smackenzie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smackenzie) wrote2007-11-19 12:20 am
smackenzie) wrote2007-11-19 12:20 am
day 5!
Marya woke up at 6:30 - an absurd early morning hour - for no reason she could see, other than sunlight coming in through the curtains, which she had apparently forgotten to close all the way the night before. But there was no sudden noise, no drop or increase in temperature, nothing strange in her dreams - she didn't normally remember them anyway - and Oscar hadn't so much as twitched. And she hadn't bothered to set her alarm. She blinked at the clock, thought about going back to sleep, remembered that she had to pack her van and start across the country, and rolled out of bed. Oscar went from fast asleep to wide awake in no time flat and jumped off the bed to follow her into the bathroom.
, where she got the orange juice, the cheese, and a pork chop out of the cooler for breakfast. She opened the refrigerator door and was upset but not very surprised to learn that the electricity was still off. She was really glad she'd thought to cook her uncooked meat and put everything in the cooler. Not that she'd had that much in the fridge, but still.
She let Oscar out, filled his food and water while he was doing his thing in the back yard, and snarfed down her breakfast in fairly short order. She had a lot of stuff to do and not a lot of time in which to do it. She really wanted to leave before it got dark, although she couldn't rationalize why, other than to say she didn't want to have to pack the van without any electricity to see by. It sounded silly to say the dark creeped her out, but it did.
She did the dishes, got dressed, found her toothbrush and toothpaste so she could brush her teeth, and retrieved the van keys from the little table by the front door. Oscar had been let in by this time and Marya realized she'd have to do something with him while she filled the van - she couldn't leave the door open without risking him running off, but she didn't want to keep closing it behind her, and she couldn't immediately think of a good way to keep Oscar out from underfoot but also keep him quiet. If she put him in the back yard he'd just bark and whine, and even though there were no longer neighbors to be annoyed, Marya didn't want to have to listen to it. Maybe if she took his stuff out to the van first, he'd realize that he was going with her.
But she'd still have to do something with him. He followed her into the kitchen, where the grocery bag with his stuff was, and she noticed his leash hanging off a chair and his harness sitting on the table. Bingo. She pushed him into the harness - and it was a struggle, because he knew something was up and it was entirely possible, to his way of thinking, that Marya just wanted to take him to the kennel for a week - hooked the leash to it, and led him outside, where she tied the leash to the railing on the front steps. This way he could watch her pack the van and she could whap him on the head when he started to go nuts, or she could give him a pig's ear or something to chew on. Which reminded her - she needed to find his plush security fish. She'd do that first, before she started packing the van.
A preliminary pass through the house and brief investigation of Oscar's favorite hiding places suggested that maybe wasn't the best or easiest course of action. Too much crap in too many big piles. The fish could be under all the drum cases, or hidden by a suitcase. She should pack the van first and get all that stuff out of the house. Besides, if everything didn't fit, it wouldn't matter if she could find Oscar's fish or not, because repacking stuff and refitting into the van might set them back another day.
She really hoped everything fit on the first try.
The very first thing to go in was the bass drum, because it was the biggest and could be covered with other things, because Marya wouldn't need it until after she got to California. She hated hauling her drums herself, but it wasn't as if she had a choice. Oscar started barking, of course, and she ignored him.
After the bass came the toms, the snare, the parts of the stands and the rack, the padded case for the cymbals, the box with her drumsticks and all the various small bits and pieces, and the suitcase with Marya the First's afghan and mementoes in it, the suitcase Marya the Second had brought back from the assisted living complex. Then the duffle of shoes and coats, the other two suitcases, the box from the kitchen, the grocery bag with all of Oscar's chew toys and stuff, the bag of dog food, Oscar's hiking saddlebags thrown across the top. The back of the van was filling up pretty well, and most of it seemed to be drum kit. That's what she got for wanting to take her drums with her. At least she'd had the sense to take the second seat out of the van to make more room in the back.
She pulled open the side door of the van and pushed the cooler between the driver's seat and the bench seat she'd left in. (When she'd bought it, the van had had two rows of seats, behind the driver's and front passenger's seats. Now it just had one. She could seat five people.) She threw the little travel duffle on the seat. On the floor of the van behind the passenger seat, she put the grocery bag of odds and ends from the kitchen, then changed her mind and put it in the back in exchange for the box of dry goods. Now she could get to the food easier. She put the box of toiletries on the back seat next to the duffle, and pushed the box of random mementoes under the seat. Last was the bottled water, which she managed to make room for in the cooler.
Actually, last was the sleeping bag and her pillow. She made her bed, stripped the blanket off, made it again, and took the blanket, the sleeping bag, and the pillow out to the van and draped them over all the stuff in the back. She untied Oscar and brought him inside so she could make one last pass through the house.
She'd forgotten her laptop, which she now stuffed into its travel backpack, and the mag-lite flashlight and her alarm clock. The clock ran on batteries, thankfully. She put it into her shoulder bag which she almost never used, but which was a good carry-all for her wallet and iPod and sunglasses and useless cell phone and Fight Club, which she figured she'd bring with her because she hadn't finished reading it. She took the matches she'd used on the candelabra last night, and brought the candelabra back into the dining room. She took her laptop backpack and her shoulder bag and her flashlight out to the van, put the laptop in the back and the shoulder bag and flashlight on the passenger seat, and went back to the house for a final look.
It was weird and sad having to say goodbye to this place, this house that had been hers for three years and her grandma's for countless years before that. It felt more like her house than her grandma's, but there was still a whiff of her grandma's presence, and an even fainter whiff of her grandpa. Some of the furniture was theirs. Some of the stuff was theirs. And the rest of it... that was hers. And for about five minutes, Marya really didn't want to leave it. This was her house. Leaving it was the same as leaving a piece of herself.
But it was either stay here and never know if her dad was alive, or leave and find out. And she could always come back - it seemed fair to say that no one was going to break into the house in her absence.
She let Oscar run around the house, hoping he'd find his stuffed fish, and looked around for it herself. One of them was bound to find it. It wasn't as if Oscar hid it in very secret places.
Marya found it under her grandpa's chair in the den. How it got under there, and how Oscar had planned to get it back out, she couldn't guess. But now she had it, which meant Oscar could be made to feel more secure and happy, and they could leave. She put his leash back on, having not bothered to take off the harness, took him outside, and opened the passenger door of the van for him. He jumped right in and settled himself on the seat like he belonged there. Marya went around the back, put the stuffed fish on top of the bag with all of Oscar's other things, and kept going to the driver's side. She checked the front door of the house to make sure it was really locked - it was - got in the van, turned the ignition, and pulled out of the driveway.
She was really going to miss this place. But she had her dog and her drums, and she was going to drive to California and find her dad, and she was going to be ok.
She stopped by Cass' apartment on her way out of town to give Cass the spare house key. She had to ring the buzzer three times, and she knew it was working because she could hear it. She wasn't sure how it was working, since she'd thought the electricity was out all over, but she wasn't going to question.
"It's Marya," she finally yelled into the intercom. "I'm leaving, I came to say goodbye and give you my extra house key, in case there's anything there you need." She pressed the buzzer for Cass' apartment one more time and added "Are you gonna let me in or not?" And this time the door buzzed open.
Cass lived on the third floor, and like Marya's neigborhood, the building was strangely quiet. There was less ambient noise in an apartment building, especially one with walls as soundproof as Cassandra's building, but you could still usually tell that other people were up and about. Not now. It wasn't quite as creepy as Marya's empty neighborhood, but it was close.
She banged on Cass' door and was unsurprised when Spike opened it.
"Yeah?" Spike said. "Cass is in the bathroom."
"I just wanted to drop off my spare key," Marya told her. She dug in her pocked and pulled it out. The keyring was an old souvenir from Chattanooga, from years and years ago when her grandparents took a roadtrip to see the Chattanooga Choo-Choo and Graceland. Marya's grandpa was a train buff, and her grandma was an Elvis fan, and they both thought they'd really like to take a roadtrip until they actually took one. It was the last long trip by car either of them ever made.
"Why are you giving us your house key?"
"I thought Cass might like it. Maybe there's something in the house she could use. Or you could hole up there once your cousin comes, if there isn't enough room here."
Spike raised an eyebrow and Marya was starting to remember why she supposedly didn't like the girl.
"Hey, you don't have to take it," Marya said. "No skin off my back. I'm driving to California to find my dad, I don't know if I'm coming back, and I thought I'd do something nice for Cass before I left." Y'know, since she was so nice to me and all, dumping me for another woman and everything.
Although Cass had called her when things started to go wonky and had left a frantic-sounding message and had sounded as if she really did care what happened to Marya. And Marya really could afford to be generous to her now.
"Who's that?" Cass called from inside the apartment. "Is that Jordy?"
"It's me," Marya called back. "Marya. I'm leaving. I figured I'd come say goodbye first."
"Oh god, already?" Cass appeared behind Spike, looking distraught. "Don't leave. You don't know if it's safe. What if he's gone?"
"What if he isn't? I can't sit around and wait for, I dunno, a message from the ether or something. I need to know, and I'm never gonna know unless I try to find him. If he's gone, I'll come back. Ok?"
"All the phones are dead. I'll never be able to reach you."
"I'll be fine."
"I won't."
"You have Spike," Marya said, at the same time Spike said "What am I, chopped liver?" Cass had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "You have Spike," Marya repeated, "and you said her cousin was coming out here too. You will be fine. You're always fine."
"I don't want you to go," Cass said. "I'll miss you."
Marya practically bit her tongue to keep from saying No you won't. For all she knew, Cass would miss her. Maybe she could give her ex the benefit of the doubt.
"You'll still be ok," Marya said. "Look, take my spare house key. I don't know if there's anything left in the kitchen you could use, but there's clothes and blankets and sheets and stuff, and it's bigger than here if you need more space. My grandma liked you - she wouldn't mind."
That was only partly a lie - Marya's grandma really had liked Cass, but not for the entire length of the relationship, and she probably would mind if Cass and Spike took up residence in her old house. But if saying it got Cass to either accept the key or not and got Marya out of here faster, she'd say it.
"Are you sure?" Cass asked, meaning Are you sure you want to drive all that way by yourself without knowing what you'll find?
"Yes. I'm sure. Here." Marya held out the keyring with the spare key. Cass took it. "Take care of yourself, ok?"
'Yeah. You too." Cass stepped forward and threw her arms around Marya, hugging her tightly and kissing her on the cheek. Marya put her arms around Cass in return, although she didn't hug nearly as hard. Eventually Cass let go, possibly because Spike cleared her throat really loudly, and she and Marya stepped away from each other.
"Bye," Marya said, waving as she headed back down the hallway to the stairs. Cass' door closed behind her. Marya was a little more relieved than sad, although she did have a brief moment of nostalgia for the times she and Cass were happy together.
Oscar was waiting impatiently in the van. Marya patted him on the head after she buckled herself in.
"Here we go," she told him. "Westward ho."
words: 2553
total words: 30,554
, where she got the orange juice, the cheese, and a pork chop out of the cooler for breakfast. She opened the refrigerator door and was upset but not very surprised to learn that the electricity was still off. She was really glad she'd thought to cook her uncooked meat and put everything in the cooler. Not that she'd had that much in the fridge, but still.
She let Oscar out, filled his food and water while he was doing his thing in the back yard, and snarfed down her breakfast in fairly short order. She had a lot of stuff to do and not a lot of time in which to do it. She really wanted to leave before it got dark, although she couldn't rationalize why, other than to say she didn't want to have to pack the van without any electricity to see by. It sounded silly to say the dark creeped her out, but it did.
She did the dishes, got dressed, found her toothbrush and toothpaste so she could brush her teeth, and retrieved the van keys from the little table by the front door. Oscar had been let in by this time and Marya realized she'd have to do something with him while she filled the van - she couldn't leave the door open without risking him running off, but she didn't want to keep closing it behind her, and she couldn't immediately think of a good way to keep Oscar out from underfoot but also keep him quiet. If she put him in the back yard he'd just bark and whine, and even though there were no longer neighbors to be annoyed, Marya didn't want to have to listen to it. Maybe if she took his stuff out to the van first, he'd realize that he was going with her.
But she'd still have to do something with him. He followed her into the kitchen, where the grocery bag with his stuff was, and she noticed his leash hanging off a chair and his harness sitting on the table. Bingo. She pushed him into the harness - and it was a struggle, because he knew something was up and it was entirely possible, to his way of thinking, that Marya just wanted to take him to the kennel for a week - hooked the leash to it, and led him outside, where she tied the leash to the railing on the front steps. This way he could watch her pack the van and she could whap him on the head when he started to go nuts, or she could give him a pig's ear or something to chew on. Which reminded her - she needed to find his plush security fish. She'd do that first, before she started packing the van.
A preliminary pass through the house and brief investigation of Oscar's favorite hiding places suggested that maybe wasn't the best or easiest course of action. Too much crap in too many big piles. The fish could be under all the drum cases, or hidden by a suitcase. She should pack the van first and get all that stuff out of the house. Besides, if everything didn't fit, it wouldn't matter if she could find Oscar's fish or not, because repacking stuff and refitting into the van might set them back another day.
She really hoped everything fit on the first try.
The very first thing to go in was the bass drum, because it was the biggest and could be covered with other things, because Marya wouldn't need it until after she got to California. She hated hauling her drums herself, but it wasn't as if she had a choice. Oscar started barking, of course, and she ignored him.
After the bass came the toms, the snare, the parts of the stands and the rack, the padded case for the cymbals, the box with her drumsticks and all the various small bits and pieces, and the suitcase with Marya the First's afghan and mementoes in it, the suitcase Marya the Second had brought back from the assisted living complex. Then the duffle of shoes and coats, the other two suitcases, the box from the kitchen, the grocery bag with all of Oscar's chew toys and stuff, the bag of dog food, Oscar's hiking saddlebags thrown across the top. The back of the van was filling up pretty well, and most of it seemed to be drum kit. That's what she got for wanting to take her drums with her. At least she'd had the sense to take the second seat out of the van to make more room in the back.
She pulled open the side door of the van and pushed the cooler between the driver's seat and the bench seat she'd left in. (When she'd bought it, the van had had two rows of seats, behind the driver's and front passenger's seats. Now it just had one. She could seat five people.) She threw the little travel duffle on the seat. On the floor of the van behind the passenger seat, she put the grocery bag of odds and ends from the kitchen, then changed her mind and put it in the back in exchange for the box of dry goods. Now she could get to the food easier. She put the box of toiletries on the back seat next to the duffle, and pushed the box of random mementoes under the seat. Last was the bottled water, which she managed to make room for in the cooler.
Actually, last was the sleeping bag and her pillow. She made her bed, stripped the blanket off, made it again, and took the blanket, the sleeping bag, and the pillow out to the van and draped them over all the stuff in the back. She untied Oscar and brought him inside so she could make one last pass through the house.
She'd forgotten her laptop, which she now stuffed into its travel backpack, and the mag-lite flashlight and her alarm clock. The clock ran on batteries, thankfully. She put it into her shoulder bag which she almost never used, but which was a good carry-all for her wallet and iPod and sunglasses and useless cell phone and Fight Club, which she figured she'd bring with her because she hadn't finished reading it. She took the matches she'd used on the candelabra last night, and brought the candelabra back into the dining room. She took her laptop backpack and her shoulder bag and her flashlight out to the van, put the laptop in the back and the shoulder bag and flashlight on the passenger seat, and went back to the house for a final look.
It was weird and sad having to say goodbye to this place, this house that had been hers for three years and her grandma's for countless years before that. It felt more like her house than her grandma's, but there was still a whiff of her grandma's presence, and an even fainter whiff of her grandpa. Some of the furniture was theirs. Some of the stuff was theirs. And the rest of it... that was hers. And for about five minutes, Marya really didn't want to leave it. This was her house. Leaving it was the same as leaving a piece of herself.
But it was either stay here and never know if her dad was alive, or leave and find out. And she could always come back - it seemed fair to say that no one was going to break into the house in her absence.
She let Oscar run around the house, hoping he'd find his stuffed fish, and looked around for it herself. One of them was bound to find it. It wasn't as if Oscar hid it in very secret places.
Marya found it under her grandpa's chair in the den. How it got under there, and how Oscar had planned to get it back out, she couldn't guess. But now she had it, which meant Oscar could be made to feel more secure and happy, and they could leave. She put his leash back on, having not bothered to take off the harness, took him outside, and opened the passenger door of the van for him. He jumped right in and settled himself on the seat like he belonged there. Marya went around the back, put the stuffed fish on top of the bag with all of Oscar's other things, and kept going to the driver's side. She checked the front door of the house to make sure it was really locked - it was - got in the van, turned the ignition, and pulled out of the driveway.
She was really going to miss this place. But she had her dog and her drums, and she was going to drive to California and find her dad, and she was going to be ok.
She stopped by Cass' apartment on her way out of town to give Cass the spare house key. She had to ring the buzzer three times, and she knew it was working because she could hear it. She wasn't sure how it was working, since she'd thought the electricity was out all over, but she wasn't going to question.
"It's Marya," she finally yelled into the intercom. "I'm leaving, I came to say goodbye and give you my extra house key, in case there's anything there you need." She pressed the buzzer for Cass' apartment one more time and added "Are you gonna let me in or not?" And this time the door buzzed open.
Cass lived on the third floor, and like Marya's neigborhood, the building was strangely quiet. There was less ambient noise in an apartment building, especially one with walls as soundproof as Cassandra's building, but you could still usually tell that other people were up and about. Not now. It wasn't quite as creepy as Marya's empty neighborhood, but it was close.
She banged on Cass' door and was unsurprised when Spike opened it.
"Yeah?" Spike said. "Cass is in the bathroom."
"I just wanted to drop off my spare key," Marya told her. She dug in her pocked and pulled it out. The keyring was an old souvenir from Chattanooga, from years and years ago when her grandparents took a roadtrip to see the Chattanooga Choo-Choo and Graceland. Marya's grandpa was a train buff, and her grandma was an Elvis fan, and they both thought they'd really like to take a roadtrip until they actually took one. It was the last long trip by car either of them ever made.
"Why are you giving us your house key?"
"I thought Cass might like it. Maybe there's something in the house she could use. Or you could hole up there once your cousin comes, if there isn't enough room here."
Spike raised an eyebrow and Marya was starting to remember why she supposedly didn't like the girl.
"Hey, you don't have to take it," Marya said. "No skin off my back. I'm driving to California to find my dad, I don't know if I'm coming back, and I thought I'd do something nice for Cass before I left." Y'know, since she was so nice to me and all, dumping me for another woman and everything.
Although Cass had called her when things started to go wonky and had left a frantic-sounding message and had sounded as if she really did care what happened to Marya. And Marya really could afford to be generous to her now.
"Who's that?" Cass called from inside the apartment. "Is that Jordy?"
"It's me," Marya called back. "Marya. I'm leaving. I figured I'd come say goodbye first."
"Oh god, already?" Cass appeared behind Spike, looking distraught. "Don't leave. You don't know if it's safe. What if he's gone?"
"What if he isn't? I can't sit around and wait for, I dunno, a message from the ether or something. I need to know, and I'm never gonna know unless I try to find him. If he's gone, I'll come back. Ok?"
"All the phones are dead. I'll never be able to reach you."
"I'll be fine."
"I won't."
"You have Spike," Marya said, at the same time Spike said "What am I, chopped liver?" Cass had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "You have Spike," Marya repeated, "and you said her cousin was coming out here too. You will be fine. You're always fine."
"I don't want you to go," Cass said. "I'll miss you."
Marya practically bit her tongue to keep from saying No you won't. For all she knew, Cass would miss her. Maybe she could give her ex the benefit of the doubt.
"You'll still be ok," Marya said. "Look, take my spare house key. I don't know if there's anything left in the kitchen you could use, but there's clothes and blankets and sheets and stuff, and it's bigger than here if you need more space. My grandma liked you - she wouldn't mind."
That was only partly a lie - Marya's grandma really had liked Cass, but not for the entire length of the relationship, and she probably would mind if Cass and Spike took up residence in her old house. But if saying it got Cass to either accept the key or not and got Marya out of here faster, she'd say it.
"Are you sure?" Cass asked, meaning Are you sure you want to drive all that way by yourself without knowing what you'll find?
"Yes. I'm sure. Here." Marya held out the keyring with the spare key. Cass took it. "Take care of yourself, ok?"
'Yeah. You too." Cass stepped forward and threw her arms around Marya, hugging her tightly and kissing her on the cheek. Marya put her arms around Cass in return, although she didn't hug nearly as hard. Eventually Cass let go, possibly because Spike cleared her throat really loudly, and she and Marya stepped away from each other.
"Bye," Marya said, waving as she headed back down the hallway to the stairs. Cass' door closed behind her. Marya was a little more relieved than sad, although she did have a brief moment of nostalgia for the times she and Cass were happy together.
Oscar was waiting impatiently in the van. Marya patted him on the head after she buckled herself in.
"Here we go," she told him. "Westward ho."
words: 2553
total words: 30,554