Dangerous Dementions by Virginia Lang (suggested reading .TXT) 📖

what my face looked like to the onlooker. Maybe a mixture of distaste and constipation. My eyes were squinting, my lips pressed tightly together as I stopped at the curb of the sidewalk. “Where did you park?”

"Second story, row C, it was the closest I could get, do you want me to take your bag?"

"I got it."

"Ok." Mark nodded.

I stood there, looked slightly out of place as I looked in all directions. "I don't know where we're going."

"Just go straight until you see a green PT Cruiser."

When we reached the car, I stood awkwardly at the passenger side of his green PT Cruiser. My suitcase now safely tucked into his back seat as I waited for him to go around the other side and get in. It took me a moment to realize he was staring at me with a confused expression. "What?"

"Are you going to get in?" Mark asked with concern showing in his dark eyes. I must look very ridiculous right now. Standing outside the car door while he was sitting in the drivers seat with an odd look. He must think his sister raised a mental case. Without another thought, I pulled the Cruiser door open and slid myself in, shutting the door with an almost happy sigh. I was glad to be out of the rain.

"So um if you're hungry we can stop and get something, but if you're not we can go to the house."

I suddenly realized how hungry I was. The flight wasn't really that long, but since I had fallen asleep I hadn't eaten anything. “What’s there to eat?”

“Fast food?” It was around ten-thirty at night. What was I going to expect. Though the thought of food, even as my stomach grumbled in anticipation, made me feel nauseated. Perhaps I just wouldn’t eat tonight. I should get settled in before I even let myself down organic food elements. “I think I should just settle in, you know, wait till tomorrow? I ate a bunch of peanuts on the plane anyway.” I lied. However I didn’t want to worry Mark anymore that I probably was. Besides, he probably thought I was a mental case anyway. Must run in the family.

“Oh, okay…”

The rest of the car ride to Mark’s place was quiet. It was almost awkward silence but it was good enough for me. Talking wasn’t something I did much, especially within the family. Mark wasn’t much of a talker to begin with. I remember one year my parents and I had a family holiday. Mark came to visit us in Syracuse; he stayed two days. It’s not like our whole family was socially challenged. My mom Mary worked for the crime scene investigational unit so she interacted a lot within her department. As for my dad, well he was a photographer.

That’s how my parents met. My dad, Evan, was taking photos at the Amphitheatre in Thornden Park during the night parade. Mary was caught off guard when the flash of his camera had gone off while riding her bike across the grass with her friend Roger. According to my mother, when dad knelt next to her to see if she was okay, it was love at first sight. They were inseparable ever since. It wasn’t a fairytale beginning though. My grandparents, Mary’s parents, didn’t approve of her falling in love with such a man so young, especially a starting out photographer who was anything but high class. Mark, however, saw how happy she was. He was the most supportive. I believe I was born a while later. My grandparents seemed to mellow after I was conceived because they were more family orientated after that. My parents got married in a clearing, or a meadow or something. My parents exact words when they relived the memory of their wedding day, was it was magical.

When dad disappeared two years ago, my mom wasn’t the same. She engaged herself in her work, taking any means possible to do something besides sit in stillness. I could tell it was hard for her. Her mind was on over-drive; she got called in almost everyday, sometimes in the middle of the night. Living at home for me after that was like having my own place. I took the bus to school, I cooked my own food, and I rode my bike to the town when I needed something at the store. I even got a job at the local bookstore in town just so I could pass the time; the quiet was deafening and I needed to stay sane. My mother began to realize, as time rolled by, that we were becoming separate entities. I hardly knew who she was anymore, and I think it scared her. Two years had gone by, and she hardly noticed. I guess that’s how I ended up here in Portland. Mom didn’t think it was healthy, the way we were living, especially with her new case. I guess in a way, I understand why she does it. Sometimes…it seems like she’s trying to find him. Like how she never turns down a case. It’s like she’s trying…no…hoping, that it will lead her to him. That’s where we both shared our inner emotional battle. We wanted answers.

When we pulled up into the driveway, I couldn’t help but catch the glimpse of Mark’s facial expression. His eyes held his concern, and his confusion, even though he was trying to smile. The house was bigger than I expected it to be, for Mark anyway. He lived by himself, a writer. I never took time to read anything he'd ever written though. The rain didn't ease up. The sky poured buckets of the dirty, sucked up liquid down over the town as Mark shoved the key into the lock. My hands holding my suitcase to my chest as I tried to keep sheltered under the porch.

"So this is it," Mark said, pushing the door open to reveal a very small entryway. It was plain. Ordinary cream colored walls, a stairway, a kitchen, and living room; which is all I could see from where I stood. It wasn’t all that different in comparison to my home back in Syracuse. "There's a guest room, second door to the left upstairs, I can show you, here." He ushered me inside, shutting the door; the immediate change in temperature was welcomed. I followed him up the short flight of stairs. This wall was almost different shade of color compared to the entryway. It could have just been the lighting.

My feet padded along the wooden floorboards. Suitcase clutched in a death grip to my chest as my eyes lingered aimlessly on the creamy texture of the walls. We stopped in front of the second door on the right; a plain grain textured door leading into a fairly good-sized bedroom.

“Do you need anything else…I could make you some tea, or something?”

“I’m fine, Mark, really.” I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Mark. He was trying to be helpful when all I really wanted was to be alone and scream my head off. Sure, he was taking me in, doing my mother a favor. However I felt trapped. Like I didn’t have a choice. I’d make the best of it though, even if that meant wallowing in my free time, and doing all I could to survive the dreadful town of Portland. “Thank you.”

“If you need anything, I’m just down the hall.”

My fingers were numb, as I heard the door of my new bedroom close with an echoing only I could hear; my suitcase still in a death grip to my chest. I forced my legs to move as a sigh escaped my lips. There was a closet, a dresser, and a fairly good-sized bed with a blue down blanket that fitted around me nicely as I dropped to the bed, letting my mangled suitcase slide to the floor by my dangling feet. There was a window next to my bed, which was covered by light-blue horizontal blinds. They almost looked faded in the dim light of the bedroom. I can almost imagine the stars if I gazed out like back home. I remember dad and I would lie out back in pitch-black night, and look up at the stars. They were bright, and beautiful, each one unique. Just like us. My dad once said that when he died he wanted to become a star, so that he could light the darkness and shine down upon the worlds of the universe. He had an interesting and unique insight of life. I believe that’s what made him so likable. If you asked just about anyone to describe Evan Tanner in one word, it would be flamboyant, because when he was in a group of people he was the colorful ink to their empty canvas. His personality was kind but alluring. Dad made everyone’s lips curve into a smile, made every heart beat skip…he was the heart and soul of people. He showed it through his photographs. He captured the spirit of life, the beauty that gets hidden beneath the cloud of gray hemorrhaging across the planet catching the glimpses of light through the darkness. He was angelic.

I missed him.

I can feel my breath constrict in my lungs. Remember to breathe, I tell myself over and over again. I pushed myself back as far as I could until my head hit the soft pillows of the bed. The pattering of the rain against the window began to echo all to loud within the room and I closed my eyes, trying to drown myself in the remembrance of the summers of Syracuse.

+++

When I opened my eyes, there was light pouring through my bedroom in lines. I pushed myself off the bed still in my clothes I’d arrived in and stood by the window. Two of my fingers pushed down a few of the blinds to stare out into the now sunny morning. I don’t even remember falling asleep. There was a knock on my door and I turned my head as I let go of the blinds to cross my arms over my chest. “Charlene?”

“Yeah?” wow, I sound like crap

. I cleared my throat, my hand reaching up to rub the sleep from my eyes as Mark stood outside my door awkwardly. What is he doing? “You can come in, Mark.”

Mark opened the door, slowly I might add as if he were afraid if he opened it too fast a skeleton would pop out at him and he’d go running down the hall screaming like a girl. Now that would be more entertaining than standing door man here. I chuckled lightly to myself.

“What’s funny?”

“Oh, just a passing thought, sorry.” I couldn’t help the grin still plastered to my lips as I stood before Mark with my arms now hanging at my side.

“Did you sleep well?” He asked in that awkward, trying to hard tone. I shifted my weight as I leaned towards the floor to pick up my suitcase from the floor where I left it the following night and placed it on my bed. I spoke as I unzipped my belongings and flipped open the top to shift through my things.

“I don’t remember.” And that was the truth. I must have though, because I don’t even remember dreaming. I remember thinking about mom and dad, and then the stars. It was like once I shut my eyes, I woke up to the light of a new day.

“Are you sure?” the tone in his voice let me know he