Skin Deep [UPDATED 7/19]
ZanarkandFayth:
Chapter One [part one]
"Well, that was fun," I mumbled, slumping in the cheap white party chair. Dad and I looked around the empty yard. Balloons, and uneaten wedding cake, an unused wedding arch, unfilled chairs, and a yet again unmarried man sitting across from me, looking as defeated as he ever had.
It had happened before, we both knew it had. This was the fifth woman to leave Dad standing alone at the altar while I stood, knowing it would happen, beside the arch with a plastered on smile.
Dad and I stood together, knowing there wasn't anything else to be said. He hugged me tightly, kissing me in that fatherly way. "I'm sorry, Lucy," he said quietly, letting me go.
I shrugged. "It's not your fault skanks and gold diggers are attracted to you like 80's hookers to chunky jewelry," I mumbled and shrugged again. What could he do about it? Dad was so quick to try to get me a new mom he never really got to know the girls he wanted to marry, besides that they were apparently nice, nice ladies.
He'd gotten engaged seven times, but five girls actually let him get to the altar, after he paid for everything. About a week after they split, we'd find their wedding dress and engagement ring in a pawn shop somewhere selling for way more than it was actually worth. I didn't know pawn shops even took wedding dresses, but I guess if you could get money for it, they'd take it.
"How are the tomatoes doing, hun?" Dad asked once he noticed I'd stopped.
"Okay, as long I take care of them, I guess," I sighe, wiping my hands off on my dress. I'd worn it five times, and by then I really didn't mind if it got dirty or not. Dad laughed suddenly. "What?"
"You look like your mom doing that," he said, but I knew he was lying. I'd never looked like my mom, besides somehow getting gray eyes like hers. But Dad said she'd been some awesome gardener. She could grow anything, he said. Dad said Mom could probably have grown oranges in Alaska if she'd wanted to.
I walked on past him, but Dad lingered for a second, looking at my little garden sadly. Mom's garden was left behind at our old house. After the third woman left him, we didn't have the money to keep up our larger house, so we moved to a little rinky dink place. I knew it had killed Dad to leave behind Mom's garden.
He finally came along behind me into the house.
"You want anything to eat, Lucy?" he asked, rummaging through our little fridge. I grabbed a package of cookies off the counter and plopped down in front of our TV that short circuited every time something good came on.
"Nah, I'm good," I said through the mush of chocolate and dough in my mouth. Dad laughed again, taking out a TV dinner for himself.
"You're going to get fat, Louie," he said, using his favorite nickname for me. Dad said that if he and Mom had had a boy, they would name him Louie, but I turned out to be minus a Y chromosome, so I was dubbed Lucy, a.k.a. Louie.
"Hey, old man, this is called comfort food," I said casting him a fake evil glare and laughed myself. "Being a distressed woman, I have to eat."
"You're still a little girl. Women have to be able to fill at least a B cup," dad said, with his sick humor. For a dad, he had an awful, awful sense of humor when it came to girls. No wonder I was weird.
Standing from my seat on the couch, I hugged Dad hard. "I'm going to crash," I said, pulling away hesitantly. On the way to my room, I knew Dad was watching me. He'd been scared for me for years, always thinking I was emotionally unstable. He was sure that I was somehow affected by Mom dying when I was really little. I barely remembered her, but I guess that, in some way, it did bother me, never having that female influence.
Dad had gone into my room once before to find me drawing all over the walls in pen. He didn't say anything besides, "Are you okay, Lucy?" I was, really. I just wanted to draw on the walls, but still Dad was sure I was disturbed by my subconscious or something like that. He liked acting like he was some kind of world renowned psychiatrist.
But thinking on it now, at all the things I did, I do wonder if maybe my mom dying bothered me. I would silently cheer if my friends parents were split up, or I'd feel more welcome in a home with only a dad. I never liked it when dad would bring home girlfriends or the such, and so I usually didn't have much confidence in his relationships.
I had never wanted it to be anything more than me and dad.
Medagic:
This is a really good story so far! Well written.
I'll be reading! ;)
Astral Faery:
Nice start. Interesting storyline and smooth writing. I like it. :)
SimKween:
Ooh! Can't wait for more!
ZanarkandFayth:
Chapter One [part two]
It was months later before anything happened. The weather had changed for the better for me, but my tomatoes were stiffs by the time the first frost came on. Dad and I were disappointed, even though we'd been able to get a pretty good catch at the farmer's market for them.
But now, everything was back to normal. Winter had come, and with that, the good tidings of Christmas soon-to-be was in the air. I'd only had another week and a half of school before being let out for "holiday break".
"Bye, Louie," Dad said tiredly. He'd finally gotten a job as a security guard in an office, and though we'd finally been able to bring in money somewhat, he always dragged himself in around two in the morning, but was always sure to make himself get up long enough to tell me bye in the morning.
"You be safe," he said, ushering me out the door to the idle hum of the bus engine. "Remember, no--"
"--kissing boys, no looking at boys, and no--" I stopped in the doorway, did a small jitter-bug, and sang, "smokin' in the boy's room." Dad rolled his eyes and ruffled my hair, smacked my butt, and pushed me out of the doorway.
Like always, he watched me get on the bus. But somehow, this felt different, as if there was something he'd wanted to tell me, but couldn't quite get it out, or didn't want to. I hoped it wasn't about a girl. He had been seeing a lady, but broke it off supposedly. I was just waiting for the day that I'd come home and see that black and pink lacey dress hanging on my door while my dad looked at me apologetically.
That day, dreading seeing the dress, I came in slowly, and to my surprise there was nothing hanging on my door. The only thing that was different in the house was the silence. Everything was dead quiet. Usually, on Dad's days off, he'd be sleeping on the couch with the TV blaring and the oldies blasting out of our poor stereo.
But that day, Dad had everything shut off and he sat stiffly on the sofa, staring at the floor. "Daddy?" I said quietly, afraid to break the silence too quickly.
"Lucy...listen to me, okay?" he said, catching me on the way to the sofa. All I could do was back up against the wall and stare, thinking of the worst. It was all I could do in that moment, but I had never thought he'd say what he did. "Lucy... Louie...we...have to move out. We don't have the money--"
"But your job," I whispered, so afraid of the silence and the seriousness in his voice.
"It isn't enough...not right now, and not for a while," he explained, keeping his distance from me. It wouldn't have mattered if he was or not. I felt too numb to even think about getting mad at him. I thought everything had been fine, just the two of us, me with my somewhat part time job, Dad with his swanky new one. But I guess it hadn't been enough after all.
"What do we do now?" I asked, dropping my gaze to my feet. There was nothing else to say.
"We're moving in with a couple of old friends of mine for a while," he said, his face brightening. "Well, Dimitri is an old friend of mine, but his wife is a sweetheart. You'll love her." I didn't say anything. Dad had never said anything about an old friend named Dimitri, of course Dad never talled much about old friends.
Dad pursed his lips, but the light in his face didn't fade. "Dimitri said you could work around the house, and he said he'd pay you if you did," he went on, but I wasn't sure about taking money from some married man for working around his house. Somehow it made me feel dirty.
Without a word, I walked away into my room, feeling Dad watch me again while I walked. There was nothing left to say or do but take one last look around the house.
I did nothing for hours but sit with the three suitcases that had everything I needed. My drawings had been painted over, and all my bookcases and my mirror were taken away. Sitting there, thinking and not really thinking, the only clear thought in my mind was...
"How does my whole life come down to three suitcases?"
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