Girl Walking Backwards by Bett Williams

Author:Bett Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466888852
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

nine

i wonder if it’s possible to ever really know a person. I think we decide who a person is in the first few seconds of seeing them. It’s a pure moment of recognition, almost animal-like. Over time things get piled on that image, the stuff of personality, psychology, and then I think that maybe I never knew them at all. A maze begins, a process of getting to know them and you have to really love a person to walk it. Like Mom—I don’t even know what her favorite food is or where she goes when she wants to be alone. And Jessica. I thought I knew her because I could feel her inside me like some magical force but if someone came along and asked me if she was a good person or a bad person I wouldn’t know what to say to them. I mean, those are important things to know about a person—whether they’re evil or not.

I left Jessica’s house at sunrise without saying good-bye. On the way home I stopped at the haunted house, a three-story on the corner of Mission and San Mateo. It became clear to me that if Jessica was a house she would be that one. It’s an old house with white paint that has chipped and turned gray. Stained white curtains cover the cracked windows. Despite the fact that it’s rundown, the house exudes romance. It’s exciting to think that if someone just took a paintbrush to the building, it could be a house of dreams, a house that would change the person living inside it, making them somehow more magical and timeless. The house begs for someone to love it and remodel it but whenever someone comes along they get pushed away by the hassles that arise from deeper inspection—a leaky roof, structural damage, bad copper pipes. Even the most inspired decorators give up. They love the house, but not enough.

I walked the three more blocks to my house and stood behind the jacaranda tree to see if Mom was home before I went farther. I always had to stop and think if there was anything I was lying about that week just in case she started asking me questions. Luckily she was gone.

When Mom wasn’t around, I loved coming home. Some part of me quieted down when I got the key from under the pot, opened the door, and smelled the kitchen. I love that house. I think I loved it more than Mom ever did. The exterior walls are made of thick white stucco with handmade tiles of Mediterranean color and design inlaid near the windows. The floors are smooth planks of blond wood. The kitchen floor is done in saltillo tile.

The living room catches the southern light. What I liked best about my room was the thick wood trim around the single window above my bed. It was sturdy and old-looking, chipped, revealing coats of purple, green, and pink. In the center of the window I hung a piece of blue sea glass, the neck of an old bottle, worn smooth by salt water and motion.

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