I'm going to type for a while longer, but here's today's work....
"Lissa, this is not funny. I want you to stay away from him," Mr. Morris said with a tone in his voice that said this was not open for discussion.
"Are you chaperoning Friday's dance?" Lissa asked, quickly changing the subject.
"Sadie Hawkins?" Mr. Morris asked.
"No dad the other dance this Friday, yes the Sadie Hawkins."
"I imagine I will. Are they dressing up again this year or leaving it casual?" Mr. Morris asked.
"Jeeze Dad, you're a teacher you should know this stuff," Lissa said.
"Remember," Mr. Morris said pointing to his ears, "selective hearing."
It was a sensitive issue that Lissa had managed to turn into a joke between the two of them. Mrs. Morris, Lissa's mom, had always accused Mr. Morris of only hearing things that appealed to him. She had said just before she left that he had selective hearing and probably wouldn't remember why she was leaving.
He had heard that, she was no longer IN love with him. She had lost that feeling that use to make her smile when he entered a room.
"Well, Belinda," Mr. Morris had said during one of their last fights, "I'm not sure how this is my fault. I've not changed. I show you just as much attention if not more. If I'm not enough for you, if we are not enough for you, then go."
"Oh you'd like that wouldn't you," Mrs. Morris had said. "You'd love t to be the martyr. The single dad raising his daughter after his wife abandoned him."
"Nothing could be further from the truth," Mr. Morris had said. "I have no desire to be a single dad or to raise Lissa alone."
"Her name is Bellissa," Mrs. Morris had said in such a way that it sounded like some obscenity slung in a drunken slur of insults.
Bellissa remembered that fight and some of the others. Her parents did a lot to spare her from witnessing their pugilism, but she had ears that worked. She knew they were heading for divorce long before her mom showed up in her room one morning and said, "Bellissa, I love you. I will always love you. And I love your father. He just doesn't make me happy any more, so I have got to go find my own happiness."
"Don't go, Mommy," Lissa had cried.
"Be strong, Baby Girl. You listen. I'll be in touch. I may even come back for you once I find my happiness. Just remember this, no man can give you what you won't give yourself," and with those last words, Mrs. Morris left.
Belinda Morris didn't stay in touch with her daughter. She simply disappeared completely. Lissa never blamed herself or her father. She remembered clearly the hypocrisy in her mother's last words. If no man could give her what she wouldn't give herself, why was she running off with another man.
Lissa had come to believe that her mother didn't think Lissa knew all the details. She had forgiven her mother and could even appreciate the attempt to leave her with a few words of encouragement. Lissa always thought that if her father had given her that advice that it would have been worth so much more.
Even though the words contradicted her mother's actions, Lissa knew that there was truth in it. She also knew that since her mother had not come back for her, or really contacted much at all, that Belinda Morris wasn't all bad.
Most people would have thought the opposite, but Lissa knew that her mother was making it easier for her. Her dad definitely offered a better life and after a few years a more comfortable and natural life. To have been uprooted would have been to have had the walls of her room torn down around her while he private journal was made very public.
Whether she truly did or not, Lissa was convinced that her mother had sacrificed a mother daughter relationship to allow Lissa to be free of the emotional tug-o-war that most children of divorce are faced with.
"Hey, Sally, what's up?" Mr. Morris asked as they pulled into the driveway.
"Sorry, lost in thought. And don't call me Sally," Lissa said stifling a laugh, "That's not my name."
"Sorry, George. So what are you going to wear to the dance Friday?"
"Dad, you are incorrigible."
"Well Betty, most people would tell you not to encourage me," Mr. Morris said winking.
"I smell something," Lissa said sniffing her dad. "Yep just as I feared. You reek of cheese!"
Lissa jumped out of the car and ran for the house. Mr. Morris was quick to follow. He caught her just before she could get the door open and wrestled her off the porch, throwing her in a huge pile of leaves.
They both lay in the leaves laughing and catching their breathe. "Your old man is still as good once as he ever was."
Lissa didn't comment she just watched a leaf detach from the tree and slowly float toward the ground. It made Lissa a little sad. She thought of how lonely her dad would be when next fall came and she was floating off to college.
"I love you, stinky," Mr. Morris said kissing Lissa on the forehead, "but I still have to get a shower and wash the fire extinguisher out of these clothes."
"I'll be in, in a few. I'll find something for dinner. So you gonna tell me what happened with the fire extinguisher?" Lissa asked.
"Check youtube," Mr. Morris said picking up his bag and heading inside.
Lissa stayed in the leaves taking in the ephemeral smell. There was something promising about the smell of decay. Even as one thing rotted it produced something else just as valuable.
Lissa closed her eyes and tried to separate the sounds, a trick her father had been trying to teach her. He could sit in the back of his classroom and literally tune in to whatever lab station he wanted by separating the sounds.
Lissa had found and removed the wind, the rustle of the leaves, but there was a harder crunching coming from the side yard she could not identify. She leaned forward opening her eyes, trying to find the source.
Leo
Lissa rubbed at her eyes. Maybe the leaves were getting to her. She looked back at the corner of the house and saw his signature black trench coat swish around the corner.
Lissa sprung from the leaves like a lion after a gazelle. She was determined to bring him down and once and for all find out why he was suddenly stalking her. Her dad was right, Leo was a creep. She would stay away from him, but not before she had a chance to give him, as her dad called it, what for!
The Morris house was not a large house by any means and the back yard was closed in on three sides by a large privacy fence that blocked the view of the pool. As Lissa ran, she wondered if he had cut through the Johnson's yard, directly behind her house, or the Smith's, the neighbors to the right if facing the house. She knew he didn't come from the Vanderson's yard. Brutis the bull mastiff never would have let him near the yard without going bizerk.
She thought about hooking right and scooting to the far side of the house to flank him, but she was afraid he was going straight back. She didn't want to miss him.
As she neared the back corner of the house, a flap of black came into view, just as it swooshed over the fence. How did he jump that, Lissa wondered.
While bookish and very concerned with her studies, Lissa was raised mostly by her father who despite his small size was a collegiate athlete. She had some skills. She arced around the pool and came at the fence in a high speed trot. She reached out with her right foot catching it right above the center beam of the privacy fence.
Her hands caught the top and with a fluid pull, she was over. She tucked and rolled as she hit the Johnson's backyard. She was just glad that Jordan, the Johnson's six-year-old, hadn't left a bike or something else equally unforgiving under the spot she landed.
"Damn," Lissa fumed through clenched teeth. She had missed him. She ran out to the street anyway, but something told her she wouldn't see him. She looked left and right and left again, but there was no trace of Leo or his coat.
Lissa turned and headed home cutting through the Jone's yard. When she reached her house, her dad was waiting. "What was that all about?" he asked.
"Starting to see your point," Lissa said staring absently out the back window in the kitchen. Her dad had been washing dishing. "Thought you'd be in the shower."
"Done, just trying to straighten the kitchen before I destroy it. So which point do you see?" He asked, throwing a dish towel over his shoulder.
"Nothing," Lissa stared absently through the window. Had she imagined the whole thing? She was under some stress lately. She had the paper on Hamlet, a physics project, about one hundred calculus problems a night. Maybe it was nothing.
Nevertheless, Lissa knew she wanted nothing to do with Leo. Even if that made her a hypocrite. Heck it was probably genetic and she couldn't help it anyway.
"So what do you think?" Lissa asked her dad.
"Where did you get that? Sluts Are Us?"
"Dad!" Lissa yelled appalled.
"Seriously, where's the rest of it?" Mr. Morris asked.
"This is all of it," Lissa said arms akimbo.
"I'm pretty sure that doesn't meet dress code."
"Daddy, I look cute." Lissa was modeling the Halloween costume she bought for the Sadie Hawkins dance.
"Are you sure you got the right size?" Mr. Morris asked. "I'm not trying to upset you, but you are my baby girl. You're advertising. That's all I'm saying."
Mr. Morris had this thing about advertising. He always said if you didn't want people to look then you shouldn't advertise. And if you did want people to look then you should be sure you're advertising what you want to sell. Writing "Cutie" across your behind sent a message he wasn't comfortable with his daughter sending, style or no style.
"Daddy, it's Snow White," Lissa said, looking for approval in her tone.
"I can see that, but Snow White was a princess, not a hooker," Mr. Morris said with his final answer in his tone.
"Fine, then I'm going through the box in the attic to see what Mom left." Lissa knew it was a low blow, but she was only human. She didn't like being called a hooker by her father. She liked her Snow White costume.
She stormed up the stairs and into the attic, making a point of slamming the door behind her.
The trunk was buried in the back corner of the attic. Lissa knew where it was because it hadn't moved since her dad put it there shortly after her mom left them. As she cleared herself a path, she felt that twinge of guilt. It was a low blow. And her costume was pretty risque for her personality. But if she was going to get Jake Nelson's attention, she was going to have to step up her game.
Jake Nelson was the quarterback, captain of the wrestling team, and pitcher for the baseball team. He had been scouted since they were sophomores. He was tall and sinewy. He had abs you could shred cheese on and the cutest dimples when he smiled.
Unlike Garrett, who played on the line and wrestled heavyweight, Jake was a sweetheart. He tried to keep Garrett in check. He didn't always have a girlfriend; although, many girls tried to tie him down. No one ever had a bad thing to say about him.
Lissa just wanted to catch his eye and get him to ask her to the prom. She didn't want to go alone or with a friend. She wanted to go with Jake. She didn't want to date him. But she did want a date who would make for great pictures and great stories she could tell her kids. Jake was bound to go pro or make it to the major leagues. She wanted to be able to say she went to prom with him.
She knew it was stupid and went against nearly every ounce of her personality and upbringing. But she didn't care. Every now and then, a girl wants what a girl wants and there doesn't have to be a rhyme or a reason to it. It may not have been like her, but she felt like she had given enough that just this once she could be shallow and superficial.
She unlocked the chest and blow some dust off the top before opening it. She tried to think of the last time she had come up to look through it must have been. She couldn't clearly place it in her memory.
She knew and could see plain as the trunk in front of her the day her dad meticulously folded and packed the trunk. She tried to help him carry it, but instead she ended up riding on it, while her dad carried the trunk and her into the attic.
"Lissa, this is your mother's stuff and if she ever comes asking for it, we'll give it to her. But we don't need it taking up space. And as you get older, you may want to check back. Over time the connection with your mom may seem to fade. Perhaps these things will help you stay connected," Mr. Morris had said.
"She's coming back," was Lissa's overconfident response.
Mr. Morris just kissed her on the forehead and left the attic.
As Lissa began to sort through the items in the trunk, she felt extra bad for throwing her mom leaving in her dad's face. He was too kind to deserve that.
She was about to just shut the trunk and go apologize when a yellow dress with ruffles caught her eye. She pulled it out of the trunk and held it up. She didn't remember ever seeing her mom wear it.
She quickly closed the trunk and left with the dress in tow. She was not surprised to see that it fit her perfectly. She knew how much she looked like her mom. She even knew, though he would never admit it, that her dad suffered the more she grew up to look like Belinda.
As Lissa walked down the stairs, she heard in an overly southern accent, "Why, I do declare!"
"You like it, Daddy?" she asked blushing.
"You my dear," Mr. Morris said maintaining his accent, "are a vision."
"Is it okay if I wear it?"
Mr. Morris smiled a crooked smirk and said, "Better than leaving it to the moths."
"What was it for?" Lissa asked. "I never noticed it before."
"One summer, before you were even a blip on the radar, your mother and I did some Civil War reenactments. Nothing too crazy, but she loved history and thought it would be a good bonding experience. Well you know I like bonding."
Lissa pulled a face.
"Why don't you ever think my physical science jokes are funny?" Mr Morris asked.
"Probably because they're not," Lissa said laughing. "So is this suitable for the dance?"
"I would hope so. And now you look like a princess."
"Which one?" Lissa asked.
"Belle, of course!" Mr. Morris exclaimed.
"Daddy, Belle was not a princess."
"Oh, technicality. She was after marrying the beast. He was a prince afterall. Not all princesses are born that way!" He tapped her nose with his index finger.
"So what are you going to be?" Lissa asked.
"It's difficult to say," Mr. Morris responded.
As they walked into the dance together, Lissa said, "No one is going to get it."
"Someone will," Mr. Morris said confidently.
Mr. Morris decided to go as a physical science reaction. He had sprayed himself with a chemical that made him glow in a black light.
As they walked into the gym, Jake came running up. "Whoa Mr. M.. Nice alien dude! How did you make yourself glow in the dark?"
"Told ya so," Lissa said. Pulling Jake by the arm, "Come on Robin hood, you owe me a dance."
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