Leslie's Journal - Allan Stratton [7]
“Eat shit!”
Dad looks at Brenda like a deer caught in the headlights. “I’m sorry. I should have told her in the car.” The car? He should have told me in the car? Is this my father?
“Take me home! Now!”
I look out the window the whole way back. I don’t say a word. All those Saturdays he was so busy with “overtime.” What a joke.
Dad stops outside my apartment building. As I open the car door, he clears his throat. Here it comes.
“I’m very disappointed in you, Leslie.”
“Is that a fact.”
“You embarrassed me. And you embarrassed yourself.”
“Whatever.” I get out and head up the walk.
“Come back here, young lady! I’m not finished!”
“Oh yes, you are,” I think, and I run as fast as I can. I get to the elevator, shoot upstairs. No way he’ll follow me. He doesn’t have the guts.
“Back so early?” Mom asks. She tries to act casual, but I know she’s happy. She’s always happy when I come back early. It means I’m mad at Dad. Well, I’m mad at her too. I slam my door, hurl myself on the bed and sob.
There’s a little knock. “Honey?”
“Go away.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“That crying doesn’t sound like nothing.”
“Just leave me alone.”
Leave me alone. That’s not asking too much, is it? But does she? No! She opens the door! She starts to come in!
“Honey—”
“I ... SAID ... LEAVE ... ME ... ALONE!!!” And I throw my hairbrush at her. Why does she have to make everything so hard?
I hate this life.
And then I think of Jason. Beautiful, beautiful Jason with his deep blue eyes and curly brown hair. I picture us gunning down some deserted highway on his motorcycle, me holding on tight around his waist.
Who am I kidding? I’m in love with some guy who probably doesn’t even remember I exist.
Six
It’s only been a week since we started doing journals, but already a lot of the class have stopped writing. They say they wrote down everything about their life on day one. “But every day is a new adventure!” Ms. Graham exclaimed. Hello? Has she checked the mirror lately?
Anyway, for people with no ideas, she’s agreed to post a daily “Topic for Reflection.” Today’s topic is “What Makes Dreams Come True?” General groan, cuz guess what? They don’t. And when they do, you wish they hadn’t. Take Ms. Graham. If she ever dreamed of being a teacher, I’ll bet she’s been kicking herself all the way to her shrink’s ever since. And if she dreamed of being anything else, well, I rest my case.
All the same, lame or not, I’m going to write about it, just to stop thinking about You-Know-Who for two seconds. I mean my whole life is thinking about him, which is totally stupid and driving me crazy, but I can’t help it. I pretend he’s moved to Australia, only right away I imagine him in tight shorts and a cowboy hat hopping around on a kangaroo. Or I pretend he’s dead, only I imagine him in his coffin, all beautiful like he’s sleeping, and smelling of lilies. I picture myself kissing a rose and putting it over his heart, so that a little part of me will be with him forever. Sick or what?
Back to the topic. I only know three people who believe in dreams coming true: Mom, Katie and Walt Disney.
Mom says dreams have a catch, though. She says they only come true if you plan ahead and work hard to make them happen. This is why I’m supposed to buckle down and study, so that later on, when “opportunity knocks,” I’ll be able to answer the door. Not that planning ahead and working hard has done anything for her, other than getting her a divorce, a lousy apartment and temp work.
When I remind her of this, she tells me to stop being negative. She says I’m too young to be cynical. I say she’s too old not to be.
“But, honey, these are the best years of your life.”
“Then shoot me.”
This gets her all teary. “Leslie, when you say things like that, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
So now I’m supposed to feel guilty? No way. “If you’re thinking of crying, don’t.”
Mom apparently believes in the Magical Land of Happy Teenagers where nobody worries about pregnancy, AIDS, gangs or the future, and the most serious thing is a zit before the prom. In the Magical