42
1973
Greta Claude
“What’s that?” Peter’s voice froze Greta as she sat at the little scratched kitchen table that wobbled every time she moved.
“A project for school,” Greta lied, shoving the notebook beneath her chemistry textbook.
She’d started in the public school the month before, and she hated it. The kids looked at her strangely, and she was behind in nearly all the courses. She stayed after most days for additional help, committed to reaching her age group before the semester break. She had to get her high school diploma as fast as possible. She had to escape from the trailer.
Peter tugged on a strand of her pale hair. It was long, nearly to her butt. Her father didn’t permit either of his daughters to cut their hair. They were girls, and they’d look like girls, he’d snapped when Maribelle once insisted she wanted to cut her hair in the same style as the sisters from The Parent Trap.
Greta had also liked the actresses' hair, short and blond. Hair that wouldn’t be tipped in blood if you spent the morning scrubbing the basement floor. Hair that didn’t have to be brushed ten times a day and braided or secured in some bun to keep it from tangling in the night.
Now, as Peter touched her hair, Greta rose, sending her chair crashing to the floor.
His face contorted and he started to raise his hand, but Dolly’s pickup truck spluttered at the end of the street. She’d pull in and catch him. Greta doubted her Aunt Dolly would leave her husband for beating and assaulting Greta, but she wasn’t a woman to mess with. She’d probably smack him with a frying pan and force him to sleep beneath the porch for a week. She held all the power, and Peter knew it.
He pulled his lips away from his yellowed teeth and lowered his hand.
“You’ll get yours,” he hissed before stomping towards the back of the trailer and slamming the door to the master bedroom.
Greta shoved her books and notebook into her bag and wrenched open a kitchen drawer. She pulled out the silver-handled shears and stuffed them into her bag.
When she burst onto the porch, Dolly was just climbing out of her truck. She held a small brown sack in her hands. Cigarettes, probably, and a loaf of bread to make bologna sandwiches. The meal they ate five out of seven nights every week.
Dolly narrowed her eyes at Greta before she brushed past her toward the door. She didn’t ask how Greta’s day had been or where she was going. The screen door swung shut without a word from her.
Greta walked the cracked road out of the trailer park and turned onto Highway 41. It was the major thoroughfare into Marquette.
Cars passed. A pickup truck filled with guys honked. One of the men, scraggly and unshaved, leaned out the passenger window and whistled.
Greta ignored them, her legs propelled by the rage bubbling in her abdomen.
She wanted to hurt someone.
Peter.
She wanted to hurt Peter. Lift the scissors and stab him over and over until he was unrecognizable, until he was a heap of blood-soaked meat.
An orange Ford Pinto pulled onto the shoulder of the road before her.
Greta stopped and watched the driver’s door open.
A young guy hopped out. His sandy hair brushed his shoulders, and he wore ripped jeans and a blue Aerosmith t-shirt.
“Greta? Hey.” He lifted a hand, his big smile faltering when she didn’t return the greeting. “Do you need a ride or something? I’m just heading into town.”
Greta studied him for several more seconds. Her anger had caused her vision to blur and go black at the edges. She struggled to place him.
His name slowly drifted up from the red coiling mass in her head.
Matt Kelly from Mrs. Lincoln’s Art Class. Matt was the star of the class. He drew elaborate pictures of comic book figures, but he excelled in all of their subjects.
The week before, Mrs. Lincoln had asked her students to paint watercolor flowers. Most of the class had produced prints that looked like colorful blobs. Matt had painted a tree filled with different flowers: roses, daisies, and orchids. It looked like something in a gallery.
“Yeah, sure,” she said, staring at the ground as she walked to his car.
Matt ran around the car and pulled open the passenger door. He grabbed a stack of textbooks from the seat and shoved them in the back.
Greta slid into the car, balancing her bag on her knees.
Matt climbed behind the wheel, brushing a hand through his wavy hair. He smiled at her, and she saw a dimple near his mouth. His eyes were big and brown. They reminded Greta of an orderly from the asylum that many of the patients affectionately called Colantha after the asylum’s prize-winning heifer, who’d been buried on the grounds in 1932. It was partially the orderly’s size that earned him the nickname, but mostly it was his soft brown eyes — cow eyes.
“Is this your car?” Greta asked.
Matt shook his head. “I wish. I just turned sixteen last spring. I’m saving up for a car but I’ve got a ways to go. This is my mom’s car, but she lets me drive it if I run errands when I’m out.”
Greta gazed through the windshield, watching the oncoming cars approach and then whiz by.
“So, umm… how are you liking Marquette?” he asked.
Greta didn’t look at him but tightened her hold on her bag, thinking again of the scissors tucked inside.
“It’s fine.”
“Fine? Really?” He chuckled. “It’s like the most isolated town on the planet. Most of the kids here are dying to get out.”
“Are you?” she asked, turning to look at him. “Dying to get out?”
He blushed and shrugged. “Kind of. I want to go to Michigan State when I graduate. Ever been there?”
Greta shook her head.
She’d barely left Traverse City, barely left the grounds of the Northern Michigan Asylum before that long desolate drive to Marquette.
“My dad teaches at Northern. Both my parents want me to stay here, but…” He shook his head. “Nah, I want to see the world, you know? Like in Easy Rider. I want to do that for a year. Get a bike and ride all over, maybe see Arizona and California.”
“On a bicycle?” she asked skeptically.
Matt laughed and slapped the wheel. “On a motorcycle. You’ve really never seen Easy Rider? That’s wild. What movies do you like?”
Greta thought of the movies she’d seen in her life. She could count them on two hands. They didn’t have a television in the house at the asylum. She’d caught glimpses of TVs in town. Once or twice a year, Mrs. Martel would convince their father to let her take Greta and Maribelle to the state theater in town. The Parent Trap, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, My Fair Lady… The movies were all wholesome, and capped with happy endings.
Greta had often sat in the theater, trying to make sense of the films. Why did they try to paint the world in a golden light when it was filled with darkness? She’d watch other people munching popcorn, smiling and laughing, but she’d felt numb to the love stories, the heart-warming moments. Who could believe such lies?
Matt was still looking at her.
“I like The Parent Trap,” she said.
She had liked it. She’d liked it more in the years after Maribelle died.
Sometimes Greta gazed in the mirror and pretended Maribelle stared back at her. In death, Maribelle had assumed the role of Greta’s twin, always gazing out through the looking glass.
“The Parent Trap?” he asked, smiling as if she’d made a joke. When she said nothing, he nodded. “Yeah. That was a good one. My sister loved it.”