Cacophony

chapter eight: peppermint mocha

She had forgotten how it felt to be in the old Honda Accord.

At the corners between the windows and the seats, there are crumbles of biscuits and old candy wrappers. The seats were ripped, the leather resembling week old mold. The window looks like it could have used a wash, and the navy color looks more black now. There are random papers in the seat pocket, dust particles all over the foot seats.

This is the same car that their mom used to pick up Elisa from t-ball practices, that their mom used when Elisa broke her leg falling off the slide, the same car Marie drove her Driver's Education test in, the same one Elisa used for prom and driving to and from classes at University.

She'd forgotten how it felt to sit in the passenger seat, while her mom drove, occasionally speeding up, occasionally speeding, windows open a crack as she drove down highways getting back to upstate New York.

There is no casual conversation, there never really was. Her mother would focus on the road, sometimes played the radio if she was in a good mood to drown out Elisa and Marie chattering in the back.

That was another thing, neither of them sat in the front seat. She and Marie always sat together, in the back.

They were force united. Against their mother, against the empty father in the front seat.

The ride back is silent, however, and she sits in the front seat. There is no soft FM 99.3 playing, crackling in the background speakers. She stares at the white lines on the highway, whizz past to the point where the join into one white blur, and wonders if that's how her life will crumble.

☽ ● ☾ ◯

"I fixed up your room for you. And got that fruitcake you like from the cafe downtown, um, what's it called..." Her mother starts to talk as soon as they roll into the neighborhood. Elisa squirms in the seat, uncomfortable.

"Paulina's. The bakery, mom."

"Oh, right. Your father used to take me there all the time." Elisa stiffens. "And I went by, um, Coffee House." Elisa looks down at her shoes.

"Yeah, did you say hi to Erik?" 

"I did, actually." Elisa's mother stares at her. "And he says, uh, you quit."

"Yeah, the hours just weren't working for me."

"Oh, really?" Elisa's mom looks half surprised, half accusatory. "Do you have another job offer?"

"Yeah." The lie slips through Elisa's teeth before she can stop it, and the look wipes off of their mother's face.

"That's great, where?"

"Um, a place downtown, you probably haven't heard of it."

"That's nice, Elisa. Really branching out." Her mother sounds sincere, but Elisa can't think of anything else other than the nights she spent at the playground, running out of this damned apartment, sleeping on the floor of the bathroom.

"Do you want anything to drink, baby?" Elisa's mother seems subdued, like she is about to burst out about the cigarettes, Jay, or law school.

"No, I'm just going to go to sleep."

"Alright, do you want anything special tomorrow morning?"

"No, I have to go into work pretty early."

"Okay, do you want me to wake you up early for that?"

"No, I'm fine." Elisa takes careful steps down the hall to their room, and shuts the door behind her, and leans back against the door, exhaling for the first time since she got in her mother's car.