careers. They both always got straight A’s without really having to try, always ended up winning awards and scholarships and being the kids that everybody cheated from. Academically, they could do no wrong.
Wendy had been two years ahead of Cindy, Randy one year behind her. And in the middle, Cindy struggled to maintain a B- average, which sometimes slipped to a C when she didn’t put in an agonizing number of hours of homework.
It’s not fair , she had often thought.
All the teachers frowned at her when she failed any test, as if they knew she just didn’t give a shit. Truth was she cared more than Wendy and Randy. She just wasn’t born with the same kind of brain they had or something.
She’d struggled with numbers her whole life, could never pull 12 x 11 out of thin air, and for many years that haunted her because she always felt she was a failure in her parents’ eyes. Hell, she still was. Her parents still looked down on her, as if she were a scrap of dog shit stuck to the bottom of their shoe. They’d never accepted her radio career as anything other than a stupid hobby, and she barely spoke to them anymore.
Now? None of those school days mattered anymore, at least to her. She knew how to calculate numbers using her iPhone or her iPad, and if she couldn’t remember exactly how to spell something, Microsoft Word was always there to auto-correct.
None of the ways she’d failed all the way through school made a hill of beans worth of difference.
What all those C’s did teach her, though, was how to be organized. If she couldn’t always remember every little detail, she knew precisely how to keep lists of things. She always kept a spiral notebook handy and had a page for every day of the year. On each page she kept everything she needed to know: to-do lists, phone calls to make, grocery items to buy, appointments for herself, Tony, and Avril, and everything else she needed to remember for the day.
Her organization skills were second nature and she never thought about it. It was her primary weapon in life, and it helped her with everything, every single day.
Meanwhile, sister Wendy was an accountant who hated her job, and who spent much of her free time complaining.
Brother Randy was some kind of scientist who specialized in dinosaur bones. Cindy last heard from him about a year ago. He’d been on an archeological dig in Montana. She’d never heard him mention having any friends, but he could multiply two three-digit numbers in his head and recite the value of pi to 100 decimal places.
Today, written in her spiral notebook was the cryptic note: 4 w M, old place.
The note had to be somewhat cryptic. Tony sometimes picked up her book and glanced through it. She hated the invasion of her privacy, but she couldn’t bring herself to hide the book from him either, because she never had anything to hide. On the occasions when he did read whatever notes she’d scribbled for herself, he’d frown and shake his head as if she was doing something dirty and disgusting. She hated how he could demean her without saying a single word.
To Cindy, the note meant: Meeting Maria at 4:00 at the place we used to hang out.
The Puget Spaghetti House was one of their favorite places to meet. It was a touristy-type pasta restaurant that had wonderful spaghetti with meatballs and about a hundred other dishes. Cindy and Maria Delgado would meet there about once a year and enjoy their time together.
Cindy was, as always, five minutes early. And as always, Maria walked in about fifteen minutes later, apologizing for being late. Cindy laughed and waved it off. She was already enjoying her second glass of wine, and sitting there relaxing all alone had actually been a nice treat for her.
“You know it was less than two weeks ago that we had dinner last time,” said Maria. “How the hell did you manage that?”
Cindy shrugged. “Can’t I enjoy some time with my best friend?”
Maria smiled. She was perfectly dressed in
Wendy had been two years ahead of Cindy, Randy one year behind her. And in the middle, Cindy struggled to maintain a B- average, which sometimes slipped to a C when she didn’t put in an agonizing number of hours of homework.
It’s not fair , she had often thought.
All the teachers frowned at her when she failed any test, as if they knew she just didn’t give a shit. Truth was she cared more than Wendy and Randy. She just wasn’t born with the same kind of brain they had or something.
She’d struggled with numbers her whole life, could never pull 12 x 11 out of thin air, and for many years that haunted her because she always felt she was a failure in her parents’ eyes. Hell, she still was. Her parents still looked down on her, as if she were a scrap of dog shit stuck to the bottom of their shoe. They’d never accepted her radio career as anything other than a stupid hobby, and she barely spoke to them anymore.
Now? None of those school days mattered anymore, at least to her. She knew how to calculate numbers using her iPhone or her iPad, and if she couldn’t remember exactly how to spell something, Microsoft Word was always there to auto-correct.
None of the ways she’d failed all the way through school made a hill of beans worth of difference.
What all those C’s did teach her, though, was how to be organized. If she couldn’t always remember every little detail, she knew precisely how to keep lists of things. She always kept a spiral notebook handy and had a page for every day of the year. On each page she kept everything she needed to know: to-do lists, phone calls to make, grocery items to buy, appointments for herself, Tony, and Avril, and everything else she needed to remember for the day.
Her organization skills were second nature and she never thought about it. It was her primary weapon in life, and it helped her with everything, every single day.
Meanwhile, sister Wendy was an accountant who hated her job, and who spent much of her free time complaining.
Brother Randy was some kind of scientist who specialized in dinosaur bones. Cindy last heard from him about a year ago. He’d been on an archeological dig in Montana. She’d never heard him mention having any friends, but he could multiply two three-digit numbers in his head and recite the value of pi to 100 decimal places.
Today, written in her spiral notebook was the cryptic note: 4 w M, old place.
The note had to be somewhat cryptic. Tony sometimes picked up her book and glanced through it. She hated the invasion of her privacy, but she couldn’t bring herself to hide the book from him either, because she never had anything to hide. On the occasions when he did read whatever notes she’d scribbled for herself, he’d frown and shake his head as if she was doing something dirty and disgusting. She hated how he could demean her without saying a single word.
To Cindy, the note meant: Meeting Maria at 4:00 at the place we used to hang out.
The Puget Spaghetti House was one of their favorite places to meet. It was a touristy-type pasta restaurant that had wonderful spaghetti with meatballs and about a hundred other dishes. Cindy and Maria Delgado would meet there about once a year and enjoy their time together.
Cindy was, as always, five minutes early. And as always, Maria walked in about fifteen minutes later, apologizing for being late. Cindy laughed and waved it off. She was already enjoying her second glass of wine, and sitting there relaxing all alone had actually been a nice treat for her.
“You know it was less than two weeks ago that we had dinner last time,” said Maria. “How the hell did you manage that?”
Cindy shrugged. “Can’t I enjoy some time with my best friend?”
Maria smiled. She was perfectly dressed in
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