“Don’t scratch!” Mrs. Macintire chided in a teasing tone. “Goodness, you’re gonna give yourself a rash, or somethin.’”
“I-I wasn’t scratching!” Tabitha protested with a giddy smile. “I was rubbing.”
They had checked in at Springton General Hospital’s front desk twenty minutes ago and were still seated in the waiting area. Once again Mrs. Macintire had grabbed them both magazines to leaf through, but now Tabitha was too distracted by her new hand to bring much attention to the pages. Which of course was a source of amusement to Mrs. Macintire, who kept looking up from her coffee and folded-over magazine at the girl with looks of exasperation.
“Well, don’t rub too much,” Mrs. Macintire grinned. “We’re in public, and you’re embarrassing me!”
“Aaaaghhh—” Tabitha groaned, plucking and pinching at her hand as she wiggled and stretched long-dormant fingers back to their full range of movement. “It just feels really good!”
Cradling the limb in front of her, she traced the fingernails of her good hand from the inside of a pale elbow all the way up to the inside of her wrist, practically shivering at how great that sensation was. Then, she closed her hand into a fist and rubbed her knuckles back along it the other way—she opened again and grasped the whole way around her arm, appreciating the sheer simplicity of being able to access her own hand without touch being blocked off by that wretched cast.
“Oh, so it’s okay to just rub yourself in public if it feels good, huh?” Mrs. Macintire said in a dry voice. “Sheesh, kiddo—are we really gonna have to have the talk?”
Tabitha let out a squawk of indignation, but both of them were smiling. Groping and grabbing at her own wrist, palm, and fingers in the hour or so after getting the cast off wasn’t a sexual kind of pleasure, but it was incredibly satisfying, and she told herself that she wanted to get it all out of her system before she was dropped off at school. Even more embarrassing was the fact that if she brought her freshly uncasked wrist up to her nose and breathed deep, she could still detect a weird sort of scent, even after all of the scrubbing.
“Would you stop that?!” Mrs. Macintire giggled. “Getting high off your own stink, ew. Ew!”
“I was just checking!” Tabitha laughed, feeling a little mortified as she sniffed at her palm again. “I think that um, that I might want to put lotion on, or something? I swear I can still smell it. Do we have lotion?”
“We’ll give it a couple days to air out, at least,” Sandra chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll be back to normal in a week, or so. Guess I should count my blessings that you can’t be rubbing and scratching and pawing at your skull fracture, huh?”
“I’m very glad they don’t put casts on skulls!” Tabitha rolled her eyes. “Can’t even imagine. I did have a bandage wrap thing, for a bit. Wait—have you never broken a bone?”
“Had my foot in a cast when I was, uhhh—” Mrs. Macintire screwed up her face as she tried to remember. “Twenty-something? Around then? Skiing accident. Had to wobble around with crutches jabbed the whole way up my armpits for ages. That was no picnic. You? Pssh, you got off lucky, don’t have to deal with all that nonsense.”
“Me, lucky?” Tabitha couldn’t help but stare at the woman. “I’m hospitalized with a new injury like, every other month! Let alone all the constant family issues and, and problems and stuff that make me feel like I’m on the verge of a mental breakdown!”
“You’re a teenager,” Mrs. Macintire laughed. “It’s supposed to be like that.”
“It is not!”
“When I was right around your age…” Mrs. Macintire mused. “Listen, I had been kinda-sorta dating this real sweet guy, but we hadn’t made things, um, official, just yet? Turns out, the guy had been kinda-sorta also dating one of my friends, at the same time? And, yeah I guess I found out about it in the worst possible way. I saw red. I, uh, well I all but dragged her off of this table the next time I saw her, screaming and clawing at her, and um, well it wasn’t pretty. I did get a fistful of her hair! Wish I’d kept it. We didn’t talk again for four, five years? And, we were never close ever again.”
“Wow,” Tabitha blinked. “But—”
“Right around that same time, my brother got into drugs,” Mrs. Macintire continued. “My older brother, he’d just gone off to Ohio State College. He was tall, good-looking, popular. Enough so that around school, everyone knew me first as his little sister, and as my own person second, or not at all. Was always just Chad’s little sister to everyone. He was into theater and chorus and all that, loved being up on stage, the stupid smarmy prick. I know your mother was headed towards Hollywood, well I think Chad only had eyes for Broadway musicals. Cats, Chicago. Rent. Grease. All of those.”
“Springton High is doing The Wiz,” Tabitha murmured. “I just found out.”
“Good Lord,” Sandra shook her head with a wry smile. “That one, too, I’m sure. Well, our Chad could do no wrong, and after that first time my parents were convinced somehow that it was some kind of one-time-thing. Just a silly, embarrassing mistake—because he was Chad, and of course he should know better. They assumed he had learned his lesson, and when next he called and said he’d run into this or that little hiccup and needed some money, they trusted him and sent it.”
“...Oh, no,” Tabitha’s brows furrowed.
“So, it happened again,” Mrs. Macintire said. “And, again. And again. Heroin, crack-cocaine, pills of some kind. Uppers? I don’t even know. My parents could not understand. Refused to understand. Each time, they thought it would be the last, and that he’d finally uh, gotten all of that out of his system, and moved on. Grown up. Until the last time—we got the call that he could not be resuscitated. He was just… gone.”
“I’m so sorry,” Tabitha said.
“It’s okay,” Sandra said, putting on a strained smile. “At the time, I was just so much more angry than I was sad. Always will be, maybe? At him, at them—at everyone. This was right around the time I was, uh, fighting with my friends, going through this difficult time, and of course it meant that when it was my turn to go off to college, my parents are like—absolutely not. No way. You’re not leaving our sight. What if you get into drugs?!”
“Sheesh,” Tabitha said.
“Yeah,” Mrs. Macintire said. “Too little, too late, wrong child to be fussing at. Well, at that age that just made me angrier at everything, and I already had a temper, so yeah. I probably wasn’t a joy to be around for a few years. Certainly not when I had to be on crutches, on top of that! It was a… yeah, a very difficult time. I think we all go through it.”
“That… helps put things into perspective, some,” Tabitha admitted. “Thank you. I guess because of everything—the shooting, the uh, the nonsense at school. Then, Halloween…”
“I mean, that is a lot of nonsense,” Mrs. Macintire smiled. “To be fair.”
“But, it was starting to put me into, uh,” Tabitha floundered for the right word. “Main character syndrome, I guess? Where I start to actually believe that since all of these things are happening to me, then yes surely I must be the protagonist. Because, everything’s happening to me.”
“No, I get it,” Mrs. Macintire said. “I’m right there with ya. I was one hundred percent the protagonist of my life story, right up until the moment I had Hannah.”
“Then, she took center stage?” Tabitha guessed.
“Yep,” Mrs. Macintire sighed. “How could she not? She’s such a little diva! I think she does share that stage with you, now—you’re a lead character in her story, for sure. We’ll get you top billing. But yeah, mostly everyone thinks of themselves as the protagonist in their own story.”
“I didn’t, not for a long time,” Tabitha shrugged. “I was just… there. In the background.”
“Well,” Mrs. Macintire sighed. “S’not always easy and fun. It does start to wear at you, doesn’t it? Center stage.”
“It’s exhausting!” Tabitha groaned. “I hate it. And, I love it. I, um, I kind of decided to myself that I want to be popular, or at least try to, at least once in my life. Be uh, be part of the in crowd, have attention, and so many friends, and make so many memories, and be cool in high school. But then also—I don’t know. It’s also just so horrible, it shows me sides of myself I don’t like to discover, it, well…”
“Yep,” Mrs. Macintire nodded. “In my own head, I was always like, I’m such a good person. I’m the nicest person I know. I would never do this or that. Had myself convinced. Then, push comes to shove and I’ve uh, tackled one of my ‘friends’ in the lunch room and I’m having this insane catfight—I got suspended—and, yeah. Wasn’t fun to learn all that about myself. That I have a temper, that when things get past a certain point, I don’t control that temper at all. Don’t have control. It was scary.”
“Yeah,” Tabitha frowned. “Yeah. Just this past week I’ve caught myself, um, saying things I never would have thought I would say to people. The words just—come out of my mouth. And I’m like, huh. I guess I’m not the person I thought I was. It’s so… disappointing.”
“It’s part of growing up,” Mrs. Macintire assured her. “Completely natural. And, hey—life has thrown a lot of bullshit at you all at once. When it rains, it pours? You’ve definitely had a rough time of things, Tabitha. I mean, not as rough as I had it, not by half, of course. I had to have crutches. Pssh, girl you got off easy. My armpits were aching, my boobs were hurting, everyone’s like—well, you must be using them wrong, and I’m like, YOU try using them to get around everywhere, stupid friggin—”
“You couldn’t just get a wheelchair?!” Tabitha giggled. “I really don’t think you had it worse than me. Not that it’s a competition.”
“Wheelchair, for just a couple months? Hah, nah,” Mrs. Macintire shrugged. “We didn’t have one handy, and my parents weren't about to drop a couple hundred on one. Around that time I think my friends that coulda pushed me around in a wheelchair woulda rather pushed me off a cliff? Plus, this was in the eighties—wheelchair accessibility hadn’t quite swept the whole way around, yet. Honestly didn’t even know what to do with the crutches after I was done with them—took them with me, but I think they’re still shoved in a corner of the garage, somewhere? Hell, probably stacked up right alongside those same damn skis, don’t think I’ve ever used them since then, either.”
“Hmm,” Tabitha mused. “What size are they? Where can you even go skiing, around here?”
“That was from all the way back in Ohio,” Mrs. Macintire said. “Here in Kentucky? Yeah, good luck. We’ve got the mountains, but we just don’t get the snowfall you’d need. Only one around here I knew of was General Butler State Resort, and they just shuttered for good last year. Or, year before last? Remember hearing the Williams talk about it, I think they did trips? Nothing to do with me—I learned my lesson. You want to go skiing?”
“Maybe once, just to try it?” Tabitha paused to think about it. “Can you use the skis you have but for water-skiing, like in the summer? Getting pulled behind a motorboat? The Ohio river—”
“Pfft, I wish,” Mrs. Macintire said. “Snow skis and their big stupid boots aren’t made to float, and they won’t come off your feet and letcha swim once you start floundering. Good way to drown yourself. You want to try water-skiing?”
“I don’t know!” Tabitha giggled. “I’ve never done… well, much of anything. Until just recently, I’d never even considered trying a lot of things. I didn’t actually even learn to ride a bike until I was—until I was uh. Until just a few years ago. I’ve never been camping, I’ve never gone sledding. I’ve been to a roller rink now, but still never skated, I’ve—”
“Good lord,” Sandra sighed. “Well, we’ll have to make sure to start taking you and Hannah out and about, then. I know hubby dearest has all sorts of stuff for hunting and camping and all that, already. Hannah has her little Disney princess sleeping bag, that she’s only ever even used for that one absolute nightmare of a slumber party we tried to—you know what, don’t even ask.”
“Was she… not on her best behavior?” Tabitha guessed.
“I can handle one little girl throwing tantrums!” Mrs. Macintire said in a wry voice, taking a long sip from her coffee. “But, when it’s four or five brats, all at once? Not sharing and not making nice and all yelling and screaming and then crying at each other and everything? Good lord—just put me out of my misery.”
“That bad, huh?” Tabitha shook her head.
“You haven’t really seen it,” Mrs. Macintire explained. “You see, you’ve got this elegant and refined Mary Poppins kind of Victorian governess little act you put on, when you’re with Hannah? And then, she tries to copy that and act like you. It’s cute—it’s adorable. But, when she’s amongst her own kind? Six and seven-year-old creatures? Whew lord, they really do bring out the worst in each other. Screaming and squealing and losing their minds over everything.”
“I do not act like a Victorian duchess, or governess, or anything like that!” Tabitha giggled. “Just because sometimes I—”
“Yeah, well I’ve seen how you are instead around teens your age, and it’s a whole different Tabitha,” Mrs. Macintire heckled her. “A normal Tabitha, for once. It was—no, stop, I don’t mean it like that. Listen, it was refreshing. It was like kind of a relief, to see you more… normal?”
“I’m not abnormal!” Tabitha groaned. “You’re—”
“Okay, Abby!” Sandra scoffed. “Abby Normal.”
“I think you just like to bully me!” Tabitha said. “If you—”
“True!” Mrs. Macintire admitted. “Too true.”
“If you’re around Karen, you don’t bully me so relentlessly like this,” Tabitha complained with a small smile.
“Also true,” Mrs. Macintire took another sip. “Because, then she’d gang up on me! I have to mess with you only whenever I can get away with it. You see? You’re already learning. Look at all these valuable life lessons you’re getting today!”
( Previous, 63 pt 2 | RE: Trailer Trash | Next, 63 pt 4 )
/// Will update links and guide pages later.
Had a meeting with Bri from Mango Media yesterday, and man. I've just been too stressed lately trying to juggle the AnimeCon book 4 edit along with writing for book 5 there, work on RE: Trailer Trash, and the near constant meetings with artists about art orders for the game.
RheTt from Aethon contacted me and told me the webtoon version of RE:TT might be getting a print run, and I just felt—honestly disgusted. I can't stand what they've done with it, and I've been told repeatedly there's no way to interfere or pull out of that contract. It makes me just want to stop working on RE: Trailer Trash. I'm finding Goodreads reviews for RE: Trailer Trash now that complain about her perverse relationships with boys and the fire in the trailer park, and I'm like wait what fucking fire?
Signing with Aethon was a mistake, and now that I have zero intentions of submitting a RE:TT book two to them, it makes me want to just put RE:TT on the back burner for a bit so that I can focus on the AnimeCon and Renfaire writing. I've gone through all the fine print time and time again and there's several years still until my contract with Aethon expires and I can sign RE:TT with a different publisher.
I know that's not what any of you want to hear.
I had been trying hard to treat AnimeCon and RE:TT as equally as I could with my writing time, but man. I've just been so angry about it lately that it legit makes me want to derail or sabotage the story, which isn't fair to Tabitha or you guys.