2017 CONTEST WINNER

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ME AND PAIGE PENDLETON

Fiction by Shannon Ready

I was down at Clifton Beach with Erin on the last day of school and we were taking turns writing our names in the grass with this can of Barbasol shaving cream that we stole from Medic Drug Store – and by stole I mean bought, because we were both way too chicken to go through with the actual theft – and this giant dog came running up to us out of nowhere and he was barking his head off so I immediately sprang up but I slipped on the ’S’ in my name and fell right on my butt. Then Erin started laughing her ass off and this Cujo monster devil dog got closer and closer so I tore over to the monkey bars and climbed to the very top and just sat there, terrified. Then off in the distance some girl yelled out, Hershey stop! And that rabid freak dog suddenly stopped in his tracks like he was hypnotized and turned around and started merrily trotting back to the girl all calm like he wasn’t just about to kill me a second ago but more like ho-hum ain’t nothing interesting about you anymore. Then the girl and the dog came over to the monkey bars and she said, He doesn’t bite, he’s a chocolate lab – one of the friendliest dog breeds, and that’s when I recognized that the girl was Paige Pendleton.

Paige Pendleton was from Erin’s neighborhood, which meant she was rich. I didn’t know her that well because she was two years younger than me and went to private school, but a couple of times when I slept over Erin’s house in the summertime, Paige would be out with a group of kids from the neighborhood and we’d all end up playing Ghost in the Graveyard, or Kick the Can, or whatever.

Suddenly a lady’s voice called out, Paige, I’ll be in the clubhouse. I looked back and just glimpsed Paige’s mom in white capri pants and beige lace-up espadrilles talking on a cell phone with a casserole dish in her hands before she disappeared through the clubhouse doors.

Erin started twisting around on one of the swings and Paige climbed up onto this wooden platform in front of a chin-up bar. She got ready to jump for it and that dog, that Hershey spaz, started barking again really loudly. You could tell it broke Paige’s concentration because she stopped doing whatever it was she was about to do. This time Hershey was going nuts over some half inflated balloon that was tied to a pole and blowing around in the breeze. Get it, boy! Get the balloon! Paige encouraged in one of those conspiratorial voices people always use when riling up their pets, and Hershey ran over and got really close like he was about to attack the balloon, but instead just backed away all worried, and started barking again. Then Paige stood back up on the platform, really straight, and got this serious look on her face and just stared at that chin-up bar, shifting from foot to foot, as if she was waiting for just the right second, which she must have been because suddenly, BAM, she jumped for the bar, and like magic everything went into slow, slow motion for me as I watched Paige Pendleton execute the most perfect glide kip I had ever seen.

If you don’t know what that means, it means Paige Pendleton is a gymnast like I am, but the fact that she could do a difficult maneuver like a glide kip – which is a gateway trick to much harder tricks on the uneven parallel bars – meant that she was way better at the sport than me. It also meant that she probably trained at some elite private gym with professional coaches and expensive team leotards, and fancy warm-up suits with the gym’s logo and sponsors’ names on them; and that in no way did she learn all these skills at some lame-ass local rec center with a barely experienced trio of community college drop-out “coaches” who were more like glorified babysitters, and who maybe at one time in their lives used to be good at gymnastics, but that was before they gained a ton of weight by sitting on their butts drinking beer and eating Whoppers.

I immediately said, Whoa! Nice kip! I purposely used the word kip because not everyone in the world knows that term and I wanted to show off that I was pretty familiar with gymnastics lingo. Then I got off the monkey bars and went over to the grass and performed a standing back handspring. I wanted Paige to know that I, too, was serious about gymnastics. That I wasn’t just some girl who called herself a gymnast merely because she could do an OK cartwheel on the playground (Ahem, Erin). Then Paige said, good one, and got off the chin-up bar and did a round-off, back handspring, whip back—which is like a back handspring only using no hands. She did this with such perfect form—straight legs, pointed toes; super graceful. She told me I could probably do a whip-back, too, because it wasn’t really that much harder than a back handspring. So I tried it a few times but like an idiot I always put my hands down at the last minute. Still, I have to admit I truly felt more airborne than usual, like I was suddenly a better gymnast simply because I was in the presence of someone as good as Paige Pendleton.

Erin must have been getting bored because she suddenly said, Hey! Let’s go jump in the lake! So we three, plus that nutcase Hershey, ran over to the sand. Erin and I had to wear our shorts and T-shirts in the water because we had just been at school earlier that day, but, of course, Paige, who had on this preppy pale blue Izod shirt that was basically the same color as her eyes, and these expensive-looking board shorts, actually had a swimsuit on underneath her clothes so she wore that.

After we’d been in the water for seriously like not even one minute Paige’s mom came flying out of the clubhouse doors onto the deck and yelled out, Paige Jean, do NOT go out past your waist, there might be an undertow and I will not have you get swept out to sea the day we leave for vacation.

This was hysterical to me because first of all we were in the shallowest of the great lakes, not the sea, and secondly we were only up to our knees at that point. Right then I knew Paige Pendleton had what I call a real ‘Mom’s mom’. A Mom’s mom acts the way an adult is supposed to act. A Mom’s mom acknowledges the fact that she has children that she is actually responsible for. I do not have a Mom’s mom. If my mom had found us swimming in the lake, I can just see it. She would have yelled out something ridiculous like, Swim out as far as you can! Try to make it to Canada so you can become some other country’s problem like she was so hysterical. No doubt there would be some guy around somewhere that she was trying to impress with her joie de vivre or madcap abandon, or whatever she calls it. Erin doesn’t really have a true Mom’s mom either because her mom runs a swank bistro, has lived in a high rise ever since divorcing Erin’s dad, and is best friends with a bunch of what she calls bohemians and artists.

When Paige’s mom was getting ready to leave she told Paige to get out of the water because there was no lifeguard on duty. Then she asked Erin to do her a big favor and walk Paige home so the interior of the car wouldn’t get all wet since no one had had the forethought to bring any towels and, really, since that dopey Hershey dog was completely soaked. So Paige, Erin, and I put our shoes back on and started walking up the hill out of the Beach.

Hershey kept running way ahead of us then he would suddenly stop to shake off water, turn around, look at us, then come barreling back down the hill. Erin’s and my clothes were crazy soaking wet, too, but Paige’s weren’t really that bad because, as I said, she had on a swimsuit and didn’t have to wear her whole outfit into the water like we did.

At the point where I normally would have split off with Erin and taken the train tracks back to my side of town – the side of town with the cheap-ass duplexes and the yards full of dog crap and broken toddler toys – I just kept walking with them right into their neighborhood; the regal Clifton Park neighborhood. I wanted to see Paige Pendleton’s house. I had to see for myself just where a person needed to live in order to become that good of a gymnast.

***

I found out a person needs to live in a two-story all-brick Colonial with a ‘grand back porch that offers dramatic lake views’, and has seven bedrooms and five bathrooms. There were more bedrooms and bathrooms than there were Pendletons. There was seriously enough space for Hershey to have his own wing. They also had a guest house out back, built in the same style as the main house but much tinier, and even that managed to be a lot nicer than the rental house where I lived. Erin has a nice house, too, don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely way better than mine, but this Pendleton place was completely off the charts.

Paige’s mom asked their housekeeper, (oh yes, they had a housekeeper), to get some towels; then she told us to wait on the porch and she’d have snacks sent out. I was dying to see Paige’s bedroom because on the walk home Paige brought up that she had her own balcony and an actual balance beam right in her room that her dad had made for her. She said most of her ribbons and medals were from placing on the balance beam, and she was sure the reason was because she was able to practice on that homemade beam any time, day or night. She said it was simply amazing for perfecting pirouettes, arabesques, and walkovers. When she said that it made me think about how I didn’t really bother to ‘perfect’ anything and maybe that was one of the reasons Paige was so much better than me. I always concentrated on the fast and fun tricks where it felt like I was flying. Paige must have had more patience for the mundane and repetitive. In my mind I vowed right then and there that I would get more serious about being mundane and repetitive. Perfecting the smaller, less flashy moves so I’d have a stronger foundation to build upon. Maybe it was just the thing that would open the door for me to improve overall.

The housekeeper, Eileen, brought out some homemade lemonade (served in a glass pitcher, no less, with cut up lemons actually floating in it). It was not at all like the suddenly stupid Country Time mix we had at my house. And we never ever in my whole life made a full pitcher – we only ever made anything by the glass. Eileen also set out a tray of something called Madeleines that were a spongy, shell-shaped cookie. They actually weren’t my favorite – the best part about them was their name – but I still made a mental note to look for them at the store. I wanted to surround myself with everything Paige Pendleton had. I thought it would help give me a more competitive edge and keep me in the right frame of mind.

Before we were even finished eating, Mrs. Pendleton called Paige back inside and told her to go upstairs and finish packing. She said they were leaving for “The Cape” at precisely 6 pm sharp when Paige’s father got home. Sorry you girls can’t stay longer, she said as she pulled the tray of madeleines out from under us. I wanted to tell her that I could stay the rest of my life and no one on my end would notice, but I knew she really meant sorry you girls can’t stay longer, but it’s because I don’t want you here anymore.


Erin asked me to come over for a while but I told her I had to do the dishes before my mom got home. This was kind of a lie because it was only 3:30, and I knew my mom always went to happy hour on Wednesdays at this bar called G.R. Potts and didn’t get home until after 7, so I could have hung out with Erin if I had really wanted to, but by then I felt way too focused on trying to become a better gymnast. I didn’t want to waste time. I wanted to get to work.

I took the railroad tracks home because it was the fastest way. Besides, I really had a thing for the tracks. They were the only good thing about my neighborhood – that constant feeling you always had a path leading somewhere better.

I drew a chalk line in our driveway that was about the same width as a balance beam and I immediately started practicing the pirouette – which is a 360 degree spin performed on the toes of one foot while the toes of the other foot are pointed at the knee of the supporting leg. I repeated this over and over; I was pretty serious about trying to master the mundane. The problem was, without being on a real balance beam it was hard to know if I’d be able to, well, balance, on the actual piece of equipment. I climbed up on the front porch railing thinking I could try it up there, but in the first place, come on, once I got up there I realized it was too thin – definitely not the 4 inch standard width of a real balance beam, plus it was too high off the ground. Also, the wood was basically rotting so the whole thing just kept rocking back and forth anytime I moved. I had to give up that idea, so I jumped back down and practiced back walkovers on the chalk line instead. My form was terrible. I could tell. I’m not naturally flexible so my back bone doesn’t have an impressive arch like Paige’s does, and my legs are normally always slightly bent because I still can’t quite do the splits all the way. I was realizing this is the kind of stuff I needed to really work on. Those incompetent coaches at the rec center never taught me anything – they just let me tumble around like a drunk hyena – but after seeing Paige Pendleton perform her tricks as graceful as a swan, as agile and controlled as a cat burglar, I finally understood there was a huge difference between the two of us.

When my mom finally got home she had this guy with her that she had been hanging out with off and on. She always told me to get lost when he was around because she said he didn’t really understand kids. That was fine with me. I never wanted to sit around and pretend-laugh at his unfunny jokes the way my mom did anyhow.

I went to my bedroom and turned on some music. I got out my sketchbook and started tracing pictures of gymnasts out of magazines. Then I colored them in and gave them all really decorative team leotards. I had been doing this a lot that year when I was supposed to be doing my homework. Creating all these pretend teams that competed in imaginary competitions. I think it’s why I started getting bad grades. That night I kept adding these five freckles to the faces of each of the gymnasts. I usually drew freckles on about half of my gymnasts’ faces, but I had never given them all this same simple pattern of freckles before. But then it suddenly hit me. This was the same freckle pattern that was on Paige Pendleton’s face. These five burnt umber looking flecks that completely stood out on her otherwise porcelain-doll skin. But then something freaked me out even more and I almost fell out of my chair. I suddenly realized that this was also the same pattern of stars that made up the constellation Libra. Ahem! Libra! The scales! As in, balance! And Paige Pendleton was the queen of balance since most of her ribbons were won on the balance beam. My head started buzzing. I realized I had just figured out a huge clue in Paige Pendleton’s destiny. Of course she was a great gymnast; the universe had marked her with the tell-tale sign of balance.

I ran to the bathroom mirror and searched my face for any signs of constellations but there was nothing. No freckles at all. Not even faded ones. I knew I’d get some after being out in the sun, but this was the beginning of summer so all I had so far were the usual blackheads on my nose that I’d had the whole year. I mean, I guess technically you could point out a whole galaxy’s worth of constellations in the blackheads on my nose, but somehow I didn’t think that marked me as destined for anything other than oily skin.

It got to be later and later and I lay on my bed pondering this new discovery and all that it meant. There was no way I could sleep. Not with my mind doing flips over Paige Pendleton’s secret mark of the gods. Thoughts of the constellation drifted through my head. I mentally connected the stars of the Libra constellation and it looked like a simple drawing of a house that a kid might make in grade school. The more I thought about it the more it seemed like a sign. It was around 1 am when I decided I needed to go to Paige Pendleton’s house right then and there. Why not? She and her family were already half way to Cape Cod, and my mom and her gentleman friend had already gone to bed. No one would even notice.


The weather that night seemed perfect as I sped on my bike toward the Pendleton mansion. The weatherman had predicted thunderstorms but the sky seemed to be holding it in for now. Only a half moon was visible, and any time there was a break in the clouds I’d try to look up and locate Libra. I pretended I was like those shepherds following the North Star and that Libra was going to guide me straight to Pendleton Manor. I kept an eye and ear out for cops, because if one happened to drive by and see me, I’d get picked up for violating curfew and then my mom might actually have to start thinking about me – her troubled teenage daughter who had never been a problem before, officer.

I made it into the Clifton Park neighborhood and immediately felt protected. The homes were on such expansive lots and the trees were so dense with leaves that it made everything darker. I felt small and inconspicuous. It was so quiet that all you could hear were the waves of Lake Erie gently crashing against the rocks on the shore. I never realized until that moment that even a sound from nature could become something reserved only for the wealthy.


As I pedaled up the Pendleton driveway I noticed some dimly lit table lamps placed here and there in the windows. Probably set on timers to ward off burglars. Good thinking, I confirmed to myself, and was pleased that I knew the secret – that the Pendletons were far away now and probably sleeping safe and sound at some hotel off of I-90 half way to Cape Cod.

I leaned my bike against the side of the back porch looked up at the house. My eye was immediately drawn to a little balcony on the second floor. I knew it was Paige’s room. There was a trellis right underneath and I had seen enough movies where rebel teens escaped their second floor bedrooms using a trellis so I figured I’d try the reverse and climb up instead – just to look in the windows. I really needed to see inside the bedroom of a champion.
​

I kicked off my shoes and started climbing. It was a cinch. When I got up there I peered through the windows of the door. A sheer white curtain hung over them but I could still make out a small aquarium illuminated by a turquoise light. Who was going to feed these fish while the Pendleton’s were out of town? Probably Eileen. I bet they left her a list of specialty chores to do, too, like cleaning the baseboards and sweeping out the chimney.

I tried the door thinking it might be open. I knew they never locked the doors over at Erin’s house. It’s always rich people who leave their doors unlocked like they are daring you to even try it, and it’s always poor people who bolt their houses up tight as a drum even though nobody ever wants in. Paige’s door was actually locked, but I saw that one of the windows next to the door was open about six inches with only the screen as a barrier between me and that bedroom. How many times had I broken into my own bedroom exactly the same way after losing my house key? You just dig your fingers into the two bottom corners until you poke a small hole through. Then you hook them into the lock springs, pull in, and lift. No problem. I slowly slid the screen up and climbed right into Paige Pendleton’s bedroom.

In the dim light of the aquarium I immediately saw the balance beam in the center of the room. It was an awesome piece of equipment covered in a dark fabric – probably her dad’s idea to make it a little quieter and a little safer. I thought about things my dad made for me, but all I could come up with was two pieces of toast when I was home sick from school in second grade.

I stepped up on the beam. I tried the pirouette to see if I was any better at the trick after practicing it over and over in my driveway that afternoon. After I spun, I slightly lost my balance and hopped off, but I could already sense an improvement. I don’t know, something was different. It felt better than usual. I did it a few more times until I finally stuck the trick.

I jumped down and investigated the rest of the room. There were a lot of framed ribbons and medals, and a lot of photos of Paige at various ages in various competitions hanging on the walls. One picture, in black & while, showed a bunch of girls out of focus sitting on a bench in a gym, and Paige, completely in focus, solemnly looking right into the camera. On the wall behind the desk, hung a big bulletin board with even more ribbons pinned to it. They were overlapping each other, there were so many ribbons. Third Place State, All Around; First Place Balance Beam, Tiffin Invitational; First Place Balance Beam, Regionals; Second Place, Uneven Parallel Bars, etc. The ribbons seemed unlimited. I unpinned a stack of them and from somewhere in the middle pulled out a blue satin first place balance beam ribbon with raised gold writing and gold trim. I held it up and looked it over. Then I pocketed it. I thought it could be a special secret totem that would make me a better gymnast. I knew Paige would never miss it, not with all the other ribbons; and even if she did, she’d probably think it just fell behind the bookcase or somehow got misplaced.

I picked up a paperback book from the desk. Black Beauty. There was a Hello Kitty bookmark inserted at page 23. I bet Paige meant to read the book during the car ride to Cape Cod but forgot to pack it. I took it over to the bed and lay down. I should have probably felt worried, or scared - for here I was, breaking and entering at age 13, and just lying on a bed reading a novel like I owned the place. I know it sounds like something a crazy person would do but it seemed completely natural to me. I already felt like an intruder in my own home half the time, so somehow it didn’t seem like any big deal to be intruding in somebody else’s. I decided that I would stay there and read up to page 23 in the book, the same page Paige had read up to. Maybe if I was lucky I would even stop on the exact same word.
​
 
I awoke sometime later to the sound of thunder. It only took me a few seconds to remember where I was. I didn’t hear any rain yet but it looked like it was about to start any minute. I set the book back on the desk and straightened out the bedspread and looked around to make sure nothing was out of place. Then I unlocked the balcony door. As I was leaving, a thought popped into my head out of nowhere so I went back to the desk and moved the bookmark to page 37. I don’t know why. Then I stole out onto the balcony and pulled the door closed behind me – without locking it. Somehow I knew that house would be just fine.

Because of the nearing rain, I decided to take the quicker route home. I pedaled up West Clifton and under the train trestle. As soon as I rounded the corner onto Detroit Avenue, a huge crash of thunder sounded overhead and the sky broke open and started pelting me with heavy drops. The wind gusted down the center of the street with a loud whoosh like a barn full of stallions just broke free and bolted by, and the temperature suddenly dropped about fifteen degrees. I slowed down and ducked into the first vestibule I saw – Mr. Ken’s Hair Salon.

I stood there for over fifteen minutes intending to wait out the worst part of the storm. The gutters of the shops began flooding and water poured over the awnings and sped along the curb and down into the sewer. I just huddled in the doorway and watched.

My hands got cold so I shoved them into the pockets of my shorts and I immediately felt that satiny blue ribbon. The lucky totem. I took it out and smoothed it with my fingers. I held it up and looked at it by the glow of the streetlight. I thought about me and Paige Pendleton. I was stuck on some vacant street in a thunderstorm in the middle of the night heading back toward Shantytown, and she was probably sleeping soundly in some motel bed somewhere in New York state or wherever she was right now; wearing expensive pajamas, her mom and dad in the next bed over, that dumb ass Hershey at her feet always protecting her from anything bad.

​Right then I stepped out from under the vestibule and walked over to the curb. The rain showed no sign of letting up; it seemed like it might never stop, but I had to start heading home before my mom woke up for work. I set the blue ribbon on top of the rushing water and watched the current carry it downstream until it dropped into the sewer like a perfect dismount. 

Shannon Ready

Shannon Ready's short stories have appeared online in Monkeybicycle and Easy Street. She has also written treatments and screenplays for Strange Matter Films and The Lab Entertainment Group while living in Los Angeles. Shannon is a graduate of Cleveland State University and currently lives in Northeast Ohio.