaning against the doorframe, but rather, slightly over his left shoulder at the colorless wall beyond him. Aaron grunted in response, and moved his attention to the sullied toe of his work boot. He had, obviously, not thought this dialogue through past the initial greeting. Corday was disgusted by his discomfort and wished that he would leave so she could go back to pretending to study.

“There’s a–thing–I guess a family thing coming up with the company, I mean–if you’d be interested—” Aaron let the sentence dissipate into the air, his eyes still trained on his boot, which he was now grinding into the carpet. Corday sighed, annoyed. A thing? Could he be a little more specific? Screw it. If saying yes would make him go away, so be it.

“Sure, Dad.” She winced at the way “Dad” had come out sounding, and stole a glance at him. Aaron didn’t seem to notice though. In fact, his whole face had lit up in delight at the thought that maybe he had succeeded in bonding with his child. Yea right.

“All right. I guess I’ll see you later then,” he grinned widely and turned on his heel, disappearing down the corridor. Relieved, Corday let out a breath and nimbly slid off of her bed, opting to cut her father some slack. How bad could hanging out with him be anyhow? Not like she had anything better to do, or anybody better to be with anyway.

Letting out another sigh, she shoved her textbooks off the bed roughly, allowing them to join the pile of disregarded clothes from school on the floor. Oh well. Tomorrow would be another day. Maybe she would opt to eat lunch in the lunchroom for a change, instead of biking to her private beach. Even better, maybe she would head straight to Crash Boat Beach after school like she knew all the other local teens did. Even if she couldn’t surf, it might be fun watching the other kids. Maybe she would even meet someone her age. Then, after the sun had set on the beach, she and her new group of friends could head to the mall several miles up the road. Corday loved window shopping.

Rolling her eyes dramatically, Corday reached for a barrette to tie back her shoulder length mane. Or maybe, she would wake up in the morning and follow the same lonely routine she had been faithful to since arriving in Aguadilla two years ago. She tucked herself in and pulled the string on the bedside lamp. Might as well turn in early, she thought. Never know what adventures tomorrow might bring. And with an unconvinced chuckle, she rolled over and shut her eyes.

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