At exactly seven o’clock, Tinsel locked the door to the Five and Ten and flipped the open sign to closed. She stared outside for a moment and watched the fog roll in close to the ground. She watched it swirl closer to the store before turning and heading back to the counter.
Tinsel shut her biology book and slid it into her backpack. She zipped it up and swung it onto her back. She stood in front of the register, opening it, and began counting the change. By 7:06, she was finished for the night. She went back to the door, eased it open, and locked it behind her. Her house was four down the street on the left.
Her father was a meth head, skipped town before Tinsel was born, and her mama was an actress. She’d never made it out to California, never made it anywhere for that matter, and if her mama couldn’t have the bright lights of the big city, she’d bring them to herself. And so Tinsel was Tinsel, and their house glowed with strings of rainbow Christmas lights every day of the year, and drama was plenty with all of Mama’s ex-boyfriends.
A battered green Ford pickup was in the driveway when Tinsel walked up. She kicked its back tire when she passed by. The lights in the house were out, but a blue glow beckoned from the living room window.
Tinsel shut the door behind her, and Jeff, Mama’s current boyfriend, jumped awake from his place on the couch. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, and let out a low moan.
“Think you could shut that door any louder?” He rolled back over and was snoring in seconds. Tinsel walked down the hallway to her bedroom and slammed the door shut. She heard Jeff grumbling from the other room.
She dropped her backpack next to her bed before lying down. Her room was stuffy and warm, so she twisted to open the window over her bed. A breeze came through and settled on her skin, cooling her. She turned over onto her side and fell asleep.
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A crash woke her. She opened her eyes and rolled onto her back. She’d ignore it as long as she could.
“Tinsel?” She groaned. Her mama was home. Tinsel pushed off her bed and ran her hands over her hair. If anything annoyed her mama more than an unkempt person, Tinsel didn’t know what it was. Which was ironic, considering her taste in boyfriends.
She opened her door and walked towards the kitchen. Her mama was there unloading groceries, and Jeff was nowhere in sight. Mama’s back was toward Tinsel, and she was placing a jar of pickles on the counter. She was wearing a short pink dress with sequins lined along the bottom hem and red high heels, an outfit nobody in this town would wear out at night let alone to go grocery shopping. Tinsel flipped the light switch on and a fluorescent haze filled the room, the sequins on her mama’s dress reflecting little circles onto the ceiling. Mama looked over her shoulder and smiled.
“Hi, baby. How was your day?” She put a can of SPAM down next to the pickles, Jeff’s lifeblood.
Tinsel shrugged. She yawned and scratched her arm before starting on the bag next to the one her mama was emptying. This one held a carton of milk, a dozen eggs, and a loaf of white bread. Tinsel put everything away in their places.
“Well my day was just fabulous,” her mama said. “You’ll never guess what I’m doing tomorrow.”
She looked at Tinsel. Tinsel looked back. “Playing bingo with the ladies?”
Mama smiled. “No, silly, that’s Monday nights. Tomorrow is Wednesday.”
The light flickered overhead. “Audition day,” Tinsel responded. Her mama nodded, eyes wide.
“Audition day, baby girl. I’m gonna nail this one.” She spun around and put the SPAM in a cabinet over the stove, then hopped up and sat on the counter, leaving Tinsel to finish putting away the rest of the groceries.
“What’s it for?” Tinsel asked as she pulled a package of chicken and a bag of red onions from the next bag.
A dreamy look crossed her mama’s face. “The Wizard of Oz. Can’t you just see me bein’ Dorothy? Maybe I’ll even get a li’l puppy. Maybe they’ll even let me keep him.” She winked at Tinsel.
“Where’s this one at?” Tinsel put the onions in the refrigerator.
Her mama looked down at her hands. “Oh, I’m not really sure yet. They haven’t mentioned anything.” She smiled at Tinsel.
There had been enough auditions for Tinsel to know that this meant it was at the local community theater. Her mama wouldn’t be paid a thing if she got a role, and she’d spend hours there each day. She’d be gone before Tinsel woke up and wouldn’t be home till long after she fell asleep. She’d be paid in experience, was what she always told her boyfriends when they complained that rent was too high, just before they left for good. Then Mama would have to go to the diner and beg for her waitressing job back. But with Jeff here right now, it was audition season. The diner could wait, and so could the rent.
Tinsel put away the last of the groceries and washed her hands at the sink. She started toward the screen door that led into the backyard, pushing it open.
“Where you goin’, baby?” her mama asked. “Dinner will be ready soon. I hope you’re ready for some of Mama’s famous mac n’ cheese.”
“I’m just gonna be outside. Call me when it’s ready.”
Her mama nodded as Tinsel walked out. She went halfway to the line of trees at the end of the property and sat down in the middle of the cold grass. Mama’s famous mac n’ cheese was just the store brand box of powdered cheese pasta with a whole stick of butter and some milk, but her mama always made it and pretended it took forever to come up with the recipe. And Tinsel always pretended it was the best thing she’d ever eaten.
There were no stars in the sky tonight; there never really were this time of year. The late autumn storms cast clouds down the horizon, blocking the sky from view. It made Tinsel feel claustrophobic, not getting to see what lied beyond them. She loved to sit back there in the summertime, just staring up into the sky. The stars were one of her favorite things.
She looked to her right over at her neighbors’ house, lights already out. No one in the neighborhood had fences. They were saved for the people that lived in the fancy townhouses in the new development across town that was built two years ago. In Tinsel’s part of town, everyone liked to roam. The kids roamed, the pets roamed, and the people roamed. Everyone went back to where they belonged at nighttime and left their doors unlocked. Nobody worried. The backyards behind each house were lined with a row of evergreen trees, tall and sturdy from years of growth. Behind them were rocky fields, the ground covered with huge, sharp boulders, where the children loved to play and their parents told them not to go. But without fences, the children went anyway. Tinsel had when she was young. She fell once on an extra sharp rock. Mama didn’t even look at her as she cleaned the wound with peroxide. Tinsel never went back to the rocks again.
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Her mama had already left for the audition the next morning when Tinsel awoke. It was probably for the best, because something always tended to go wrong when she wished Mama luck. Even “break a leg” had too much literal meaning one time several years ago, and since then they avoided each other on audition days.
Tinsel felt sick when she got out of bed. Her head was throbbing and her stomach felt off. Since Mama was at auditions all day and Jeff was at work, she took two aspirin and went back to bed.
She woke back up around two o’clock when Jeff was getting home from work, loud, with what sounded like at least two other construction workers. She felt no better than she had that morning and desperately needed some water, but she didn’t want to have to go past Jeff and friends. If she was quiet enough, she figured she could sneak out into the hall to the bathroom to get some water before Jeff even noticed. She slid out of bed and carefully turned the doorknob.
Tinsel stepped into the hallway with her head down. When she looked up, she made eye contact with Jeff, Eddie, and Frank, all covered in dirt and drinking beers. They’d been around before but it never made their appearances any less casual.
Jeff looked up at the clock over the refrigerator.
“The hell you doin’ here?”
“I stayed home from school today.”
“What for?”
“I’m sick.”
Eddie nodded at her. “I could make you feel better, baby.” Frank laughed.
“Watch it, she’s my woman’s girl. If anyone gets a taste, it’s gonna be me.”
Frank and Eddie laughed. Tinsel’s stomach flipped and she hurried into the bathroom.
“If you need any help, just let me know!” Jeff shouted as she shut the door. The three sat in the kitchen cackling as Tinsel dry heaved in front of the toilet. When she caught her breath, she sat back against the wall next to the sink. She thought about calling out of work, but decided not to. She spent everyday after school at the Five and Ten, from three thirty until closing at seven. She hadn’t missed a day of work in years, and she certainly wouldn’t do so today with the houseguests that Jeff was entertaining.
Tinsel stood and looked at herself in the mirror. She was even paler than usual, but her job was easy enough. Her boss, Harvey Bennett, was almost always in the back sorting out the bills. By five o’clock every night, he was passed out drunk on his desk. Tinsel knew by now not to wake him unless there was an emergency. There were never any emergencies. She smoothed her hair back and put it into a ponytail with the hair tie that was around her wrist. She took a drink from the faucet, splashed water on her face, and went back to her room to get changed for work. Luckily, Jeff, Eddie, and Frank had gone outside to sit in the broken plastic lawn chairs and continue to their day drinking. Tinsel dressed herself fast and snuck out of the house.
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When Tinsel got up the next morning for school, she still didn’t feel well. But no matter how much her stomach hurt, she knew she couldn’t spend any more time at home with Jeff. In the kitchen, she found a note on the counter (Guess who’s the new Dorothy? Celebration cake later! xoxo) alongside two dollars, lunch money that would barely cover the cost of a drink in the school cafeteria. Tinsel put a banana in her backpack and walked out the door.
That night, she was out of the Five and Ten a little later than usual. Old Mrs. Ferwick was picking out threads for her sewing machine, but she couldn’t remember if she’d needed to pick up goldenrod or mint green. Tinsel told her she’d only charge her for one if she wanted to take them both, and Mrs. Ferwick patted her arm and called her dear. She would come back tomorrow with the one she didn’t need.
At 7:19, Tinsel locked the Five and Ten’s door and walked home. Jeff was sitting in the kitchen, eight empty beer cans crushed on the floor around his feet. He held his ninth in his fist.
“Evenin’,” he said when she walked inside.
Tinsel ignored him and shut the door. She went to the refrigerator and pulled out a piece of watermelon that was sitting on a white dish.
“What’s for dinner?”
Tinsel shut the fridge door. “Mama should be home soon.” She started walking down the hall to her bedroom.
He took a long sip of his beer. “But I’m hungry now.”
Tinsel paused. “Then make something yourself.”
Jeff finished his beer and crushed the can in his hand. He dropped it onto the floor and stood from the table, turning to face her. She felt his eyes on the back of her head.
“Make me something. Now.”
Tinsel looked at him. “You’re a grown man. Make your own food.”
Jeff smirked. Then he started laughing a slow, crazy laugh. “I don’t think you quite understood me, girl. Make me dinner.”
“No,” Tinsel said. “I won’t.” She turned back around and walked down the hallway.
A vein popped out on Jeff’s forehead. He took a step forward.
“I’m sick’a you, you know!” Jeff shouted at her. She didn’t stop to listen, just kept walking to her bedroom.
He followed her, but she shut the door in his face. He banged on it with his fists, her picture frames rattling, before turning the knob and shoving the door open. Tinsel backed away towards her bed, tripping onto it. She pulled her legs up and cradled them in her arms. She hid her face in her knees. Jeff stood in the doorframe, panting.
He crept forward. “You don’ think that your mama don’ even want you here? You sure as hell know I don’.”
“This isn’t your house,” Tinsel muttered.
“What you say to me?” Jeff asked. Tinsel shook her head. “I said, what you say to me? Look at me when I’m talkin’ to you!” He came up to the bed and unlocked her fingers from around her shins.
“Leave me alone!” Tinsel shouted. She huddled up closer to her pillow. He reached out for her, but she kicked out with her feet, getting his chest.
“You piece of shit.” His mouth frothed.
He lunged and pulled at her flailing arms and climbed on top of her, pinning her down. He held her wrists to the bed. Tinsel screamed.
“Stupid bitch, no one gonna hear you. Your mama isn’t home for hours now. Just relax already.” Tinsel looked up into his sweaty face and used all of her force to push herself up and bite his cheek. Jeff growled as blood started to fall down his face. He pushed down on her harder.
With his knees, he held down her wrists next to her sides. He slid his hands up under her shirt and pushed it up to her neck. His fat fingers pulled at the waistband of her jeans and ripped open the button.
Jeff shifted his weight and Tinsel was able to get one of her arms out from underneath him. She let him pull down her pants to her knees, felt his fingers scrape her thighs and yank at her underwear, before she punched him in the temple. Startled, he lurched backwards for a moment, and Tinsel wriggled out from under him, pulling up her pants. But Jeff regained his balance and reached out for her again, wrapping his hands around her neck and pulling her up. Her throat made a gurgling noise as she swung her hands and legs at him.
“I swear to God, I should just kill you now,” he spat.
A clap of thunder broke overhead and Jeff jerked his head to look out the open window over Tinsel’s bed. A humid burst of air pushed through and the curtains shifted with it. Tinsel struggled, her breathing more labored and her vision going black. She heard the rain start, falling onto the roof. It was steady, and the sound calmed her. It made her still.
Tinsel gasped for the biggest breath she could, filling her lungs. Another boom came from outside, and a flash of lightning lit the room. Tinsel opened her eyes wide. Her hands felt warm, electric. She took handfuls of Jeff’s shirt, and a burning smell filled her nostrils. Jeff’s head whipped forward and he faced Tinsel, cocking his head, confused. He looked down and his face fell. She planted her palms on his chest and pushed as hard as she could.
Tinsel jolted forward, static shocks rippling through her as Jeff’s body flew backwards, and his back struck the opposite wall. He fell to the ground and slumped there, two burnt holes in his shirt. Tinsel herself had collapsed back onto her bed. She reached up and touched her neck where his hands had been, then looked down to her own hands. They were black, and she shuddered.
Jeff stirred across the room, moaning. Tinsel’s head shot up and a third thunder clap sounded. She rose up from her bed and stepped over to Jeff. He couldn’t even move his head to look at her. She bent down in front of him, came face to face. She cupped her hand under his chin and lifted it to look into his eyes. They were pleading with hers. She felt no sympathy.
A fourth boom shook the house and Tinsel let go of Jeff, letting his head loll back down to his chest. She held her hands together in front of her, feeling the heat that was coming from them, and looked up to the ceiling as the rain pounded harder above her. She placed her hands back on Jeff’s chest, in the holes she’d made in his grey shirt, and cried out. Jeff’s head jolted back and hit the wall behind him. His eyes glazed over and all of the air from the room was suddenly gone. Tinsel took two fingers and placed them on his neck, feeling for his pulse. There was nothing. She stood and looked behind her, the curtains now flapping through the open window. The rain ceased and all that was left of the storm were the puddles it had left in the backyard.
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When Tinsel’s trance broke from the window and she looked back at Jeff, she ran. The sun had set and the neighborhood was silent. She ran in the few streaks of moonlight that came down through holes in the clouds. She ran past the 7-Eleven that was at the end of her street and didn’t stop until she was behind the building. She leaned against the back wall next to the garbage dumpster and heaved a few breaths. Once she could breathe normally, she began pacing. Remembering the two dollars her mama had left for her that morning, she stopped. She reached into her pocket and pulled them out.
Tinsel rounded the corner of the building and went inside the convenience store. She walked down the middle aisle to the back of the store and stood in front of the mass refrigerators. She opened one of the doors and stood in front of it, letting the air cover her body. She shut her eyes. When she opened them, she saw that the door had fogged over. She swiped her fingers in the moisture and saw a woman peering at her from the other side of the store. Tinsel grabbed a soda and turned away, letting the door shut.
There were two people on line ahead of her. She stood, jittery, waiting for her turn. The woman from the refrigerator aisle got on line behind her, holding two water bottles. When it was Tinsel’s turn, the girl behind the counter rang in the soda and Tinsel dropped her two dollars on the counter. The cashier had barely put the change in Tinsel’s hand before she was walking out of the store.
She pushed through the door, the bell above it jingling, and sat down on the curb on the side of the building where no cars ever parked. She drank down half the soda in one gulp and recapped it, placing it on the ground next to her feet. Her legs were bouncing, her hands on her knees moving with them. She pulled them off of her knees and ran them through her hair as a tear rolled down her jaw line. They’d returned to flesh tone, no longer singed black.
Someone tapped on her shoulder and she jumped up, knocking the soda over on the ground, fizzing. The woman with the two water bottles was standing there.
“You looked like you might need one of these?” She held out a water bottle to Tinsel.
Tinsel looked at the water bottle, then up at the woman’s face. She shook her head.
“I bought it for you. Take it?” The woman reached out further.
“Thank you but I’m alright.”
“I’m sorry, I just thought…”
“What?”
The woman reached into her pocket. “Do you need me to call someone for you? Your mother, maybe? Your father?”
“No, please just leave me alone.” Tinsel put her head in her hands.
“But maybe…”
“Just go away.” Tinsel looked up at the woman, her voice rising.
The woman pulled out an old cell phone and flipped it open. Tinsel eyed it. She grunted and smacked it out of the woman’s hands, grabbed the woman’s shoulders in her hands.
“I said, go away!” Tinsel knocked the water bottle out of the woman’s hand and it rolled across the parking lot, only stopping when it reached the grass at the end. The woman struggled beneath Tinsel’s grasp. “I don’t need you, you hear me!” Tinsel shook the woman before she got out from underneath Tinsel’s palms.
“Stop it! Stop it, please!” the woman shrieked. Tinsel let her arms fall back to her sides, and the woman grabbed her shoulders as if she’d been burned then backed away slowly, her eyes not leaving Tinsel’s.
Tinsel froze. Then she turned and started running again.
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The first thing Tinsel did when she got back to her house was move Jeff. He was heavy, but she was able to move him to the couch in the living room. She scattered his empty beer cans at his feet, crossed his arms over his chest. She shut his eyes with her fingers.
Tinsel stumbled out of the back door and watched the sky as she walked to the spot in the middle of her backyard with her legs planted and hips squared, panting. She looked down at her hands, terrified. A sudden crack from the sky jolted her, and her head snapped back. Staring above, she searched for one star, any star, through the clouds. Her arms lifted above her head and she shook, aware of her body but unable to control it. The sky illuminated for a breathless moment and Tinsel’s hands collapsed back down and slapped her thighs.
As the sky dimmed, she lifted her hands back up in front of her and looked at them, hard and torched. Though they were back to their usual paleness, all Tinsel saw in them was that hideous color. She felt as though nothing stretched between her limbs to string her bones together.
Tinsel pivoted on her heel and hurried into her house, the driveway empty. Mama was still at practice and wouldn’t be back for some time now. Tinsel shoved into her bedroom and pulled a bag off of the floor. She unlatched the buckle and splayed it open on her bed before yanking open drawers and grabbing the things she would need. Three changes of underwear, a hooded sweatshirt. A pair of jeans faded at the knees and two tee shirts. Thick socks and deodorant. She piled all of it into bag before putting her wallet in on top.
She opened her closet and sank to her knees, pushing aside a pair of sneakers, a pair of rubber flip flops, and a pair of pleather Mary Janes with a small hole in the bottom, her “good shoes.” They were the only three pairs of shoes she owned, save for the moccasins on her feet. She felt around the wooden boards of the floor until her finger slid into the notch she’d patiently carved out as a child. She tugged up and the board came loose. Six wads of cash, every dollar she had ever earned from the Five and Ten, were rubber banded and lined up in a row beneath it. She took each one out, six thousand dollars in all, and placed them in her leather bag one by one, stuffing them beneath her clothes.
Her bag packed, Tinsel pulled it over her shoulders. She looked around her bedroom one final time. She went out the door and shut it behind her.
In the kitchen, she grabbed two bananas, three water bottles, and the remainder of a loaf of bread to take with her. She placed them in a plastic bag that was discarded on the kitchen table. She knotted the bag and slid her arm through the handles.
The screen door jostled in its place, a gust of wind whistling against the side of the house and making it shiver. Tinsel stood next to the door and glanced at the refrigerator. A picture of her and her mama from when she was a toddler was hung up on the door, held in place with a letter Q magnet. In it they were dancing, with Tinsel’s feet on Mama’s and their hands clasped together. Tinsel’s hair was wild around her face, her teeth showing through her grin. Mama’s head was thrown back in laughter. Tinsel felt her eyes start to dampen, and she shook her head and turned on her heel. She walked out the door and it whacked shut behind her as she crossed her backyard, trying not to look around. She pushed through the trees and started running, careful to avoid any rocks that may make her fall.
At the end of her neighborhood, Tinsel stopped. The rock fields faded into pebbles and dead grass, with one last boulder only a few yards away from the train tracks that sat there. She’d only been here once before, when she was younger, back before the day she’d fallen in the rocks behind her house. Down some yards from the spot where she stood was the station in the center of town, right after her neighborhood ended and the newer parts began. It still looked the same.
Tinsel sat on the boulder and waited. She waited for the last of the night to fall around her. Her stomach grumbled but she didn’t eat. She just sat and stared straight ahead, refusing to look at her hands.
Then she heard it. Not that far off, the horn sounded. Within seconds she heard the freight train rushing to a stop. She jumped up off the boulder and hid behind one of the evergreens. The train slowed and halted, still humming and wheezing. Tinsel came back through the trees and walked alongside the cars, looking for a way in. The train horn sounded again, and she knew she didn’t have much more time. She hurried her pace and found a car with an open door. The train started chugging and it began to roll slowly. She gained momentum and put her foot on the rails below the open door. She pushed up into the train, now rolling with it. It gained speed and soon the trees were rushing by her, the town fading behind. She sat next to the open door, watching.
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