lizabel

by dizzy

"Don't spill it all, Lizzie."

            I giggle, tip the bottle back. Warm root beer escapes from its bottle and fizzles down my chin, drops onto the grass. I can almost hear the ants in fervent prayer to the God of Sugar: feed us, oh strong one, feed us well. Their prayers will not go unanswered, not today, not with me, Elizabeth Grace Jansen, eating under a bright sky akin to my heart, protected by the canopy of an ancient oak and the arms of David. I don't feel foolish, making a mess: not at all. David hardly can make me feel foolish. Only when I don't do things that matter as well as I could. Maybe I could drink soda without dribbling it down my chin, but this is not a Thing That Matters.

            He puts out a tan hand, rippling with blood vessels, and I hand him the soda. He tips the bottle back almost perpendicular to the ground and the liquid splashes onto his face. He laughs, leans down his head and rubs his wet forehead against his jeans until it's dry. "We're all a little messy sometimes," he says. I smile.

            His eyes are blue, a blue like the sky reflected in a pond on a cold, sunny day. His hair is fine, white-blond locks in tiny relaxed ringlets. "Ya know," he had once told me casually, "you don't want to get involved with me. I'm an odd ball. The only Kohn with blond hair. I'm even the only Blaszak-Kohn with blue eyes. You know that has to mean trouble." Then he kissed me.

            I met him on a downcast October day. The trees were bright colors, red and orange and yellow, and they seemed to enjoy their brightness, their ignorance that they were mocking my sadness.  I was trudging toward school. Trudging. A gorgeous word, though when one does it she is often too downtrodden to enjoy the sound of the consonants in her mouth. He had stopped me and asked me if I knew where Copper road was. I shrugged.

"Is that a yes?"

"If you think it is," I responded and turned and kept walking with the full knowledge that he was shadowing me.

"Look, I really need to know. I'm new here, my mom needs me to pick up some textbooks so that she can continue home-schooling my brothers and me."   

             "Down the road. Keep going, you'll see the road sign," I said without turning a shoulder.

            "Do I know you?" he asked.

            "I don't know you. I guess you can keep walking."

            There was a quiet perseverance in his eyes that deterred me almost immediately. I had no idea what else he wanted, but I knew he wanted it. "Can we talk sometime?" he asked. "You seem… really familiar."

            I nodded; I was convinced I would never see him again.

Here I am, three weeks later, looking up into a crisp November sky and loving every inch of David.

            "Where has my Lizabel gone? Are you in there?" he asks, almost rhetorically, as if he's pondering the edge of the universe out loud.

            "Yeah, I am," I say, and I smile. I lean back against the trunk of the oak, drawing my knees up against my chest.

            "I love you, too," he says absent-mindedly.

            After awhile, we walk from the maple to my house, holding hands and talking the whole time. For some time we slow dance in the frantic orange leaves, body to body. I slowly pull back into reality.

            "I don't want to leave you," I tell David. "I have to get my hair cut in ten minutes though. Gram says it looks awful."

            "You look sexy with long hair. Tell them they dare not touch it lest I punish them severely." His eyes burn through me. "With a herring," he adds.

            We kiss and part, and I feel that familiar tug on my heart I always feel to follow him.

            "I'm not quite sure I know how to… start," the hairdresser says.

            "Do what you can," my grandmother says.

            "Don't cut it. Please. David likes it this way. Just layer it or something." I say.

            The hairdresser glances at my grandmother as if to gain some insight into the matter. It makes me feel good to have someone curious about my boyfriend.

            My grandmother doesn't notice the glance. She's absorbed herself in the latest issue of Cosmopolitan she picked up from the hairdresser's counter. I think her goal in life is to age like Elizabeth Taylor or at least Julie Andrews. Too late, Grams.

            David likes my hair long, so I tell the hairdresser, who makes an odd face.

            "Her hair isn't, quite, well, long, enough, to do, um, layering," the hairdresser says. I nod. 

            Gram looks up. "What now?" she asks.

            The hairdresser registers another odd look.

            My grandmother nods, placing the magazine back on the counter in front of the mirror, and stands up. "Let's leave, Elizabeth, I'm sure that your hair will be fine."

            "Am I ever going to meet this David fellow?" my grandmother asks. "I mean, you're always talking about him but I never see him around…" Why must she ruin dinner?

            David hates the idea of meeting my grandmother. I asked him once, but he said he's shy around people. Plus my grandmother is Methodist, which wouldn't go over well with David's parents. I'm not quite sure what David would want me to say so I'm quiet.

            "Seems like this young fellow is making… a… an… impression on you."

            "He's great, Grandmother. He thinks I'm beautiful and smart."

            "All the more reason to arrange a meeting, Elizabeth." 

            I'm not quite sure what David would want me to say so I'm quiet.

            "Please talk to me, Elizabeth. I need to know what you're thinking. Is that too much to ask?"

            "Most teenagers don’t just tell their parents what they're thinking."

            "I'm not your parents, Elizabeth. I'm your grandmother and your guardian."

            "It's the same thing."

            My grandmother is silent for the rest of the meal. I push my plate back, close my eyes, and imagine David's arms around me. After her fervent smacking subsides, she mutters, "Do your homework, we have church tomorrow," and stands to do the dishes.

On most Saturday nights I lie on my bed and think about David. Tonight I sit down at the small table facing a blank wall so that I'm not distracted while I do my work. I am just digging into my sixteen factoring problems when I hear a rap against my window.

David is at the window. His face is covered in blood. Stand up. Get away from the window, bloody leaves glued to the window.

Lizabel, Lizabel, I need you to help me. Don't fall. Wailing, wailing, who is wailing? I don't know where you live! You can find me. The crack. The crack where did that sound come from? The horrible crack, David fell, David fell. Oh God, get my grandmother, get my grandmother, everything will be okay. Who is screaming? On my arm? Grab me! Get off of me! Off of me! Who is screaming? Where is my grandmother? Who is screaming? Who is screaming? To help David, call 911. Help David. Help David. Who is screaming? Who is screaming?

She was small, about five foot three and not more than a hundred pounds. Her eyes should have been a haunted gray, a dingy faded shroud over her soul, but they were a deep brown, fiery and inquisitive- beyond their owner's characteristics. The girl had stabbed her grandmother over 30 times in the lower leg. The woman would survive, but had lost the leg. The grandmother had been interviewed several times within the course of the last few weeks. The girl was not abnormal to say. Those around her noticed, should they care to notice, nothing abnormal about her. She was quiet, like some. Intelligent, like some. Small, like some. Talked only to teachers, like some. Had no friends, like some. 

"It will be okay now," the doctors told her, and with David dead deep within her, she did not dance in the leaves anymore.

A/N: I'm not really sure how this short story will change, all I know is that I'm not satisfied with it and I have no idea where to start with the editing. I hate it when I have such a clear concept in my head and I can't put it down on paper…. Grr… So, if you have ideas, please put them in a review. I'm not even sure this story has a point. I probably should develop Elizabeth's mental disturbance (i.e. why she has no friends, why she lives with her grandparents but I'm too lazy)