(Another short story written for a snarky professor, except, minus the ending, I really liked this one.)
Short Story
Why Is my Name Serenity? (Working Title)
On the Wednesday morning of June 7th at the sticky, messy table of a pristine little house in a suburb of Virginia I, Serenity Gardner, learned what most other 11 year olds have already known for a million years: burnt eggs and toast taste disgusting. I didn’t know that before, because my nose has never worked. And because my nose does not work, I do not have a very refined sense of palate. This isn’t always a bad thing, because when you are the littlest girl in a house of 5 big brothers with J’s for names, you usually only get the burnt parts anyway. The problem is I had a surgery two days ago to fix my nose. Now I mind getting the burnt parts, because I realize they taste disgusting.
Unfortunately, there is nothing else left on the table. Except for a sticky jar of boysenberry jam with a paper airplane stuck to the side and a plate with melted, crumbed-up butter. The other paper airplane is soaking up a pile of cranberry juice on the far end of the table. Obviously Joshua and Jordan were having another war. I scrape my black toast with the crummy butter, watching the knife spread a thick layer of perfectly toasted golden crumbs from the butter dish and hoping they will make mine taste better. They don’t.
“Serenity, are you still eating breakfast? We need to go – they boys are late.” Mom is a thin woman with a thin mouth and a thin temper. Sometimes the mouth is smiling, but usually not at me. I usually get the up-side-down smiles that I have to pretend are smiles.
“I tried eating but the food is indigestible.” I was really not complaining, just stating my status.
Unfortunately, Mom didn’t seem to think so. I get another up-side-down smile.
“Perhaps you should try getting downstairs on time once in a while instead of playing in your room. Hurry into the car unless you would like to stay and do dishes.”
My mother called me Serenity because she said she wanted a calm, peaceful girl after all her boys. She didn’t do a very good job naming me, which I think disappoints her. I am not very calm or serene. I do try sometimes. I will try to sit very, very still in the patch of sunlight in front of my window, like Mom and her friends do every Wednesday and Friday morning at seven, legs crossed in color-coordinated sweat suits on colored yoga mats, copying a big black man on a yoga DVD. They all sweat and smile and look serene.
The man on the DVD has a deep, throaty voice that sounds like someone with a cold. He says to think about nothing. The problem is as soon as I try to think of nothing, everything starts wanting to be thought about. Then my nose will start itching. And as soon as I scratch it my back will start itching. The whole sitting still turns into one long itching and I give it up. I am not made to be serene, even though I am very sorry about that.
“Serenity! Hurry please. Your father has the other car and I need to get all your brothers dropped off.” My mother is a politician’s wife, so her voice never rises to a shout. But it will rise in pitch through different warning levels, and when it gets to a certain pitch, that’s like as bad as when my best friend Cassidy’s Mom starts yelling out full names at his house. Jeffery, who is a science nerd and who is very smart, drew a chart once in his notebook for the different levels of Mom’s voice. He said it would help us remember when to beware of Mom. I think her level now is about at a 4.5 on a scale of 6.
“Coming!” I look sadly at my toast and leave the table, my stomach still hungry.
Dropping off my brothers takes a long time. It’s Saturday in the summer time, so every one of them has somewhere else to be, and they’re all stressed out about not being there on time. Or rather, Mom is stressed for them.
We sit in the van in exact age order. Kind of like the Christmas cards Mom sends out every year. A perfect row of perfect boys, framed with Dad’s beaming grin and Mom’s thin smile. Names and ages thread the bottom corner of the card, weaving around a pair of reindeer: James (19), Jeffery (17), Joshua & Jordan (15), Jonathon (13), and Serenity (11). I’m in the corner, kind of not touching everyone else, with awkward teeth and limp hair that wouldn’t hold the curls Mom put in. The photographer thought that I would look more centered in the front, but Mom wanted it in order. Mom likes having things ordered, from her ordered abs to her ordered eyebrows; she spends a lot of time keeping order. My brothers say she is OCD, but I don’t know what that means and I don’t want to look stupid asking. I hope it’s not a disease or catching or, as Jonathon said something is called that goes from a parent to a child, hereditarian.
“James, please. Do not get hair gel on the dashboard.” Mom says in exasperation as her perfect nails dial the radio for a classical station. Jordan had switched all her presets to rap and alternative again.
“Yeah, you might want to do your eyebrows.” Josh advised, “It looks like a few hairs are unmolested.” Josh and Jordan snigger together and throw volleyballs at each other over the seat. Mom kind of sighs and presses her head, like she’s trying to hold it in one place.
James is pretty good at ignoring the twins, better than most people are. He just adjusts the passenger mirror to check the final effect before shoving his stuff back in his pocket. Again. He’s been doing that ever since he got a girlfriend. James is actually in college, but he doesn’t want to move out yet because he says it’s not convenient. Dad says it had better become convenient pretty soon because he doesn’t feel like paying for James and his endless supply of hair gel now that James is past being an adult.
Because we have so many kids, Mom needs a way to order us. Most of us know her speech by heart. “Well there’s James, he’s our international diplomat. He wants to go into politics.” Sometimes I don’t think James has a choice about being the next president, because if he doesn’t want it bad enough, Mom does.
“Then there is our biologist, Jeffery.” I read a newspaper article on Jeffery once about how he invented a cure for some fly disease. The paper neglected to mention that Jeffery caught and used about ten bajillion flies and left all the dead ones in neat stacks under my pillow, in my hamper, or in my toothbrush. Although, Jordan and Josh may have helped more than a little with that. These days Jeffrey mostly ignores me, but he isn’t mean to me, so I guess that’s okay.
“And then there are our sports stars, Josh and Jordan.” J squared, as they like to call themselves, specialize in being mean to me, kicking balls, and kissing girls. And they are good at all three. Jonathon likes books and doing what Josh and Jordan do. Except he’s not good at kicking balls or kissing girls.
“And there is Jonathon, our literary scholar.” I know Jonathon writes all kinds of smart stuff, but he says a lot of dumb stuff, so I don’t know how those work.
“And then there is Serenity, my angel.” That’s sort of a cop-out answer, since I don’t think I’m very angelic, but she doesn’t have any other category for me yet. She keeps trying.
In that Christmas card Mom got this awesome idea that each of us should hold something that showed our talent. James has a globe of the world. Jeffery has a microscope and a set of chemicals. Josh and Jordan wanted to hold swimsuit magazines, but Mom made them use soccer balls instead. Jonathon was easy too, a set of “classic literature” that made him look smart. (He even lied to the eye doctor to get glasses). The problem is, I don’t have a talent.
Mom tries. She says it’s important for us all to be proud of something. The year of the six (that is how Mr. Wallace says I should call them) she put me in dance, but the teacher said I looked like a duck. Year of the eight she started me in gardening and sewing, but my marigold was the only one to die (even though Josh didn’t even water his) and I kept getting blood on the stupid duck pillow.
Year of the nine I started violin, but Dad said his ears couldn’t take it and my fingers kept hurting. Last year we tried gymnastics, but Mom got tired of taking me to the ER (even though the casts were kind of cool), because my bones sort of break easy. Then it was baking classes, but Josh still talks about the cake I tried to cook double fast by turning the oven on 500. I don’t like being laughed at. The top was charcoal and hard, but batter oozed out of Jeffery’s spatula gash in the middle.
This year Mom tried art stuff. I still think my painting looked sort of like a tree, but Jordan insists it’s more like a monkey scratching fleas, and my bust of Dad makes him look pregnant. Therefore, I, Serenity Gardner, am still in search of a talent, and mom just tells people I’m her angel, since she doesn’t have anything else to say.
She finally had me hold a lotus, which she said was the Chinese flower of serenity, old and wise. Even the photographer thought it looked weird, though she didn’t say so. But11-year olds with crooky teeth and flat curls look weird with old, wise flowers. Oh well. Pictures don’t especially look like what people look like anyway. We all look happy to be together in the picture, but Jordan is pinching Josh and Dad threatened to take away Jonathon’s allowance if he didn’t smile.
“Mom? We’re supposed to turn left here. You’re going the wrong way.” Jeffery called out.
“No, I am dropping James off at class first. He will be late if I drop you off first.”
“But if I don’t get to the parking lot by 9 the service committee might leave without me.”
“You didn’t tell me that, I thought you were planting flowers there.” Mom’s frazzled face peeps from her mouth and eye corners before smoothing.
“Naw, we’re going to some jail or something.”
“Well, it looks like you’ll be a few minutes late. Is there anyone you can call?”
“No. I don’t have anyone’s number.”
“I wrote it down on the board at home.”
“Well I don’t exactly carry it around with me.”
“But that’s not fair,” Josh piped in, “Our game starts in 20 minutes. We won’t even get there on time if we’re dropped off third.” Mom’s scale is approaching 5.5.
“You told me your game starts at ten.”
“Well yeah,” Jordan said, “But warm-ups start at 9:15, and if we aren’t there for that we might not be allowed to play.” I leaned into the corner. I was still hungry.
It takes three hours to get everyone to where they are supposed to go. James ends up late to Economics and slams the door with his textbook, scowling, with his hair coming un-gelled (which he glared at me for pointing out).
Jonathon missed his chance to get a front row at the symposium, or something, I didn’t really know what he was talking about. Jeffery was sulking because he didn’t want to be at a service project planting flowers anyway.
After a panic to get Jordan and Josh to the game on time, which made Jonathan late, their soccer game was canceled, which the clipboard lady said they would have known if they had given Mom the pink schedule they brought home last week.
Mom is mad she missed her yoga class. But Jordan says that it doesn’t matter anyway because yoga is just dumb to start with, which was not a very wise thing to say, because that probably pushed her up to a 5.8. When the red minivan finally gets back, everyone is upset, except me, who am just very, very hungry.
I don’t think it’s very fair to me to be driving around all day and not even be going anywhere. I mention this, and it doesn’t go over very well. Mom turns and glares at all of us, and her thin temper gets thinner. “I am going upstairs and I am going to take a nap and if I hear one word or sound that wakes me up, so help me.”
Mom never says what the so help me is, and so far, no one has dared to ask. I think Jeffrey did once, but Dad was standing there and he quickly took Jeffrey out back to explain in a no uncertain man to man what “so help me” meant, and that’s been her last straw thing ever since.
***
“Hey Renny!” Josh’s basketball bounced into my too-pink and perfect bedroom before his long legs. “Want to come to Kroger’s with me?”
“What for?”
“Oh just because. I think Mom needs some detergent.” Which means he doesn’t want to tell me until we leave. Which probably means he is scouting for girls.
“Will you buy me ice cream too?” Mom was so mad that she didn’t make lunch when we got home, and we aren’t allowed in the kitchen outside of meals. My stomach is committing cannibalism.
The basketball bounced. “You aren’t allowed. And who said we’re going to get ice cream?”
“I’m not stupid.”
“Okay, fine, but not a word to Mom.”
Usually my older brothers don’t notice I exist, but each one has an exception. Josh and Jordan will take me as girl bait, because I am littler than most 11 year olds and they say that chicks dig the family man. Jordan told me he would pay me not to get any bigger or stronger, because more pathetic looking sisters get more girls over.
I am usually sick. Not always, but pretty often. Which I sort of hate, because the 58 ceiling tiles over my bed are really boring and Mom won’t let me paint them. I don’t even go to regular school. Ms. Dalena, my formerly favorite teacher who would wear red boots to school when it rained, told Mom that since I seemed to be home more than at school, perhaps it would be better for me to not go to school at all. Sometimes I wonder if she just didn’t like me.
That is why grumpy Mr. Wallace, with an uneven gray mustache that’s thicker on one side and whiter on the other, comes in on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to talk a lot and make sure I’ve done my homework. He’s supposed to be my tutor, but I don’t think he knows very much. I asked him once how come people on the equator didn’t get dizzy from it spinning faster than at the poles, and he just glared at me and said it wasn’t a relevant question. He says that a lot.
When I was in the bathroom and therefore invisible, I heard Mom explain to Mr. Wallace that I am delicate. But I am not sure what that means. I looked it up in the Miriam Webster that sits on Dad’s desk in the middle of bunches of his titles and degrees, which I see more than I see Dad, but it wasn’t very helpful because it can’t make up its mind. It says it can mean someone who is fastidious, someone who has fine discrimination, someone who is fragile, or someone who is marked by great precision. I know fragile means easily broken, but I don’t think dictionaries are actually very helpful at understanding things.
I asked Jonathon, since he is mostly a dictionary himself and might know better, but unfortunately Joshua and Jordan were listening, and Jonathon is always meaner when the twins are around, so he told me it either meant I was a spoiled twit or I was as easily separate-able as a hydrogen bond. And I didn’t know what that meant either, so it still wasn’t very helpful.
When we get to Kroger, Josh reminds me again that I am not allowed, which is partly because he cares and mostly so I will be grateful, and buys me an orange ice cream cone with mint sprinkles on it. Which he calls repulsive and which I call delicious. The high school kid with the white coat looks bored and pulls a dirty scoop out of the rocky road to use, which makes the orange look dirty.
Josh and Jordan get malts so they can lean back on the counter, texting each other so they look important, and sip and look hip, pressing their Tommy Hilfigers and white t-shirts into the counter. “Got to be hip to get hip,” they explained to Jonathon once.
A short blonde girl with leggings and a short skirt that hugs skinny hips comes in, laughing with her friend who is wearing sharpied jeans, logo necklaces, and All Star converse. Josh smiles at me affectionately and ruffles my hair.
I glare at him. “That is my head.”
“And that’s my money that just bought you ice cream.” A deal was a deal. I smile sweetly at him, and stuck a spoonful in my mouth. It makes my throat taste creamy.
The reason I never get ice cream is because it’s on the long list of “Serenity No Nos” Mom has pasted to the fridge. And I, Serenity Gardner, usually try to follow it, which is mostly easy because I only ever eat at home or if Mom is ordering food. But it’s a very, very long list. Mom always says I will go into apoplectic shock if I eat anything on it, but so far I have eaten a lot of things on it by accident, and on purpose, and I have not yet had any apoplectics. Jonathon told me this is just an OCD thing and she always has a list for the youngest child.
Josh glances at the girls. He does the flip hair thing and the eye contact thing, and the girls give him the once over thing, smile at me, and then walk to the gum section so they can not-watch the boys over the magazine rack.
Josh and Jordan tried to explain this to Jonathon, but I don’t think he ever got it: “Dude, it’s all about the body language man. It’s got to talk louder than your mouth.”
Body language is not something Jonathon understands very well. He mostly sticks to an awful lot of people and dictionary language. Languages, according to Mr. Wallace, are how two people communicate together. And if it doesn’t make sense, you don’t know the language. I guess we have a lot of language at home. Mom speaks French. James and Dad talk in politic. J squared talk in bodies. Jeffery talks in chemicals. I guess I just speak Serenity, but I don’t think other people speak it very much.
My throat is starting to feel very not creamy. The girls are taking a long time, so Jordan gets out a sharpie and starts doodling on his jeans. The girls start to wander back over. Josh affectionately leans over and whispers in my ear, “You’re a dork, you know that,” and smiles at his favorite little sister.
My neck is starting to get tighter, but I smile adorably at him. I know my job. Jordan sharpies on his jean again. It works.
The blond, skinny hipped one smiles at me. “How old is your little sister? She’s so cute.”
Josh leans back and smiles. “Ha ha, you know, she just wanted some ice cream.” Which wasn’t what she asked, but I don’t think she noticed, because she smiles and giggles like her nose is stuck.
“So, aren’t you famous or something?” Jordan asked the other one. All Stars shifted her feet and flipped her hair.
“Maybe, why?”
“Well, you have so many autographs, mind if I add one?” He gestures at her jeans. She laughs and he leans over to trace his name and number onto her leg, taking a long time.
“So, you got a name, or shall I call you sunshine?” Josh asks the blonde girl.
She gives stuffed giggle. “Bonnie, but you can call me sunshine, if you really want.” She pulls out her sparkly cellphone and starts flipping it open and closed. Josh says something again, something with “Ha ha,” and she giggles again. They sound really dumb.
My nose is itching together and my breath feels funny. My heart is bouncing too, up and down and back and forth. I tug on Jordan’s sleeve, but he is making a curly heart onto the girl’s jeans, and she is giggling, so he ignores me. I try Josh, but he leans backwards and stomps on my foot.
“Yeah, I live around here, somewhere.” Bonnie starts texting someone, but she’s doing it all fakey, like Josh does when he is trying to look busy.
Josh leans back, “So what, do I have to guess what fair kingdom doth send you here?”
Once Jeffery tried to make me swallow a cotton ball, and it got stuck in my throat. Mom was really mad at him, but he said he was trying to prove that girls have bigger mouths than guys do. It left fuzzy pieces in my throat for a long time. It sort of feels like that now. I try to say something but nothing is coming out. And my air is starting to not to past either.
I tug on Jordan again and All Stars looks at me. “Oh my gosh! Dude, your sister is like one big blister. Her skin is all bad. Is she breathing?”
My cone is in my lap, because my fingers stopped bending. Orange and brown are pouring down my hopping knee, which I can’t get to hold still, with mint pieces sticking to my leg.
“Oh crap.” Jordan moans and grabs the ice cream. “Josh, you didn’t get her anything with peanuts did you?”
“No – it was orange.”
“Then why is there brown in her cone? Renny, Renny, are you there? Crap, Jordan, do we have to call Mom? She’s really pissed right now and she’ll kill us.”
Of course I’m here. I haven’t left. But I can’t move anything, and my throat doesn’t have much room for air anymore, and it’s getting hard to see. And I really hope they don’t call Mom.
“Oh my gosh! We are watching her die! Do something!” Bonnie is screaming. Josh starts yelling.
I don’t remember the next few minutes very much. Bonnie screams a few times. And All Stars is poking my mouth open.
“Dude, get your sister to the hospital, she’s gonna die.” Am I? I sort of thought dying would be creamier than this. Aren’t you supposed to see white lights or something? All I hear is fuzzy, like Jonathon’s cotton balls were in my ears now.
***
I open my eyes and sneeze. It smells funny and the light is too bright, which doesn’t make sense. Then I see the machine over my head and sigh. A hospital. Again. Mom is sitting in a black folding chair next to me, rubbing her wrists raw against the rail on the bed. Her right hand cups her chin as she stares out the window, the other chips at the nail polish on her left fingers, flecks of pink falling on the blue sheet. I wonder how much trouble I am in.
When I sneeze, she turns and glares puffy eyes at me, like they look like in the spring time when she spends too long touching grass. Her voice is perfectly smooth and quiet, but all tense and packed of things that say I’m in trouble. “Why Serenity, why? You knew better. I have told you again and again not to eat things on your list. Why didn’t you listen?” Mom’s perfect face, which usually I only see even crease, has completely cracked. Her pupils are big and pointed and her breath is kind of coming in gasps.
I don’t know what to say and my tongue is sticking to my mouth, so I shrug. Her face gets looser, “Do you want some water?”
I nod and she hands me a paper cup of ice cubes. There isn’t much water in it, so I put one in my mouth. Which makes me realize that the inside of my cheeks taste gross, like rotten oranges. Outside the door in the hallway I can see Josh and Jared, seated on either side of a red haired girl in the hospital suit. Jared pushes a pretzel bag at her, and she takes one, laughing. I wonder where Bonnie and All Star went.
The tapping started again on my bed. Mom is staring out the window again. I count three minutes. She doesn’t say anything.
“Mom, I don’t think my name should be Serenity. Can I change it?” That will probably get me in trouble, and I wish I hadn’t said it.
Her fingers stop drumming. “Why?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not very good at it.”
She makes a funny sound, a choked one. I look up, wondering if I made her mad. She’s bent over shaking and making snorting sounds. Is she laughing? Mom doesn’t laugh, so I don’t know what that means.
I tap my toes to count the seconds. I count 48 of them before she looks up again. She’s smiling, a real one that crinkles her eyes. My face is sticky with sweat and I think puke, but she kisses each cheek with her minty breath and touches my hand.
“Serenity, your name is perfect. I don't have to tell you why.” I don’t know what that means, but she’s smiling at me with her whole face. I don’t remember her ever doing that before. I smile back. And just for a second, I feel like serenity.
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