Sketching Memories

Despite the shady areas and maniacal people in San Francisco, I have always felt safe. Even during the dark hours when drunks and gangs outnumber the average citizen, I have never doubted my security. Keep to yourself and you’ll be fine was the motto I followed religiously. It had yet to fail me. So the feet shuffling precariously through the sand didn’t alarm me too much. I was obscured in the shadows, so it was only after the figure groped under the slide that my ears began to ring.

“Hey loser,” Leah said, settling down beside me, “Did I scare you?” Her pallor deeply contrasted the night and I was surprised I hadn’t identified her earlier.

Friends have never been a category in my life. There have only ever been people I tolerate and people I don’t. Leah has always belonged in the first group. I cannot recall how we met. Time tends to smudge memories and even upon meticulous scrutiny, one can only recall blunt facts. But I tend to believe that obsessing over a scene that could easily have been reverie to uncover the details of clothing or color is pointless. The outcome of such incidents is what trails us to the present.

However, Leah has almost always been there. A silhouette in most of my memories, a blur of color unnoticeable in every photograph. She accepts my silence, and over the years has accumulated enough knowledge to her satisfaction: my birthday, favorite color, and preferred sketching location. Patient and light-hearted, her only flaw was her intermittent dogmatic phrases, although they can get the best of us.

“He looks like you,” she stated referring to the child in my sketchbook, “something about the eyes.”

“My eyes are blue,” I said matter-of-factly.

“Very pretty too,” she responded, grinning at my scowl. Even though she was satiated with her unanswered questions and one-sided conversations, she couldn’t avoid restlessness after a while. I waited until she got bored of my dullness and left before making my way home, a crumpled paper in my fist.

And So It Goes

My sketchbook balanced securely under my arm, I made my way outside. During the night, San Francisco succumbed to a somnambulating city, swaying and alive while maintaining a still sinisterness. I basked in this eeriness. Subconscious emotions and thoughts tended to emerge when faced in the atmosphere, which became people and backgrounds on paper.

The playground in Golden Gate Park was my destination. When I was little, Sean had taken me there to explore wooden castles and pirate ships. But soon after, the wood was declared unsafe-perhaps children were complaining of splinters- and flamboyant plastic replaced the texture. When the wood disappeared, so did the imagination. Queens and gold-seekers were hardly tangible on the new structures. It was then that I decided to be logical.

Even though I had an aversion to the playground, my best creations occurred while I was sitting barefoot in the sand. So I returned often, because the strokes of my pencil released my unspoken words. I enjoyed the control I had while drawing. I could devise an unflawed family and just as easily add malignant eyes staring maniacally in the background.

I settled down underneath one of many slides, casting me into the sable shadows. I spread my fingers through the cool grains of sand and tipped my head up. The air was harsh, as San Francisco was so familiarly acquainted with. I tugged my sleeves a little lower over my wrists and began my art.

My pencil moved hesitantly then more vehemently as a child appeared on the page. I took great pleasure in drawing children. Their gaze was naïve and untamed by the sharp slap that is life. Swollen bellies and sticky fingers defined health and adventure. The particular child I was drawing was unlike my usual. His angular face was stoic and guarded by dark eyes. Instead of foolish dimples and candy-stained teeth, he was tight-lipped as if he didn’t trust himself to keep a secret that had been surreptitiously whispered to him.

A steady breeze gliding through the trees and the occasional muffled shouts of a drunken man were my only musical accompaniment. I was emphasizing the boy's neckline when footsteps, unnervingly near, joined my symphony and the back of my neck prickled with anxiety.

DNA

Driving home, Sean broke the customary silence with his daily monotonous question. “How was your day?”

“Fine.” My answer was never altered. Sean had accepted that a long time ago and never attempted further conversation. We pulled into the driveway, where Sean kept the engine lingering. He tapped the steering wheel a couple times with calloused hands. I waited for him to utter something, maybe deliver a lecture or scold me.

Sean was conscious of his purpose in life at seven years old. His cheerful and carefree youth was sacrificed as soon as my mother disappeared. Instead of taking part in after-school kickball, he would race home to care for me and set up dinner. He became not three years older than me, but ten. So when he gave up his dreams of attending the University of Michigan to major in business and marketing, I was the sole person he surprised. Instead, he found a part-time job as a soccer coach as well as delivering pizzas. He attended classes at the community college and made sure there was an abundance of healthy food in the fridge.

I fixed my eyes on Sean’s freckles, the evidence of my mom’s genes across his face, shoulders, arms. He had dark, straight hair, but not greasy like my father’s. I escaped my mother’s vibrant appearance with only her dirty blonde hair. I was often relieved when looking in the mirror, because even though I wasn’t the prettiest or the tallest or the most proportional, I could have been anyone’s child.

Finally, Sean cut the engine. The routine quietude was unnerving, and yet I never gave up hope that maybe one day, Sean would speak his mind during the two minutes we were emotionally cemented in our seats.

I walked into the living room where my father was staring, eyes glazed over, at the TV where a football match was occurring. He was unwashed and redolent of cigarettes and alcohol. His face was covered in patches of fluff as well as short prickly hairs. A Samuel Adams beer present in his right hand, he casually flipped the channel to the news.

“Hey Dad,” I blocked the TV with my body. He eased his eyes shut and grunted. My father had ears for the television, his beer, and tobacco; everything else was background music. He was as absent mentally as my mother was physically.

“Callie, come help me with dinner,” Sean instructed from the kitchen. I obeyed.

Tucker

How's it going? What have you discovered? Don't assume this is a romance... it's far from that.

“I saw you from across the field and your beauty blinded me so I’m going to need your name and number for insurance reasons.”
I glanced up from my pre-calculus assignment to see a boy roughly my age staring at me, amusement lined in his eyes. I recognized him from one of my classes, maybe physics, but couldn’t put a name to the face. Tall with dark curly hair and a bright dimpled smile that turned up on one side into a congenial half-grin, he appeared confident yet entertained.
“You know what I hate,” he asked, settling down next to where I had been waiting for Sean’s soccer practice to end. He unconsciously wiped a curl out of green eyes, the color of nature after hours of rain.
“I detest,” he stressed, pulling out a turkey sandwich from his backpack, “clichés. People are rather unimaginative. It’s not as if the girls actually fall for the lame pick-up lines! Or do they?” he glanced at me quizzically before taking a bite out of his already soaked-through sandwich. The curl had again fallen forward over his eyes and I suppressed the urge to brush it away.
“I don’t know,” I muttered, immersing myself once more into my homework. I pondered my escape route options, but nothing decent came to mind.
“Tucker,” he stated matter-of-factly, as if the name was supposed to trigger a reaction from me.
“17 years old. Two younger siblings. Moved here a couple years ago from Chicago. Big city, lots of interesting people. I like sand dollars, black and white photographs, and strawberry lemonade even though it doesn’t quench your thirst. Your turn.” He took another bite from his sandwich and awaited my reply.
“What?” I was exhausted and only desired a mint-chip ice cream cone and my Jodi Picoult book, which I’d conveniently forgotten at home.
“We’re skipping the awkward getting-to-know-you phase,” Tucker remarked with a sauce-covered smile, “It takes too long. So now it’s your turn.” He finished his sandwich with a final bite and wiped his hands on his jeans.
“What’s your name?” he encouraged, leaning back and observing me.
“Hey Callie, who’s this?” Sean came up beside the bleachers and glanced at me questionably. He had every right to be taken aback. Besides my friend Leah, whom I’d known since first grade, I had a strict no new people policy as well as an absolutely no guys rule. I was not going to be made a fool by the idiots that had overtaken my generation.
I shrugged, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. Instead, I busied myself by meticulously placing my homework into my red Jansport backpack.
“Tucker,” he said, “But not Everlasting. Although plenty of people call me Tuck.” He winked at me before sliding out of the bleachers. Two boys around 10-years old ran up to us and I was unsure as to whether they were bickering or joking around. Their hair was a miniature version of Tucker’s and their thin faces were mirrored onto one another.
“Tucker! I want to go swimming but Liam says that he won’t go unless you go, and I was thinking that maybe you could take us to the lake instead of the pool because it’s cooler there and maybe we could bring a soccer ball so I could work on my pass because I’m getting better, right Coach?” he looked up at Sean.
“Alright Champ,” Tucker responded, “let’s go. See you later, Callie!” he called back at me, hoisting Liam onto one shoulder in a firefighter fashion. The boy giggled uncontrollably screaming with protest. I rolled my eyes and followed Sean to his car.

A Riddle

Let's not waste time with formalities. My name is Avery and that's all there is to know. Some people have attempted to figure me out through my writing. Not once have they succeeded. So, whoever you are, dare to try? Here's a very rough draft of my prologue. I wish you the best of luck.

Prologue

I rocked lethargically back and forth on the couch. A ragged blue circle flawed the dull wall across from me. The imperfection had been created by my brother, Sean, at the enthusiastic age of five years old. Not much older than a toddler, I watched from my crib as he extracted a turquoise color from his 64-pack of crayons and flashed it at me, a giggle escaping his ice cream-stained lips. I studied him with fervent curiosity as he raised the crayon to his temporary canvas and produced the best circle a child his age could muster. He glanced back at me with self-approval silhouetted in his dark eyes. Approaching me, he touched my matted hair through the wooden bars and whispered, “Hearts can break but circles go on forever,” his naiveness masqueraded by youthful confidence.

When my mom discovered the sorry excuse for a drawing, she dipped her head back and roared with laughter. Her gold bracelets jangled to her elbow as she used a French manicured hand to dry her eyes.

“This is a masterpiece, Sean!” she proclaimed and spent an entire dinner arguing with our father to have it remain a permanent decoration. My mother won. She always did.

Two years later, she announced that she was in need of adventure, that she was aging rapidly and had to indulge in the world before the creases on her face clouded her vision. Her freckled skin shone with anticipation, eyes already absent as she smudged our cheeks with dark red lipstick as temporary as she herself had been. With a final distracted wave, she was gone.

My father burrowed into a malicious obsession with the woman that had once dominated his approach at life. Alone again, he was unbalanced and awkward. He would wander into the shadows of each room grasping an emerald rosary with one hand, as if it were the only thing keeping him tethered to the hardwood floor. Under his breath, he recited prayers to Saint Anthony, the patron of lost items, pleading to be aided in finding an object he could associate with his former lover, anything to jag a forgotten memory or trailed thought.

He returned from his job as a manager of a local restaurant called Fauna’s Diner one evening a couple months later, a Round Table box in one hand and a Victoria Secret shopping bag in the other. He tossed the pizza onto our granite counter, barely acknowledging the fact that we were watching Arthur on a school night, and proceeded to march up the stairs.

“Dad,” Sean hissed, raising his body from the couch, “You forgot to pick me up from soccer practice. Cameron’s mom had to drive me home!”

“I’m busy, Sean, pizza’s on the table,” my father muttered dismissively. His gaze lingered for a moment on a photograph of my mom positioned behind Sean. The picture had been taken at the park. Having just made it down the pink plastic slide, my mother cupped me in her arms, laughing whole-heartedly as if she desired nothing more than to own the title of “mother”. My father turned his head and methodically climbed the stairs before retreating into his bedroom.

Sean extracted two plates from the wooden cupboards in the kitchen, not bothering to silence the scrapes or clanks. As he gathered utensils, I crawled up the stairs holding my breath in fear of dissolving the tranquility. I reached the last step and paused cautiously, waiting to be discovered. When I was certain there was no movement headed in my direction, I peered inside my dad’s door.

He had unpacked the bag and was now pulling out a lingerie nightgown from one of the boxes. I recognized it immediately; the faded violet attire was one of my mother’s favorite articles of clothing. She would glide throughout the house, twirling and giggling and shrieking, “I’m a princess! I’m a princess! Are you my Prince Charming?” My father would kiss her on the cheek and they’d ballroom dance across the living room until it was my bedtime, until I evaporated the magic.

As I stared, he pulled out perfume covered with lacy calligraphy. Carefully picking it up, he sprayed it once at the nightgown. He raised the smooth cloth to his face, breathing in my mother’s aroma and her presence. He began to sob uncontrollably into the gown.

“Lillian, oh Lillian.” His words were muffled and yet completely coherent. I stayed there regarding the scene as if the trance my father was in were contagious until Sean took my hand and silently pulled me down to dinner.

My father spent almost all his spare time staring at my brother’s creation, tracing the line with his eyes, memorizing every stroke. If he could mirror the shape onto a blank piece of paper, he would remember. Maybe the taste of the watery macaroni and cheese during that last dinner or maybe even a hurried glance from across the table. It seemed almost ironic that in the same way my dad had used the circle to recollect his wife, so was I now to recall someone else entirely.