RAIN DANCE

Five

I slept just after two in the morning. Aidan had taken to texting me the second I got home. Lizzy talked about what she and the other girls had discussed but that was after she’d grilled me for every detail about my date. I tried to be as descriptive as possible but the words failed me when I tried to do justice to how fairy tale like this date had gone. Even as I recollected the details through my eyes I couldn’t help wonder if I’d dreamt the whole thing.
I fell asleep with a smile on my face and woke up with a frown. Mum woke us up at what felt like four a.m. In reality it was nine in the morning. At first I thought it wasn’t a weekend and I gathered my confused mind in preparation for school. It was only after a while that my mind started to work properly. I could hear Lizzy groaning in the other bed and something warned me that mum was still in the room.
“Get up. This is the second time I’ve come to wake you up. Don’t make me come back here again.” Mum said.
Come back again? I didn’t even hear her the first time!
“I thought it was Saturday.” I mumbled my head buried under my covers.
“We’re going to visit your aunt.” Mum answered. I could hear her furiously picking up and folding our clothes.
“Why?!” Lizzy moaned.
“Because it’s good for you to be with family,” Mum replied.
“Obviously it’s not working. Look at Chris!” Lizzy said with a laugh. I sat up on my bed and threw my pillow at her. Lizzy laughed louder from underneath her covers.
“We’re leaving in an hour and a half.” Mum said walking out and closing the door gently behind her. I fell on my back and covered my head again.
The trip to Aunt Rach’s was a typical Lewis family road trip. Lizzy and I sat in the backseat. Her ears were plugged with ear phones. I could clearly hear everything she was listening to. The tiny muffled tunes ringing in her ears acted like a small rhythmic buzzing over dad’s classical music. This didn’t bother anyone in the car. Not Lizzy as she flipped through the magazine while her head pounded with music. Not even mum and dad as they watched the road and oddly threw conversation into the mix. And it didn’t bother me either.
I just sat by the window. My Breaking Dawn novel just sat on my lap. I’d read a couple of pages when we pulled out of the driveway but after a while I looked outside the window. The scenery was the same as every other day but today, maybe because I felt like enjoying it, seemed a bit different. I noticed that our neighbours had a swimming pool. I wondered if it was new. Little Amy, who lived down the road from us, was cycling her bicycle a bit too far from home. I even thought it wasn’t her. Even the trees caught my attention. It wasn’t until I attempted to rub my eyes that I became conscious of the real reason behind my new perception of the surrounding area.
I pushed the frames of my spectacles up the bridge of my nose. I was actually wearing my spectacles out of class. Mum was shocked when I arrived at the breakfast table, my face decorated with the elegant dark frames that had replaced my old round, brown frames. I liked my new frames. They made me look very smart and sophisticated.
That wasn’t the reason I’d worn them that morning though. I wore them because I had a headache. Whether it was induced by my recently bad sleeping habits or simply because of my eye sight problem, I had no way of knowing. I didn’t bother taking pills for the headache. Instead I slipped on the spectacles. Mum felt sorry for me. She even insisted that I take something to lessen or eradicate the pain all together but I stuck to my specs. Lizzy, however, could read right through my plan.
She’s the only one who’d figured out that I intended to use my headache as a crutch. The intensity was one thing she couldn’t tell. She also knew that I’d pop a pill for the tiniest pain. I was rarely in pain so I didn’t turn into a prescription drug junkie. So Lizzy understood that my specs were not to lessen the pain so I would resort to taking the pill sooner or later. The timing was important. My brilliant plan was that if Aunt Rach became too unbearable or suicide-inducing I would take a pill or pretend to and I’d retreat to one of the rooms to ‘nap’. I threw a glance at Lizzy bopping her head to the beat and smiled. Lizzy knew me too darn well!
She didn’t judge me for thanking the heavens when I felt I had a headache creeping up. In fact she was happy for me until the pangs of jealousy crept in on her. She took it like the good sportsman she is. Besides Lizzy and I have played this game a hundred times. Tactfully, Lizzy has pulled off the most memorable stay-away-from-Aunt Rach tricks. Mine worked fine but just weren’t as flamboyant as Lizzy’s.
What is it about Aunt Rach that led us to push our souls towards damnation by lying and cheating? I think the most appropriate question to ask that will give you a simple answer is what is it about Aunt Rach that we can stand? The woman is family. I guess possessing that title warrants her to try our patience. Mum loved Aunt Rach like she was her blood sister even though Rachel was actually dad’s sister and he couldn’t stand her…at all. Mum’s love for Aunt Rach was questionable. Mum sighed at the thought of Aunt Rach the same way she sighed at the thought of dogs from puppy mills. That says volumes about what the basis of her feelings towards Aunt Rach were.
Aunt Rach – Rachel Lewis also known as Miss Lewis by her clients – was a fascinating soul. Only fascinating when you first meet her and never meet her again. She believed that she was psychic and she earned a living from it. Of course she didn’t charge for her services but her clients felt obligated to pay her. Dad hated her ‘delusional behaviour’ (as he often called it). He would have blamed it on being dropped on the head a few times if they hadn’t been both raised by the same scatterbrain mum; I personally thought grandma was really awesome. Mum found Aunt Rach entertaining but she felt sorry for her more. Lizzy and I strongly doubted her powers mainly because she seemed so oblivious to the way she repelled everyone close to her with her creepy behaviour. I’ve seen The Mentalist, why couldn’t she be as cool as that?!
“Hello!” Aunt Rach said coming to the car when the car’s engine finally died. We’d been sitting in the purring car for a long time. I could sense dad mentally preparing himself for the visit. Or maybe he was contemplating driving round and out the gate hoping Aunt Rach had not heard us. “I’ve been expecting you.”
“Since when?” Lizzy whispered as she turned off her iPod “Since we left last?”
“Hi Rachel.” Mum shouted enthusiastically over my giggling. I punched Lizzy playfully on the arm as I got out of the car.
“Oh, Lizzy how have you been?” Aunt Rach said, arms stretched towards me.  I nervously turned to look at Lizzy and then back at Aunt Rach. She stood there waiting for me to run into the trap of her arms.
“Hi Aunt Rach,” I said wondering if it really was just a month since our last visit. “I’m… Chris.”
“That’s what I called you, Chris.” She said hugging me.  I could smell a fragrance of a nauseating blend of herbs caught in her clothes.  I decided to hold my breath for a while even after she let go of me.
“And Lizzy, still listening to that nonsense?” I watched with pleasure as Lizzy grimaced over Aunt Rach’s shoulder.  I pinched my nose involuntarily as I recalled my embrace a few minutes earlier.
“Mike,” Aunt Rach said in contempt.  So I was wrong, she did notice the hostility dad showered on her. Then again, they’d grown up together so she had had plenty of time to absorb and accept it.
“Rachel, you look fabulous.” Mum said trying to mask dad’s bad manners. But dad found the strength to scoff at the words as he slammed the door shut.
“You too, Sandy.  Come inside.  You just missed a poor soul.” Aunt Rach said she led us into the house. Dad was right at the tail whilst mum followed close behind Aunt Rach curious to know about the client.         
Apparently Aunt Rach realised that she was psychic when she was sixteen. Of course that didn’t strain her relationship with dad. She and dad have always been this way. I hear that’s the way of children who succeed each other – not with Lizzy and me, though. We’re the exception to the rule, I guess. Maybe it comes with the blood. So at sixteen sweet, gothic Rachel tapped into her ‘psychic abilities’ and tore her family apart at the same time. Grandma was a free spirit so she was cool with it. Grandpa was appalled. A businessman who everyone fell over to respect had a daughter who took make-belief too far? Grandpa, subsequently, got tired of Grandma’s tolerance and Rachel’s behaviour thus ended their marriage. Aunt Rach stayed with Grandma and dad went with Granddad across stateliness. But dad loved Grandma so he went to visit Grandma (and Rachel)…a lot.
Now we were standing in Aunt Rach’s living room. Pictures of her, dad, Uncle Ted and Uncle Jamie in their childhood plagued the walls like a bad rash. Uncle Ted and Uncle Jamie were in college and working part-time when all hell broke loose in their family so they were spared the drama but they suffered in the aftermath. Neither of them visited Aunt Rach often. I kind of felt sorry for her.
“Tea?” Aunt Rach offered. We were standing awkwardly in her living room. Personally, I wasn’t planning on sitting because last time her old brown lonely couch nearly swallowed and stabbed me with its wire coils.
“No, thank you.” mum said reading our horrified expressions.
“Just water for me.” Lizzy said “In fact I’ll go get it myself. Through there, right?”
Aunt Rach smiled and nodded at Lizzy.
“Me too!” I said immediately tailing Lizzy. Mum threw a cautioning glance at us.
“Tea? Is she crazy?!” Lizzy whispered when we were safely in the kitchen “I mean, seriously; it’s like a hundred and ten degrees outside!”
I smiled and looked around the kitchen that looked like something you’d find in the brochure from the eighties. Not even a microwave, a dead one at least. The fridge looked ancient. The stove needed to be replaced. I didn’t cook well so I figured we’d have that in common, me and the stove – that and our age, perhaps.
Lizzy was faintly disappointed that Aunt Rach didn’t have bottled water. I wasn’t really surprised, in fact I’d have had a heart attack if Aunt Rach had had a stock of bottled water. Lizzy didn’t even try the tape water. The tape looked so rusty and beaten down you’d probably get tetanus just by looking at it. Lizzy looked at me and flexed her neck before she sighed and headed back to the living room. Mum and dad were brave enough to sit on the couch. Lizzy insisted that the drive was way too long so she wanted to stand, stretch her legs. I got a chair from the kitchen. It wasn’t that much better than the couch, actually I’d have had more faith sitting on a three legged stool.
“So,” Aunt Rach said breaking the silence. Her eyes seemed to study us. She stopped when our eyes met. “Chris, you have a boyfriend.”
It sounded like an accusation more than a question. My eyes shot up not to look if she was serious but at dad who was now staring at me. Lizzy coughed as though she had something alive stuck in her throat. My eyes remained fixed on dad. He looked at me. Aunt Rach had not only put a large white elephant in the room but she’d also set it on my head! I couldn’t tell what my eyes were saying but I couldn’t understand what my mind was screaming either. I had no ability to speak Portuguese but it sounded like that was the language my mind was thinking in. Aunt Rach didn’t stop there.
“Isn’t it a bit too soon, though.” She said with her head inclined to one side. “There’s no way you could have possibly gotten over what happened.”
“Rachel,” dad suddenly said. Even though I was watching him, not able to blink, his voice in an angry tone startled me. “Do you have no decency?!”
“What, Mike? I’m simply stating that she needs to take it slow. Just a few years ago she could have been raped and−” before she finished those words, dad took his eyes off me slowly and looked at her fiercely.
“Rachel, you pathetic, home-wrecking delinquent!  Finish that statement and I swear me and my family will never set foot in this crappy, filth-attracting pit you call a home.” he said through gritted teeth. I watched mum’s hand touch dad’s arm. His expression softened a little.
I hadn’t realised that I was on my feet. Maybe I stood up when I knew what Aunt Rach was going to say. I knew the truth and I knew what she was saying was no lie. I guess the truth is never pain-free even if you sit on it and pretend to smile. I looked around the room through a blurred perception. I still had my spectacles on but my eyes were tearing up. Everyone looked so uncomfortable and it was my fault. So I did the responsible thing and calmly walked out.
“No, Lizzy.” I heard mum say calmly. I heard a noise and knew it could only be the sound of someone raising up from the death-trap of a couch my aunt owned.
I sat in the sun. The heat was unbearable. I could have gone under a tree but I didn’t feel like being comfortable. I hated sitting in the sun everyone knew that. I guess I could blame it on my paranoia about the effects of UV rays from the sun. So that was the best punishment, maybe not appropriate. Occasionally the wind would blow and cool my skin but generally the heat was killing me, skin cell by skin cell.
My eyes were focused on a flower at the edge of Aunt Rach’s yard. I refused to blink not even when my dry eye balls cried for me to close my eyes in that involuntary motion. Mum was standing on the veranda, she was giving me time to cool off. I could hear them talking when dad came out. I presumed he was ready to go home when mum came over to talk to me.
“Chris, sweetheart,” mum began.
“She was right,” I interjected. “Maybe I shouldn’t have stopped therapy.”
“Chris,” mum said taking my hand. “We love you more than you can imagine. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You’re strong and nothing can take that away from you.”
“If that’s true, then why did what Aunt Rach say bother me so much?!” I breathed. My eyes searched mum’s serene face.
“Aunt Rach doesn’t always know what she talks about.” Mum whispered.
“I can’t stay in the past and I escape it. I don’t know what to do.” I uttered as the words failed me
“It’s going to be okay.” Mum said as the tears whirled in her eyes.
When she realised that I had nothing to say but I was still making sense of the whole thing, she hugged me. We stayed like that for a while, I didn’t care how long. Dad came over to me and touched my shoulder. Mum released me and I fell into dad’s arms. It was like we’d gone back two years and we were reliving that night.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come in time.” Dad said to me.
“It wasn’t your fault. Besides, you came and took me home. You’re always going to be the best dad ever.” I whispered still holding onto dad
“Thank you, sweetie.” dad said as he stepped away from me. I could see Lizzy walking to join us.
“So what? You guys come out here to share the love and leave me inside with McWeirdo in there?” Lizzy said with a grin. I laughed and wiped the tears off my face.
“Shoot!” I said snapping my fingers. “I told you we should have jumped into the car before Lizzy noticed we were gone.”
Everyone laughed and Lizzy came to help me pull myself together with one hug. Aunt Rach came out just as we were deciding what to do. She stood at the door, remorse written all over her face. My dad would have probably missed that look, something he wasn’t used to seeing on his sister’s face yet alone expecting.
“I guess you’re leaving.” She said.  Her voice was full of penitence even though she wasn’t apologising.
“Not yet,” I said to everyone’s surprise. Lizzy nudged me in the ribs “I’m really hungry can’t you order pizza or something?”
Aunt Rach looked nervously at dad. Her eyes were pleading and hopeful. Dad looked at me questioning my intentions. I just felt really bad for her. He looked directly at his sister. Not a smile or a frown registered on his face.
“No, it’s okay Rachel. We’ll get something to eat on our way home.” Dad said. He didn’t wait for her to respond but started walking to the car. Lizzy threw one glance at Aunt Rach before she followed behind dad. I just stood there staring in disbelief at dad. I knew my attempt at forcing some kind of a truce between them had failed. I just sighed and waved good bye. Aunt Rach looked at mum who was smiling as politely as she could; given the circumstances.
“Will you ever forgive me if I tried really hard to be more tolerable?” Aunt Rach shouted after us. We all waited for dad to answer because we knew the question was meant for him. Dad just froze at the door ready to slip into the car.
“Not today.” Dad finally said and he got into the car and started the engine. That was our cue that it was time to leave.
The drive back was pretty much the same as the ride to Aunt Rach’s. Dad and mum were listening to their classics but this time mum was holding dad’s hand that had little to do since he was driving in one gear on the freeway. Lizzy had her legs propped up on the seat and her back leaning on me but she was listening to her iPod and flipping through her magazine. I just sat with the novel on my lap staring out the window. My mind was oddly blank. I didn’t know what to think about. The past seemed too painful. My future seemed so held by my past.
I don’t know what sent Aunt Rach towards the idea that I had a boyfriend. I didn’t touch my phone or even look at it since I arrived at her house. I wasn’t even sure I had a boyfriend. I was too stunned to react to what she’d said at first because hearing the idea of me having a boyfriend just scared me so much. It was at this moment in the car, able to focus on my thoughts, that I finally remembered what my first thought was when Aunt Rach said the word boyfriend. I thought of my personal dose of ecstasy. Just the thought got me high up in the clouds. The thought of Aidan. Thinking about it in the car, I couldn’t help be shocked. Aidan and I had gone for one date and I already subconsciously thought of him as mine.
I took out my phone from my pocket and opened a blank message. I punched the keypad and balanced the phone with one hand so as not to disturb Lizzy.
Lovely weekend, isn’t it? I typed and sent the message to Aidan.
I wondered if Aidan had would reply immediately or what he was up to if he didn’t. I was convincing myself why it shouldn’t matter when his reply came in.
Is it? Hadn’t noticed. Must be because I just got out of bed. His reply read.
I smiled at the words on my screen. He was waiting for a reply.
Then you’ll have to take my word for it. It’s a great weekend. You’re missing out.
I smiled as my phone reported that the message was delivered. I know I was being dramatic but it filled me with unexplainable pleasure imagining that he was right on the other end of the invisible connection that allowed us to communicate. It was like we were talking through cup and string telephones.
I guess there’s only one way to solve this. You should show me what I’m missing about this weekend. I’m sure if I go out without you I won’t find it ‘lovely’
I looked up at the time displayed on the dash board. From my calculations we’d be home by six in the evening. I didn’t feel like good fortune was on my side but I decided to try my luck anyway.
“Mum? Dad? Do you mind if Lizzy and I go out tonight?” I asked. Lizzy didn’t object, mainly because you can’t object to what you can’t hear. The music ringing in her ears made her oblivious of my request. I watched them exchange wary looks but mum sobered up first.
“Not for too long. Be back by ten okay?” she answered. Dad smiled, keeping his eyes on the road. I didn’t know telepathy was one of the perks of being a couple for too long.            
“Cool. Thanks.” I said punching into my phone. Lizzy wouldn’t mind going out with me. I knew that asking to go out alone would just mean I wasn’t going anywhere.                     
Just because I’m a nice person I’ll show you what a lovely weekend it is. Meet me at the restaurant at 7:30
I crossed my fingers that he’d be able to make it.
Sounds like a second date. I’ll be waiting for you in your booth if you don’t mind. He sent back to me.
Not at all, see you there. I replied gleefully.