Everything Essential

By Linda Bradshaw

2 high school girls become best friends, but they're both surprised when college, jobs, and life experiences reveal the true nature of their personalities and friendship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Mar 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781365835520

Linda Bradshaw

Linda Bradshaw, a New Zealander living in Australia, was forty years old and working on a social science degree when she was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease. Almost twenty years on from that day and symptom free, her mission in life is to make people smile, laugh at themselves more, risk daily, on the pathway to extraordinary.

Book preview

Everything Essential

Everything Essential

By Linda Bradshaw

Everything Essential

What She Kept

Everything Essential

A Novel

Linda Bradshaw

Everything Essential is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2017 by Linda Bradshaw

All rights reserved.

ISBN 978-1-365-37840-9

Printed in the United States of America

www.lulu.com

This book is for Gail Grenier Sweet,

who insists I have talent

and

the Milwaukee ANGER Group

for unstinting support and encouragement:

Greta Igl

Russ Brown

Brenda Davis

"When people show you who they are,

believe them the first time."

- Maya Angelou

Chapter 1 -  1973-1974

Someone once told me this: you secretly know everything essential about people in the first fifteen minutes of knowing them.  You may not realize it at the time, but eventually you figure it out.  

Ridiculous, I thought.

Well, guess who was wrong?   Every time I ignored those little warning bells, assuming that those things would never happen to me,  I got scalded bald when those bells finally tolled my name.

So this then is the story of the worst and biggest bell – about me and Allison, and how it all fell apart.

*   *  *   *   *  *   *  *   *  *

I met her on our very first day at St. Benedicta’s High School for girls.   While I scuffed along on the sidelines, blending into the grey cinderblock walls, mousy in my blue skirt and matching knee socks, Allison strode through the halls like a surgeon. 

If it is hard to imagine such a thing in a fourteen-year-old, picture this in your mind’s eye:  a brown-eyed girl of average height, her fine molasses hair hanging to the middle of her back, long tapered legs encased in nylons that zzzzipped as she moved.  Allison, surprisingly thin for a large-chested girl, disdained those who noticed.  Her lips were thin on a wide mouth, and those brown eyes, deep and wide and dark as coffee, took everything in, then tossed it aside.

In her ocean, I felt as small as a guppy.

I didn’t know it then, but later learned that this was her standard M.O. -- a façade of superiority donned for public consumption, crafted to disarm and intimidate.  At the time, I believed her to be exactly as she seemed – just like I wanted everyone to believe the same of me.

In our Introduction to American History class, I paid close attention as Sister Johannes called the roll. 

Allison Bruda?  Sister called.

Here.  She crossed her legs – again the cricket chirp of nylon against nylon --- and raised her hand.  She seemed amused by the routine;  the condescending smile never left her face.   I jotted down Allison’s name on the back sheet of my notebook.

Allison and I shared every class that semester.  Our school practiced tracking, grouping students according to similar placement scores.   The thirty of us at the top of the score heap were hitched together as an amorphous blob of too-bright freshmen in navy plaid wool skirts, moving to and through our classes as a herd, every forty minutes.

By the end of that first day, my head ached from absorbing too much information, too many names, too many new experiences.  I split in two, half-convinced I was up to the challenge, half-certain I was way out of my league.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

I put one foot in front of the other those next first weeks, focusing on the most immediate needs, trying hard not to stand out in any particular way.   I might have remained wallpaper indefinitely if we hadn’t been required to form four-person lab teams in Biology class.   A nearby girl tapped my shoulder.

Do you want to be on our team?  she asked, pointing at herself and a dark-haired girl across the aisle.

Sure,  I answered, relieved.

I’m Jane, and this is Sophia,  the first girl said.   Like me, she wore thick glasses and her medium-brown hair straight to the top of her shoulders.  Her nose was a little large for her narrow face and she spoke with an overbite lisp, but her invitation was all I cared about.   There was a seriousness about her that exuded calm, unlike Sophia, who practically twitched with pent-up energy.

What’s your name?  Sophia leaned toward me, arms resting on her desk as she bent forward.

Marnie,  I said.

We need one more,  Sophia said to Jane, looking around.  How about her?   She jerked her head in the direction of another misfit sitting near us.

Jane looked the other girl up and down, then back at Sophia with a small grimace.  Really?  Jane asked.

Oh, c’mon,  Sophia said, then bent even further across her desk.  Hey!

The other girl jerked a little, then half-turned her head.

Yeah, you,  Sophia called.  Want to be on our team?

Okay,  the girl said, turning away again.

No, you gotta come over here.  Sophia gestured at the lab table.  And what’s your name?

Charlene.  A waterfall of dishwater blonde hair covered Charlene’s face as she gathered her text and notebook into a pile.

Jane tsked, unimpressed.  Now I worried that I, like the unfortunate Charlene, would fail to measure up.

Our biology teacher circled the room as she explained the experiment’s methodology and expected lab report format.  I took a few notes as she moved around, but my attention strayed when she passed by Allison’s table.   Allison’s demeanor, as in the other classes, was that of someone bemused by the compulsory duties, a smirky smile always playing about her mouth while her lab partners chattered earnestly among themselves.   One of them, a frumpy girl with blue eyes large behind glasses, finally turned a question to Allison, who laughed as she responded.   I forced myself to focus.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

So this was how those first few weeks and months progressed.   Jane and Sophia, as I had suspected, were longtime friends from another grade school near my own.  Not only did this represent geographic proximity, but it also meant that they were from the same kind of working-class background as mine.   Conversely, St. Benedicta drew students from all over the metropolitan area, and it was the first time I realized just how far down the food chain my family was.   Whole bunches of St. Ben girls came from affluent families -- where fathers wore suits to work and mothers stayed home.   My dad and uncles dressed that way only for weddings and funerals, and my mother woke before us every morning for her waitressing job at the local diner.

Jane and Sophia and I understood each other.   As time went on during that first year, many of my new friends fit that model, too.   I shied away from the girls with neat suburban Brady Bunch ranch houses and Booster Club parents.   Those girls may have been perfectly friendly, cheerful to a fault, but they were planets away from my reality.

I made an assumption about Allison, and I was dead wrong.   To my surprise, Allison lived in my part of town, from yet another small parish school.  Her father worked the night shift at the shoe factory, so she always had terrific footwear, but otherwise our roots grew in the same blue-collar soil.

This knowledge came to me slowly, as the days slithered by and we sorted out study hall schedules and lunch tables.  Allison’s lab partner, an earnest girl named Lynnie, turned out to be a fanatic social organizer, drawing people in and elbowing some out as she fine-tuned our free periods.

One day that first week, as I stepped into the cafeteria with my brown lunch bag and beelined to the nearest empty table, Lynnie came up from behind and clutched my arm, steering me to the prized back table in the far corner.

Hi --- you’re Marnie, right?   I’m Lynnie – from your English class?   You’re not sitting with anyone today, are you?   Good!  Sit with us, then.   She propelled me into the blue chair.   This is Allison, but don’t call her Allie.  She doesn’t like it.  And hey!  Aren’t those your lab partners?   She pointed to Sophia and Jane, who had just entered.

Yes ---   I started, but Lynnie was off at a gallop.

I glanced at the others at the table, recognizing the faces from my classes and putting names to most of them.

Hi,  I said, attempting to sound chirpy. 

The others echoed my greeting, pleasantly neutral, but Allison slouched back in her chair and lifted her chin to me.   If Lynnie bugs you, just tell her to fuck off.

WHOA.

No one I knew used That Word.  

I managed a weak smile.

Allison.  Be nice.   Lynnie craned her neck and waved wildly to Jane and Sophia.  C’mere!   Come here!

They exchanged a glance, then wended their way through the scattered chairs and tables, muttering to each other.

Sit with us,  Lynnie half-ordered, half-pleaded.  We’re all in the same classes, right?

Yeah.  Jane’s voice was neutral, but I saw a sneer creeping along her upper lip.

Did you even understand our English homework?  All that poetry!  I don’t get poetry,  Lynnie said as she unwrapped the wax paper from her sandwich.  Why do we have to read it?   Even after someone explains it to me, I still don’t understand all that symbolism and stuff.

You don’t have to understand it.  You just have to repeat it back to them.  It’s a game.  Allison used a plastic knife to shear a slice from a chunk of cheese.

"I think we are supposed to understand it, or at least learn how to explain what the writer’s trying to do,  Jane replied.  Poetry’s great."

Limericks about Nantucket don’t count,  Allison laughed, then stopped when we gave her blank looks.

Oh, c’mon -- -you know:  there was a young man from Nantucket…  She laid both hands on the table.  You mean you’ve never heard these?  Ohmigod.

She turned to Lynnie.  You know what I’m talkin’ about, right?

Yeah.  Kurt taught me a whole bunch of ‘em.

Who’s Kurt?  I asked.

Her scuzzy boyfriend,  Allison said, taking another bite.

He’s not scuzzy!   Lynnie protested.  We’ve been going out for eight months.

He’s scuzzy,  Allison repeated.  Yuck-o.

I was hazy on how one’s boyfriend could be scuzzy, my only experience being one unpassionate kiss during an eighth-grade game of Spin the Bottle.   I kept my mouth shut and eyes on my lunch.

Is that how you spend your time – with guys?  Jane asked, contempt seeping through her words.   Don’t you have anything better to do?

Like what?  Allison asked, narrowing her eyes.  What do you do?

I don’t chase guys.  I read.  I play tennis.  I go to museums.  I go camping with my parents every summer out west.  I watch old movies.  I do something more useful than chasing after guys.

Well, good for you.  Allison stood up, swept her scraps into her lunch bag, then strolled away.

You don’t do that, do you?  Jane asked.

What, chase guys?  I snorted.  No.  And since no guys are interested in me anyway, it’s really not a problem.

Sophia laughed as she rolled her orange on the table.  See?  I told you she was normal,  she said to Jane.

I don’t know about that,  I said.

Oh, c’mon.  Sophia dug her fingernails into the orange rind.  What do you like to do? 

Most of that stuff – except the camping.  I hate camping.

Jane gaped at me.  How can you hate camping?  It’s great!  You’re outside, you see incredible places, you’re away from other people…

And you sleep on the cold hard ground and poop in the woods.  No thanks.  I folded my napkin into a rectangle.

You –  Jane started, but the bell rang to call us to our next class.   We tossed our trash into the gargantuan dumpsters on our way out.   You’ll see,  she said.  You just need to learn more about it.

Sophia squeezed my arm as we walked out of the lunchroom.  Don’t worry!  She can’t make you do it.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Fall threw up its arms and surrendered to winter.   We awoke in early November to frost on the lawn and leaves stuck frozen to iced-over puddles.  My dad pulled on his knit cap every morning and bundled into his insulated jacket, and I would have done the same if vanity and desperation hadn’t prescribed my coolly popular wardrobe.    My parents, raised in families too poor to afford warm clothing, regarded my refusal to accept practicality stupid, if not insane. 

My brother Jeff and I trudged together to the corner each cold morning to wait for the school bus, but we could have been strangers.   He was a junior at Divine Trinity, and had imposed a communication embargo on me two years earlier.   Jeff wasn’t awful, as siblings went, and I occasionally reminded him that I knew most of his secrets, the ones he’d preferred Mom and Dad never knew.

We huddled separately on the street corner, shoulders hunched against the cold.  A few more boys joined us there.   Two were Jeff’s friends;  the others were freshmen like me, and similarly banished, but they never said a word to me that year.   Jeff and his buddies pushed ahead of us onto the bus when it arrived, heading straight for the back bench.   I sat in the prudent middle section and stared out the window, jerking along as the bus made its stops and starts.

About a month into the school year,  they changed the route, possibly to balance the passenger numbers, so my bus had become Allison’s bus, too.   By the time her stop arrived, though, there were few empty seats.  One day the sniffly girl who usually plopped down beside me hadn’t shown up, and Allison zeroed in on me.

Can I sit here?  she asked, already sliding herself into the seat.

Sure,  I said, squishing closer to the window.

Where’s the white rabbit?  She rested her books and lunch bag on her lap.

Huh?

That blonde chick who’s always blowing her nose.  I call her the White Rabbit.

I laughed.  That’s a perfect name for her.  I usually think of her as Typhoid Mary.

"Go Ask Alice… when she’s ten feet tall…  Allison sang, then gave me the once-over.   You like Jefferson Airplane?"

Oh, yeah,  I said.  I had no idea what she was talking about.

My sister likes them a lot.  I think she thinks she’s Grace Slick, mostly ‘cause she smokes a lot of dope.   She slouched in the seat.  My sister, I mean.

Why?

Why what?  She braced her knees against the seat in front of me.

Why does she smoke dope?

Allison shrugged.  To make up for her lack of personality.

I laughed again, thinking it was a joke, but Allison didn’t crack a smile.

Do you just have one sister?  I asked.

No. There’s loads of us.  I’m the youngest.   My oldest sister is almost thirty.

Yipes.   My mother was that age.

And then my oldest brother is twenty-five, then my next brother is twenty-four, then my pothead sister.  She’s twenty-one.

Wow.  I just have one brother.  He’s a junior.

Yeah?  Is he cute?   Allison looked over her shoulder to the boys in the back.

I don’t know.   I guess.   But he’s got a girlfriend.

Is she cute?

I did not like the direction of this conversation.   Yeah, I guess.   She works pretty hard at it.

Oh – one of them.   Allison faced front again and wriggled back to her neck-wrenching slouch.

In this cramped space, I could see that Allison worked at it, too.  She wore frosty-brown eye shadow to accentuate her wide brown eyes, and lots of mascara to make them look even bigger.  Her lips glistened with a glossy balm, and brushed-on blush glowed on her cheeks.

The bus lurched on through the suburbs, as they transformed from blue-collar basic to broad spreads of upper middle-class professionals.   Allison launched a steady commentary on each new set of riders, none of which was complimentary.  She was particularly scathing about the junior and senior boys, as though she didn’t know they needed the bravado.   Shame on me -- I laughed at her meanness and never once defended them.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Over Christmas break, I got up the nerve to invite Jane and Sophia to a movie at the nearby theater.   This was my first real attempt to break with my grammar school friends, and the enormity of it gave me a three-day stomach ache.  I hedged my bet by approaching Sophia first.  Bolstered by her ready agreement, I next called Jane, who agreed that it was a good idea, but had very definite ideas of what we should select. 

In those days, our neighborhood still had a few of those ornate Depression-era movie theaters.   My favorite was the Athena, with its columns and pillars and murals of Greece, but my special delight was the azure blue ceiling painted to create the sensation of a sun-washed Aegean sky.   My habit was to imagine myself basking on a brilliant white stone cliff overlooking the sea.  It was always jolting to walk out of the theater and into our everyday main street with its soon-to-be-extinct department stores and barber shops.

Sophia, Jane and I queued up to the ticket booth, shivering and tapping our feet for warmth until the doors opened.   I poked the tip of my boot into a hardened ice clump just as Jane nudged me.

Isn’t that Allison?  she said, jerking her head twice to the right.

I followed her gaze and saw Allison heading for the theater with a teenage boy at her side.   Jane and Sophia circled around me to form a huddle.

Who is that guy?  Jane asked with disdain.  He looks like a greaser.

Does Allison have a boyfriend?  Sophia turned to me, her romance detector set on high.

I don’t know,  I said.  Why would I know that?

Jane shrugged.  I thought you were friends.

Why would you think that?

Jane squinted against the winter sunlight.  You sit together on the bus almost every day.  I just figured.

She sits with me.   I have nothing to do with it.

Sophia chanced a peek at Allison, then turned back quickly to us.  He must be her boyfriend.  He’s holding her hand.

You think she’d have better taste,  Jane sniffed.

The theater doors opened, but we hung back, letting the senior citizens and Allison enter before us.   Allison and her date veered at once to the concession stand, but we went straight to our seats and settled in.

I sat on one side of Jane, Sophia on the other, our coats bunched up behind our backs and feet sticking to the floor.  Allison came down the main aisle, leading her beau, unaware of our presence.  Jane watched them, eyes narrowed.   While I tried to work out just what Allison saw in this boy --- shorter than her, his shaggy hair dark with scalp oil, it seemed an ill-matched pairing – Jane bristled with a hostility I didn’t understand and Sophia made a prurient joke about tongues.   I was more concerned with my meager reserve of social skills, so I focused my efforts on making conversation with Jane and Sophia.  I could mull over the Allison situation later.

Such detachment was torpedoed by the dullness of the movie.  My attention wandered, and it cast a glance at Allison and her date.   I should have expected it, I suppose, but naiveté bumped up against reality when I saw the couple engaged in deep-throated kissing.  I turned away at once, face burning as though I’d been the one creating the hormonal display.  Jane elbowed me.

Geez – look at ‘em,  she growled.  How gross.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

As spring opened up, so did Allison.   She sought me out on the bus every morning, a semi-willing audience to her pronouncements.  Her comments centered a great deal around her parents, specifically the mother she considered deranged, and none of her statements were tempered by compassion.   Mrs. Bruda, as I came to know, was, according to Allison, too exhausted in every way to expend much effort on her last child.   Her two greatest failings, according to Allison, were a disregard for cleanliness and an obsession with the immigration of distant relatives from Albania to Chicago.   Allison claimed that there was always an Albanian or two displacing her from her bedroom.

This kind of complaint, like so much Allison said and did, was new to me.  My grade school friends and I did not discuss our parents much, and when we did, it was more along factual lines of what