In the Middle of Nowhere (10 page)

Very quickly my sadness turned to anger when
I realized that everyone ditched me, yet didn’t have the decency to
tell me to my face.

I sulked the rest of the evening and stayed
in my room, trying to forget about the night I was supposed to be
having. My mom knocked on my door and popped her head inside.

“Are you staying in tonight, Willow?”

I looked up from my book. “It’s either that
or going out to dinner at Luigi’s all by myself.”

“Well,” my mother reminded me, “don’t forget.
We’ll be going out to dinner tomorrow night to celebrate your
special day.”

I rolled my eyes and mumbled,
“Thrilling.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” I said as I continued to
read.

After my mom left, I closed my book, turned
off my light and hoped that sleep would make me forget about the
misery I’d be facing the minute I woke up on my “not-so-special
day.”

• • •

I purposely slept in late on my sixteenth
birthday, not wanting to think about the cancelled plans from the
night before. When I finally did roll out of bed, I sluggishly
walked over to my full-length mirror and stared at my reflection. I
didn’t look any older and certainly didn’t feel it. My hair was
sticking up in a million different directions and my cheek had a
light, white mark on it from where a puddle of drool had settled
and dried overnight. I didn’t look any different, I concluded… just
pathetic.

I put on an old sweatshirt and dirty pair of
sweatpants and headed downstairs. My stomach was really growling,
since it was well past noon, but I wasn’t in the mood to eat
anything.

I grabbed the remote and plopped on top of
the bumpy couch in the family room. I looked around and listened.
For once, the house was quiet, almost eerily silent. There was no
sign of my mother or brother. I could have heard a pin drop. I
decided not to turn on the TV. Instead I rested my head and closed
my eyes. I would relish the peace while it lasted, even as a rogue
spring jutted through the cushion and jabbed me in my shoulder.

My cat, Princess, meowed, jumped on top of
the couch and crept over toward me. She settled on my stomach. I
tried to cuddle with her since I felt so desperately alone.
Normally she wouldn’t let me hold her so tightly, but she must have
sensed my sadness and allowed me to snuggle with her. I was so
grateful because Princess was the only thing that was even remotely
warm in the arctic-like house.

I didn’t realize it, but I had fallen back to
sleep. My mother and brother startled me when they burst through
the front door with armloads of shopping bags and a huge
arrangement of helium balloons.

My mother rushed into the kitchen and shouted
over her shoulder. “Happy birthday, Willow! Be right there.”

James marched over to me and stopped. He
proudly presented me with the special Mylar bouquet and beamed.
“Sixteen balloons altogether, Willow, ’cause you’re sixteen
today!”

I forced a smile and took the strings.
“Thanks.”

My mom waltzed into the room holding a very
big, very chocolaty cake with sixteen candles ablaze on top. She
stood next to my brother and they both began to sing, “Happy
birthday to you, happy birthday to you …”

Their melodious voices were drowned out by
the voices in my head, by the absurdity of it all. Happy? What did
I have to be happy about? Spending the day of my “special”
sixteenth birthday all alone or spending the night with my
preoccupied family, one with a new beau and the other with any kind
of video game that involved killing another living thing.

As they finished their serenade, I blew out
the candles, thanked them and rolled over so I could finish my
nap.

“Don’t you want a piece of delicious
chocolate cake, dear? It’s your favorite kind,” my mother asked my
back.

“No, thanks, I’m still full from lunch,” I
lied.

“Okay, then. I’ll wrap it up so you can have
some later.”

As my mother walked away she informed me, “I
hope it’s alright, Willow. I asked Brian if he’d like to join us
for dinner tonight and he said he’d love to.”

My mom made sure to take cover in the kitchen
and get out of my line of fire before dropping that bomb on me.

I clenched my teeth and bit my tongue, afraid
of what I might say back to her.

Just then, my brother had the misfortune of
switching on the television set and his beloved gaming system
before settling into his new, rocking video chair.

In a split second, I flipped my body over,
threw the remote at James and hit him square in the back of the
head.

“Ow!” he screamed as he rubbed his skull.

“Don’t even try it,” I challenged through
gritted teeth and narrowed eyes. “It’s my freakin’ birthday.”

I must have scared him because he jumped up
and ran to his room where he remained for the rest of the
afternoon, while I napped on and off, atop the most uncomfortable
couch in the world.

CHAPTER
FOURTEEN

My mom finally forced me off of the couch at
five o’clock and told me to go and take a shower before Brian
arrived to pick us up. She also told me that we’d be dining at
Luigi’s. Did we really need to go there, I wondered? Why not just
rub salt in my wounds while you’re at it, I wanted to scream.

Just when I was about to kindly protest, I
realized that Luigi’s was the only Italian restaurant on the island
and it was my favorite kind of food. But, despite the fact that
they had the best calamari around, I wasn’t too sure I’d be eating
much of anything at all that night.

I was surprised my mom didn’t offer to take
us out to dinner at a restaurant on the mainland since it seemed to
be Brian’s favorite thing to do lately; hop on the ferry and spend
the day in and around Portland, even in the freezing temperatures,
while I sat home with my burden of a brother.

I finished getting ready and went downstairs
to wait for our ride. I wished my mother would have driven the
three of us and that we could have met Brian there instead.

I decided to go outside to get the mail,
hoping to get a birthday card from my grandmother. She always made
sure to send me a card right on time, so that it would arrive at my
house on the exact day of the anniversary of my birth. If it fell
on a Sunday, she would send the card on Saturday and I’d have to
promise not to open it until the next day.

That’s what my grandmother would always say
to me about birthdays. “You only had one birthday, Willow. The rest
are the anniversaries of that very special day on which you were
born.”

I loved my grandma and wished we could have
lived closer to her and my grandpa, even though his health wasn’t
too good lately. She was always loving and attentive with James and
me and I missed her more recently, now that my mother’s affection
seemed to be aimed elsewhere.

I shivered against the cold and saw that the
mailbox was empty. Either the mailman hadn’t come yet or my mom had
already gotten it. I’d have to ask her later.

As I opened the front door to go back inside,
the glare of a pair of headlights shone and settled on our
blacktop. Rather quickly, the lights turned off along with the
car’s engine.

I closed the door behind me, grabbed my
heaviest winter coat and yelled upstairs to my mom, “Mr. Brian
Roberts is here!”

• • •

My mother took forever to get ready, forcing
me to make painful small talk with her boyfriend. James, as usual,
was entranced in his own video world.

“Happy Birthday, Willow!” Brian bellowed as
soon as he ducked and entered the family room.

“Thanks,” I said and wished I could have been
struck with some sort of stomach virus at that very moment. Then I
would have had no choice but to run upstairs, throw up, climb into
bed and proclaim that I needed to stay in for the rest of the
evening. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky.

Ironically, my stomach rumbled loudly and
Brian pointed to it and grinned.

“Sounds like someone’s hungry,” he said
proudly, as if he were a brilliant gastroenterologist who had just
made a life-saving diagnosis.

I forced a smile, turned away and rolled my
eyes, knowing that Dr. Roberts was actually right. The growling and
churning were due to the fact that I hadn’t eaten a thing all day,
except for the lone Devil Dog I wolfed down right before my
shower.

Finally my mother slowly, and with great
care, descended the narrow old stairs, head held high, as if she
were royalty.

I had never seen a grown man gush so much.
“Laura, my dearest, you look absolutely divine.”

My mother blushed. “Why, thank you, Brian.
You look very handsome yourself.”

At that very moment, I wanted to throw up,
with or without the stomach bug.

• • •

We finally climbed into Brian’s car and
headed over to the restaurant. I assumed it was really crowded
inside because we couldn’t find a parking spot anywhere close to
the front entrance.

“Can’t you drop us off at the door?” James
whined.

My mother snapped her head, as well as her
words, at my brother. “No! Not tonight!”

Brian parked at the out-of-business gas
station next door and we all headed toward Luigi’s. I walked a few
yards ahead of them. I wanted to get in and out of there as soon as
possible and, in between, try to force some kind of food down my
throat.

Brian and his humungous hand stopped me
before I could open the front door.

“Here, birthday girl. Let me get that for
you.”

I walked in and Brian gave our name to the
young hostess. She smiled warmly up at him. I assumed she knew him,
along with everybody else on the island. Apparently, Mr. Brian
Roberts was the most sought after fifth grade teach over at Orchard
Elementary School and, for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine
why.

My mother and brother quickly scrambled
inside behind us before being ushered toward a small, private room
in the back of the restaurant. The lighting inside the main dining
room was very dim, so we had to maneuver carefully past the
overflowing tables. I couldn’t figure out how we jumped ahead of
all the other people who were anxiously waiting to be seated. I was
just so thankful not to be one of them.

The four of us stood outside the little room
in back and waited while our hostess knocked on its closed door.
Why would she be knocking, I wondered? Did it mean that other
diners were in there and we’d have to be jammed together with
them?

The hostess finally opened the door and
stepped aside so we could enter. My mother gently pushed me forward
so that I stood beyond the threshold alone. The room was pitch
black. All of a sudden, bright lights burst on and I was
temporarily blinded as a choir of unexpected voices shouted out,
“Surprise!”

I stood there, stunned, and was overcome with
joy as my teary eyes feasted upon a room full of friends and
streamers, sweet sixteen signs and dozens of pink balloons, all in
honor of me and the sixteenth anniversary of the very special day
on which I was born.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

The night of my surprise sweet-sixteen
birthday party had been a whirlwind. My friends lined up to greet
me and to wish me a happy birthday. I couldn’t believe my mother
had arranged a surprise party for me and that I had no idea about
it whatsoever.

Taylor came up to me first and apologized. “I
felt so bad yesterday having to cancel our plans at the last
minute, but we wanted to surprise you.”

Erica added, “None of us thought that you
ever should have planned your own birthday party, so we called your
mom and she helped us arrange something even better!”

I smiled with appreciation, “Thank you.”

Megan and Victoria also told me how guilty
they felt canceling our plans the night before, even though they
knew it was for a good reason.