I Am Anastasia

Another Letter for the Wall

The bus ride seems infinitely short; my mind is racing the whole time.  Part of me wants to jump off the bus and run back to her apartment.

Yes! I want to live with you!  I’ll move out tomorrow! Tonight!

There’s a second part of me though, a more cautious part that warns me I could get hurt if I fixate too much on that offer. I don't know her that well, she could easily revoke her offer; she could just up and leave for Paris or Rome.  What if I say to my dad, “Hey look, I’m moving out with mom,” and it makes him furious. I pack up and leave and when I get there she says she didn’t expect me to actually come live with her? What if she says she's leaving again next month?

            I grip my bag of books tightly; my hands seem to be shaking for some reason.

I badly want to take her up on that offer, but I’m too scared. I can't imagine facing Dad down, telling him I want to move out with the woman he refuses to even talk about. I don't even want to think about what his reaction to that would be. 

            When I get in the door he is sitting in the living room as I go by.

            “Sam.”

            My body freezes, my heart goes into overdrive. Does he know where I've been? Is he mad I stayed out later then nine-thirty?

            “You have mail in the kitchen.” He doesn't even look up from his newspaper.“Still wasting your time, huh?”

            “What?” I know what he's referring to but he's caught me off guard.

            “I believe the mail for you is from a publishing company. Another letter for your wall.”

            “Yeah, thanks.” Choosing to ignore his sarcastic tones I shuffle into the kitchen, hearing the rustle of newspaper as my dad lowers it. I can feel his eyes staring at my back as I walk out of the living room; I wait for a rebuke for my tone of voice but only silence follows me.

            Grabbing the letter from the kitchen counter, I bolt up the staircase before he can change his mind.  Unfortunately Dad is right - the letter is another polite rejection for a short story I'd sent out a few months ago.  I toss it onto my dresser, it’s not like Dad would know but somehow adding this one to the wall makes it feels like he's won.

            I distract myself by imagining that Jacob might call me tomorrow. What will he say to me? Will we meet one another at Chapter’s, have coffee again? Maybe I could take him to Legend Gallery and show him Mom’s artwork. I feel a glow of pride when I think about that- my mom, the famous artist. Maybe I'll take Jacob to meet her in the next couple dates we have. Maybe that's crazy.

            Whoa! I'm getting way ahead of myself here. I have to be careful; maybe he won't call tomorrow or the next day, or at all. I shouldn't get my hopes up too high. 

            Tonight I write about Anastasia travelling through the forest.  She meets a guide travelling in the same direction; they decide to team up and go on their journey together. He isn’t a knight in shining armour, but he’s cute and funny, and Anastasia likes him better than any stuck-up prince charming.

            The next two days go by at molasses speed - I spend Tuesday at the house, mostly avoiding Dad and writing, catching up on book series I am reading.  I spend a lot of the day checking my phone, wishing Jacob would call.  It’s pathetic, I know, but I can't seem to stop myself.  He doesn't call on Wednesday either, and by the time Thursday arrives I'm struggling not to feel depressed, sure he won't call at all.  He's decided he isn't interested.  When Dad suddenly knocks on my door it makes me jump, and I realize I’ve been staring at my phone, willing it to ring.

            “Yeah?”

            “Work just called - they want you to cover a shift for someone.”

            I groan. “Tell them I don’t feel good.”

            “Lie for you, you mean.”

            “It’s not a lie.”

            His voice rises a bit through the door. “Well you’re going in. I told them you would be there in an hour.”

            I groan again and slump forward on the bed, doing a face plant in the pillow.  Dad’s footsteps recede down the hall.

I pull myself out of bed and slouch around the room, throwing dirty clothes out of the way while I look for my uniform. It's hiding underneath a pile of laundry I had intended to do.

            “Great,” I mutter. “Now I can go in grumpy and smelling bad.”

            Maybe that will make her fire me. One can always hope.

            Down in the kitchen I throw a sandwich together, ignoring Dad, who insists on lecturing me while he sits at the kitchen table.

            “You know Sam, you should stop wasting your time at the library and doing all that writing.  You need to get out and look for a second part time job. At least then you would have something useful to do with your summer.” He eyes me sternly.

            There's no point in telling him that lots of kids at my school get their summers to do whatever they want. Dad wouldn’t listen; arguing with him is like repeatedly running head-on into a brick wall. It's painful, and no matter how hard you try, you never get anywhere. 

            “Bye,” I mumble. “I’ll be back whenever they let me escape.”

            “Start looking into a second job,” he shoots after me.

            “Whatever.” I mutter under my breath as I stomp out the door.

            Work is busy for a Thursday; I’m stuck doing the closing shift.  Mrs. Beth is her usual horrid self, maybe even a little worse this evening.  Every time she goes by she eyes me like I’m doing something wrong.

            “Go faster,” she snaps at me as she walks past. “There’s a line of customers waiting for the carrot muffins.”

            I seriously doubt that every customer in the shop is after the carrot muffins I’m packaging, but I just nod and try to shove them in the plastic packages faster.

            The next time she swoops by she tells me the glass case on the floor needs filling, I need to be more alert and keep an eye on it when it gets empty. I nod again and avoid making eye contact with her.  The other girl working the front with me gets a lecture too.

            When I get home that night Anastasia will meet the witch again and she'll be more hideous, uglier and meaner than ever before.  Anastasia simply laughs in her face and tells her if she crosses her path once more she’ll strike her down where she stands.

            Friday morning I drag myself out of bed, knowing I have three more days of work ahead of me, knowing that today’s eight-hour shift will seem like an eternity.  I walk to work and it's raining, adding to my terrible mood.  My phone has been silent for three days - no call from Jacob, no call from my mother.  When I tried to write last night I ran into a wall I couldn’t break down.  I know some writers say there’s no such thing as writer’s block, but I’ve never felt so blank before.  There's just nothing there anymore. I didn’t have the ability to even put a pen to paper.  Anastasia is frozen in time.

            Putting one foot in front of the other is all I'm good for right now, and it gets me to work before I want to.  This morning I just do the job like a robot, not responding to Mrs. Beth’s jabs or my co-workers small talk.

            It's like that until lunchtime, when I go to the backroom for lunch. My phone is buzzing.  I check the text message and my heart jumps. It's from Jacob, asking if I’m busy tonight. Do you want to meet me at the bookstore again?

            I do a little dance on the spot and type back, Yes!