The Unwanted Winter - Volume One of the Saga of the Twelves (2 page)

What a bunch of shit that
was
, she mused as one particular cloud
became a sailboat – a small one with a single mast. She’d already
experimented with the effect upon herself, in similar conditions,
in the bathroom mirror, after taking a shower. Her curiosity had
been peaked by a recent viewing of the movie.
Well, it probably didn’t work on me, because I don’t have
sexy-ass tits like Phoebe.
She smiled to
herself, but stayed silent.
Maybe only
impressive racks glisten in the sunlight.

The sailboat sailed
away.

No, she and her friends
weren’t potheads. They might partake now and again, to get a party
started, but, even then, they used it in moderation. It was in
short supply in the isolated environs of her hometown. They
couldn’t have become stoners, even if they had wanted to. Holbrooke
was just a different kind of place. What else could one
expect?

There was no denying the
facts. There was no need for her to think things over. She was
convinced Holbrooke was indeed a decent place to live.

So why had her father
messed everything up? Who cares about having more money or a better
job or a bigger house with nicer things…?

Well, maybe the notion
went too far, but still that wasn’t the point, god damn
it!

With the lyrics
“…I want your psycho, your vertical step…”
blasting in her ears, she shifted her small body
into a different position, giving one of her butt cheeks some
relief. Sitting in the same fashion for an extended period of time,
always played havoc with her rear end.

Marianna was small for her
age – sixteen - but all of her immediate family was small, except
for her youngest brother Samuel. He seemed, up to this point in his
ten years of life, to be the only one of them growing at a more
normal rate. He had already passed her sister Lillian in height and
she was three years older. Before long, he would be as tall as her
fourteen-year-old sister Mary-Beth!

In a worldly sense though,
it wasn’t a big feat, because both of her sisters were only four
foot six and four foot eight, respectively. Marianna herself was a
mere four foot ten and was already about the same size as her
mother. She knew her days of growth were long gone just as they
were for her older brother David, though he was the
giant
of the
family.

Standing at an impressive
five foot three, her brother was exactly half an inch taller than
her father. Although, her dad would say adamantly, he and his
eldest son were
exactly the same height,
by god!
She smiled at the thought; those
were his words to the letter.

Then she remembered she
was mad at him. Her smile vanished.

Ahead, one cloud became
what looked like a doghouse, another some sort of Japanese
kite.

Marianna had dark hair,
cut at the shoulder and layered back away from her face, parted
down the middle with natural highlights of a lighter shade of brown
interspersed. Her hair framed a pair of brown eyes, a broad face
typical of a Native American, though she was a half-breed. Her
mother was Caucasian.

This was circumstance that
had caused a dust-up of some magnitude back in the ancient days of
covered wagons when her father asked her mothers’ father for his
daughters’ hand in marriage. Her grandpa Henry must’ve been
somewhat opened-minded back then, because with only slight urging
from his daughter, he had relented and allowed the marriage to go
forth.

But that was eons
ago!

Though she was small,
Marianna wasn’t sick or harboring some debilitating disease - she
was just short. She had a figure, filling out nicely as the years
progressed. It was merely in miniature when compared to other girls
her age. Thus, her womanly features - which would look extremely
small on say her best friend, Agnes, who stood five and a half feet
tall - looked just right on her body. Because of this, Marianna
never let the extremeness of her petite form bother her. Over the
years, she rather liked it when people commented on how tiny she
looked; saying the overall smallness of her enhanced her beauty. In
time, she had become a novelty to others, of which she enjoyed as
well.

This growing celebrity,
though limited, did in fact bring many boys around. Both her age
and not, they wanted to take her out on a date or attempt a quick
kiss when she wasn’t expecting one. Most she had rebuffed. Some she
hadn’t. She didn’t mind making out with a cute guy now and again.
To her, it was how one passed time in their small town, since there
weren’t many things to do. She didn’t whore around or anything, not
by a long shot. Despite the fact she wasn’t holding out for
marriage or because of religious reasons. She just hadn’t met the
right person thus far. She knew, when she was brutally honest with
herself, if she was to meet the right
person, she might “give it up” - as Agnes liked to
say.

Besides, with the limited
amount of
cute
people in Holbrooke, she often figured she would meet
that
special
person later on in life. Maybe she would meet him when she
was in college, but never in the midst of her quaint hometown, and
never this soon.

This proved genuine until
a few months ago… when she’d met one such boy.

He was a different sort,
funny and open with his emotions, strong and masculine when he
needed to be, but more likely to crack a joke and laugh when things
got tense. He wasn’t like other boys she flirted with or “scammed”
with on some camping trip. He wasn’t the guy who sometimes lost
control himself, who sometimes grabbed at her like a piece of meat,
forcing her to pull away and staunch his overzealous ardor. She
disliked boys like that and seldom let them kiss her again, but
this was before she had met
this
boy. Before she found herself intrigued to the
point where she’d pursued him, eager to know more about him. For
the first time, she had come across something new, something
interesting and alluring at the same time. It was
him
she had come to
want.

And now, he was something
she’d been forced to leave behind, against her wishes, to her
bitter consternation.

He had been someone she
felt with time, she could’ve fallen in love with. Not the childish,
puppy-love she had experienced when she was younger and less
experienced like her bothersome sisters. This could’ve been
real
love, the slow
kind, the long kind, the type that grew on you over time until one
day you woke up knowing the realness of it, the rightness of it. It
was the sort leading to a longer relationship, one with a deeper
type of comfort. Coupled with time, this could’ve led her down the
road to the physical act she thought of often, but never in the
context of herself as a participant. The timing had never been
right. The feelings had never been there, the possibility of it
seemed remote.

Until now.

Well, now everything was
all screwed up now! Shit!

Her eyes followed a new
set of clouds flowing lazily toward the peaks before them. These
were darker, more forbidding, bringing with them the promise of
rain.

This freakin’
sucks!
She shook her head in disgust,
looking out the window to her left, unwittingly following her
brother David’s gaze. She was no longer content to peer at the
stupid conglomerations in the sky.

The boy’s name was
Ricardo. He was a Hispanic kid of medium height, who she’d watched
through the window at school, when he ran on the track below from
where she sat. She had done so many times, while she was in
English, bored out of her mind. She wasn’t sure when she’d taken to
looking at him, and only him, when the boys track team went through
their stretching routines, their warm-ups and finally began the
first of the days’ hard drills. They would do this every day before
the period ended, marking the end of her final period.

It took her about three
weeks to get the courage to go out and watch the rest of his
practice from the pitiful seven-tiered seats they had the audacity
to call the bleachers. About a week and a half after, he had come
up to her and asked her, through a sideways smirk from the corner
of his mouth, why she watched the team workout.

She told him, she hadn’t
come down to watch the team, which made him grimace in
confusion.

He’d asked her why would
she sit in the blazing Arizona heat and risk losing a million brain
cells.

She replied with the first
overly forward remark she’d ever made to a boy. She told him, she
was out there, in the heat, every day, watching him.

He had rewarded her by
turning bright crimson right before the directness of her gaze and
the confidence in her tone.

From then on, they had
been together every spare moment, walking home after his practices,
sitting on the small retaining wall, separating her front yard from
the sidewalk. They had talked and talked about every topic
imaginable, laughing and carrying on over one subject after
another, finding nonchalant ways to touch each other and move
closer. They talked about their dreams and their hopes for the
lives they were just beginning to plan. They spoke of college and
getting jobs, of getting their State I.D.’s and the Driver’s
Licenses that would soon follow. They spent long afternoons on that
retaining wall in front of her house, sometimes until the sun went
down, when Ricardo would be forced to jog home in the
dark.

Sometimes her mother would
ask him to dinner. Ricardo would call home to see if that was
“okay” with his parents. Other times, her father would ask him,
with fake kindness, if he needed a ride home, of which Ricardo
would accept, but only about half the time. To her, it was like he
was keeping a tally in his head.

This had gone on for
another two weeks. Until one late afternoon, the harsh Arizona sun
unrelenting upon the landscape, she had walked him to the corner of
her block.

He had grabbed a hold of
both of her hands, his eyes looking down on her with deep
affection.

She couldn’t resist. She
had tightened her grip on his hands, stood on her tiptoes, and
moved toward him.

He didn’t misinterpret her
thoughts or become awkward or ruin the moment in any way. He merely
bent down and kissed her for a long time. Not once, through the
entire four-second contact, did he become forceful or pry her lips
apart with an over eager tongue.

Instead, he tasted her
lips, savoring the moment with such tenderness. She felt her heart
skip two beats. When they pulled away, she could barely contain her
excitement. He had said goodbye, hugged her quickly, but fiercely,
and left.

Behind his retreating
form, she had jumped in the air and literally sprinted back to her
house.

She had come home to the
rest of family celebrating and jumping around as she had moments
ago. Her heart had abruptly filled with dread. Had they seen what
happened - her
kissing
a boy - and were making fun of her?

A moment later her thought
proved unfounded.

She approached her family
as they jumped around in a big circle, hugging and yelling. She was
able to discern something else was going on, but she couldn’t shake
the confusion she felt at seeing their uncanny out-pouring of
joy.

When her brother David
spied her from the corner of his vision, he broke free and hooted
and hollered. “We’re going to ‘
Tinsel
Town’
, Baby!”

What?!?
her mind raced.

“
We’re
going to
‘La-La Land’
, Ana!” her brother continued when she didn’t respond. “The
big city, Hollywood, the bright lights, the ocean, and don’t forget
all those sexy, fine California gurls!!! Oh my god, I’m gonna be in
heaven!!!”

She had stood there
dumbfounded, dazed as he went on, her ears unable to discern sound,
wondering how her world could go from being so right, to being so
fucking rotten in a matter of minutes.

“
Looks like a storm’s down
the road a piece,” announced her father from the front seat of the
Suburban, breaking Marianna’s train of thought.

“
Yeah, it sure does look
like it,” replied her mother. “Good thing your signing bonus
allowed us to ready the car for such an occurrence.” She watched
her tiny mother reach over to squeeze her father’s diminutive
shoulder.

She shuddered.
Ah jeez, please don’t start making
out.

Her eyes inadvertently
found the clouds again. Her father had been correct. They did
appear like storm clouds.
Well
, she considered,
except for the one in front of the
others.

It was closer to their
position as they continued to barrel down I-40. That one was shaped
funny too, like a head – a human head to be exact.

Great, now I’m seeing
decapitated skulls floating in the air.

She turned up her MP3
player as another Lady Gaga anthem to gays began to scream in her
ear.