Chapter 1: A New Home
Lee moved her legs around and the crunch of the stiff leather echoed throughout the silent car. Her sister, Elizabeth, sat asleep with her warm olive skin faced stuck to the backseat window of their families brand new AMC Rambler Ambassador convertible. It had it’s top on now, but that didn’t take away from the luxury of the car. It was the fanciest car Lee had every road in. She liked it, mostly because when the top was down, she felt like she was flying, but it also bothered her; mostly because everything they owned was new now. They left all possessions from their past life in boxes at their cramped apartment in Cleveland for some cheaply paid movers to take out to the junkyard or to be sold to someone who wanted it. Though there wasn’t a lot of stuff to move out and throw away, Lee was going to miss it because it was their old stuff. It was still a part of her.
There were only two bedrooms in their apartment, which meant she had to share a small, white-walled, one window bedroom with her messy older sister. In the apartment, there was one rotted peach colored bathroom, where the sink and the toilet had about a foot in between and an ancient foot clawed bath tub. Lee wished she had a shower like most people. Their parents bedroom was much like their own, consisting of one queen sized bed, a small closet where they hung their best clothes so that they wouldn’t be wrinkled, and a small desk, with only a small bright lamp to sit atop it. The main room consisted of what her mother liked to call a “modest” walk-in kitchen, along with the living and dining area which was just one more congested place in the apartment. The dining area, which was pretty much the living room as well, only had a fold up table with four wooden chairs, one of which had a wobbly leg. The rest of the area had one prehistoric, ripped and faded blue couch with a television that was still in black and white.
Though she despised that apartment, she loved the city itself. There was so much to do. She could go to the beach and take a relaxing swim, shop at some of the family owned shops that she loved so much, go to the movies whenever she liked, listen to the musicians play on the streets, and go to library and read all day until either she couldn’t see straight anymore, or the library had to close. Besides all of this, she loved to go down to the old park and sit and people watch. Whenever her parents would let her out of the house alone, which wasn’t very often, she would go down to the park and watch all the people who passed her, all the while making up stories about them and their lives.
Lee turned to look out the glass shield, which had become a giant blur of deep oranges, yellows, and reds. She sighed, remembering all of the events of the past week. Her father getting a promotion, loads of money coming in, him finding out he has to move to Louisiana, buying their new belongings in a couple of days, having to say goodbye to her few friends; she was still mad at her dad about that, but her mom promised her that she could have a private tutor, who could help her work on her communication skills with other people. She wanted that very badly and that had become the main and only reason she didn’t put up too much of a fight.
“How much longer until we’re there?” her sister’s groggy voice broke through the day long calm.
“About a half an hour, maybe a little more,” came her mother’s soft voice.
“Good, because I’m running out of tired,” her sister moaned.
Their mother and father both laughed. They had been “tired” for two days now. Lee and Elizabeth both agreed that it was better than asking every hour how much longer they had. If they just stayed up later during the nights at the motels, they could sleep more in the car, and hopefully the time would pass faster. It might have for Elizabeth, but for Lee, the hours that they had been in the car, almost non-stop, had felt like a week. On the other hand, she was able to bond with her sister in a way she hadn’t since they were little. Staying up until the early hours of the morning, they watched the late night viewing of Bewitched and The Andy Griffith Show. They played bridge and rush hour, and Elizabeth even taught Lee how to put on makeup, which Lee didn’t really agree to at first, but knew her sister wanted to do it badly, so she let her.
Lee felt a tap on her left shoulder and she turned to face her sister, who was smiling at her.
“Are you excited yet?” her sister asked.
Lee shrugged her shoulders. She hadn’t really been excited from the start and hadn’t planned on being excited. She was just interested in the thought of having someone teach her how to actually talk to someone.
“Oh come on, don’t give me that. Pick up the pen and paper and write something. I’m trying to make conversation. At least give me a little more than a shrug,” her sister demanded.
Lee smiled. If Elizabeth drove her crazy one day, the one thing that would stop her from knocking her out would be the fact that she treated Lee’s inability to speak as a normal thing. Lee hated being a mute, but she couldn’t change that and she appreciated her sister’s effort to never make her feel uncomfortable about it, well, anymore than she already did.
Lee grabbed the pencil and notepad that they had bought at Pogue’s Department Store on their way to Louisiana. She wrote: not really, are you? Her sister laughed. She looked up to see what her parents were doing and when she was sure her dad was completely focused on driving and that her mother was fully engrossed in her book, she took the pencil and notepad from Lee and wrote: nope, not one bit. Both girls smiled brightly at each other. Lee suddenly thought better of the trip. Maybe this move wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
Elizabeth sat back on the seat and tossed the pad and pencil in the space between her and her sister. Lee stared at her sister for a moment. Her tan skin, evergreen eyes, her small button nose, dimpled cheeks, heart-shaped lips, and light brown wavy hair that cascaded past her shoulders down her back made Lee envious of her sister. Elizabeth had always been the prettier of the two. She looked more like their mother, where as Lee had gotten the short end of the stick, with her traits resembling more of her father. She had dark brown eyes, fair skin that almost never tanned, but always burned, rosy cheeks, a pointy nose, and coal black hair that stopped at her jaw. They looked so different that sometimes people wouldn’t recognize them as sisters, but thought that they were just two friends.
Despite their many differences, there were two things that were exactly the same on the two girls. Their almond shaped eyes, which they got from their father, and their small feminine jaws, which if she had to get anything from her mother, she was glad she got that. Is she had gotten her father’s jaw instead of her mother’s, Lee’s biggest problem wouldn’t have been people mistaking her and her sister for friends, it would have been people mistaking her for a feminine version of her father, which wouldn’t have been, well, very feminine at all.
Elizabeth, noticing her sister staring at her, turned her head in Lee’s direction.
“What are you thinking about?”
Lee snapped out of her trance and gave her sister a questioning look.
“What are you thinking about,” Elizabeth repeated, just as calmly as before.
Lee nodded in understanding and picked up the pad and pencil, writing: How much I look like a man, and how much you don’t.
Elizabeth chuckled. “Oh Lee, you don’t look like a man. You just haven’t grown up yet. That’s all. Once you go through that stage in your life, you’ll feel more comfortable in your skin, I promise. Plus, looking like dad forever wouldn’t be so horrible wouldn’t it?”
Lee reached for the pencil and paper. She wrote in capital letters: YES. Elizabeth busted out in laughter and Lee followed suit. Their father glanced in the rear view mirror, curious as to what his two daughters thought was so funny.
“What are you girls laughing so hard at?”
Lee and Elizabeth looked at each other and began to laugh even harder.
“I suppose it’s you, Will.” Their mother looked up from her book and faced their father.
Elizabeth and Lee attempted to stifle their giggles, but never took their eyes off of each other.
“Yep,” chimed their mother. “It’s you.”
“Well, I’m glad I can be of service to you two ladies.” William said in a hearty laugh. “Is it appropriate enough to share with the rest of us in the car?”
Elizabeth looked at Lee and Lee shook her head no. Elizabeth turned and looked at her father, now with a serious face.
“No dad, it very confidential. Only for Lee’s and my ears to hear. No one else. Sorry.”
“I hope it isn’t too mean.”
“Nope. Not at all.” Elizabeth lied right threw her teeth. She was always good at that. Lee never was. It was ironic really, that the girl who could talk was a better liar than the one who couldn’t and didn’t have to say anything at all.
Their parents smiled at each other and then went back to their tasks. Elizabeth turned to Lee and smiled.
“I meant that about getting older. You will feel better.” Her sisters voice had a motherly warm to it.
Lee sighed and nodded. She hoped her sister was right because she wasn’t sure if she could spend the rest of her life looking like a female version of her dad. She turned her head back towards the window. She watched as house by house raced passed her window. Louisiana had been nothing but brown from the time they reached the state border. It made the place seem so dirty. Though Lee didn’t mind dirty, she knew Elizabeth did. She also knew she was going to have to listen to Elizabeth whine about it as soon as they got to their new place.
As Lee was thinking about her sad fate and the muddy towns they had been passing since they enter the wonderful state of Louisiana, the car turned onto a gravel path. Suddenly, she heard her father’s strong voice bellow excitedly from the front seat, “We’re here!”
The car came to an abrupt stop, throwing their bodies forward, then snapping them back like crash dummies. Expecting to her mother scold her father about his bad driving, she was surprised when she heard, “Oh wow Will, it’s—it’s—”
Acting like a young boy in a candy store, her father replied, while taking off his seat belt, “Huge? Enchanting? Surprisingly cheaper than it looks?
Both of her parents proceeded to get out of the car, slamming the doors shut and walking closer to what Lee guessed was her new home. She could see from the front windshield of the car, and she watched as her parents walked holding each other’s hand towards the object that had them awe-stricken.
“I suppose we should get out and look at it our new prison too.” Elizabeth took off her own seat belt and exited the car walking to where her parents were standing. Lee reluctantly followed a minute later, with her pencil and notepad at her side.
When Lee got out of the car, she half expected to see a larger version of their old apartment. Looking up though, the mere site of it made her drop her pencil and notepad on the ground. This place was nothing like their old apartment.
