Equilibrium (5 page)

I angrily turned mine off, feeling even emptier than before. He needed help. Why had I been so desperate to come back to him? He was never here anyway. And face it, he didn’t win the father-of-the-year award. He really was only around for my hockey games, probably because he had a bet going with someone. I guess we both had gotten into a habit of doing our own thing and I had come to treasure my solitude, but now it suddenly made me feel alone.

I picked up my pen and paper again and gathered my thoughts. So, I had woken up in California, in Mountain View to be precise. I had woken in my mother’s car. Ella and Gertrude had been in the car with me. We drove to a house, which I had apparently lived in for a long time, eight years. I had my own room there.  I had a brother! Not just any brother, one that I had immediately grown attached to, my brother, Harry. He was the best. I really missed him right now, but not as much as I missed Kellan. The thought of Kellan made me tear up again, but I quickly wiped my face clean and continued gathering my thoughts.

My few weeks in Mountain View had been mostly positive. Winning the battle to play ice hockey for the varsity team and Kellan had been the highlights. The biggest negative was the constant uncertainty, the not knowing what was going on and also the fact that my dad was missing from my life. I realized that he was
still
sort of
missing. He was never really around.

There were so many unexplained factors. Simla and Justin for example. They were both in school with me here in Princeton. But when I had woken up in Mountain View they were in school with me there, as well! And they didn’t seem to know me from Princeton. What were they doing in Mountain View? I wondered if they were back here now. How did this whole
dimension
thing work? Was everything as it had been two days ago? I knew that wasn’t the case, Gertrude was not here. Though I suppose she could be at a doggie stay over. I doubted that. And, what about Ariele? At least there was a somewhat reasonable explanation as to why she was in Mountain View–her mother had been offered a great work opportunity there. However, that didn’t explain why she had gone back in time eight months and into another dimension.

What was I doing back here anyway? I knew that my mom wouldn’t have transported me back; after all, she had wanted me to stay. So who had? Who had captured Kellan and me, held us captive in the dark place and then transported me back here? And why? And where was Kellan?

The tears started up again. I wanted the warmth of my family, of Kellan. I started picking clothes off the floor absentmindedly, folding them and making piles of them on my bed. Then I took the pile of t-shirts and went to put them into my dresser. I slid open a drawer to find it filled with empty chocolate wrappings, coke cans and gum. Some gum remains were stuck to the bottom of the drawer. I opened the rest. They were all the same, and I let go of my newly-folded pile of t-shirts from my arms, dropping them on the floor and then collapsing down beside them. Tears streamed down my face. I felt completely lost.

I sat like that for about an hour, feeling totally sorry for myself, and must have dozed off. The doorbell woke me. I thought about ignoring it, but whoever it was, was persistent and wouldn’t give up.

I opened the door to Monica, who looked furious, but her expression quickly changed as she looked me up and down. It was an interesting display of expressions–surprise, disgust, pity, more anger. She grabbed my arms roughly and pushed me into my bedroom.

“Arizona Stevens, what the hell?”

I shook my head, not knowing where to start. Tears started to pour down my face again.

Monica looked shocked. She had never seen me cry before. She looked very uncomfortable, but reached over and patted my shoulders awkwardly. What I needed was a hug, but that was out of question. Even the fleeting touch of her pats was better than nothing. I looked at her gratefully, trying to suck in my emotions to make the tears stop.

“Here,” she said, handing over a box of tissues.

I took them and proceeded to sort myself out. I must have looked dreadful. Monica waited patiently while I gathered myself and then looked at me carefully before quizzing me again.

“Arizona, what’s going on? What’s happened to your hair? It’s blond! And why are you so
weepy
?”

“Monica, I can’t talk about this right now. I need time to think.”

“Well, at least go and take a shower. You stink worse than usual.”

I nodded and made my way toward the bathroom, flinching at the thought of having to shower in that mess. Monica was sitting on my bed, waiting for me, when I emerged looking and feeling slightly refreshed. I got dressed quickly; blow dried my hair and felt around for lip gloss in my jeans pocket.

“What are you looking for?” Monica asked staring at me puzzled.

“Lip gloss.”

“Lip gloss?” she laughed, and extracted hers from her pocket and threw it at me. “You don’t use lip gloss,” she mocked.

I ignored her, dabbed some onto my lips–kiwi–and then sat down beside her. She stood up and looked me up and down.

“Wow, Arizona. You look like a model. What happened? Did your mom and Ella kidnap you and throw you into model school?” she laughed.

“Oh, Monica, I don’t even know where to start. I’m starving. Let’s go and get some burgers.”

“You’ve got hockey practice tonight, are you sure you’ve got time for burgers? Do you even want to eat before practice? You’ll throw up.”

“Oh, I forgot. I’m going to text Coach to let him know that I’m not well.”

“He’ll bench you,” Monica warned.

So true. Coach could be a real pain. Missed practices meant being benched for the weekend game. The games were over anyway, if anything there would be a friendly. However, that was the least of my worries at the moment. So I shrugged and texted him. “Okay,
M
, I’m ready for a burger. Let’s head over to Sonic?”

“Sure. Then we can sit and eat in the car and you can tell me about this new look. And why the hell you’re so weepy.”

We drove up to the Kendall Park Sonic and sat in Monica’s Toyota happily devouring our burgers and sipping our drinks.

“
A
, I’m going to have to drop you off and head over to lacrosse practice in a while. So, can you start spilling? Where have you been and what’s with the new look?”

“
M
, pleeease–can we drop it for now? You’d never believe it anyway. I need to do something about my hair. Can you help me get it back to its normal color?”

“I could try, but why risk me screwing it up? You should get a hairdresser to do it properly. Anyway, why do it at all? I think you look great.”

“It’s gonna freak everyone out.”

“Since when do you care about freaking anyone out?” she asked surprised.

“Well, maybe I don’t, I guess. But I like it better darker. This looks ridiculous.”

“No it doesn’t. You look amazing. Okay, maybe it does look a bit ridiculous, but only because it’s
you
! You look so unlike
you
.”

 “I’ll have to put up with all the mocking….”

“No, you won’t. Just floor them,” she said as a matter of fact.

She was right, of course. No one would dare mess with me. They never did. I would just sort them out. I always did. I felt better again and smiled. I would make an appointment with a hairdresser, but in the meantime freak everyone out. It might even be fun. I felt so much better by the time Monica drove me home.

“Why did you change the color anyway? And when?” Monica wasn’t giving up.

If there was one thing that I had learned from my experiences in the last few weeks, it was that it was better to try to explain the truth to my closest friends. No point in trying to blow off Monica with a
reasonable
explanation–although I couldn’t for the life of me even think of a reasonable
explanation
for this current blond look–it would be better to just tell her the truth. But, timing was everything and this was not a good time. After all, she was in a hurry to get to practice.

“Monica, the explanation for this blond look is not simple. It’s majorly complicated. I will tell you, I promise, but not right now.”

“Geez,
A
. You really got me worried now. And super curious. I don’t
need
to go to practice. If you need me to stay and talk, I will. In fact, I think I should.”

“No,
M
. Go. I really need some thinking time,” I said firmly. I really did.

She looked at me unhappily, but shrugged in resignation and drove me home. We didn’t talk on the way back, but the silence was not entirely uncomfortable. She stopped in my driveway to let me out.

“Are you coming to school tomorrow?”

“Yes, I guess I have to. Can you pick me up?” I really missed my Jeep. My yellow Jeep–left behind in Darley land.

“Sure, see you tomorrow,” she said and drove off.

I turned around and stared at the house. How I had missed it! I remembered back to my trip here with Kellan and Ariele–how I hadn’t been able to work the garage combination. I know now that it was because we had visited here in the wrong dimension, but I didn’t know that then. I had been so confused. The house had still been here, but we didn’t live in it. The garage combination hadn’t worked when I had tried it. So, even though I had the front door key, I now walked over to the garage door keypad and started pressing the numbers.

“Hey, Arizona?”

I turned around to face Raymond, our next-door neighbor. I was so glad to see him that I nearly hugged him, but held back. That would be so unlike me, Arizona
Stevens
.

“I like what you did to your hair, very pretty. Is your dad home?”

“No, Mr. Golden, he isn’t. He went down to Atlantic City for a few days.”

Raymond gave me a sympathetic shrug. He was a good man. Both he and his wife, Beth, had always been there for me. They were both in their sixties. Their kids had moved out a long time ago. They had sort of adopted me. It was their door I knocked on when I needed anything–which was quite often as Dad was away a lot.

“Come over and have dinner with us then, Arizona.  Beth made carrot cake, it smells divine.”

“Thank you, Mr. Golden. That sounds so good, but I just ate. And I have a bit of a headache, so I think I’ll go inside and lay down for a while.”

“Well, let us know if you need anything. Beth will check up on you later.”

I nodded thankfully, fighting all instincts–Darley instincts–to give him a hug and went inside to a quiet and lonely house. No sounds of Ella playing, Kellan or Harry laughing. I sat down on my bed and let my tears flow freely.
After all, I was by myself with no one to keep them from. The tears turned into a stream and I could hear myself sobbing, loud, gut-wrenching sobs. I lay back on my bed, turning onto my side to allow my tears to fall off my face into my pillow. Were these tears of happiness at being back home or those of hopeless loneliness? They certainly didn’t feel like happy tears. But, why? I should be stoked to be home. Back to my
real
life. Isn’t that what I had been desperate for the entire time I’d been away?

I
must have fallen asleep, for the next thing I knew it was morning again and time for school. I couldn’t avoid it for another day, not that I even wanted to. The house was so quiet without Gertrude or my dad around. I assumed that Dad was still in Atlantic City and Gertrude… well, she must still be in my alternative life–this was all way too screwed up. As I sat on my bed–in
my
room–I wondered how I should handle all this. I had to be able to push myself to go through the motions until I could find a way to contact Kellan. It was going to be deathly scary, but I had to hold myself together so I could properly help Kellan. However, first I needed to find him. I checked my cell phone in desperate hope that Kellan had somehow managed to text me.

I had several missed calls on my phone mainly from Beth. Before heading to school, I’d better stop by her house to let her know that I was okay. I also had a bunch of text messages–none from Kellan or anyone else in my Darley life–which I couldn’t bother dealing with just yet. I showered and got dressed quickly. There was no hiding my blond hair, so I blow dried it and made it look extra nice, and added some of Monica’s (which I had conveniently forgotten to hand back to her) lip gloss to complete the look. I gazed at myself in the mirror. You’d think that I’d be used to this Barbie look by now. Not so. I ran outside as soon as I heard Monica pull up on the driveway.

“You look awesome,
A
!” she said as soon as she saw me.

“Thank you,
M
. It’s going to be an interesting day.”

“No kidding,” she laughed. “You better bring your backpack, though….”

I had forgotten my bag, I didn’t even know what homework I had, but I knew I hadn’t done any.

“Oh, give me a sec, I’ll get it and I also need to knock on Beth’s door.” I hurried off and was back moments later to where Monica was patiently waiting.

“So, are you ready to
talk
?” she asked pointedly. “You look a bit sad.”