Two
Smoke and Mirrors
Are you beginning to acquire curiosity as to who I am? Well it fills me with deep regret to inform you that I am not at liberty to divulge my occupation. My…employer wouldn’t be elated at the thought of you knowing what my position in the world is. What I can tell you is, I have hated my line of work since I was placed here, let me do you a favor, don’t take here as a specific location, however, I do love the site seeing. Enough about me for the moment, lets return back to the thrilling life of Ms. Carson after all, she changed my life for seven hundred and thirty days.
“Zoey, you in here? I just got back from the auction with your mom, and…Hello?” She was pulled out of her flashback, or just, as I like to call it, overly descriptive memories, when her father wondered around her modest bedroom holding yet another small bag of samples from yet another function. She and Mr. Carson used to make fun of the function leftovers that those spineless business suit wearing husbands would return home with multiple time’s a week.
“Zoey?”
“Yeah dad, I’m out here.”
The flashback of Zoey Carson
1. Every detail of what had just happened between her and Jason
The question that couldn’t help but resurface
2. Why did she care so much?
“Oh, well, I’m glad to see you’re enjoying the pleasant night air.” Dave continued to stand in the alcove of Zoey’s bedroom that led to the window she constantly crawled out of. The Carson’s roof was practically shaped for their daughter to sit on at least once during the course of her day.
“Yeah, I’m sure you are.” She crawled back into her newly cleaned room and had the painstaking urge to allow the true disarray to shine through the thin yet strong layer of perfection that was recreated by Melissa, the Carson’s housekeeper, every other day.
“Well, I’ll go put this—”
“In the coat closet, where the rest of them are being collected.” Zoey swiftly added for the man her father had become. Six months ago he would have laughed at the very truthful statement that passed through his daughters lips. But he wasn’t the same person that he was one hundred or so days ago.
“Now Zoey, you very well know I use all the samples that are generously given to you’re mother and me.”
“Re-gifting doesn’t fulfill the definition of use dad.” Mr. Cason took a step to the side and took a deep breath, and unrevealed to Zoey, counted to ten in his head.
“You best learn your place in this family young lady.” With that, Mr. Carson walked out of Zoey’s room, taking the small dark blue bag with silver writing on it with him.
“Ugh.” Zoey flopped to her bed, landing directly on her long neon green pillow currently sitting on the left hand side of her bed. “Why is he like that now?” She asked the question to no one in particular, but rhetorical questions weren’t enough this evening.
Zoey sprang off her bed, walked over to her closet, and took out a dozen hangers of shirts and flung them to the middle of her room. She did the same with six pairs of shoes and some old notebooks. Soon, her old stuffed animals joined the belongings on the floor. Along with the green and blue throw pillows that were re-placed on her bed by Melissa in what appeared to be a grid pattern layout. Satisfied, she returned to her full sized bed and took the most recent book placed on her nightstand and returned to page three hundred and six.
Knock knock
“Sweetie, are you busy?” Her mother asked while opening Zoey’s bedroom door, not bothering to wait for a simple 'come in'.
“Yeah mom?” Zoey looked up from her book, after successfully completing three chapters. “Everything okay?”
“Oh yes of course, why, is something not okay with you?”
What in god’s name happened to your room?
That’s what Elizabeth Carson really wanted to ask her fifteen-year-old daughter as she took more than a half second glance at the middle of her room.
“Oh, I don’t know, dad seemed a little upset when he left my room, that’s all.” Liz, what I have called her since I first saw her at age seven, walked over to her daughter’s bed with the slightest smile on her face.
“It’s all this fresh air; it’s just making him feel like he has to have a stick up his ass.” They both laughed at the frank statement, Liz always had a way of saying what she knew was true. That’s where Zoey got it from, along with her stubbornness. "Give him a while to settle in to his new high tech job. You and Walter have adjusted so well here and I am proud of you, please tell me you know that.”
“Of course I do mom. I just wish it were like it used to be. Not to dwell on the past or anything, but our Pictionary has dust on the cover. I can’t remember the last time that game had a chance to collect dust, can you?”
The gratefulness in Elizabeth’s eyes disappeared not only at the honest remark that escaped her baby girl’s lips, but at the fact that it didn’t necessarily hurt, but stung. It was able to reach the nicely tucked away hope that they would forget the perfect suburban life style, and move back to the smog filled city that they imperfectly fit into. Liz had secretly clung to that thought and even gave it the chance to grow into an expectation. The sad thing is that the very minute burst of faith was powerful, but yet, was still able to crumble down at the very direct observation from her-very-own daughter.
“Baby, I’m so sorry. It’ll get easier with time, I can’t promise anything that includes change, but it will get easier.”
“Mom, I love how you never say what I want to hear but—”
“What you need to hear.” Liz continued speaking before Zoey could correct her. “Well baby girl, don’t let these people whom have smoke and mirrors wear down the pure honesty that you have. They don’t even know how to live, I mean, who buys a piece of furniture that you can’t sit in? I can understand if it was a knickknack, but an entire dining room set for show, that’s outrageous.”
They both took a second to grasp the image of a set of furniture that no one could use. Zoey did however; take a few more seconds to create the complete picture of an entire room that no one was aloud to touch. Even though, she was quickly pulled back into her bedroom on twenty nine Knolin Street.
“Sleep with the angles.” Zoey smiled at the very small familiarity of home, while Liz lightly kissed her forehead and walked to her bedroom door. “Oh, before I forget, what exactly happened to your room?” She immediately remembered that she had spent a good twenty minutes, as she likes to call it, ripping through the coat of perfection that is painted over everything these days.
“Um…long day?” It was less of a question than a plea for Liz to understand her need to not feel wrecked in a spotless room.
“I see, I’m not going to tell you to clean it up, but would you like me to tell Melissa to stop cleaning your room. Because it’s not fair for her to reorganize everything, but there is no need for your room to be as you say perfect?”
“Oh that would be great mom, thanks, when are you gunna tell her?”
“I’ll let her know tomorrow, but you have to change your sheets every other day or so.”
“Oh of course, I do my own laundry mom, I can handle sheets.”
“Okay baby, love you.” Liz quietly closed the door and walked into the kitchen, to begin rewashing the already washed dishes.
No, Elizabeth Mourey-Carson did not have a problem with germs, or anything along those lines. She didn’t feel the need to wash her hands every ten seconds, or shower four times a day. She was simply tempted, and to keep herself occupied she had come to love washing the dishes. It gave her a chance to look out on the garden filled street and push aside her worries. Although, ignorance doesn’t remain bliss for long, and Elizabeth couldn’t live in denial for much longer. The truth always has a way of coming out, as they say, and my dear Liz could hear the clock ticking in her head. She was soon realizing that her family wouldn’t allow themselves to remain in the dark for much longer.
Zoey slowly sat up in her bed and stared at her now dark room. She remembered how nothing in the city had ever felt this lonely. When she was younger she would knock on her brother’s door and run back to her room. Naturally, he would open his door and notice no one was there, so he would walk into Zoey’s room and sit on the floor. Whenever Walter was greeted by nothing but air he knew it was Zoey. At least once a week he would enter her room, find a comfortable space by the bed and tell her yet another made up story until she fell asleep.
As Zoey and Walter both grew up, the stories stopped, like other childhood lifestyles. But when nighttime fell, Walter no longer acquired a knock on his door from a ghost; instead, he received a single blank text message from his sister. With that, he would walk into Zoey’s room, find a comfortable place on the floor and no longer tell stories. They would discuss college, what happens in life, the economy, third world countries, and their parents.
Mr. and Mrs. Carson had a wonderful marriage, but like all relationships in life there were lies. It was easier for the two story-telling children’s parents to tell Ms. Hettinger in apartment c that the yelling was from a movie. Or to tell their landlord that the kids were playing and accidentally broke the window, instead of sharing the fact that Mr. Carson felt the need to smash it. Yes, these are just a few of the lies that were told by a father, a mother, a wife, and a husband. Two adults, I should say, that are supposed to be roll models for their children.
As Zoey continued to look around her room, she had the overpowering physical push to reach for her phone. Our dear little Zoey was used to resisting urges, ignoring the voice in the back of her head that said something was wrong, and the despondency that comes with daily existence. But tonight, at 12:02 am, Zoey allowed herself to follow her unrelenting need to message her brother. The text message said nothing, and forty-three minutes later, Zoey hit her head against the pillow, with nothing but abandonment in the back of her throat, which, like everything else, she swallowed down.
Zoey’s last thought before falling asleep was Jason, but not what you’re thinking. She didn’t close her eyes and return to the agonizing memory of their fight that afternoon; she drifted off into NeverLand with the hope that Chris’s last thoughts were about Jason, and not herself.
The only noise that stirred in the house that night was the distant sounds of scrubbing that everyone could here from the second floor.
