IV -AN UNEXPECTED ARRIVAL

                                                                     IV

It wasn't until the following Monday that my mind reacted to the fact that Monica had been hiding things from me. Then I felt as angry with her as I did with Jack. How can you play with someone's feelings like that? They both knew perfectly well who I was, which was unclear  even to myself. I felt emotionally naked and vulnerable.

When I got out of class, I told Monica I wanted to go to the Museum of Natural Science. We went in, and I soon realized that what was on display there was beautiful, sad and disgusting at the same time.

Stuffed animals. Big elephants and giraffes whose bones, skin and gaze had been paralyzed forever, immortalized on wood in such a way that they could never be alive again. Something like my innocence and my will to live, I thought.

'Are they real?'

'Some yes, some no'

That was the trompe l'oeil of existence. Mixing truth with lies, routine with wonder and good with evil.

I was about to touch the specimens, but then I saw a guard who reminded me that it was forbidden.

'I'm getting bored, Monica'.

'Okay, we're leaving'

As we left, I leaned next to a hedge, gained momentum and fired:

'You betrayed me'

'What are you talking about?'

'Don't play dumb. I'm on the edge of the abyss because everyone's lying to me.'

In the way she pouted, I found she looked rather like Jack.

'You're Jack's stepsister.'

"That's it. I said it." I felt as if I had dropped a huge slab under my feet. In front of those beau- tiful gardens where not a soul was passing by anymore, my companion burst into tears. It was a bone-deep moan, as if we were one of those animals we had left inside the building.

'Aren't you going to say anything?'

'What do you want me to say, Anna, that I knew you were living with them? I knew from the beginning'

'Why, did you set this whole thing up?'

'I did it to do you a favor. I wanted you to have a good home and a job to earn a living. What I didn't know is that you would try to hit on my stepbrother. But I don't care now, you can go with him. These are things that happen...'

I knew Monica and I knew she was lying. She was using what they call reverse psychology, telling me the opposite of what her heart was telling her. Just so she could throw it back in my face.

There are people, and maybe I am one, who deep down are not happy unless they are complaining about something. It's like playing a video game where the monsters don't offer any resistance: it's not funny.

We formed a strange love triangle. But that wasn't as bad as what happened later.

Erika, in an inexplicable way, had been following us that night. Maybe she sensed what was going to happen. She saw how Monica and I kissed before we drew the curtains. And, as she feared, she told Beth.

Damn.

The rage and wasted affection she owed her stepsister did the rest. I would have preferred she'd beaten me up Instead, she made up a fairly believable story about my dereliction of duty and Mr Radcliffe believed it. I had left Roy alone and gone shopping at a store without telling anyone. When I arrived, I had explained the lesson to him incorrectly.

'But Mr. Radcliffe, that's not true. I haven't been out of here all afternoon.'

'Oh, haven't you? Look, Anna. Try as you might, you can't make me think otherwise. I know my daughter. Beth can be very treacherous and hateful at times, but she never makes things up. If she throws something in your face, it's usually true. Like my name is Peter Radcliffe.'

'But it was because of Monica.’

'Monica who?'

I had to explode. I hated that whole family without exception. Why had I left mine in London to get a scholarship that was insufficient to guarantee my moral integrity?

'The daughter who doesn't want to see you,' I said at last. "What an idiot, what the hell did I say?", I immediately thought.

'You are a meddlesome little girl who has only come to my house to bring trouble.'

'What do you mean?'

'Do I have to spell it out for you? You're fired.’

Fired. It was the worst news in a long time. I remembered an old book, ‘The Catcher in the Rye'. The protagonist is at some point left alone in the middle of the city, penniless and heartbroken, just as I was at that moment. I dicreetly waved goodbye to Jack, who seemed to be trying to tell me something I simply chose to ignore.

And feeling like Holden Caulfield, I took a taxi and told him to take me to a laggoon in Swords packed with swans and local ducks. The temptation to flee to the airport was high, but I didn’t want to lose my scholarship, so while I looked at the animal’s stylised beaks, I racked my brains to work out what to do next.

Radcliffe had rejected to pay my wage and I only had a few coins, plus a heavy bag with all of my dirty clothes. I was wearing an old white cardigan that I’d had for ages, but I felt comfortable in it.

As I started to walk back, I realised that I was completely alone in the dark. Then my phone rang, but when I saw the name of ‘Jack’, I decided not to answer.

There was another area where water could fully envelop your body and I was on the point of jumping and letting my body go like Virginia Woolf’s when the phone rang again. Jack.

‘Yes?’

‘Anna. Please, listen to me. Let me know how you are doing. I’ll meet you soon when nobody knows’.

I was going to say something else, but then the battery died and the phone went off. Oh my God.

I continued to walk, my feet covered in mud, until I started to see factories. Then I walked and walked. I was so tired that ended up stumbling with a rock and falling. I shouted, but nobody came. Next, I stood up and went on until I reached a guesthouse.

‘How much is it for a night?’

With all my clothes stained and my accentuated under-eye circles and puffiness, not only did I look much older than my age, but I resembled a beggar.

‘It’s 35 euros, dear’, a broad-shouldered Indian receptionist said.

I started counting coins and putting them on the counter.

‘Are you going to pay with this?’

I felt ashamed, but told him that someone had stolen the rest of my cash. A small lie, but it was necessary for survival. Who hasn’t done it at least once?

The total didn’t amount to more than 20, but the young man felt sorry for me and let me sleep there for two nights. He entered some details in the computer as if I’d paid for it.

‘Is there someone you can call so they help you when you check out?’, he asked.

‘Oh, no, Monica’, I said aloud.