Burden of the Soul

Burden of the Soul - By Kate Grace

1.

It was in the early hours of my sixteenth birthday that a thought rolled around in my head, keeping me awake until I was willing to accept it—that I, Clara Gaber, was completely average in every way.

Mediocre at best, I was a solid C+ student that could occasionally reach a B depending on the subject matter or the help I got from my parents or friends that week. Dull brown hair without any natural highlights and a mother who believed in emphasizing natural beauty rather than salon visits. Skin with two tones: pale and sunburned.

I rolled a lock of hair between two fingers until a single strand hung out beyond my fingertips. With my free hand I reached up and carefully pinched the hair, and used the other to grab and peel back the split end like a microscopic banana. Whether it was merely a habit or some personal grooming instinct didn’t matter to me. It was comforting, and better than chewing on my hair like some others who had already solidified their high school classification of “freak.”

Lying flat on my back while peeling away at the split ends, I first wrestled with the thought of my mediocrity, but then grew to enjoy it. I thought about the year before, after weeks of busting myself with homework and studying, I had somehow miraculously gotten an A for my end-of-semester project in English. It was during the fall semester and I had come into the school year determined to earn my spot in Hunter High School—to show all those brainiacs I belonged there just as much as they did even though they tested in and I was grandfathered in from Hunter Elementary.

I wanted to prove that I could do what they did so naturally.

So I committed myself. Sure, I missed out on time with my friends, every television show I liked, and basically dropped off the face of the earth for the better part of the season, but I earned that A. I did mental victory laps all through the holidays, and watched as my parents put my report card up on the fridge and, for the first time ever, I didn’t take it down immediately.

I left it up until the first day of the next semester. I had walked into English class and realized for the first time that teachers swap stories with one another. When Ms. Hutchinson called my name and I responded she looked up, nodded and said, “Ah, Miss Gaber. I’ll be expecting A’s from you every time, now that we know your capability.”

Screw that, I thought. I took the report card down immediately when I got home.

“Clara, what’s wrong?” My mom was sitting in the kitchen sketching something when I less-than-smoothly removed the card and sent magnets flying like shrapnel.

“Nothing, lets just forget this ever happened, okay?” I lifted the report card up, neatly folded it and then placed it in the trashcan.

“Okay,” she said as I walked out of the kitchen and back to my room without a single shred of intention to do homework.

For a few weeks my work in class came back with both grades and commentary. “You can do better than this,” “Disappointing,” “Put some effort in,” all written in red and circled near the top of the page. Then finally, they disappeared and only the red C or C+ remained. Sometimes even a B, but Ms. Hutchinson had already learned not to get her hopes up with me.

I lay in bed, peeling back as many split ends as I could find as the muffled sounds of Central Park West coming alive reached my 18 floor window. The yellow light was spreading across my bedroom floor when I realized there was nothing wrong with mediocrity. We can’t all be special or excellent or within the highest percentile. That would throw the whole high school intellectual caste system off. And who wants that?

I was average, and that was okay. That meant no one would expect much from me. And I could live with that.

The more I rolled the thought over my tongue, the better it tasted. My parents never pushed me too hard at academics, so they wouldn’t care. The only people who pushed me were myself, teachers unfamiliar with my work, and my friend Alli. She had her mind made up that we were going to go on to be college roommates and lifelong friends. The chink in that chain of thought was the fact I was never going to get into the type of college she intended to apply to. So she pushed. She would call it “supporting” or “encouraging”, but those with the best intentions tend to put that sort of spin on it.

A string of hair came loose and fell from my fingers straight into my eye, making me jerk up into a sitting position. I lifted my eyelid while wiping a finger on the opposite leg to clean it off before sliding it across the swampy surface of my eyeball. I got the hair and a strand of eye goober.

“That’s hot,” I said, shaking my head a bit.

Speaking of which: My focus wandered to my opened laptop across the room. I stumbled over and tapped it to wake up. I thought of a better way to start the first day of my sixteenth year. Dave Shaw… who was not at all mediocre.

I tapped in the first few letters of the URL and my Internet browser did the rest from memory. I went straight to Dave’s Facebook page, which had changed a bit since last night.

His new profile pic was blurry and cast with deep shadows and highlights emphasizing the sharp turn of his angular jaw and the deep creases his cheeks formed when smiling—a rebellion against dimples.

At the top of the page was a new comment left in the middle of the night. “Hey, Hotness! What are you up to this weekend? –Trisch”

Trischa Fitzgerald always signed her posts even though it was completely redundant. But that’s what Trischa was, redundancy manifested in the form of a blonde and bronzed beauty somehow excused from the pit falls of puberty. She was beautiful. She was worshipped. She probably didn’t have split ends. And she was endlessly coming onto Dave.

I hated her.

Just below her comment was a new link to Dave’s blog, which I also frequently e-stalked.

A new video clip was posted, along with a moment-by-moment recap of the Mumford and Sons concert from the night before. Dave and his best friend Cole somehow got into these shows despite the fact they were both underage and the shows usually fell on school nights. They were passionate about music and documented their finds and evolving tastes on Dave’s blog.

The post started with a video clip undoubtedly recorded with Dave’s phone. The video bounced with the jolts of a nearby crowd and rhythmic kicks of a bass drum. I sunk into it, imagining what it would be like if I had been there with him, being consumed by the music. I imagined his body heat and how closely the crowd would pack us together. It was a fantasy I allowed myself to roam freely through on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.

But that’s why I spent so much time on his page or blog, and downloaded the music he seemed passionate about—to help populate the fantasy since in reality someone as average as myself could never make the social climb up Hunter’s hierarchy to reach Dave, let alone experience him in person. Even if I did get close to him, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I always buckled under pressure. My throat would clamp down on my breath whenever I felt put on the spot. My muscles would lock and I would suddenly feel woozy.

It was undoubtedly a built-in, protective measure my body took to prevent me from ever rising to the occasion or coming to anyone’s rescue, including my own. In the context of High School, it kept me invisible for the most part.

Invisibility was a gift though, in my opinion. Others wanted the limelight or to be within the revered inner circle of popularity. They would trip over each other to get there, day in and day out. But the thought of having everyone’s eyes on you every time you walked down the hall, noting what you were wearing, who you were walking with and either trying to mimic it or tear it down… that all scared the crap out of me.

For every moment one girl in our class sat at the peak of popularity, there were at least three girls plotting how to make her fall from it and take her place. The thought of ever actually making it to the peak and having so much attention on me behind my back seemed way too creepy. The thought made me cringe.

Granted, that was the only way to Dave, who rested at the peak naturally since really it was the girls—their jealousy and desire—that ran the popularity machine. Elevate a guy enough and suddenly he’s unattainable for the rest of your friends. It’s a “If I can’t have him, you can’t have him either,” mentality. Little did Dave know he had the Sophomore class girls (and some Juniors) to thank for his single status, which was fine by me.

A muffled whispering and laughter floated under my door from the hall as I heard the knob turn and the door creep open.

“Wake up, Caterpillar… Oh.” My mom’s head came in from the opened door looking for me. “Clara, how long have you been awake?”

Without looking, I closed the tab to hide Dave’s blog.

“Awhile… Algebra… I, uh… hadn’t finished it and…” I didn’t even need to complete the lie since Mom’s focus drifted quickly.

“Clara, your room is disgusting. How you can live like this is beyond me.”

Light from the hallway spilled into my room as she opened the door all the way. She scooped down and picked up a few scattered items of clothing off the floor, clean or dirty was anybody’s guess. I had a tendency of leaving a trail in my wake wherever I went.

“I’m almost too embarrassed to let your…”

“Hey, Sweet Pea!”

“…aunt see your room in this state.”

I jumped up from my desk at the sight of Aunt Grace’s head popping out from behind the doorway. She had lived with us for over a year when I was younger, so I grew up thinking of her more as a sister than an aunt. But now she was constantly traveling and although she never called to confirm a visit, it had become a pattern that she would, at some point, materialize around my birthday.

Her smile stretched her curved lips in a big grin, and her arms opened wide for me. Whenever we hugged, she would squeeze just a bit tighter than most and pick me up slightly. It always reminded me of when she would lift me up into the air by my underarms as a kid before pulling me into a hug.

“But something tells me if she had a room of her own, it would look similar to this,” Mom said, still wandering around the room picking up stray clothing, giving them a quick sniff to decide whether they were going on top of the dresser for folding or straight in the hamper.

I let go of Aunt Grace and pulled back, looking at her new, cropped hairstyle. “This seems a little tame for you.”

She grinned as she pulled her hand through her straightened, chestnut hair, which fell right back into place.

“Yeah, well… sometimes it’s better to blend into the background a bit more,” she said, tussling my long brown, ratted hair.

Mom flipped on a few lamps around the room and then I caught it, a glint off the side of Aunt Grace’s face as the light bounced and swam back into the room.

“What’s this?” My tone was teasing as I flicked the side of her nose. “Dad’s gonna be pissed.”

“And that’s exactly what I thought when the guy was piercing me… anything to piss Chris off.”

“It goes well with your tattoo, though.” I poked my finger at the barcode tattoo she had on the inside of her left arm.

“Yeah, well… your Dad can’t really judge that since your Mom has one too.”

It was true. Both Aunt Grace and Mom had similar barcode tattoos on the inside of their left arms, seemingly uncharacteristic for my mom, but totally appropriate for Aunt Grace. When I asked Mom about it as a kid she just laughed and said they were both young when they decided to get them.

Her arm was around my back as we both turned to Mom and gauged her reaction. She was smiling, but wearing her best version of the stern-mother look.

“Don’t you dare get any ideas, Clara,” she said.

“In two more years you guys won’t have any say,” I said.

“That’s exactly what your father is worried about.”

“Don’t worry, Claire… it’s all just a tease until then,” said Aunt Grace, letting her arm fall from behind my back as she walked into the room.

Mom and I shared a name, sort of. She had been named after her mom, and I after her. Both her parents and Dad’s parents had died before I was born making the idea of “extended family” completely foreign to me, but there was a certain pride I took in carrying on the name. As if that small connection brought me closer to the larger family I was meant to have.

“Clara, this is gross.” Mom’s tone had changed dramatically from playful to disgusted. She leaned down hidden from view by my bed, the week’s worn and rejected outfits still dangling in a ball under her arm. She floated back up holding the cold, half-eaten piece of pizza for me to see.

“I was up late doing homework and got hungry.” It was all I could manage, feeling a bit embarrassed not only by the piece of pizza but also by the pair of underwear I caught a glimpse of under her arm.

“Come on, Claire,” said Aunt Grace. “She was doing homework.” She winked at me, then swaggered to my desk taking a seat in front of my laptop.

“Clara, we have people coming over later.” Mom’s voice took on a pleading tone, worried about what people would see when they came by later for the dinner party she planned. Just a couple of my friends from school and their parents were coming. Nothing big, but Mom still liked to put her best foot forward, and far too often I wasn’t that foot.

“I was going to clean up after school. Seriously, Mom, I was just doing homework and stuff late last night and I got hungry.”

“You will clean this up when you get home today. I’m not doing it for you.” But even as she said it, she launched the wad of clothes under her arm into my open closet.

“Well hello, homework!”

My head snapped in Aunt Grace’s direction. She was staring at my laptop, and the Internet browser I had left open.

She leaned back a bit to give my mom a clear line of sight to Dave’s page with a smirk. Mom seemed to laugh a bit and shook her head before going back to cleaning my room. Aunt Grace sat up straight and crossed her legs taking on a serious demeanor.

“Clara,” she said with an over-emphasized nod. “I approve.”

I rolled my eyes and blushed at the thought of how long it would take this revelation to die around the dinner table. That was the downside to having an aunt who seemed more like a big sister—she behaved like a big sister.

“Alright, Grace,” said Mom, coming to my rescue. “Let it go.”

“No really… he looks smart,” she said, her tone becoming increasingly more teasing. I walked over and reached across her to close the laptop.

“Is he a good kisser?” she asked with a whisper.

“Gracie…” Mom was behind me then, still holding the paper plate and pizza remains in her hand. “…I think that’s our cue to leave.”

“Claire, that didn’t look like your run-of-the-mill Hunter High School book nerd. That there was some bona fide Lower East Side bad boy.” Aunt Grace’s eyes glowed with victory as she said it.

“There’s no need to sell it, Gracie. She already likes him apparently.”

“I don’t like him,” I said, pulling at straws to play it cool at that point.

There was a silence as Grace turned to Mom and then back to me.

“Oh, okay. Then you wouldn’t mind if I …”

She opened the laptop again, closed the browser, reopened it and typed in “W”. My browser history revealed my secret. She clicked on the first link, which took her right back to Dave’s page. With a grin and an overly dramatic swivel, she turned back to me.

“Sure you don’t.” She got up, soaking in her small victory and made her way to the door. “And if you need me to take care of that Trischa girl, I’m all over it.”

Her voice muffled as Mom got to her and playfully shoved her the rest of the way into the hall. She turned back to face me pulling the door closed with her free hand.

“Get dressed, babe. We’ve got pancakes in five,” Mom said. I could hear my Dad’s irritated voice from somewhere in the apartment.

“Claire, where are my glasses?”

She turned to look down the hall and I saw it—that look. It only appeared on her face when she spotted him—a warming of her eyes and cheeks. She took a deep breath in and exhaled before turning back to me, the matter at hand.

“Don’t make too big of a mess getting ready, though I doubt it would make much difference. You will pick all of this up when you get home today.”

“Right, I know.”

“And, Clara?”

“Yeah?”

“Happy Birthday, Caterpillar.”

The nickname had gotten its roots when I was younger and Mom would read me a copy of Alice in Wonderland all the time.

For years Mom would crawl into my bed and read to me. I remember the first time she came in with the copy of Alice in Wonderland. It looked so different from all the other books. It had a hard cover wrapped in red linen fraying at the edges. The title was an aged gold, with bald spots sprinkled throughout the lettering where the sparkle had rubbed off completely.

The pages were thin and delicate, and smelled of moss and rain. The book rested in her open palms, tucked under her thumbs as she carried it. It was the most beautiful book I had ever seen. It sat in my Mom’s lap like a third person in my bedroom, and as she opened it I could see the illustrations. Small drawings that looked as if someone had taken a very sharp pencil to the pages in that very book and laid out the girl’s story.

She read it to me at least a few times a year, but never placed it back on my bedroom shelves like she had with the others. Each night when she left my room after tucking me in, the book would go with her, cupped in her right arm like a baby.

At some point during the readings she began calling me her Caterpillar, and the name stuck.

The blast of my alarm shook me out of the memory and I lulled across the room to shut it off before fumbling around a bit to find an outfit that passed my smell test. Then I headed to the bathroom to take care of my morning breath. I pulled my hair back in a ponytail and, as usual, leaned in close to the mirror to inspect the freckle-to-blackhead ratio across the bridge of my nose. It appeared to be not so bad. Not so great, but not so bad.

Moving back a step or two from the mirror I looked at myself, the whole of myself, for the first time under my new philosophy on mediocrity. My lips were a little plump like Aunt Grace’s, my cheekbones higher and more defined like Mom’s, and my eyes, with all their golden specs in hazel pools screamed of my Dad.

One strand of hair slipped out of the ponytail and whisped down as I let out a sigh. I checked it for split ends out of habit.

“Good enough,” I said to myself in the mirror. And I meant it, which brought a smile to my face. This was me, and I was happy with it.

Outside the bathroom door I could hear Dad still shuffling around while Mom and Aunt Grace’s voices carried from the kitchen.

“…he’s only doing what he thinks is best, Grace…”

“…I was over there for months and couldn’t find anything that would help…”

“…you should cut him a little more slack…”

“…and he acts like that’s my fault. Slack? Claire, you must be kidding…”

“… again he’s only doing what he believes to be best, Gracie…”

“… his best is a buck short and a day late last I checked…”

I went back into my room to gather up the books and folders I needed for the day and headed down the hallway, walking slowly to try and pick up a clue from their conversation.

“…I don’t need body guards, Claire…”

“…you can’t blame him for taking that precaution…”

“…who else is there to blame? I can handle myself…”

“…but can he handle himself when you’re away?”

“…Claire, he’s the one who gave me the assignment…”

“…shush…”

I had crossed the foyer down the single step into the living room, which gave me away. I quickened my steps and crossed the living room through the archway into the kitchen, welcomed by the scent of pancakes and brewing coffee.

“Well hey there, ninja,” said Aunt Grace, turning on her swivel stool to face me. Mom was across the granite island mixing pancake batter.

I let my backpack slip down my arm to the floor and hopped up on the stool next to Aunt Grace watching Mom pour pancake batter over the stovetop griddle.

With Mom’s hands occupied, Aunt Grace reached across the countertop and dipped a finger into the mixing bowl and brought up a droplet of batter, tucking it into her mouth before Mom’s hand shot up to slap it.

“Gracie, stop that.”

“I’m just doing my job as Clara’s personal quality control manager, and Ms. Clara will need you to go ahead and add chocolate chips,” said Aunt Grace.

“Oh, well pardon me, Madame Quality Manger,” said Mom as she headed over to the pantry and grabbed a bag of chocolate chips. “Clara, I’m going to pick you up from school today.”

“Aren’t I a bit old for that now, Mom?”

“I want to take you somewhere special.”

“Where?

I leaned across the counter with my finger extended toward the bowl. Mom pushed it out so I could reach. At this, Aunt Grace’s arm shot up with an open palm gesturing to my batter-dipped finger.

“What’s this, Claire?”

“Oh shut up, Gracie.”

I made it sound like I was enjoying that little bit of batter more than any person in the world has ever enjoyed a little bit of batter just to taunt her. Grace made it easier to be an only child.

“Mom, where are we going after school?”

She flipped three pancakes off the griddle onto a plate and poured three fresh, wet circles of batter out, then turned to pull a traveling coffee mug from the cabinet and filled it to the brim with coffee. It was then that my mind registered Dad’s footsteps coming down the hall from their bedroom and bouncing down the foyer landing into the living room.

His face was all smiles when he strolled into the kitchen, his leather messenger bag already swung over his shoulder. He walked right to me and gave me a kiss on the forehead and then went around the counter to Mom, taking her in both of his arms.

“I see you found your glasses,” she said with a smile between small kisses he planted on her. For a moment they looked deeply in each other’s eyes. They were so in love.

From the corner of my eye I saw Grace stiffen in the shoulders and turn away from the display of affection.

Dad pulled away from Mom and squared his shoulders in my direction.

“Claire, I think I’ve forgotten something important. I feel like there was something about today that was important to remember but I just… can’t… seem… to…” Squinting his eyes, he went on with his performance trying to make me believe he forgot my birthday.

“Did you have a deadline?” Mom pulled tighter at his embrace before slipping away to grab his coffee mug.

Dad worked in advertising, and was late for work by my estimation. The fact that he was always on one deadline or another made us all grunt a bit at Mom’s question.

“It was something else,” he said, drawing out each word. “I wonder what it was.”

“It’s your only daughter’s birthday. Way to go, World’s Best Dad,” said Aunt Grace, grabbing her own cup of coffee and taking a swig.

“Grace, always nice to see you,” he said with a nod.

“Clara, for future reference. It’s not like that.” Aunt Grace nodded her head in Dad and Mom’s direction when she said it.

“What’s not like what?” I asked.

“Love. Take those two with a grain of salt. It’s pretty much never like that.”

“It can be,” Mom said swiftly and sternly.

It was uncomfortably quiet as the two stared at each other until I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Uh, okay. Grain of salt… check.”

Dad came to life when I said it and broke up the moment by grabbing his mug from Mom and readjusting the bag on his shoulder.

“Right, well… I’m off,” he said, planting one last kiss on her lips. He made his way around the counter to give me a hug.

“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he said, leaving me with a kiss on the forehead.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“And, Grace… I presume I’ll be seeing you later.”

“Yup.” She didn’t look him in the eye.

“Right. I’ll see you guys later,” he said as he took off under the archway toward the foyer.

“No staying late tonight. We have guests for dinner,” Mom called after him.

“Right, right,” he said. The click of the front door and the pads of a slight jog down the hallway to the elevator let us know he was gone.

Mom turned back to the pancakes and flipped the golden circles onto the stack that sat waiting.

“Mom, answer my question.”

“What question?”

“Why are you picking me up from school? I thought we were past the whole parental escort service thing.”

Her eyes flipped to the clock above the microwave. “Clara, you better start eating. You don’t want to leave Alli waiting for you.”

Alli, or Allison, lived a few blocks south of us and would meet me every school day at the corner of 97 and Central Park West to walk to school together, and then back home at the end of the day.

My eyes flipped to the clock and then to Mom. Her bracelet glimmered as she flipped a few pancakes onto a plate and placed them in front of me.

She always wore it, no matter if she was wearing her running pants and a t-shirt at home or in one of her fancy dresses when going out. It was a long thin chain that she wrapped around her wrist as many times as she could. It was long enough to be a necklace, probably. A single charm hung on the white gold chain—a beautiful skeleton key that shot out a sparkle when it caught the light.

Mom said I used to play with it when I was a baby. I would grab onto it with my little hands each time she fed me a bottle or turn it in my fingers as I lay with her before bed.

“Mom,” I said with a little impatience to catch her scattered attention. “What’s going on after school? Where are we going?”

Her eyes didn’t meet mine, but I saw her shoulders rise as she took a big breath in and held it.

“Grace and I are going to take you to Central Park for a bit of an adventure,” she said while still busying herself with the tasks in front of her.

Grace sat up a bit and looked stunned, setting her coffee mug down in front of her and then crossing her arms over the countertop.

“We are?” All joking or sarcasm was gone.

“Yes, we are,” she said looking Grace straight in the eye. “There’s something we need to show her.”

Mom turned off the stove and I heard the key around her wrist clink up against the oven handle and the click of her hand turning the dials off. I took a bite of the stack in front of me and immediately realized how hungry I was.

“Isn’t it still a bit too soon for that, Claire?”

Aunt Grace followed Mom with her eyes as she grabbed two plates with the forks on top and walked around the counter. Aunt Grace slid off of her stool right in front of Mom and lifted her hands up to take the plates from her.

Both of them held on for a moment just looking at each other.

“Claire, he’s not going to like this,” said Aunt Grace. “He doesn’t like surprises.”

“He’s only doing what he thinks is best,” she said, her eyes dropping to the space between them. “And that’s all I can do… what I think is best.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Who’s ‘he’?” I swallowed the mouthful of pancake after I asked my question. “Who are you guys talking about?”

Aunt Grace let go of the plates and crossed her arms over her chest, looking at Mom with raised eyebrows and a tilt to her head.

Mom ignored the gesture, but turned over her shoulder without looking me in the eye and said, “Just eat your breakfast, Clara.