Chapter Seven
“Your dad andme want to be alone. Why don’t you go out and do something with your friends? Oh, that’s right. You don’t haveanyfriends.” Shanna blew on her neon orange nails.
Fallon switched off the television, anger curling around her spine. “Dad told me you guys were going into Durango to shop and have lunch today.”
“So the fuck what? Plans change, but you wouldn’t know that since youneverhave any plans. Why your dad keeps you around, I’ll never know. When I was twenty-one, I didn’t freeload off my mom. I fuckin’ worked.” She reached for the bottle of topcoat. “I ’spose he feels sorry for you because you’re a cripple.”
You pumped-up fucking bitch!“I’m outta here.” Fallon threw the remote on the table, spilling the topcoat everywhere.
Shanna leapt up. “Fuck! Look what you’ve done, you stupid ingrate. Come over here and clean it up.”
Fallon went out the front door, slamming it behind her. Anger strangled her trembling body.No matter what Dad says, I’m getting a job and my own place. I’m sick of all this shit!She walked away from the house, ignoring the shrill calls of her name behind her.Shanna can rot in hell for all I care. And Ihateher long, gaudy nails.
A horn beeping stopped her in her tracks.Did Shanna actually ruin her nails to come after me?Another beep, then a friendly voice.Sylvia.
“Where’re you headed?” Sylvia asked.
“Nowhere. I just had to get out of the house.”
“You want to come with me to Alina? I want to check out this one drugstore. I heard they have a great selection of makeup and shampoos. We can get something to eat, you know, make a day of it. It’ll be fun, and I’d love the company.”
Getting away for the day was just what she needed. “Sure.” She went over to the car and slid in.
Alina was a bigger town than Tula and had more shops and restaurants. Fallon hated living in Tula; she wanted to move away to a bigger town, or maybe a city. The memories she’d built there were ones she tried to forget. It seemed to her that after her mom had left and run off with another man, she’d stopped living. Fallon had only been ten years old when her mother left without taking her. Even though eleven years had passed, she still couldn’t believe her mother had done that and left her with her dad—a miserable excuse for a man.
“I love the drive to Alina. It’s so pretty with the sagebrush and barren landscape, and then in the background the tall, proud mountains. It gives me shivers every time I make the drive. Have you been to Alina before?”
“A few times with my dad when I was a kid. Once I had my fall, he stopped taking me.”
“How old were you when you fell off the roof?”
“Fourteen.” An image of her begging her father to take her to Alina popped in her head. It was a year after her fall and she’d wanted to buy a new dress she’d seen on the website of one of the dress stores. Her father had refused to take her.“If you think I’m going to have everyone staring at me and whispering that I have a freak for a daughter, you’re crazy. All you think about is yourself. You’re just like your trashy mother.”The words had pierced right through her, and as she remembered them, they hurt just as much as they did when he’d first said them.
“You like country music?” Sylvia asked.
Fallon didn’t but she’d listen to anything that would block out the memories. “Yeah. Crank it up.”
For the rest of the morning, Sylvia shopped like she’d never seen stores before. She kept saying, “It’s like I’ve been deprived for years,” then would giggle and put some more lipstick or eyeshadow or tiny panties in her shopping cart.
“Aren’t you gonna buy something?” she asked Fallon as she placed a pack of fuzzy lime green socks in the cart.
“I don’t think so. I don’t really need anything.” Fallon put a pair of patterned stockings back on the shelf.
“We didn’t drive all the way to Alina to buy stuff weneed. Every woman deserves to treat herself to something frivolous every now and then. Now, what do youwant?”
Fallon shrugged as she scanned the shelves, her gaze landing on delicate bottles of perfume. She’d never worn any fragrances before. Once in a great while she’d sneak into her dad’s master bath and spray on some of Shanna’s perfumes, but she always ended up washing them off. They made her smell cheap, and she’d wondered why women wanted to smell like overpowering gardens.
“I think a nice, light fragrance is just what you need.” Sylvia took a sample bottle filled with purple liquid off the shelf and pressed the top down. A fine mist sprayed out and in a second or two, the small space between her and Fallon held the aroma of lilacs. “That’s nice. What do you think?”
Fallon shook her head. “I don’t like smelling like flowers. Although, I’m surprised how light the scent is. Shanna’s stuff is overpowering.”
“Shanna wants to make sure everyone knows she’s there. I sometimes have to hold my breath when I’m around her. I don’t think she agrees with the saying that less is more.” Sylvia chuckled as she reached for another sample filled with a very pale yellow liquid. Once again, she spritzed the fragrance in the air.
The scent of fresh lemons and sugar cookies enveloped Fallon and she inhaled deeply. The aroma reminded her of the summers she’d spent with her mother before she’d run away. She and her mother would spend lazy afternoons sitting on the back porch, sipping homemade lemonade and eating freshly baked sugar cookies. They’d pretend that their time together was forever because both of them had been afraid to think of how everything would change once her dad got home from work. If he was in a good mood, the casualness of summer would continue, but if he was in a bad mood, she’d run to her room and climb out the window to sit on the flat roof that was underneath it. The roof was her hiding place and refuge. It was there that she turned off the hollering, the crying, and the occasional hitting that came from the house.
“Do you like it?” Sylvia pumped the top again.
“It’s very nice. It’s not strong or too sweet,” Fallon said.
