Seattle, Washington wasn’t the safest place in the world, but that never stopped them from heading out on their own. As far back as Laura could remember, they’d always wandered around, barefoot, through the neighborhood. There were gangs, sure, but this was the nineties. Mom wasn’t worried about it, so why should they. They spent hours riding along the sidewalks, pretending they were on motorcycles and had to stop at every store for birthday party items. What was a birthday party without a cake?
“You get the presents, I’ll go pick up the cake from the bakery,” Laura instructed. And off they went, stopping their bikes at every doorstep, pretending to load on bags of purchases. Laura loved living there. It was the perfect place for pretend. Once, they’d found a couple of shopping carts and loaded them with baby dolls, playing like mom’s grocery shopping. The fun of that afternoon had ended when earwigs had come crawling out of her doll’s mouth, and the girls had run, screaming for home. Earwigs were everywhere.
Laura shivered just thinking about it. She hated earwigs, hated spiders. She was a girl, after all.
Laura stopped her bike, turned it around, and started back for home, pleased with the pretend cake she’d bought. Something pricked her bare foot, and she stopped, sitting on a random car to pull the small shard of glass from her foot.
“Does it hurt,” Erin asked, leaning in close to watch.
“No. There’s always glass on the ground.” And Laura was back on her feet, pedaling away. “Bet I beat you home, slow poke.”
Erin took off, racing past, always the faster of the two. Laura didn’t mind. The wind in her face, pedaling down the sidewalk, life couldn’t get better than this. She loved playing outside, would stay outside all day if she could. But, at some point, she knew Mom would make her come in. Miranda, their seventeen-year-old sister, stayed out as late as she wanted. She practically didn’t live with them anymore. She’d recently had a baby she named Katelyn, and had been married not long before Katelyn was born. Laura wasn’t sure, but she thought Miranda was living with her husband’s grandpa. All her stuff was still in the bedroom upstairs, but Miranda was hardly ever home.
“Hey,” Laura said with sudden inspiration. “Let’s go see Melissa.”
Melissa was a friend of Carrie’s. Laura liked her, mostly because she had red hair. That and because Carrie said she was crazy. According to Carrie, Melissa wore shorts in the winter and coats in the summer. Couldn’t get much crazier than that, Laura thought. Secretly, she wished she could be just like Melissa. She wished her mind was backwards, too.
They knocked on the door. Melissa’s grandma answered, allowing the girls to enter the room. At least, Laura figured she was Melissa’s grandma. She never thought to ask where her parents were. Like Mom, she chose to let things go.
“Hi, guys.”
Melissa wore a coat that reached to her knees. But she also had on shorts.
“I was about to go to Fred Meyer across the street. We need more Ramen Noodles.”
It had been Melissa who’d taught them to eat the noodles raw. Open the wrapper, dump on some seasoning, eat. Even without the seasoning, the noodles were good and crunchy. Laura didn’t care that everyone else said they would expand in her tummy and kill her. She liked to eat them that way because it was cool. Melissa was cool.
“Can we go?” Erin asked.
“Sure.”
They didn’t even bother to ask their mom. They went to the store all the time, she didn’t really mind. It was against the rules to go in the store without shoes, but Melissa never wore shoes. Laura would never have the guts to do that, if she weren’t with Melissa. Melissa was a teenager, like Carrie. But, unlike Carrie, Melissa had time for Laura and Erin, and even Diana. The fact that they were kids never bothered her, she treated them like they were older. It made Laura feel important. In such a crazy, crowded life like hers, it was always nice when someone paid attention.
Laura and Erin weren’t allowed to cross the busy street by themselves, but it was okay if they went with someone older. Melissa pressed the button at the light and waited, toes painted pink, for the signal to change. Crosswalks were a dangerous thing. They made Laura nervous. The orange hand always appeared before they’d gotten halfway across. Usually Laura liked to run, but running across a street was for babies. Instead she walked next to Melissa and Erin, head held high, ignoring the flashing hand. Naturally, they made it before the cars started moving again.
“So, how’s Karate class?” Melissa asked as they walked through the automatic doors.
“Fun,” Erin said, and proceeded to count to ten in Japanese.
“We just moved from white belts to yellow,” Laura informed her, proud of the accomplishment, even if she had to share it with Erin. “Miranda, Carrie, and Brian are on, like, orange, blue, purple…something.”
“Someday, I’m going to be a black belt,” Erin said, roundhouse kicking the air. A woman in a business suit sidestepped her and glared, making a rude sound in her throat.
Laura liked the store better at Halloween. She remembered coming here once with Melissa in October. They had tried on scary masks and laughed at the silly costumes. That’s when shopping was the most fun, when the stores stocked up on candy and fun dress-up clothes.
Melissa paid for the noodles, ignoring the glares from the cashiers as they noticed all the bare feet coming through the checkout lane. Laura tried to not look at them, too scared of getting into trouble for purposely disobeying the rules. Melissa, on the other hand, held her head high, acting like it was the most natural thing in the world, wandering around with no shoes on. Laura wished for confidence like hers. She figured confidence like that came with being crazy. What did crazy people have to worry about? If your crazy, people took your odd behavior as a sign. If you weren’t crazy, you were simply rude and disobedient. Laura was in awe of Melissa’s freedom from society’s rules.
“Come on, it’ll be dark soon,” Melissa headed out the door...
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