Baja Zuma

Chapter 8

CHRISTINA'S P.O.V.

I heard a scream of alarm from the direction of Lauren's room. I knocked on her door and opened it, and turned on her light. "Problem, Lauren?"

Her eyes opened. "The house is caving in! Earthquake! We need to get out now."

"No, there is no earthquake. Don't worry. You were having a nightmare."

"But I KNOW there was a quake. I felt it. And look, my ceiling is all—" Lauren looked up and realized her ceiling was quite intact.

I reassured Lauren, speaking gently. "We did have a quake hours ago, sure. But it wasn't all THAT bad. No serious damage to the house, as far as I can tell."

"Yikes, that was the most vivid, scary dream I ever had," Lauren told me, and she spent a minute describing  the ordeal her wild imagination had just put her through. Then she reclined her head back onto her pillow and I noticed as I switched off her bedroom light that her teeth were clenched. Closing her door, I heard her rasp, "I hate Mr. Schnickenstein."

This had proved to be quite an eventful day, and of course I journaled about it in my room, inking two and a half pages about our Valentine's Day outing, a California quake, and that bad dream. In my journal entry I even gave Lauren's dream a title: "Schnickenstein's Monster."

I don't actually go back and read old journal entries all that often, but tonight after writing in my current journal I felt the need to soothe myself by reading about some more placid time in my life, so I pulled one of my old journals off the bookshelf, dating from a few years earlier when we lived in Northern California. I opened it to a random page, the paper already yellowing a bit with age—

Ashley says her daughter smiles at the sparrow mobile I gave her back when she had her baby shower. She and I talked about pregnancy today. She told me that early on it was really all-day sickness, not "morning sickness," a name she figures a man must have come up with. Hard to find a comfortable sleeping position. Ribs ache. And she told me how it feels to have a little gymnast kicking and punching inside her. Sometimes she can see a tiny fetal footprint embossed on her belly.

It got me to thinking about names for my future children. A girl, it has to be Dianna with a pair of n's. A boy, not sure. Dennis. Andrew. Hudson. Brock has a tough, competent sound. But no, the mean kids on the block would call him Broccoli. I remember what the kids did with the name of Michael's friend Tucker. Barrett would be cool—is there anything mean kids could do to that name? "Barrett the ferret" might be too tempting for them to resist. How about Lee? That would work well if I should end up marrying a man with an Italian surname. Lee Alberghetti. Lee Spini. Lee Romano. Lee Cimorelli-Vermicelli. Oh my gosh! Mouthwatering.

I wonder at what age my child will discover Mom on the Internet and come to realize that mother is kind of a Big Deal in the world? What talents will my child inherit? Who in the family tree will he or she look like?

Thumb-thumb-thumb to another journal page.

While driving I spotted Kath and David sitting leaning into one another on the hillside boulder overlooking the twin water tanks as I was getting home from my workout at Dad's boxing gym. They sure have been spending a lot of time together. Odd—hadn't she told us she was going to be babysitting at that time for the neighbors, the ones who own the inheritance investigation company? Was it that she didn't particularly want us to know she was actually intending to hang out with David? I think she is aware that Lisa and I are not big fans of him.

I leafed forward in the old journal.

Jay and I ate at Rubio's Coastal Grill just after sundown. He let me pay ;-} Then we walked around the pond and shops at Town Center. He wasn't that interested in window shopping, but he was a good soldier about it. I had my hair chignon style. My makeup was lit, I must say. Even winged my eyeliner.

While we stood there under a lamp Jay looked at me and said, "You know Christina, your eyes..." I thought he was going to say something trite like how they remind him of opals. But instead he made me laugh with, "I mean at this angle as the light hits your eyes, I can see myself reflected... and I look great."

Fanning further ahead in my old journal—

Mom and Kath made a big sheet cake for Amy's birthday. They put on it the trick candles that you can't easily blow out. A few of Amy's friends came over to the house. We goofed around singing silly stuff at the piano. Lauren was no wilder than the rest of us until Dani the agitator came over to her and got her riled up. They danced out of control, knocking chairs over. The dancing devolved into a burping contest. Dani claimed victory in the contest, but I will say Lauren was competitive.

I read the next day's entry.

"Danielle Nicole, come here. We need to talk to you." Mom and Dad were sitting on the sofa and I figured from their use of Dani's middle name that she was about to get "corrected" for something. From the adjacent room I couldn't overhear in detail what was said, but from the tone of the three voices it was no doubt over some aspect of her behaviour they think needs improvement. I may have heard the words "tattoos" and "piercings" come up in the discussion, I'm not a hundred percent sure.

After they finished having their say to one another and she was walking through the room I was in, Dani looked back at them and threatened to rebel by listening to Perry Como music with speaker volume set to full. I'm pretty sure she was lightening the mood with her sense of humor. Dad deadpanned, "I don't want any Perry Como in this house, young lady."

I paged forward in the old journal to a place where the ink was smudged in a couple spots. Had I spilled water on my journal? Or was I in tears over something? I read that entry.

I broke up with Jay tonight. The real thing this time, not halfhearted like the other times with him. Love is the thing that smashes you hardest, that leaves you raw. The deeper you love, the deeper it hurts when it ends. He can be so much fun, but I could see that we are too different for it to work out well in the long run. Letting things continue with him would be too costly.

Even now, reading that years-old journal entry, a lump formed in my throat. I remember the ensuing long walks listening to sad music through my earbuds. On one of those walks it had started pouring rain, but I barely even cared that I was soaked when I got back to the house.